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Liturgical Renewal

7/9/2017

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It's been 2.5 years since I gave birth to my Thean ministry, and in that time I've been imagining into life a liturgy that is uniquely Thean but which also honors the many religious traditions in which I have learned and grown. Today, the shape of this liturgy reached maturity.

One of my difficulties with the liturgical format I grew up with is that it constricted the agency of the majority of the participants. When during college I came across liturgy that honored the agency of all gathered while maintaining a coherent, holistic narrative ritual, my vision of what religion could be and the shape of my own faith changed. I went on to study liturgy for that reason, at both the Master's and Ph.D. levels. After moving from Cleveland, however, liturgical and religious agency was hard to come by in the same way. I recognized along the way that I was called to priesthood (which ultimately required me to turn from my religious upbringing, a tradition that claimed women could not legitimately be priests/ministers), but even after that departure (or perhaps because of it), my vision of priesthood wasn't the sort that would authorize me to make or enforce decisions on behalf of a community or to otherwise wrangle agency from others. Theanism, which was in its birthing my own act of radical religious agency, allowed for authority created to dwell not at the top of a hierarchy, but at the depths of diverse community.

In its new maturity, Thean liturgy creates intentional space for the creative agency of each one who takes part. It is not merely the fruit of my imagining as a Thean priestess. When it comes time for what would normally be the sermon/homily/drash, each participant is given sacred time and space to pursue the creative work of her deepest yearning. In her creative agency enacted, she becomes the great revelation of Thea. 

There is time in this liturgy for what marks, to me, what is both familiar and holy--the lighting of candles, the breaking of bread, the sharing of the cup, the sounding of bells, the anointing with oil--but now the climax of Thean liturgy is the creative act that finds its origins in the deepest desires of each person. It is during this time that Thea feels most alive, in us, in myself, in one another. It is sacred communion, the night of bliss, the rosy-fingered dawn of awakening. 

And as I watch my daughters continue their creative work, now hours after our new liturgy has concluded, I perceive the nod within myself that this liturgy is the holy, whole-making ritualizing I've been chasing since I left my liturgical home in Cleveland. This is the liturgy that reflects the religious agency I learned long ago from a community that lived that agency, and which was eventually excommunicated by the local hierarch for exercising that agency.

May my daughters and I ever practice and hold space for that agency in one another, and in practicing this learn to hold space for that agency in others.
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Stepping beyond the bounds of comfort

7/1/2017

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Tonight I hosted Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace as I do every first Saturday of the month, and tonight two dear women in my life took part in it for the first time.

As I settled into the presence of each woman gathered there, various occasions of stepping outside my comfort zone surfaced in my memory. When I first arrived in Phoenix nearly four years ago, I knew almost no one, and I knew that if I wanted to get to know new people, I'd have to be in charge of making those connections happen--those relationships wouldn't manifest without my initiative. So I did research, I stepped out, and I introduced myself to people I'd never met.

To be vulnerable in a new setting has long been hard for me. Experiencing that vulnerability was rarely worth it when I was younger, but these days I do it despite sometimes intense discomfort, because what I seek lies on the other side of that discomfort: trust, new insight, and connection.

Each new encounter, each new experience, is an opportunity for synchronicity, an opportunity to meet myself in a new way, to come face to face with the deepest yearnings of my heart. Even when I hit an apparent wall, encountering someone or something that repels me, I can see myself in that as well--my shadow side, the side that is hard to accept, the side that is easier to brush under a rug and be done with.

As I sat in this beautiful, open-hearted gathering of women this evening, I sensed the risk involved for each person there, including myself. I hold this space for others that they may be given life from it, but some part of me whispers in my ear, "If no one shows, you've failed." And that is the struggle so many leaders of faith communities face--the idea that numbers determine success in ministry. In reality, "success" is ancillary. What is central is presence--in my case, a willingness to be present to and with other women, whether or not they seek or accept that offering. 

Tonight I found myself grateful once again that my livelihood is not determined by the "success" of my ministry--that my dayjob affords me the opportunity to pursue my ministry without requiring anything from those to whom I minister. As a woman inclined toward faith and spirituality, I have often felt pressure to offer something to the communities in which I have been spiritually fed, which has more than once left me depleted. What a gift to be able to offer ministry to others in which I require absolutely nothing back. And, by my not needing anything from those to whom I minister, perhaps those who take part are able to focus inward (on what they seek) instead of outward (on what others think or need), and in doing so are able to discover that what they seek dwells within them, and also dwells within each person gathered.

For who is Thea but the fire inside you and me? Who is Thea but our very breath, the light in our eyes, the dance in out feet, the poetry of our hearts? Who is Thea but the community that binds us, the beauty that delights us, the music that sustains us, and the love that heals us?

Who is she indeed, the one to whom we pray, if not the one we behold in the mirror, and the many we behold in the world?

I am grateful for the women who show up for this gathering, those who show up only once and those who show up almost every month and those who are there now and again. I am grateful for the unfettered gift of their presence to me, for in it they are living icons of Thea. They remind me of who I really am and also of how much love and thoughtfulness and wisdom the Creation is capable of. In their vulnerability and openness, I encounter Thea. In my leadership and ministry, I encounter Thea. In our journeying together, I encounter Thea. And in all of that, my heart is made full, ready to face the shadow side, to pull up the corner of the rug lovingly and to deal bit by bit with all I and the world have stowed there--because if a dance is going to take place, that rug needs to be rolled all the way up!

We shall each get to where we are going, I believe, one wobbly, risky, uncertain step at a time, until we've mastered Thea's wild, loving dance. And what a gathering that will be!

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Mystagogy - Thean Evening Prayer

9/4/2016

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Last night was a turning point for me: for the first time, I brought my ministry as a Thean priestess out of the privacy of my family's house church and into the public realm, leading Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace in Phoenix.

My vision for Thean Evening Prayer was simple: it would be an intimate gathering for those who identify as women to pray together to God in their own (female) voices using feminine images for God and imagining God in relationship to Creation through a feminine, feminist lens.

When I arrived, my dear husband helped me arrange the space the way I wanted it, and then he departed so I could pray before others arrived. At 5:00, the time when prayer was set to begin, I was the only person in the room. I continued to pray, and as I prayed, I was surprised by the awareness that I actually wasn't alone--I was in the company of thousands of generations of women, women who had come before me, who had refused to be silenced or disempowered by oppressors, women who had imagined themselves and their God the way they chose, women who had loved, created, mentored and empowered girls and women within their influence. All their efforts, all their willingness to stand up for themselves, all their willingness to make a difference when they were told to shrink and be quiet--all of that energy had culminated in this moment, this hour, in which I was able to embrace my public ministry as a spiritual leader, a Thean priestess, a woman who wouldn't settle for the oppression that would seek to rein me in.

I knew going into the night that several women who wanted to pray with me were out of town. I knew also that several women who had wanted to pray with me had something come up at the last minute. I prepared to pray with my cloud of witnesses. I waited. Then a familiar face arrived, a woman who had prayed with me at our former Episcopal parish in Tempe, a woman who was preparing to lead her own spiritual circle for women. We hugged, we talked for a few minutes, I showed her around the rooms of Pathways of Grace, and eventually we settled into our seats to pray. I sounded the singing bowl four times. We stood, and I intoned a invitatory that I had learned years ago at my Roman Catholic parish in Cleveland, the same parish that ignited my love for liturgy: Let my prayer arise like incense in your sight, the lifting of my hands a sign of trust in you, O God. She joined with me in singing, and we sang it several times, letting the words soak into the space and ourselves.

We prayed the psalms next--Psalm 141, from which the invitatory came, and then a series of other psalms. Between each psalm there was a pregnant, full silence. At one point, I held my breath in between verses to keep my voice from breaking and tears from falling. Next time--next time I will let them break and fall.

At the conclusion of the psalms, we moved to the homily. I explained that in the Christian (and particularly Benedictine) tradition, Saturday night evening prayer was a big event, because it was the vigil for Sunday, the most important day of the Christian week. Saturday evening prayer was therefore when a homily was given, at least in communities that prayed together the liturgy of the hours every day. I noted that the homily would traditionally be given by the presider in top-down fashion, the presider imparting (his) reflections as seeds to be planted in the hearts of those around (him). Then I explained that in the case of Thean Evening Prayer, the homily was open to every person present, because a key Thean belief is that every (woman) has deep wisdom to share. So we shared the homily based on phrases from the psalms that had particularly resonated with us. Our homily was a mutual conversation in which we listened to one another and sounded/heard our own voices, recognizing that Thea's voice resounded through each of us.

I don't know how much time passed--time felt as though it was suspended, but I know from the content of the conversation that it must have taken a while. When the homily had reached an end, I turned to the next portion of evening prayer: the anointing. A bottle of oil stood on the little altar before us. I removed the glass stopper and poured a small portion of it into a glass bowl, inviting my praying partner to partake of it. I spoke of olive oil as an ancient healing balm, but I also spoke of it as the stuff with which royalty, priests, and prophets were anointed. To partake of scented oil is a sign not only of healing, but of empowerment and authority, specifically the power and authority to speak and act as one deems fit and wise. I said that it was particularly poignant to anoint the parts of ourselves for which we seek wise power and authority: the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the nose, the hands, the heart. My prayer partner and I dipped our fingers in the oil and rubbed the rose and clove scents into our skin, and then prayed Psalm 45 from the Thean Psalter, which included verses like, "You, a woman, are among the wise ones; grace flows from your lips," "Your leadership shall endure, for you love goodness and reject unkindness," and "Thea anoints you with the oil of gladness."

Thus empowered, we prayed together for those all around us, and lifted up personal prayers of our own. Then we stood and prayed a modified version of the Lord's Prayer called "Our Mother," written by Miriam Therese Winter of herchurch in San Francisco. We concluded with a collect prayer and this blessing:

May Thea bless us with courage,
guide us with her unrelenting love,
and empower us to answer her sacred call. Amen.


Our time together was not over--we stood, moved to the other side of the room, and talked over a small spread of food and bubbly water I had brought to share. We talked about our experiences, our faith, our friends, our leadership, our children, and our lives. We talked and talked until suddenly it was nearly 7:00--between the two of us and the cloud of witnesses that surrounded us, we had spent the two hours for which I had reserved the space.

I feel full: full of gratitude, full of joy, full of wisdom, full of holy power. This gathering was and wasn't about me. It was about me as a woman who has been on a journey all her life to arrive at the moment of taking up her life's vocation. It was about every woman who has ever done the same or sought to do the same. It was about every young girl who is figuring out who she wants to be, and it is about countless generations of women still to come who will change and lead this world for the better, overcoming oppressions and embracing who they see in the mirror as living icons of the Holy One.

For a free e-copy of the Thean Psalter, send me a note with your e-mail address. If you'd like a print copy, you can send $10 and your name and address via PayPal to me at lifeloveliturgy at gmail dot com. If you self-identify as a woman and would like to take part in future gatherings of Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace, we meet every first Saturday of the month at 5:00, and you can RSVP on the Pathways of Grace meetup.com page.
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Praying with the Thean Book of Psalms

8/24/2016

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This morning, my older daughter and I cleared our dining room table. I invited her to bring out my lidded white candle and my sparkling, pale purple quartz. "What are you doing?" she asked as I opened the lid of the candle. I said nothing, setting the lid next to the candle, placing the quartz chunk inside it, and lighting the candle with a match. I opened my Thean Psalter to the section marked "Twenty-fourth Day: Morning Prayer." I asked my daughter if she was ready, and she said yes. I proceeded to pray the appointed psalms, 116-118, in a lively, lilting voice, making eye contact with her and slowing my words at important phrases. At the end of the final psalm, I said, "Amen," and she repeated it after me. I invited her to blow out the candle, and we collapsed in giggles as she blew and blew at the flame, to no avail. Thean light is not easily extinguished, she discovered.

After I walked my older daughter to school and drove my husband to work, my younger daughter and I met with a friend of mine who's heading off for rabbinical studies this fall. She wanted a copy of the print version of the Thean Psalter. As soon as I gave it to her, she began adding thin plastic tabs to it; she also oohed and aahed over the purple cardstock title page, the color of which was her favorite. Her excitement as she explored the Psalter's words mirrored my own, and I couldn't help grinning as I watched her. She asked which of the psalms were my favorites, and I pointed out Psalm 23, which reimagines the relationship between G-d and psalmist, moving from shepherd/sheep to mutually curious, passionate lovers who are, among other things, equals.

This Psalter represents Thean thealogical thought, which is feminist and feminine, egalitarian, pacifist, and creation-centric. Patriarchal structures/images as well as themes of violence and vengeance are challenged, eliminated, or transformed.

The e-copy of this finalized Thean Psalter is available for free to all who request it. The hard copy, which is laser-printed on high quality white paper and purple cardstock and comb-bound with a black spine in clear plastic front and back covers, is available for $10USD, payable via PayPal, with free shipping anywhere in the continental United States. I plan to make hard copies of the Thean Psalter available each first Saturday of the month at Thean Evening Prayer, where all who identify as women are welcome to pray.

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Thean Evening Prayer

6/11/2016

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I am happy to announce for my readers in the Phoenix area that I will be collaborating with Pathways of Grace to offer Thean Evening Prayer starting this autumn (Thea willing!). I'm still in the process of discerning exactly what this will look like, but I envision evening prayer after the pattern of Christian vespers (using Thean and other texts focused on the women and the Divine Feminine) followed by a potluck supper.

I will announce the firm details when I have them, hopefully within the next week. In the meantime, I ask for your prayers and invite you to share this news with anyone who may be interested.
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Living Lent: Christian Epics

3/9/2016

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I first read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in high school, just before the famed film series began to appear on the silver screen. Later on, I read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. These epics are neighbors to one another on one of my bookshelves. The other day I picked up The Magician's Nephew, and then The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in order to revisit the Narnia stories (and likewise The Lord of the Rings) from my now well-developed feminist perspective. And I have questions.

1) Why is it that the primary villain of the first two books of the Narnia series is a powerful woman? Why is "witch" equated with "evil"?

2) Why is it that the two female protagonists of the Narnia series, Lucy and Susan, are not meant by Aslan (the God figure and a powerful male) to fight in battle alongside their brothers when war descends on the country? Susan is given a bow and arrows, and Lucy a dagger, but together they're deemed unfit to defend the country of which they are to be rulers, even though their brothers are heading up the war effort--why?

3) Why is it that Aslan takes council with the male animals and leaves the she-animals behind?

4) Why is it, in The Lord of the Rings, that the Fellowship of the Ring is made up of nine males? And why is the whole council that gathers before the formation of the fellowship also entirely male? Didn't Arwen, a female elf, save Frodo from the ring-wraiths before that council ever took place? Why does she not lead the battle against evil as her father once did thousands of years ago?

I suppose one answer is that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were men of their time. Why write an epic prominently featuring female defenders when women in the mid-20th century didn't defend much?

Times have changed, though. Consider the Gulabi Gang in India, a band of many hundreds of thousands of women wielding sticks to deliver grassroots justice to rapists and others who violate women's rights. Consider also the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing League who planned to show up at pro-rape men's rallies (rallies which were, by a twist of irony, subsequently cancelled for fear for the men's safety).

And then consider literary epics that have been told since the time of Lewis and Tolkien: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce, and the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett. All three of these epic stories feature female protagonists who are defenders of their lands--they are also wise, powerful women. Aren't powerful wise women nothing more than witches, and aren't witches evil? The Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns witchcraft as "gravely contrary to the virtue of religion" (CCC 2117). But, looking at the bigger picture historically, isn't this condemnation nothing more than a condemnation of the woman's right to stand on her own two feet, to foster her own wisdom, to assert her will, and to embrace and develop her gifts?

I don't understand why, and don't accept that, women are either to be dimunitive/obedient or labeled as sources of evil. And before my time in this life is done, I plan to write an epic of my own, featuring not men, who have already had centuries of attention as leaders, but women: strong, vocal, brave, wise, powerful women, women who in ages past or even in this age might be branded witches--women for whom the labels of others no longer hold any sway. They may be self-proclaimed witches or they may be something else, but in my epic, these women will be self-defined, rather than defined by a man. I can hardly wait to write it.

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Living Lent: International Women's Day

3/8/2016

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Last year, for several months, I wrote a Thean prayer every day. In honor of International Women's Day, I'm copying the prayer I wrote a year ago today--it still strikes a holy chord with me.

Thea,
as I celebrate this day of women,
I celebrate you:
feminine, fierce,
bold, brave,
enveloping, animating,
generous, genuine, genius,
Goddess.
Amen.

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The Mists of Avalon: A Review

2/24/2016

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A dear friend of mine from Berkeley recommended The Mists of Avalon to me several years ago, but I didn't have the book in hand till the end of 2015, and I didn't begin reading it till this week. It was 876 pages long, but I could hardly put it down.

This is a book of Arthurian legend, told from the perspective of the women in Arthur's life. (For the record, in the fall of 2000, when I took an Arthurian legend course, we were not assigned to read this book. I wonder if my professor's being a Jesuit had anything to do with it.) The Mists of Avalon is set in a time when Christianity actually competed with local devotion to the Goddess. As we know historically, this devotion was driven into hiding by the Christian claims that the God of Christianity was the one and true God, and all other Gods were false idols, even demons.

One of the more striking features of this book is that the fruitfulness and pleasure of sex are highly valued both in and out of marriage, rather than diminished or seen as second in holiness to celibacy. Imagine that: sex with mutual consent as good. It seems almost bizarre in this Puritanical country to think so, but to me and to many others, it makes perfect sense. It makes even more sense to me to regard sex with mutual consent as holy, as a religious act of devotion--not only because sex can be fruitful, but because sex is so intimate and joyful. Why not? Really, why not?

Marion Zimmer Bradley ends the book with a note of hope, that all the Gods are one. It makes me wonder now, what would the gospels of Christianity look like if they were told from the perspective of women? And what would Roman Catholicism look like if women made up the majority of priests? What if, in all seriousness, the pope were a woman? And what would America look like if Pagan priestesses, devoted to the Goddess, were to capture the imaginations of the religious majority?

I'm astonished that this book was written the year I was born--1982. Could such a poignant and fresh feminist perspective be thirty-four years old?

After reading this book, it is no surprise to me that Pagan devotion is growing in this country and around the world. Devotion to the Feminine Divine, and an awareness of the Goddess within all of us, is long overdue, I think.

I am happy that I can add this book to the growing shelves of books I have set aside for my daughters to read someday. May they be empowered, and may their imaginations be broadened.

Needless to say, if you've never read this book, I highly recommend it.

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Thean Prayer Book

1/29/2016

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I began using my Thean Prayer Book, both Psalter and Gospel, for the first time this morning. Praying it felt like going home at long last.

I read this from Psalm 139: "I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well." This is an affirmation of all creatures, and of this creature. Thea is imaginative; Thea is also my muse.

When I turned to my gospel, I read its dedication, which is written to my daughters. This gospel is designed for my daughters to learn from and be inspired by as they grow up. I imagine this gospel will develop in content as they develop in character.

I am so grateful to have a prayer resource that resonates with my thealogy--grateful, too, that I didn't turn back on creating it when I encountered resistance, explicit and implied, from mainstream religious people. I am thankful for my spiritual director, who, while mainstream in the religious sphere, is open to the unique moving of Holy Ruach in my life.

I feel as though I can finally live the religious life I was made for, free from the trappings of religious patriarchy. I am home.

If you would like a free electronic copy of my Thean Prayer Book, please e-mail me at lifeloveliturgy@gmail.com to request yours.
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The Gospel According to Kate

1/27/2016

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I am a Thean, which is something of a cross between a Christian and Pagan, though neither tradition fully fits my faith. My daughters and I celebrate Sunday liturgy together, and that liturgy is largely based on the Christian liturgies I encountered as a child and as an adult.

One of the highlights of Paganism and lowlights of Christianity is a focus on the divine feminine. As I moved forward with my liturgy, I realized I lacked readings that weren't thoroughly patriarchal in nature, so I began to consider what holy scripture for a Thean might look like. Building largely off the gospel according to Luke, I created a new gospel, featuring a messiah named Sophia (also known as Jesus), six apostles who were female (including Mary Magdalene), and other prominent female leaders. I took out references to demons, replaced references to "spirit" and "soul" with "flesh," and revised my synthesis of the four canonical gospels into a non-canonical gospel that revitalizes my faith.

I'm making this new gospel, as well as my Thean psalter, available for free to those who would like a copy for their own prayer use. Just contact me at lifeloveliturgy@gmail.com to claim yours. Peace be with you.

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Priest

10/2/2015

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When I was a girl, the rule was that a female couldn't be a priest. I embraced that rule right up through my freshman year of college, when I defended the male-only priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church as "sacred tradition."

In the fifteen years since then, I've met dozens of female clergy, Christian and Jewish, who have helped me reimagine who can be a pastor. A year and a half ago, a discernment committee helped me affirm what I had come to suspect: that I, a woman, had a vocation to priestly ministry.

This year, I've embraced that vocation, becoming a house-church priest.

And the other day, I received clergy apparel in the mail.

Can a woman wear a clerical collar?

I'm wearing one. The garb is the outer sign of an inner truth: I am minister, pastor, priest.

It's just clothing. But now my outside matches my inside. I'm humbled by what I see in the mirror, and I yearn to embrace all that that means for me.

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Woman and Goddess

9/26/2015

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As a Thean priest (or, if you like, priestess), one of my primary goals is to create feminist prayer resources. In that vein, I'm re-translating the Psalter. I just revised Psalm 144, and I'm struck by what a liberating prayer it could be for oppressed women.

Psalm 144

Blessed be Thea my rock!
   who trains my hands to fight and my fingers to battle;

My help and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer,
   my shield in whom I trust,
   who subdues men under me.

O Thea, what are we that you should care for us?
   mere mortals that you should think of us?

We are like a puff of wind;
   our days are like a passing shadow.

Bow your creation, O Thea, and come down;
   touch the mountains, and they shall smoke,

Hurl the lightning and scatter them;
   shoot your arrows and rout them.

Stretch out your hand from on high;
   rescue me and deliver me from the great waters,
   from the hand of men,

Whose mouths speak deceitfully
   and whose left hand is raised in falsehood.

O Thea, I will sing to you a new song;
   I will play to you on a ten-stringed lyre.

You give victory to queens
   and have rescued Bathsheba your servant.

Rescue me from the hurtful sword
   and deliver me from the hand of men.

Whose mouths speak deceitfully
   and whose left hand is raised in falsehood.

May our daughters be like plants well nurtured from their youth,
   and like sculptured corners of a palace.

May our barns be filled to overflowing with all manner of crops;
   may our cattle be fat and sleek.

May there be no breaching of the walls, no going into exile,
   no wailing in the public squares.

Happy are the women of whom this is so!
   happy are the women whose Goddess is Thea!

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Psalm 100

9/19/2015

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The psalms were a regular part of my prayer life when I was a Benedictine Canon (Novice). In the last year or so, I've limited my exposure to the psalms to my Sunday liturgies. Today, however, wanting to reintroduce the psalms into my prayer life, I prayed evening prayer with my copies of The Plainsong Psalter, the Book of Common Prayer, and Benedictine Daily Prayer, all of which I used to use to pray the liturgy of the hours when I was a novice. The rhythm of Benedictine prayer, which centers around prayer of the psalms, gives me life.

I adapted tonight's prescribed psalms for Thean use. This was my adaptation of Psalm 100:

Be joyful in Thea, all you lands;
serve Thea with gladness
and come before her presence with a song.

Know this: Thea herself is Goddess;
she herself has made us, and we are hers;
we are her people and the sheep of her pasture.

Enter her gates with thanksgiving;
go into her courts with praise;
give thanks to her and call upon her Name.

For Thea is good;
her mercy is everlasting;
and her faithfulness endures from age to age.


It is so beautiful and enriching to pray to Thea this way--to dare to use feminine pronouns when the prescribed pronouns are always masculine, and to call Thea by the Greek name for "Goddess." As I develop my Thean prayer resources, I think I shall leave the Psalter much as it is apart from pronouns and names. The riches of the Psalter are worth retaining.


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Sacred Rebels

9/15/2015

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A good friend of mine, a fellow writer, introduced me to the Sacred Rebels Oracle, which is a deck of cards akin to a Tarot deck. It includes forty-four cards and a 180-page guidebook with descriptions of each card, and it's designed specifically for creative types (and even more particularly for women).

I looked through the deck for the first time today, and the cards swept me away not only with their images, but their themes. The tenth card particularly stood out to me as I contemplated my next creative project, which is to write a gospel according to Kate.
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I thought immediately of Luke 14:26 as I looked at this card: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters...such a person cannot be my disciple." When I think of my own allegiances, I think of my long-time devotion to the Roman Catholic Church, and then to the Episcopal Church, and especially the Benedictine Canons (a Benedictine, Episcopalian religious order for men and women in which I was a novice for nine months). It was to my great surprise that I had to let go of my allegiances to my former Christian communities in order to turn my focus entirely to Thea.

As I break down the doors of the early medieval canon of Christian scripture by writing my own gospel, this oracle card resonates with me profoundly. By writing a gospel of my own, I am turning inward, where the light of Thea burns brightly.

I'm excited to write this gospel, to reimagine religious narratives as a Thean narrative, and to use this gospel in my house church liturgy when it is finished. My daughters will grow up hearing and learning from a truly feminist gospel, and in that, I know that my work and call as a house church priest will not be for nothing.
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Presiding like a woman

8/22/2015

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This is how we do it:

In kitchens, standing over steaming saucepans, following recipes
passed down by our grandmothers,
At the table, gathering the day’s news from children, guests,
lighting candles, feeding tidbits to the cats.
In operating theatres, administering with precision the deadly wounds that will heal,
In parliamentary communities and city councils,
trying to find another way of doing business.
wielding power that enables and includes,
In concert halls, at the rostrum, bringing all that unruly creativity
into one living, breathing music.
In classrooms, warming to our subject, encouraging the slow and
quick-witted learners, drawing out incipient wisdom.
In gardens, clearing weeds, making space for things to grow,
planning colours in their right times and seasons.
In bedrooms and at waterpools, learning over the women about to give
birth.
holding their sweating hands, looking into their eyes, saying
‘Yes! Now! Push!’
In our own voices – elegant, educated: rough, untamed; stuttering or eloquent;
in all the languages that God gives.
Or sometimes without voice, silently, through gestures;
the nod of the head, lifting of an arm, sway of our bodies,
the way we move around a space.
Sometimes with permission, mostly without.
Recognized for the priests that we are, mostly not.
Never alone; always in the company of sisters,
brothers, children, animals who call our gifts into being
and offer their own for the making of something
that includes everyone and yet is beyond us all.

Seated, standing, lying propped up in beds or couches,
from wheelchairs and walking frames.
proud of our bodies, bent with the burdens we’ve carried all these years
or youthful, resilient, reaching after what’s yet to come.

In shanty towns, under rickety roofs made out of tarpaulin.
and high rise council flats in the centre of sprawling cities.
In remote rural monasteries and out of the way retreat centres;
in hospitals, prisons and shopping centres.
factories, office blocks and parliamentary corridors;
in women’s refuges and hostels for the homeless.
old people’s homes and kids nurseries,
on death row and in the birthing wards:
every place where human lives jostle, mingle, struggle, despair, survive.
In the desert cave and the hermit’s hidden cleft,
where land and sky and the company of saints are the congregation.

This is how we do it:
not really thinking how we do it but doing it;
not naming it for what it is but sometimes, in flashes,
recognizing the nature of what it is we do:

the calling, the gathering, the creating of community,
the naming, the celebrating and lamenting of a people’s sorrows and joys.
the taking of what human hands have made.
offering it with thanksgiving and blessing.
the breaking, the fracturing of so many hopes and expectations.
to discover something unlooked for, new, beyond the brokenness:
the sharing of what has been given by others:
the discovering that, even out of little, hungers are fed,
hurts healed, wounds not taken away but transfigured –
the bearing, the manifesting of the body of God,
the carrying in our bodies of the marks of the risen One;
seeing the light reflected in each others’ eyes.
seeing Her beauty mirrored in each one’s softened face.

-Nicola Slee

I finished the first draft of my first novel yesterday. Upon finishing, I read and savored the above poem on an acquaintance's Facebook page.

As I look for my next project (and there are so many from which to choose!), I reflect on the difficulty of presiding. I have a whole liturgical library of resources to draw from, but none of those resources is Thean. I don't have a Thean prayer book, a Thean lectionary, a Thean Psalter, a Thean Bible, or a Thean hymnal. I long to have resources I can use that I don't have to create on a weekly basis, and in which I'm not constantly crossing out masculine pronouns and names and writing in feminine ones.

Presiding in this new liturgical tradition is my calling, but Thea never implied that it would be easy. The project that stirs my heart most now is the creation of permanent resources for the Thean tradition.

I could do this the easy way and simply revise existing Christian and Jewish texts for my own purposes. I probably will do that with the New Testament--I'm still drawn to the Christian narrative. But to have a prayer book that covers the whole liturgical year, I will have to reimagine the liturgical year in my own words. It won't be easy. But again, Thea never implied that it would be.

I want to do this the right way. I want to be able to make Thean resources available to others--and that's not something I can do if I'm piggybacking off someone else's work. So I will, prayer by prayer, create new resources for Theanism. And, perhaps within the space of a few months, or a year, or a decade, I will have Thean books I can turn to when I preside over my house church liturgies.
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Dirty Word

6/12/2015

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I've always known that "power" is a dirty word. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power is not something that nice people seek. If you want to be holy, you seek humility, not power. I learned this from my Roman Catholic upbringing, and that lesson followed me in my theological training.

But these days, power gives me pause. As a woman, I've often lacked a sense of my own power, and consequently I've been drawn to the power of others. My own power, residing deep within me, has come across as a source of danger and sin, so I've ignored it, even denied it. I've let others take the lead; I've followed, allowing my power to trail behind, unattended.

But imagine with me for a moment that power isn't a dirty word. Imagine a woman like me letting go of her attachment to the power of others and taking up her own power instead. Does my power render me dangerous?  Does my power strip me of holiness?

Maybe my power exerts itself whether I acknowledge it or not. So what happens if I look deep within myself and intentionally draw my power out?

The trouble is, if I harness my own power, I place myself at the center of my actions, rather than at the margins. If I follow someone else, I can always redirect attention to her or him if something goes wrong. I can't blame others for how I use my own power, however; I alone am responsible for it. Acknowledging one's own power, using one's power, means accepting the consequences of one's power. If power corrupts, why would I ever want to accept my power and its consequences?

I can pretend it's not there, hope it does nothing, and take no responsibility for it if it does. Alternatively, I can claim it, learn to use it as I see fit, and take responsibility for it when I do wrong--and right.

I get the sense that the good and holy way to approach power isn't what I've always thought. Maybe my power is a source of goodness, rather than evil. Maybe it is a good and holy thing to take up the power that Goddess places deep within me; maybe the sin is in squelching it.

Do I dare take up my own power?
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Drama

4/30/2015

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Occasionally my four-year-old and I will do dramatic improvisations of biblical characters. For example, the other day, she said, "You be Jesus," so I played Jesus, first carrying the cross, then laying down on the cross, then being nailed to the cross (by her), then dying. Then my almost two-year-old tapped on my arm to raise me from the dead: I was resurrected.

It wasn't long before my four-year-old wanted to switch roles. She was to play Jesus and I was to play Mary Magdalene, she said. Suddenly we were outside the tomb, the rock was rolled away, and Jesus was calling my name, asking me why I was there. Then we switched roles again so she could play Mary Magdalene and wear a sparkling scarf on her head.

Bit by bit, my daughter, who loves both reading and performing, is learning the stories of the Bible. She's also learning, through our house church liturgies, that God's name is Thea, and that "she" is an appropriate pronoun for the divine. What will my biblically literate, feminist daughter make of her faith as she grows up? Where will the path she's on now lead her later in life? I watch her and see potential for wonderful things. No matter how she chooses to journey in the future, I suspect her adult faith life will be rich indeed.

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67

3/8/2015

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In honor of International Women's Day

Thea,
as I celebrate this day of women,
I celebrate you:
feminine, fierce,
bold, brave,
enveloping, animating,
generous, genuine, genius,
Goddess.
Amen.

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House Church

1/8/2015

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For over fifty days now, I've written at least 750 words on 750words.com, a site that's designed to facilitate Julia Cameron's popular exercise of "morning pages." Each day, I can receive statistics on what I've written. It will tell me what sort of mood prevails in my words, and it will also tell me what subject is most prominent. Every time I've checked in the last few weeks, the stats tell me that I'm feeling mostly affectionate and mostly concerned about religion.

That's telling, because before a few weeks ago, I was mostly concerned about religion, but I was almost never listed as affectionate. Of the five categories of feeling listed in 750words.com's stats--affectionate, self-important, self-expressive, upset, and happy--I was very often analyzed to be upset.

What has changed in the last few weeks to bring about the transformation of a many-years-long trend?

One piece of it is that I've let go of my expectations about how I'm supposed to fit in to religious communities. I no longer seek to fit in anywhere (which is a strange thing for a liturgist to say). Ever since realizing that I'm an Enneagram four-type, not a three-type, I've taken a deep and intentional turn inward, and I've found myself at home.

I haven't been part of a church community for several months (for a number of important and difficult reasons), but I've wanted liturgy in my life. Lacking a community in which to safely or happily participate, a mustard seed of an idea has taken root in my heart. Why not engage in liturgy at home, as the earliest Christians did? Why not take my priestly skillset and become presbyter of my own household? I don't mean seeking formal ordination or jumping through ecclesial hoops--I mean taking the exceptional liturgical knowledge and presiding skills I have and celebrating the great thanksgiving with my own small children.

But you don't have permission to do that! cries my critic.

But I don't need permission to do that, I say back.

Perhaps to be a Christian feminist in the twenty-first century is as simple as saying that I no longer seek permission from patriarchal authorities to do what I'm called to do.

Can I hear an amen?
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Spirit Whispers: NaNoWriMo

10/25/2014

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This is it. This is the year I'm going to write my first novel, and I'm going to begin from word one on November 1 in the annual NaNoWriMo event.

To write fifty thousand words in thirty days is no small task. Will I master this challenge? Will I be able to endure dry, uninspired, hopeless days and write 1,667 words anyway? Will I throw in the towel as I have so many NaNoWriMo's before?

I want this for myself. I want it because the writer in me has longed to be set free, to shine. I want it because my call to write has been so resoundingly clear for so long. It's time that I fully embrace that call.
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    Rev. M. Kate Allen

    Thean. House church priest. Published author. Mother and wife. Vocal feminist. Faith-filled dissenter in the face of the status quo.

    I address G-d as Thea more often than not.


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