There's a woman I know who sees with better sight than most. 

Today I was reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. She wrote of teaching a group of ecology students by taking them deep into the woods for several days, utilizing the gifts of the earth for their food, shelter, and other essential needs. They learned the wonders of cattails and the treasures of roots hidden in rich black soil just beneath the forest floor. They learned not only the names and properties of what they studied, but relationship with and respect for what they encountered.

This woman I know, the one with marvelous sight, has a great deal of interest in what goes on in front of, around, and within her. What she perceives on the surface is only the beginning. She looks beyond the obvious and draws connections, lacing and interweaving a multitude of details not unlike those found in Robin Wall Kimmerer's exploration of what lies beneath the forest floor. As she brings more and more to the light, she seeks more and more of what remains unseen. The darkness is magic and she craves it.

She is a midwife of stories. She seeks to know the unknown, to invite into being the unborn. She also knows from experience that she simply won't grasp the fullness of what's hidden until what is hidden is ready to meet her. This is a neverending process--there is always more to behold.

This woman dives deep into shadow when others would hesitate even to dip a toe in it. I have cultivated a practice of embracing the unknown because of her.

​When I am writing a story these days, I consider at length what to reveal and conceal. More and more, I choose to conceal much and to draw out the process of revelation. That process constitutes the story's sweetness. The hidden is both possibility and potential. What is concealed is the advent of our encounter with the dark--the stuff of life's adventure and authenticity.

Spiritual Practice: I invite you to pull out a hand-mirror, sit in a darkened room, light a candle, and hide the candle's flame with the mirror's face. Feel your connectedness to the earth. Soften your eyes. Invite your darkness to reveal itself to you. What do you see? What is the shape of your darkness? Are you open to naming it, to integrating into the known details of your claimed identity? Breathe deeply and draw your attention to the earth's embrace as you allow yourself to see more and more. When you are ready, thank the darkness and the earth. Journal about your discoveries.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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, called "Releasing Allegiances," particularly stood out to me as I contemplated my next creative project, which is to write a gospel according to Kate.

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.

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?

A few hours north of Sarnia, Ontario, there is a quiet place nestled in a forest. Built with rustic logs, smelling like pine pitch, and surrounded by acres of misty trees, this small building stands, institutional and peaceful; utilitarian and somehow unique. In its natural surroundings, staring at a painting of the Baby Jesus, I found God.

Prayer, for me, has been a way to get through everyday life. I pray for health. I pray to be a better person. I pray for my family, my friends. I pray for things I want, things I don’t deserve, things I’m desperate about, things I can’t deal with. It’s not a fancy prayer. It’s often a mantra, repeated over and over, sometimes under my breath, sometimes out loud, sometimes mouthed in public places, and sometimes earnestly in the dark. And I pray every night, without fail, before I can close my eyes and sleep. I have to touch base. I have to let Him know. I need You. Please help me.

In that church retreat, hidden in the woods, I learned how to pray for more than just myself. I unlocked the talent I had all along – the talent of being able to use my words to change the world for the better. And I never felt closer to God, or more powerful with Him through me than I did then – creating creeds, weaving poetry, sharing with everyone my own personal faith, placing my feet on the path to social justice. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that I didn’t think I would ever be able to part from my relationship with God.

How things change.

I was badly wounded by the Church when I was a teenager. Shy, uncertain, and angry, I was struggling with my own sexuality and my sense of being. Holding hands with God, or so I thought, I faced the people who, also holding hands with God, told me that I didn’t belong. That I would burn in hell. That I was a sinner, a deliberate sinner, one who was so full of pride and bravado and hubris and lies, that I would never be welcome unless I changed who I was at the core. I had grown up solid in my belief that God makes us in His perfect image, and never makes mistakes. Now, I wasn’t sure if I was wrong, or if they were, but my hurt overwhelmed my faith.

I went back at 18, denying who I was. I joined a church of beauty and majesty, of tradition as old as time, and restrictions worse than any other church I’d ever been to. Was it punishment for the supposed sin of who I thought I was? To this day, I can’t answer that. All I know is that everywhere I turned, I found leaders, church members, even the Bible itself, it seemed, telling me that the person I am would never be good enough for God.

So I left. And I tried to forget.

I’m a rational person, most of the time. I also hold grudges, long after I should. And the hurt faded into twinges and then roared back to life in explosive, fiery anger. I wanted to hurt the Church the way it had hurt me. I wanted to hurt God. I wanted to burn in hell the way they said, just so that I could be myself without pretense, so I could live in sin without consequence and guilt.

And inside, I cried out for the God I knew in that quiet forest retreat. I begged Him to help me. I pushed Him away with both hands while simultaneously crying for Him in the night. And to His credit, He hasn’t let me go, though most days, I continue to angrily push and push and push, as hard as I can. He has forgiven me and continues to forgive me, despite all of my anger and moral failings, despite my hurt and my pride. He has quietly proven over and over that He thinks I am good enough for Him.

Knowing this, I suspect that one day, I will heal completely from my scars and from my open, bleeding wounds, the way that even the biggest wounds do heal. The scars will always hurt a little, but they won’t always be open and raw, ready to bleed again at another article about Christians saying “God hates fags”, or someone telling me that you can’t be Christian and gay.

But here’s the thing about healing. When you forgive someone, you don’t do it for them – not really. They benefit from it. They may think that you are doing them a favour. And maybe, part of healing is to acknowledge that you acted wrongly, too, even if at the time, you don’t think you did. Maybe part of it is to be like God, and not push away your fellow human, even if that fellow human has done cutting, horrible things to your psyche and to your sense of self.

The thing about healing is that forgiveness is mostly for you. It’s to reach out with your own humanity and be the bigger person. It doesn’t mean you forget, and it doesn’t mean that you have to draw that person back into your heart. What it does mean is that where the rushing, raging rivers have broken the bridge of faith, forgiveness helps to place new planks, to tie the knots back into the ropes. Where the bridge has rotted in places, forgiveness places brand new materials to make your bridge stronger than ever before. Where the bridge is shaky, forgiveness helps to steady it so that when you walk across it and try to meet God on the other side, it’s not so hard and scary to cross it.

Because when it comes to healing, it might take awhile. It might take a long time to rebuild your bridge. And I’m not saying that someone isn’t going to come along and say cutting things that will throw it into disrepair. I’ve rebuilt my bridge many times now . . . and I’ve begged God to help me find the strength to do it again.

Your bridge isn’t just to God. Your bridge is to your fellow humans, as well. The ones that put up walls to keep others out – your bridge goes to their door and invites them to come and meet you in the middle. The ones that tell you you’re not welcome – your bridge goes to them and tells them that they are welcome to come and belong with you. And the ones that meet you with hatred – your bridge shows them that the easier path is love.

Because maybe the place you’re all trying to reach is that little church retreat in the woods, with the whispering leaves and the distant rush of the many creeks. Maybe the path you all want to walk is the shady wide dirt path with the dappled sunlight through the trees, that wide and welcoming path that has benches to rest on and clear pools to drink from. Maybe the paths we choose are inevitably the harder ones because the stony paths teach you what smooth footing feels like, and we have to learn, in order to grow.

Maybe the pain and the blood are something we all experience, even when we’re the ones wielding the swords that hurt.  And maybe when it comes to healing, you find it in the silence and the dark, the pleas and the desperation, the fact that when you couldn’t walk anymore, He carried you – and carries you still.

Maybe when it comes to healing, it becomes the easier path to take – broken bridge, and all.

On this Feast of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, another celebration is underway: the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.

I am grateful for God's prophetic call on the lives of these women. I am grateful for their obedience to God--which manifested as disobedience to the unjust, unholy policies of their church.

I am grateful that these women paved the way for other women to respond faithfully to the call they hear from God without fear.

I am grateful for the first experience I had of Sunday liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, at which the first thing I noticed was a woman standing at the altar as an ordained deacon--and no one was rioting. No one even batted an eyelash (except me).

I am grateful that the presence of ordained women is normal in the Episcopal Church. I am grateful that the face of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Presiding Bishop, is a woman (and one of great wisdom).

I am grateful for this church that perceived its own call to be prophetically transformed after eleven women stood up, risking everything that mattered to them, to respond to God's will.

I am grateful that these eleven icons of Martha made it possible for me to sit more easily, like Mary, at the feet of Jesus and hear what he has to say.

Yesterday I completed the construction of a bridge spanning over two thousand miles and thirteen years. I sang Suzanne Toolan's "The Call" with two other young women during the 10:30 liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish. This is a song I learned at Historic St. Peter Church (now the Community of St. Peter), and it is a song that gave me a taste of the potential for liturgy and symbol to crash together to reveal the holy.

Leave all things you have and come and follow me, Jesus urges.

Thirteen years and two thousand miles later, I hesitate to leave behind all I've accumulated on this journey. My baggage is mine to keep.

But the invitation is so insistent, echoing softly even when I clang and screech.

Could I just leave it all behind me? Would I be doing it for the right reasons? What if everything changed as a result?

And come and follow me.

Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) voted 5-4 in favor of allowing closely held corporations (i.e. private corporations run by religious families), like Hobby Lobby, the right to choose not to provide insurance coverage to employees for contraception.

The conflict, as I see it, is between members of the Religious Right who believe that they should have a say in how their dollars subsidize the medical care of those who may or may not share their beliefs, on one hand, and those people (well, women) who seek affordable (i.e. insured) medical care for their reproductive health.

To call this ruling by an all-male majority of the SCOTUS a slide down the slippery slope would understated at best.

Who's doing the sliding? SCOTUS men and the rallying Religious Right, shouting about their right to exercise conscientious objections. What slope? The uteruses of women who work for closely held corporations.

This ruling sounds like rape to me.

In a way, it's unsurprising. Rape culture thrives in the United States, where women who are raped are asked what they were wearing when it happened, rather than rapists being held up to close scrutiny for their total violation of other human beings.

If a woman works for a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby, surely she's asking for the diminishing of her privacy when it comes to her reproductive health. Surely she's asking for her employer to judge what is best for her, and to deny the financial support that makes possible the healthcare her employer deems unacceptable/unethical/unnecessary. Surely someone other than this female employee and her doctor knows best--and if this female employee doesn't agree, she should take herself to some other job, nevermind what it might cost her.

As a woman and a parent, the impact of reduced coverage for reproductive health is not lost on me. My husband and I are extraordinarily fertile. Think of the woman like me, with a partner like my husband, who had plans to have an IUD placed in order to avoid getting pregnant again after her recent pregnancy. She, like me, can't imagine having an abortion if she were to get pregnant, and she, like me, can't afford to have another child. But now, as an employee of Hobby Lobby, she can't afford an IUD, either--as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her scathing dissent in this SCOTUS ruling, "It bears note that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month's full-time pay for workers on the minimum wage." So what does the Hobby Lobby female employee do? Stop having sex with her husband? (Because that wouldn't ruin her marriage relationship--not at all.) Hope she doesn't get raped? (Because that wouldn't happen unless she was asking for it! Obviously!)

This SCOTUS ruling is obscene and frightening. It all comes back to one question for me: What right does any other person have to take away the rights of another--even a woman? And sadly, it seems to come down to the concept of personhood. This ruling affirms the Religious Right's claim that men, fetuses, and corporations are persons--and women are not.

That women aren't persons is the most successful lie of the Western history. The SCOTUS ruling makes it clear that that lie still succeeds in 2014.

As a religious person, I am angry, and I'm praying in fury. How long, o Mother God, till justice rolls down like a river? How long, o Father God, till the patriarchal narrative of "father/male/anyone-in-the-world-other-than-a-woman knows best" is separated from the fine wheat that gives life and burned like the chaff that it is?

How long?

When Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica, he compares the ministry of himself and his fellow leaders to that of a mother.

This ministry is one of gentleness, of refreshment, of steady abiding-with that overflows with love. He regards the members of the Thessalonian church as very dear.

Belonging now to a church in which the vocations of women to ordained ministry are recognized and fully accepted, I find fresh meaning in this. In this passage, Paul is unafraid of comparing himself and other leaders to devoted women. In recommending himself to the Thessalonian church, he embraces a maternal image. In mothering, goodness may be found. In mothering, loyalty may be found. In mothering, unfettered love may be found. In mothering, all the nourishment a young one needs may be found.

To be a gracious, loving, effective, Godly minister, in this passage, is to be a mother.

I am grateful to be part of a church that embraces the title of "Mother" for its female priestly ministers. When I consider the call I hear to priestly ministry, considering it in terms of mothering enriches it beyond what any book on priesthood might say. Mothering is something I get. Mothering implies total commitment, total love, and totally deep joy--even in the midst of difficulties and trials. I would give anything for my children, including my life.

Isn't this what the high priest, Jesus the Christ, does?

I began a spiritual practice of silence this morning--ten minutes, first thing after getting the baby her morning milk, eyes closed, hands and body open to receive.

One thing I received was the final phrase from a Taizé song: "Come and listen to me." I couldn't remember in that moment what song it came from--all I could remember were those words. Without context, the words took new shape. Was God bidding? Was I bidding? Was someone else bidding?

I realized that all three were doing the bidding.

My heart turned then toward the fruits of the Spirit, and then to spiritual and corporal works of mercy. As my silence ended, I wondered whether there were opportunities available to volunteer in local hospices and prisons--to listen, to be present, to abide in what is difficult and deeply transforming.

I found out that there are abundant hospice volunteer opportunities in the Valley of the Sun. I found far less when I was looking for volunteer opportunities for prison ministry, at least from within an Episcopal or interfaith context. I asked for help on Facebook and got information from two of the leaders from my parish, one of whom pointed me to a notice on the Trinity Cathedral website that Bishop Kirk Smith is planning a summit for those involved in or interested in prison ministry within the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona.

Coincidence? Spirit stirring in open hearts for the common good?