Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Thean Psalter

12/14/2018

It's gotten a bit dusty around here, so allow me to fling open the shutters and warm the blog with a happy announcement: Thean Psalter, the fruit of many years of devoted prayer and a yearning desire for faith that rings with honesty and joy, has just been published by Thea Press. The newly published version includes many updates to the proto-Psalter I had made available in 2016. I invite you to take a taste for yourself with a psalm that speaks to the journey that brought this prayerbook to fruition:

Psalm 40

I waited for you, O Thea;
suddenly I felt you bend close to me, listening.

You lifted me out of my pit, out of the mire and clay;
   you set me upon a high cliff
   and made my movements become sure once more.

A new song left my mouth then,
   a song of unfettered joy.

Oh, that I might tell of your wisdom’s way!
   but it is beyond my power to describe,
   for it is different for each creature, every one of us.

As for me, I have learned that it is enough to say,
   “Behold, I come.”

In your book it is written concerning me:
   ‘I love to do your will, O Thea;
   your wisdom is deep in my heart.’”

Greeting the New Year

1/1/2018

This year brings with it changes: some eagerly welcomed, and some simply needed.

There will be several changes for me as I continue along this path of life.

1) Beginning this month, I will no longer be holding Thean Evening Prayer outside my home. This is a loss, as I have loved and learned a great deal from this monthly sacred circle of women. It is a gain of time and energy, both of which are increasingly precious to me. I invite those who have gathered with me for Thean Evening Prayer and any others who wish to develop their own regular, rhythmic prayer practice to pray with the Thean Psalter. This Psalter is written in a feminine voice with feminine pronouns and names for Thea in a feminist thealogical worldview, and is an enriching supplement to other faith traditions as well as a strong, illuminating, standalone form of prayer.

2) The Thea House Church liturgies, which have previously been private gatherings, will be open to all pilgrims with open hearts beginning this March. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.

3) I have found in the last year that I have failed to make adequate room in my life for two of my great joys: walking and writing. I resolve to set aside less vital pursuits to make room for these. To that end, I look forward this year to participating in my third half-marathon and finishing my second novel.

4) I imagine that each of us seeks to be more loving and less resentful. I cling sometimes to resentments and anger when I feel wronged or observe someone else being wronged, but I seek to keep those feelings close only long enough to learn from them and let them go in peace. The longer I journey along this road of mine, the more aware I become that my time is limited, and my desire to love abundantly and beautifully competes with the time I give over to festering anger. I seek to choose love and beauty, and to allow anger to grow into both of those rather than falling stagnant.

May 2018 be rich with joy, love, and hope for all Creation. ♥

Liturgical Renewal

7/9/2017

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.

Stepping beyond the bounds of comfort

7/1/2017

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!

How does it feel?

6/10/2017

I shared the ordo of my Strawberry Moon Thean Eucharist at a friend's request, and he asked me afterward how it felt during and after that liturgy.

For a bit of background, allow me to say that my Thean Eucharist has evolved a great deal over the last two and a half years, so much so that we stopped doing Eucharist for a while because my thealogy had changed so much from its Christian roots.

But this was the response I offered my friend, and I believe it sums up what I value most about Theanism:

Our only light was what remained outside (which wasn't much) and the lone candle that we lit. The lighting of the candle hushed them. Nearly everything I did from that point forward brought forth a torrent of questions, mostly from A. M couldn't participate as well as A could with the parts involving reading. Both of those things left me with a little frustration. That being said, I felt this extraordinary calm and joy as we moved through the liturgy. It was so familiar and yet so fresh. It felt a bit like being at a wedding, or a funeral, or a baptism--it was rich with meaning and charged with the shaping of identity. It felt important and weighty, and I felt alive and at home right where I was, doing what I was doing, sharing and helping shape the story of me and my girls with them. It was as poignant as any liturgy at my old parish back home, and even more poignant than Thean Evening Prayer has been. Perhaps that was the case because my daughters were at the center of it and I could see them, or at least A, making connections and sorting out what it means to be of Thea and to regard all the rest of the world, including those we find difficult to love, as part of Thea.

Making connections between the narrative one hears and one's role in it, and to tell a narrative that empowers a person to shine in ways she never realized she could, is what it's all about for me. To be able to do this with others--particularly my own daughters--to observe them making those connections, and to watch them practice their unique power by being agents in the liturgy we share, is about as near to ecstasy as I've come.

The practice of engaging in liturgy with my girls feels like one of the most important tasks I could ever undertake, because this liturgy as I've shaped it encompasses what I value (and want to pass on to them) most. I want them to break bread with others. I want them to pray, whether that prayer centers them or gives them something to argue with, or both. I want them to be confident storytellers, and I want them to know they have the right to shape the stories they tell. I want them to know the extraordinary relationship between light and shadow without glorifying one over the other. I want them to know that they are, as much as any other part or person of the world, of Thea, of the stars, of the glory of this beautiful universe.

I loved it. ♥

Meeting Thea in Death

4/27/2017

My daughters faced a great and difficult milestone today: they faced the death of their first pet.

Technically, she was my oldest daughter's first pet. She was a betta (a trans-betta, if you wish; although she was among the male bettas at the pet store, my daughter quickly informed us that her new fish had told her she was a girl, and her name was Princess Amanda). She was gorgeous, too, all shimmer and irridescence in her royal blues, green, and violets. She was also spunky, zooming around her new fish bowl, which was, among other things, a one-eyed pink monster with bat wings and fangs.

My older daughter was vigilant in feeding and caring for Princess Amanda, especially after we warned her not to over-feed her. When our younger daughter, attempting to be helpful late last week, fed Princess Amanda a handful of betta food pellets, my hubby ended up scooping out over a dozen of them, and he and I both knew immediately that Princess Amanda might not make it.

It took several days, and we wondered at moments if maybe she would pull through. But she stopped eating, and only moved around to break the surface now and then for a bubble of air.

When we got home today, I found her unmoving at the bottom of her fish bowl. She was lying sideways. That's the moment I knew. I told my hubby, but neither of us was ready to tell our daughtrs. I waited till he had departed for an evening engagement. I fed them mac and cheese, and I waited. When they were done eating, I told them Princess Amanda had died, looking directly at my eldest as I said it. Shock, then grief, clouded her face. She got up to look at her fish. She had to see for herself; how could she take my word for it?

The next few minutes were minutes filled with tears and sadness and anguish, for both my daughters. I walked with them to the couch, and I held them close to me as they sobbed. I felt their grief and held it close, sharing their bitter cup.

Then I invited them to honor Princess Amanda by burying her in the earth. We moved her from her fish bowl to a smaller bowl, one that my oldest daughter would be able to carry with ease. We dug a shallow hole in the earth on the perimeter of our back deck. My oldest carried Princess Amanda; my youngest carried seeds that she and her sister had chosen. I carried fertile soil. Anastasia poured Princess Amanda and the water that surrounded her onto the earth she had chosen. Then she and her sister poured soil over her, telling her as they offered the soil what they loved about her. Then my girls scattered tiny carrot and tomato seeds over her, and I added a tiny layer of soil over the seeds to protect them with dark, nourishing moisture. And then my oldest daughter placed one of her prized rocks on top of the burial mound we had created. As all this took place, we talked about the circle of life, of being born, of dying, and of new life emerging from death. We talked about Princess Amanda's life, and how her body would become part of the nourishing soil that would help our seeds grow.

After the burial had concluded and some minutes had passed, I offered my Thea necklace to my oldest to wear as a comfort. She offered it to her sister a few minutes later, who's wearing it now for that same purpose.

Thea is the one who envelops my family with understanding and tears in this shadowy quiet. She is the one who is mourned as my daughters and I mourn the one we love, and she's the one we anticipate as new life emerges from what we have planted.

Blessed be the one we loved, we love, and we will forever love. ♥

Good vs. Bad

2/7/2017

I took part in my first local Christian Sunday liturgy for the first time in two years this past Sunday. I walked in late to the early liturgy at the little church on my way to downtown Phoenix, the homily already underway.

The preacher was in the middle of speaking about the difference between good liturgy and bad liturgy. Bad liturgy, he said, was the sort of liturgy we do--actions and intentions all woven together--for our own ends, so that we may personally benefit from it in the ways we see fit. Good liturgy, on the other hand, is the sort of liturgy we do for God's sake, for God's ends. I saw where he was going, especially from a political standpoint, because it seems that in this country, at this moment in history, far too much is being done for self-aggrandizing, self-benefiting ends, while the ends that matter from a certain Christian perspective--clothing the naked and feeding the hungry--go unnoticed, even though these are, from this perspective, God's ends.

What I noticed as this preacher went on was the absolute divide he made between God and human beings, God's ends and human ends. That divide is, perhaps, why Jesus, who is said to be both human and divine, is such a miracle. For me as a Thean, however, I cannot thealogically claim such a definitive divide between God and what she has made.

As I encounter her, Thea is an author. As I encounter myself and others, we are and are becoming are her evolving masterwork. Thea is not done with her masterwork, it seems to me, and even if she were, her work would be no less part of her. She may be distinct in some sense from her work, but her work is of her, and she of it.

I say this because of my own experience just today as I picked up my first novel, Memory Stands Still, and marveled as I read it. My novel, my words, my stories, are of me. Writing this and other stories has changed and revealed me. One could claim on some level a divide between me and my art, but I would argue--and so would many around me--that my art, like my dreams, reveal the deepest parts of myself. One may talk of Thea, God, apart from her masterwork, but what would one say of her?

One might answer that one would say nothing, and that that would be the best way to honor Thea, who is ineffable. And that would also be correct.

The grace and beauty of Thea is that there are many ways to behold her, to perceive her, to encounter her. As a Thean, I encounter God incarnate in every person, every creature, I meet--every one, without exception. For me, Thea is revealed not as absolute other, but as author of and the very stuff of creation. Thea's masterwork is Thea herself. The radical thing about Theanism is that there is no encounter one can have that is not encounter with Thea. My ability to perceive her in the one who wounds me and wounds others may be limited, but she is present and enfleshed in the meanest and kindest of all of us, in the messy complexity of every one of us, including myself. That is what makes the radical divide between good and bad too facile; it implies that God can be here and not there, and the truth, at least of my experience, is that God is in and of all of it. We the universe are Thea figuring herself out, and singing beauty--in all its difficulty and breathtaking loveliness, into life. We who are Thea are both good and bad, and Thea's intentions, Thea's ends, are very much our own, and ours hers. What this means is that Thea doesn't always get it right--we, you and I, don't always get it right. But we, her creation, her Sacred Body, her hands and feet, are moving, one must hope, in the direction of greater understanding, beauty, and love, for that is her, our, end.

In other words, I don't believe human ends are so very different from Thea's, despite the evils, hatred, and selfishness that run rampant in our world. What I do believe is that it's easy for every one of us to lose sight of what is most important and life-giving in our daily lives for the sake of accomplishing the goals we've chosen to set for ourselves. There is not one person in the world who has not done harm to another while attempting to do what they believe is good, right, or worthwhile. There is not one person in the world who has not engaged in what is selfish while wanting to help others or make a positive difference. Good and bad are woven together, and there is no unweaving them.

But this is not reason for hopelessness. It is reason for relief, I believe--relief in the ability to be honest, to assess ourselves and one another frankly and with tremendous compassion, to choose to hold together rather than attempting to tear apart what cannot be divided neatly into compartments. From my Thean perspective, there is no way to achieve "pure goodness," because there is no such thing. There is, rather, a journey for each of us, a journey with many possible directions, setbacks, and ecstasies. We each have steps of our own in the cosmic dance. We each have our harmony, our solo, our part in the symphony Thea composes and performs in this very moment.

What I would like to suggest is that perhaps, instead of pointing fingers at what or who is good or bad, that it is time to set aside our assumptions and judgments aside for a while and focus instead on what we live for: loving and drawing out the best in one another, starting with the one we see in the mirror. For we are worth our great efforts to love. We are Thea, and love is the masterwork we are, have been, and are becoming.

Praying with the Thean Book of Psalms

8/24/2016

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.

Psalm 100

9/19/2015

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.

Mother God

7/22/2015

I have a thurible at home that's made of wood. It has eight sides and a spire leading to a point at the top. Dozens of holes are carved in the wood to make way for the smoke of lit incense.

My older daughter picked up my thurible today and asked me what it was for--it's not something we use very often for our home liturgies. I told her it was for incense, and she asked me what incense was. I told her that incense made a nice smell. She asked if we could smell the incense. So I went to the cupboard, pulled out matches, charcoal, and incense, and readied the thurible.

When the sweet-smelling smoke began to rise, she asked if we could pray. I pulled her into my lap and asked her who we should pray for. The usual litany of names began. When she had run out of names, she jumped off the bed, gathered up all our liturgy books, and placed them side by side on the bedspread. "Let's read about Mother God," she said, so we picked up Heart Talks with Mother God and read about God as mother eagle (Deuteronomy 32:11).

I am grateful that my daughters are able to imagine God in the feminine. Thea is their name for her. I never imagined myself rearing Theans, nor did I imagine myself self-identifying as a Thean, but here I am--here we are--making our way in the midst of the enveloping and awe-inspiring divine feminine.

Living Lent: Insights

3/22/2015

Sunday is the day of the week when my daughters and I celebrate Eucharist together. We've been doing our own house-church liturgy for about two months now, and each week I tweak the ordo, trying to get it just right for us. Somehow, in all these weeks, I've forgotten to include intercessory prayers between the homily and the Eucharistic prayer, so I added a place for them today. I didn't write them out ahead of time; I wanted to see who my older daughter would want to pray for. I let her take the lead during liturgy.

"Miriam," she said first. I asked her who else.

"Daddy and Mommy," she said next. I added Anastasia's name to the mix, and a few more names came up.

Then she said, "I want to pray for everybody--for all the people."

I nodded and grinned a wide grin. If I ever want proof that I'm doing this mommy gig right, all I need is a dose of Anastasia's thealogical insight. Every single Sunday, when we gather for liturgy, she'll say something that makes me think to myself, "If only adults got religion like you did!"

Her intuitions about God and the way we relate to God are right on the mark. During our shared homily today, she talked about Thea as the mother hen, and she said that Thea loves all her little chicks, and she said she and Miriam were Thea's little chicks. "Yes, you are," I said, "and she's very proud of you, just like I am." It was Anastasia's turn to grin then, and I gave her a big hug before continuing on.

God is indeed with us.

Mystagogy

1/11/2015

We came as we were to the table of the Lord
wrapped in warm pajamas, I with an alb and stole on top.
We blessed your name, singing as we worked
readying the table for our little liturgy.
Candle, books, cloth, bread, wine:
pieces of your presence among us.
We crossed ourselves as I greeted all:
May the grace and peace of Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with you all.
And then we prayed,
and we read,
and we sang,
and we shouted Halle Halle Halle-lujah!
We broke open your word together
and before we broke bread
we offered one another a kiss of peace.
Miriam jostled for access to everything,
soaking in a baptism of symbol
while Anastasia grinned and mouthed her part,
awe expressed loud in silence.
I had a flash of hope and wonder
at the thought of the day when my children will offer me
your child's precious body and blood
with their own precious bodies.
And I marveled at Anastasia's nod
when I asked her if she wanted me to baptize her
someday.
You have done great things for us, Thea,
and holy indeed is your name.
Amen.

House Church

1/8/2015

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?

Spirit Whispers: The Call

7/28/2014

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.

Spirit Whispers: A Pentecost-tide Theme

6/9/2014

My fourth priestly discernment meeting, which happened yesterday morning in between Pentecost liturgies, gives me goosebumps as I reflect on it. I realize that the questions I received were the questions of Spirit herself, that God was speaking through the voices of my five committee members (right there in Heidi Chapel) and I was being beckoned to answer God's questions from the depths of my vulnerable heart.

The whole of the Pentecost season (which, thanks to the influence of Latin in the Roman Church, we call "Ordinary Time") is a time of just this kind of discernment, of radical listening. My Pentecost theme for Thealogical Lady will be "Spirit Whispers," and here I will invite myself and my readers to cultivate the ability to hear what Spirit says. To listen, ob audire, is to be obedient. Obedience is one of the vows that I have made as a Benedictine Canon, and obedience--radical listening--is something to which all Christians are called by baptism. Listening is a path of wisdom for any mindful person, that she might hear something greater and wiser than her own solitary voice.

In reflecting on the Spirit-ed questions that emerged during my discernment meeting yesterday, clarity about my identity rose up. I am not merely Kate, responding to a diocesan priestly call; I am Sr. Kate, a vowed member of the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, responding to a religious priestly call. I wonder what further clarity will emerge from my next discernment meeting. In what ways will Spirit speak through the curiosity and concerns of my committee members? What will I hear, if I have ears to listen?

Easter Monday

4/21/2014

I don't know how Cyril, the late-4th century bishop of Jerusalem, did it. After all the liturgical hoopla he went through in each Holy Week and Easter, he spent each Easter Week guiding neophytes of faith through mystagogy, the breaking open of the mysteries they had just experienced.

I'm no bishop. I'm not guiding anyone through the meaning of their confirmation/baptism/communion. All I did for Holy Week and Easter was sing, and I'm totally zonked.

Perhaps Bishop Cyril was able to move energetically from Easter action into Easter mystagogy because he was an artist, the kind of artist who's so passionate that he'll forsake all else for the beauty and importance of his work (work, in his case, which was done for God's sake).

Perhaps Cyril believed, like I do, that liturgy (and the belief to which it gives rise) matters. Maybe, since he was the head of the church--in the city where Jesus died and rose--he felt that his responsibility was just a little bit weightier than that of others whom God had ordained to serve. And maybe his desire to bring about illumination of hearts was his manna in a wilderness of leadership.

As I went through Holy Wednesday's shadows, Holy Thursday's footwashing, Good Friday's darkness, Holy Saturday's silence, and then the Vigil that beckoned forth the new light of Easter, I was struck over and over by how different Holy Week and Easter felt at St. Augustine's than it had for me elsewhere. I don't perceive the difference in terms of "better" or "worse." I perceive the difference in the degree of leadership I was granted, and in the way my leadership helped shape the prayer of others. In small ways--as a musician--I spent this Holy Week and Easter living into Bishop Cyril's holy presence as a liturgical leader. I find myself in awe (and maybe the more appropriate word here is "fear") of my God-given ability to make a difference to others, for better or worse.

As I continue to be called forth to lead, how will I maintain my zeal like Bishop Cyril did? How will I engage in self-care without losing sight of the care of others?

Living Lent: Maundy Thursday Mystagogy

4/18/2014

"Maundy" comes from "Mandatum," which refers to Jesus' mandate to his friends to wash the feet of others just as he washed theirs at the last supper before his death. The act of washing a dinner-guest's feet was normally reserved for a slave, and it meant coming into contact with whatever a first-century Jewish person in Jerusalem might have stepped in or on--dirt, feces, bugs, waste-water, nettles, anything. The host of a dinner wouldn't make his own hands impure by touching the unclean feet of his guests.

And yet.

Nowadays, folks who are planning to have their feet washed during the ritual enactment of Jesus' foot-washing take pity on those who wash feet. They wash their own feet in advance, maybe even manicure them, making sure every last trace of "ewww" is gone.

I might have done this, too, but in the midst of preparing to sing many new-to-me hymns for liturgy, I forgot.

At my parish, anyone can have her feet washed. As the foot-washing ritual got underway, it looked as though everyone was choosing to do this. So despite my dirty feet, I went forward.

Exposing my feet, allowing the clean hands of another to wash them, was humiliating. And in my humiliation, a new gateway for grace manifested.

What a gift to receive the blessing of the holy other who beheld my uncleanness and loved me anyway.

Isn't this receiving and giving the entirety of the Christian call?

Living Lent: Tenebrae

4/17/2014

Long psalms draw me into shadow.

A clatter rattles me.
Death!

But a lone flame alights,
scattering harbored dark
and my dry face is watered with hope.

Living Lent: Reading

4/15/2014

I've spent much of this Lent steeping my heart in words: words from my prayer books, words from scripture, words from novels, and words from those I love.

I recently read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, a medieval story that follows the rhythm of the monastic daily office. Now I'm reading D.L. Smith's The Miracles of Santa Fico, a story that my friend, Denise, promises will illuminate Holy Week. Soon I will reread Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, one of the most influential books of my life (whose contents are summed up in the title).

In what ways do the stories I read and hear shape the story of my life? As I approach the liminal liturgy of Triduum that serves as the gateway between Lent and Easter, what stories should I embrace as truth-bearers, and what stories should I relinquish as deceivers?

Living Lent: No Longer for Ourselves

4/1/2014

As a student of liturgy, it's fair to say that I have spent a good deal of my life preoccupied with how liturgy is prayed. I studied liturgy with the same Benedictine community that sent Dom Virgil Michel to Europe to study liturgy during the revolutionary liturgical time preceding the Second Vatican Council. For fifteen years--almost half my life--the way Christians (and others) worship together and how that in turn shapes their lives has been the source of much reflection for me.

When my pastor at the Community of St. Peter (then Historic St. Peter Church) was gathering feedback for his D.Min. dissertation about how worship was formative for our congregation, he asked the choir to gather for a special meeting. We choir members had had the broadest and most consistent exposure to the various liturgies celebrated in our community, including funerals and weddings, which generally were rather exclusive affairs. Our breadth of liturgical experiences made us especially important for his dissertation, so we talked with him. I remember speaking up at one point to offer that liturgy--however it may be done--teaches Christians agency and accountability. Where we are liturgical agents, we become accountable for the way we bring about God's Reign in the world. Where we are not liturgical agents, we are not accountable for the way we bring about (or fail to bring about) the Reign of God in the world.

It seems to me that for Christian communities who are fearful of becoming obsolete in their ritual practices, the answer starts, but never ends, with liturgy. In what way do congregations pray? If what we do at church is what we learn to do in the world, what exactly is it that we're learning? And if what we learn at church is that practicing the Reign of God is someone else's job, then aren't we doing church wrong?

The church doesn't exist for its own sake. Christians are called to live no longer for themselves, but for the sake of the world, that God's radical peace might find a place to dwell in every corner. Any Christian community that exists to serve itself may as well shutter its doors. We are formed in Christian community primarily so that we--all the baptized, not merely clergy--may be sent into the world to do what Jesus charged his disciples to do: to feed the multitudes with that for which they are most desperately hungry.

For what do our neighbors starve and thirst? And what will my Christian sisters and brothers and I--as people empowered by baptism and formed around the tables of holy word, living bread, and saving wine--offer them?

Living Lent: Homily, Lent III

3/24/2014

Many weeks ago I was invited by the vicar of St. Augustine's Church to give a homily at both Sunday liturgies for the third Sunday of Lent. Yesterday was the third Sunday of Lent, and these are the words that I shared with my fellow parishioners.

Lent III Lessons: Genesis 44:1-17 , Psalm 95, Romans 8:1-10, John 5:25-29

"From the wilderness the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as God commanded. And they camped, but there was no water for the people to drink." This is what we hear from the book of Exodus. God's people had been journeying for a long time. They were hopeful and excited about their newfound freedom from slavery in Egypt. But in the midst of their journey, tired and weary from walking, they found themselves in a place that had no water to quench their thirst. When they got upset about it, Moses got upset at them for being upset. And then God finally relented and gave the people a spring of water. The scripture writer notes throughout the story that God's people persisted in doubt.

There's something strange about this. Why would God bring God's beloved people out of slavery and then leave them out to dry, literally? They're in the wilderness, a place unknown to them, and they're thirsting. Thirst is no insignificant thing. Thirst, if left unquenched long enough, could lead to death. Thirst is such a fearful experience that there are psalms dedicated to it: in Psalm 42 we pray, "As the deer that pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for God," and in Psalm 63 we pray "My soul is thirsting for you, O God, like a dry, weary land without water."

For the people of Israel, a dry land was an unfruitful land. A dry people was a dying people.

And here we are, on the third Sunday of Lent, not quite halfway through our journey in the Lenten wilderness, and we find ourselves parched. My guess is that you, like I, have given up something for Lent (in my case, being the overachiever that I am, I gave up four things). If you're like me, your Lenten fasting leaves you yearning, sometimes bitterly, sometimes desperately, for the familiar comforts you gave up on Ash Wednesday.

This Sunday's lessons are all about water and thirst, and they may be the most important ones we hear during Lent. We think of Lent as a time to honor Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the cross by making sacrifices of our own, and Lent is that, but Lent also has something far more difficult to teach us.

The harder lesson of Lent is difficult to perceive when our fasting is overshadowed by our certainty that relief is coming. Unlike our voluntary Lenten fasting, for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, there was no timeline or guarantee of reaching an oasis. Their journey out of slavery in Egypt meant leaving behind all their known sources of refreshment, period. It meant taking the extraordinary risk that they might involuntarily and without warning have to abstain from water--an abstinence that, if prolonged, even for a few days, would have the power to claim their lives.

By leaving Egypt, they weren't just taking their lives out of the hands of Pharaoh; by seeking freedom, they were submitting their lives to the mercy of their God, their sole protector from the dangers of the wilderness. As they found themselves stopping to camp in a place with no water, they were terrified. They were so sick with parched mouths and deep thirst that they were no longer sure that the God in whom they had put all their trust would be willing or able to save them from death. They had already journeyed too far from Egypt to go back. Their lives hung by a thread, and they could no longer save themselves. Only God could. And that scared them.

Centuries later, when Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman, he was offering her God's new covenant: the promise that as long as she sought this new living water, rather than seeking water from the source she had always turned to, she would never have to fear dying from thirst the way the Israelites had feared dying from thirst in the wilderness.

The lesson from John's gospel isn't merely a story about the Samaritan woman. It's a story about us. We have been offered this same living water by God in our baptism, and yet what do we do? We build up storehouses of comfort around ourselves in order to make sure that we never have to rely on anyone but ourselves. Our lives get so cluttered by the comforts we take for granted that when we tear away some of those comforts during Lent, we feel a deep, uncomfortable emptiness. We taste a morsel of the same bitter fear that haunted God's people in the wilderness, and we can't wait to get back to the way things were. In the end, we would rather drink from the well that we've always known than trust in some guy who doesn't even know to bring his own bucket. We might give up what we cling to for a few weeks, but who among us is willing to let our comforts go indefinitely? If I let my sources of comfort die, I risk dying, too.

I'd like to suggest that we ask ourselves what we left behind in order to enter this Lenten wilderness, and whether we're willing to leave behind all the rest. Do we dare to empty ourselves of everything we cling to until all we have left is our aching thirst for God and the trust that God won't let us die? Perhaps, as we enter the second half of Lent, we can risk losing it all--every thing we think we need to be happy, all our enslaving attachments, every shackle of our obsessions--and move forward to the unknown, unguaranteed future. And maybe then, as we go forward bearing nothing but our thirst and radical trust in the face of terrifying dryness, God will lift up for us a spring of living water, and we'll be able to rise from our knees to unfettered, quenching, resurrected freedom.

Living Lent: Demons

3/18/2014

For weeks, I've let it get under my skin.

Several weeks ago I was invited to give a homily (i.e. a sermon/reflection) for Lent III, which is next Sunday. As of yesterday I hadn't yet been able to write one word of it.

Think of it as a bad case of writer's block, except it only applied in this one case. I've written a dozen blog posts since Ash Wednesday alone, so it's not as though I didn't have a command of words elsewhere. The lessons for Lent III are richly evocative, so that wasn't it, either.

When I'm about to do a new thing, especially a thing that's bound to make a tremendous impression on people, anything short of excellence and complete satisfaction on my part will send me fleeing in the other direction. And even though I've written and given a number of homilies in the past, I've never stood up as "The Preacher" for Sunday liturgy. It's a new thing, and it scares me.

The other day I talked about how I spend one or two hours writing per day--and that's on the ample side. Yesterday I gave this homily no fewer than five hours of feverish attention. Why?

A lot hangs on this, in my mind. It's a classic case of first-impression-making. If I do well, the parish as a whole gains not only a thoughtful homily, but a set of implicit expectations about who I might be and what I might do at the service of the parish in the future. If I don't do well, the parish will wish they had heard the vicar instead, and--more importantly--the leadership might see my future and vocational path in a different light.

Giving this homily is about so much more than giving a homily. It's a moment in which I'll have an opportunity to prove wrong every single person who ever told/taught me that women in general--and I in particular--weren't meant (or designed!) to be pastoral leaders (and Jesus said so, forever and ever, and let the church say "Amen").

That's a lot of disvaluing to overcome in ten minutes. For the record, neither the vicar nor anyone else has said to me that my vocation is at stake in this homily--they have been generous in trusting that I will do well (I wouldn't have been asked otherwise). I trust that they trust me. Nevertheless, I can't help feeling that my vocation and the integrity and valuing of women on the whole are wrapped up in this small opportunity I have to stand up before a hundred people and speak with authority.

Patriarchy and Hegemony are powerful demons in the Christian tradition, and every battle waged against them matters. My homily is ready. May I speak this Sunday with the authority of the one I call Lord, that they may be powerfully silenced in my presence.

Nine Months

3/2/2014

Photo by M. Kate Allen

Nine months ago, I gave birth to my second daughter. Nine months before that, I had little idea that I was about to conceive another child.

In each of these nine-month periods, my world changed radically.

Eighteen months ago, I had one awesome child. Then, nine months ago, there were two.

Nine months ago, I had an office job and I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area--my husband and I had no plans in place for anything else.

Now I am living a life that, for all my creativity, I couldn't have imagined. I live in the Sonoran desert. I've published my first book. I've become an Episcopalian in the midst of a beautiful Christian community. I have found greater peace than I ever anticipated in my prayer life as a Benedictine Canon novice.

This evening I am filled with gratitude and hope for the blessings I experience in each moment. And I wonder, with great hope, what shall be brought to birth in my life next.

Introducing Sister Kate

2/3/2014

Photo by M. Kate Allen

Yesterday, during the Candlemas liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, Arizona, I made simple vows to become a Benedictine Canon Novice.

This is what I promised:

To dedicate my life to Holy God through the vows

(Because vows imply radical commitment, and to become a member of a religious community is akin to entering a marriage--dissimilar in the way one relates to other members of the community, but similar in one's level of commitment to those members.)

of Stability in this community of canons,

(A vow to stick with this novitiate in this community, no matter what. I will not blithely abandon this community. These vows are to last at least twelve months, and I will see them through, no matter what insights or doubts or failures may come.)

Conversion through the monastic way of life,

(A vow to allow my life as a Christian to be formed by the wisdom and requirements of this Benedictine community's life.)

and Obedience according to the Rule of our Holy Father Benedict.

(A vow I have long dreaded, ever since I began to take seriously the possibility of religious life. Obedience could always mean that I would not be taken seriously, that my voice would ultimately be ignored, that I would be bullied by my superiors. To obey, however, is to listen--ob audire--and I was able to make this vow because the capacity to listen in a self-emptying way is so clearly manifested in the superior of this community.)

By taking simple vows, I have been given the title of Sister. I am choosing to embrace that title in a broad way, and I invite anyone who encounters me to address me as Sister (abbreviated "Sr.") Kate if they feel comfortable doing so.

I used to joke with my Roman Catholic friends that they'd be calling me Sister Kate someday. I spent many years investigating seriously the possibility that I might be called to a religious vocation as a sister in the Roman Catholic Church. I assumed when I got engaged that that door would be closed to me forever. But lo! in the Episcopal Church, I have found that not to be true. One can be called "Sister" or "Brother" as a Benedictine Canon and be married with children as well--or not married, not a parent!

I find that embracing the title of "Sister" is a way of making a statement about my role as wife and mother as much as it is about being part of this Benedictine Canon community. Claiming this title is the same as saying that my roles of spouse and parent are indeed deeply holy, just as the role of the celibate religious person is. It isn't celibacy that forms the foundation of our holiness, according to this manner of Benedictine life. That is true of Episcopal clergy as well, of course--one can be single or in a committed relationship or married, and none of those things determines whether you are considered called to ordained ministry.

I asked the Prior of the community if I could make my simple vows on Candlemas because dates matter to me, and Candlemas in particular stands out as a date of significance. In 2006 (or perhaps it was 2007?) I participated in a Candlemas procession coordinated by my classmate, Cody Unterseher (of blessed memory). Cody had been Roman Catholic growing up, and he became an Episcopalian later on, partly (or perhaps mainly) because of his identity as a gay man. He found in the Episcopal Church a place to call a very dear and hospitable home, which I didn't relate much to at the time. I remember all the candles being carried by many warm hands down the long hallway into the chapel, where they were placed together around the Paschal Candle and blessed with water and holy words. I considered how much light the candles would give over the coming year as they burned down, down, down, the same way the baptized bear light in the world as they move toward the final extinguishing of their baptismal wick. I remember the smell wafting from the swinging thuribles of incense. I remember listening to the profound stories of Simeon and Anna, Mary and Joseph, and of a small child born to be light. I remember wondering why I had never celebrated Candlemas before.

That procession was with me yesterday. In this place, where fresh air flows freely, my baptismal flame burns brighter than ever. I find open doors and fresh air where I used to find locked doors carefully guarding musty, airless rooms.

I get it now. I get why Cody felt at home. Because now I, like he, am able to be wholly who I am called to be--no hiding or sneaking or wondering if I'll get caught for saying things too radical to people with power to diminish my light. I get it because I am now a religious novice in addition to being a wife and parent. I am invited to speak with my expertise and to utilize my gifts where before I was looked on with suspicion and, sometimes, pity. I am no longer being asked to choose one part of my call at the expense of another.

I am a novice of the Benedictine Canons, vowed to live out the Rule of Benedict in a way that honors my whole calling--as a woman, as a parent, and as a member of the baptized. I welcome this time of testing. I no longer fear that vow of obedience because I trust that I will never be asked to deny the many facets of my God-given vocation. I trust that I will be asked to chip away at the crust of my superficialities so that who I am called by God to be may glow brightly for all to see.

An Open Letter to Pope Francis from a Roman Catholic

1/17/2014

M. Kate Allen

To Pope Francis:

In my almost thirty-two years as a Roman Catholic, I have never been prouder of any pope. Granted, I've only encountered three in my lifetime, but I am also a student of Christian history. You stand out among your predecessors.

You have rocked the entire world with your embodied proclamations of the good news. You kiss the wounds of the sick. You share tables with those who have neither tables of their own nor food to put on them. You warn your clergy again and again against the glamour of clericalism. Your love is abundant, like Christ's was and is, and I have seen it have a multiplying effect, even (perhaps especially) among non-Roman Catholics.

I am tremendously grateful to God for your faithful, living witness to the teachings of Jesus. Your heart is wide open, and I feel quite certain that if I happened to walk into your midst, you would smile and greet me with the warmth of an old friend, and I would greet you likewise.

I need to confess something to you. On February 16, 2014, God willing, I will leave my cloak of Roman Catholic identity behind in order to be received as a member of the Episcopal Church.

Despite having spent my entire life as a devoted (albeit flawed) Roman Catholic, I cannot remain Roman Catholic any longer. Because despite the gospel of Jesus you now proclaim miraculously through your very body, and despite the many ways in which I encounter Christ's presence through your holy example, I'm afraid there is at least one way in which you, like most if not all of your predecessors, have failed to hear the voice of God and heed it: in the calling of thousands upon thousands of women around the world to ordained ministry.

I was able to name my own God-given call to ordained ministry thirteen years ago. I was still a teenager then. I am close with several Roman Catholic women who share the same call. Yet you, like your papal predecessors, have dismissed even the possibility that women might be called to ordained ministry.

I don't understand this hardness of heart. Not from you.

What I do understand is how hard it can be to hear God's earnest whispers when so much of one's culture screams against it. My favorite psalm is Psalm 51, because it is a perpetual invitation to be changed, transformed, turned around:

Create in me a clean heart, o God.
...
Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways
and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.

I suspect this psalm is as dear to you as it is to me. Please, then, let God's whispers reach your ear through my meager words: God calls some women to serve as ordained ministers. That the Roman Catholic hierarchy refuses to acknowledge this (or even to discuss it) is gravely sinful. It is presumptuous to deny God's calling to those whom God has chosen.

Please, for God's sake, don't allow whatever is lacking in me cause you to be deaf to what God is speaking to you through me in this moment. If anyone with the authority to effect gospel change in the Roman Catholic Church can hear this prophetic word, I believe you can.

Please, open your heart and listen for the sake of my daughters, who will grow up in the midst of your legacy even if they never set foot in a Roman Catholic church.

Please, listen. Listen because you know better than almost anyone that God speaks prophetically through those who are marginalized, women included.

Please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart, listen--allow yourself to be importuned by me, just like the judge was importuned by the widow, or like Jesus was importuned by the woman begging for scraps. You and I both know what happened in those latter two instances. If Jesus' mind could be changed, surely yours can.

I believe that the world-wide turning of hearts to God, if you listened in this one way and acted accordingly, would be a miracle of biblical proportion.

With blessings and love in the One who creates, redeems, and sanctifies all the world,

M. Kate Allen

This letter originally appeared at parentwin.com, where I am a regular contributor on topics of religion. The letter went viral among my Facebook friends and received more discussion and shares there than anything else I've every written, anywhere. A friend of mine encouraged me to mail it to Pope Francis. I did. If he responds, I will share his response here. (Unless he asks me not to.)