Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Psalm 1

4/22/2018

Psalm 1 of the Thean Psalter

Happy are they whose delight is in the wisdom of Thea,
   who meditate on her wisdom day and night.

They are like trees planted by streams of water,
   bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither.

For Thea embraces all who seek her,
   and touches them with her love.

Greeting the New Year

1/1/2018

Spiral Goddess. Image Credit: naturalshaman.blogspot.com

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, which is available as a free PDF or as a print prayer book ($10). 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. ♥

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. ♥

When light and shadow unite

5/6/2017

This evening I arrived early at Pathways of Grace to set up for Thean Evening Prayer, and I found a complimentary copy of Kissed by God - Holy Women Create! by Shirley Cunningham waiting for me. I flipped through it, sipping images and sampling stories of biblical and spiritual female leaders from the Jewish and Christian worlds. A short piece of mine was included at the very end of the book about the woman at the well who encountered the Christ. My breath caught as I read it.

I wait, preparing to make my hasty retreat, wondering if my bucket can help me fend him off if he tries to attack me. He doesn’t move. He continues to look at my face, as if I am the living well and he is refreshing his parched lips and mouth with the story of my life. He takes time, setting aside his ego to make space for my story—and then he tells it to me as he has perceived it.

This--the experience of having another take the time to absorb my story with openhearted love and non-judgment--this is the moment when light and shadow unite. And this is the moment of ecstasy, of knowing that I am beloved, exactly as I am.

I considered this as I led prayer this evening. When I was Christian, in recognizing that I was the beloved, I understood myself as being in an ongoing process of becoming united to the source of my longing and fulfillment, to the Holy One.

As a Thean, I reocognize that I have always been united to the Holy One--not because of baptism, not because of belief, but because I am of her. What a strange and surprising thing it is, to spend one's life seeking what one yearns for, only to discover that what one yearns for has been within oneself all along.

It took thirty-three years for me to realize that my pining was not for the one just beyond my reach, who complemented me but was decidedly not me. My pining turned out to be for the one I beheld in the mirror, the one whose hands and feet and eyes and voice were the instruments of my muse, my author, myself. I am united to Thea, not because I was ever separate from her and then did what was required to become one with her, but because I am her handiwork, and my flesh is her flesh.

Tonight I prayed the psalms and was reminded that Thea's body is nothing more or less than creation. I am the one I seek, and the one I seek is likewise in every other creature I will ever meet--in my beloved husband, in my darling children, in my despised enemy, in the cascading waterfall, in the unmoved mountain, in the cocooned caterpillar. To recognize Thea in myself is to recognize her in all the world, and that is reason for pause. If I trust that my light and shadow are beloved, then it follows that the light and shadow of all beings, animate and inanimate, are also beloved.

What a challenge that is to accept. And what a wonder. It's so easy in daily life to give in to the temptation to dismiss others--and yet those others are made of the same sacred starstuff I am.

And so I wondered, long after I was left alone at Pathways of Grace this evening, what it would take to love others in the way I've learned to love myself, my beautiful, broken, vivacious, imperfect, holy self. And I wondered if perhaps I'm still clinging to the idea of a holy other whose job it is to be available to the one whose yearning runs deep, when all I need to do is look in the mirror to see where love begins and ends.

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.

Psalm 116

7/24/2016

Psalm 116

I love you, O Thea;
   hear the voice of my pleading;
   incline your ear to me,

For the cords of death entangle me,
   and the grip of the grave takes hold of me!

Hear me when I pray,
   “O Thea, save my life from destruction!”

I trust that you will rescue my life from death,
   my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.

For gracious and kind are you;
   you are the compassionate one.

Even now, you give me a new chance to walk in your presence
   in the land of the living.

O Thea, I am yours;
   I am the daughter of your daughters.

I will fulfill my vow to walk on your path
   in the presence of all your Creatures.

While I have life, I will lift up the cup of your covenant
   and call upon you, O Thea.

Psalm 109: A Transformation

7/22/2016

I rarely post on Thealogical Lady twice in one day, but the psalms from both morning and evening prayer today merited attention. I invite you to compare the NIV version of Psalm 109 (see below on the left) with my Thean transformation of it, which I finished just today (see below on the right).

Psalm 109

My God, whom I praise,
    do not remain silent,

for people who are wicked and deceitful
    have opened their mouths against me;
    they have spoken against me with lying tongues.

With words of hatred they surround me;
    they attack me without cause.

In return for my friendship they accuse me,
    but I am a man of prayer.

They repay me evil for good,
    and hatred for my friendship.

Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
    let an accuser stand at his right hand.

When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
    and may his prayers condemn him.

May his days be few;
    may another take his place of leadership.

May his children be fatherless
    and his wife a widow.

May his children be wandering beggars;
    may they be driven from their ruined homes.

May a creditor seize all he has;
    may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

May no one extend kindness to him
    or take pity on his fatherless children.

May his descendants be cut off,
    their names blotted out from the next generation.

May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
    may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

May their sins always remain before the Lord,
    that he may blot out their name from the earth.

For he never thought of doing a kindness,
    but hounded to death the poor
    and the needy and the brokenhearted.

He loved to pronounce a curse--
    may it come back on him.
He found no pleasure in blessing--
    may it be far from him.

He wore cursing as his garment;
    it entered into his body like water,
    into his bones like oil.

May it be like a cloak wrapped about him,
    like a belt tied forever around him.

May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers,
    to those who speak evil of me.

But you, Sovereign Lord,
    help me for your name’s sake;
    out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.

For I am poor and needy,
    and my heart is wounded within me.

I fade away like an evening shadow;
    I am shaken off like a locust.

My knees give way from fasting;
    my body is thin and gaunt.

I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
    when they see me, they shake their heads.

Help me, Lord my God;
    save me according to your unfailing love.

Let them know that it is your hand,
    that you, Lord, have done it.

While they curse, may you bless;
    may those who attack me be put to shame,
    but may your servant rejoice.

May my accusers be clothed with disgrace
    and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.

With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord;
    in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.

For he stands at the right hand of the needy,
    to save their lives from those who would condemn them.

Psalm 109

Do not fail to act, O Thea,
   while the mouth of the one who hates me is opened against me.

She speaks to me with a lying tongue;
   she surrounds me with hateful words
   and fights against me without a cause.

Despite my love, she accuses me;
   but as for me, I pray that your love will envelop her.

She repays evil for good,
   and hatred for my love.

She does not remember to show mercy,
   but persecutes the poor and needy
   and seeks to destroy the brokenhearted.

She loves cursing,
but let it not come upon her;
   she takes no delight in blessing,
   but let it shower upon her.

She wears cursing like a garment,
   let it not soak into her body like water
   or into her bones like oil;

Let it not be to her like the cloak which she wraps around herself,
   and like the belt that she wears continually.

O Thea my Goddess,
   for your tender mercy’s sake, deliver her.

For she is poor and needy,
   and her heart is wounded within her.

She has faded away like a shadow when it lengthens;
   she is shaken off like a locust.

Her knees are weak,
   and her flesh is wasted and gaunt.

She has become a reproach to all around her;
   they see and shake their heads.

Help her, O Thea my Goddess;
   save her for your mercy’s sake.

She may curse, but you will bless;
   give her cause to rejoice once more.

Then I will give great thanks to you with my mouth;
   in the midst of the multitude I will praise you;

Because you stand beside the one who is most needy,
   to save her from her own stony heart.

Psalm 107 and Pelagius

7/22/2016

During my prayer today, I rewrote Psalm 107. This took me the better part of two hours--a considerable amount of time compared to what I've spent on other individual psalms. I think it required extra time because what I wanted it to say reminded me of a Christian heresy called Pelagianism, which basically says that we human beings have what we need within ourselves to attain/earn salvation--no extra help from God (via the Christ) necessary.

The difference between Christian and Thean thought here is twofold: first, according to Theanism, salvation is not something that human beings (or Creation at large) need--there is no doctrine of "Original Sin" in Theanism. Theanism claims that we are not now nor have we ever been nor could we ever be separate from Thea, even when we do wrong or commit evil deeds. Thea's love is stronger than any individual's or community's ability to do wrong--Thea's love, which binds all Creatures together as her Sacred Body, can never be torn apart.

Second, according to Theanism, all Creatures are Thea's Incarnation. Whereas Christianity requires God's Word to be made incarnate in a single, sinless man who is sacrificed by death on a cross for the world's salvation, Theanism says that we--all of us--are Thea. Therefore we are individually and collectively all we will ever need to fulfill our ultimate purpose, which is to love and bear witness to one another, particularly by answering the passion that stirs deepest within our hearts, no matter what obstacles lay before or around or beneath or behind us. When we experience fear, doubt, or distress, as the people in Psalm 107 do, we only need to remember who we are: Thea's Sacred Body, capable of fulfilling our destiny to love if we can just turn inward to remember that love is the stuff we're made of.

Psalm 107

Give thanks to Thea, for her love is a holy flame
   that burns brightly within her Creatures.

Some wander in the desert,
   finding no way to a city where their hearts might dwell.

They hunger and thirst;
   their flesh languishes.

Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help,
   and their divine fire melts their icy fear;

Thea thus puts their feet on a straight path
   to go to a city where they might dwell.

Some sit in darkness and deep gloom,
   bound fast in misery and iron;

They are humbled with difficult work;
   they stumble, and find none to help.

Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help,
   and their divine fire melts their icy fear;

Thea thus leads them out of darkness and deep gloom
   and breaks their bonds asunder.

Some go down to the sea in ships
   and ply their trade in deep waters;

Then a stormy wind rises up,
   which tosses high the waves of the sea.

They mount up to the skies and fall back to the depths;
   their hearts freeze because of their peril.

They reel and stagger like drunkards
   and are at their wits’ end.

Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help,
   and their divine fire melts their icy fear;

Thea thus stills the storm to a whisper
   and she brings them to the harbor they are bound for.

Thea’s love changes deserts into pools of water
   and dry land into water-springs.

She settles the hungry there,
   and they find a city to dwell in.

They sow fields, and plant vineyards,
   and bring in a fruitful harvest.

The wise will ponder these things,
   and consider well the holy fire of Thea that burns within.

Psalm 106

7/21/2016

Ten months ago today, I wrote a post detailing my frustrations with the characterization of God in Psalm 106. I rediscovered that post just now after transforming that very psalm. This is what Thea looks like to me. ♥

Psalm 106

We give thanks to you, O Thea,
   for your love for your Creatures is unending.

When we were enslaved we did not consider your marvelous works,
nor remember the abundance of your love;
   we defied you, believing not even you could help us.

But you set us free,
   making your power known.

You rebuked the sea, and it dried up,
   and you led us through the deep as through a desert.

You delivered us from the hand of those who hated us
   and empowered us to escape from those who would have held us captive.

But we soon forgot your deeds
   and did not take time to discern your wisdom for ourselves.

A craving seized us in the wilderness,
   and we put you to the test in the desert.

We envied Miriam in the camp,
   Miriam, your chosen one.

We forgot you, O Thea,
   you who had liberated us.

We grumbled in our tents
   and would not listen to your voice.

Then we were overtaken by the hand of our enemy
   and those who hated us ruled over us.

Our enemies oppressed us,
   and we were humbled under their hand.

Time after time you delivered us from our enslavement,
   but we forgot your love and sank into traps of our own making.

Nevertheless, you saw our distress
   when we voiced our lamentation.

You remembered your love, even when we forgot it,
   and lifted us up once more.

Blessed be you, O Thea, author of Creation,
   and may the blessing of your love ever be upon us!

Who is an icon of you?

6/2/2016

In my prayers today, I came across Psalm 15, which asks an important question:

Psalm 15

Thea, who is an icon of you?
   Who reveals your holy Body?

Each of us—whether blameless or guilty,
   whether she speaks the truth from her heart or deceives;

Whether there is guile upon her tongue;
whether she offers evil or kindness to her friend;
   whether she heaps generosity or contempt upon her neighbor;

Whether she has sworn to do no wrong
   or makes a vow and then takes back her word.

We are, each of us, icons of you,
because we are your living Body, broken, holy, and ever healing.

What a marvel, that you should knit us together in your love,
   sustaining us for love’s sake alone.

Blessed be Thea, our author and our sacred self,
   now and forever. Amen, amen.

The Creation Song by Shiloh Sophia McCloud / www.shilohsophiastudios.com

Evildoers and God's Body

5/19/2016

Psalm 94 came up in my morning prayer today, and it gave me pause.

I noted these lines first:

As often as I said, "My foot has slipped,"
your love, O Thea, upheld me.

And then I noted these:

Can a corrupt community have any part with you,
one which frames evil into wisdom?

The difficulty I have with this psalm is that every person who prays the psalms does evil at some time or another--and yet Thea upholds them. Many people point fingers at communities that frame evil into wisdom, but those finger-pointing people do evil, too, as do their own communities. We are all broken--we are all trying.

I believe that all of Creation is Thea's--God's--Sacred Body, and yet we are mean and spiteful. We do wrong. We act cruelly--on purpose, and by carelessness. Sometimes, even often, we are good, forbearing, and virtuous, but no one is any of those things at every moment.

How can Thea get behind any of us when we are kind one moment and hypocritical the next?

And yet--Thea upholds each one of us. She loves us without condition. We are each part of her, the stuff of the stars, the evolution of billions of years of her creative, imaginative love.

This psalm reminds me of all that I have ever done wrong and all I have ever attempted to do right. It also reminds me that Thea values me--and the person I despise, just as much as the person I love--no matter what.

Her enveloping love is scandalous by the standards of human interaction. We want justice, not overwhelming, unwavering love. And yet Thea gives us more than we think we or others deserve. She's more radical than any one of us in her lovingness.

I sit here, pondering the enormity of her, of all of us who are her Sacred Body, and I am overwhelmed. She loves me, and him, and her, and you.

What if I loved like that--even a little bit? Not in order to be recognized as someone special or good, but just for the sake of loving, just like she loves us for the sake of loving?

Maybe I'd judge the evil-doing of others less readily. Maybe I'd learn greater compassion. Maybe I'd see the holy light of Thea that dwells in me in the eyes and hearts of those I find difficult to be around. Maybe I'd be tapping into the love that brought me into being and which sustains me from moment to moment. Maybe I'd be learning to recognize my own small part in the divine Self.

And maybe I'd get to taste what it is like to be the Great Love that binds us all together. ♥

Psalms for the morning of the fifth day

5/5/2016

I am nearly finished with the revisions of my psalter. Praying with it gives me chills, wonder, and hope. ♥

Psalm 24

Creation is Thea and all that is in it,
   the universe and all who dwell therein.

For it is she who splashes as the seas
   and is firm as earth alongside the great rivers.

“Who can descend the valley of Thea?
   and who can stand in her holy place?

“Those who have a pure heart,
   who have not pledged themselves to falsehood,
   nor sworn by what is a fraud.

They shall receive a blessing from Thea
   and a just reward from the Goddess whose body they are.”

Such is the generation of those who seek her,
   of those who seek your face, O Goddess of Creation.

Lift up your heads, O gates;
   lift them high, O everlasting doors;
   and the Queen of glory shall come in.

“Who is this Queen of glory?”
   “Thea, strong and mighty,
   Thea, mighty in battle.”

Lift up your heads, O gates;
lift them high, O everlasting doors;
   and the Queen of glory shall come in.

“Who is she, this Queen of glory?”
   “The Lady of Creation,
   she is the Queen of glory.”

Psalm 25

To you, O Thea, I lift up my flesh;
   my Goddess, I put my trust in you.

Let none who look to you be put to shame;
   let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes.

Show me your ways, O Thea,
   and teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are the Goddess, the breath of my flesh;
   in you I have trusted all day long.

Remember, O Thea, your compassion and love,
   for they are everlasting.

Remember not the wrongdoing of my youth and my transgressions;
   remember me according to your love
   and for the sake of your goodness, O Thea.

Gracious and upright is Thea;
   therefore she teaches her Creatures in her ways.

She guides the humble in doing right
   and teaches her way to the lowly.

All the paths of Thea are love and faithfulness;
   the Goddess shows her Creatures her ways.

Who are they who are in awe of Thea?
   she will teach them the way that they should choose.

Thea is a friend to those who are in awe of her
   and will show them her covenant.

My eyes are ever looking to Thea,
   for she shall pluck my feet out of the net.

Protect my life and deliver me;
   let me not be put to shame, for I have trusted in you.

Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,
   for my hope has been in you.

Deliver Creation, O Goddess,
   out of all her troubles.

Psalm 26

Give judgment for me, O Thea,
for I have lived with integrity;
   I have trusted in Thea and have not faltered.

Test me, O Thea, and try me;
   examine my heart and my mind.

For your love is before my eyes;
   I have walked faithfully with you.

I will wash my hands in innocence, O Thea,
   that I may go in procession round your altar,

Singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
   and recounting all your wonderful deeds.

Thea, I love the house in which you dwell
   and the place where your glory abides.

My foot stands on level ground;
   in the full assembly I will bless Thea.

Living Lent: Passion Sunday Meets Spring Equinox

3/20/2016

This year, for the first time in eleven years, Passion Sunday (more commonly known as Palm Sunday) falls on the same day as the Spring Equinox, the first day of spring.

Palm Sunday was one of the Sundays I most looked forward to growing up, because it meant receiving a palm frond, singing hosannahs, and processing around the church--ritual at its finest. Now I find that Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday, is too distinctly Christian for me to celebrate it the way I once did. It heralds the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, where he will be put to death. This, according to Christian teaching, is the culmination of his three-year ministry, the reason for which he was born, by most Christian estimations. The cross is the primary symbol of Christians--there is no Christianity without Jesus's murderous death (and resurrection).

For me as a Thean, the death of Jesus, the Messiah, is no longer central to me. In fact, the existence of a savior of the world isn't central to me, either. Several other things assume central importance for me: the creation of the world (for isn't it amazing that there is something rather nothing?); the incarnation of Thea, which is the universe; the inherent goodness of all things; the communal command to be reconciled to one another; the radical breaking down of barriers through the sharing of table fellowship; and the ability of all beings to be transformed, whether from death to life or from poor of heart to rich of heart.

Instead of looking for palm fronds to hail a redeemer, I cut branches from one of our orange trees, gave one to each of my girls, and led them on a procession through the deck and the house, that we might bless the spaces we share together. Then I invited them, in honor of the coming of spring, to plant three kinds of seeds in the earth with me. Then I took them to their room, gathered them close to me, and talked with them about what Thea is like, and how we are all of Thea, and how greatly Thea loves us and wants us to love one another.

Singing hosannahs around the house on Palm Sunday has always been comfortable, but today it jars me. I am aware of how much work I have yet to do in developing my thealogy--not only my beliefs, but stories, songs, and rituals. Thean faith and liturgy may look a lot like Christian faith and liturgy, but they are not the same. I have spent a great deal of time focusing on their similarities, but now, more than ever, is the time to focus on the differences. The differences don't make Theanism better or worse than Christianity, but they do make a difference in how and what I teach my daughters about God and our place in the universe. The fact is, I don't want them to grow up thinking that they had to be saved by a God-man. I want them to know that their Goddess, their Thea, is as near as their own bodies, and that they are holy, and that they have all the power they need to effect tremendous change in the world. They don't need Jesus to be their hero; they can be their own heroes, because they are daughters of Thea. And they can do that by planting seeds, whether in the ground, in other's hearts, or in their own hearts. ♥

What I'm not teaching my daughters

10/15/2015

As I retranslate the Book of Psalms, I come across too many instances in which the psalmist writes something like this:

"Pour out your wrath upon the heathen who have not known you
and upon the the kingdoms that have not called upon your Name."
--Psalm 79

This usually comes after several lines of lament about how God has become angry at Israel and turned God's face away from them, so that their enemies overpower them. I'm nearly finished translating the Psalter, and I'm shocked at how often lines like these come up. How did I pray the whole Psalter every month when I was a Benedictine Canon (Novice)? How did I let such vengeful words pass my lips?

I suspect the rote character of reciting the psalms daily, combined with the daunting task of chanting the psalm tones correctly, dampened the impact of the words I was praying. In other words, I didn't know what I was praying. Now that I approach these words again, psalm by psalm, line by line, I can no longer gloss over them like I once did. I feel compelled to leave them out altogether. I don't want my daughters to learn that, if things are going badly for them, a) God is mad at them, or b) they have a right to wish God's wrath on someone else. Both of those ideas are completely backwards according to my thealogy.

I'm struggling as I finish this translation to remain true to the text when there's so much that I find thealogically problematic. There are many beautiful, transformative lines in the psalms, like "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51). There are many lines of praise to God, and gratitude for the wonders of creation, the work of God's hands. Those lines are lines that I will teach my daughters to memorize. I may even keep some of the lines that ask God why she has turned her face away, because it's a very human thing to search for reasons for the bad things that happen to us. When things are truly awful, it's natural for one to question God about why it's happened. But I will not teach my daughters to believe that God is wrathful, much less that God takes out her wrath on people when she loses her temper. My Goddess doesn't work like that. My Goddess is a Goddess of mercy, love, and tender care.

I feel a loss as I continue my work on the Psalter--elements of my childhood faith that I accepted without question are now no longer acceptable to me, and I'm having to let them go. I'm even having to rethink the Exodus, because I can't attribute the plagues to God's will. The Judeo-Christian pillars of my faith are failing, and I'm having to reimagine Goddess from the ground up.

Despite my losses, I trust that this book of prayer I'm creating is also revealing Goddess to me, one line at a time.

Women Seeding Change

9/23/2015

Image by Catrin Welz-Stein, http://catrinwelzstein.blogspot.com/

For the love of a tree,
she went out on a limb.
For the love of the sea,
she rocked the boat.
For the love of the earth,
she dug deeper.
For the love of community,
she mended fences.
For the love of the stars,
she let her light shine.
For the love of spirit,
she nurtured her soul.
For the love of a good time,
she sowed seeds of happiness.
For the love of the Goddess,
she drew down the moon.
For the love of nature,
she made compost.
For the love of a good meal,
she gave thanks.
For the love of family,
she reconciled differences.
For the love of creativity,
she entertained new possibilities.
For the love of her enemies,
she suspended judgment.
For the love of herself,
she acknowledged her worth.
And the world was richer for her.
~Charlotte Tall Mountain

TreeSisters is a movement of women seeking to reforest the tropics in ten years. I found the above poem on their Facebook page. Their crowdfunding campaign to fund the reforesting may be found at www.GrowTreeSisters.com. For as little as $22, they'll plant a tree in your name. I invite you to take a look and consider donating to this green and lovely cause.

Characterizing God(dess)

9/21/2015

In the BCP's prescribed psalms for today, God is depicted as a jealous and vengeful God. In Psalm 105, the Egyptians didn't listen to God's command to let the people of Israel go, so God unleashed plagues on them, including death upon their firstborns. Then, in Psalm 106, the people of Israel "intermingled with the heathen and learned their pagan ways," and thus "they were polluted by their actions and went whoring in their evil deeds." Consequently, "the wrath of the Lord was kindled against his (sic) people, and those who hated them ruled over them."

In other words, people didn't act in accordance with God's will, so God threw magnificent tantrums.

As I revise the Psalter into a Thean prayer book, I find I can't abide by this manner of characterizing God. When I imagine God, I imagine her acting like a compassionate, patient, wise, peaceful grown-up--not like a child or a cult leader.

I don't want a fickle God. I want a God who's bigger than that. I want a God who shows her might in her gentleness and care; I want a God who forgives without demanding punishment first. I want a God who gets righteously angry at oppression and enslavement--realities that any loving individual ought to be angry about--and at the same time, I want her primary motivation to be love for all her creatures, who are (in equal measure) her incarnation.

As I reweave the psalms for Thean use, justice for the poor and oppressed will appear, but I hope to eliminate tantrums--particularly death-dealing ones. My Goddess is a Goddess of life, and I want to convey that, one psalm at a time.

115

4/23/2015

Thea,
rouse your mighty spirit
and stir the still waters within me
until my heart is a storm,
wild with torrents of your love.
Amen.

111

4/21/2015

Thea,
I overheard the table conversation of some followers of the Way.
One said to the other, "All paths lead to God."
The other replied, "None come to the Father except through Jesus."
I bit my tongue, and wondered if I should share the good news of you.
In the end I remained silent, knowing that's what I would want if the tables were turned.
Give me the grace to love the hearts of those who believe only-through-Jesus,
and give me the grace to love the many paths that lead to you.
Amen.

99

4/9/2015

Thea,
teach me to behold my enemies with gentle love
and compassion as deep as your own.
Amen.