Thealogical Lady: A Blog

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. ♥

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 139

7/29/2016

Psalm 139

Thea, you search me out and you know me;
   you know my sitting down and my rising up;
   you discern the pattern of my thoughts.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places
   and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips
   that you, O Thea, do not know.

You journey behind, before, and beside me,
   and you lay your hand upon me in blessing.

Where can I go then from your Ruach?
    where can I flee from your presence?

If I climb to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

If I take the wings of the morning
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there your hand will lead me
   and your hands hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me,
   and the light around me turn to night,”

Darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day;
   darkness and light to you are both alike.

For you yourself created my inmost parts;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I will thank you because I am marvelously made;
   all your works are wonders to behold.

My body was not hidden from you,
   while I was being made in secret
   and woven in the depths.

Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;
all of them were already written in your book;
   they were fashioned day by day,
   when as yet there was none of them.

How deep I find your thoughts, O Thea!
   how great is the sum of them!

If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
   to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Search me, O Thea, and know my heart;
   lead me in your wisdom’s way.

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 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!

Psalm 78

7/15/2016

This is a psalm that originally spoke of the stubborn hearts and repeated rebelling of God's people, despite God's goodness and generosity. In the original psalm, God grew angry and finally allowed the people to die off to see if it would make any difference with them.

I believe my rendering of this psalm speaks to a Thean worldview, one in which we as Creatures still rebel and in which God still resists that rebellion, but in which rebellion, resistance, and resolution are imagined in a very different way.

Psalm 78

Hear my teaching, my sisters,
   incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable;
   I will declare the mysteries of ancient times.

That which we have heard and known,
and what our foremothers have told us,
   we will not hide from their children.

We will recount to generations to come
   the liberating deeds and loving power of Thea.

She established wisdom,
which she gave us to teach our children;

That the generations to come might know,
and the children yet unborn;
   that they in their turn might tell it to their children;

So that they might discover their divine identity
   and live as icons of her in the world.

She worked marvels in the sight of our foremothers,
   in the land where they were once slaves.

She split open the sea and let them pass through;
   she made the waters stand up like walls.

She led them with a cloud by day,
   and all the night through with a glow of fire.

She split the hard rocks in the wilderness
   and gave them drink as from the great deep.

She brought streams out of the cliff,
   and the waters gushed out like rivers.

And she said to them, “This!
   This is what I want you to do for your fellow Creatures!”

But they strayed from the path she had given them,
   rebelling in the desert against her.

They tested her in their hearts,
   demanding food for their craving.

They railed against her and said,
   “Can you set a table in the wilderness?

True, she struck the rock, the waters gushed out, and the gullies overflowed;
   but are you able to give bread
   or to provide meat for her creatures?”

When Thea heard this,
   a fire ignited in her heart,

For they had no faith in Thea;
   how could they possibly have faith in themselves?

So she commanded the clouds above
   and opened the doors of heaven.

She rained down manna upon them to eat
   and gave them grain from heaven.

So mortals ate the bread of angels;
   she provided for them food enough.

She caused the east wind to blow in the heavens
   and led out the south wind by her might.

She rained down flesh upon them like dust
   and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

She let it fall in the midst of their camp
   and round about their dwellings.

So they are and were well filled,
   for she gave them what they craved.

But they did not believe in her promise,
   that her power to work miracles was also their power.

They remained steadfast in their stubbornness
   and had no faith in her wonderful works.

Then Thea woke as though from sleep,
   like a warrior refreshed with wine.

She set her eyes on her Creatures,
   whom she had always loved;

And she whispered in their hearts once more,
   that they might recognize their true calling, their deepest yearning,
   and become her miracle-working hands and feet and heart in the world.

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: Psalm 10

3/2/2016

I have revised Psalm 10 to be a Thean psalm, and I find it speaks volumes to the current political situation in the United States.

Psalm 10

Why do you stand so far off, O Thea,
   and hide yourself in time of trouble?

The wicked arrogantly persecute the poor,
   but they are trapped in the schemes they have devised.

The wicked boast of their heart’s desire;
   the covetous curse and revile the poor.

The wicked are so proud that they care not for others;
their only thought is, “Creation does not matter.”

Their ways are devious at all times;
your judgments are far above out of their sight;
   they defy all their enemies.

They say in their heart, “I shall not be shaken;
   no harm shall happen to me ever.”

Their mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression;
    under their tongue are mischief and wrong.

They lurk in ambush in public squares
and in secret places they murder the innocent;
   they spy out the helpless.

They lie in wait, like a lion in a covert;
they lie in wait to seize upon the lowly;
   they seize the lowly and drag them away in their net.

The innocent are broken and humbled before them;
   the helpless fall before their power.

Rise up, O Thea;
   do not forget the afflicted.

Surely, you behold trouble and misery;
   you see it and take it into your own hand.

The helpless commit themselves to you,
   for you are the helper of orphans.

Break the power of the wicked and evil;
   search out their wickedness until you find none.

Thea will hear the desire of the humble;
   you will strengthen their heart and your ears shall hear;

To give justice to the orphan and oppressed,
   so that mere mortals may strike terror no more.

Living Lent: Psalm 68

2/14/2016

One of my goals in rewriting the psalter is to diminish the culture of vengeance that permeates it. In this spirit, I have rewritten Psalm 68.

Psalm 68

Let all Creatures be glad and rejoice before Goddess;
   let them also be merry and joyful.

Sing to Goddess, sing praises to her Name;
exalt her who rides upon the oceans;
   Thea is her Name, rejoice before her!

Mother of orphans, defender of widows,
   Goddess in her holy habitation!

Goddess gives the solitary a home
   and brings forth prisoners into freedom.

You sent a gracious rain, O Goddess, upon your inheritance;
   you refreshed the land when it was weary.

Your Creatures found their home in it;
   in your goodness, O Goddess, you have made provision for the poor.

Though you lingered among the sheepfolds,
   you shall be like a dove whose wings are covered with silver,
   whose feathers are like green gold.

You have gone up on high and led captivity captive;
you have received gifts even from all your Creatures,
   that the Lady Goddess might dwell among them.

Blessed be Thea day by day,
   the Goddess of our salvation, who bears our burdens.

She is our Goddess, the Goddess of our salvation;
   Goddess is the Lady, by whom we escape death.

They see your procession, O Goddess,
   your procession into the sanctuary, my Goddess and my Queen.

The singers go before, musicians follow after,
   in the midst of maidens playing upon the hand-drums.

Bless Goddess in the gathering;
   bless Thea, you that are of the fountain of Creation.

Send forth your strength, O Goddess;
   establish, O Goddess, what you have wrought for us.

Queens shall bring gifts to you,
   for your temple’s sake.

Sing to Goddess, O queendoms of the earth;
   sing praises to Thea.

She rides in the heavens, the ancient heavens;
   she sends forth her voice, her mighty voice.

Ascribe power to Goddess;
   her majesty is through Creation;
   her strength is in the skies and the earth.

How wonderful is Goddess in her holy places!
   the Goddess of Creation giving strength and power to her Creatures!
   Blessed be Goddess!

Thean Prayer Book

1/29/2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Gospel According to Kate

1/27/2016

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

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

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

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.

Woman and Goddess

9/26/2015

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

Psalm 144

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Presiding like a woman

8/22/2015

This is how we do it:

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

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

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

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

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

-Nicola Slee

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

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

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

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

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