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Spirit Whispers: Speak up

6/17/2014

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If you've never had the experience of participating in a spiritual discernment committee, I invite you to consider it.

After my fifth (and final) meeting with my discernment committee for priesthood yesterday evening, my committee confirmed that they heard my call to priesthood. And that's not even the extraordinary part.

The extraordinary part is that, as I prayed yesterday before my meeting, I prayed for total surrender to God's will, and for the faithfulness not to run if that will was something my ego didn't like. My total surrender granted me total, deep, quieting peace.

The extraordinary part is that, having let go of my attachment to the outcome of my discernment process, I happened to read (during evening prayer) the story in Matthew about the disciples who wanted to know why they couldn't heal the sick on their own when Jesus so easily could. Jesus told them it was because they lacked faith, and that if they had faith even the size of a mustard seed, mountains would move for them. And I realized at that moment that my mustard seed faith was what had moved the mountain of my ego in order to make a straight path for Spirit to enter and dwell deep within my heart.

The extraordinary part is that, despite having a clear sense of call when I walked into the process, my sense of call widened and deepened and became more rooted as the dialogue went on.

The extraordinary part is that, especially in the final two meetings, as I listened to the challenging questions of my committee members, I perceived Spirit doing the asking. And as I offered my vulnerable, open-hearted answers, I perceived Spirit speaking through me. (It's fair to say that I've never experienced God's voice speaking to me so powerfully as I have in my discernment committee meetings, and for a Benedictine who hears God speaking to her through liturgy and scripture and encounters with others all the time, that's saying a lot.)

The extraordinary part is that, despite my Enneagram-three-personality-type's desire to manage a situation in such a way that the outcome is "positive," I was required to relinquish my ability to do that in order to speak plainly and truthfully. I was painfully aware that my deep honesty could at any moment result in the humiliation of my ego, and I spoke anyway. In that total risk of my ego, I realized it was not my ego that spoke, but Spirit.

When I walked out of my meeting last night, I had no idea what my committee members had heard. I didn't know what they would say. My three-ish ability to anticipate the outcome of the process failed me spectacularly. And I perceived in my failure the possibility of God's success--success in finding a way to make use of the quirky instrument that I am.

My committee is passing me on to the next steps of the discernment process, steps that will be challenging in their own ways. What my committee heard may not be confirmed by the next folks I encounter in the discernment process. But what happens next is not my concern.

The most important piece to emerge for me from this discernment process is the profound recognition that my heart--my whole heart--belongs to the one I call God. Whatever comes, I know that I will be faithful to the path God has prepared for me. I won't turn away. This is God's gig, and I am God's beautiful, imperfect instrument.

What song(s) will God choose to play through me for the uplifting, healing, and reconciling of her creation?

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Easter: Day 20

5/9/2014

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The psalms appointed for morning prayer in The Book of Common Prayer today included Psalm 44, and I couldn't help but think of the girls kidnapped in Nigeria with these words on their lips:

We have heard with our ears, O God,
   our ancestors have told us,
what deeds you performed in their days,
   in the days of old:
you with your own hand drove out the nations,
   but them you planted;
you afflicted the peoples,
   but them you set free;
for not by their own sword did they win the land,
   nor did their own arm give them victory;
but your right hand, and your arm,
   and the light of your countenance,
   for you delighted in them.

You are my King and my God;
   you command victories for Jacob.
Through you we push down our foes;
   through your name we tread down our assailants.
For not in my bow do I trust,
   nor can my sword save me.
But you have saved us from our foes,
   and have put to confusion those who hate us.
In God we have boasted continually,
   and we will give thanks to your name for ever.

Yet you have rejected us and abased us,
   and have not gone out with our armies.
You made us turn back from the foe,
   and our enemies have taken spoil for themselves.
You have made us like sheep for slaughter,
   and have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for a trifle,
   demanding no high price for them.

You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
   the derision and scorn of those around us.
You have made us a byword among the nations,
   a laughing-stock among the peoples.
All day long my disgrace is before me,
   and shame has covered my face
at the words of the taunters and revilers,
   at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

All this has come upon us,
   yet we have not forgotten you,
   or been false to your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back,
   nor have our steps departed from your way,
yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,
   and covered us with deep darkness.

If we had forgotten the name of our God,
   or spread out our hands to a strange god,
would not God discover this?
   For he knows the secrets of the heart.
Because of you we are being killed all day long,
   and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.


And as the final words of this psalm come around, I can't help but think that the hands and feet and deeds they seek from God are the ones given by God to me--and you.


Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
   Awake, do not cast us off for ever!
Why do you hide your face?
   Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For we sink down to the dust;
   our bodies cling to the ground.
Rise up, come to our help.
   Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.


How will I use my God-given hands and feet--how will I use my freedom to act--for the liberation of those who are, at this very moment, horrifically oppressed?

Here's a statement about the Nigerian girls from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori given on behalf of the Episcopal Church, and here's a link to the call for submissions for the anthology that will be published in honor of the girls (whose proceeds will go to notforsalecampaign.org)


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Easter: Day 19

5/8/2014

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My spiritual director recently invited me to make a graph of the losses I've experienced throughout my life. She invited me to mark losses as being either negative or positive (by drawing marking them below or above the timeline, respectively), and to indicate how great each loss was at the time by the length of the mark. The result of this graph is the ability to see the frequency, kinds, and impacts of my losses all at once, as well as my coping mechanisms (or lack thereof) for those losses.

I drafted my grief graph last night. I already knew intuitively that my life had been marked by loss, but it startled me to see just how much there was
. Death has been my life's companion. Major changes have been my life's normal rhythm. And deep happiness took quite a while to come along, but has been growing exponentially since it arrived. I still have a difficult time trusting deep happiness when it emerges in a new form, and given this picture of my past, it's no wonder.

What can my past losses tell me about my future? What patterns are discernible in them, and what in those patterns needs gentle, healing illumination?






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Easter Friday

4/25/2014

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PicturePhoto by M. Kate Allen
Sometimes a friendship abides only in the knowledge of what was--and sometimes that gossamer thread of what was is the only connection two people need to meet again as if not a thing had changed between them.

I had a deep, soulful conversation with one of my my longest-time friends last night (on Facebook chat, of all things). This friend is someone I've scarcely talked to over the last fifteen years, but when our fingers began flying across the keyboard, it was as though all those years of growing in wildly different directions had changed nothing.

I realized something surprising as I listened to my friend reminisce: part of me--one of the best, worth-keeping-around, worth-fighting-for parts of me--has been part of me for all these fifteen years, and probably more.

Sometimes my inclination is to tell myself that the best parts of myself have only emerged recently (i.e. since I've fully and intentionally embraced who I'm called by God to be), but that story isn't true. I've just had trouble naming or owning some of them before now.

In what ways do I allow the resurrected aspects of myself overshadow or swallow up the life-giving aspects of the life I lived before? In what ways do my life now match (or perhaps pale in comparison to) my past? What might I learn about my old-time self from the words of the people I love if I listened to them talk about me, and what about my old life do I still need to invite forward as I live my Easter life?

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Living Lent: Holy Saturday

4/19/2014

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Jesus--crucified--dead.
The whole world fills the new tomb.
In stillness hope stirs.


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Living Lent: Going Home

4/14/2014

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Last Tuesday my baby daughter and I traveled to Ohio to visit family and friends. Many wonderful, loving, fruitful meetings took place, and my daughter and I hardly stopped moving except to sleep. My heart is full with marvelous memories of the trip.

I have much from the trip to reflect on over the coming days, but one insight stands out for me: the home of my childhood, whose land and people I love, is no longer my home. My home is in the desert, a place that I would never have imagined myself living in even a year ago.

What other surprises await my life as I open myself to the possibility of the unexpected?

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Living Lent: Divorce

3/31/2014

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Now that the second half of Lent has arrived, I've tacked on a new morning practice of before-the-kids-wake-up running. As I was running this morning, tumbles of thoughts bounced through my consciousness, and one of the things that stuck and lingered afterward had to do with divorce and religious identity.

I find myself grateful for my husband, who has no personal stake in my religious identity except inasmuch as it gives my life meaning and joy. If he had been religious like me when I met him, I'm not sure there would have been enough spaciousness in my own religious identity, once wedded with his, for me to move out of my former religious tradition and into my current one. I'm not even sure I would have been able to voice my concerns about my former tradition as boldly as I have in these last few years. My husband's non-religiosity opened my eyes in a profound way, inviting me--gently--to examine what it was that I found compelling about life as a religious person. As I heard him ask me again and again why I stayed in my tradition when I spent more and more time bitterly murmuring about it, I had to ask myself the same.

Leaving the Roman Catholic Church was a bit like getting a divorce, and you just don't get a divorce when you're Roman Catholic--not unless you want to be ostracized by a whole lot of people. If you've loved it once, you're expected to love it always, no matter what it might cost you. Further, in an abusive marriage (the kind where one partner's life and calling is deemed to be to less important or not important in comparison with that of the more powerful partner), if the one being abused has no promise of support from those she loves when she leaves that marriage, how can she draw from within herself the courage and strength to leave it anyway?

I am fortunate, in a way. Because my marriage with my husband is so healthy and loving and strong, it was able to illuminate the increasingly toxic character of my relationship with my former religious tradition. Because my husband had no personal stake in my religious identity, I was able to give myself permission to transform it.

Divorce is a rending of identity, and it is, from every story I hear, profoundly painful. And yet, in cases of abuse, there may be redemption in it. I am grateful not to have daily cause for murmuring anymore. I'm grateful to be in a tradition that, though imperfect, fuels rather than diminishes my hope, diminishes rather than fuels my anger, and honors rather than silences my voice. And I am grateful for my hubby, whose greatest expectation for my life is that I daily pursue my deepest joy. I find myself steeped in blessing, having let go of that which diminished my life and embraced that which resurrects it.

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Living Lent: Feast of St. Joseph

3/19/2014

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Today is the feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary (mother of Jesus). He is widely regarded by Christians as the father who adopted, cared for, and protected the son of God.

This is also the day my mother's father was born. I don't mean my biological grandfather, but the grandfather who chose--with my grandmother--to adopt my mother when she had just been born. They were childless and middle-aged, and they took a leap. Without their leap, which one might regard as an act of exceptional obedience to God's call in their lives, you wouldn't be reading this.

My grandfather honored his birthday patron well, and I can't help thinking of him when March 19 comes around. Below I offer a tribute to my memories of his generosity and love, written in the form of a letter, dated several days after his death. I was a senior in high school when he died.

December 8, 1999

Dear Poppidor,

I never got to tell you all this stuff...because after a while, I stopped coming to your house. I began riding the bus to school, and rarely got the chance to go to the 5 & 10 with your complimentary $2. I stopped sleeping over at your house, and began having my own sleepovers. Every place you took me, every memory we shared, grew obsolete as I grew up. The memories were gems, but I didn't know what to do, with you so sick.

I was frightened.

There was so much I didn't know about you. Even though you fixed my knees when I scraped them on the gravel, gave me Squirt from the basement when I was thirsty, let me play on the ivy, gave me rides in the car with the blue interior, and gave me lots of bread for the ducks at the park, all I knew of you was the grandpa side. When you took me and Jasmine to the monument and got us hamburgers to quiet our stomachs, you were the wonderful grandpa, but did I know you? When you were there for my Confirmation, standing as my sponsor, you were kind and patient, but did I know you?

And when you read that article in the newspaper about me, talking about what I'd done for Hoops for Heart in ninth grade, you were so impressed that you gave me my wish, a second thought I'd thrown in during the reporter's interview. You bought the computer that I type on now, that I've cherished so much....

You only bought the computer--you didn't help in its selection. You were afraid with all of us that you would buy the wrong thing--that we wouldn't be happy. There was only one exception--the exception you made for me. Was it my fourth or fifth birthday? when I received the stuffed clown, the one I named Pepper, the one who rules among all my Barbie dolls and stuffed animals. Pepper was the best gift I'd ever received, because it was the only one you dared to give. And it was perfect.

Those butter cookies are getting stale. The oyster crackers are drying out. The V8 might last a little longer, but not forever. Your offerings of food and drink will never sate me again. The davenport will grow dusty, as all the rooms did. I won't sprawl my sleeping bag on the dented green carpet in the living room, with my red-print nightgown and Care-bears. I won't touch the nightlight. I won't play with the lovely dancer on the shelf. I won't climb on tiptoe to see the mirror.

All these things, even the ones unmentioned, will become dimmer in my mind as time continues its path. Tears will trickle down my cheeks as I struggle to remember all those things....

But in the meantime, I will watch, listen, and learn. There were many things about you I didn't know. You were more than a wonderful grandpa--you were a wonderful person! I want to know that person. Maybe, if I learn more about that person, I will learn more about myself--or at least have something to aspire to. 

I hope you have listened, and filled in the blanks where I forgot.

I love you.

Your granddaughter,


Michelle

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Greetings and Farewells

2/15/2014

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This is my last day as a Roman Catholic.

Tomorrow I will be received into the Episcopal Church by Bishop Kirk Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, thus continuing my baptismal journey, continuing my journey as a novice of the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation Benedictine Canons, and beginning my journey in a new-to-me Christian tradition.

I am continually surprised at the deep connections I find between my adult faith and the faith of my childhood. I am about to enter the Episcopal Church, a church that liturgically isn't very different from the Roman Catholic tradition. My devotion to a relational, triune God was established before I knew it on Trinity Sunday, the day of my baptism.  And my formation in the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation Benedictine Canons, whose devotion is to God's preeminent open-hearted listener, the Theotokos, began not during my years of graduate study at St. John's School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota, but at my baptismal church, St. Mary of the Annunciation Church in Greenville, Ohio.

My Prior suggests that synchronicities such as these are worth attending to.  I have always been a fan of synchronicity--I have just never experienced so much of it in one place as I have in the Sonoran Desert these last five months.
  All the threads of my life of faith--the threads of liturgical practice, structured prayer, understanding of God as relational/transcendent/imminent, singing, feminism, openness, commitment to the seeking of truth in all places and people, and humility in the presence of God's wondrous deeds--all of these and more are woven into the pattern of my faith life at St. Augustine's and as a Benedictine Canon Novice of St. Mary of the Annunciation. And the pattern they weave takes my breath away.

I say farewell to the Roman Catholic Church in kindness and love, and I greet the Episcopal Church with fondness and hope. I
trust that my almost thirty-two years as a Roman Catholic Christian have not been in vain, but instead have created a strong foundation on which I can build a stronger faith.

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Retreat and return

2/11/2014

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My dreams this week concern me.

I've dreamed about killing someone I didn't know; I wasn't convicted in court for lack of evidence, even though I knew I was at fault.  I've dreamed about others I did know dying of natural causes, leaving me to pick up the pieces.  Last night I dreamed about an elderly friend of mine asking me to help pack up two houses: the one in which he used to live and the one in which he currently lived.  He was preparing to move elsewhere, though I didn't know where.  Everything I touched in his current house was laden with memory, whereas everything in the other house was strange, rich, and unlike him as far as I knew him.

I'm no expert on Jung or Freud, but I do know that dreams can point dreamers to insights about themselves and their lives.

What is with all the death, hiding, and transition? 

I woke in the middle of the night last night to get my baby daughter a bottle.  When I returned, I flashed back to a conversation from my last Benedictine Canon chapter meeting.  Br. Philip talked about preparing for his final profession as a Canon next month, in particular about the placing of the pall over his prostrated body.  Like Br. Chad and Br. Rawleigh, Br. Philip will lay down his body at the service of God, the community, and the world.  He'll be covered with a pall, the pale garment of baptism and death.

I realized in the chill of the night that if I make my full profession as a Benedictine Canon, I will be committing myself to die.

I crawled back into bed and closed my eyes, but words rose up, and I ended up texting myself with the words of a haiku so they wouldn't be swallowed by sleep.

A funeral pall
veils the diff'rence
between old
and new. Ego die.


My dreams point me to an unexpected revelation: my old self is dying.  I am being put to the test.  My identity as a religious person has long been plagued with fear, self-absorption, doubt, and horded treasures, all carefully saved so I would have something to cling to in case God ever failed me.  Now, step by step, I am moving forward into the intensely uncomfortable unknown: a place of overflowing trust. 

Father, I put my life in your hands.
 

I'm dying--and it's okay.  I'm letting the precious treasure of my life go.  And what a relief.


Mother, I put my life in your hands.

My life will be whatever it is meant to be.  The particular outcome of my life is no longer my concern
.  Living from moment to moment at the service of God and God's magnificent, multi-faceted creation is enough.  Being able to turn again and again from my selfish fears toward God, the holy Fire who burns within me, is enough.

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Family Ties

2/7/2014

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PicturePicture courtesy of http://francisspctr.com
I want to pause for a minute and think about the way my new title of "Sister" changes things for me.

Now that I am "Sister" to those in my community, those who are "Brother" in that community are my brothers.  They're confreres.  They're bros.  They're family.

I even get to see them with relative frequency--once or twice or even thrice a week, sometimes.


I'm holding my new chosen-sibling relationship with them in tension with my vows of stability, conversion, and obedience.  I'm promising to be here for them.  I'm promising to keep trying to be a better sister to them.  And I'm promising to listen to them, even when I don't want to.

I'm learning how to be a sister in a new way.  I'm a sister to four childhood siblings, but growing up, stability, conversion, and obedience played very little role in my relationship with them.  I was a loner, I did what I wanted, and I didn't listen when it didn't suit me.


Will my identity as "Sister" in this community change my identity as sister in my childhood family?  I don't know. 

But here's a change I am noticing since my vows last Sunday: when I pray for others now, I don't just pray for those I find easy to love.  I lift up the names of those my heart has closed off.  Every day, I punch the steely walls of my heart in order to pray for those whom I don't want to love, don't want to be there for, don't want to be better for the sake of, and don't want to listen to.

My prayers may not change the ones I pray for, and they may not change my relationships with those people, but my prayers for those others are changing me.
  Despite my inclination to resist, the vows I uphold are tearing down my defenses, exposing my vulnerabilities, and rending my heart for love's sake.

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An Open Letter to Pope Francis from a Roman Catholic

1/17/2014

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PictureM. 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.)

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Spiritual Direction: For a New Beginning

1/13/2014

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PicturePhoto by M. Kate Allen
I met with my new spiritual director for the first time about a week ago, and now I feel like my new spiritual dwelling has all.  It's one thing to journey forth in a community; it's another to have a holy listener dedicated to hearing your story and helping you recognize divine whispers in it.

Choosing a spiritual director who's a good fit isn't a simple endeavor--not all spiritual directors are good for all people.  Part of discerning who might be a good fit is figuring out whether the spiritual director you meet with is the sort of person you can imagine yourself either wanting to be or called to be in some respect.  My spiritual director is a female Episcopal deacon, and I have long felt called to ordained life as a female, even though my own female identity has prevented me from pursuing ordained life for my entire life as a Roman Catholic.

Meeting with someone who shares (or who can adapt to) your communication style helps as well.  If you're forthright and want to hash things out in an objective way while your spiritual director is highly sentimental, you may feel as though you're talking past your director.  Compatible communication styles help bring forth the substance of the conversation rather than serving as a barrier to it. 


That being said, meeting with someone who isn't exactly like you can sometimes be the most helpful thing of all--someone who is older (or younger), someone who's from a different faith or spiritual tradition, or someone who has had major life experiences that differ from your own may be able to lend a fresh perspective to your context.
 

For me, the most important aspect of a spiritual director is always my gut feeling about that person: Is this someone I trust?  Faith and trust are of the same root, and one can hardly develop one's faith with another if one doesn't deeply trust that other from the very beginning.

My spiritual director shared a poem with me that I had never heard before as we began our first conversation together, and it seems to me to be a perfect encapsulation of what one experiences when one is ready for a spiritual director.

In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
                 -John O'Donohue, "For a New Beginning"
A spiritual director, or spiritual companion, is someone who bears witness to what is stretching and unfolding in the midst of your life and heart.  A spiritual director is someone who walks with you, not to guide you, but to help you name how God/dess is guiding you.
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Words with friends

1/10/2014

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While sipping a hot cup of Ten Ren King's tea and chatting with a dear friend from the San Francisco Bay Area on Facebook, my friend wrote this to me:

"kate, I am so happy for you - it seems your life is developing in amazing ways"

(NB: The editor in me would like to capitalize and punctuate that sentence, but the friend in me knows better.)

My friend is right, you know.  I'm struck by how very much my life has changed in a very, very short period of time.

I started this blog/site two years ago today.  I wrote this:

Hurrah!  Thanks to the inspiration of a dear friend of mine, Noach, I have planted the seed of this blog (and broader website).  I hope it will yield many vibrant, lush, delicious fruits, and perhaps yield some long-lasting connections in the process. 
Is it any surprise that the same friend who helped me plant this seed of a website and blog is now bursting with joy for me at what has risen up from the dark, fertile soil of my dreams and yearning?

I look back at the woman I was in 2012--a first time mom; an office manager at a small synagogue; a frustrated, well-educated, sad, and increasingly jaded Roman Catholic--and I see someone who knew that 2012 was a beginning rather than an end.  I had no real idea of where the road would lead, but I knew I would be creating the road for myself as I went along, and that I would visit some unusual and unfamiliar places along the way.

My mantra lately, when folks ask me how I like Arizona, is, "I never thought I'd like living in the desert."  But I do. 
My family is happy here.  My husband has a job in which he thrives.  I'm able to be at home with my girls for now, do fun-to-me gigs, and write to my heart's content.  And finally, at long last, I get to be a both-feet-all-the-way-in member of a religious community in which I am valued, period--no strings attached, no hidden agendas, no glass ceiling.  I love this community so much that my heart aches, as if it might burst.  It's like being home again, but it's more than that.  I'm not just part of the beauty that is my new community; I'm becoming a leader in bringing forth that beauty.  Me.  A woman.  A thirty-something from Ohio who very early on learned to shut up and take it when something or someone wasn't good enough, even when what was good enough was within my reach, and even when what wasn't good enough was sanctioned by my religious leaders.

Two years later, in 2014, I find myself in the midst of imperfect, beautiful people, and just by being my own imperfect self, I am amazing.  I am vibrant.  I am what I was searching for two years ago.  It just took being planted in a fertile garden, free of choking weeds, for me to see myself stretched up tall and completely radiant for the first time.
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Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal

12/28/2013

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PictureEdited by W.A. Sessions
One of Flannery O'Connor's journals, started when she was just twenty-one years old, was just published last month by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

It's a journal of O'Connor's ardent prayers to God.  She prays that God will give her the grace to love God zealously and think of God at all times, rather than getting swept up and distracted by the glamour of the quotidian life and only giving pause for God during times of reading (people like L
éon Bloy) and writing.

I find in O'Connor's journal echoes of my own evolving pleas to God.  I remember writing my own longing-filled prayers to God, prayers that God would help me become my best and most talented, giving self (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, as I learned to say from the Jesuits).

Looking back on the earliest years of my adult life, I see how open everything was--the whole world was at my fingertips, and all I had to do was pursue my interests with my whole heart and I would do well. 

It was both exciting and hard on me when I realized, at the age of 19, that I was being called by God to ordained ministry.  I remember telling my pastor this, letting him know that I thought I would pursue that call in the Episcopal Church.  He, whose opinion I esteemed above virtually all others, warned me that to enter a different church was to take on a whole different set of church problems.  I realized then that I wanted to stay in my own church and help transform it into what it was supposed to be: a beacon of Christ's radical message of hospitality and love.

I did a year of volunteer work with the Missionary Cenacle Volunteers with that in my heart.  I didn't want to become the sort of theologian who was completely detached from the world of real people encountering God in the midst of genuine (i.e. non-academic) difficulties.  Then, after earning my Master's degree, I did what any bright, theologically inclined woman in the Roman Catholic church might do--I went on for doctoral work, assuming that that would lead me to a position in which I could be positively and transformatively influential among both lay people and clergy within the Roman Catholic Church.

I went almost all the way there, and then God threw a kink in my plans.  Her name is Anastasia, and she just turned three in October.

Then came another kink.  Her name is Miriam, and she's a little over half a year old.

Then came another, in the form of my husband's new job, which sent us to the desert where neither of us ever thought we would move.

And if my devotion to the Roman Catholic Church hadn't been so strong for so long, I might never have become disenchanted enough with its backward regression to leave it.   If I hadn't been so ready to leave it, I might never have discovered St. Augustine's of Tempe, which has become as much my spiritual home as any church ever has been. 

I still shake my head at what I've gotten myself into over the last fifteen years.  In contrast to my college years, I find myself prepared to let God let me where she will, while continuing to exercise my strengths and nourish into health my weaknesses.  I am finally in a place in my life where I am safe, and Sisyphean struggling is no longer my game--bravery and radical acceptance of self and the Holy Other constitute the new game.

Let's play, God.

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Forging a path

12/26/2013

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My baby crawled for the first time today.  Her dad and sister and I cheered her on wildly as if she had just hit a grand slam.  (The first object she went for was a crinkly package of baby wipes; the second was a major league baseball.  Yes, a little music and a little baseball confirm that she is our child.)

I feel like her--inching forward, reaching for that which I behold, struggling little by little with every bit of my strength to get where I'm going. 

With her, it's a down-on-the-ground, whole-bodied struggle.  With me, it's a battle raging within me over a single, burning question: whether or not I qualify as a leader. 

(Weird inner battles, I'm good at them.
)

I'm not an alpha female.  I know women--amazing women--who are alpha types.  I admire them, but I'm not one of them, nor do I have any desire to be one.  This obviously precludes me from assuming any role of religious (ordained) leadership.

I still hear this call to leadership, though, which makes my eyes cross.  Come on, Goddess.  Non-alpha types don't make leaders.  The whole notion is absurd.  How can I be a leader when I'm the one who's always been in the background, observing more often than herding?  When I've been told to my face that I'm not a leader?  Leadership roles in my case seem (as my medically trained hubby would say) contraindicated.

Conveniently, I've never had to grapple with this before, because I've always belonged to a tradition in which I would never have to take seriously (or be taken seriously regarding) my call to religious (i.e. ordained) leadership.  Now I'm about to be received in a tradition that does, and I'm flailing like my infant daughter. How am I supposed to get where I'm going if I don't have the juice to do it?

For fun, I decided to humor my Lady Goddess and google "characteristics of a leader."  I found this list.

Proactive vs. Reactive
The exceptional leader is always thinking three steps ahead. Working to master his/her own environment with the goal of avoiding problems before they arise.

Flexible/Adaptable
How do you handle yourself in unexpected or uncomfortable situations?  An effective leader will adapt to new surroundings and situations, doing his/her best to adjust.

A Good Communicator
As a leader, one must listen...a lot!  You must be willing to work to understand the needs and desires of others. A good leader asks many questions, considers all options, and leads in the right direction.

Respectful
Treating others with respect will ultimately earn respect.

Quiet Confidence
Be sure of yourself with humble intentions.

Enthusiastic
Excitement is contagious. When a leader is motivated and excited about the cause people will be more inclined to follow.

Open-Minded
Work to consider all options when making decisions. A strong leader will evaluate the input from all interested parties and work for the betterment of the whole.

Resourceful

Utilize the resources available to you. If you don't know the answer to something find out by asking questions. A leader must create access to information.

Rewarding

An exceptional leader will recognize the efforts of others and reinforce those actions. We all enjoy being recognized for our actions!

Well Educated

Knowledge is power. Work to be well educated on community policies, procedures, organizational norms, etc. Further, your knowledge of issues and information will only increase your success in leading others.

Open to Change
A leader will take into account all points of view and will be willing to change a policy, program, cultural tradition that is out-dated, or no longer beneficial to the group as a whole.

Interested in Feedback
How do people feel about your leadership skill set?  How can you improve?  These are important questions that a leader needs to constantly ask the chapter. View feedback as a gift to improve.

Evaluative
Evaluation of events and programs is essential for an organization/group to improve and progress. An exceptional leader will constantly evaluate and change programs and policies that are not working.

Organized
Are you prepared for meetings, presentations, events and confident that people around you are prepared and organized as well? 

Consistent
Confidence and respect cannot be attained without your leadership being consistent. People must have confidence that their opinions and thoughts will be heard and taken into consideration.

Delegator

An exceptional leader realizes that he/she cannot accomplish everything on his own. A leader will know the talents and interests of people around him/her, thus delegating tasks accordingly.

Initiative
A leader should work to be the motivator, an initiator. He/she must be a key element in the planning and implementing of new ideas, programs, policies, events, etc.

But... I am/do all of those things when it comes to something I care about and am deeply invested in. So...

Moi?  Leader?


I'm not an alpha leader. 

I'm a servant leader. 

I lead by example.  I'm dazzling and inspiring in a different way.  Folks don't generally want to be me--they want to be around me.  When I live out my (rather awesome) ideals, I am at the service of others, rather than in charge of them.  That's how my leadership manifests.
 

I've just never formally thought of leadership, especially religious leadership, like that.  Now that I see it at work at St. Augustine's, however--a context which has become my context, rather than remaining someone else's--it makes a surprising amount of sense.

Tune in again soon for more from the M. Kate Meets Her Vocation show!

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An Open Letter to Those against Whom I Have Sinned: Advent, Week 4, Monday

12/23/2013

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December 23

O Emmanuel, Rex et Legifer noster, expectatio gentium and salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus Noster!

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, expectation of the nations and their savior: come to save us,  Lord our God!
Picture
To those against whom I have sinned,

There's no easy way for me to say this, so let me start with the most important part:

I am sorry.

I have done you wrong, and I am sorry.

I have hurt you, and I am sorry.

For every time I had an advantage over you and used it to your disadvantage, I'm sorry.

For every time I threw you into a crisis of self-doubt and self-hatred, I'm sorry.

For every time I shouted at you, called you names, slandered you behind your back, excluded you, ridiculed you, and broke your heart, I'm sorry.

For every time I chose my own interest at your expense and obfuscated the truth
, I'm sorry.

For every time I physically, mentally, verbally, and spiritually harmed you, I'm sorry.

For every time I tried to come between you and the ones you loved, I'm sorry.

For every time I chose the lazy way at your expense, I'm sorry.

For every time my words or actions invited you to act or speak in ways you regret, I'm sorry.


For every time I spoke or acted in any unkind, uncharitable, unloving way,
I'm sorry.

For these words that will probably never reach you, I'm sorry.

For these words that you probably wouldn't believe anyway, I'm sorry.

For every wrong that I have forgotten, I'm sorry.


For everything I do in the future to convince you that I'm still as stony-hearted as ever, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

All I have left to offer you is my open hands, waiting in emptiness to receive your undeserved forgiveness.


With broken love,
Kate


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Gaudete! Advent, Week 3, Sunday

12/15/2013

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I made my oblation to the Benedictine Canon Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation this morning. 

You know me--I like it when timing is more than a coincidence.  The Prior of the OSBCn Community here in Tempe allowed me to schedule my oblation for the third Sunday of Advent, not only signifying a heart-opening beginning, which is what Advent is in relationship to the liturgical year, but also signifying a time of rejoicing.  The Latin Introit for this Sunday is where Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, gets its nickname:

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus enim prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione petitiones vestræ innotescant apud Deum. Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Jacob.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob.

Could there be a more fitting liturgical opening on the day of my entrance into this community?

When I pray today, I find myself saying in faith, Rejoice.  Rejoice.  The Lord is near at hand.  She is near at hand, and you need have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by constant prayer, and with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to Her.  Lady, you have blessed your creation and turned us from our deadening captivity.

It is a fitting day indeed.  It is an empowering day.  Today I committed to the regular work prayer, and I find in that prayer the freedom to transcend my self-concern.  Each welcome from the members of my community was a tap-tap-tap on the still stony shell around my heart, bidding it to break free.  To stretch out my arms, to enfold sisters and brothers and neighbors in love: these are my new tasks.  What a strange gift.  What a novel reminder of my baptism.  What a poignant icon of the divine spark that finds fuel in my humanity.

I feel more fully myself today than I ever have in my life.  Here in this place, accompanied by my family, my church community, my sister and brother Benedictines, and my holy cloud of witnesses from every part of the earth and God's heavenly banquet, I am home.

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Voca-tion: Advent, Week 2, Saturday

12/14/2013

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PictureSource: homedepot.com
The Prior of St. Mary's of the Annunciation Benedictine Canon community has invited me into a conversation about how I'm hearing God's call to become a Benedictine Canon, and I find myself spilling over with words.  When this happens (and it happens rather often, when I have something important on the brain), my best shot at organizing my thoughts is in writing. 

First, a note about vocation: to hear your life's call is to discern your vocation.  Consider the Latin root of vocation: voca-tion, voca, vox, voice.  To hear a call is to hear someone's voice.  But how do I hear God's voice? 

What makes this a great question is that there is no straight or literal answer in my case.  "God's voice" is a metaphor for the human voice.  When God calls me, God isn't picking up a telephone in the heavens.  When God calls me (or you, or Jesus, or anyone) God's doing something else.  And since God's not doing the same kind of calling that I do, I'm listening to God in a different way than I would listen to someone else. 

I shared with the Prior my confidence that the Canon life is one to which I'm hearing God's call.  So if God didn't call me on the phone or text me or leave a note on my Facebook timeline or tweet me or comment on one of my blog posts, what did God do to inspire this confidence?

Fact is, it's not just about what God does--it's about what God does in relationship with me.  Below I've identified four ways (though not the only ways) in which God "calls" me:

1) Through scripture.  The life of a Benedictine Canon is one of prayer with scripture, especially prayer with the psalms.  One of the ways I know God speaks through my prayer is that I change.  My pace slows.  Familiar words and phrases tingle in my skin and subconscious.  The words both resonate with me and challenge me, but I am always safe in them, safe to risk opening my heart to them.  This safety isn't related to the words of scripture alone, though--they're related to the way I join this community in praying them.  Which leads me to the next three ways in which God "calls" me.

2) Through the rhythm of daily life.  Benedictines pray a lot.  When the bell sounds for prayer several times a day, Benedictines cease all else to pray together.  In this regularity, it would be possible to feel trapped or shackled.  When I pray during the regular prayer times of this community, however, I feel like I've entered the rhythm of a familiar household.  Because all members of this community are held to the same expectation, it becomes a ritual as close to me as changing diapers, preparing formula, or playing with my daughters.  It's necessary, it's beautiful, and even when it interrupts, it is a comfort.

3) Through the voice(s) of the community. This may be the biggest piece for me at this point in my life.  It is clear that to be part of this community is to be equal to each member in dignity and respect.  I am not regarded as lesser because I am a woman.  I am not regarded as lesser because I am a lay person.  I am not regarded as lesser because I am married.  Each member brings her or his own gifts to the community, and those gifts are habitually lifted up, rather than quashed.  The way each community member interacts with me demonstrates to me that I stand eye to eye with each one--not the same as any other, but loved and embraced in the same way as every other.  God's presence manifests in these beautifully broken people.

4) Through my very body.
Over thirty-one years, I have developed a keen sense of when I am safe and at home, and when I am threatened and in danger of harm.  As a deeply sensitive body, when I enter a new religious situation or context, my entire self attends to whether my situation is harmful or loving.  In this community my guard rests.  Last night, when we were physically gathered together as a community, I prayed to the Lord instead of the Lady for the sake of unifying our voices in prayer.  That unity did not threaten my devotion to God as Lady, but rather left an open door for that devotion.  I trust that in this context that door will not be closed or locked, as it has been in most of my previous religious contexts.  In this community, I am able to hold the diversity of the community close to my heart, without fear of it swallowing me into anonymity and dignity-destroying submission.

God doesn't call me the way others usually call me, but God makes her call known.  I perceive God calling me to this community inasmuch as this community, like God, challenges me to transcend myself without losing my sense of safety or integrity.  This community, also like God, accepts me as I am without first rendering me or others inferior.  Finally, the rhythm of this community, like God's rhythm in my life, is familiar, persistent, and rich--like coming home.
  The call to enter the Canon novitiate is as audible and clear to me as the bell that sounds each prayer hour into being.

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Advent 1, Tuesday

12/3/2013

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Tonight I began my evening prayer by lighting the candles of my family's menorah while chanting

O God,
come to my assistance.
Lady,
make haste to help me.
Glory to the Mother,
and to the Daughter,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now,
and will be forever.
Amen.


I read the reflection of the day from St. Augustine's Advent devotional booklet, and then I turned to the light of the Chanukah candles.  The rest of my prayer took the form of awe in that gentle light.

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    Rev. M. Kate Allen

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

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


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