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

Psalm 1 of the Thean Psalter
 
Happy are they whose delight is in the wisdom of Thea,
   who meditate on her wisdom day and night.
 
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
   bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither.
 
For Thea embraces all who seek her,
   and touches them with her love.

It's been 2.5 years since I gave birth to my Thean ministry, and in that time I've been imagining into life a liturgy that is uniquely Thean but which also honors the many religious traditions in which I have learned and grown. Today, the shape of this liturgy reached maturity.

One of my difficulties with the liturgical format I grew up with is that it constricted the agency of the majority of the participants. When during college I came across liturgy that honored the agency of all gathered while maintaining a coherent, holistic narrative ritual, my vision of what religion could be and the shape of my own faith changed. I went on to study liturgy for that reason, at both the Master's and Ph.D. levels. After moving from Cleveland, however, liturgical and religious agency was hard to come by in the same way. I recognized along the way that I was called to priesthood (which ultimately required me to turn from my religious upbringing, a tradition that claimed women could not legitimately be priests/ministers), but even after that departure (or perhaps because of it), my vision of priesthood wasn't the sort that would authorize me to make or enforce decisions on behalf of a community or to otherwise wrangle agency from others. Theanism, which was in its birthing my own act of radical religious agency, allowed for authority created to dwell not at the top of a hierarchy, but at the depths of diverse community.

In its new maturity, Thean liturgy creates intentional space for the creative agency of each one who takes part. It is not merely the fruit of my imagining as a Thean priestess. When it comes time for what would normally be the sermon/homily/drash, each participant is given sacred time and space to pursue the creative work of her deepest yearning. In her creative agency enacted, she becomes the great revelation of Thea. 

There is time in this liturgy for what marks, to me, what is both familiar and holy--the lighting of candles, the breaking of bread, the sharing of the cup, the sounding of bells, the anointing with oil--but now the climax of Thean liturgy is the creative act that finds its origins in the deepest desires of each person. It is during this time that Thea feels most alive, in us, in myself, in one another. It is sacred communion, the night of bliss, the rosy-fingered dawn of awakening. 

And as I watch my daughters continue their creative work, now hours after our new liturgy has concluded, I perceive the nod within myself that this liturgy is the holy, whole-making ritualizing I've been chasing since I left my liturgical home in Cleveland. This is the liturgy that reflects the religious agency I learned long ago from a community that lived that agency, and which was eventually excommunicated by the local hierarch for exercising that agency.

May my daughters and I ever practice and hold space for that agency in one another, and in practicing this learn to hold space for that agency in others.

Tonight I hosted Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace as I do every first Saturday of the month, and tonight two dear women in my life took part in it for the first time.

As I settled into the presence of each woman gathered there, various occasions of stepping outside my comfort zone surfaced in my memory. When I first arrived in Phoenix nearly four years ago, I knew almost no one, and I knew that if I wanted to get to know new people, I'd have to be in charge of making those connections happen--those relationships wouldn't manifest without my initiative. So I did research, I stepped out, and I introduced myself to people I'd never met.

To be vulnerable in a new setting has long been hard for me. Experiencing that vulnerability was rarely worth it when I was younger, but these days I do it despite sometimes intense discomfort, because what I seek lies on the other side of that discomfort: trust, new insight, and connection.

Each new encounter, each new experience, is an opportunity for synchronicity, an opportunity to meet myself in a new way, to come face to face with the deepest yearnings of my heart. Even when I hit an apparent wall, encountering someone or something that repels me, I can see myself in that as well--my shadow side, the side that is hard to accept, the side that is easier to brush under a rug and be done with.

As I sat in this beautiful, open-hearted gathering of women this evening, I sensed the risk involved for each person there, including myself. I hold this space for others that they may be given life from it, but some part of me whispers in my ear, "If no one shows, you've failed." And that is the struggle so many leaders of faith communities face--the idea that numbers determine success in ministry. In reality, "success" is ancillary. What is central is presence--in my case, a willingness to be present to and with other women, whether or not they seek or accept that offering. 

Tonight I found myself grateful once again that my livelihood is not determined by the "success" of my ministry--that my dayjob affords me the opportunity to pursue my ministry without requiring anything from those to whom I minister. As a woman inclined toward faith and spirituality, I have often felt pressure to offer something to the communities in which I have been spiritually fed, which has more than once left me depleted. What a gift to be able to offer ministry to others in which I require absolutely nothing back. And, by my not needing anything from those to whom I minister, perhaps those who take part are able to focus inward (on what they seek) instead of outward (on what others think or need), and in doing so are able to discover that what they seek dwells within them, and also dwells within each person gathered.

For who is Thea but the fire inside you and me? Who is Thea but our very breath, the light in our eyes, the dance in out feet, the poetry of our hearts? Who is Thea but the community that binds us, the beauty that delights us, the music that sustains us, and the love that heals us?

Who is she indeed, the one to whom we pray, if not the one we behold in the mirror, and the many we behold in the world?

I am grateful for the women who show up for this gathering, those who show up only once and those who show up almost every month and those who are there now and again. I am grateful for the unfettered gift of their presence to me, for in it they are living icons of Thea. They remind me of who I really am and also of how much love and thoughtfulness and wisdom the Creation is capable of. In their vulnerability and openness, I encounter Thea. In my leadership and ministry, I encounter Thea. In our journeying together, I encounter Thea. And in all of that, my heart is made full, ready to face the shadow side, to pull up the corner of the rug lovingly and to deal bit by bit with all I and the world have stowed there--because if a dance is going to take place, that rug needs to be rolled all the way up!

We shall each get to where we are going, I believe, one wobbly, risky, uncertain step at a time, until we've mastered Thea's wild, loving dance. And what a gathering that will be!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last night was a turning point for me: for the first time, I brought my ministry as a Thean priestess out of the privacy of my family's house church and into the public realm, leading Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace in Phoenix.

My vision for Thean Evening Prayer was simple: it would be an intimate gathering for those who identify as women to pray together to God in their own (female) voices using feminine images for God and imagining God in relationship to Creation through a feminine, feminist lens.

When I arrived, my dear husband helped me arrange the space the way I wanted it, and then he departed so I could pray before others arrived. At 5:00, the time when prayer was set to begin, I was the only person in the room. I continued to pray, and as I prayed, I was surprised by the awareness that I actually wasn't alone--I was in the company of thousands of generations of women, women who had come before me, who had refused to be silenced or disempowered by oppressors, women who had imagined themselves and their God the way they chose, women who had loved, created, mentored and empowered girls and women within their influence. All their efforts, all their willingness to stand up for themselves, all their willingness to make a difference when they were told to shrink and be quiet--all of that energy had culminated in this moment, this hour, in which I was able to embrace my public ministry as a spiritual leader, a Thean priestess, a woman who wouldn't settle for the oppression that would seek to rein me in.

I knew going into the night that several women who wanted to pray with me were out of town. I knew also that several women who had wanted to pray with me had something come up at the last minute. I prepared to pray with my cloud of witnesses. I waited. Then a familiar face arrived, a woman who had prayed with me at our former Episcopal parish in Tempe, a woman who was preparing to lead her own spiritual circle for women. We hugged, we talked for a few minutes, I showed her around the rooms of Pathways of Grace, and eventually we settled into our seats to pray. I sounded the singing bowl four times. We stood, and I intoned a invitatory that I had learned years ago at my Roman Catholic parish in Cleveland, the same parish that ignited my love for liturgy: Let my prayer arise like incense in your sight, the lifting of my hands a sign of trust in you, O God. She joined with me in singing, and we sang it several times, letting the words soak into the space and ourselves.

We prayed the psalms next--Psalm 141, from which the invitatory came, and then a series of other psalms. Between each psalm there was a pregnant, full silence. At one point, I held my breath in between verses to keep my voice from breaking and tears from falling. Next time--next time I will let them break and fall.

At the conclusion of the psalms, we moved to the homily. I explained that in the Christian (and particularly Benedictine) tradition, Saturday night evening prayer was a big event, because it was the vigil for Sunday, the most important day of the Christian week. Saturday evening prayer was therefore when a homily was given, at least in communities that prayed together the liturgy of the hours every day. I noted that the homily would traditionally be given by the presider in top-down fashion, the presider imparting (his) reflections as seeds to be planted in the hearts of those around (him). Then I explained that in the case of Thean Evening Prayer, the homily was open to every person present, because a key Thean belief is that every (woman) has deep wisdom to share. So we shared the homily based on phrases from the psalms that had particularly resonated with us. Our homily was a mutual conversation in which we listened to one another and sounded/heard our own voices, recognizing that Thea's voice resounded through each of us.

I don't know how much time passed--time felt as though it was suspended, but I know from the content of the conversation that it must have taken a while. When the homily had reached an end, I turned to the next portion of evening prayer: the anointing. A bottle of oil stood on the little altar before us. I removed the glass stopper and poured a small portion of it into a glass bowl, inviting my praying partner to partake of it. I spoke of olive oil as an ancient healing balm, but I also spoke of it as the stuff with which royalty, priests, and prophets were anointed. To partake of scented oil is a sign not only of healing, but of empowerment and authority, specifically the power and authority to speak and act as one deems fit and wise. I said that it was particularly poignant to anoint the parts of ourselves for which we seek wise power and authority: the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the nose, the hands, the heart. My prayer partner and I dipped our fingers in the oil and rubbed the rose and clove scents into our skin, and then prayed Psalm 45 from the Thean Psalter, which included verses like, "You, a woman, are among the wise ones; grace flows from your lips," "Your leadership shall endure, for you love goodness and reject unkindness," and "Thea anoints you with the oil of gladness."

Thus empowered, we prayed together for those all around us, and lifted up personal prayers of our own. Then we stood and prayed a modified version of the Lord's Prayer called "Our Mother," written by Miriam Therese Winter of herchurch in San Francisco. We concluded with a collect prayer and this blessing:

May Thea bless us with courage,
guide us with her unrelenting love,
and empower us to answer her sacred call. Amen.

Our time together was not over--we stood, moved to the other side of the room, and talked over a small spread of food and bubbly water I had brought to share. We talked about our experiences, our faith, our friends, our leadership, our children, and our lives. We talked and talked until suddenly it was nearly 7:00--between the two of us and the cloud of witnesses that surrounded us, we had spent the two hours for which I had reserved the space.

I feel full: full of gratitude, full of joy, full of wisdom, full of holy power. This gathering was and wasn't about me. It was about me as a woman who has been on a journey all her life to arrive at the moment of taking up her life's vocation. It was about every woman who has ever done the same or sought to do the same. It was about every young girl who is figuring out who she wants to be, and it is about countless generations of women still to come who will change and lead this world for the better, overcoming oppressions and embracing who they see in the mirror as living icons of the Holy One.

This morning, my older daughter and I cleared our dining room table. I invited her to bring out my lidded white candle and my sparkling, pale purple quartz. "What are you doing?" she asked as I opened the lid of the candle. I said nothing, setting the lid next to the candle, placing the quartz chunk inside it, and lighting the candle with a match. I opened my Thean Psalter to the section marked "Twenty-fourth Day: Morning Prayer." I asked my daughter if she was ready, and she said yes. I proceeded to pray the appointed psalms, 116-118, in a lively, lilting voice, making eye contact with her and slowing my words at important phrases. At the end of the final psalm, I said, "Amen," and she repeated it after me. I invited her to blow out the candle, and we collapsed in giggles as she blew and blew at the flame, to no avail. Thean light is not easily extinguished, she discovered.

After I walked my older daughter to school and drove my husband to work, my younger daughter and I met with a friend of mine who's heading off for rabbinical studies this fall. She wanted a copy of the print version of the Thean Psalter. As soon as I gave it to her, she began adding thin plastic tabs to it; she also oohed and aahed over the purple cardstock title page, the color of which was her favorite. Her excitement as she explored the Psalter's words mirrored my own, and I couldn't help grinning as I watched her. She asked which of the psalms were my favorites, and I pointed out Psalm 23, which reimagines the relationship between G-d and psalmist, moving from shepherd/sheep to mutually curious, passionate lovers who are, among other things, equals.

This Psalter represents Thean thealogical thought, which is feminist and feminine, egalitarian, pacifist, and creation-centric. Patriarchal structures/images as well as themes of violence and vengeance are challenged, eliminated, or transformed.

The e-copy of this finalized Thean Psalter is available for free to all who request it. The hard copy, which is laser-printed on high quality white paper and purple cardstock and comb-bound with a black spine in clear plastic front and back covers, is available for $10USD, payable via PayPal, with free shipping anywhere in the continental United States. I plan to make hard copies of the Thean Psalter available each first Saturday of the month at Thean Evening Prayer, where all who identify as women are welcome to pray.

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 116
 
I love you, O Thea;
   hear the voice of my pleading;
   incline your ear to me,
 
For the cords of death entangle me,
   and the grip of the grave takes hold of me!
 
Hear me when I pray,
   “O Thea, save my life from destruction!”
 
I trust that you will rescue my life from death,
   my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.
 
For gracious and kind are you;
   you are the compassionate one.
 
Even now, you give me a new chance to walk in your presence
   in the land of the living.

O Thea, I am yours;
   I am the daughter of your daughters.
 
I will fulfill my vow to walk on your path
   in the presence of all your Creatures.

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

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

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

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

Psalm 107
 
Give thanks to Thea, for her love is a holy flame
   that burns brightly within her Creatures.
 
Some wander in the desert,
   finding no way to a city where their hearts might dwell.
 
They hunger and thirst;
   their flesh languishes.
 
Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help,
   and their divine fire melts their icy fear;
 
Thea thus puts their feet on a straight path
   to go to a city where they might dwell.
 
Some sit in darkness and deep gloom,
   bound fast in misery and iron;
 
They are humbled with difficult work;
   they stumble, and find none to help.
 
Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help,
   and their divine fire melts their icy fear;
 
Thea thus leads them out of darkness and deep gloom
   and breaks their bonds asunder.
 
Some go down to the sea in ships
   and ply their trade in deep waters;
 
Then a stormy wind rises up,
   which tosses high the waves of the sea.
 
They mount up to the skies and fall back to the depths;
   their hearts freeze because of their peril.
 
They reel and stagger like drunkards
   and are at their wits’ end.
 
Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help,
   and their divine fire melts their icy fear;
 
Thea thus stills the storm to a whisper
   and she brings them to the harbor they are bound for.
 
Thea’s love changes deserts into pools of water
   and dry land into water-springs.
 
She settles the hungry there,
   and they find a city to dwell in.
 
They sow fields, and plant vineyards,
   and bring in a fruitful harvest.
 
The wise will ponder these things,
   and consider well the holy fire of Thea that burns within.

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!

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.

As a cisgender, heterosexual, white person, I have taken the words of my LGBTQ+ friends to heart over the last week and quieted myself so that they and their community could be heard in the wake of the devastation at Pulse in Orlando, Florida.

As a minister, however, I also have a responsibility not to keep silent forever, because my silence might imply my endorsement or approval of the actions of the man who shot and killed/wounded over a hundred members of the Latinx LGBTQ community.

Let me be clear: it is not the will or desire of God (whom I call Thea) that LGBTQ people should be targets of violence. It is not Thea's will that LGBTQ people should in any way change or hide or be ashamed of their sexual identity. Individuals and communities that intentionally marginalize/persecute the LGBTQ community for their sexuality are absolutely wrong to do so, full-stop. These persecutors are the ones who need to change, not the ones they persecute.

I mourn for the precious lives lost and those that were forever changed in this mass shooting. I also mourn for the shooter, whose life was lost fighting the wrong fight. I pray for peace, solace, and love to envelop the LGBTQ community so they might heal and be strengthened to be who they are with enormous pride, and I pray for compassion, a desire for mutual understanding, and forgiveness among all of us, because we could all use much more of that. As for me, I have spent this week letting my LGBTQ friends know that I love them and I'm thinking of them, and I've also spent this week lovingly communicating with those who would promote marginalization of another group, those who follow Islam, in order to show that fundamentalist extremism does not equate or speak for religion as a whole. I've spent this week lifting up those in politics who can make a difference in keeping guns out of the wrong hands. I've done what I could, and I will continue to do what I can to ensure that a tragedy like this is forever a thing of the past. I pray that you and all of us will do the same--not just pray, but take tangible steps to prevent this kind of tragedy from ever taking place again.

I came across this psalm in my prayer today, and it seems to fit:

Psalm 79
 
O Thea, those who do evil have come among us;
   they have made Creation a pile of rubble.
 
They have shed blood like water throughout all of Creation,
   and there was no one to bury their victims.
 
Help them and us, O Thea! Change their hearts and ours;
   let your compassion be swift to meet us all and spread among us.
 
Help us, O Thea;
   deliver us and teach us your forgiveness,
   that we may taste and see the sweetness of your mercy.
 
O Thea, let the sorrowful sighing of those in chains come before you,
   and by your great might give hope to those who are condemned to die.
 
We will give you thanks forever
   and show forth your praise from age to age.

I am happy to announce for my readers in the Phoenix area that I will be collaborating with Pathways of Grace to offer Thean Evening Prayer starting this autumn (Thea willing!). I'm still in the process of discerning exactly what this will look like, but I envision evening prayer after the pattern of Christian vespers (using Thean and other texts focused on the women and the Divine Feminine) followed by a potluck supper.

I will announce the firm details when I have them, hopefully within the next week. In the meantime, I ask for your prayers and invite you to share this news with anyone who may be interested.

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

I noted these lines first:

And then I noted these:

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. ♥

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.