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Stepping beyond the bounds of comfort

7/1/2017

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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!

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Mystagogy - Thean Evening Prayer

9/4/2016

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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.

For a free e-copy of the Thean Psalter, send me a note with your e-mail address. If you'd like a print copy, you can send $10 and your name and address via PayPal to me at lifeloveliturgy at gmail dot com. If you self-identify as a woman and would like to take part in future gatherings of Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace, we meet every first Saturday of the month at 5:00, and you can RSVP on the Pathways of Grace meetup.com page.
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Living Lent: Christian Epics

3/9/2016

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I first read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in high school, just before the famed film series began to appear on the silver screen. Later on, I read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. These epics are neighbors to one another on one of my bookshelves. The other day I picked up The Magician's Nephew, and then The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in order to revisit the Narnia stories (and likewise The Lord of the Rings) from my now well-developed feminist perspective. And I have questions.

1) Why is it that the primary villain of the first two books of the Narnia series is a powerful woman? Why is "witch" equated with "evil"?

2) Why is it that the two female protagonists of the Narnia series, Lucy and Susan, are not meant by Aslan (the God figure and a powerful male) to fight in battle alongside their brothers when war descends on the country? Susan is given a bow and arrows, and Lucy a dagger, but together they're deemed unfit to defend the country of which they are to be rulers, even though their brothers are heading up the war effort--why?

3) Why is it that Aslan takes council with the male animals and leaves the she-animals behind?

4) Why is it, in The Lord of the Rings, that the Fellowship of the Ring is made up of nine males? And why is the whole council that gathers before the formation of the fellowship also entirely male? Didn't Arwen, a female elf, save Frodo from the ring-wraiths before that council ever took place? Why does she not lead the battle against evil as her father once did thousands of years ago?

I suppose one answer is that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were men of their time. Why write an epic prominently featuring female defenders when women in the mid-20th century didn't defend much?

Times have changed, though. Consider the Gulabi Gang in India, a band of many hundreds of thousands of women wielding sticks to deliver grassroots justice to rapists and others who violate women's rights. Consider also the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing League who planned to show up at pro-rape men's rallies (rallies which were, by a twist of irony, subsequently cancelled for fear for the men's safety).

And then consider literary epics that have been told since the time of Lewis and Tolkien: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce, and the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett. All three of these epic stories feature female protagonists who are defenders of their lands--they are also wise, powerful women. Aren't powerful wise women nothing more than witches, and aren't witches evil? The Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns witchcraft as "gravely contrary to the virtue of religion" (CCC 2117). But, looking at the bigger picture historically, isn't this condemnation nothing more than a condemnation of the woman's right to stand on her own two feet, to foster her own wisdom, to assert her will, and to embrace and develop her gifts?

I don't understand why, and don't accept that, women are either to be dimunitive/obedient or labeled as sources of evil. And before my time in this life is done, I plan to write an epic of my own, featuring not men, who have already had centuries of attention as leaders, but women: strong, vocal, brave, wise, powerful women, women who in ages past or even in this age might be branded witches--women for whom the labels of others no longer hold any sway. They may be self-proclaimed witches or they may be something else, but in my epic, these women will be self-defined, rather than defined by a man. I can hardly wait to write it.

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Living Lent: International Women's Day

3/8/2016

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Last year, for several months, I wrote a Thean prayer every day. In honor of International Women's Day, I'm copying the prayer I wrote a year ago today--it still strikes a holy chord with me.

Thea,
as I celebrate this day of women,
I celebrate you:
feminine, fierce,
bold, brave,
enveloping, animating,
generous, genuine, genius,
Goddess.
Amen.

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Woman and Goddess

9/26/2015

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

Psalm 144

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sacred Rebels

9/15/2015

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A good friend of mine, a fellow writer, introduced me to the Sacred Rebels Oracle, which is a deck of cards akin to a Tarot deck. It includes forty-four cards and a 180-page guidebook with descriptions of each card, and it's designed specifically for creative types (and even more particularly for women).

I looked through the deck for the first time today, and the cards swept me away not only with their images, but their themes. The tenth card particularly stood out to me as I contemplated my next creative project, which is to write a gospel according to Kate.
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I thought immediately of Luke 14:26 as I looked at this card: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters...such a person cannot be my disciple." When I think of my own allegiances, I think of my long-time devotion to the Roman Catholic Church, and then to the Episcopal Church, and especially the Benedictine Canons (a Benedictine, Episcopalian religious order for men and women in which I was a novice for nine months). It was to my great surprise that I had to let go of my allegiances to my former Christian communities in order to turn my focus entirely to Thea.

As I break down the doors of the early medieval canon of Christian scripture by writing my own gospel, this oracle card resonates with me profoundly. By writing a gospel of my own, I am turning inward, where the light of Thea burns brightly.

I'm excited to write this gospel, to reimagine religious narratives as a Thean narrative, and to use this gospel in my house church liturgy when it is finished. My daughters will grow up hearing and learning from a truly feminist gospel, and in that, I know that my work and call as a house church priest will not be for nothing.
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Spirit Whispers: I'm sorry

8/3/2014

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I'm sorry
she says
softening her tone
averting her gaze
shifting her posture
willing the other to see that she means no harm

I'm sorry
she says
when she actually means
Pardon me
-or-
No, thank you
-or-
Here's what I think about it


I'm sorry
she says
when it's the other person
 who screwed up, caused harm, bears blame
the other person
  who offered what she doesn't need or want
the other person
 who
just heard her apologize for no good reason and is no longer interested

I'm sorry
she also says
on the rare occasion
when her apology
has merit

Why does she
hide behind
that simpering sorry?


Is it fitting to say sorry in a crowd that seeks her vision
 rather than to say what she means?

Is it fitting to say sorry to a man in order to submit in the way she expects he expects
 when young women are watching every move she makes?

Is it honest to say sorry to a challenger
 rather than to speak forth the prophetic fire that blazes within her?

Why does she say
sorry, sorry, sorry

when so little of what she does
deserves her easy
self-deprecation
self-humiliation
self-abasement?


What if
she stopped
watering down
her virtue


and instead

began her day
with a strong cup of
I'm not sorry

?

(What
a
HERE I AM, LORD
that would be)

~~~

The above is inspired by two people I respect who recently asked me, on separate occasions, why I say sorry when I do. I have long regarded "I'm sorry" as a gesture of hospitality in tense or difficult situations, but I am beginning to rethink that. I am grateful to my gentle adversaries for inviting me to see beyond my limited vision of what genuine hospitality might look like from a (female) leader.

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Spirit Whispers: Philadelphia 11

7/29/2014

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The Philadelphia 11, July 29, 1974
On this Feast of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, another celebration is underway: the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.

I am grateful for God's prophetic call on the lives of these women. I am grateful for their obedience to God--which manifested as disobedience to the unjust, unholy policies of their church.

I am grateful that these women paved the way for other women to respond faithfully to the call they hear from God without fear.

I am grateful for the first experience I had of Sunday liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, at which the first thing I noticed was a woman standing at the altar as an ordained deacon--and no one was rioting. No one even batted an eyelash (except me).

I am grateful that the presence of ordained women is normal in the Episcopal Church. I am grateful that the face of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Presiding Bishop, is a woman (and one of great wisdom).

I am grateful for this church that perceived its own call to be prophetically transformed after eleven women stood up, risking everything that mattered to them, to respond to God's will.

I am grateful that these eleven icons of Martha made it possible for me to sit more easily, like Mary, at the feet of Jesus and hear what he has to say.

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Spirit Whispers: The Call

7/28/2014

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Yesterday I completed the construction of a bridge spanning over two thousand miles and thirteen years. I sang Suzanne Toolan's "The Call" with two other young women during the 10:30 liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish. This is a song I learned at Historic St. Peter Church (now the Community of St. Peter), and it is a song that gave me a taste of the potential for liturgy and symbol to crash together to reveal the holy.

Leave all things you have and come and follow me, Jesus urges.

Thirteen years and two thousand miles later, I hesitate to leave behind all I've accumulated on this journey. My baggage is mine to keep.

But the invitation is so insistent, echoing softly even when I clang and screech.


Could I just leave it all behind me?
Would I be doing it for the right reasons? What if everything changed as a result?

And come and follow me.


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Spirit Whispers: Israel or Palestine?

7/21/2014

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Does God take sides?
Does God cheer for Israel's victories,
or cheer for Israel's losses?
Does God pump his fist when Palestine succeeds,
or weep when Palestine stumbles?
Is God on the sidelines of Gaza, rooting for his team to win?

If God were mere man
perhaps the Gaza Strip would be one great football field
and God's whole life would rise and fall
according to the victory of his team.

The Christians say
God became flesh and dwelt among us
They say God became mere man.

They also say the God-Man's great victory was accepting death on a cross
that others might live.

But if Israel and Palestine's men keep taking one another's lives
in God's name
who will be left to bear his cross?

Perhaps the Second Coming
that the Christians await with bated breath
(as smart phones offer updates about their team)
will
be another Incarnation,
a child born in the midst of blood and turmoil and rage.


Maybe the Second Coming
will be
a child born of love spilling over
between a child of Israel and a child of Palestine

Maybe, instead of a cross
there will be
a stand
silent and gentle and unwavering
Palestinian hand in Israeli hand

the fruit of their living bodies
God's own child, swelling the mother's belly:
an invitation to end life no more.

What will it take for the beloved children of God
to perceive that the people they murder
are the beloved children of God
to understand that the people they hate
are their sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers
and daughters and sons
?

What will it take for Jews
and Muslims
and Christians
and other religious people
and anti-religious people

to
quit

taking
sides
to say
"It is done"?


Will it take a new Yeshua?
A new martyr?
A new cross?

Will it take a wise mother among many wise mothers
who learned long ago that only love can yield a victory?
Will it take a woman among many women
who has seen the futility of this fight all her life

to rise up and teach the foolish men what they refuse to learn?

God, how long before you touch the hearts
of the children who think you take sides?

How long before you assure them that they are equally,
infinitely loved?

How long  before they cease their fire
and offer open arms of
sorrow, repentance, forgiveness?

What do you mean
to whisper that
this assurance
this peace
this love
this transformation of the hardest of hearts in Gaza
begins
with my own heart?

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Spirit Whispers: Injustice

7/1/2014

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Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) voted 5-4 in favor of allowing closely held corporations (i.e. private corporations run by religious families), like Hobby Lobby, the right to choose not to provide insurance coverage to employees for contraception.

The conflict, as I see it, is between members of the Religious Right who believe that they should have a say in how their dollars subsidize the medical care of those who may or may not share their beliefs, on one hand, and those people (well, women) who seek affordable (i.e. insured) medical care for their reproductive health.

To call this ruling by an all-male majority of the SCOTUS a slide down the slippery slope would understated at best.

Who's doing the sliding? SCOTUS men and the rallying Religious Right, shouting about their right to exercise conscientious objections. What slope? The uteruses of women who work for closely held corporations.

T
his ruling sounds like rape to me.

In a way, it's unsurprising. Rape culture thrives in the United States, where women who are raped are asked what they were wearing when it happened, rather than rapists being held up to close scrutiny for their total violation of other human beings.

If a woman works for a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby, surely she's asking for the diminishing of her privacy when it comes to her reproductive health. Surely she's asking for her employer to judge what is best for her, and to deny the financial support that makes possible the healthcare her employer deems unacceptable/unethical/unnecessary. Surely someone other than this female employee and her doctor knows best--and if this female employee doesn't agree, she should take herself to some other job, nevermind what it might cost her.

As a woman and a parent, the impact of reduced coverage for reproductive health is not lost on me. My husband and I are extraordinarily fertile. Think of the woman like me, with a partner like my husband, who had plans to have an IUD placed in order to avoid getting pregnant again after her recent pregnancy. She, like me, can't imagine having an abortion if she were to get pregnant, and she, like me, can't afford to have another child. But now, as an employee of Hobby Lobby, she can't afford an IUD, either--as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her scathing dissent in this SCOTUS ruling, "
It bears note that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month's full-time pay for workers on the minimum wage." So what does the Hobby Lobby female employee do? Stop having sex with her husband? (Because that wouldn't ruin her marriage relationship--not at all.) Hope she doesn't get raped? (Because that wouldn't happen unless she was asking for it! Obviously!)

This SCOTUS ruling is obscene and frightening. It all comes back to one question for me: What right does any other person have to take away the rights of another--even a woman? And sadly, it seems to come down to the concept of personhood. This ruling affirms the Religious Right's claim that men, fetuses, and corporations are persons--and women are not.

That women aren't persons is the most successful lie of the Western history. The SCOTUS ruling makes it clear that that lie still succeeds in 2014.

As a religious person, I am angry, and I'm praying in fury. How long, o Mother God, till justice rolls down like a river? How long, o Father God, till the patriarchal narrative of "father/male/anyone-in-the-world-other-than-a-woman knows best" is separated from the fine wheat that gives life and burned like the chaff that it is?

How long?
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Easter: Day 31

5/20/2014

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I began reading Sr. Joan Chittister's Following the Path yesterday, and in it I found a helpful distinction between pursuing delight and pursuing happiness. Sr. Joan says we need both if we are to remain faithful to the path we are called to, but they each have to be held in balance with one another.

To pursue delight is to do something that breaks the routine of one's day and offers a sweet burst of enjoyment. One's delight is something other than what one does all the day long. If one did this delightful thing all the day long, it would quickly become mundane, boring, and unfulfilling.

To pursue happiness, on the other hand, is to embrace that which has been calling out to us since we were children. It's to dig deep into ourselves, to notice what draws us like a magnet, and to allow ourselves to be drawn into that whole-heartedly. Whatever that is may be hard or even seem impossible, but
after we set aside what everyone--self included--thinks we ought (or ought not) to do, it's that thing that our heart most deeply and completely yearns for.

As I prepare to share my spiritual autobiography with my discernment committee for the priesthood, I find myself nodding at what Sr. Joan writes. My heart has been drawing me toward priesthood my whole life, even though my faith tradition always told me that priesthood for women was out of the question. It's now, in a tradition that can whole-heartedly embrace my call, that I can whole-heartedly embrace my call. And you know that feeling you get when a great mystery is suddenly revealed? The goosebumps? The thrill of wonder and recognition? That's how recognizing and naming my call to priesthood manifests.

What more will I discover about my call as I continue to attend to the yearnings of my heart?

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Eastertide: Day 10

4/29/2014

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PictureSt. Catherine of Siena
I am struck by this image of St. Catherine of Siena, whose feast Christians celebrate today. She is enormous. She is standing, looking eye to eye with the beholder from slightly above the beholder. She is bold and magnificent and holy all at once.

Women just aren't portrayed this way often in the Christian tradition.

St. Catherine is considered a doctor of the church. On prayer.forwardmovement.org, she is described this way, "
One tends to think of medieval women as silent and passive dwellers in homes and convents. This was far from the case with Catherine of Siena. She exercised great influence in matters of church and state, and hers was one of the keenest minds of her day."

St. Catherine was a Dominican, and Dominicans have a special charism to preach. She took her charism so seriously that she dared to confront Pope Gregory XI--and she left having persuaded him to see things from her view.

I see in this extraordinary woman a model of bold, faithful, wise, and total devotion to God and God's work. She did not cower away behind medieval expectations of what her role was to be in the world. She stood taller and brighter than all her counterparts, female and male alike, not with self-preoccupation but with a keen vision of the vital part she had to play in the bringing about of God's reign--and God's holy work was done through her. She had the humility to say yes to being extraordinary.

In what ways am I called to say yes to being extraordinary? In what ways do I allow my fear to inhibit me from playing my part in bringing about God's reign?

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Easter Tuesday

4/22/2014

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PictureCourtesy of biblicalarcheology.org
During evening prayer yesterday, I read the lection from the gospel according to Mark of the three women going to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body:

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

I wonder what the three women experienced as they walked toward the tomb of the one they so deeply loved. Heartache? Shock? Disbelief? Unrelenting grief? Were they stoic, determined to make the best of it, to do the tasks prescribed and move on?

And when they discovered that the tomb was empty, and that this young man in white was sitting next to the tomb, telling them their beloved had been raised from death, I wonder what they feared most. Would they be blamed? What could this mean? If he wasn't in the tomb, then where was he?

This morning, a friend of mine from theology school quoted Henri Nouwen, one of the gentlest voices of Christian spirituality from the twentieth century: "The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost."

In moments when my faith is strained to its limits, how strong is my belief that what belongs to God will never get lost?

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Living Lent: Disappointment

4/16/2014

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Easter draws near, and I find myself disappointed. I'm excited for the resurrection day, but I don't feel prepared for it. Like all Pelagian Christians, I have this sense that I should have done more (or at least done better) this Lent.

Pelagius was deemed a heretic, though. He implied that the human person had all the resources at her disposal (okay, his disposal--I doubt he would have been concerned with women) to achieve salvation.

And Christianity doesn't work like that. I don't save myself. Salvation--healing--relies on the outpouring of the sacred other. I can't do it or accomplish it on my own.

I'm the sort of person who would rather do it myself. When I'm in charge, things happen more efficiently (and more to my liking). 

But my faith calls me (over and over and over, sometimes to my great annoyance) out of my egoism.
Like right now.

What do these last days of Lent have to offer me that I cannot offer myself?


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Living Lent: Shards

3/26/2014

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After I wrote yesterday about Mary as the Reed of God, a dear person in my life sent me a reflection she had written about mothering and Advent. I thought I might have written an Advent reflection while I was pregnant (or just after I was pregnant), so I scoured my mommy blog and this blog to find one. Alas, I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find something else.

The day before yesterday I posted my Sunday homily, the one I was invited to give at both of the 3rd Sunday of Lent liturgies at my parish. I shared with several people afterward that giving that homily meant breaking
through the glass ceiling of my former Roman Catholic identity.

Isn't it odd, then, that I should come across an old blog post, over a year old, about breaking through that very same glass ceiling?

I invite you to read that post and ponder it with me. Some questions you might use to frame your pondering could include: What is the hermeneutical slant I bring to my religious framework?
In what ways does my privilege shape my reading of my sacred texts? In what ways does my marginalization shape my reading of those texts?

The lesson I take from my old blog post is difficult: the glass ceiling is not something I have broken once and for all. As long as any woman is made to seem lesser when compared with a man, I will need to keep breaking through it, whether I'm the woman in the comparison or not. This, I realize, is part of my prophetic call.

How do I come to recognize the prophetic role I am called to play in the world? How do I develop that prophetic ability once I have recognized my responsibility?


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Living Lent: The Reed of God

3/25/2014

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Caryll Houselander wrote a little book over fifty years ago about the mother of Jesus called The Reed of God. Houselander's idea is that Mary became the reed through which God's Word was played into the world.

When I first read this a few months ago, my old religious context had me shaking my head. I didn't like the idea that Mary was merely a reed for God to play as God chose. Mary is always merely this or that--merely a woman, merely a vessel, merely an obedient human--and it touched a little too close to my own experience as a woman in the Roman Catholic Church, which was an experience of being lesser, lower, and either diminutive or diminished.

Today, however, is the Matronal Feastday of my community, the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, and I find myself regarding Houselander's metaphor with new appreciation. In my present context, where to be a woman is not "merely" anything, but rather a strength and a tremendous gift, I can see the reed metaphor with awe and wonder. If Mary was not merely obedient, but radically and willfully obedient, I can get on board. If she allowed God transform her into the most beautiful instrument of music the world has ever known, rather than simply accepting God was going to do what God wanted, then Mary may be the greatest heroine I've ever encountered. I behold myself in her, a woman lifted up and honored fully for who she is and what she brings to the table, and I, like Mary, am choosing to let go of less important schemes so God can act through me. I see myself becoming a reed of God because I trust the music God can breathe into and through me is awesome beyond what I might produce alone.

I see in this book, and in today's feast, a celebration of a strong woman who allowed herself to be made even stronger, a capable woman who allowed herself to become even more capable, a powerful woman who allowed the greatest power in all the universe to take root in her, to become her very flesh.

She could have said no. Her yes wasn't the obvious choice. Her yes, as I understand it, was a considered choice. She perceived that God was inviting her to allow God to be born into the world through her. What an invitation.

Mary is often seen to be extraordinary because she's a nothing who's turned into a something when God deigns to dwell in her. I don't buy this. Mary is no mere Sleeping Beauty, waiting for something to be done to her to give her life meaning. Mary is Merida, brave and bold and primed for adventure--and she is called to this adventure because she cultivated an adventurous life long ago.
God rarely calls people out of the blue. God calls people to do in extraordinary ways what they already do well. Mary was already making her own beautiful music for those around her when she was asked if she would be the instrument for God's music. She was no arbitrary choice. She, a Jewish woman who would never have been chosen for anything important in her patriarchal world, was the best possible choice to bring forth God's Word in a world filled with lesser words. God was calling her to subvert the status quo, and she was ready. All she had to do was say "Yes" for the fate of the whole world to change.

May I give a well-considered, powerful yes when God invites me to allow divinity to make a dwelling-place deep within me, and may I bear God's marvelous, life-giving, death-destroying fruit wherever I go. For I am no mere woman. I am a woman: brave and strong and fit to do God's most important work.

When God asks me to be the key player in God's next adventure, I'll have my Benedictine running shoes laced up and ready to go.

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Living Lent: Demons

3/18/2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Living Lent: International Women's Day

3/8/2014

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In honor of International Women's Day, I was invited to offer a feminist, Christian reflection on the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. I invite you to read my reflection below or at the original post on the Sophia Network.


I remember growing up with the story of the woman at the well: the woman was 'bad' because she had five husbands, and Jesus decided to save her from her sin by offering her living water, which was obviously the water of baptism.  Pretty straightforward: she changes who she is, accepts baptismal water, and she’s saved from her sinful ways.

Something niggles at me when I hear this story these days. Questions crop up all over the place, and I’m ready to accuse Jesus for daring to approach her the way he does. Why is Jesus, a Jewish man, talking to a non-Jewish woman? Isn’t this act of intimacy just as scandalous to any observer’s eye as the woman’s five husbands are? Jesus’ act would have been like a man of European descent approaching a woman of African descent during the 1950’s in the Deep South of the United States. It simply wasn’t done. And if it was done, anyone who saw it would immediately ask why. Why is Jesus risking his reputation to talk to this woman? From a different angle, one might ask why Jesus is exercising his power over this woman in this way (for he is indeed in a position of power over her)? He could compromise her at any moment and probably get away with it, because he is a clever man living in a patriarchal world. I find myself angry on the woman’s behalf, that Jesus would presume to talk to her as he does, risking her reputation further. He could be any man with any intention, as far as she knows.

I imagine myself in the woman’s position for a moment. I look at the foreign face of this person who stands at the place that quenches my thirst and the thirst of those whom I love, and I wonder why he’s in my way. Why is he talking to me? Is he going to try to take something from me? Am I safe? I am nervous and I am prepared to run if he tries to touch me.

Instead of reaching toward me in power or gawking at my feminine figure, he looks at my face. Recognition alights in his eyes. If he’s like the others, he will regard me as nothing, a piece of flesh, an unholy other. I wait, preparing to make my hasty retreat, wondering if my bucket can help me fend him off if he tries to attack me. He doesn’t move. He continues to look at my face, as if I am the living well and he is refreshing his parched lips and mouth with the story of my life. He takes time, setting aside his ego to make space for my story—and then he tells it to me as he has perceived it.

It is strange, because no grown man has ever made the effort to learn my story. It is always the man’s story that matters, that needs to be told. I am a woman, and therefore I am a thread in a man’s tapestry—many tapestries, in my case. Why is this stranger bothering with me? What does he want?

Again, the threat of harm puts fear in my heart, but still, he takes nothing from me—not even my bucket for claiming a drink. He offers me a gift instead—no favors required.

As I become the woman in this story, I am able to ask the myriad questions that lead to greater understanding about Jesus - the Christ. I perceive that this Christ is one who offers rather than takes; this Christ is one who silences his heart in order to hear the stories buried in the heart of a complete stranger.

Is this what the follower of Christ is called to, then? To take risks, to cross boundaries, to silence egos? To listen so I might learn from this other who has almost nothing in common with me, religion and societal rank included?

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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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    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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