commonplace Wednesday: Womanspirit Rising

Originally published in 1979, Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, is a new classic on my summer reading list.  It's a collection of early essays by some of the most recognized writers in feminism and spirituality including: Merlin Stone, Starhawk, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Mary Daly, and Zsuzsanna E. Budapest.  I'm about 25 pages into it and feel energized by the ideas, and reconnected with the feminist identity and theological interests of my college years.  But I'm a little puzzled too - how can I be part of this movement, this bigger conversation, these changes, as a mom with a job?  [When I was in college I was convinced that if the values and ideas I was engaging weren't accessible and actionable by "ordinary people" (rather than ivory tower PhD types) then they were useless.  I inadvertently made that my mission and fumbled my way into ordinariness.  Here I am and what to do, how to do it, with these big ideas?]

This quote from the Introduction offers some hints:

If the world has been named by Adam without Eve's consultation, then the world has been named from the male point of view.  As women begin to name the world for themselves, they will upset the order that has been taken for granted throughout history.  They will call themselves and the world into new being.  Naming women's experience thus becomes the model not only for personal liberation and growth, but for a feminist transformation of culture and religion.  "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?" asks poet Muriel Rukeyser. "The world would split open." p.7.

When women describe their experience they have the potential to change culture and to change religion.  I don't have complete understanding of this yet but I think it's something about the man-made constructs falling away, the rules and the givens, the masculine common sense is revealed for its incompleteness, inconsistency, and inaccuracy.  It is not whole and complete for human experience.  It is not a valid placeholder or assumption.  This falling away makes room for more understanding, more dimensions and perspectives can occupy the space held as truth.

One of my favorite ideas from Carry On, Warrior was G's approach to scripture.  She is totally up front about the fact that all Bible readers pick and choose what to obey and how to understand the Bible. When faced with a passage that she didn't understand she interpreted it against the primary rules to love God and love others.  Based on this she decides what to do with the puzzling verses.  All the other rules, and what I call the man-made constructs, get cast aside to make way for the real work of loving.   Some of her readers find this sacrilegious or blasphemous.  I call it a hermeneutic of love and I dig it.

At it's best, at my best, feminism is an angle for speaking back to the dominant culture and taking apart the givens and the rules.  It's not necessarily about male versus female, men vs. women.  Women just happen to have a particular opportunity to initiate these changes since they weren't welcome to participate in the original naming.  (But women aren't the only "other" that was left out.  There are lots of opportunities.)  And the way this happens, in part, is women talking about their lives - like G in Carry On, Warrior, like me on my blog and Facebook and in life.  It's tiny.  It's barely visible, one woman at a time.  It's sometimes exhausting and seemingly pointless.  But as I, and we, persist in lifting up our very personal lives for public view and value, we participate in a political process of making room for more, different, other than the man-made norms.  The world is "split open" and we have the opportunity to reorder and remake with a new measure - a measure of love.

self portrait Saturday: uniform

My husband is a stay-at-home dad and a good one.  But it's impossible for us to pay all the bills on what I make as an admin at a (perpetual) start-up.  So L has picked up a part-time job at night and I have picked up a number of evenings plus the weekends solo parenting so that L can sleep while I take Little N.  It's rough.  It's very rough.  But once school starts again things will ease up, in terms of L being able to sleep during the day, so we really just need to get through two months of this.  We can do that.  

We're gradually developing our new routine of occupying Little N and providing L with a good sleeping environment.  (Also kind of rough with a small apartment.)  So Little N and I go out. A lot.  Every Saturday morning, and more times besides, we're off to the beach!  

This is me in my summer morning beach uniform of cap, turquoise T, black lightweight capris, and flip flops.  The only thing missing is my ubiquitous cup of coffee.  I'm comfy and ready for anything the sand, surf, and son send at me.

 But single-ish mom isn't the role I would have chosen for myself.  Heck, we all know by now that "Mom" wasn't my plan.  For that matter, "Admin" wasn't my plan either but it's turned out to be the most direct way that I can make money for this little family.  Much as I love our family pod, I need, and want, and get to have (really?  I hope so...) other identities and other good work in the world.

I have a new daydream of what my good work in the world may be.  It's been a long time since I've had a dream like this for myself, so I take it to mean a few things.  One, I'm getting well.  I can imagine something positive and imagine being, bringing, contributing something positive.  That's been a long time coming.  Two, I have to be brave and learn things that are new to me.  And isn't that what the Mom gig has been for me from the beginning.  I know that I can be brave.  I can learn new things.  I can fail & learn & try again.  Three, Compassion.  For others.  For myself.

But what's the new daydream?!  I don't want to jinx it.  Please wait and see as it develops and shows up here.  Wish me luck and all good things!

gratitude Sunday

L caught this photo of me & Little N this morning

Today's gratitude is books.  The big colorful ones that Little N studies and the new classics that line my summer reading list.

I've just discovered a Master's program that I would love to do.  It's called Transforming Spirituality and  it's a great fit for many of my interests.  But another graduate degree isn't viable for me and my family right now.  We just don't have the resources (time and money).

So I've started scouring the internet for ideas on what to be reading and doing instead of this degree.  I've located and printed a number of syllabi from women's spirituality courses and feminism and religion classes.  Then it was on to Goodreads and Amazon for book lists.  Finally a quick stop to the local Goodwill to see if any of my new reading material appeared on their shelves.  And a few did!

The next months, and years, will include lots of reading.  But there's more as well.  As resources become more flexible I'd like to find a spiritual director or maybe even do the SEEL program and maybe through them become trained as a spiritual director.

There's plenty of time to explore more options for direction and directing.  Mostly what I'm excited about is having some clarity about the direction and commitment I want to make.  I talked to L about this plan and he was engaged and supportive.  Not because this is his sort of interest, it's not.  But because it is a good match for what I'm about and what we as a family can support in a real way - that still engages me.  I'm not on pause.  I'm on "diy."  And it feels pretty good.

gratitude Sunday: Caitlin Marcoux

This week I'm especially grateful for discovering Caitlin Marcoux.  She's the friend of a friend on FB, which is how I found her, and she's pretty freaking amazing.

She's a yogini based on Nantucket and you can find more about her life, practice, and teaching here: http://www.caitlinmarcoux.net/.

What impressed and inspired me is her commitment to life, which is something I struggle with as I wrangle with depression.  This is probably my favorite post on her personal blog: 10 Practical Tips for the First 10 Days of Cancer.   She calls cancer is her teacher. Then she gets nitty gritty about what real life supports can facilitate this new relationship. She's honest about the shock, anxiety, pain but maintains the ability to also step back and make choices about how she wants to relate to this new development in her life and even make choices about how to engage others.

Depression is by no means on par with cancer when it comes to shock, symptoms, treatment, threat to life and lots more things I can't name or claim or understand because I've never been close to cancer.  I get that.  I also selfishly, passively, wish for a "10 Practical Tips for Living with Depression" to guide me and support me.  So I'm claiming Caitlin, through her blog, as one of my teachers for living, including living with major depression.  Not because I think our diagnoses are similar.  But because she has something, in her essential Caitlin-ness that I don't have today. And her diagnosis has given her a new, additional medium for expressing what is essentially her - a commitment to life - and I waffle on that commitment.  I yield to depression.  I've let it shape my life, my reactions, rather than choosing a consistent commitment to my own life and the life I share with other folks.

What are my 10 Practical Tips for Living with Depression?  What I have learned from this relationship?  What choices am I making, will I make, now that I am more awake to my own will and agency?  My own desire to live well for myself and with others.

Another of her blog posts that I love is A Great Day to Have Cancer.  In it she talks about the great support she has from folks who love her as well as the alternative treatment support and daily life supports that she is choosing to supplement her medical treatment path.  It offered me suggestions and reassurance about living well.  In one little paragraph she lists things like what she's drinking, spiritual practice, a gratitude practice, and yoga as daily ways to support herself.  I really resonated with the gratitude practice, since it's something that I already try to embody, and took instruction from the rest of her daily plan.

Caitlin Marcoux is a beautiful woman with a beautiful life and a shocking new relationship with cancer that she is navigating with grace, honesty, and openness to others, even those like me who have never met her.  I wish her healing and peace as she continues her treatment and her vibrant life.  I am so grateful to have found her, for my own selfish, needy reasons, and for the gift that she is all on her own, and all with the folks that love her.    She is a bright light in our world.

Imbolc ritual

We celebrated Imbolc Friday night with a beautiful ritual among kind friends.  The ritual impressed upon me additional elements of the holiday that hadn't stood out to me before.  Imbolc is Brigid's day, goddess of hearth, home, healing waters, light, inspiration, poetry, and even smithing.  She's a triple goddess and with her sisters shares these skills and gifts.  We honored Brigid with candlelight, poetry, blessed water, and new spring plants.

I'm not usually very attached to or inspired by particular gods and goddesses.  They tend to feel flimsy to me; spent inventions belonging to another people and another time.  But the character of Brigid reached me last night both as an icon imbued with things that are important to me and as a messenger bearing news about something about which I am very vulnerable and unsure.  Brigid told me that I am a writer.  She would know... as a goddess of inspiration, poetry, and intellect.  The message came with clarity and courage in my heart to keep putting words together about what I feel, know, and experience.

Brigid's message carried another insight too.  She convinced me of the significance and power of knowing your gods and goddesses.  I still don't perceive supernatural entities hanging out in the ether guiding, protecting, or judging us.  I don't experience divine presence that way (if at all).  But I do recognize the utility and power of recognizing and committing to strong characters holding and exemplifying our highest values.  They provide models, guides, examples, good company as we navigate change and confusion, celebrate our arrivals into new good places in our lives, and generally strive to live well with each other.

For years now I've played with the metaphor of the madwoman in the attic, where God is the madwoman.  Inherent to that metaphor has been my own struggle to perceive a divine feminine.  An aspect of the madwoman has been the male God in women's clothing.  I couldn't shake the masculine deity of my formative faith.  But through the icon of Brigid, within the ritual's meditation, I recognized and felt the madwoman as her own distinct feminine sacred self.  And with the new beginnings of Imbolc, I committed this year to knowing her character and committed my writing to her.  What does this mean?  I'm still translating the feelings of that night into meaning and action, but it's something about mercy, creativity, release rather than rules, love rather than laws, sharing my struggle, celebrating each tiny success, and knowing the sacred and holy in the good company of other people.

reinvention: role model

self-portrait Sunday: reinvention

once upon a time I was special

today I am ordinary

In my college years, overwhelmed with all the theories at school, the religion of my family and school, the grief and confusion of my family after my father's death, I cemented myself in the notion that if a given idea didn't work for "ordinary people" then it wasn't worth anything.  Over the years, I shucked off much of what made me special, and stripped my life down to an "ordinary person." 

In many ways my life today is 100% the life I never wanted.  I have a husband and a child, rather than the freedom of singleness.  I have financial responsibilities for this family rather than just the risks or security for myself.  I work a day job.  First as an assistant.  Now in sales.  I live in a generic, off-white walls, carpeted apartment behind a shopping plaza.  I have no socio-political action in my regular routine.  I've given up protests, letter writing campaigns, and even volunteering.  Writing classes and book binding workshops are a distant memory.  I work a job.  Tend my family.  Sleep. Rise to do it again.  My 20-year old self is cringing.

In ways that matter to me today, my life is exactly what I value. I have a partner I can rely on.  When postpartum depression stunned me, L was there to show me how to mother, and later to take over as primary caregiver when I went back to work.  I love Little N, who is a bright light, teacher, and playmate to me.  I live a simple, affordable lifestyle.  I share moments of resonance with a few really special people.  I am reconnected to family and relatives, something I never anticipated.  I have rooted myself in love and time.  Time with the folks I love.  Something I consider an important part of my father's legacy and a value I hold as my own.  But all this sums to an ordinary life.

I miss my own specialness.  I miss creating.  I miss believing.  I miss knowledge and connections and expression.  That's why "my time" is so important to me right now.  How will I inhabit that time?  What will I do with those precious minutes that will resurrect and strengthen my gift, my work?  What are the tasks and practice to my achievement?

It's too bittersweet to be rock bottom or a rude awakening.  This is simply an awakening.  One of those events that we are graced with from time to time in life.  That nudge from one route and collection of practices and people into another.  Everything in my life up until this point has brought me here and prepared me for what's next.  My morning pages sketch a path and now it's my turn, my time, and my effort to do the work.

Radiant Living day 5 of 21

I think the de-tox phase of this program has started for me. Today I carried a heavy headache, sore muscles, tiredness... and other unpleasantness. And oh are my food addictions singing my name - so sweetly. I Want Sugar Now.

Still, I'm staying with the program. There's some inner core feeling of goodness and lightness. Some unfamiliar reservoir of me-ness whose attention has been caught and held by this process. And she says that the symptoms will pass, she's indifferent to them, she wants to see what's next.

I did my yoga outside in the yard behind our building while my guys slept. And remained there to do the Radiant meditations.

The meditation part of this program has been very challenging for me but it's one of the primary reasons I wanted to do this rather than just follow a cleansing diet out of a library book. I'm struggling to sit still, to still my mind these days. Moving helps a lot. My mind can settle when I'm moving through familiar yoga poses. But to sit and immerse myself in silence or even a guided meditation is really difficult.

I made meditation one of my priorities for today and am pleased both that I did it and with the experience of it. Yes, my mind wandered. And, yes, I brought it back to meditation. I especially love the Radiant Goddess Affirmation. Phrases of from it return to me throughout the day.

Nutrition is going surprisingly well! I'm surprised that I haven't leapt off of the wagon into a rolling field of chocolate bars and rivers of ice cream sundaes. L said to me today, "You get credit for staying with this eating plan and also give yourself credit for the food preparation. That's a lot of effort!" It felt good to have him notice the work I'm doing and encourage me to value it all.

Potato Salad adapted from the Radiant recipes - potatoes & lots of diced veggies, hummus, a quick drizzle of sesame oil, salt & pepper.

Lentil Soup - a combination of two Radiant recipes. L had some yesterday and said it's one of the best soups he's had. Of course, he also added hot sauce to his...

My nightly treat - raspberries, brown rice, an apple (all warmed together), cinnamon, soy milk, quick drizzle of honey or maple syrup, chopped nuts, & chia seeds.

Radiant Goddess vision board posted up next to my bed.
This is my direction.
Strength. Joy. Praise. Clarity. Peace. Beauty.
& a Love note.

release & renewal

Today is my birthday.
We celebrated throughout the long weekend with simple pleasures I love,
like these gorgeous flowers,

and some time to myself (a simple yet rare pleasure).

This year, my birthday signifies a fresh start. I'm lugging around a lot of disappointment and frustration for too long. This birthday marks choice & cleansing, release & renewal.
I've got some great resources to help me do it:

Goddess Circle - specifically the Radiant Goddess course that starts tomorrow. It involves a nutrition plan (no gluten, no refined sugar, lots of fresh raw goodies and, well, less coffee for me), meditation & grounding, moving your body, and a group of bright heartfelt women to share the work & wonder of it. Goddess Circle more broadly is a place where I'm finding women I share some resonance with and that's another gift for this journey.

Releasing the Disappointments and Frustrations (a.k.a. the Evil Stupids) - I think of each new moon as a time for planting something and the full moon as a time for release. So, a the next new moon (9/8) I'm planting the notion of clean ~ my body, heart, & spirit. In the next couple of week I'll practice naming the Evil Stupids that I want to shed. At the full moon (9/23) I'll mark the release with a simple ritual and celebrate the work of renewal. It's symbolic, yes, but it also nudges along a necessary mindfulness.

Depression Treatment - we're changing my meds for the first time in nearly 3 years. I'm dreading withdrawal but hopeful of stepping out from the white noise and clinging heaviness. And I've got a referral for a therapist and some other resources.

Already Done - I've been to the dentist for the first time in 5 years with my first real filling coming up on 9/8; I just had my annual physical; I'm capturing N's accomplishments in my journal; I've been doing yoga pretty consistently during my lunch break; I'm remembering & receiving folks who take me as is.

There's so much more I want to be doing - photography course, job change, cooking, studying "the spectrum," participate in a real life community...

and this is a pretty gorgeous start.

Imbolc

Sunlight reaches earlier into our mornings
and bends later into our afternoons.
Spring stretches out on the edge of these days.
So, what do you want to do?

Tonight my family celebrated this tender part of the season. Over a simple special meal we shared some of the creative projects we're working on this year. I remembered some of what first attracted me to my husband. I noted some of what's changed in me; new things are engaging my attention & my imagination about my own life.

MADWOMAN near.

speaking to you

Where do you go, or what do you do, when too much is speaking at you but not much is speaking to you?

This feeling has rendered me somewhat adrift. I think the answer, for me right now, is to choose something and root into it for a while. It's tempting to just blame my environment. But I think this problem resides inside of me.

It's going to be some work. Like returning to a practice of Nothing.

Then there was something that caught my attention in the message the Pastor J gave this morning. She compared two stories - one from Numbers and the other from Mark - that were both about the Spirit of God empowering folks who were outside of the group. Pastor J used the story to examine the relationship between our congregation and others in our area. We're all doing good work in this community, even with (or through?) our different identities.

But the whole time I was feeling like, "That's me. I'm not really part of a group. I don't wholly identify with one and none wholly claims me. But there's something I've been given. Something to share."

Maybe everyone feels that way. Maybe everyone in the room this morning took that message into her or his own heart and knew, "This means me."

Now what... I might look up the passages they read at church this morning. Mull on them while. But more than that, if there is something empowered in me, I want to know that something and believe it in my daily life. That requires listening to me, listening for the Divine. And I think that brings me back to the practice of Nothing.

I was sort of hoping for something easier... what about you?

looking forward

and it looks promising for a year of
creativity! passion! fire! motion!

I just ordered my We'Moon datebook for 2010.

"Riding on the thin rim of the Wheel of Change, between alarm at what humankind has wrought and trust in Spirit at the center, We'Moon 2010 inspires us to Reinvent the Wheel to repair the earth's sacred order."

We'Moon calendars beautifully connect the grid of the Gregorian calendar with moon phases, planetary cycles, and "the wheel of the year." Composed of original art & writing by women, these unique pieces encourage the user to tend both her personal spirituality and the collective health of her community. Please visit their website for more about their gorgeous products.

my wish

Crackle! Sizzle! Pop!

This is the image that I've been carrying in my mind of what I wish for my life. That burst of new life, a surge of creative heat, passion, burning without consuming, burning & releasing. Tearing out of my pretty blue shell, I am healthy, whole, new. Charged with energy.

Zowie! Pow! Kazaam!

The Ace of Wands, from the Motherpeace Tarot deck. Composed & illustrated by Karen Vogel and Vicki Noble.

Joyful Girl

i wonder if everything i do
i do instead
of something i want to do more
the question fills my head
i know that there's no grand plan here
this is just the way it goes
and when everything else seems unclear
i guess at least i know

i do it for the joy it brings...

in 3's

pastor asked us today
"what is your ministry?"

the consultant at work wants to discuss my
"personal growth plan"

and I recently woke from a dream compelled to
"tell the story"

earth

Last Sunday night I did a simple ritual in anticipation of the new moon. I wanted something to focus on and live into for the month, something to see the full moon. I sat with my flickery little candle and asked for a word. One word through which to focus.

But my mind is cluttered noisy place... a blizzard of words blew through.

earth

ground

in real life

my body, money, family, job, to-do list, punctuality

listen

humility

forgive

repent

turn

real change, James, homeless folks, hungry folks

I escape up into my mind, out of real life, out of pain, poverty, inequality, injustice, have-nots

service & justice

what will I do?

"Earth" is the word that all the others root into, and it echoes a commitment I made to myself last Fall to focus on the physical world and let the intangible take care of itself for a little while. "Earth" challenges me to remain present in my pain & discomfort; it challenges me to remain with others & their pain. It challenges me to heed and then to respond in real tangible life to people, issues, facts beyond my immediate sphere.

Monday morning I woke up feeling sick and it got worse before it got better. That will get your attention onto the physical reality... But it can also be an incentive to escape out of a broken body. I chose to stay with it & listen. Dress comfy. Live on soup. Pile on the quilts. And I accepted it as a reminder & nudge: go back to those (friends & strangers) in pain & listen, let them know you are near; share something tangible (cash & company both count) with the neighborhood homeless man; seek new information beyond the media-hype in my face and...

I'm afraid. I don't know what to do. I don't know what will be asked of me. I so want to choose something immediate to me to occupy myself, to be my alibi, my excuse.

turn

repent

forgive

amend

humility

simplicity

listen

ground

earth

3 good things (of which 1 is a poopy diaper)

True to my word, I packed up Baby N and went to church this morning.  While we were there I observed 3 good things:

1. Acceptance, support, gentleness, comforting, sharing - as the community gathered around Sweet Miss K whose mother died a few weeks ago.  Her mom was only recently diagnosed with cancer and we had such hopes that she would prevail.  Sweet Miss K is somewhat fragile, even at her best, so the sudden loss of her mother is such a great grief.  K entered the sanctuary this morning and immediately started sobbing.  "I should leave," I overheard her say to the woman she was sitting with.  "No dear, everyone here knows, everyone here loves you.  Stay."  I held Baby N on my lap and my tears let down like milk.

2. Several folks extended the comfort of telling Sweet Miss K that her mother was in a much better place, she was with Jesus.  K cried back, "But where does that leave me?  I'm so sad.  I miss her so much."  AMEN  Sweet Miss K is so brave to tell the truth about grief.  It's not about who we've lost, they're the lucky ones, it's about us left here without them.  How are we supposed to endure the loss when the one who has always helped us through is the one that we've lost?  The comforters should know better than to offer flimsy facades.  Grief won't be covered up; it will make itself known.  Better to face it truthfully (and in good company).

3. Baby N delivered a massive, stinking diaper 30 minutes into the service.  Fortunately, we had already removed ourselves to the Family Room adjacent to the sanctuary.  I cleaned him up and we stayed put for the rest of the service.  I'm grateful for the refuge of that little room.  I love these people.  I love seeing them support K.  I love the altar piled high with goods for the food bank.  But I chafe & writhe & start gnawing the furniture in reaction to so much of Christian religion.  The hymns are loaded with words & concepts that I reject - "blood" that saves, "I am your son" with no alternatives ever, and a sermon about God shining through the holes in our lives, shredded by loss & trauma... and while that may be true & I might even accept it in an intimate conversation, from the pulpit it sounded canned, like a sound bite.  

I lay back on the floor of the Family Room while Baby N played with the toys there.  They built this little room when we started attending.  It was dedicated as part of N's dedication service.  I'm struggling to reconcile the community that I value with the religion that I reject.  I'm holding tightly to the compassion they show to each other and to the folks in our neighborhood.  I'm holding tightly to the stories they share of God's presence in their lives.  I'm trying to respect and understand their regard for the religion.  

The religion gets in the way for me. As it has for years.  In the past, I've allowed that obstruction to keep me outside the community of believers.  But I want to be able to move in and out:

1) I want a personal practice that centers & sustains me; 

2) I want kindreds with whom to share frustration, creativity, challenges, study, celebration...; 

3) I want to be part of the broader faith community, to hear the good they draw from the religion, to celebrate and grieve with them, to be loved among them, to be included even though I believe differently, to share some of the presence I meet and the good I draw from my faith.

June moon

Tonight is the full moon. When TerraLuna Community was meeting, the small monthly gatherings were my favorites. Tonight I will do something by myself to recognize this time. Light a candle. Sit in the quiet. Recognize some truth (everything is revealed in the light of the full moon). Offer gratitude.

The dreamboard group over at Starshyne creates their boards and posts them for viewing at the full moon. I've made collages in this spirit off & on over the years so it feels like coming home to renew the practice.


My board for this month continues the theme of trinity. Here as body, mind & spirit. (back to my current fave word perichoresis) These three aspects of my life are dancing around together. Dynamism. Perfection as-is. Stretching in two directions - rooting into the divine, blooming into my daily life. Spiraling as I shuttle back & forth between the two.

signs of...

This image is from a church program distributed during Lent. I think the message that Sunday was "Signs of Rescue." I don't remember much from the sermon, but I still see two things in the image: the Christian trinity as perichoresis (the persons of God "dancing around") and the pagan symbol of the Triple Goddess (Maiden, Mother & Crone).

The Triple Goddess: The Original Holy Trinity

The spiral as triple Goddess is recognized by contemporary pagans, as found in ancient art throughout the world. Most famously, perhaps, in art at Newgrange in Ireland.

Newgrange

I have a friend who went on a pagan pilgrimage to Malta where she was profoundly impacted by the spirals depicted in red ochre in a lower level of the Hypogeum.

The Hypogeum

Contemporary pagans like to remind us that St. Augustine, in his book City of God, mocked the pagans for belief in a goddess who is simultaneously 3 and 1... only to (ironically?) advocate for a trinitarian view in a later book On the Trinity.

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Triple-Goddess

Contemporary Christians like to maintain a clear distinction between the two religions and their trinities. I recall years of lessons (apologetics?) on the uniqueness of the Christian faith (although life experience has worn away at the impression).

http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/pagan1.html

I stumbled across one site where the two perspectives were claimed equally, in artistic cooperation:

Holy Trinity Brooch

"Inspired by Newgrange in Co. Wicklow, this attractive brooch depicts
the holy trinity combined with another 'Celtic classic':
the Newgrange spiral."

I'm grateful for the connections between Christian and pagan. Their long complex (tumultuous) relationship links them over & over as they share characters, concepts, seasons... each providing a different approach or facet of the same subject. They each inform my understanding, appreciation, and regard for the other. Together they make, for me, a more complete spiritual life.

I look at the triple spiral and I recognize more. The image points to: Father, Son & Holy Spirit*; Maiden, Mother & Crone; three dancing; eternity; ancient & modern; seed sprouting into a plant...and more besides. What do you see? & feel?

Being able to draw on these two religions gives me more because each is finite and so I am cautioned against absolutism. Each complements & tempers the other; filling gaps; pushing me beyond the specific influences that shaped them into their particular forms. Each gives me its own insight & wisdom. When the gifts & inadequacies of both are coupled they remind me that there is more besides what any religion - any human articulation - can know.

These are all signs. They give us information. They point to something. They aren't the thing itself. They help us find the way. Sometimes they are very beautiful.


I just found the artist who made the image on the program: Jan Richardson. Please visit her site and her blog - lots of inspiring images, especially expressive for what words fail.

* "God is not two men and a bird." Elizabeth Johnson quoting Sandra Schneider
Johnson, Elizabeth. Quest for the living God. New York: Continuum. 2008. p.208.

עִמָּנוּאֵל

Something is up at Fremont Baptist Church. And it is good.

During coffee hour today I had a chance to tell Pastor J that I really appreciated her recent sermon on Anna & the inclusion of her own mom. (see previous post Fremont Baptist) Pastor surprised me saying, "I had no intention of talking about my mother. It just came out of my mouth!" Turns out, that's been happening rather a lot lately. Today's sermon from Genesis 1, with its themes of darkness, light, and God's presence, transformed into Pastor J's personal story of God bringing her through a long journey from darkness into light. A story she hadn't planned on telling us. Not today anyway. A powerful story to hear from the pulpit. And to receive into our own struggles. A story that God moved her to tell us - through her voice, her heart, her life.

There have been other things too, mostly about the way the church is revived. In the course of burying 18 congregants over 3 years it became clear that the church needed younger folks if it was going to continue. And then L, Baby N and I started attending. And another couple. And today a half-dozen college students that usually attend the mega-church up the street.

I told L all about this on our way home. He said, "Your eyes are really big right now." I'm excited. I am convinced that we are part of something special in a special place that already has a special influence in my life.

עִמָּנוּאֵל
emmanuel
God with us