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Extravagant

Dec 21, 2018 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

There’s an ancient sacred story told of a woman who was beautifully, lavishly, even shockingly extravagant.

Desiring love, she risked. Potential misunderstanding. Certain ridicule and scorn. Whispers, shouts, and most certainly shame. None of it mattered. Only the experience and expression of love.

Compelled by love, she held nothing back. Unrestrained and passionate, her deepest heart revealed and exposed.

A recipient of love, she gave. Generously, without thought to prudence, scarcity, boundary, or anyone else’s ideas of what was appropriate (or not).

And because of all this, she knew extravagant response:

Worthy of love, she was honored. All shame erased. All spoken and unspoken bonds broken. All penalties paid. Freedom hers. “Truly, I say to you, wherever good news is spoken in the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

****************

There’s so much I love about this story, so much I love about her. But most of all this: Her love was pre-determined, her actions hers alone, and NONE of this dependent on the response she might (or might not) receive. That is extravagance, right there.

And that, right there, calls forth the truest, most honest expression of self we could possibly hope to attain.

Want to be more authentic? Want to live in a brave and connected-to-the-Sacred-Feminine way?

Here’s the template:

Risk.
Hold nothing back.
Give.
Be extravagant.

And all as expression of the love that is yours to offer; the Love that is you!

Extravagant, indeed.

This woman calls us to be exactly who we are: risky, honest, generous, and completely compelled by (not for) the love that already dwells within us; the love that de nes us; the Love that is us! When we are truly ourselves, we can be nothing other. And this is extravagant, indeed.

The Women at the Tomb

Dec 19, 2018 | Hope & Encouragement, Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

All we have are the stories, based on the unreasonable experience of people we never knew–and the choice of whether to believe them or not. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way

“All we have are the stories.” Yours. Mine. Those of women throughout time, throughout history, heard, known…and not.

Here’s one:

Very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.

So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it.

Were it not for the women’s insistence on life, the story may have ended in dark grief and disbelief. They tell the story. They keep the story. They ARE the story!

The same is true today.

Women know death – of body, mind, and spirit. Still, we sing over the bones and at the grave.

Women name what is true, tell the story, and will not be dissuaded no matter how nonsensical it may seem.

Women know life – birthed, nursed, nurtured, healed, grieved, and restored. Resurrection, indeed.

The Widow of Nain

Dec 18, 2018 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality

There is an ancient story told of a widow whose only son died. With him went her last semblance of family, belonging, and even physical security – not to mention every last shred of hope and joy. On the day of his funeral, she moved in slow motion as the procession paraded through the streets of her village. Her head was down. Her heart was broken. Her sorrow was bottomless. Her tears were unstoppable.

Until she heard a man’s voice speak directly to her: “Do not weep.” Grief was replaced by white-hot rage. Her red-rimmed eyes rose to meet his only in time to hear him speak again, this time directly to her dead son: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And her fury was just as miraculously replaced by joy-beyond-belief as her son rose and began to speak for himself. The prophet/healer disappeared into the crowd, leaving everyone speaking of what they had just heard, seen, and experienced.

I have struggled with this story – with my writing of it. Still, she is in the “canon” of stories with which I work because she deserves to be heard and I trust-trust-trust that she has wisdom and meaning to offer.

  • Her story puts me face-to-face with patriarchal power/authority and a woman’s lack thereof.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with words spoken that are painful but ignored, because of who he is; because the rest of the story somehow redeems the earlier harshness.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with my own resistance to speaking out in response to these very stories and the god within them (not in critique, but with allowed honesty, perspective, and hope).
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with the paradox of the divine – things understood and far more not.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with me; with the heartache I know on behalf of the woman in this text and all those within the larger Text; the silence that too-often envelops them and the voice I long to give.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with my fear: my visceral awareness that to speak – to weep – to express my perspective, my opinion, even my rage, carries with it the nearly certain risk of profound loss.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with my own known grief and hope, silence and voice, heartache and endless-longing for miracles.

When it comes right down to it, her story is about me.

And you.

Somewhere between Kali and Jesus

Mar 1, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Sovereignty, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power

I am Kali Ma.
I stick my tongue out of my once silent lips.
These eyes, no longer mild,
Are furious daggers of fire.
~ a portion of a poem by Tanya Geisler

These words do not describe me. At least not as much as I wish they did and want them to.

My tongue is restrained behind my lower front teeth, afraid to breathe in too quickly for fear of the icy-cold pain that hits nerve endings and makes me wish I’d never opened my mouth. And my eyes? I wouldn’t say they are mild, particularly. I watch. I observe. I see – a lot. But fire? No. Any furious daggers thrown would more likely be at me than at you, others, or this world. In other words, I’m no Kali Ma.

I can still clearly picture various pieces of art that hung on the walls of rooms I frequented – my bedroom, throughout our home, at church. Two come to mind – both of Jesus. In the first he is holding a small lamb in his arms. In the second, he is standing on a flowered hillside, surrounded by small children – all different skin colors, shapes, and sizes. (Red, brown, yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, went the accompanying song.) Both images are gentle. Both show the weak cared for by the Divine, the Divine as male.

And both intentionally served to remind me who I was – the lost sheep, the doting child; to remind me of my place in the scheme of things – silent lips, mild eyes. Hardly Kali Ma.

As I’ve reminisced, I’ve added more images to the queue – not framed and hung, but planted firmly in my mind. Yes, Jesus gentle-and-mild, but also women relegated to the shadows, who “belonged” on the margins, who were subservient and obedient and shamed if not. Added to these, the 60’s and 70’s plethora of happy moms, twig-thin models, and doting secretaries on billboards, in magazines, on TV. Unexposed to Gloria Steinem and 1st-wave feminism (not to mention goddesses of any kind), this infant, then girl-adolescent-young woman didn’t see much – if anything or anyone – who embodied or even considered Kali-like strength. Her antithesis, in many ways, has been my learned ideal.

Along with the pictures were stories told – almost all of Jesus. I rarely think of them these days, but they remain deeply embedded in my psyche. Sometimes for good, to be sure; but often in ways that have kept me sheep-like, childlike, beholding, and in need. In need of a God, a shepherd, a man. After all, he’s the one with the strength; he’s the one with the voice, the knowing, the wisdom; he’s the one with power. Not me. I need to be found, loved, embraced, and saved. (I don’t believe this anymore – the sheep, the child, the need – but that doesn’t mean the roots of such don’t remain and even reveal themselves in ways I’d rather they did not. In ways that are shockingly un-Kali-like – even now, even today, even all these years later.)

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like, what I would be like, if a picture of Kali Ma had hung on those same walls, if hers was the tale I was told.

What if hers was the image I displayed in my college dorm room then in first and subsequent apartments? What if she was the painting I’d kept ever-present in my many homes throughout the years? What if she was the face my daughters grew up seeing, asking me to tell them her story until they knew it by heart, until she was the one who dwelled within theirs?

What if, indeed.

Kali Ma conjures something far different than what I saw modeled, what I was taught.

Aggressive and unapologetic, her eyes gleam and spark. Her red tongue protrudes – ready to hungrily lick anyone who dares to draw near. The skulls that hang around her neck are hardly comforting, but reveal her fearlessness, even of death. All illusion is sliced away. Any wish for greener pastures or nurturing companionship is erased. Though a fierce, mother-like goddess, she does not abide a childlike state. Instead, she compels my strength. She demands my voice, my knowing, my wisdom. She exudes power and insists that it is mine.

She calls me to find, love, embrace, and save myself – and my world.

Oh, that I would.

And of course, I do. But not as much as I wish and want. Especially right now. It feels as though there is no time to lose, no time to waste, seemingly no time at all. As I ponder and muse about my past, all hell breaks loose in my present.

Xenophobia, violence, greed, racism and evil run rampant. Contempt and complete
disregard seem to reign. We desperately need Kali Ma. We desperately need Kali-like women.

Even so, something in me holds back – uncertain, unsure, unable to rise up and speak out.

Maybe the why of it doesn’t matter. Maybe all my attempts to unpack and unravel and understand are distractions from doing and choosing and acting. Maybe there’s nothing to inculcate or imbibe where Kali Ma is concerned. Maybe all I need do is live as if she is already inherent within me. Trusting until I believe. Having faith.

I’ve heard that before.

Do not misunderstand. I am angry. I am resolute and firm on so much that is just not acceptable. I am hardly docile, meek, or mild when it comes to my opinions about the destruction that is imminent, if not already at hand. Still, I feel more like sheep than wolf, girl than goddess, patriarchal-bound woman than pussy-hat wearing siren and seer. I unwittingly reside in this middle place – between contradictory beliefs and ideals, between conflicting principles and values, between faith and doubt, between hope and despair, between keeping my tongue tucked tightly behind my teeth or sticking it out and swallowing whole the ignorance and evil that pervades.

Stuck here, at least for now, I have no eloquent ending or tight conclusion to this piece. No passionate benediction that rallies the troops and calls us to arms. Not even some deeper self-awareness that offers me solace or strength. Which feels right somehow, though uncomfortable.

Kind of like faith.

So even if I can’t come up with a catchy ending, I can keep working on sticking out my tongue and letting my eyes be furious daggers of fire and opening my arms and protecting the weak and loving the children and believing in justice and somehow, somehow holding on to hope – that words will come and courage will sustain and love will conquer all.

In the meantime, I gaze at the pictures that now hang in my home.

Afraid yet fearless. Wise yet playful. Brave yet tender. Imperfect yet loved.
~ Kellie Rae Roberts

It is in the midst of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who said nothing good came of this, is not yet listening.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
~ Audre Lorde

Maybe the message is getting through…

And there’s still plenty of wall space – and time – to find and display a print of Kali Ma; maybe even Jesus.

Tidings of Great Joy

Dec 19, 2015 | Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power

It’s an early evening in December, 1966. I am six years old, standing on a stage, proudly fulfilling the prestigious and
coveted role of head-angel in the Salem Heights Kindergarten Christmas Pageant.

The “shepherds,” were keeping watch over
their flocks by night when, dazzled by my light, my radiance, my glow, my gold-garland halo and sheet-made-into-celestial-robe, I speak these words, the only lines in the entire presentation:

Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be for all people…

This is my first memory: My voice saying, “Do not be afraid.”

What if I believed my own declaration.

What if I weren’t ever afraid?

What if never belied my dazzling light, my radiance, my halo, my holiness?

What if I acknowledged my own magnificence, brilliance, and power?

What if I remembered?

What if you did, as well?

Behold! I bring you good tidings of great joy!

Much has happened since I was six years old. There’s much that I’ve forgotten and much that I’ve tried to forget, to be sure. But this is worth remembering: I was (and am) dazzling and radiant and whole. Angels rejoiced. They still do. Over me, yes; over you, as well. No “what-if’s” at all. Just good tidings and great joy and angelic hosts bursting into song.

May it be so.