Sophia and Quantum Physics

Jan 20, 2014 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I had to figure out how to find Sophia. Or make the space for her to find me. One day I came to realize that she’s been here all along. Through all my questions she continues to hold my hand. She nudges. Cajoles. Entices. Winks. ~ Karen Speerstra, Sophia: The Feminine Face of God

I have often wondered how my life might have been different if I’d known of Sophia; if god was a woman; if I had realized and felt that I was supported, surrounded, and upheld by the Feminine – in spirit, in form, and within.

I can only wonder, for this is not what I have known.

Rather than wallow in regret, I can, with gratitude and awe, recognize that whether I knew Her or not, even realized She existed, She has been here all along.

That’s the beauty of truth: aware, or not, has no influence or impact on its reality, its presence, its activity in our lives.

Consider gravity. Even if I do not understand it at the most scientific of levels (which I do not), its truth is no less present nor its reality any less felt. Or how about Quantum physics? (Let me be clear: no comprehension at all!) But I see its outworking and mysterious, mystifying reality around me – all the time and without question.

It’s the not-knowing, not needing to recognize, and not actually having to be aware that makes truth and its power and presence so beautiful, winsome, and undeniable.

And if we can know, do recognize, and are aware? Delight, gift, and grace.

Sophia (along with gravity and Quantum physics) has existed, acted, and stayed even when unacknowledged, unknown, un-understood, and unseen. And if that weren’t good news enough, then this: when all is said and done, it takes the pressure off when it comes to the sacred, the divine, and any understanding of (or even belief in) god – or not. It’s just not about us.

This means the slightest of winks or most tender of nudges is also nothing more (and certainly nothing less) than delight, gift, and yes, grace.

(You can imagine Sophia’s smile right now, can’t you?)

May it be so.

Holy Week and Les Miserables

Mar 26, 2013 | Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

It’s Holy Week. As is often the case this time of year, I feel some ambivalence: a tinge of regret, a flood of emotion, a lifetime of memory.

So many Easter Sundays spent. A young girl in a new dress and white patent leather shoes. A mother with young daughters in new dresses and white patent leather shoes. And now, a faith-full and church-less woman with no logical reason for a new dress or patent leather shoes.

Was there ever really a logical reason for white patent leather shoes?

My now-less-young daughters came home from a weekend at their dad’s with the Deluxe Edition DVD set of Les Misérables – including the collectible book, the collectible cards, and lots of behind-the-scenes content. I thumbed through and then tumbled across four phrases, all in caps, each on their own page, boldly proclaiming the film’s Eastertide (and practically-illogical) message:

ONE DREAM CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
FIGHT FOR WHAT YOU LOVE MOST.
FIGHT FOR JUSTICE.
HOPE CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Doctrine, denomination, an affinity for epic musicals, and ambivalence aside, Holy Week tells a similar story. The message inherent in the life of Jesus (and Les Mis) is both impossible and impractical (sort of like white patent leather shoes). But that’s exactly why we love it so; why we weep at its poignancy and power; why we silently hum (and pray) the lyrics to I Dreamed a Dream or Handel’s Messiah; why we fondly, wistfully recall our days of new clothes and shiny shoes. Because it’s the impossible and impractical, the seemingly-crazy, the risky, the beyond-belief, the self-sacrificing, and the love – Love – LOVE that touches us more deeply than anything else, that moves us, that inspires us, that invites us to believe.

To believe — even for a moment — is holy, is sacred, is resurrection for your very soul.

Believe that no form or aspect of death can contain the impossible, impractical, and wild power of Love. Believe that it is the impossible, impractical, and wild power of Love that enables you to rise – again and again. And believe that whether you don white patent leather shoes, or not, the impossible, impractical, and wild power of Love is a dream worth dreaming, a fight worth fighting, justice beyond compare, and the hope that changes everything.

It is my prayer that you will know and experience infinite and overflowing amounts of this impossible, impractical and wild Love throughout Holy Week (and always) – in unbridled, unimaginable, unlimited ways; that our world will know the same.

May it be so.

The God of Once Upon a Time

Mar 5, 2013 | Mothers and Daughters, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

Once Upon a Time. There was a day when these four small words would instantly transport my eldest daughter to another world. Her imagination and senses would engage. And she implicitly trusted that something rich and beautiful, something of dreams and intrigue; something that touched in deep and anticipation-filled ways was on the verge. She was a child.

Now she is a teenager. She has no time for such tales. At least not those of myth, of history, of fairytale. She is steeped in story, to be sure; but now they are narratives that create pressure and leave nothing to imagination. Boys. Body image. Behavior. They broadcast nonstop.

Everything is blatant. Everything is seen. Everything is said. And a Once Upon a Time world, at least to her, feels silly, if not a waste of time.

I cried today. For her, for myself, and in remembrance of days gone by when I could hold her on my lap and make everything right. Now hard stories seem to abound. There is no fantasy for escape; no fairy godmother to wave a magic wand; no prince to rescue.

And so I pray.

*****

I have heard that God, when beckoned, shows up for some in palpable and find-a-parking-spot ways.

This is not my experience.

Sometimes talking to God feels as silly as the stories to which my daughter now rolls her eyes. God? Really? How am I to understand, to trust, to know there even is a God – who hears and understands, let alone acts on behalf of a 52-year-old mother and her 16-year-old girl? Please.

“Please?”

*****

In all good stories the plot builds. We feverishly turn the pages, longing to see what happens next. And something significant always occurs – somewhere between Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After. We lean forward in anticipation and hope (maybe even prayer), implicitly knowing and believing (maybe even having faith) that the tide is about to turn. We are rarely, if ever disappointed.

Nor am I.

The divine does show up. No magic wand or parking space. No “fix.” No miracle. Or is it?

A gentle wind blows through my mind and a sacred tale catches on the jagged edge of my heart. Grace whispers and soothes. And story returns. Once Upon a Time…

  • Eve longed for more, reached, and desired.
  • Noah’s wife, in the face of tragedy too excruciating to comprehend, survived.
  • Hagar was abused, abandoned, and alone…but not forgotten.
  • Hannah agonized over infertility and God heard her cry.
  • Esther took incalculable risk to save a nation.
  • Mary knew ecstatic joy and the depths of sorrow with her son.
  • The woman at the well, lost in shame, was seen and loved.
  • Mary Magdalene felt deep emotion, deep passion, deep love, deep heartache.

These stories and hundreds more are answered prayer for me. They hold and comfort. They accompany and guide. They lift me up. They calm me down. They bring me home – to myself and to the God who dwells within them. They remind me that I am not alone.

One could say that I find the divine in story. But truth-be-told, the divine, maybe even God, finds me.

And this is miracle, indeed. For in this infinite finding, I return to Once Upon a Time. To perspective. To wisdom. To hope. To an epic quest and heroine’s journey. Plot twists and turns. Battles lost and others won. Ball gowns and scullery rags. Heights and depths. Laughter and yes, tears.

*****

I cried a second time today. Deeply aware and profoundly grateful for a God who intimately and palpably reminds me I am not alone; who dwells in stories – others’, my daughter’s, and even my own.

Are there days when I wish for simple answers or a quick fix? Yes. Today was one of them. But given the choice, I’ll forego the God of good parking spaces Every Single Time for the God of Once Upon a Time.

Being Certain about Uncertainty

Feb 20, 2013 | Spirituality

Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent . . . Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair . . . Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work . . . Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death. ~ Mary Jean Irion, from Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation

I am certain these words were written for me. I need their deep-breath-ness: when desire seems foolish, far away, and graspy; when not being sure is both ghost and muse.

I am certain these words are the only ones I can offer others when deep breaths are needed but hard to come by: when blows, disappointments, and heartaches buffet; when not being sure seems the only dependable thing.

And though I am loathe to admit it, these words remind me that not being sure is the only way to experience faith, hold on to hope, and believe in love. I’m certain of it.

None of this is pretty, or easy, or even sane. But then, few things of deepest passion and lasting value ever are.

*****

I type these words praying they are true; that the hard things of life – in mine and others’ – are the very things that invite the certainty of faith’s reward. I’m not sure . . .

And maybe that’s the key. Letting go. Loosening my grip. Deep breaths. Allowing uncertainty and un-sure-ness to carry rather than bearing the intolerable burden of demanding answers or assurance.

*****

Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent . . . Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions,  then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair . . . Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work . . . Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.

Elegance & Crudeness

Feb 4, 2013 | Spirituality, Writing

A quickly-composed and deeply-felt post in the middle of my day…

Despite all obstacles placed in my way, many of which I erected myself, I am writing today.

I am writing about the Divine Feminine.

My history in regards to such, misconceptions that abound, and ways in which She is experienced both within and without. I am writing about my own religious tradition and the ways in which even the uttering of Her name would have well been understood as heresy from the pit of hell. I am writing about the ways in which that has confused me for so many years. And I am writing about how my movement toward Her has invited me into expansiveness, empowerment, and faith beyond-compare.

As I write, I have been reflecting on words spoken by artist and activist Callahan McDonough:

“I look for that balance of elegance and crudeness in my work and the daily reference in the ‘doing’ of the work. My desire is for my work to be experienced out in the world, to make a difference that touches people’s lives.”

Yes, this.

There is a balance of both elegance and crudeness in writing. Even more, in life. When I allow for both, I then extend myself grace and forgiveness. When I allow for both, I am compelled to higher levels of creativity without incessant second guessing. When I allow for both, I find myself in a place where darkness does not overcome light, nor does shadow or resistance overwhelm.

I am writing today. About some of the hardest things: my own story, my own doubts, my own fears. But in each, allowing confidence and doubt, hope and despair, and yes, elegance and crudeness; the jumble of emotions, talents, insecurities, and stories that are me.

Oh, that we would live our lives in such a place: aware of the elegance and crudeness innate in us all – allowing for both and calling forth ever-more. What might we yet create? What might we yet imagine? What might we yet birth?

Yes, this: birth. The primary and original place in which elegance and crudeness coexist. The primary and original place in which women bring forth their innate and particular power. The primary and original place in which miracles occur and the Divine Feminine makes herself known. The primary and original place in which God is made manifest in the world. Elegant. Crude. Beautiful.

I’ll take more of that, please.