With Passion

With
passion pray. With
passion work. With passion make love.
With passion eat and drink and dance and play.

Why look like a dead fish
in this ocean
of
God?

-Rumi

butterflies, unicorns and other girly things

For as long as I can remember, I've claimed to not be a fan of butterflies, unicorns, purple, or pink.

Some of that makes sense. In developed New York, butterflies are not a common sighting. My most frequent experiences with butterflies were Lisa Frank folders in elementary school. They were shockingly inaccurate and all together unattractive. Yet, as their motto tells us, they were of the stuff that "All girls love."

In our older years (and yes, perhaps in our younger) there may be occurrences in life that leave us feeling solitary. Suddenly, we have far less of a grip on the patterns of the world than we had thought.

During one of these times, I started seeing living butterflies. Had I not seen them before? They gently flew around me. When questions were overflowing, these serene insects floated across my path, bringing my thoughts back to the beauty of the present.
Since that time, in each flow of doubt or fear that resurfaces, I've found myself to suddenly notice the company of butterflies. No longer are they inanimate and over colored. They move with grace and intention. They are a reminder that beauty returns in amity, and in time.

In a recent visit to Bolinas, CA, I saw this lovely smattering of friends along a building wall:

What symbols have been rediscovered for you?

A Vase

I struggled last night, as I always do, as I spiritually occupied the liminal time of being in one place with my mind in another. I sat across the table from beautiful friends whom I wasn’t seeing because of the steady stream of thoughts focused elsewhere. “I have to remember to call mom right after midnight… Finish packing quickly so you can go to sleep… You’ll be in the airport early tomorrow… You’ll be back in California in the afternoon, do you want to go back?”

I was overwhelmed with the “yines” (yes and no), the constant conflictions felt when preparing myself to go to another home. I’ve always struggled with this. At sleep away camp in middle school I felt panic as I approached the two weeks away from home, and I wept when I had to leave Warwick to return to Nyack. I’m an absolute sap when it comes to goodbyes. A mess.

It was the generosity of a friend at 12:01AM January 1, 2011 that brought me back to the present. I was surrounded with people close to me, with whom I can reveal all facets of my personality. The Me who is smiling too much, can’t think of a joke but is laughing at everything everyone else says. The Me who is lucidly processing something at the grace of those present. The Me who is cranky as hell and letting out every cynical comment that comes to mind. It’s an amazing thing to celebrate with people who celebrate all of you and you celebrate all of them.

I am reminded of the poem “A Vase” by Rabia.

*a love poem from God

“I am always holding a priceless vase in my hands.

If you asked me about the deeper truths

of the path and I told you

the answers,

it would be like handing sacred relics to you.

But most have their hands tied

behind their

back;

that is, most are not free of events their eyes have seen

and their ears have heard

and their bodies felt.

Most cannot focus their abilities

in the present, and

might drop what

I said.

So I’ll wait; I don’t mind waiting until

your love for all

makes luminous

the now.

*written on January 1st, 2011

שבת

There's something about the idea of the "Sabbath" that I have never quite grasped. I know that I haven't grasped it because I've never been moved to fully observe it. Whether it be on a Saturday or a Sunday, I've resisted having a day of rest in my busy week.
Maybe this is because with the word "rest" has, for me, an immediate association with the phrase "Rest, so that you can ___." In my American consumerist mind, we rest so that we can be more productive when we're not resting. I've always felt very productive, and if I need to rest 15 minutes will do. Then I'm back on my feet. So, a whole day of this type of rest just feels unnecessary, if not gluttonous.

I recently was led in a new type of prayer called "centering prayer." When practicing centering prayer, one sits in a comfortable position (feet on ground, hands on knees, back against chair) closes their eyes and begins to focus on their breathing. After a few minutes they choose a word or phrase that they want to focus on. As they breathe in and out, they repeat this phrase in their mind. Our minds will wander, and in centering prayer you don't resist this wandering. You allow it and then patiently bring your thoughts back to your sacred phrase.

Abraham Heschel said, "The first holy thing in all creation was not a people or a place but a day. God made everything in creation and called it good, but when God rested on the seventh day, God called it holy." This time being thought of as holy makes me think that it is much more of a time of meditation than rejuvenation. Although productive energy may be created as a result of the observance of a sabbath, it is not the goal. The goal is to take that day and whenever the busy addict within us wants to wander off, to acknowledge that self and then bring it back to "rest. rest."

Perhaps this time of intentional rest is what we humans need to become centered and holy. I use the phrase "busy addict" because I think that we can be addicted to busy activity. One of my teachers, Charlie Glickman, said recently "It's hard to get enough of something that almost works." Perhaps this is where our drive for more activity stems. Maybe the Sabbath, deemed holy by God, is what would work. Without the Sabbath, our days are filled with a busy-ness that almost works, and so we pursue it incessantly, hoping for it to finally fulfill us.

Day by day we are drawn closer
to the loving heart of God.
Be in our thoughts as we pursue your שבת.

Happy Advent One

There is a chalk board in the Trinity House dining room with a message that changed from "Happy Birthday!" to "Happy Advent One!" yesterday. Given more board space for accuracy, it should have read something like "Happy first Sunday of Advent", but in a house full of seminary students, "advent one" is effective enough.

In a culture of instant gratification, the building anticipation of the advent season does not come naturally. With our iPhones, iPads, Kindles and iBrains, we tend to focus on what we can have now rather than on what we can eagerly expect, but must wait for. Yet, if we keep our appetite at bay and allow ourselves to feel the hunger rumblings grow, the satisfaction of the arrival of the Savior will be that much more delighted in. (This doesn't help to dispel accusations of Christian cannibalism, I know.)

In this first week, one can feel the tension of waiting begin with the singing of Advent hymns. Yesterday, in chapel, we sang "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and I was particularly struck by the words of the last verse:

Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Oh, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be yourself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

With these words, let us be inspired with hunger and expectancy for the Peace that we long for, and that is to us promised.

Reprieve

I've listened to Ani Difranco's performance of this poem enough in the past two days that I thought a transcription was warranted. Yes, others have put copies of this online... but those versions don't match the one that I've been listening to. And, admittedly, I wanted to write this out. Word for word.
The written version in no way holds a candle to the spoken word. Click on the title to listen.

Reprieve

Manhattan is an island

like the women who are

surrounded by children in a

car surrounded by cars

Or, Manhattan was a project

that projected the worst of mankind

first one, and then the other has made its mark on my mind

It’s sixty years later

near the hypocenter of the A-bomb

I’m in the middle of Hiroshima

watching a twisted, old eucalyptus tree wave

one of the very few lives that survived and lives on

remembering the day it was suddenly thousands of degrees in the shade

And what all of nature gave birth to

terror took in a blinding rage

with the kind of pain it would take cancer

so many years just to say

Oh, to grow up gagged and blind folded

a mans' world in your little girls’ head

the voice of the Great Mother drowned out in the constant

honking haunting of the car crash up ahead.

Oh, to grow up hypnotized

and then try to shake yourself awake

cuz you can sense what has been lost

cuz you can sense what is at stake

Yea, so it took me a few years to catch on

that those days I catch everyone’s eye

correspond with those nights of the month when

the moon gleams like an egg in the sky

and men are using a sense they didn’t know they had

just to watch me walk by

and me, I’m supposed to be sensible

leave my animal outside to cry

But when all of nature conspires to make me her glorious whore

it’s cuz in my body I hold the secret recipe of precisely what life is for

and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it

is the same one making war

and I’ve said too much already, but I’ll tell you something more

to split yourself in two

is just the most radical thing you can do

so girl, if that shit ain’t up to you

then you simply are not free

cuz from the sunlight on my hair

to which eggs I grow to term

to the expression that I wear

all I really own is me

Yes, to split yourself in two

is just the most radical thing you can do

Goddess forbid that little adam should grow so jealous of eve

and in the face of the great farce of the nuclear age

feminism ain’t about equality, it’s about reprieve

Female Ability

feminism |ˈfeməˌnizəm|
noun
the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

In order to graduate on time from Westminster College, I was not able to double-major or minor in psychology. Instead, I took the non-credible route of taking as many psych classes as possible. Within that salad bowl of courses was one called Psychology of Gender, in which our mantra was "gender is a social construct.... gender is learned..."

My most recent paper looked at Exodus 15:1-21, a song which ends in an additional song by the prophet Miriam. The skim milk version of my thesis is that, by looking at the editing done to the text, you will find that Miriam didn't actually respond with a repetition of the song, but was the invitation into song in the first place. The way that this passage is currently organized gives credit to Moses and the Israelites instead of Miriam.

You're probably aware of how this can be inspiring to me as a female entering into ministry; it helps to identify a role model within my tradition. But more importantly, it reminds me that countless others have done what I'm inspired to do... countless others have paved the way. The Book of Women's Sermons, edited by the Rev. Lee Hancock, is another source of inspiration and affirmation.

As our society tells young women to figure out who's the prettiest, who's the sexiest, or even who's the most unique, I'm reminded of Dar Williams' lyrics from As Cool As I Am,

"And then I go outside and join the others, I am the others...
I will not be afraid of women, I will not be afraid of women.

Here are two great women from my life: