Authors and activists Alexia Salvatierra and Brandon Wrencher describe how enslaved Africans interpreted the Bible through their experience and found a promise of dignity and liberation.  

By seeing themselves in biblical stories … enslaved Africans engaged the Bible as a living text. They were in relationship with the Bible, talking back to its stories and its God. God was not seen as a distant, malevolent deity. The God of enslaved Africans was ever-present, would deliver them, and would punish their oppressors. The companionship of God was seen especially in how enslaved Africans interpreted Jesus, whom they saw as a friend on the journey with them to survive and be liberated from their oppression. The Spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me” depicts the deep friendship the enslaved had with Jesus:  

I want Jesus to walk with me  
I want Jesus to walk with me  
All along my pilgrim journey  
I want Jesus to walk with me. [1]  

Enslaved Africans demonstrated their resilience and innovation in crafting a folk theology from the Bible in the form of folk songs called Negro Spirituals. They sang the Spirituals in both the hush harbors in the wilderness and the mystical hush harbors of their souls while in the fields and on the plantation. The Spirituals allowed them to put biblical stories in a medium that made them alive, bodily, and thus their own. And it allowed enslaved Africans to offer creative new interpretations of biblical stories. 

The Exodus story of freedom spoke in a powerful and particular way to the experience of the enslaved:  

In the exodus story, Moses gained power from God to part a sea, allowing the Hebrew people he was leading to escape from their oppressors, Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The sea collapsed on and drowned Pharaoh and his army as they chased the Hebrew people. The Hebrew people were set free with God’s help. In step with their radical interpretation of biblical stories, enslaved Africans would weave their own conditions into the biblical story through song…. 

One of these mornings, bright and fair  
Gonna take my wings and cleave the air  
When I get to heaven gonna put on my shoes  
Gonna run around glory and tell all the news 
When I get to heaven gonna sing and shout  
Ain’t nobody there gonna turn me out. [2]  

The message is clear: in the same way that God gave victory to the Hebrews over Egypt and to Jesus and the church over Rome, God will give victory to enslaved Africans over their bondage to white Christian American tyranny. And this victory, just like the victory God gave the Hebrews and Jesus and the disciples, will not be in “the sweet by and by” but in the present world. Enslaved Africans believed God would work through them to bring this deliverance. 

==========================

Why Ask? Brad Jersak

Why pray for gifts God has already given?

“Forgive us our trespasses…”

“Lord, have mercy.”

“Come, Holy Spirit.”

The prayers of God’s people are replete with requests for that which God has already graciously and abundantly provided. So why bother? Is praying for the gifts God has already given an act of unbelief, a confusion of theology or an offence to God? Some seem to think so and in a sense, may be right. But both the question and answer are important and far more nuanced than an either/or knee-jerk reaction. What are the perils and what is the point of asking for what we’ve already been given?

THE PERILS

Two obvious perils accompany requests for forgiveness, mercy and the Holy Spirit—given that all three are among the many examples of God’s outpouring of grace into the world.

The first peril is if we make these requests without understanding or believing that they have happened. It’s a serious omission when our prayers smuggle in the assumption that God has not yet forgiven, not yet been merciful and not yet given the gift of the Spirit. Christ and his apostles could not have been more straightforward: Christ taught that God’s mercy has been given to ALL (“the righteous and the wicked”); on the Cross, Christ forgave ALL (“while we were yet sinners”). And on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was “poured out on all flesh” (Acts 2). If our prayers imply a negation of these great truths, we’ve made a grave mistake—the main fruit of which is that our invocation devolves into desperate begging and paints God as someone less than our generous heavenly Abba.

The second danger when we ask for what has been given is that in receiving them, we imagine that our prayers actually secured God’s gifts—that praying right or praying long or praying hard somehow caused the forgiveness, mercy or Spirit to come. We then seek to establish a cauldron of correct prayers, incantations or mechanisms to seal the deal. We paint a picture of prayer as an acquisition or transaction rather than a grace-gift from heaven.

Those who become aware of these perils sometimes end up rejecting all such prayers as wrong-headed and develop theologies to avoid them. For example, some of my friends find the Lord’s Prayer offensive because it includes the request for forgiveness. They reason that since the Cross established forgiveness once and for all, that the Lord’s Prayer is inappropriate for New Covenant believers. Some even imagine that all Christ’s instructions to his disciples prior to the Cross should be relegated to the dung heap of the Old Covenant that’s been abolished. Such a leap is shocking and mistaken—I’ll address that misstep in a follow-up post next week.

THE POINT

Still, having noted the perils, we ought to ask, “Then what’s the point? Why pray for that which God has already freely given?”

Again, let’s start with the unwavering conviction that forgiveness is forever and finally established in the “finished work of Christ.” Let’s be unbending in our belief that God’s mercies are a superabundant, infinite spring that never ceases. Let’s acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is everywhere and always present. Then what’s the point of asking? I’m glad you asked.

First, because Jesus said so. He instructs us to pray, “Father, forgive,” invites us to repeatedly ask, seek and knock for mercy and calls us to open our hands to receive Abba’s good gifts, chief of which is the Holy Spirit. As a Christ-follower, I believe no one knows how and why to pray better than our Lord Jesus Christ and his instructions in prayer are the most important ever given—even when I don’t understand the “why?” To think we know better than Christ and explain away his teaching on prayer is, frankly, spiritually silly. But if we need speculate on the “why?” read on:

Second, asking is an act of awareness and belief. Praying, “Father, forgive” reminds us that Abba has indeed done everything necessary to forgive. Praying, “Lord, have mercy” reminds us that “his mercy endures forever.” Praying, “Come, Holy Spirit” reminds us that the Spirit is an indwelling river of living water that flows from within those who believe (John 7:38). Asking asserts our belief that this is who Abba is and what Abba gives.

Third, asking is an orientation of humility and receptivity. It’s not just that we know and believe God is generous—it’s that we posture ourselves to receive the gifts already given. It’s like opening our eyes to see the sun that’s already shining. It’s like opening our mouths to partake of the feast already provided. It’s like turning and opening our hearts to the love that has never once turned from us.

Finally, asking is critical because God is love and love–even God’s love–requires consent. God does not require consent to forgive or show mercy or send the Spirit. God’s unfailing pursuit of his beloved and his relentless wooing continue even without our permission. But at some point,love by nature must wait on our willing “Yes!” or it would be a violation of our God-given freedom. And our love for God is not love if it’s not consensual.

I don’t know where that line falls exactly, and neither do you. I just know that Abba did not even impregnate the Virgin without her willing “Yes.” Mary the mother of Jesus is a beautiful example of perfect surrender to the Father’s love—but so too, in that narrative, Abba demonstrates his commitment to Mary’s consent and ours.

Similarly, prayer, for us, becomes an act of mutual surrender and consent between Christ and his Bride. “Asking prayer” welcomes the goodness of his already-given gifts into our lives. Asking is the Christ-taught means by which we receive those gifts. “Ask and you will receive” forgiveness, you’ll receive mercy and you’ll receive the Holy Spirit. And Abba’s beautiful answer–the answer that Christ voices from the Cross–is simply this: “Consider it done!”

Scripture as validated by experience, and experience as validated by Tradition, are good scales for one’s spiritual worldview.  
—Richard Rohr 

This week we highlight a central theme of Father Richard Rohr’s teaching philosophy in CAC’s Living School. Our personal experience is the filter through which we understand both Christian Scripture and Tradition. 

No matter the religion or denomination in which we are raised, our spirituality still comes through the first filter of our own life experience. We must begin to be honest about this instead of pretending that any of us are formed exclusively by scriptures or our churches or religious traditions. There is no such thing as an entirely unbiased position. The best we can do is own and be honest about our own filters. God allows and invites us to trust our own experience. Then Scripture and Tradition hopefully keep our personal experiences both critical and compassionate. These three components—Scripture, Tradition, and experience—make up the three wheels of what we at the CAC call the learning “tricycle” of spiritual growth. [1]  

Historically, Catholics loved to say we relied upon the great Tradition, but this frequently meant “the way it’s been done for the last hundred years.” What we usually consider “official teaching” changes every century or so. In all honesty, most of our operative images of God come primarily from our early experiences of authority in family and culture, while we interpret those teachings from more recent traditions and Scripture reading to validate them!  

If we try to use “only Scripture” as a source of spiritual wisdom, we get stuck, because many passages give very conflicting and even opposite images of God. I believe that Jesus only quoted those Scriptures that he could validate by his own inner experience. At the same time, if we humans trust only our own experiences, we will be trapped in subjective moods and personal preferences. It helps when we can verify that at least some holy people and orthodox teachers (Tradition) and solid Scripture also validate our own experiences.  

Jesus and Paul clearly use and build on their own Jewish Scriptures and traditions, yet they both courageously interpret them through the lens of their unique personal experiences of God. This is undeniable! We would do well to follow their examples. [2] 

In CAC’s Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, Brian McLaren teaches:  

If we only had our own experiences to go by, every generation would have to start from scratch…. But if Tradition and Scripture are used to silence our own ongoing experience—our learnings, discoveries, thinkings and rethinkings, and quests—then … Tradition and Scripture become not the foundation on which we build, but the ceiling above which we cannot grow.   

When we hold all three elements in creative tension, we’re part of an ongoing story, a multi-generational conversation, bringing together the experiences of everyone everywhere, through time, so they can be shared, reflected upon, and reevaluated in community, as a growing bank of wisdom resources for us and for future generations. [3] 

Honoring Experience

Building on the metaphor of the tricycle of faith, Father Richard names that spiritual growth occurs as we pay attention to and learn from our own experiences:    

The two wheels of sacred Scripture and Tradition can be seen as sources of outer authority, while only our personal experience leads to our inner authority. I am convinced we need and can have both. Only when inner and outer authority come together do we have true spiritual wisdom. Christianity in most of its history has largely relied upon official or outer authority, but we must now be honest about the value of inner experience. It was, of course, at work all the time but was not given much credence.   

Information from outer authority does not necessarily lead to transformation, and we need genuinely transformed people today, not just people with answers. I don’t want the words in my books or these meditations to separate anyone from their own astonishment or to provide them with a substitute for their own inner experience. Theology (and authority figures) have done that for too many people and for too long. Instead, I hope my words simply invite readers on their own inner journey rather than become a replacement for it.   

I am increasingly convinced that the word “prayer,” which has become a functional and pious thing for believers to do, was meant to be a descriptor and an invitation to inner experience. When wise spiritual teachers invite us to “pray,” they are in effect saying, “Go inside and know for yourself!” For too long we’ve insisted on outer authority alone, without any teaching of prayer, inner journey, and maturing consciousness. The results for the world and for religion have been disastrous.  [1]  

In our tricycle, experience is constantly balanced and critiqued by Scripture and Tradition. When all three “wheels” work together, we have a very wise person. That’s the easiest way to say it. At the CAC, that’s what we’re interested in doing: raising up not argumentative or righteous people, but compassionate and wise people. That’s our goal. [2] 

Brian McLaren points to the ways that experience created both Scripture and Tradition:  

If we have Scripture, experience, and Tradition around the table, it’s really all experience. Scripture is the experience of a group of people far, far in the past in a very different setting. Tradition is the experience of another group of people who, for a long time, have been interpreting what that first group of people said. Then I come along and with my own experience and a community, which bring all its experience, too. It’s a reminder that we have to be careful if any one person or group tries to edit out anybody else’s experience, because they don’t like it or they find it inconvenient.  

I don’t want to be stuck simply in my own experience. It’s too limited. I need the experience that comes to me from Scripture and from Tradition. At the end of the day, we’re dealing with people’s experiences and interpretations of experience, and we need all the help we can get.

Scripture as validated by experience, and experience as validated by Tradition, are good scales for one’s spiritual worldview.  
—Richard Rohr 

This week we highlight a central theme of Father Richard Rohr’s teaching philosophy in CAC’s Living School. Our personal experience is the filter through which we understand both Christian Scripture and Tradition. 

No matter the religion or denomination in which we are raised, our spirituality still comes through the first filter of our own life experience. We must begin to be honest about this instead of pretending that any of us are formed exclusively by scriptures or our churches or religious traditions. There is no such thing as an entirely unbiased position. The best we can do is own and be honest about our own filters. God allows and invites us to trust our own experience. Then Scripture and Tradition hopefully keep our personal experiences both critical and compassionate. These three components—Scripture, Tradition, and experience—make up the three wheels of what we at the CAC call the learning “tricycle” of spiritual growth. [1]  

Historically, Catholics loved to say we relied upon the great Tradition, but this frequently meant “the way it’s been done for the last hundred years.” What we usually consider “official teaching” changes every century or so. In all honesty, most of our operative images of God come primarily from our early experiences of authority in family and culture, while we interpret those teachings from more recent traditions and Scripture reading to validate them!  

If we try to use “only Scripture” as a source of spiritual wisdom, we get stuck, because many passages give very conflicting and even opposite images of God. I believe that Jesus only quoted those Scriptures that he could validate by his own inner experience. At the same time, if we humans trust only our own experiences, we will be trapped in subjective moods and personal preferences. It helps when we can verify that at least some holy people and orthodox teachers (Tradition) and solid Scripture also validate our own experiences.  

Jesus and Paul clearly use and build on their own Jewish Scriptures and traditions, yet they both courageously interpret them through the lens of their unique personal experiences of God. This is undeniable! We would do well to follow their examples. [2] 

In CAC’s Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, Brian McLaren teaches:  

If we only had our own experiences to go by, every generation would have to start from scratch…. But if Tradition and Scripture are used to silence our own ongoing experience—our learnings, discoveries, thinkings and rethinkings, and quests—then … Tradition and Scripture become not the foundation on which we build, but the ceiling above which we cannot grow.   

When we hold all three elements in creative tension, we’re part of an ongoing story, a multi-generational conversation, bringing together the experiences of everyone everywhere, through time, so they can be shared, reflected upon, and reevaluated in community, as a growing bank of wisdom resources for us and for future generations. [3] 

Honoring Experience

Building on the metaphor of the tricycle of faith, Father Richard names that spiritual growth occurs as we pay attention to and learn from our own experiences:    

The two wheels of sacred Scripture and Tradition can be seen as sources of outer authority, while only our personal experience leads to our inner authority. I am convinced we need and can have both. Only when inner and outer authority come together do we have true spiritual wisdom. Christianity in most of its history has largely relied upon official or outer authority, but we must now be honest about the value of inner experience. It was, of course, at work all the time but was not given much credence.   

Information from outer authority does not necessarily lead to transformation, and we need genuinely transformed people today, not just people with answers. I don’t want the words in my books or these meditations to separate anyone from their own astonishment or to provide them with a substitute for their own inner experience. Theology (and authority figures) have done that for too many people and for too long. Instead, I hope my words simply invite readers on their own inner journey rather than become a replacement for it.   

I am increasingly convinced that the word “prayer,” which has become a functional and pious thing for believers to do, was meant to be a descriptor and an invitation to inner experience. When wise spiritual teachers invite us to “pray,” they are in effect saying, “Go inside and know for yourself!” For too long we’ve insisted on outer authority alone, without any teaching of prayer, inner journey, and maturing consciousness. The results for the world and for religion have been disastrous.  [1]  

In our tricycle, experience is constantly balanced and critiqued by Scripture and Tradition. When all three “wheels” work together, we have a very wise person. That’s the easiest way to say it. At the CAC, that’s what we’re interested in doing: raising up not argumentative or righteous people, but compassionate and wise people. That’s our goal. [2] 

Brian McLaren points to the ways that experience created both Scripture and Tradition:  

If we have Scripture, experience, and Tradition around the table, it’s really all experience. Scripture is the experience of a group of people far, far in the past in a very different setting. Tradition is the experience of another group of people who, for a long time, have been interpreting what that first group of people said. Then I come along and with my own experience and a community, which bring all its experience, too. It’s a reminder that we have to be careful if any one person or group tries to edit out anybody else’s experience, because they don’t like it or they find it inconvenient.  

I don’t want to be stuck simply in my own experience. It’s too limited. I need the experience that comes to me from Scripture and from Tradition. At the end of the day, we’re dealing with people’s experiences and interpretations of experience, and we need all the help we can get.

Scripture as validated by experience, and experience as validated by Tradition, are good scales for one’s spiritual worldview.  
—Richard Rohr 

This week we highlight a central theme of Father Richard Rohr’s teaching philosophy in CAC’s Living School. Our personal experience is the filter through which we understand both Christian Scripture and Tradition. 

No matter the religion or denomination in which we are raised, our spirituality still comes through the first filter of our own life experience. We must begin to be honest about this instead of pretending that any of us are formed exclusively by scriptures or our churches or religious traditions. There is no such thing as an entirely unbiased position. The best we can do is own and be honest about our own filters. God allows and invites us to trust our own experience. Then Scripture and Tradition hopefully keep our personal experiences both critical and compassionate. These three components—Scripture, Tradition, and experience—make up the three wheels of what we at the CAC call the learning “tricycle” of spiritual growth. [1]  

Historically, Catholics loved to say we relied upon the great Tradition, but this frequently meant “the way it’s been done for the last hundred years.” What we usually consider “official teaching” changes every century or so. In all honesty, most of our operative images of God come primarily from our early experiences of authority in family and culture, while we interpret those teachings from more recent traditions and Scripture reading to validate them!  

If we try to use “only Scripture” as a source of spiritual wisdom, we get stuck, because many passages give very conflicting and even opposite images of God. I believe that Jesus only quoted those Scriptures that he could validate by his own inner experience. At the same time, if we humans trust only our own experiences, we will be trapped in subjective moods and personal preferences. It helps when we can verify that at least some holy people and orthodox teachers (Tradition) and solid Scripture also validate our own experiences.  

Jesus and Paul clearly use and build on their own Jewish Scriptures and traditions, yet they both courageously interpret them through the lens of their unique personal experiences of God. This is undeniable! We would do well to follow their examples. [2] 

In CAC’s Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, Brian McLaren teaches:  

If we only had our own experiences to go by, every generation would have to start from scratch…. But if Tradition and Scripture are used to silence our own ongoing experience—our learnings, discoveries, thinkings and rethinkings, and quests—then … Tradition and Scripture become not the foundation on which we build, but the ceiling above which we cannot grow.   

When we hold all three elements in creative tension, we’re part of an ongoing story, a multi-generational conversation, bringing together the experiences of everyone everywhere, through time, so they can be shared, reflected upon, and reevaluated in community, as a growing bank of wisdom resources for us and for future generations. [3] 

Honoring Experience

Building on the metaphor of the tricycle of faith, Father Richard names that spiritual growth occurs as we pay attention to and learn from our own experiences:    

The two wheels of sacred Scripture and Tradition can be seen as sources of outer authority, while only our personal experience leads to our inner authority. I am convinced we need and can have both. Only when inner and outer authority come together do we have true spiritual wisdom. Christianity in most of its history has largely relied upon official or outer authority, but we must now be honest about the value of inner experience. It was, of course, at work all the time but was not given much credence.   

Information from outer authority does not necessarily lead to transformation, and we need genuinely transformed people today, not just people with answers. I don’t want the words in my books or these meditations to separate anyone from their own astonishment or to provide them with a substitute for their own inner experience. Theology (and authority figures) have done that for too many people and for too long. Instead, I hope my words simply invite readers on their own inner journey rather than become a replacement for it.   

I am increasingly convinced that the word “prayer,” which has become a functional and pious thing for believers to do, was meant to be a descriptor and an invitation to inner experience. When wise spiritual teachers invite us to “pray,” they are in effect saying, “Go inside and know for yourself!” For too long we’ve insisted on outer authority alone, without any teaching of prayer, inner journey, and maturing consciousness. The results for the world and for religion have been disastrous.  [1]  

In our tricycle, experience is constantly balanced and critiqued by Scripture and Tradition. When all three “wheels” work together, we have a very wise person. That’s the easiest way to say it. At the CAC, that’s what we’re interested in doing: raising up not argumentative or righteous people, but compassionate and wise people. That’s our goal. [2] 

Brian McLaren points to the ways that experience created both Scripture and Tradition:  

If we have Scripture, experience, and Tradition around the table, it’s really all experience. Scripture is the experience of a group of people far, far in the past in a very different setting. Tradition is the experience of another group of people who, for a long time, have been interpreting what that first group of people said. Then I come along and with my own experience and a community, which bring all its experience, too. It’s a reminder that we have to be careful if any one person or group tries to edit out anybody else’s experience, because they don’t like it or they find it inconvenient.  

I don’t want to be stuck simply in my own experience. It’s too limited. I need the experience that comes to me from Scripture and from Tradition. At the end of the day, we’re dealing with people’s experiences and interpretations of experience, and we need all the help we can get.

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TODAY IS THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Although not its formal name, I like calling it “New Commandment Sunday.” 

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John 13:31-35

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

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I’m sitting in a bookstore writing this musing. 

Terrible storms swept through my neighborhood last night. Old trees, huge ones, fell in the 70 mph winds and crashed on cars and houses. Two people died. And, of course, we are without power and wifi. 

I woke early, unsure of the time (it was around 6:30), and went outside to survey the damage. I stood on the porch and looked around. Our house and the cottage were unscathed. But buckets and flower pots were tossed, rain-pounded plants lay flat on the ground. Tree debris was everywhere, branches, leaves, whirly-gigs, and scores of brown stringy bits and piles of pollen. 

When I glanced down, I noticed that one of the brown stringy things had landed in a perfect heart shape at my feet. 

And there it was: in the midst of the wet and muddy chaos, a tiny token of love. 

The storm-ravaged world seemed to have conspired with today’s gospel reading: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 

There’s some contention right now over who is “really” Christian. Some people don’t like the term “Christian nationalism” because they say it isn’t “Christian.” Although I confess to sympathize with this view, it must be said that Christian nationalists don’t think that I am a Christian — nor anyone who holds views like mine or churches that proclaim inclusion or have women pastors. According to them, I’m not a Christian. Then there are those who say like Jesus but don’t like the word, “Christian.” Still others embrace Christianity as a religious tradition, a moral philosophy, or familial identity. 

The truth is all these different sorts of Christians claim to be disciples of Jesus; they all claim to be Christian. 

It can be hard to sort out. And it can get ugly when quarrelsome believers divide themselves into “true” Christians and “fake” ones. Who counts as a Christian? What is the test of real faith? Christians themselves have created a mess of things by name-calling, exclusion, hubris, inquisitions, heresy hunting, and worse. 

Jesus said: By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Love.

That’s it. 

Seems simple. Crystal clear. 

The odd thing is that even the worst inquisitors knew this. During heresy hunts and witch burnings, they insisted that it was loving to torture one’s neighbor to save them from the fires of hell. Better a bit of pain and a few broken bones now than an eternity with Satan. 

Equating love with coercion is a feature of some forms of Christianity. Coercion might be “soft,” as with some evangelists and missionaries I have known. But, in recent decades, the most gentle forms of corrective love have given way to outright violence — taking a variety of forms from child, domestic, and sexual abuse, denominational take-overs and purges, and political movements to assert Christian supremacy. Entire churches are based on the premise that love-is-coercive violence — of conscience, of social pressure, or actual physical injury. 

These tendencies have, sadly, been with Christianity for centuries. Some historians think that the very first Christian to ever have been executed by other Christians was Priscillian of Avila in 385 C.E. Priscillian was found guilty of heresy by a synod of bishops and, with six of his followers, was put to death. In the 250 years following this event, theologian Harvey Cox claims, “Christian imperial authorities put twenty-five thousand to death for their lack of creedal correctness.” 

I’m sure those imperial bishops and Christian rulers thought they were doing the loving thing. 

The faith that had been born in persecution became the persecutors. As philosopher Rene Girard pointed out, “Beginning with Constantine, Christianity triumphed at the level of the state and soon began to cloak with its authority persecutions similar to those in which the early Christians were victims.” 

Once you start attacking your own, dismissing their humanity, it is very easy to attack others you deem less than fully human. 

Whatever Jesus said, far too many Christians found it easier to redefine love than follow his straight-forward command. His disciples began to constrict the circle of who counted as a “disciple” thereby limiting the sphere of love. Since you are to love “one another,” some speculated, you needn’t love those outside the sphere of Jesus’ followers. Love wasn’t for anyone. Just those who think or look or act like you. 

And yes, this is the exact logic employed recently by J.D. Vance when he commented on the “order of love,” implying that love exists in concentric circles from family outward. First, you love those closest to you and then move out to others. 

Problem is that most people don’t. Because human beings find ways to limit love. 

That’s not what Jesus suggests in his famous command to love. Instead, as Pope Francis clapped back at J.D. Vance, love is a universal principle, “a fraternity open to all without exception.” It moves from the vast and cosmic and is demonstrated in the particular. From one of the Pope Francis’ final letters:

Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris(‘order of love’) that must be promoted is that which we discover….by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.

Jesus didn’t say, “love each other and then love everyone else.” No. He insisted that the love that the disciples had for each other would witness to a larger love, the same love he proclaimed and modeled in his life and death. Jesus didn’t love only a few. Jesus didn’t die for only the church. For God so loved that world that he gave his beloved Child so that everyone…..

Love moves from universal to particular back to universal. It doesn’t move from a particular community to a limited sphere of qualified recipients. If you love only your own, you won’t get much further than that. The history of Christianity is proof enough of the failure of love to expand.

According to Jesus, however, love is the marker, it is the test. If you love each other, you show the love that is the central reality of all creation. You’ve touched the vastness of cosmic love. Love witnesses to truth, dignity, justice, and beauty present in and with all. Human love, love in community, reveals that universal love of God, the very meaning and purpose of everything.

If you hold together in love, Jesus told his followers shortly before he died, you will make it through the coming storm. Because your love for each other will help you remember the truth of love. Love is the foundation, the shelter, the covering. Love is the way. Love is the only thing. It is the beginning and end. It is the guide to traverse the journey ahead. 

And, like the small heart on my porch after the storm, you know it when you see it. It really isn’t that hard to spot love. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Friday, May 16, 2025

Listen. Put it into your heart, my youngest and dearest son, that the thing that frightened you, the thing that afflicted you is nothing: Do not let it disturb you…. Am I not here, I, who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more? 
—Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego, Nican Mopohua  

Father Richard Rohr shares the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a profound image of the divine feminine, an archetype of maternal love and protection.   

In 1531, exactly ten years after the Spanish conquest of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico, there was an unprecedented constellation of signs we call the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This miraculous event linked the heavens of Catholic Spain and the mythologies of the Indigenous Americans who had lost everything: their land, their freedom, and their gods. Like all ongoing revelation, it has taken us over four hundred years to begin to unravel the depth of loving mystery that was revealed in this encounter between the dear heavenly woman with brown skin (La Morenita) and Juan Diego, a poor Indigenous man. 

God speaks through the “Mother of the true God through whom one lives,” whom the Spanish called María. But she is dressed in the clothes of the Indians, speaks their Nahuatl language and calls Juan Diego, one of the poorest, to “repreach” the gospel back to the Spanish colonizers who thought they had the gospel in the first place. In one generation, under this mother symbol, almost all of the native peoples of Mexico accepted Christianity. People of Indigenous and Spanish ancestry (mestizos) were born, and I might say a new mestizo Christianity unfolds. We are slowly learning that there is no other kind of Christianity. Christ takes on the face and features of all people, whoever they are and no matter their circumstances. In this case God knew that the face and features had to be feminine and compassionate. No other sign could transform both the Spanish machisimo and the matriarchal religion of the Indians at the same time. [1] 

Mirabai Starr describes the ongoing legacy of Our Lady of Guadalupe:  

In a world struggling against senseless violence and growing economic disparity, Our Lady of Guadalupe offers a distinctly feminine antidote to the poisons of poverty and war. Where society demands competition, Guadalupe teaches cooperation. In place of consumerism, she models compassionate service…. She is the radical, powerful, engaged Mother of the People. 

Our Lady is not merely a sociopolitical symbol, however. People of all faiths call her Mother. In times of deeply personal grief, they turn to her for comfort. They turn to her for insight. They turn to her for a reminder of what matters most, what endures when all else seems to be lost, what grace may yet be available when we meet fear with love. [2] 

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5 on Friday; John Chaffee

1.

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

– St. Francis of Assisi, Founder of the Franciscan Order

About ten years ago, I read The Complete Works of Francis and Clare by Classics of Western Spirituality. It was fantastic and refreshing to see how grounded and thoughtful St. Francis was in his writings to the order he founded and his personal letters to friends.

St. Francis is, in my mind, a person who embodied potential.  He did not seem too concerned with whether or not something was difficult or deemed “impossible.”  Instead, he would get to work in his humble way and became an example for the rest of us that God can do extraordinary things with ordinary people…

2.

“Authentic spirituality is revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.”

– Ken Wilber, American Philosopher

Ken Wilber probably saved my understanding of the faith. Rather than becoming stuck in dogmatism or rigid thinking, he helped me reframe faith and spiritual formation as a deeply incarnational task.  Although he comes from a Buddhist background, he is very open and affirming of all the world’s faith traditions.

I think that Western spirituality is too individualistic (not a shocking thing to say), but it also has difficulty being universal.  Rather than seeing the commonality of the world’s faith traditions, the Western approach is to use logic and dismantle other faiths while not using the same critical thinking toward itself.

My understanding of faith and spirituality is constantly growing, changing, and evolving.  Right now, the only thing that matters to me is whether or not my understanding of the faith helps me to be more whole and more open to other people who are walking out their faith with integrity.

3.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

– Matthew 13:45-46

One of the things that I enjoy about parables is that they can be interpreted in various ways.  They are intentionally designed to be symbolic, archetypal, and full of metaphor.  As a result, each of us brings our own life experiences to these parables and can walk away with an equally valid and helpful lesson learned.

I read an interpretation of this parable that shifted everything for me.

Usually, the parable is interpreted so that you and I are the merchant looking for fine pearls.  We stumble upon it and sell everything to buy the “pearl of great price.”  Often, this is given a moralistic bend and is taught to encourage us to give up everything to hopefully get into the kingdom of heaven.

However…

It shifts when the merchant is instead seen as the Christ, who stumbles upon a “pearl of great price” (which is all of known reality), and gives up everything to redeem, restore, reconcile, and renew everything and have it as a glorious treasure.

How beautiful is that?

4.

“Sin is behovable (unavoidable/inevitable), but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

– Juliana of Norwich, English Mystic & Anchoress

This week, I have been revisiting The Revelations of Divine Love by Juliana of Norwich.

Her use of the word “tender” is refreshing to me.  Perhaps it is just where I am right now, but it is really landing well.

The realm of Christian theology is overflowing with male perspectives, and it has not helped us.  When more masculine adjectives define our view of God, other attributes are left off the table.

Tender is just one of them.

I wonder what reformations could happen in Christianity if we also highlighted using words such as “nurturing,” “protecting,” “embracing,” “welcoming,” “warm,” etc.?  But that is just a side note.

When I read Julian, I also get a strong sense of the word “hope.”  For her, the love of God necessitates a hope that is inextinguishable.  It is a hope that never fails.  It is a hope that says, “Despite all the ways that sin has fractured us as individuals and the cosmos as a whole, there is an invincible hope that God is still able and willing to ‘make all things new.'”

5.

“In my early professional years, I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”

– Carl Rogers, American Psychologist

This quote comes back to me often.

If I am being honest, I probably do not think about it every day, but at least every 2-3 days.

It helps me to have proper boundaries.

I can’t care about another person’s problems more than they do.  I cannot do their personal work for them.  I cannot rush them, finally getting around to fixing the parts of their life that feel so blatant or obvious to me.

All I can be is an environment in which others feel safe enough to choose to do their own self-work when they are ready.

And, if I can be honest a second time, that’s also what I want and need.  I am no different than everyone else in the world.  I also need to feel safe enough before I can address my issues head-on.

Fortunately, my understanding of God has become safer and safer, too.

To Be a Woman Is More Than Enough

Thursday, May 15, 2025

It makes sense that because white men created so much of religion, the image of God was an old white man with grey hair. However, this image needs a makeover because he’s no longer working.  
—Jacqui Lewis, “She Is Love, She Is Love,” the Mendicant  

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis explores how oppressive images of God lead us to limit and even exclude ourselves from the divine image. 

We know, despite preaching and teaching to the contrary, that our God is not on the side of oppression but on the side of freedom and justice. We know our God is a revolutionary lover who came as one of us to teach us how to love. We know that any Christianity practicing the tools of empire is not Christian and that Christian nationalism is not about Christ but is about propping up empire with God-talk.  

What I am saying is this: Some of us are walking around like the god of the oppressor is our god. Oh, we’re talking about liberation, but we have not freed ourselves…. Our pulpits preach too much about who is out. We fear questioning the way the world works because we might leave ourselves out. We’ve forgotten ubuntu—that we are inextricably connected, and that we are indeed our siblings’ keepers…. Let’s turn away from the theologies that cause us to keep others in chains.… As an act of prophetic resistance, we need to boldly reject theologies that contradict God-is-love. [1]  

In her famous speech advocating for women’s right to vote, the abolitionist activist Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) emphasizes the strength and power of women, as well as the critical role of women in God’s plan for salvation:  

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?… I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now…. I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again…. How came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. [2] 

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Sarah Young

As you sit quietly in My Presence, remember that I am a God of abundance. I will never run out of resources. My capacity to bless you is unlimited. You live in a world of supply and demand, where necessary things are often scarce. Even if you personally have enough, you see poverty in the world around you. It is impossible for you to comprehend the lavishness of My provisions: the fullness of My glorious riches.
     Through spending time in My Presence, you gain glimpses of My overflowing vastness. These glimpses are tiny foretastes of what you will experience eternally in heaven. Even now you have access to as much of Me as you have faith to receive. Rejoice in My abundance–living by faith, not by sight.

RELATED BIBLE VERSES:

Philippians 4:19 NLT
19 And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

Additional insight regarding Philippians 4:19: We can trust that God will always meet our needs. Whatever we need on earth, he will always supply, even if it is the courage to face death as Paul did. Whatever we need in Heaven, he will supply. We must remember, however, the difference between our wants and our needs. Most people want to feel good and avoid discomfort or pain. We may not get all that we want. By trusting in Christ, our attitudes and appetites can change from wanting everything to accepting his provision and power to live for him.

2nd Corinthians 5:7 NLT
7 For we live by believing and not by seeing.

Additional insight regarding 2nd Corinthians 5:7: Paul was not afraid to die because he was confident of spending eternity with Christ. Of course, facing the unknown may cause us anxiety, and leaving loved ones hurts deeply, but if we believe in Jesus Christ, we can share Paul’s hope and confidence of eternal life with Christ. Death is only a prelude to eternal life with God. We will continue to live. Let this hope give you confidence and inspire you to faithful service.

Today’s Prayer: Lord, as I sit in Your presence, remind me of Your abundance. Your resources are limitless, and Your blessings overflow. In a world of scarcity, help me to grasp the richness of Your provisions. Through faith, may I rejoice in Your abundance, even as I await eternity with You. Thank You for supplying all my needs from Your glorious riches. Amen.

Theologians Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan Shaw describe how the inclusive and nurturing character of a Mothering God can provide comfort, especially for those who are wounded or hurt:  

Mothering is something people of all genders can do when they offer love, support, nurturance, and guidance to others. Therefore, simply replacing images of God the Father with God the Mother may be counterproductive. After all, earthly mothers, like earthly fathers, can let us down…. Instead, we see “mothering” as an action rather than a being.  

The Mothering God gives birth to us and gives us life. The Mothering God nurtures us and provides shelter when we need it. Luke 13:34 says, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” As a hen gathering her brood, the Mothering God protects us under her wings. When we feel alone and broken, God provides shelter for our brokenness, loss, and suffering. Those who suffer from the effects of sexual violence can turn to the Mothering God to wrap us in her arms to provide everlasting love and support.  

In the Hebrew Bible, the Spirit is written in the Hebrew feminine as ruach, who brings forth life in creation (Genesis 1:2). In the New Testament, pneuma is the Greek word for the Spirit who gives forth life…. The Spirit gives life and is the creative and maternal God who brings forth the birth of Jesus and the new members of the body of Christ. The Spirit God moves us aways from traditional patriarchal notions about God and moves us toward a wholistic, all-embracing understanding of God. [1] 

Karen Baker-Fletcher offers additional maternal metaphors for God in the Hebrew Bible:  

Mother metaphors and metaphors for God drawn from nature are present in several passages of Hebrew and Christian scripture…. God is like a mother eagle who catches and bears its young on her large, strong wings until they learn to fly freely on their own (Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11). God labors like a woman in childbirth in God’s love for creation (Isaiah 42:14). In Isaiah 49:15, God is like a mother who cannot forget her children, thus functioning as a model for human motherhood and parenting…. 

In the book of Exodus and elsewhere, God is El Shaddai, God of the mountain or God Almighty [Genesis 17:1; Exodus 6:3; Job 8:5]…. In the original Hebrew, the phrase simply reads “God of the mountain.” In Hebrew, the word shaddai has more than one meaning. It is also the word for “breast”…. Therefore, El Shaddai is not only as mighty, grand, and awesome as a mountain but as powerfully nurturing, gentle, and loving as a mother’s gift, shared from her bosom. Behind her bosom, lie her heart and lungs—the power of life and breath. God is like a mother. El Shaddai is God of the mountain and God who is like a mother’s bosom, mighty and intimately nurturing at once

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MAY 14, 2025 Does Sin Cause Disease?

The story of Jesus healing the paralytic man in Mark 2 is a complicated tangle of cultural, biblical, and theological beliefs about the connection between sin and disease. It’s a theme that we’ll see with many of Jesus’ miraculous healings, and one we must understand to make sense of these stories. Here’s the key idea—in much of the ancient world, calamity or misfortune was associated with divine judgment. Simply put, if something bad happened to you, it’s because you must have deserved it. God was punishing you for your sin. Of course, many ancient people also believed the inverse—if you were rich, healthy, and successful, it was because God was blessing you for your righteousness. It was the ancient Jewish version of karma. Those shaped by this karmic vision of reality had only one way to make sense of diseases like leprosy or disabilities like blindness or paralysis. People suffering from these conditions were guilty of sin. This simplistic understanding permeated the culture of Jesus and his disciples, and Jesus confronted and deconstructed these beliefs on many occasions. (We’ll cover some of those stories later in this devotional series.) There are times, however, when Jesus chose to acquiesce to his culture’s karmic misunderstandings in order to communicate a deeper truth. That’s what we find in Mark 2.When the paralytic man is lowered through the roof in front of Jesus, it’s evident to everyone that he was seeking a miracle—the physical healing of his body. So why are Jesus’ first words to him, “Son, your sins are forgiven”? It’s because the moment everyone in that crowded house saw the man coming through the roof on his mat, they would have all had the same thought—There is a sinful man. The link between disease and sin was so established in the culture that they were practically synonymous. Knowing this, Jesus decided to use this memorable moment to make a shocking statement about his own authority to forgive sins. And it worked. The people gathered in the house, including the religious experts, were horrified that Jesus claimed the divine power to forgive sins. To address their skepticism, Jesus then healed the paralyzed man, who promptly stood up and walked out of the house carrying his mat. Once again, we must interpret the scene through the eyes of those in the house. If they believed his paralysis was caused by God’s judgment for his sin, then his healing must mean God had also forgiven his sin. You can understand why Mark says everyone was “amazed.” Their astonishment wasn’t simply because a paralyzed man had been healed, but because Jesus—a rabbi from Nazareth—evidently possessed God’s authority to forgive sins. But this leaves us with a nagging question: Are diseases, sickness, or disabilities the result of sin? Generally, the answer is—no. As I stated earlier, there are many places where Jesus directly debunks this popular view. And while there are instances in the Bible of God using illness and calamity as a form of judgment against sin (the plagues upon Egypt come to mind), there is also an entire Old Testament book written specifically to break our tendency to associate misfortune with sinfulness (see the Book of Job). And while disease and death are the effects of a world under the curse of evil and sin, that’s very different than linking a specific instance of disease with a specific person’s sin.In the end, we shouldn’t use the story of Jesus healing the paralytic man in Mark 2 to build a systematic theology about the connection between disease and sin. Rather, we should allow the story to provoke in us the same amazement and wonder the people in the house experienced when they realized Jesus possesses the authority to both heal our bodies and forgive our sins. DAILY SCRIPTURE MARK 2:1-12 LUKE 13:1-5 WEEKLY PRAYER. From Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent that my love may go out to my neighbor. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. Amen.

Mary, a Feminine Face of God

Father Richard recognizes in Mary a feminine symbol or archetype for the divine presence in creation:  

Although Jesus was a man, the Christ is beyond gender, so it should be expected that Christian Tradition would have found feminine ways, consciously or unconsciously, to symbolize the full divine incarnation and to give God a more feminine character—as the Bible itself often does.  

Why did Christianity, in both the East and West, fall head over heels in love with this seemingly ordinary woman Mary, who is a minor figure in the New Testament? We gave her names like Theotokos, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Notre Dame, the Virgin of this or that, Nuestra Señora, Our Mother of Sorrows, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and Our Lady of just about every village or shrine in Europe. We are clearly dealing not just with a single woman here but a foundational symbol—or, to borrow the language of Carl Jung, an “archetype”—an image that constellates a whole host of meanings that cannot be communicated logically but is grounded in our collective unconscious.  

In the mythic imagination, I think Mary intuitively symbolizes the first incarnation—or Mother Earth, if you will allow me. (I am not saying that Mary is the first incarnation, only that she became the natural archetype and symbol for it, particularly in art.) I believe that Mary is the major femininearchetype for the Christ mystery. This archetype had already shown herself as Sophia or Holy Wisdom (see Proverbs 8:1–3; Wisdom 7:7–14), and again in the Book of Revelation (12:1–17) in the cosmic symbol of “a woman clothed with the sun and standing on the moon.” Neither Sophia nor the woman of Revelation is precisely Mary of Nazareth, yet in so many ways, both are—and each broadens our understanding of the divine feminine.  

Jung believed that humans produce in art the inner images the soul needs in order to see itself and to allow its own transformation. Try to count how many paintings in art museums, churches, and homes show a wonderfully dressed woman offering for your admiration—and hers—an often-naked baby boy. What is the very ubiquity of this image saying on the soul level? I think it looks something like this:  

The first incarnation (creation) is symbolized by Sophia-Incarnate, a beautiful, feminine, multicolored, graceful Mary.  

She is invariably offering us Jesus, God incarnated into vulnerability and nakedness.  

Mary became the symbol of the first universal incarnation.  

She then hands the second incarnation on to us, while remaining in the background; the focus is always on the child.  

Earth Mother presenting Spiritual Son, the two first stages of the incarnation.  

Feminine Receptivity, handing on the fruit of her yes.  

And inviting us to offer our own yes.  

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Faith Makes the Effort

We can’t possibly explore the issue of miracles in the gospels without discussing the role of faith. Very often, a miracle performed by Jesus is preceded by his affirmation of a person’s faith. For example, in Matthew 8, when a Roman Centurion came and asked Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant with just a word, Jesus marveled and said, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith” (Matthew 8:10).In another story, a ritually unclean woman who had been bleeding for twelve years risked social exile and punishment by pushing her way through a crowd and touching the edge of Jesus’ robes. He turned and confronted her for her boldness, but rather than being rebuked by Jesus, the woman was blessed. “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace” (Luke 8:48). These themes occur over and over in the gospels. Blind Bartimaeus, Zaccheus the tax collector, the Canaanite woman, and many others take significant risks to experience the goodness of Jesus. In all of these stories, Jesus affirms their faith. He blesses those who show tenacity and persistence; those who believe so deeply in his power, authority, and mercy that they will go to extraordinary lengths to encounter him. And that’s precisely what we discover in the story of the paralyzed man in Mark 2. Before healing him, Jesus praises the faith of his companions who were undeterred by the crowds and instead lowered the man in front of Jesus through the roof. Their bold faith led to both the man’s physical healing and the forgiveness of his sins (see Mark 2:5). All of these stories, however, challenge a commonly held assumption about faith. Many of us have been taught that being blessed, healed, or forgiven by God is purely a matter of grace, and that grace is above all a passive thing because if grace involves any effort on our part, it means we’re trusting in our works rather than faith alone. Unfortunately, this anemic understanding of grace and faith as inactive qualities has kept too many Christians in a state of both immaturity and unreceptiveness to God’s blessings.We see in the gospels and what Jesus affirms are people whose faith motivated them to act. Faith is what caused the bleeding woman to risk punishment and touch Jesus’ robe. Faith is why the Roman Centurion risked humiliation by asking a Jewish rabbi to heal his servant. Faith is why Zacchaeus climbed the tree, why Bartimaeus shouted when the crowds told him to shut up, and why the Canaanite woman asked for crumbs from Jesus’ table. This is what we so often get wrong. As Dallas Willard said, “Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Effort is action. Earning is attitude. You have never seen people more active than those who have been set on fire by the grace of God.”None of the people Jesus touched earned their healing. Nor did they deserve to have their sins forgiven. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Indeed, Jesus freely healed and forgave the paralyzed man. He did not earn this grace; it came through faith. Faith in the power of Jesus is why those men put a hole in the roof and lowered their friend through it. Their hard work was not a betrayal of faith, but the evidence of it. DAILY SCRIPTURE MARK 2:1-12 JAMES 2:14-26 WEEKLY PRAYER. From Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent that my love may go out to my neighbor. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. Amen.

Our First Glimpse of Love

Father Richard Rohr speaks of the significance of our first images of God:  

Most people first experience unconditional love not through the image of a man, but through the image of a woman—in most cases, their mother. It seems that for much of the human race, the mother is the one who first parts the veil and allows us to glimpse what love is, through experiences of grounding, intimacy, tenderness, and safety—things that most of us associate with God at God’s best. One of the disappointing things I have witnessed as a priest and spiritual director is how many people operate from the opposite of that—from a toxic and negative image of God. Nothing wonderful and nothing transformative is ever going to happen as long as that’s the case.  

One of the reasons I started to do men’s work was because I realized that an awful lot of people didn’t experience, expect, or trust that beloved relationship through the masculine. The more cultures I traveled to around the globe, the more convinced I became of the universal nature of what I call the father-wound. It seems to be a wound that many people cannot break through; they don’t expect love to come from that place.  

Author Shannon K. Evans considers the importance of allowing both masculine and feminine qualities in our experience of God: 

The feminine elements in God are an important balance to the masculine ones. If all we have known of the divine is God the Father, we are walking with a spiritual limp, yes, even those of us who were lucky enough to be raised to see “him” as loving and tender rather than aloof or stern…. 

The masculinity of God is not the culprit here. Imaging God as male is valuable and good for our spiritual selves…. But left unbalanced, a belief in a God who is exclusively male can lead us down a road of legalism, perfectionism, fear, self-criticism, and a plaguing sense of unworthiness. Sadly, many of our religious experiences have been marked by such things.  

On the other hand, when we integrate the divine feminine into our understanding of God, we find we have an easier time internalizing compassion, inclusivity, radical acceptance, justice for the outcast, and unconditional love. In my own life the divine feminine has offered me a maternal invitation to rest and be present. After a lifetime of assuming that striving and sacrifice would always be required for my spiritual growth, this was good news indeed. [1]  

Richard concludes:  

Whoever God is, God is somehow profoundly revealed in what it means to be feminine and masculine—both! But in our time, we have to find a way to recognize, to fall in love with, and to trust the feminine face of God. Most of us were not given that face in our churches, although we Catholics resolved it in an ingenious way through Mary. She, for many people, has become the accessible, trustworthy, and safe face of God.  

Why “She” Matters

Novelist Sue Monk Kidd describes why cultivating an image of the Sacred Feminine is so important, particularly for women raised within Christianity:   

A young girl learns Bible stories in which vital women are generally absent, in the background, or devoid of power. She learns that men go on quests, encounter God, and change history, while women support and wait for them. She hears sermons where traditional (nonthreatening) feminine roles are lifted up as God’s ideal. A girl is likely to see only a few women in the higher echelons of church power.   

And what does a girl, who is forming her identity, do with all the scriptures admonishing women to submission and silence? Having them “explained away” as the product of an ancient time does not entirely erase her unease. She also experiences herself missing from pronouns in scripture, hymns, and prayers. And most of all, as long as God “himself” is exclusively male, she will experience the otherness, the lessness of herself; all the pious talk in the world about females being equal to males will fail to compute in the deeper places inside her.  

When we truly grasp for the first time that the symbol of woman can be a vessel of the sacred, that it too can be an image of the Divine, our lives will begin to pivot…. Internalizing the Divine Feminine provides women with the healing affirmation that they are persons in their own right, that they can make choices, that they are worthy and entitled and do not need permission. The internalization of the Sacred Feminine tells us our gender is a valuable and marvelous thing to be. [1] 

Public theologian Christena Cleveland explores how an exclusively white, male image of God is limiting and even oppressive. She shares a mystical experience of encountering the unconditional love of the Sacred Black Feminine while on a mindfulness retreat:  

I sat cross-legged on my mat, and as soon as I closed my eyes and turned inward, a wave of Love crashed into me, a wave so formidable that it forced my upright body backward and onto the floor pillows behind me…. This was a mighty force that didn’t abuse. It was force without manipulation, force without control, and force without shame. It was the force of Love—a force I had never encountered in whitemalegod’s world…. 

I had never before experienced formidable strength in the form of Love and it undid me. I marveled that after an entire day of earnestly clearing my mind of fearful clutter, what lay beneath it all was not another to-do list from whitemalegod…. No, Love was underneath it all, just as I had hoped. That day, I discovered that at the heart of reality … flows wave after wave after wave of Love … for me….   

This experience showed me that no matter what is going on around me and no matter how much fear tries to consume me, the Sacred Black Feminine is always available to guide me into Love.

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NADIA BOLZ-WEBERMAY 12

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Wednesday afternoon: Sugar under the carnitas

Pastor Samm and Vicar Sa7ah were already on the other side of the metal detector when I got to the women’s prison yesterday. I signed in and joined them as quickly as I could, grabbing a couple bags of sopapillas to help lighten their load.

We are allowed, just a couple times a year, to bring a special meal in to be shared with New Beginnings church council, and as is our tradition, we like to share a Mother’s Day dinner together.

So the three of us made our way through the clanking security gates and sally ports crowned with billowing razor wire, before crossing the prison yard and into the gym.

We forgot paper plates, but these women know nothing if not how to be creative with limited resources, so they separated the two halves of the clamshell to-go containers and no one seemed to mind the dusting of sugar at the bottom of their makeshift dinner plates.

Before us, a feast of street tacos: crispy birria (with consume), cilantro dusted carnitas, pulled pork, abundant elote, and so many sopapillas (now piled in a shopping bag after the repurposing of their containers).

For an hour and a half we got to feast and fellowship. It felt joyous. Liberatory. And at the same time, normal. 

I worked my way around the table eager for updates from everyone. N. spoke of having her first child when she herself was just 15 years old. Another gal (a woman whose determination to heal from and still be accountable for her addiction inspires me every time I speak to her) teared up saying her own teenage son was just charged with a class A felony and will likely be inside for most of his life now. Then S. described how, now that she’s clear headed and off of meth, the conversations she is having with her own children are more honest and tender than ever. Motherhood from inside a prison is complicated, and has its own beauty to it. 

Not everyone is inside here for drug charges or crimes committed while the throes of their own addictions, or as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome, or as a result of a childhood surrounded by addicted adults, but it sure feels like most are.

There was far more than just heartbreaking updates from their loved ones shared that night. We also spoke of things we were grateful for in each other, and there was some good-hearted teasing for everyone (me included), one gal got to celebrate getting paroled early than expected, and then D. somehow showed off her handstand pushups after eating tacos, which felt very risky.

God set a table before us in the presence of prison guards, and the savory goodness of the carnitas was un-dampened by the accidental sugar in the bottom of our makeshift dinner plates.

Wednesday night: A Wild God

I drove home and quickly changed before friends picked us up for dinner and a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. Walking into the Butcher Block Café, my heart lifted when I saw a booth filled with people I love from House For All Sinners and Saints days. When our dinner came, I tried to hide the fact that, like a child, I was obsessively trying to keep my eggs and bacon away from my French toast and syrup. WHY are they served on the same plate?

The Wild God show, at moments, felt like a trance of exultation. Thousands of people, arms in the air, singing bring your spirit down. Cave, our unlikely liturgist: former heroin addict. Goth-chaos post-punk rock monster. Grieving father. A dark evangelist for joy.

So many times that night I turned to Eric and say “wow”. He responded by just gently nodding his head as if to say, “exactly”.

During a quieter song I slipped away to the women’s room. Washing my hands, I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Stella?” (name changed) I asked.

“Girl. What the HELL?” she said as she hugged me.

She and I spent years together as sober sisters, going to meetings, swapping stories, laughing too loudly over mugs of translucent diner coffee.

When I looked in her eyes I could see she was high as a kite. In that unmistakable clattering speech pattern she tells me she left the respectable job she had studied hard for and was eventually certified in, and has instead returned to . . . sex work.

Fucking addiction. 

The gift that keeps on taking.

I returned to Eric and our friends and soaked up the rest of a magnificent performance which felt like being taken to church…like being held in the telling of a magnificent story by a reliable narrator with back-up Gospel singers. It was soaring.

A ghost in giant sneakers

In 2015 Cave’s 15 year-old son Arthur fell off a cliff and died. The coroner’s report showed he’d ingested LSD. Anyone who has followed his career knows that this unspeakable tragedy stripped him down into a man who writes from the point of view “that something can happen to your life that is absolutely shattering that can also be redemptive and beautiful.”

So when I returned to my seat to the song Joy, I felt it.

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head

I felt like someone in my family was dead

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called out all around me, said have mercy on me please

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

And over by the window, a voice came low and hollow

Spoke into my pain, into my yearning sorrow

Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation? Who is it, I cried, what wild ghost has come in agitation?

It’s half past midnight! Why disturb me so late!

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

And then I saw a movement around my narrow bed

A ghost in giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Who sat down on the narrow bed, this flaming boy

Said, we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy

And all across the world they shout bad words, they shout angry words

And all across the world they shout out their angry words

About the end of love, yet the stars stand above the earth

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Bright, triumphant metaphors of love

Blinding us all who care to stand and look beyond and care to stand and look beyond above

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

And I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees

I called all around me, have mercy on me please

Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy

-Nick Cave

I’m not sure what I’m trying to get at here. Maybe that I cannot manage through my own sobriety to keep the wrenching reality of addiction from infecting my life. 

Or maybe that some days are an unbelievable mind-fuck of crushing sadness and liberating effervescence.

Or maybe just that pain and sorrow are always served on the same plate as joy and despite my best efforts, I cannot keep them from touching.

Whatever it is, know I am in it with you, 

Love, Nadia

Why “She” Matters

Novelist Sue Monk Kidd describes why cultivating an image of the Sacred Feminine is so important, particularly for women raised within Christianity:   

A young girl learns Bible stories in which vital women are generally absent, in the background, or devoid of power. She learns that men go on quests, encounter God, and change history, while women support and wait for them. She hears sermons where traditional (nonthreatening) feminine roles are lifted up as God’s ideal. A girl is likely to see only a few women in the higher echelons of church power.   

And what does a girl, who is forming her identity, do with all the scriptures admonishing women to submission and silence? Having them “explained away” as the product of an ancient time does not entirely erase her unease. She also experiences herself missing from pronouns in scripture, hymns, and prayers. And most of all, as long as God “himself” is exclusively male, she will experience the otherness, the lessness of herself; all the pious talk in the world about females being equal to males will fail to compute in the deeper places inside her.  

When we truly grasp for the first time that the symbol of woman can be a vessel of the sacred, that it too can be an image of the Divine, our lives will begin to pivot…. Internalizing the Divine Feminine provides women with the healing affirmation that they are persons in their own right, that they can make choices, that they are worthy and entitled and do not need permission. The internalization of the Sacred Feminine tells us our gender is a valuable and marvelous thing to be. [1] 

Public theologian Christena Cleveland explores how an exclusively white, male image of God is limiting and even oppressive. She shares a mystical experience of encountering the unconditional love of the Sacred Black Feminine while on a mindfulness retreat:  

I sat cross-legged on my mat, and as soon as I closed my eyes and turned inward, a wave of Love crashed into me, a wave so formidable that it forced my upright body backward and onto the floor pillows behind me…. This was a mighty force that didn’t abuse. It was force without manipulation, force without control, and force without shame. It was the force of Love—a force I had never encountered in whitemalegod’s world…. 

I had never before experienced formidable strength in the form of Love and it undid me. I marveled that after an entire day of earnestly clearing my mind of fearful clutter, what lay beneath it all was not another to-do list from whitemalegod…. No, Love was underneath it all, just as I had hoped. That day, I discovered that at the heart of reality … flows wave after wave after wave of Love … for me….   

This experience showed me that no matter what is going on around me and no matter how much fear tries to consume me, the Sacred Black Feminine is always available to guide me into Love.