Celebrating the Divine Feminine Part 2

Gregg’s Reflection

Rodney Stark, in his book The Rise of Christianity, details the honored role women had in the first 300 years of the church. Many men were drawn to the Christ movement because women had first joined. In the words of an old friend, Ernie Hinojosa, I chased a skirt into the Lutheran Church. My wife came to faith early, and saw something in me worth redeeming. Women are named in many places in the Gospels, Acts and beyond as supporters of Jesus and Paul in their work.

When it became the Roman church, instead of a gathering of outcasts who were persecuted, it became the church of the empire, the rich and powerful. At the same time, women were subjugated to the traditional culture of patriarchy. In evangelical churches today, if a single woman started dating an unbeliever, as Genie did with me, she is subject to discipline.

Let us celebrate the feminine role in the divine plan. Mary birthed the Christ into the world, nurturing the Devine. And, Mary Magdalene, who seemed to ‘get’ Jesus while the Disciples were being thick, was soon was slandered as a prostitute, when there was nothing in Scripture to support that inference.

So, let’s celebrate the divine voices of the feminine. Find Part 1 here.

Scripture

Wisdom’s Call. Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? At the highest point along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand; beside the gate leading into the city, at the entrance, she cries aloud: “To you, O people, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind. You who are simple, gain prudence; you who are foolish, set your hearts on it. Listen, for I have trustworthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is right. My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness. All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse.  To the discerning all of them are right; they are upright to those who have found knowledge. Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her. “I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion. To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have insight, I have power…I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me…My fruit is better than fine gold; what I yield surpasses choice silver.  I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice, bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me and making their treasuries full.“

“The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,before his deeds of old; I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water;  before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth.  I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.“

“Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence  rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. Now then, my children, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways. Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not disregard it. Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For those who find me find life and receive favor from the LORD. But those who fail to find me harm themselves; all who hate me love death.”

Proverbs 8

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:8

The Birth of Jesus Foretold.  In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:26-31,38

Ancient Writings

George Fox 1657 Honored the Divine Feminine, saying:

And may not the Spirit of Christ speak in the female as well as in the male? Who is it that dare limit the Holy One of Israel? For the Light is the same in the male and in the female. And it cometh from Christ, through whom the world was made. And who is it that dare stop Christ’s mouth?”

George Fox, The Women Learning in Silence (1657), Works, Vol. 4, p. 109.

Modern Writings

Beatrice Bruteau

You are to coincide with the subjective act of being conscious, not to reflect on the fact of your being or your being conscious.

Beatrice Bruteau, Prayer and Identity, p. 102

The closer one approaches this transformation in the sense of identity, the more one will be able to do the divine act of radiating being and love energy to all beings of the world.

Beatrice Bruteau, Prayer and Identity

Keeping the mind . . . single means keeping our heart whole, keeping our mind whole, our soul and strength whole, not letting any of them divide in two. So when we pray . . . we try to find our truest self by unifying and keeping whole our heart, mind, soul, and strength. This unification of the consciousness is what is usually called “concentration” (Recollection): centering together. It is basic to spiritual practice.

How do you do this concentration? You just do what you’re actually doing in the moment, without thinking/feeling about the fact that you’re doing it. When you set your hand to the plow, you just concentrate on plowing and go straight ahead without looking back to see what you plowed or how well you plowed (Luke 9:62).

You put your whole mind onto plowing, the activity, in the moment in which you are actually doing it. You don’t allow the mind to divide into two, half on plowing and half on plowed. . . . And in fact, if you can put your whole mind on the activity, not dividing some part to look back and see what you have plowed, you will cut a beautiful furrow.

You put your whole will into plowing. You do not divide your will in two by partly consenting to plow, and partly resenting and resisting it and wishing you were doing something else. You “give yourself to” this activity totally, as you do it. The act of plowing and the act of willing to plow become the same thing.

Similarly, you do not allow your imagination to conjure up some other scene for you to enjoy in daydreaming while you plod behind your plow. The imagination must . . . “be here now.” This is where you actually are, this is reality. Don’t create a fantasy. . . . Know who you are and where you are and what you are doing and really be there.

Finally, put all your feelings into this plowing because this is where your life is at this moment. You have no other life here and now except this plowing. Therefore feel this plowing thoroughly, feel it in every way you can. Feel it through your body with all your senses, with your emotions. . . . Become plowing. This is you at this moment. This is where you really are and what you are really doing.

That’s how you center yourself, how you concentrate.

Beatrice Bruteau, What We Can Learn from the East, p. 90–92.

Jesus had a fundamental vision—faith that all people are “children of God. He taught that each person has an uncreated soul that is actually a continuation of the Divine Life itself. When he met a person, therefore, he really believed that God was somehow present in that person, so he looked for that presence through all the overlying contradictions to it, until he found it. Then he addressed himself to that point in the person. When anyone does that, it tends to awaken the divine in the other, who is thus invited to speak from that place in return.

Beatrice Bruteau, Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 5/6/20

In order to move closer to the heart of Jesus, we “lean back toward” him by sinking back into the depth of our own consciousness, sinking down toward the center of our being. . . .Each deeper level that we sink to . . . brings us closer to the heart or center of Jesus, because it is bringing us closer to our own center. . . . As we move back and down and in toward our [own] center, we are overlapping, so to speak, with the reality of Jesus more and more, as we come to corresponding levels of his being. . . . We are coming to know the Sacred Heart from the inside. . . . And our “inside” is coming to be more and more coincident with his “inside.” His Heart is becoming the heart of our heart.

Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism: Rooting Ourselves in Reality p. 91–92, 94, 98.

Amy Carmichael

A pilgrim looked at the reflection of a mountain in Stillwater. It was a reflection that first caught his attention. But presently he raised his eyes to the mountain. Reflect Me, said his Father to him, and others will look at you. Then they will look up, and see me. Add the stiller the water the more perfect the reflection.

Amy Carmichael, Celtic Daily Prayer, p. 579

Joan Chittister

There is a light in us that only darkness itself can illuminate. It is the glowing calm that comes over us when we finally surrender to the ultimate truth of creation: that there is a God and we are not it. . . . Then the clarity of it all is startling. Life is not about us; we are about the project of finding Life. At that moment, spiritual vision illuminates all the rest of life. And it is that light that shines in darkness. Only the experience of our own darkness gives us the light we need to be of help to others whose journey into the dark spots of life is only just beginning. It’s then that our own taste of darkness qualifies us to be an illuminating part of the human expedition. Without that, we are only words, only false witnesses to the truth of what it means to be pressed to the ground and rise again. The light we gain in darkness is the awareness that, however bleak the place of darkness was for us, we did not die there. We know now that life begins again on the other side of the darkness. Sister Joan Chittister from the CAC Morning devotion 12/4/19

In the long light of human history, then, it is not belief in God that sets us apart. It is the kind of God in which we choose to believe that in the end makes all the difference. Some believe in a God of wrath and become wrathful with others as a result. Some believe in a God who is indifferent to the world and, when they find themselves alone, as all of us do at some time or another, shrivel up and die inside from the indifference they feel in the world around them. Some believe in a God who makes traffic lights turn green and so become the children of magical coincidence . . . Some believe in a God of laws and crumble in spirit and psyche when they themselves break them or else become even more stern in demanding from others standards they themselves cannot keep. They conceive of God as the manipulator of the universe, rather than its blessing-Maker. . . .I have known all of those Gods in my own life. They have all failed me. I have feared God and been judgmental of others. I have used God to get me through life and, as a result, failed to take steps to change life myself. I have been blind to the God within me and so, thinking of God as far away, have failed to make God present to others. I have allowed God to be mediated to me through images of God foreign to the very idea of God: God the puppeteer, God the potentate, God the persecutor make a mockery of the very definition of God. I have come to the conclusion, after a lifetime of looking for God, that such a divinity is a graven image of ourselves, that such a deity is not a god big enough to believe in. Indeed, it is the God in whom we choose to believe that determines the rest of life for us. In our conception of the nature of God lies the kernel of the spiritual life. Made in the image of God, we grow in the image of the God we make for ourselves. . . .If my God is harsh judge, I will live in unquenchable guilt. If my God is Holy Nothingness, I will live a life of cosmic loneliness. If my God is taunt and bully, I will live my life impaled on the pin of a grinning giant. If my God is life and hope, I will live my life in fullness overflowing forever.

Joan Chittister, In Search of Belief 20–22.

Paula D’Arcy

God comes to us disguised as our lives.

Ilia Delio

We long for God because God longs for us.

Ilia Delio

The world is created as a means of God’s self-revelation so that, like a mirror or footprint, it might lead us to love and praise the creator. We are meant to read the book of creation so that we may know the author of life.

Ilia Delio

All of creation-rocks, trees, stars, plants, animals, and humans – in someway reflects the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Trinity. God shines through creation in the face of God is reflected in creation precisely by the way things express themselves. Bonaventure,

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 61

Because the humanity of Jesus is our humanity, what happens in Jesus is our destiny as well— transformation and union in God.

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 96

The more we contemplate Christ, the more we discover our identity; and the more we discover our identity, the more opposites within us are reconciled. Thus, Christ comes alive within us. Contemplation is creative because it transforms the one who gazes in the mirror of the cross into a reflection of the image itself. That is, the more we contemplate Christ, the more we discover and come to resemble the image of God in whom we are created. Life in Christ is born of the Spirit. It requires openness to the divine energies permeating in our lives and the world. 

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 130-131

Faith gives us the eyes to see not what God is but who God is. He is to be found at the root, the ground, of our very existence. To discover Christ as the ground of our being is to discover God Enmeshed in our lives.

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 132

Knowledge may lead us to the doorstep of God, but it is love that enters the mystery of God.

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 132

What we are asked to do at present is not so much to speak of Christ as to let him live in us so that people may find him by feeling how he lives in us. Thomas Merton,

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 145

To love God is to live Christ.

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 151

Contemplation is born from the “cave of the heart”; it is the vision of a heart centered in God by which one sees the depth of things in their true reality.

Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution, p. 133

Barbara Hannah

Think as if your every thought were etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.

Barbara Hannah, Jung's Life and Work, p.128

Joy Andrews Hayter

In Centering Prayer, anything that draws us away from our open consent, our resting in God, we call a “thought”. “Thoughts” can include strong emotions and body sensations as well as mental stories and images. Any of these things may be present during our Centering Prayer – they are normal aspects of our human nature. But when we find that they divert our attention, that we find ourselves engaging them instead of abiding with God, we let them go. Centering Prayer is a practice of trust. As we let go, we trust that we let go to God’s loving arms. We let go of the notion that we need to “do” anything, or change anything about who we are: God loves us into being, and continues to love us exactly as we are. In this abiding trust we enter interior silence; however briefly, whether noticed or unnoticed (dropping from mind to heart). And remember, even if you find yourself letting go over and over again of your efforts, or of anything else, this is not a sign that you are failing – it is the heart of the practice. You are learning a new way: letting go to God. You will find (or perhaps your loved ones will notice first!) that this new way begins to permeate your life and your way of being in the world, bearing the fruits of the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control. As we let go to God, God brings blessings into the world through us.

Joy Andrews Hayter, Contemplative Outreach November ‘20 Newsletter

Etsy Hillesum

There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too … And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.

Etty Hillesum, Westerbork transit camp

I am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries, and it is all part of life. 

Hillesum, An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork, p. 157

Barbara Holmes

One of the ways I practice contemplation in my life is through fishing. It’s the space and the place where I find a real connection through the ocean, the waves, the sound of the water, the birds diving, and the struggle with the adversary, which is the fish.

Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable

The “already/not yet” paradox was developed by Princeton theologian Geerhardus Vos in the early twentieth century. Supported by Holy Scripture, it concludes that the Kingdom of God is already here as it has been promised and pronounced, but in actuality it is yet coming. Until it manifests, we are to be faithful in our efforts to host the promises.

Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable, p. 178

The restoration of wonder is the beginning of the inward journey toward a God who people of faith aver is always waiting in the seeker’s heart.

Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, p. 198.

If you feel you are anxiously floating in the in between, perhaps you are in the Liminal Space. The word comes from the Latin ‘Limens’ which means ‘threshold.’ It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with something else...waiting on a new normal. Embrace the mystery and power of transition from what has been to what will be.

Dr. Barbara Holmes, Universal Christ Conference, CAC, 3/19

Brenda Jones

Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. Know that the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace. Its products are never bitterness and strife. Clothe yourself in the work of love, in the revolutionary work of nonviolent resistance against evil. Anchor the eternity of love in your own soul and embed this planet with goodness. Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won.

John Lewis with Brenda Jones, Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America, p. 208.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the well-being of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. Hoarding the gift, we become constipated with wealth, bloated with possessions, too heavy to join the dance. . . .

I don’t know the origin of the giveaway, but I think that we learned it from watching the plants, especially the berries who offer up their gifts all wrapped in red and blue. The berries are always present at our ceremonies. They join us in a wooden bowl. One big bowl and one big spoon, which are passed around the circle, so that each person can taste the sweetness, remember the gifts, and say thank you. . . . The generosity of the earth is not an invitation to take it all. Every bowl has a bottom. When it’s empty, it’s empty. . . How do we refill the empty bowl? Is gratitude alone enough? Berries teach us otherwise. . . . The berries trust that we will uphold our end of the bargain and disperse their seeds to new places to grow. . . . They remind us that all flourishing is mutual. We need the berries and the berries need us. Their gifts multiply by our care for them, and dwindle from our neglect. We are bound in a covenant of reciprocity, a pact of mutual responsibility to sustain those who sustain us. And so the empty bowl is filled. . . .

The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue. . . . Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, p. 381, 382, 384.

Catherine LaCuna

The very nature of God is to seek out the deepest possible communion and friendship with every last creature on this earth.

Catherine LaCuna

Beverly Lanzetta

It is not enough to have wonderful theories about God. Authentic mystical encounters radically change us and our way of living. We are made for contemplation. It is the secret longing of your being. It is in the wilderness of your heart that you discover a reality beyond every religious form. We each have the capacity to touch and be touched by the source-to know the source through certitude too deep for words.

Beverly Lanzetta, The Monk Within p. 49-50

We empty ourselves to let the divine flood us with love. We are empty so we may be full. Defined as the releasing of selfishness and ego attachments, loss of self is a central characteristic of spiritual life. Let us for now refer to emptying of the self in a twofold sense: as a breaking down of our cherished self-identities, wants, demands, and ego struggles; and as an openness of being, where all the doors and windows of the soul are thrown back to allow in the splendor of life. True emptiness is an ongoing receptivity to the wonder of life. Intimacy with the Divine offers a new quality of heart. Contemplative experience moves us from the intellectual idea of openness that we glimpse in fragments and in starts, to the meditative exercise of openness, and then to the orientation of our whole being toward surrender and receptivity.

Beverly Lanzetta, The Monk Within: Embracing a Sacred Way of Life, p. 149, 151.

Joanna Macy

The line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart.

Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self, p. 180

Sandra Maitri

We suffer because we are living at a distance from our depths-it’s as simple as that. The more our souls are infused with being, the better we feel and the better life seems to us, no matter what our outer circumstances are.

Sandra Maitri, Spiritual Dimensions of the Enneagram, p. 46

Bypassing the personality with the chemical help of psychedelic drugs, many members of the Baby boom generation had their eyes opened to their depths. What they saw was what many of the spiritual traditions have been teaching for thousands of years: that our basic nature is love and that we are part of a Oneness. The problem is that the truths the hippies got in touch with when high were not integrated when they came down. The defenses of the personality were skipped over rather than worked through, so the inevitable result was that the undigested shadow aspects of the personality arose unconsciously--such as greed, selfishness, materiality, and so on.

Sandra Maitri. The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram p.241

Frederica Mathewes-Green

Greek Orthodox author Frederica Mathewes-Green describes the practice of the Jesus Prayer, which is the simple repetition of the phrase: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” She writes: At first the Prayer is just a string of words repeated, perhaps mechanically, in your mind. But with time it may “descend into the heart,” and those who experience this will be attentive to maintain it, continually “bringing the mind into the heart.” . . . This “descent into the heart” does include reference to the physical heart (or the general region of the heart within the chest). “Prayer of the heart” occurs when the Prayer moves from merely mental repetition, forced along by your own effort, to an effortless and spontaneous self-repetition of the Prayer that emanates from the core of your being, your heart. You discover that the Holy Spirit has been there, praying, all along. Then heart and soul, body and mind, memory and will, and the very breath of life itself unites in gratitude and joy, tuned like a violin string to the name of Jesus. The simplicity of the Jesus Prayer makes it available to anyone at any time. The more we commit to it, the greater our heart’s capacity for God grows. Mathewes-Green continues: The practice of the Prayer will initially take some serious self-discipline, but it gradually grows sweet, and then irresistible. The hope of protection from your own vicious or self-hating thoughts is alone a strong impetus to persevere. Day by day the healing advances, and continual immersion in Christ’s presence becomes your goal. One day you will find that the Prayer is starting up within you on its own, like a dearly loved melody.

Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer That Tunes the Heart to God, p. 9, 18–19, 45.

Mary Mrozowski

Welcoming Prayer when you are overcome by an emotional reaction that drains interior silence: Focus and sink into the body sensation, say: Welcome, welcome, welcome. I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment because I know it is for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations and conditions. I remain in the sensation and say welcome, embracing Spirit in and thru the sensation.

Let Go: while experiencing and resting in the sensation, repeat the letting go sentences: I let go of my desire for security. I let go of my desire for affection. I let go of my desire for control. I let go of my desire to change the situation.

Letting go means passing through the experience, not around it, not running away, or stuffing it back in the unconscious…Thomas Keating. This might take a few minutes. Welcome the experience, and it can move you to the Great Compassion. Don’t fight it. Don’t split and blame. Welcome the grief and anger in all of its heaviness. Now it will become a great teacher. If you can do this you will see that it is welcoming the pain and letting go of all of your oppositional energy that actually frees you from it! Who would have thought? It is our resistance to things as they are that causes most of our unhappiness—at least I know it is for me.

Mary Mrozowski, “The Welcoming Prayer.”

Mary Oliver

I had a few friends who kept me sane, alert, and loyal to my own best and wildest inclinations...I never met any of my friends, of course, in a usual way—they were strangers, and lived only in their writings. But if they were only shadow companions, still they were constant, and powerful, and amazing. That is, they said amazing things, and for me it changed the world.

Mary Oliver

Christine Valters Paintner

We’ve learned that God rules the universe and that everything God made is living. Even the rocks are alive. When we use them in our sweat ceremony we talk to them and they talk back to us. Our work as spiritual seekers and contemplatives is to see all of creation as woven together in holiness and to live this truth. In this loving act we begin to knit together that which has been torn; we gather all that has been scattered. Contemplative practice is a way to bring healing presence to the world. . . .

Christine Valters Paintner, Earth, Our Original Monastery: Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature, p. x

Thoughts on Thresholds…..

 -from Christine Valters Painter, The Soul’s Slow Ripening

Thresholds are the space between, when we move from one time to another, as in times of inner or outer journeying or pilgrimage; and one awareness to another, as in times when when our old structures start to fall away and we begin to build something new.  The Celts describe thresholds as “thin times or places” where heaven and earth are closer together and the veil between worlds is thin.

The ancient Celts used to have “threshold stones” at the entrance to a sacred site, one on either side of the portal or passageway.

Thresholds are liminal times when the past season has come to a close but there is a profound unknowing of what will come next.

Thresholds are challenging because they demand that we step into the in-between place of letting go of what has been while awaiting what is still to come.  When we are able to fully release our need to control the outcome, thresholds become rich and graced places of transformation. We can only become something new when we have released the old faces we have been wearing, even if it means not knowing quite who we are in the space between.

Joyce Rupp

The full person God created us to be contains more than we can imagine, but most of us dwell within only a small portion of the superb castle of ourselves.  Opening the door of our heart allows us entrance to the vast treasure of who we are and to the divine presence within us.  ....Sometimes uninvited & unwanted life circumstances push the door open to our inner self & propel us inside....we find ourselves unwillingly drawn to growth, pulled inward when we least expect by undesired experiences like a serious...accident or the death of a dear one...opportunities arise for us to take God's hand and visit our inner territory.  We learn and grow from every situation if we are open to it.

Joyce Rupp

Kathleen Singh

How long will you keep pounding at an open door? Sufi Poet Rabia Al Basri. The work of healing allows us to step through the gate. Acknowledging our wounds with humility and tender compassion releases our attention from each wound and into being. We heal first our shadow, then the split created between mind and body, and after that, we heal the split survival mode severed between self and other-especially between self and sacred.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 48-49

Fruits of Transformation: Attachment gives way to appreciation. Politeness elevates to kindness. Honor elevates to integrity. Believing gives way to awe. Hope gives way to gratitude. Self-consciousness melts in the intimacy of self-forgetfulness. Unworthiness ceases in grateful humility. Judgment evolves into discernment. Confusion gives way to clarity. Separation dissolves in a glowing experience of unity.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 83

I have had very little trust in sacred cows. I think they get in the way of the clear light of truth.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 103

There’s a subtle resonance that arises when we feel at home in our own path. Words in line with this felt sense move us when others do not. That’s the confidence that is so empowering.

Rodney Smith, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living p. 176

At one point I said, “I’m willing to go through whatever experiences are necessary in order to wake up.” It was very difficult, but every step I took, there was something I saw in retrospect that I absolutely needed in order for part of my consciousness to heal.

Rodney Smith, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living p. 180

Unconditional love, physiologically, is the capacity to stay open, yielded, softened, and embracing whatever is. That activates a whole different neurological circuitry and releases all the energy otherwise tied up in attachment to your own identity.

Rodney Smith, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living p. 188

Soon you die, when will you wake up? Zen master to Sherry Anderson,

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living p. 188

Theology has made it complicated to trust your own spiritual authority.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 236

The planet is a living spiritual being, of which we are a part.

Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 238

We can rest in the divine flow and trust that it will, as it always has, carry us within it.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Aging

8 Worldly concerns trapping us in reactivity: Loss & Gain, Pleasure & Pain, Fame & Shame, Praise & Blame.

Kathleen Singh, Grace in Aging, p. 116

Mind of Renunciation: wanting to be free. Mind of Compassion: wanting that for others.

Kathleen Singh, Grace in Aging, p. 212

Practicing of the four immeasurables: Wishing Love, Offering Compassion, Sharing Joy, Holding & Extending Equanimity.

Kathleen Singh, Grace in Aging, p. 249-251

Equanimity-state of stability and composure undisturbed by experience or exposure to emotional pains that may cause others to lose the balance of mind. Mental Calmness. Nonanxious Presence.

We can rest in the divine flow and trust that it will, as it always has, carry us within it.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Aging

We have been born into and shaped by a spiritually impoverished culture, a culture that worships many things other than Spirit.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Dying, p. 6

The life and death of a human being is exquisitely calibrated to automatically produce union with Spirit in the end.

Kathleen Dowling Singh, The Grace in Dying, p. 15

There is nothing so much like God in all the universe as silence.

Meister Eckhart, Kathleen Singh, Grace in Dying, p. 143

He who knows he’s a fool is not such a great fool.

Chang Tzu, Kathleen Singh, Grace in Dying, p. 200

Hope starts the journey, Faith sustains it. But it ends beyond both hope and faith.

Ram Dass, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Dying, p. 215

The tragedy is not dying, the tragedy is living disconnected from life.

Kathleen Singh, Grace In Dying, p, 272

May we undertake the contemplative practices that will nurture our deeper and more inclusive consciousness in the midst of our lives rather than at its edge, and allow ourselves to be offerings of love and hope for those who live contracted in suffering.

Kathleen Singh Grace in Dying p. 273

The Path Home: Healing Dualisms

1st Dualism: First and primary separation by the developing psyche, between self and other. Creates experience of separation.

2nd Dualism: Distinction made in the developing mind between now and then; with it arises the sense of time and mortality, evolves into fear of death. 

3rd Dualism: Boundary placed by the developing psyche between the body and the mind: child places the locus of identification in the mind.

4th Dualism: Strongly placed boundary between acceptable and unacceptable parts of the self; Jung defines it as between the persona and the shadow.

Kathleen Singh, Grace In Dying,  Glossary

Dorothee Sölle

The mystical certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God grows when we ourselves become one with love by placing ourselves, freely and without guarantee of success, on the side of love.

Dorothee Sölle, Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 278

If I’m absolutely still, I can hear the surge of the sea,From my bed. But it isn’t enough to be absolutely still, I also have to draw my thoughts away from the land. It isn’t enough to draw one’s thoughts away from the land , I also have to attend my breathing to the sea because I hear less when I breathe in. It isn’t enough to return one's breath to the sea , I also have to ban impatience from my hands and feet. It isn’t enough to calm hands and feet, I also have to give up images. It isn’t enough to give up images, I have to rid myself of striving. It isn’t enough to be rid of striving, if I don’t relinquish my ego. I am learning to fall, it isn’t enough to fall, but as I fall and drop away from myself, I no longer seek the sea because the sea has come from the coast now and entered my room surrounds me. If I am absolutely still

Dorothea Sölle, Revolutionary Patience, p. 42-43

Mirabai Starr

When we purposefully build periods of reverence or stillness into our days, we practice gazing through the eyes of love, and we get better and better seeing love everywhere we look. 

Mirabai Starr

Laura Swan

Desert ascetics understood that the cultivation of inner freedom was vital to the deepening of their experience of God. As they deepened their interior freedom, all aspects of their false self were removed and a clearer understanding of their truest self emerged. It is this true self that dwells deeply with God. In the abundant simplicity of our true self, we experience deepest joy.

Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women, p. 21.

Barbara Brown Taylor

When I am dreaming quantum dreams, what I see is an infinite web of relationship, flung across the vastness of space like a luminous net. It is made of energy, not thread. As I look, I can see light moving through it as a pulse moves through veins. What I see “out there” is no different from what I feel inside. There is a living hum that might be coming from my neurons but might just as well be coming from the furnace of the stars. Where am I in this picture? I am all over the place. I am up there, down here, inside my skin and out. I am large compared to a virus and small compared to the sun, with a life that is permeable to them both. Am I alone? How could I ever be alone? I am part of a web that is pure relationship, with energy available to me that has been around since the universe was born. Where is God in this picture? God is all over the place. God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light—not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them—but revealed in that singular, vast net of relationship that animates everything that is. God is the unity—the very energy, the very intelligence, the very elegance and passion that make it all go. This is the God who is not somewhere but everywhere.

Barbara Brown Taylor, The Luminous Web, p. 73–74

Mother Teresa

Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty.

Mother Teresa

Emily Todd VanDerWerff

Human institutions, after a certain point, become mostly interested in sustaining themselves — and as a result, they will frequently accept convenient lies over difficult truths, provided the convenient lies will allow them to avoid rethinking the way they do things.

Emily Todd VanDerWerff

Jenny Wade

This is the paradox of ego maturity: Just as the person reaches the peak of self-expression, he also becomes receptive to letting the self go.

Jenny Wade, Changes of Mind, p. 162

Simone Weil

Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

Simone Weil, Nouwen Society Daily Devo, 3/11/21

Holly Whitaker

Surrender is the strongest, most subversive thing you can do in this world. It takes strength to admit you are weak, bravery to show you are vulnerable, courage to ask for help. It’s also not a one-time gig; you don’t just do it once and move on. It’s a way of existing, a balancing act. Life no longer feels precarious, or about to crumble— even when it is, in fact, crumbling. By surrendering to whatever is unfolding and by accepting what is, by giving up on the outcome and allowing life to flow the way it’s meant to, by stepping out of your own way and letting the natural order take the lead, you not only get a break from the exhaustion of having to control everything, but you also get to experience life, instead of what you think life owes you. (Hint: What life wants to give us is infinitely better than what we think it owes us.)

Holly Whitaker, Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol, p. 158–160.

Rebecca Wildbear

Nature was Saint Francis’ church. Mountains, prairies, canyons, and birds live a prayer all the time. Rain offers itself to the grasses. Rivers carry their waters to the sea. Lightning brightens the sky. Like a forest ecosystem, we are interdependent. Our connection with nature strengthens and inspires us. Wind dances with trees. Thunderstorms crackle. Coyotes howl. Crickets play music for the night.

Rebecca Wildbear, Prayers in the Dark, Animas Valley Institute, 4/23/21

Feminine Symbols for God

Sophia: Wisdom of God. God’s wisdom was invariably presented as a woman: The most fully developed female biblical image for God is in the wisdom literature of ancient Israel—in Proverbs and in two books of the Apocrypha, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) and the Wisdom of Solomon. In these, “the wisdom of God” is often personified as a woman. Scholars now commonly refer to this personification as “Sophia,” the Greek word for wisdom.

In Proverbs 8, Sophia speaks of herself. She was with God before creation, and she was the master worker through whom God created (see especially 8:22-31). In Sirach 24, she is from eternity and fills all that is. In the Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-27, she is “the fashioner” and “mother” of all good things and:. . . a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all. (Wisdom 7:22-23) These are, of course, attributes of God.

Later, beginning in chapter ten, the author summarizes the history of Israel and uses the word Sophia/Wisdom where we would expect the word “God.” In the first chapter of John, what the author says about “the Word of God” was said about Sophia in the Jewish tradition. Like the Word, Sophia was present with God before creation. Just as the Word was with God and was God, so Sophia was. And when John writes that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus, he could just as well have said that Sophia became flesh and dwelt among us as Jesus. Jesus is the Wisdom/Sophia of God incarnate.

Marcus Borg, “Female Images of God in the Bible,” Radical Grace, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 4. 

Both Scripture and Tradition offer metaphors of God as female, having feminine qualities, or fulfilling traditionally female roles. Although Jesus was a man, the Christ is beyond gender, so it should be expected that the Big 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, La Virgen 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 (1875–1961), 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 feminine archetype 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.

Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe, p. 122–124.

It think it is important that Jesus be seen through the same lens as Sophia because is Sophia is eternal and of God from the very beginning it could be a primitive pre Jesus way of to describe connecting with what would be called the Holy Spirit.

Sophia, Wisdom, and Jesus, University of Oregon, Jesus and the Gospels Winter 2015