My baby's turning 7!

Tomorrow will mark 7 years since I had my first baby. It seems like one of those sacred moments—7 marks so many holy things. “In the Hebrew, seven ([b'v, - Sheh'-bah) is from a root word meaning to be complete or full,” (says Andrew Harris in his writings on the symbolic meaning of numbers). There are 7 days in a week, and on the seventh day, God rested. Most days we’re up at 7 a.m. whether or not baby Ela has slept through the night, we’re up rushing Ian off to school. I want to rest too.

Ian was born on December 22 at 5:18 a.m. (He was due on December 16). He was 8 pounds 14 oz and 21 and a half inches long. I fought to have a natural labor. My doctor wanted to induce me, but I wanted to wait until Ian was ready. We labored for almost 20 hours. I pushed for over an hour. It was the most exhilarating experience I had ever had. To honor the natural rhythms of my body, to know my baby in my womb, to suddenly see the unseen before my eyes—it was like catching a glimpse of God.

I pulled out my journal to remember the day Ian was born. I wrote, “I think I am the happiest I’ve ever been in my life!” I wrote of letting go of old things, of old ways of being a woman. As a teenager, I spent so much energy on being clean, on hiding my creatureliness from my peers. Motherhood is the place where the messiness of life becomes liturgy. “This is my body given for you,” we feed our children, we satisfy our husbands. Our bodies are anointed with spit up, throw up, sneezes, kisses, sperm, germs, poopies, pee pees, old dirty dishwater, coffee grounds, sour milk, tears and hugs. We bear the scars of our beautiful creations in stretch marks and wrinkles, in 10-15 pounds that don’t get worked off running around the house all day long.

I am still letting go of old ways of being a woman, I'm letting go of those perfect images where reality is airbrushed away. I am embracing the elements, the earth, the matter, the mother, the mess, the incarnation: God is here.

Ian—this is my body given for you. I give you my hand to hold. I give you my ears to listen. I give you my eyes shining with a mother’s love.

Ian—I need to give you more time. More grace. More of me.

I love you Noodle. Happy 7th Birthday! May it be a year filled with joy.

A Poem

This anger

Fires within me

It wants to burn it all down

But I know the fire’s for refining

Sacred places, flaming tongues, holy ground

Burn up the fear, the lack of living

Burn it till I am

Filled with light

Re-made and giving

(Image by Miranda Hassett)

A Prayer

Our mother who art in earth

hallowed be thy creation

Shekinah come indwell wisdom

within each mortal person

you give us this day

our daily cup

attend our deepest wounds

for we're called to birth life anew

tempt us with your beauty

to pursue your desire

and deliver us from all slavery

present this hour

for thine is the drink of passion

that nursed a manger baby

great fount of mystery,

spring!

now and forever, Amen.

Dead Meat

The shark opened her mouth and pulled her head back ready to attack. I tried to swim away, but all I could do was look at all those sharp teeth. The heavy water held my body like a straightjacket. She was hungry and I was supper. I was dead meat and I knew it.

I woke up before the shark ate me. When I wrote down the dream I had a few nights ago, the image of dead meat lingered. It reminded me of a dream I had years ago. I can’t remember all the details, just that I was with a group of seminary students. We were waiting to see if we would be ordained to the priesthood. One candidate held a metal mixing bow out to me, inside of it was raw hamburger meat. In the next scene I am with a woman who was recently ordained to the deaconate. She presents to me the chalice. We all sit down at a table together to feast.

The meat also reminds me of Inanna’s descent into the underworld. Inanna must pass through seven gates to get there. At each gate she loses articles of clothing until she is stripped bare and completely vulnerable. When she finally reaches the heart of the underworld, she finds a grieving Queen, Ereshkigal who's pain is so severe it has become murderously wild. Inanna must face the eye of death. Ereshkigal strikes her dead and hangs Inanna's body--now a piece of rotting meat--on a hook, on a pole.

What pain needs to be seen? What death must I face?

The food and water of life is sprinkled on Inanna's corpse like seasonings. Inanna returns to life and escapes the underworld. She doesn't escape the pain--she is transformed after beholding it. I’m drawn to the image of her body becoming meat—meat that is seasoned with the food and water of life. I think of the bread of life, this is my body given for you—feed my sheep, the living water—if you drink of it you will never die.

I think of countless stories of women, how we have been treated like pieces of meat, seasoned to be objects, how we are told to forget about it, to leave our pain unseen like Ereshkigal's. I think of those forbidden places we are warned not to visit--for we might not return from the underworld--those dark places of pain, of madness.

What does it mean to be dead meat?

To be caught, to have no escape, to be forced to face the horror, to submit to something more powerful than ourselves. If I am caught, than it is God who is catching me. And that can be terrifying.

Our Mother

Drawing by Jessica Creech, November 26, 2005

Today, I read through two books of dreams that I have written down over the past seven years. So many of my dreams are populated with priests, bishops, altars, churches and sacred artifacts. In one dream I am robed and standing in front of the altar. The cross behind me only has one arm extending. (My analyst said the image sounded like a phallic symbol.) I turn to the congregation who is sitting in the dark and I say, “The peace of the Lord be with you,” And they say, “And also with you. Hail Mary full of grace, blessed is the woman who turns her face.”

We don’t say the Hail Mary in the Episcopal Church. But I think of the image of Mary, so full of power at times, and also an image stripped of sexuality, a sanitary picture of woman, one who “turns her face” from the atrocities of the patriarchy and endorses the Catholic tradition of excluding women from the priesthood.

This past weekend I traveled to the Episcopal cathedral in downtown Chicago to celebrate the ordination of four women. I couldn’t help but think of the number four as a number that Carl Jung equated with wholeness. In Christianity’s two thousand year history, only in the last thirty years has the Episcopal Church begun to ordain women. There is something new afoot. But there is still much work to be done. Our liturgies, hymns and our prayer book still hold predominately masculine images of God and tell of men's encounters with the divine.

As a woman learning to find her own voice, I am leery of using my voice as a mouthpiece for the patriarchy. This is not to say that all priests do this. But there is a strong caution in me about conflating the well worn insitutions and collective structures of the church with the Living Spirit of God. For me, to be authentic to my experiences of the Living Spirit involves creative liturgies, word smithing, translating a language of church that has been handed down to us by men into my experiences of God as a woman. I wonder how far a creative liturgy can go and still fall in the rubrics of the Episcopal tradition? Would being a priest mean that one has to use the patriarchal language from time to time? "Blessed is the woman who turns her face." How also do I honor the way God speaks to me in images that include the feminine?

As the women took their vows on Saturday I wondered if I could ever say I will like they did. In our prayer book, the examination begins addressing the candidates for ordination as, “My brother”. Obviously they changed it to “My sister” on Saturday, but it just bothers me that the printed book of common prayer that is found all over the world in every Episcopal and Anglican church doesn’t say HER in it anywhere in reference to God or priests. I talked to the national office for the Episcopal church recently and asked them if they were going to reprint a new edition of the Book of Common Prayer—as the Lutheran’s have just done—and update the gender inclusive language for the worldwide church. They said probably not any time soon.

The Episcopal churches that I have worked in for over six years have not been too keen on changing the words of the liturgy. We may be creative in our theology, but our liturgy goes by the book. That’s what makes us Episcopalian, is a line I hear often. Yes we have supplements, yes people have been creative and there’s room for more. But could I be true to myself and my experiences of God within so many patriarchal rubrics? I have my doubts.

Back in January I closed the door on the idea of priesthood. I've spent a year of saying NO. I have many reasons. I have watched too many burnt out, workaholic priests in action. (And I’ve been a burnt out workaholic church employee). I’m not a CEO or a businessperson. (I’m a mother and an artist.) The commission on ministry has taken a hiatus on admitting people into the ordination process. Churches can barely afford to pay their priests in this economy. There are many priests out of work. The church is in decline. These are just a few of my excuses.

And yet, I don’t feel completely at peace about my decision to close the door. As I watched the women put on their vestments, as they carried the chalices to the congregation and turned their faces to me, I was excited by the evidence of the Living Spirit among us.

Mrs. Coffee

a song to be sung while brewing coffee...

drip drip drip in the coffee pot

thoughts of you drop in a lot

you opened doors and rang the church bells loud

inside my heart and

i sang you a song

but you did not sing a long

i heard our harmonies

but you did not sing with me

no sugar no cream

i grind the darkest bean

the little bird she lost her wings

on the perfect wind machine

and i sang you a song

but you did not sing along

and i heard our harmonies

but you did not sing with me

you wanted to drink

of my black sea

and you wanted to taste

the strong woman in me

with the tip of your tongue

with the lick of your word

i was hot you were bothered

the higher you rose

the more i fell

you flew to heaven

i swam in hell

but i like the heat

you prefer the cold

if you ever want to drop down below

you know that

i'd sing you a song

and you could sing along

and you'd hear our harmonies

when you sing with me

drip drip drip in the coffee pot

Christian Radio

I was listening to a local Christian Radio station recently when I began to hear their slogan over and over—“Safe for the whole family” said the DJ’s in soothing, syrupy voices. And you could just tell that they were smiling the whole time, and that was probably a job requirement at the Christian radio station, and they had probably labored in Christian Radio school for hours and hours as they practiced smiling and talking in syrupy voices while still managing to get those consonants out. Then they played clips of kids singing along to the Christian songs and their nervous Mom’s assured the listeners of how much their anxiety has been relieved now that they can tune their kids into “clean radio” and spare their precious one’s from the dangers of the world.

As I listened, I kept thinking of C.S. Lewis’ description of Aslan in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, “Is he safe?” one of the children ask. “Safe? Heaven’s no,” says the Beaver, “but he is good.”

And I was wondering about the landscape of contemporary Christianity and how we got this notion of it being so safe and nice and wholesome for the family idea. I mean, at the center of our faith is a guy who’s covered with blood and nailed to a wooden cross who’s supposedly the whole point of this thing. And he was always saying, “follow me,” the disciples who did follow him were killed in similarly gruesome ways. Not exactly something I’m eager to tell my six year old.

And then Jesus was also known for telling people if they wanted to be true disciples, they had to hate their father and mother, sister and brother, even life itself. Sounds kind of dark, like 1st century style Goth culture or something.

And this guy was unruly. He totally ditched his parents for several days on a family outing, and Mary and Joseph thought they lost him. And then when they found him, he mouthed off to them, “Didn't you know I’d be about my Father’s business?” like this teenager thought he was God or something. And then when he grew up, he rebelled against everything, like the social norms of the day and he hung out with scandalous people, like prostitutes. (Oh, but he said they were “just friends”).

I mean, this guy sounds like the kind of guy that James Dobson would have a hay day with. He’d be the poster child of the kid who needed some serious doses of tough love.

And yet, when I think of Jesus some times I cannot shake the idea of a guy with a syrupy voice that's always smiling--and possibly prancing in green fields with flowers followed by cute and cuddly fluffy white sheep where everything is safe and nice.

The truth is that Jesus bids us to come and die. And that’s not entirely safe or family friendly. But it’s good.

I guess I want to salvage the image of Jesus from the syrup so he can continue to really save me. I have found the path of goodness to be dangerous and exciting. Facing our false self is terrifying and threatening to our self-images and cultural norms. Jesus may be calling us to rebel and be recreated in a way that family and friends don’t understand. We may be called to bear the mystery of God’s life, death and resurrection. Is it safe? Heaven’s no, but it’s good.

Wings

Hold me in your arms

Hold me much too tight

Feathers falling out not sure I'll ever fly

Darkness circles in this snowy road

I've been driving in

To the unknown

I've left the steel beams behind me

But I'm still searching...

Searching for eyes that recognize me

And hands open to land

And sky again

Darkness circles in this snowy road

I've been driving in

To the unknown

I've left the steel beams behind me

But I'm still searching, searching for my

Wings

Bones: Dead Birds

A little blue bird began to appear in my dreams. In one dream I opened a small brown drawer and found it filled with little dead blue birds. The drawer was in a Sunday school room, a room where I fell in love with my favorite Sunday school teacher, a woman I loved like a mother. It was a place where I felt the Holy Spirit—that great bird transcending from the sky, soaring, wings on the wind, speaking the words of life. But here packed away in a little drawer, lied all my lifelessness. My spirit was dead—dead many times. In the center of the room the baptismal fount was missing, replaced with a trashcan. I think about this room like a Mandela image, the room, a sacred space, set like a circle. But in the center was a deep void, a garbage dump. It was a stark picture of an inner reality.

When I was about twelve, we had a pet parakeet, a little blue bird named Paquitta, which means “little bit.” I had let her out of her cage and was holding her. But her wings, which we kept clipped, had grown and she began to fly away from me. I ran through the house trying to capture her, but she had flown into my parent’s bedroom where their ceiling fan was on at high speed. I knew I was supposed to check the ceiling fans before letting the bird out and I forgot. She flew up to perch on it, but the poor thing was thrown hard against the wall and her feathers rained down like hail in my heart. The little bird miraculously survived, but she was never the same. She had a concussion and she shook from time to time. About a year later, we found her face down in her water dish.

I think of the drawer, filled with all those dead “little bits” and how together they add up to a lot of loss. I wonder what ceiling fans are still on inside of me. I wonder what “little bits” need my protection.

Shortly after dreaming about the dead birds in a drawer, I had a dream that my little blue bird was alive, only now it was a boy and it looked sickly. It began to fly up towards a ceiling fan that was on at high speed. The dream was replaying my childhood trauma, searching the unconscious for a healing symbol, looking for medicine for an old wound. This time I ran towards the walls frantically trying to figure out how to turn off the ceiling fan. But the switches were too complicated and I couldn’t make them work. Finally, I stood under the blades and punched my arm up with a tight fist and I stopped the fan, and saved the bird.

I think about the ceiling fan and the little bird, both have something to do wind, with Ruach— that life-giving spirit that blew over the waters of creation and brought existence into being. And then there's the dark side of the wind maker.

One wind-maker is powered by a man-made machine. The other is powered by nature. Both exist in my psyche. My challenge is to mediate between these two. The unconscious machine energy needs someone to stop it, to switch it, to transform it, to protect the little bits of Spirit who naturally want to take flight. I think of Herod and baby Jesus as internal figures, as a story that continues to take place today. Will the unconscious machine kill the Spirit or will humanity have the courage to fight for Spirit, to protect it at all costs? Where will I find my own power to stand up against the machines that take my little bits out? The dream tells me that the power to protect and nurture the sacred Spirit is not far off as it seems sometimes, but very near, within me. Immanuel, God with us.