signs of... 05/31/2009
 This image is from a church program distributed during Lent. I think the message that Sunday was "Signs of Rescue." I don't remember much from the sermon, but I still see two things in the image: the Christian trinity as perichoresis (the persons of God "dancing around") and the pagan symbol of the Triple Goddess (Maiden, Mother & Crone).  The Triple Goddess:The Original Holy Trinity The spiral as triple Goddess is recognized by contemporary pagans, as found in ancient art throughout the world. Most famously, perhaps, in art at Newgrange in Ireland.  Newgrange I have a friend who went on a pagan pilgrimage to Malta where she was profoundly impacted by the spirals depicted in red ochre in a lower level of the Hypogeum.  The Hypogeum Contemporary pagans like to remind us that St. Augustine, in his bookCity of God, mocked the pagans for belief in a goddess who is simultaneously 3 and 1... only to (ironically?) advocate for a trinitarian view in a later book On the Trinity. Contemporary Christians like to maintain a clear distinction between the two religions and their trinities. I recall years of lessons (apologetics?) on the uniqueness of the Christian faith (although life experience has worn away at the impression). I stumbled across one site where the two perspectives were claimed equally, in artistic cooperation:  "Inspired by Newgrange in Co. Wicklow, this attractive brooch depicts the holy trinity combined with another 'Celtic classic': the Newgrange spiral." I'm grateful for the connections between Christian and pagan. Their long complex (tumultuous) relationship links them over & over as they share characters, concepts, seasons... each providing a different approach or facet of the same subject. They each inform my understanding, appreciation, and regard for the other. Together they make, for me, a more complete spiritual life. I look at the triple spiral and I recognize more. The image points to: Father, Son & Holy Spirit*; Maiden, Mother & Crone; three dancing; eternity; ancient & modern; seed sprouting into a plant...and more besides. What do you see? & feel? Being able to draw on these two religions gives me more because each is finite and so I am cautioned against absolutism. Each complements & tempers the other; filling gaps; pushing me beyond the specific influences that shaped them into their particular forms. Each gives me its own insight & wisdom. When the gifts & inadequacies of both are coupled they remind me that there is more besides what any religion - any human articulation - can know. These are all signs. They give us information. They point to something. They aren't the thing itself. They help us find the way. Sometimes they are very beautiful. I just found the artist who made the image on the program: Jan Richardson. Please visit her site and her blog - lots of inspiring images, especially expressive for what words fail. * "God is not two men and a bird." Elizabeth Johnson quoting Sandra Schneider memorable day weekend 05/22/2009
 Two years ago today I learned that I was carrying Baby N.  "I will love you, forever and for always, because you are my Dear One." From Baby N's current favorite book: Barbara M. Joosee & Barbara Lavallee (illustrator). Mama, Do You Love Me?. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 1991. mama moment 05/17/2009
I wish I had a photograph of this... commonplacing: chosen, befriended & blessed 05/17/2009
"What does it mean to be chosen by God?" speak up woman 05/14/2009
I've been going to a specialist for almost a year now to help me repair the remaining damage from my son's delivery. Month after month I come home from her office feeling like we're getting somewhere and yet... it wasn't quite me we were taking care of. It's as if we've been going down a textbook list of options rather than addressing my life in particular. I went into today's appointment intent on understanding the big picture of what we're working on. We started with an explanation of the diagnosis. Then I did something new, "I want to tell you about my life a little bit so that we're treating me." Ok. "I don't have a car." Oh! "So everywhere I go I'm walking & carrying at least one bag." Suddenly my best treatment option was my worst. (It would require 6 weeks of no lifting and no activity beyond a leisurely stroll. Great for a suburban minivan mama, but prohibitive for an urban pedestrian family.) We went back through the possibilities, covered all of my questions, got me more info, and even brought in a nurse practitioner that the doctor deems especially gifted with these treatment options. Speaking up made a real difference in the methods we'll use to treat my body. And it's renewed my optimism about and my commitment to the treatment plan.  Looking back, this whole week has presented me with the message "speak up." Starting at church on Sunday (see zucchini & onion below); next setting a timeframe on placing S the Cat in his new home (his new mom picked him up last night); then providing clear boundaries and feedback at my job (& getting results!); and now advocating for healing my body in accordance with my family's lifestyle."Finding your voice" is easily cliche in a post-women's studies, girl-power culture. I talked about it so much in my twenties that it became an empty refrain in my mind. Disillusioned with all my feminist ideals, and preoccupied with other real life things (like making the rent), my "voice" sort of faded out of range. Lingering. Lying in wait. Now I'm remembering the power of speaking up - in my own real life voice and what I have to say about real life. And I think that is where the ideals become real, the cliches regain some substance, and make a difference. Circle image found at US Women Connect: Linking US Women & Girls to the Global Women's Movement. "The national women's action network linking US women for collective action on the US women's agenda." Please be sure to visit Girl's Connect page for a really cool set of resources for girls (women might enjoy them too!). mama moment 05/12/2009
 I need a lot of quiet time alone. Or at least, a lot more than I can get in a one-bedroom apartment with a husband, baby and cat. Now that spring is here, I'm slipping out for an hour or so on Sunday afternoons while my guys are napping. I find a little peace, soak in it, and carry it home in me as much as possible. (Sometimes I wish I'd soaked in just a little bit more.) zucchini & onion 05/12/2009
Our pastor preached on Sunday about the prolific zucchini of the Pacific NorthWest. Gardeners here tend to let the zukes go and so there are many of them although none are perfect like they would be if the vines were pruned. God isn't that kind of gardener. God, the pastor said, does not accept us as we are. God prunes us. I frowned and muttered to my son, "God does accept you as you are." My husband smiled. If Baby N could understand, I'd tell him that God doesn't "prune" us, as in doing something deliberately to us. Life does it, un-deliberately. The cutting away and reshaping that produces us is a condition of being alive and in relationship with other living things. God is our partner and is present with us, functioning more like a midwife than a surgeon. A girlfriend recently wrote to me about "peeling away the layers of the onion." She's talking about going deeper in understanding her essential self and her work in this world. She told me that each time that she thinks she has found the one true kernel she learns, again, that there is more to peel. She's onto something powerful and real. As long as we are alive we are always "peeling the onion," always in motion. Certainly there are fallow seasons, but to find one thing and settle on it forever is to become stagnant. It's death. I think my friend, my pastor and I are all talking about the same family of things. In life, we are cut back and shaped. Some of it we do intentionally, like my friend peeling her metaphorical onion. Some of it comes unbidden, a blighted branch, such as the death of a loved one or a heavy depression. In all of this we have agency. We can choose how to engage or retreat; how to interpret and respond to the changes wrought in our lives. We may accept or decline God's company in the midst of it. Back in college I was fixated on the phrase "the sacred in the ordinary." Today, my life feels overwhelmingly... ordinary. I have to really search to find what's so special in life. Right now the zucchini and onion are reminding me of where to find the sacred. To be engaged in the pruning and peeling, the fallow rest, and the producing motion, all of this isn't special. As in, it's not outside of the ordinary. It's not supernatural. Rather, it is wholly (& holy) natural. It is the condition of an ordinary human. It's for everyone. And the shape we grow into bears witness to presence of God with us. |       archivesAugust 2009 This blog started in 2006
on Blogger as Out of the Attic. I began cross-posting here in May 2009. Please visit the original site for the rest of the story on topics like:  unplanned pregnancy  motherhood  ritual God is the madwoman in the attic. I'm camped out on the threshold with my journal, camera, & plenty of snacks.
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