Leshem Shamayim: “For the sake of heaven.”

So its 2pm as I am starting this little reflection, and I have been reading about white supremacy and other such topics for the majority of my late morning and sporadically this afternoon between desk job duties. Because questioning is what I do, and wondering is a way of relating to share life, to deepend relationship with others and get to know oneself better, before I run off to do another 8hrs at my second job, I am going to rummage through the contents of my head and invite any who have anything to save of themselves, of the ideas, etc… to please be free and do so.

The first thing that comes to mind is a curiosity with this state of existence, as one of my friends was voicing to me yesterday, “what is this life?” I have been struggling with the realitites of my humanity for as long as I can remember, usually most overtly manifested in questions about church, frustrations about human interactions (why CAN’T we all just get along?) and working out what it means to be finite and embodied (i.e., I’m not super girl, I can’t save the world, and I can’t manufacture hours out of nihil). The time issue has put pressure on everything else… from a chain line of reasoning, I decided not to take out loans, because I don’t want to go into debt, so I am working 40+ hours a week to make the rent/school and life-sustaining needs. I don’t mind that. But then, with 4 classes, there just isnt the time to grow into the changes that keep happening in my life and thinking. there aren’t the hours to rejournal through my theology and rework my “purpose” statements each time I rediscover something or other… or rework a mode of being. Thats sounds so silly and universalist to say. But its really just got to be heard in the context of an individual projecting their view of the world (as if it were universal) onto everything. Sigh. Thumbing through the pages of my journal, I saw more references to time-crunch-related exasperations… not enough sleep, not enough time, going too fast, etc, etc than much else. So with all that as qualification, I decided I was doing too much and couldnt help it till at least next summer. Its amazing how priorities change when one goes under the gun about things.

Since I mentioned universalism and the fact that I was reading on white supremacy, I think a few tentative remarks are needed on teh white supremacy, or issue of race, first. Now, Ok, I’m white, I’m a woman, I have had a very priviledged life because my parents cared about my education, they taught me to work hard, and I have never believed that something was to much for me to run after. I am in a theology graduate school, having the luxury of turning around and reflecting, while at the same time, literally working myself to near-death in order to have this experience. Its amazing, its exhilarating, its exhausting. So I understand I think, this concept of white priviledge, and I think most who react against it in theology would place me in the label of white and priveldged, and not really fully appreciating it… such as one of our authors did today: “thus, white supremacy is both personal and institutional, and all white people collude in it (even those dedicated to fighting it).” [from Gorsline's essay]… now, in my own thought, totally biased by my own life, who I am, and how I approach everything, I wonder why race is still held as an issue. On the one hand, I really do understand… oppressions seems to create a mutual dislike… those who are more powerful and prejudice create so much pressure on the marginalized that it breeds a hatred for the oppressors. Neither side is right…but when we start polarizing ourselves into churches because of race, or kinds of theology in which we define God in particular ways according to our color: a Black church? a White church? are we going to argue two plans of salvation, two?

this reminds me of a really fascinating conversation we had in Pauline class yesterday…our professor told us that initially Paul initially agreed to a two-gospel system, for Jews and for Gentiles after the Jerusalem Council in Acts…apparently this meant that one did not have to conform to the Jewish distinctives (food laws, circumcision, etc…, but that those Jews who did subscribe the universal salvation provided by Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, did not need to release those distinctives. We talked about how throughout his controversial life as an Apostle, Paul’s soteriology changed… at one time he criticized Peter for vacillating in behavior when with the Jewish Christians or the Gentile Christians, but then in 1 Corinthians 9. 19-23, Paul is saying He is all things to all people. Sigh. So what about Jesus… Jesus wasn’t trying to make all kinds of people feel like they had their own sorts of salvation, He preached to Yhwh’s people, or some Gentiles, about the covenant of the Jews with Yhwh, and the component of faith that allowed the covenant to expand beyond a particular people. I can thrink of two times in this past week where I’ve broken down to tears over our church.. but thats me misunderstanding again where to locate the community of this body of Christ in my life.

Church is probably about the most amusing and bizzare mystery in spirituality. Compared to Church, the purpose of theology and sacraments make sense. I look at theological theories and all, and think, wow, I understand how we historically have had to try and explain the events in our lives through God’s presence in them. Church, well now, we people claiming an equality in relationship by faith in Christ, yet we judge each other incessantly.And continue to separate. The way I see people, we’re all so different, so individual… the sameness between us is our biochemical makeup and that we’re human beings. Stressing sameness to much crosses the line of individuality… but if we consider ourselves all so different, we divide up what has been united. There’s sameness and difference in all of us… not so much so, I think, that we need to draw up little “types” of theology for ourselves, though our perspectives approaching theology will always be different, and not so much that i think we need a different church for every cultural difference… what happened to one Lord, one faith, one baptism; with many different ways of worshipping. Enough with the ranting. Ideas on this univeral faith in a particular world, share, please. Sometimes I wonder if we people came up with ideas of universals because they are so beyond us and our world would only fit into bare outlines of universal ideas. We’re amusing like that.

I’ve been considering the relationship of the Invisible God I had been acquainted with since before I can remember because of my family’s introduction.Since life is a fluidity, a mobile continuum, we people are always in the process of reevaluating what we believe, what we think, where we are in life, what our goals are. Perpetual discernment. So that’s where I am again… one of those swings of life, where everything one once assumed gets re-questioned because of a decision, a different place of life. So I’m here in California, my third semester of Grad school , studying theology which I’ve been told is faith-seeking –understanding. Sometimes I wonder about the studies I engage in, whether they are too heady about God and whether the categories and theories I’m studying about God tell me more about Him or more about the people in our world. The questions I’ve been asking lately are those concerning the sense I’ve developed of Christianity as an institutionalized religion being an evolved entity that negotiates between a plane of totalitarian, absolute abstracts and subjective experience of human persons. I look at what has become Christian religion, and I look at Jesus Christ, the Jewish Rabbi who was a bit looney, eventually a bit heretical, and a bit brilliant in his commentary expanding Moses. Paul took the unframed, thematic thoughts of Jesus and developed a lot of what we based Christianity off of today.

But look at us. A DC Talk song comes to mind (as I sit at work, enjoying a small piece of chocolate….) “what have we become, o self indulgent people; O what have we become, tell me where are the righteous ones! What have we become in a world degenerated? Speak your mind, look out for yourself, the answer to it all is a life of wealth, grap on and keep ‘cause you just live once, you got the right to do whatever you want, don’t worry about others or where they came from, it ain’t what you were it’s what you become…” So what does Christianity as a systematized, institutionalized faith look like to me at the moment, a 5 month and 12 day old Catholic in the most systematized and hegemonic system of thought. In saying that, I realize its incredibly pluralistic and diverse. But in the little Catholic world I live in, where liturgy is a commonly debated subject amongst people I know, an emphasis on the human dimension of embodiment is deemed deserving of the most dignity in creation, and Aristotelian thought is used to categorically delineate analogies to understand God from the world. Hm, and yet, too, a sense of wonder and mystery paradoxically eclipse all the human reason which is at our base of religious-beingness-in-world.

I would be the first to admit that I don’t intellectually understand a faith purpose for sacraments, these outward signs of inward grace… symbolic actions that are supposed to be embedded with a presence of Christ through an epiclesis of the Holy Spirit, and finding their doctrinal validity in a teaching that Christ instituted the sacraments, they are seen as necessary for a full celebration and participation in the Christian faith by my Church family. I struggle with that, as I struggle with any sort of necessary embeddedness in the physical world. And yet, my  recent personal encounter with sacraments beyond a sort of abstract theological consideration has brought a deeper intensity  to my own struggle with embodiment, with knowing my God, understanding (or rather living well in, because I don’t think human nature is something meant to be intellectually comprehended) my own self as a human woman.

I will tangent for a moment to mention, in line with understanding God through what I sense and comprehend in relationship, to discuss a Sufi Islamic poet whose evasive concept of the invisible, intangible Beloved and means of knowing, introducing Him has captured my imagination since I bought the collection of 43 of his odes, “Like This”. One of his odes answers the questions of persons wondering about things from the resurrection of Jesus to how miracles were performed with the interaction of a person: “Like this.” So how are we God’s presence to one another, is it known through this? “If anyone wants to know what ‘spirit’ is or what ‘God’s fragrance’ means, lean your head toward him or her. Keep your face close there. Like this.” So I am a bit curious about this manner of knowing God, in and through one another. Reading snatches of Levinas lately, and talking about this philosopher with some of my friends, the concept of knowing God solely through human interaction has come up again and again. I guess that’s where sacraments are “redemptive,” saving God’s reputation from being too tangled up in the persons we love.

Yet, there’s something to knowing Jesus the only way we can though others, in addition to the gift of revelatory text we’ve been given that is problematically composed and compiled by human persons. Yet, I unintellectually somehow sense the truth of this being divine revelation. I think that sense, that kind of knowing, must be my faith, which is still faith without re-creatable reason. I used to have reasons for everything I thought, by the dynamism of life combined with faith has altered those. Its really kind of exciting. We relive the same sorts of questions over and over, and each time, they are different. I love reading the Adekah, the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, partly because it manifests so many of my own questions, but also because each time I read through it to reflect on sacrifice in relationship, I see it in a different light. Still in composition of this year’s reflection. But it will be intensely relational. What does it mean to trust God in our lives, what does it mean to be open with others, how do those two planes intersect and where do we interact with God in this life here.

It makes me smile to think of the dear people who ask why try, why look for the more, why always be moving. This semester, I am attempting a new endeavor in understanding the rest of God… it sint so much a dismantling of an intense schedule (40+ hours of work a week, 4 classes including Hebrew, my foreign language of choice), but a disposition within the schedule. An attempt not to run between so many places… the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, the Hergl Center where I work almost 30 hours a week, and my little new El Cerrito apartment create the Bermuda triangle my hurricane self whirls between day in and day out. And as a laywoman with a heart to belong to my God, I find myself needing to learn a deeper sense of integration to maintain or recreate a spirituality in which I move through daily everydayness. I think that spirituality, whatever that means anymore, is becoming conflated with the concept of love in my mind. Maybe its not a conflation, but a unification.

If love is the way we are to be in the world, not just a love out of pity for the less fortunate, but a love which allows us to relate those things which are different from us, other, if you will… love is how we find whatever is equality is, by emptying our egos of their natural self-bent conceitedness to care and extend oneself to hear what the other person questions and cares for.  The title of these musings reveals something I am learning about myself and the way I love people… a heart inside with its walls on the epedermis of my skin, sensing or empathizing with others in relationship. That kind of alerts me to a dangerous sensitivity, which I often allow to fold up and hide away rather than expose with a question. So I am getting to know Jesus by Himself more through the text of scripture and other mysteries which don’t exactly seem to have a logic, and Jesus with others through trying to open myself a little more to this care for persons. Obviously, a busy schedule includes varying degrees of time for that to be shared in, and the personal one maybe least of all. In spite of that fact, I hope maybe some of these musings will encourage further life sharing, which seems to be just good in and of itself!

There is a passion in me
that doesn’t long for anything
from another human being.

I was given something else,
a cap to wear in both worlds.

It fell off. No matter.

One morning I went to a place beyond dawn.

A source of sweetness that flows
and is never less.

I have been shown a beauty
that would confuse both worlds,
but I won’t cause that uproar.

I enjoy Shakespeare a lot… usually the two tragedies Hamet and Macbeth. But watching “Kiss Me, Kate” tonight, reminded me of some of the great lines and characters from other plays. So here is Katharina, the former Shrew, chastising her fellow women in regards to their treatment of their husbands. Musings to follow t a later time:

KATHARINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

Reviewing this enthralling book by John and Stasi Eldrgedge, I find it almost impossible to capture the essence of their message to both men and women as simply and surprisingly articulated in Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul. As usual, I approached the book tentatively, o gee, another book telling me how to be a cheesy Christian woman and how to set my priorities in order, etc… but I found the content to resonate with my unexpected hopes for the book more than my dread of over-used emotional focus. Prioritizing the embodiment of woman, both body and soul, as God’s gift to creation of His own beauty, the Eldredges manage to collaborate in expressing to both men and women something of the vocation which is imparted to we who have been created woman. As my academic and personal interest is relationality, I found the situatedness of the Eldgredges’ discussion of woman’s soul in relation with man refreshing. The ensuing conversation of this little piece is going to involve things I know many are skeptical of—natures, essences, etc. While I do believe these things are impossible to define, I think the Eldgredges are taking an inductive approach to nature… looking at what often happens, and recognizing nature in tendency. Give it a shot. I just had a class today discussing Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, and with the critiques still fresh in my mind, I want to add a disclaimer that what I am going to observe from Captivating is not meant to produce a totality or universality, but to feed into subjectivity.

Starting off by wondering at womanhood itself, Stasi  muses through her own thoughts and tose of other women transitioning from girlhood to womanhood, realizing that a young woman is very blessed if she has a mentor for those years of her development. Stereotypes invade our thinking, media infects our self-image, and we struggle to be “confident, scandelous and beautiful, yet not portray (our)self as a feminist Nazi or an insecure I-need-attention emotional whore. How can I become a strong woman without becoming harsh? How can I be vulnerable without drowning myself in sorrow?” (Captivating 5). There seems to be something so delicate about femininity… a fine balance, like the stereotype of our emotional stability. To be a strong woman, we’re told that our vulnerability in unveiling of the embodied beauty of spirit/self we hold, because being strong is not contingent on our actions other than keeping our heart and aiding in the keeping of our brothers’ hearts. But how can we do that as women unless we are ourselves.

The Eldredges identify our hearts (as it is with men’s hearts) as key to bearing God’s image in a way that blesses others: “Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4.23. This phrase was interesting… “Your feminine heart was created with the greatest of all possible dignities—as a reflection of God’s own heart.” (pg. 8). With fragile hearts that hardly are willing to believe they’re really created as reflections of the beautiful love God. Its kind of amazing to think that woman, created as that last creation of God…  the crown jewel as the Eldredges describe her… “completed” the creation of humanity in the myth of the Creation narrative. Why then, is it such a risk for those of us who hesitate in revealing that beauty that has been created in us? We’re afraid we won’t be found beautiful the way we long to be. Or I am. I said I wasn’t going to present a totality or universal understanding of woman, so I will speak for myself and ask other women to resonate where their hearts are touched. I don’t think the desire I have had, without even understanding the desire, since I was young to be beautiful… comes from any sort of vanity. Beauty does me no good… I love to see people light up and brighten with that light of Jesus… whether they are infused with it by inspiring conversation, excited over something they just heard on the radio or read, or are struck by wonder at something beautiful… art or music, I love to see it.  If in any way I can have a hand in the relational threads of life’s web that I come in contact with to bring some more brightness into life, I sparkle inside at the thought of it. Its not about me, nothing to do with whether or not it is truly me bringing that brightness and energy… its about seeing someone become alive. To be with someone and witness the dawning of something good and glorious in their hearts fills me with a thrill of wonder… it is relationally beautiful and amazing.

That brings me to what I have been told again and again by my Dominican brothers is the genius of woman… and what the Eldredge couple deems as the glory of woman’s reflection of God.. relationship. I exist in a very predominantly male world at the moment, so while my perspective is a bit skewed, it is fascinating for me to watch how my interactions as a woman seeking to be a woman, seeking to love my brothers/fathers as a sister/daughter… to learn appropriate openness and find a sharedness in each relationship… how greatly it differs from male interaction. A newcomer to the scene of Religious life in the Catholic Church, I am mesmerized by the relationships I see between the Dominican Brothers and their cloistered sisters. It seems so true that woman fills a place in the heart or inspiration of man… not necessarily in any romantic capacity (though the Genesis interpretation widely circulating through Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body suggests that the nuptial/marital union of man and woman is the most natural means of the mutual inspiration, comfort and relation between the genders), but behind every great man, there really is a strong woman.

What do I understand as a strong woman. Well, that has been very confusing to me throughout my life… at some times, I have thought a strong woman was one who could always be put together, always have a wise word… and then I learned life doesn’t roll like this. Now, I tend to consider strength an ability to submit to peace, something I struggle to do. To recognize with a discerning heart situations that are beyond my control, and submit the care/worry/concern of them to my God and embrace His peace while doing my best in the situation (o how rarely I do this). My housemate can attest to you that I resist sleep, don’t get enough of it, and am always active, always on the run if not entirely knackered or sick. I resist Jesus’ peace because I hide my heart, I am unwilling to be vulnerable… He has revealed this to me through introspection and some stressing situations in which I bore more of the care than I was capable. So… in the process of learning peace. And to learn peace, I have had to first learn something about the kind of strenght I should be cultivating according to my own nature (which has a fiery past, but which most describe not as “passive”)… a quiet presence of mind, a firmness and an ability to draw boundaries where I am uncomfortable without being unkind (another challenge)… and unashamedness to quietly unveil the thoughts and wonderings and care. Hiding care is the most natural thing for introverts live me who are uncertain how much care is too much and how to translate the care in a relatable and comprehensible when hearts don’t have words.

Is that what it means for me to learn how to be beautiful? Not the kind of beauty that one sits back and admires, but one that invites to action. Maybe the beauty itself is not active… have you ever known of someone trying so hard to be beautiful and so utterly failing? This statement caught my attention: “nature is not primarily function. It is primarily beautiful.” (pg. 34) This reiterates the “be vs. do” theme I have heard again and again over this summer. John Eldredge mused on the idea of woman and our desire to hear that others find us beautiful. He replied to his own question, “ The reason a woman wants a beauty to unveil, the reason she asks, Do you delight in me? Is simply that God does as well.” (Pg. 35) Well, that would assume a woman has the courage to ask and acknowledges the desire to hear she is beautiful. I know the feeling I have warming my cheeks when someone tells me something kind, but is this not vanity, a weakness, I wonder? I think this desire in our hearts that can be so simple and so alluring in its purity can also be our greatest weakness and allow us to be easily seduced by flattery. Most of us women can recognize flattery and we’d probabloy admit we’ve listened a little too long in vanity at times. But to hear a praise of beauty spoken, and know it to be true, we can give one of those Roses Corrie ten Boom talked about giving God up to our beloved Jesus in heaven.

So much more time should be spent of discussing what beauty is… its not the Barbie figure (though yes, I have that ingrained in my mind, even from limited media exposure, as I assume more women do…)… it’s a caring heart.  I think our real beauty is a genuine, givine care. Unveiling that beauty is a revealing to another that care, and allowing it be revealed to the other for them to experience even when its without expression. It’s a risk of a deep fear that I have, as  maybe many women, abandonment by those we love. I think about it sometimes and realize I am so silly: who do I have to abandon me? I am not in some sort of committed relationship with anyone other than Jesus… but maybe its just anyone I care about. I have the kind of heart that finds care easy to give and is afraid to reveal the care because of uncertainty about the “what now” questions… if only Jesus-likeness were so very simple. If beauty is life-giving, if it really does inspire, then it is powerful. Not power like a polemical control or manipulation… but has great sway. And in us, whatever that care which wants to nuture life, give life is, it is delicate enough to need nurturing too. I find it easy to care about others, but not maintain myself enough to have strength to give the care. That is where I need Jesus, to keep being beautiful, so I can keep loving him and learning the truth I heard in Levinas today… that transcence is the new immanence… that there is a closeness in the truth, a presence in the world which I think I’ve been ignoring and looking outside of what is for what is beyond. I don’t think it works that way. Jesus, teach my heart to love through what you’ve put here. I love you, make me love like you.

Why do I wear a mantilla when I go to mass/pray/etc? Well, I must confess to having been inspired to do so years and years ago, as a young girl, reading I Corinthians 11; It really opened up some questions in my heart in terms of the differences between me and boys before God, my relationship with males in general, what is appropriate and what is not, what affects people and why… all that fun kind of stuff. Paul says he wants women to cover their heads when praying or prophecying…. because of the angels. I don’t understand the reason… not precisely, but what comes to mind is a song my little brother came home singing from Sunday school at age 4 or 5… the Centurion’s answer to Jesus when he asked Jesus to heal his servant: “I have a man under authority. I say come and he comes, I say go and he goes. Just say the word and I know he’ll be healed as I go.” So “because of the angels” could mean showing that the angels in relation to God, are under His authority. Or one could speculate that angels are called to be in submission to men, as well… though I can’t remember where I picked that up. Perhaps reigning beside Christ our brother, but not now. So wearing a head covering could be viewed as a public sign that I am in submission to someone. Of course, to me, that is Jesus… but the idea of submission is not so predominant to me as is protection.

I am a very independently minded woman, who tries to live her own life, make her own decisions, etc etc. So the idea of submission comes hardl, though a deep part of my feminity reluctantly realizes that I was made and desire to submit (I will try and qualify this later)…. but I see the mantilla as just what it looks like in my confirmation pictures: a wedding veil. I can’t always wear dazzling white on Sundays, but I adore donning that veil. Sometimes I get just a bit blushy when wearing it in places where other women don’t cover their heads, but I wear it more for Jesus than the benefit of others. What does that mean? I have talked with some of my male friends about women and headcoverings, and one of them was telling me after a Tridentine mass that to him, women covering our heads in church removes distractions so that our brothers may better worship. I responded by giving him a quzzical look: its going to take me a lifetime to understand some of the mystery of how the image of our Father in heaven is reflected and refracted by the sexual distinctions between men and women. What is the hair, this glory of a woman? It seems that the word “woman” used in the context of 1 Corinthians 11 could be referring to a wife or a woman in general.

Perhaps these are some of the most controversial verses in the Bible for we women who want to seek and understanding of ourselves in the image of God, not in relation to man: “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made for woman, but woman for man. That is why a woman (or wife) ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (vs. 7-10, ESV) This seems to hearken back to the genesis context of human creation, woman being made as the fulfillment of human man’s loneliness… and seems to speak of what a social context which I was raised to understand as absolute theological order in my early life: woman is to be in submission to man… or I suppose one could hear those words (since I am unable to do the exegetical research at the moment) in a very special regard to woman. I am reading a book by John and Stasi Eldredge called Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul and it has brought to mind that there are many dimensions in which the feminine nature was indeed created that are considered exploitations now because we are unable to recognize the full beauty of what it means to be created for, to be given as gift, to be made as helpmeet. Before I explore some of these ideas further, I find it helpful to finish St. Paul’s reflection on male and female.

1 Corinthians 11.11&12, “Nevertheless in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman.” Rather equalizing sentences. Perhaps that would throw a perspective that if man was not now born from woman, men would be superior in the image of God. Somehow we women have begun developing ideas that we have been told for too long how to be women by misogynystic men and that without them or the ability to reproduce them in our lives, we have no meaning or purpose. Its interesting to study feminism, womanism, mujeristaism… and see how much women try and form and identity for ourselves that seems to compete with the conception we induce that male society has sold us. Has it? I am not going to deny the existence of male misogyny in the history of female identity… but we are not somehow independent from men even when embracing our own identities. To me, the headcovering in prayer or the presence of public worship reminds me of who I am. Many of the Catholic Mariological descriptions of woman come to mind in reflection of what the covering actually symbols (since “because of the angels” is rather confusing): Mary as the arc of the covenant, bearing Jesus… which could only be touched by consecrated hands.

When I think of woman, what I am and what I have been created to be, images of a moon and a mirror resonate in my mind: when my kind was given to man, man was able to see himself. He looked at woman, who was created after, before it was all finished in the mythical recounting of Genesis, and knew he was not alone. That is something to think on… the companionship aspect of womanhood…we have never known existence apart from relationship, while man has. But in the creation of woman, God gave a gift to man which was implicit in the fibers of womanhood: with-ness, likeness, relationship. When I think of Eve approaching Adam in the garden, I see him awed and unsure of what this creature is beside him. Bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh… like him but far different… formed out of him, crafted to be beautiful in a kind of reassuring way, I think. Woman, it seems to me, was God’s gift of reassurance of His relationship with man. By the union of man and woman, there is a procreative miracle of life that continues the presence of man on earth… a tangible means of God showing His with-ness. When Adam looked at Eve, in his first words of declaration that she was of him, he saw himself. The reflection. But then he called her woman, for she was taken out of man. That recognition of difference, of otherness. And so embedded in our nature is this mysterious union of God/gift of God to the creation He made to reflect Himself. Woman completes the image of God in complement to man, not only by the procreative union of bringing forth children, but also in relational reflection.

In this way, all women are arks of God’s covenant of loving relationship with man, something which continues to awe and amaze me the more I watch male-female interactions play out in my daily living. It’s a mystery, and its beautiful. My veil reminds me of the fact of that relationship God has women into my being, and that it is something to be guarded. We all joke about women’s intuition, but I find truth in the relational percpetion of femininity, at least in my own person. My Jesus has given me a heart that is naturally sensitive towards the hearts of others around me and longs to reach out and help others bear the heavy burden of soul-in-world. The sensitivity combined with the openness and reaching for those at the edges and the corners can be a toxic combination of internal damage which I compile in my femininity and implode by cutting myself off from relationship. This veil on my head in public worship reminds me, like blinders on a horse (forgive the crude imagery), that I first and foremost have one heart to be focused on, that of my Lord, Lover and Savior Jesus Christ. From His heart flows all the strength I need, and all the wisdom and discernment of how to give myself to others in relationship. The veil is then my internal protection, an external reminder of the marriage between my heart and Jesus.

Of course, there is always more to muse on… I encourage my sisters (and brothers) to muse with me on this, on the relationality I’m talking about, and how we can increase the brightness of God’s image in one another as we share life and conversation together.

“Most women define themselves in terms of their relationships and the quality they deem those relationships to have…This is not a weakness in women—it is a glory. A glory that reflects the heart of God. The cast desire and capacity a woman has for intimate relationships tells us of God’s vast desire and capacity for intimate relationships. In fact, this may be the most important thing we ever learn about God—that he yearns for relationship with us.”

So we women bear the image of our God in complement to what is often called in the Catholic Church “persona Christi…” I think this is what we women are questing after in the Christian faith, through all our feminist pursuits and quests… our hearts are crying out to know why we are, what we are, our place in the world and in the Church. The women’s ordination conversation I have been engaged in, because I am a woman in the Christian Church, in some way obsessed with Jesus, wondering what it means for me to be holy… to me, it is not a question of power, because in the Church, nothing is about power or control; we should be alloting that all to God. To me, it is a question of how can a woman walk in the fullness of who she is, be what she is  made to be for the glory of God, the benefit of her community, and the satisfaction of the deepest longings God has created in her heart: that is the relationship she cultivates with her Lord and spreads through the rest of the world.

O my Jesus, how Your ache must resonate with my own, You giving my will and desire to keep aching and longing! What a fresh breath; to touch the most tender and intimate corner of my God’s heart, His own deep, unfathomable yearning that I too would desire to cleave to Him. He is in love with me. My Jesus, this all-powerful God  has fallen deeper and harder than any meteorite into the earth, than any mountain making waves collapsing in the sea… He has fallen in love with me. If nothing more than all His empathy embodied in the Prophets convinces me of this.

Jesus, then I must be a romantic, for how can I but acknowledge the true beauty of this love affair: before I had desire stirred in me, Your longing reached out and took hold of me. Too long have I evaded Your embrace which is the truest desire of my life! My desire is Yours too. My Jesus, You are in love with me!?! O my Jesus, what a tremendous burden of light, to be an embodiment of Your own incessant and insatiable desire for more!  Your yearning, longing, and craving to devour us as fruit of love. You made me in the very way of desiring, that You have for me. You gave me a heart that aches like Your own.

O my Jesus, how great this is to realize, how unworthy am I to be full of Your own sort of heart, the care/empathy… but more so Your ache and longing desire. Men have the courageous sort of imagining of Your love, we women have the insatiable ache for intimacy. O my Jesus, therein lies Your hidden image in the unexpected corner… how You will empty, empty, empty me and burn me dry with longing, then fill, fill, fill me with the same longing. Only You can end my desire—but You are desire itself. We women are the original fulfillment and perspetuation of ache. What a wonder to be created a woman. The mystery of desire, which we experience too, bound up in the fiber of our own creation.

Unashamed Unknowing…

Written here on my face, the permanent impression of a puzzling wonder, a confused state

Of mind in which I cannot seem to shake the thoughts and questions, an inevitable break.

Wandering in heady space of lofty questing questions, where are we again, Jesus, when it comes

Down to how deeply we dare to treasure You at the risk of losing everything, but wait, I’m losing already, and I cant understand why with heavy sighs and deep heavings I work through

All my calculations again and realize I left out the magic, the element of surprise that

Unpredictable moment of chance that it takes for mr to free fall down again.

But its easy to toss up a feathery bag of words and a schedule full of ideas, just to find

Oneself pinned down under relentlezz boulders of commitment, of too little activity and

Spontenaity in life. Jesus You promise us light burden and easy yoke on Your part, but how

Much heavier do we made the weight of cares to carry by inserting our will over Yours.

I am still trying to understand, Jesus, just how much of me I am to trust You with, and just

What on earth that means… here I am, a little woman, a young child in a world full of

Amazing sights and stunning views, the gilt way of walking under the clouds shaded by early

Morning sunlight, the serenade of silence, lulling me to sleep and resotring my soul each night.

But where am I to hear Your voice, learn the one true right, the best of all there is  to be,

Know the confirmation of where You are taking me? As I read through books concerning life And death, I find myself musing on this place I have in a little world, on the purpose of being:

It strikes me that You, O High and Holy, Mighty but Lowly, have woven a path too intricate

For me to simply unwind… a complicated path I try and delineate as survival and do right…

Where do I draw the line between what I can force myself to do, and what would be good to do,

When I’m falling apart inside,or out? How long does it take to discern a vocation, do I have

Any idea what I’m studying about? It sinks like stones in the end, all of our work blows away,

But just in the moments now, its beautiful. We have little enough clarity to se You,

Because we are obstructing with a searching that gets in the way of the longing. The more I

Talk with You Jesus, the more convinced I am that this dissection just fragments more my little

Soul; and this propels me to learn nature more, the fabric You have woven Yourself into me by;

So here I am, dear Jesus, I try and try to become the woman You made me to be, but it just

Seems so full of too many longings, scattered heart, and distracted strains of attention span.

So I ask You, be my center and gravity, draw out all that is loose inside of me and tie it to Your

Hands… lock my fingers tightly in Your grip, and lead me in Your dance, I will follow in Your

Step… at least as best I can in my half-drunken state, sleepless and too full of heartache.

You came to heal the broken hearts, be the bread of the poor, husband the harlot, father the

Orphans… O how I forgot how to love You and I how I crawe to do so again… how confusing

And abstracted You seem to life in my head, that other bewitching dimension of life in the more than the sandbox I am fixated playing with in me. My feeble care would be strong but for itself,

So  I want to give it to You, trade my poverty for the wealth of Your heart. But You don’t quite

Believe in surgery, You won’t replace whats inside of me, transformation is a harder work of

Holiness; but I don’t even know what that means. You’ve got me still confessing, still on my

Knees unsure what it means to live without the things I have compacted into limited time.

Yet, I know the flavor of joy, I even feel the taste on my lips… Jesus, be still with me a moment,

Just let me inhale the sweet kiss of the words You exhaled on the page… one that I am choking

To consume the heavenly scent of all You hold out to me, the cool waters pouring over dripping

Face and feet, You wash me again and comfort the agony of my own unworthiness and make in

Me beauty. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, not the kind of pretty full of conceit or puffed with

Its own pride, but an image of You in the way You gave me to be. Let me care for Your children

With the beauty You put in me, humble my soul to kiss the feet of Your forlorn beloved and

Bring me to my face to learn that You will scatter me to the wind to collect all of me, separated

Out and purified to be whole for You. I don’t know what You’re going to do, I’m not even sure

I  can hold onto You, I will remain as close to this edge as I dare, over it if I can bear any more

Of the tension inside between me and the call into the world… where You seem to want my feet,

Dangling dangerously over the cliff, ready to fall into Your grip.

I am not ashamed to be wanting more and more, to be curiously usure of You,

Of me, of the childish loving I hold in me.

Take it out and straighten my doubt to glimmer more like Your face.