The Female Theologian

What is your truth?

I thought this was a challenging but possible question until yesterday. Then I was having a conversation and I mentioned how we can’t say that our view or experience of a person is their true self as others may experience them differently. But whilst I believe that, I do think we each have a truth that is at our very core.

Capital T Truth is (of course) God. I recently used the song ‘Voice of Truth’ in a Mass (by Casting Crowns). ‘We are called to listen and believe the voice of Truth.’ This song also talks about the messages we get from the world and how it is in God that we find our truest self-belief. The voice of Truth offers up hope. Whilst it is a song (a beautiful one) and the words are really a person (or group of persons) view I think this fits with my sense of theology; that the voice of Truth, which is God, is our deepest (infinitely so) well of hope.

Truth is intimately connected with our fullest humanity. So from this, I suggest that our individual truth has to be that which leads us to pursue our best-self. In our human-ness we are flawed and so we fail, and then fail some more. What is important, however, is that we continue to pick ourselves up, acknowledge our failure and set our feet firmly on that path to true humanity.

When we treat people differently – especially when it is to their detriment – that is our failure. Surely, we should have a consistent level of kindness, knowing that we all face our own Goliaths; then from this we can encounter those whose very being fills our hearts with a love for which we have no logical words. Sadly, fellow humans, I think we have let the bar for this level slip. Perhaps that voice of Society which tells us that it is ok to treat people in a vindictive way, after all ‘they wronged you first’, or ‘how dare they treat you like that’ or ‘of course you are right’, has infiltrated all our hearts.

If we are to believe the voice of Truth about what our humanity is, the truth about dignity, then I think we all need a retreat; a time-out from all the other voices to re-set that level and choose respect and kindness for ALL. Without this re-set can we really answer this question of ‘what is my truth?’ We all need to more clearly know our own truth and live it each day and in every encounter.

In the Gospel of Matthew we read (6: 5-6):

And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. I tell you solemnly, they have had their reward. But when you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.

The whole idea of an omniscient God has existed since Abraham. I would love to ask the question – who are the hypocrites today? but I think that is a topic for another post. Rather today I ask ‘what is your private room’? I am working from the assumption that we have a personal connection with God (whatever that looks like).

So, I asked myself what is MY private room. The only answer that sprung forth (again and again) was that my room was inside myself, in the quiet stillness of reflection, or the pause after the chaos of turmoil, or the numbness after intense grief and pain. Not my mind, but my spirit. The space where I wear no mask and am truly just myself – warts and all. It is not always in a closed-in space; often for me it is in nature.

Then I asked – why do I need to shut a metaphorical door? Is it the only door? What am I shutting out?

Am I shutting out temptation? Or the voices of a society driven in a direction that is not loving? Or am I shutting out my own fears so that I can be in that place of connection with the divine? Or the pressures to be something I am not? Or the rules that just do not sit well within my heart? Or the ever-flurrying time that keeps ticking at an alarming rate?

Perhaps it is fear – for fear is what drives much of what we do. We are so afraid of not being loved that we forget that we are loved infinitely and without reserve. We need to shut out these voices that say we are not good enough, or worthy, to sit in that space where we are loved. So we shut out all that is not love, so we can sit in love.

What do we do in this space? In the Gospel we hear Jesus say that we pray. The question then is the timeless one of what is prayer? If prayer is that communication with God (who is love) and we aspire to be more God-like, then is it not logical to look at ourselves with an honest lens, untainted by the judgement of society, to reflect on (as Joan Chittister puts it):

‘… to look under every rock inside my own heart to determine what of life is still really gold and what of the answers that remain from the past is now simply fool’s dust.’

In our private room, we know who we are. We know what matters and what, ultimately, does not. The challenge is to bring that conviction through the door when we re-open it and emerge into the arena. For some reason I often leave these thoughts in my private room and I know that I need to work harder on bringing them with me.

There is a song I used to use at a previous school ‘Lifesong’, by one of my favourite Christian artists Casting Crowns. At the end of each day do you want your life that day to sing of the glories of God, or the seduction of Society?

Feeling like you do not matter is the worst feeling in the world. It is worse than pain (physical or emotional) and leads to a darkness that is so deep it seems endless.

We often respond to those questioning with ‘Of course you matter’ as if this is the most obvious reality in existence. But why do we matter?

For the past 30 years I have espoused that I matter not because of what I do but who I am, especially when people comment on my ability to do things. If something happened and I could no longer accomplish these things would I matter less? We change and grow throughout life so does our worth also? Somehow I don’t think so and I know that I say this through the lens of faith, that even when I cannot love myself I know at the very core of my being that God loves me. It is incomprehensible, inexplicable and never ending. But what if I lose my faith or if I had no faith? How would I know I matter? These questions do pose a quandary for not all who traverse this earth have the same faith or a faith at all. Rationally, therefore, I cannot accept my own answer to why we matter as being grounded in that belief that God loves us.

Given I see the issue with my naturally inclined response I looked elsewhere. I started with the assumption that we all matter equally. This is espoused in most faiths and is the cornerstone of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We all matter equally; but we all perform vastly different functions and to diverse levels, therefore the reason we matter cannot be in what we do. We all matter equally; but we all relate to others differently, eliciting different emotional responses and gendering our own emotional responses in varying ways. Additionally, it is not viable for our own self-worth to be bound up in the emotion of another person who could easily render us devastated beyond words. Therefore we cannot matter because of how we feel or how we make others feel. We all matter equally; but we think differently, therefore it cannot be from our mental capacity. What is then left but the spirit?

The only logical illogical explanation is that there is something transcendental about our humanity, a spirit within, that both connects us to everything and means more than our mortal bodies and capacity. In a way my original answer was viable. We matter because of the spiritual aspect of our humanity; which for me, through my Catholic lens, is that I am made in the image and likeness of God who loves me beyond reason and without limit. Even when I struggle and fail, my soul is connected to something greater. I have a potential that I will never comprehend that is not about achievements or awards.

We can’t matter because of what we do, what we think, who we birth, who we marry, who we love, what religion we follow, what we say, who we are friends with or who we are a child of, this is ultimately external to ourselves no matter how deeply our feelings of love for these people and beliefs are embedded. We matter because we are spiritual beings at our core (regardless of religious affiliation and tradition).

I want every child on this planet to grow up knowing that he or she matters. How can this be achieved if we don’t have adults that know it. You have to see it to be it or so they say. Find your spirit.

What is your truth? Do you know?

In one of the Gospels it says that the Spirit of Truth will come and lead us to the Truth. It is not in the mind, not in the heart but in the soul.

We talk about mindfulness. We talk about the importance of honouring or at least acknowledging our emotions. How often do we talk about delving into our spirit or our soul? It is problematic as not everyone believes in souls, but we all say we have minds and emotions.

We are souls with a body. Even if science is more comfortable defining our physicality. How amazing would it be if we could measure our spirituality, or take supplements to restore or build our inner core? Whom can we turn to? There are many famous saints and writers who offer guidance for how to better know your own soul but often we get bogged down in the context or story.

Ultimately I would bet that most of us have an outside space where we go to breathe and recharge. Go there. Listen to the voice within. Sometimes we drown it out, sometimes it seems to speak another language, sometimes it says things we do not want to hear. In some way we are all connected – humanity, the planet, all that is and will become. What is Truth? My Truth is not your Truth and yet in some way it is. If we are all connected then all our Truths are also connected, like an intricate web. The problem is today I don’t think we all live our Truths as we just don’t know it. I spend a lot of time in reflection and prayer and I don’t always know my Truth and I don’t always live my Truth so surely it is a logical thought to consider that a person who disregards their spirituality does not live their Truth.

Life is busy. It is an interesting conundrum. We need all of us to live our Truth for harmony, but we have no influence over that. All we can do is make the time for our own Truth. That alone is a challenge, it goes against so much of what society says is normal. But we need to find our Truth within our soul so we can be the self we are intended to be.

So go. Go to whatever space it is. Go as often as you can. Breathe. Listen. Be brave and just be.

We offer our prayers to the grieving families of the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. In the words of Steve Kerr (Golden State Warriors Coach) ‘we should never become numb to this’. This horrific loss of life should touch our hearts and souls as we stand in disbelief at the tragedy.

No more will their lunches find the way into schoolbags as a new day’s adventure beckons.

No more will the school yard echo their footsteps running through.

No more will their smiling faces emerge from the classroom to eagerly go home to share their day with family.

It is a soul-piercing sorrow beyond words. Humanity should cry out collectively for justice that this may never occur again. It is almost 60 years since Martin Luther King Jr talked about freedom for all. Our children are not free. How can they be free if they go to school and are gunned down? Children should be free to play and learn and grow and develop. The time has come for the world to turn a new page and make sure this never happens again. God grant us the courage to change that which can be changed, and the resolution to persist until it is a reality for all.

In some regards we allow ourselves to be numb. Numbness is a safety net when we just cant cope. But numbness also stops us from acting. This is a tragedy beyond words. We simply have to act. HAVE TO!!! We cannot accept this as ok or as something that happens occasionally, NO. We avoid feeling to protect ourselves, but if we feel it maybe we will act to stop it.

We cannot look to those who have lost the most to make the change. We who look from outside and bemoan ‘how is this to be survived?’ need to push for change whilst enveloping those in the most dire grief in our collective love.

Whom do you follow?

Thinking about the words of Our Lord’s Prayer I was drawn to the line ‘lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. As humans we are drawn to those who have the capacity to lead. In ancient times we followed leaders into battle, today we follow leaders into a way of life. We are surrounded by temptation, but it is only a temptation when we believe in a moral code. If we have no moral code then it is all about the pleasure of the here and now for the individual. Temptation only exists if something can be deemed wrong. This suggests that there are things that are not right even if we desire them, and can get away with it. Temptation suggests pleasure – so why is it that pleasure can be wrong?

Pleasure should not minimise the worth of a human person. Isn’t this the benchmark for what is ok that we do not take away from our dignity or the dignity of another person? So why is it that some find pleasure in things that take away another persons dignity? A bit mind-blowing to be sure. But the words – lead us not … So there are some charismatic individuals that we really want to follow that take us down a path where our innate human dignity is not honoured. This line is then followed with ‘but deliver us from evil’ is sobering. That our enamoured following of someone with charisma can lead us to evil is frightening. I cannot believe that anyone really wants to be evil, rather it is a journey down a path or across a river that gets us to the point of ‘no return’. Surely we cannot want to be evil? But then there are those who experience evil.

No-one deserves to be on the receiving end of evil. No-one. Unfortunately, with free-will I do not see how evil can be removed from the world as people fall prey to temptation and journey down a path that is un-imaginable. Human frailty leads to evil and evil leads to suffering, but human courage leads to kindness and justice. We are complex beings indeed. We need to choose early to stay on a path that does not lead to evil. We may fall into temptation but we really need to get back to what we know is good as quickly as we can. It is this time, I think, that matters, that makes the difference, for time leads to apathy, and apathy kills.

Let us follow those who lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from bringing evil to others and suffering evil at the hands of our brethren. May we all be kept safe.

In the Gospel of Matthew we read the the Parable of the ten bridesmaids. There are 5 wise and 5 foolish who go out to meet the bridegroom. They become weary and fall asleep. When the shout goes out that he is coming the wise trim their wicks and use the oil they have brought. The foolish ask for some oil but are denied. They go to get some and return too late.

Firstly, it is 50-50. The odds are even. They ALL fall asleep – so technically none of them manage to keep watch. Realistically, it comes down to how prepared half were. It does seem a bit cut-throat – would not one share?

Yes I know I am taking it out of context and that the message was about being faithful and not slacking off and thinking that you can always fix things later – as later may not come. It is interesting though to take this parable and consider it in today’s times.

10 women and 1 man – the odds remain essentially in his favour. He gets to turn up whenever and everyone is waiting, there is even a welcome posse waiting for him to make sure he feels welcomed, Of the women, they do not help each other and seem to have a split between two essential types. What would that be today? Personally, I like to think we are inestimably more diverse than that so answering this thought is a challenge. Is it prepared v unprepared; haves v have-nots; or what if we take another angle? (As seems to be the trend I run off on a thought-tangent and then realise something)

Some of the women – who know how important it is to let their light shine – are not willing to give away what they need to allow this to happen.

We need to have women (or anyone for that matter) let their light shine. The light that shows the way. Too often we give away parts of ourselves (our oil) to others and then we cannot shine or light the way. We need to protect or at least treasure and appreciate the oil we have been blessed with and make sure we bring it to every dark night.

It always puzzled me that the bridesmaids would not share but when I think about the imagery of a light in the darkness it makes sense and is a challenge to women today, to not only be prepared, as we often are, but to treasure our own light. If we keep giving it away, we dim and limit our own light.

So what is our oil? What allows you to let your light shine? What feeds it? What makes it burn at its brightest? These are questions to spend some serious time on.

No other death in history has had the everlasting impact of Jesus. This moment in time forever shapes our world.

This act. This sacrifice. This moment we remember brings us the gift of hope. A gift we wake up to every day.

Gift is such a common word. Who doesn’t love a gift? But we tend to think of gifts as material things. The gift we receive from that first Easter is the gift of Salvation. The promise that there is more to life than basic existence. That we can fall down and fail – but we can get back up –because we have the hope that there exists the possibility that tomorrow will be better, that no matter our imperfections and flaws we are loved. We are loved infinitely.

We look at images of Jesus on the cross and it is a suffering that is beyond our own comprehension. It’s the sort of gift that takes your breath away because it is something you would never ask for because it is so much. It cost so much.

As people we are called to give and receive so we should consider – what is our gift to God?

If we think about the gift of Salvation – we can never give something of equal value – we do not have the capacity. So, we need to ask what gift would be meaningful?

Possibly the greatest gift a person can give is time. So let us make this our gift to God – this moment in time. That we will take these minutes out here and gift it to God – be present to God – present to the rituals of the passion that will be presented throughout the Easter liturgies and present to the prayer within our hearts to the God who loves us with no limit.  

In the Gospel of Matthew we read:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

Whilst today we have various understandings about the symbol of the wolf – in Jesus’ time it was a threat to the flock. If we are the sheep, we are threatened by the wolf. The wolf will tear us to pieces and devour. Sheep were valuable and valued in ancient Jewish culture. It was the lamb without blemish that was the purest offering to God. It was the sheep that would be at the right hand when Judgement came. The sheep needs to be protected – that is why there were shepherds.

Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Not simply beware the wolf. Beware the danger that lies hidden and disguised. To put on ‘sheep’s clothing’ and pretend to be something one is not is a deliberate act. This is a warning that rings true for all of history. Beware those who are not honest and pretend to be like you so they can destroy you. I think it is worth thinking about the end result. It is not that you will be like the wolf – it is you will be no more – you will be devoured. What a loss – let us remember that the good shepherd will leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep – that is how precious each of us are.

Today I suggest the wolf is not necessarily a person. What are the current-day ‘wolves’ that destroy us? Things that seem so ‘innocent and meek’ on the surface but then they devour us? Pride? Ambition? Security? We are raised to seek security in western society – to plan for the future, to provide a certain level of comfort and opportunity for our family, to earn a lifestyle. Ambition is often seen as a positive as it spurs us to act and to do, rather than to spectate on the saga in the arena, but I have one word to remind us of the danger of unchecked ambition – Macbeth. Pride? We are told to take pride in our appearance, pride in our community etc but pride is one of the seven deadly sins – what a troublesome word that is! Pride can be wonderful and affirming and spur us to be the best self but pride can also be toxic creating cliques that destroy and tear- down.

What is your wolf that stands before you as an innocent lamb?

The Lenten journey today is individualised. In the past it was fairly straightforward – you fasted, you prayed, you gave. Now it seems to be ‘what will I give up’ rather than this is what we do. Let’s face it – one person’s Lenten fast is probably another person’s meal of choice. The choice to go without has to mean something to the person, I think. It is not a diet. It has to stem from the desire to be closer to God. How does giving something up bring us closer to God? It comes from intention. If you give something up with the intention that you do it as part of a time of active prayer and giving, it represents (in a way) the inner commitment in a physical or outward way. If it is not part of prayer and giving then is it just a secularised version of religious tradition? Something you do and you kind of hope it takes away with it a couple of the extra kilos from Christmas and New Year.

The focus should not be ‘what am I giving up for Lent’ but how will I commit to reconciling my imperfect self with my God? That is after all what the Lenten journey is about – reconciliation. Reconciliation is more than saying sorry. It is a reunification. It brings back together what was once one that is now broken, cracked or fragmented. Deep down we know the things we do that separate us from God and yet he welcomes us every time we want to step back into his infinite love. So a key part of Lent is the commitment to stop doing those things. That is hard. It is far easier to go without chocolate or wine than to change our practice or way of speaking or thinking. This is the real Lenten journey.

Let it begin.