The Female Theologian

Living your inner character is a challenge. Isn’t it?

It would be nice to think that we live by the values we espouse all the time – but that would be somewhat illogical given the human propensity for failure in that regard. We say all the right things, we may even mean them, but consistently acting by them seems to be a challenge larger than human capacity.

We are – after all- human. We fail. We have times when we do not abide by what we say means the most to us. We have times that we give up on what we say are our values. We have times when we just can’t.

Is this ok? Society says yes. Scripture talks about forgiveness. But is it an excuse? Could we try harder, be better, expect more? What if we did? We can eat ourselves up with guilt because we caved knowing we could expect forgiveness, but really – could we have done better? Do we excuse the other readily because ultimately we don’t want to have to stand up to what we have said is who we are?

At what point do we stop striving for excellence in our values and actions and consistency between the two? Have we gone too far in our doctrine of human frailty to make humanity more flawed as an acceptable standard? Will we become less admirable as time goes on?

Have we arrived at a point where we excuse ourselves and judge others?

Every human has dignity and every human matters. But – at what point do we say that human dignity does not excuse laziness or fear?

I recently heard an interesting reflection on the Parable of the Tenants. The priest talked about Jesus referencing Scriptures to the leaders of his time, paralleling them with those who had a possessive attitude and refused to hand over the harvest. He further referenced the tendency of Jesus to include those judged by the Pharisees – the ‘unclean’, the sick, the poor, those who had made errors in judgement.

In a moment I saw a parallel myself – so stunningly clear it took my breath away. Before I give it, let me just clarify that I really like Pope Francis and find his approach a great improvement, and I am a practicing Catholic. I have a slight discomfort with my analogy but that is my challenge to carry.

Servants with a possessive attitude. Well, I’m sorry, but that is the Church. Despite all of the shifts in social perspectives around women and equal rights, women still have no say at the decision-making table in the Catholic church. Much as I love Pope Francis, he has not addressed this. The Church is not the great includer that Jesus was. As a woman I am limited in my own church. The Catholic Church is a church that still does not subscribe to gender equality.

There are still so many external limits placed unjustly on human beings. Then we go and add our own when we limit ourselves and doubt our ability to even try. Add to this the limits that are genetically bestowed on us – we are indeed caged by limitations.

How do these limits impact how fruitful we are or what harvest we bear? How do we navigate through the drought?

The priest also spoke of the mercy of God as a stumbling block for the Pharisees. They could not fathom the depth of God’s love and mercy. Why can’t a woman run the Catholic Church? What is it that truly creates this particular limit? Women run organisations all the time (often successfully). Women pray. Women act bound by Catholic ethics. Men do not hold this monopoly. And yet – interesting thought- all the Pharisees were men too. And Jesus told them they were going to lose the kingdom, that it would be given to a people who will produce it’s fruit because they were unable to see beyond the literal or traditional.

Time for girls to get into the garden!

There is a song by Hillsong that I absolutely love. So Will I (100 Billion X). The one I listen to is the live version that goes for just over 7 minutes.

There are so many lines that over the past few years have spoken to me; the other day I was driving and one line hit me so much I put it on repeat. It had always stirred in me that sense of awe and wonder in the greatness of God and a deep appreciation for the world in which I live and journey. Previously the lines that impacted me the most were:

If the stars were made to worship so will I.

If the mountains bow in reverence so will I.

If the oceans roar your greatness so will I.

for if everything exists to lift you high so will I.

If the wind goes where you send it so will I.

If the rocks cry out in silence so will I.

Then after the lull in the middle, well slightly later, at about 5.30:

If you left the grave behind you so will I

What is the grave? The grave is where we go when we die. Theologically we are called to die to self, to die to all the things that keep us from being God-like. Perhaps the grave is where we go to leave our sin – which kind of fits with the idea of Salvation. Jesus left the grave behind – he was after all, the one who died for our sins. How hard is it though to truly leave the grave behind? I think, rather, that we bring the ashes of the grave with us and sprinkle them on the blooms of tomorrow and today. If only we could truly leave them behind so that the sun could rise on an untainted tomorrow.

As humans we struggle to really let go of things, and this includes sin. When we do wrong, or are flawed, even when we atone, and try, there is a tiny shred of self-doubt that accompanies us into our next venture.

How do we leave the grave behind? This would take courage and discipline I imagine. I can’t say how we would for it is not something that falls readily into my skill set.

So will I.

This is the call.

Some say you just have to forgive. That to not forgive is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die. I have heard so many statements about forgiveness and it has always left me feeling like a failure. So many people telling me that ‘it’s about being the bigger person’, as if forgiveness is a badge we wear and how important it is to ‘let it go and move on’. There are those whose actions still make me feel hurt, or angry, or frustrated. I began to believe it was my failing for not ‘forgiving’ them.

At Mass in the Sermon I heard a vastly different philosophy. Forgiveness is not about how you feel, forgiveness is how we choose to treat each other. For me, actions and words have always been far more important in terms of personal responsibility than feelings, despite the contemporary dialogues around emotions which seems to simply be omnipresent. For years I argued with my own children that their feelings were not the centre of the universe and that it was far more important to act in a moral manner. Trying to do what is best for the other, that is how we forgive. That I can do. It’s not warm and fuzzy – it’s really just about human dignity and not wanting ill for another. If we can leave emotion out of the equation that suits me.

I was thinking I was ok – for a moment. Then the priest reminded us of the forgiveness of Jesus in the crucifixion and that beyond that – on the cross – he asked God to forgive us. At the end, in the midst of all that pain, he thought of someone else’s wellbeing. That is forgiveness. Then came the biggie – we are called to forgive from the heart. Now, today we have a particular way of imagining what we mean by ‘heart’. Our understanding of heart is limited. The ancients tell us that it is the seat of our being, it is where we ‘are’. Is it our conscience, our soul, our essence? It is where we make choices and it is also where we hold pains. In that regard, when we truly forgive it must come from the heart, from the place which holds our pain and our choices. It’s a complex notion.

I may be no closer to seeing myself as a forgiving person, but I think I can now view the discussion with a fresh lens.

We live in a world moving at break-neck speed where rushing from event to event is common and the congestion on our roads attests to our movement. Pollution rises, our patience wanes, everything blurs into a cacophony of sound and colour. We chase that next beautiful thing before we finish the moment we live in. Then the sun sets and the sun rises.

We run through an era drowning in technological wonders. Our phones, laptops, streaming, automisation, gadgets, digitally connected whilst physically alone, globally engaged whilst unable to dialogue at home. Then the sun sets and the sun rises.

We grow our number of cyber-friends in parallel with our loneliness, running through a tunnel of social media that says we are connected and yet we lie in our bed at night and wonder about who we really are, wanting to be known but terrified at the thought of our truth being rejected. Then the sun sets and the sun rises.

We tick the boxes of our faith to ease our conscience, our parents, our families, our communities, our minds – but what of our hearts that yearn for that moment of stillness, that moment with a God who speaks with a quiet and gentle voice that we vaguely remember from some time past, or some time within. Then the sun sets and the sun rises.

We build our relationships in our heart but not in our daily existence. We need to be present to understand the joy, the sorrow, the need of the moment. If we stop for a moment and truly listen what will we hear? It’s all about a moment – can you spare a moment and just be. For regardless of our pace, whether we are frantic or slow, the sun will set and then the sun will rise.

May God bless you on your journey to be present in the moment and deepen your faith in His love.

We are told in the Christian Scriptures that God is love. John puts it beautifully in his letter:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 Jn 47:7-8

Love is such a complex word. We use it in so many situations but surely it’s true meaning is bound up in that sense that goes to the very core of our being, rather than an immediate fancy or enjoyment. As many will affirm, there is an infinite capacity within the human person, should they choose to tap into this, to love deeper and deeper, even to an unfathomable and seemingly infinite point within.

Just as we can love without a depth of reason, so too can our hearts break with unfathomable and indescribable pain. Perhaps it is to safeguard ourselves that we shy away from that sort of love. For those brave warriors who climb to the zenith of love only to plunge into the abyss of pain, we admire you. Many fear to do what you have done, to love so deeply and without reserve. We need such warriors in our world or we will slowly trudge towards complacency and a shallow breath of life, rather than inhaling deep into our lungs the tingling sensation of fresh oxygen.

To every true warrior out there – I salute you. May you smile the breadth of the world again.

If we are to be present in our world we are therefore more aware of what is going on in our society. To be present in this sense is to turn up. We need to continue to ‘turn up’ to our world so that we can raise our voice, raise awareness, raise funds to remedy the injustices that shape the situations of many.

When we focus on being present in the moment we become more aware of ourselves and who we are, what matters to us and what we believe in. This reinforces our connection with the divine who is omni-present. This is the spirituality that sustains us in times of light and in times of darkness.

How will you be present today?

I have been thinking a lot about prayer lately. The difference between individual and communal and also how important prayer is in human development, also how communal prayer is directed.

Personally, I find the connection that prayer is supposed to create most abundantly out in nature. Within the hallowed walls of a church I find it really depends on the aesthetics and the person leading the prayer. I love an old church that sings of history and years of spiritual connection lining the walls.

Ultimately it starts with me (or you). It starts with the person. As a regular church-goer I have times when I turn up and go through the motions – which renders me little spiritual insight.

But why is prayer important? It is the language of our souls. Tradition teaches us the language of communication with the divine and offers us a sense of understanding the connection that we feel, that perhaps we do not have words to render. Would my adult spirituality be as it is had I not learnt the traditional prayers and rituals as a child? I think it formed me and has enabled me to find that connection beyond set words and walls. There is something significant in learning to pray as a child and this plants a seed that has the potential to grow all the way through life. I no longer need words and am comfortable in the unknown and indescribable. I highly doubt this would be the case had I not previously developed my understanding of my faith Tradition and the first steps are learning the words of traditional prayers so that I found that I could communicate with the divine. Believing that God wants to communicate, is present in my life is a key factor in my ability to pray in many different manners today.

Whilst individual prayer is my preference, I value communal prayer. It connects me to something larger than myself and reminds me that I am not alone in my beliefs and this is incredibly reassuring but also allows me (almost) the freedom to seek self-expression in my individual prayer. The two are vastly different but in no way contradictory. In a way they sustain the other – although I don’t quite know how to explain that!

Recently I attended a funeral. Death is that one thing we cannot avoid.

It was a beautiful Mass with thoughtful readings, thoughts, reflections and music. No matter how lovely it was or how celebratory (in the sense of celebrating the person and her life), it signaled the end of her life on earth.

Sometimes, when there are times of sickness, we suggest that death is a kind release. Even when our rational brains attest to this, for some reason our eyes still well with tears and the ache in our heart is tangible. The heart needs to grieve.

As I farewelled someone else’s mother, my own heart stirred in sadness at the absence of my own mum. We are fast approaching the twelfth anniversary of her passing. For some reason the quote ‘nothing gold can stay’ from Frost has been wandering around the cavern I occasionally call my brain since that funeral. Sometimes, it seems that what we cherish is fleeting. Then I thought about it and edited this thought. The ‘gold’ of our lives, the cherished ones and moments whose absence (whether fleeting or permanent) stirs an ache within, are treasures that need to be shared beyond our small and limited arenas. Gold is most appreciated when it is free to paint the sky that all may see. Think of the golden glow of the sun sinking into the darkened deep ocean and how many people smile at the beauty of that ember. When we lose those we love to death we may feel like we have lost our gold. We have lost the immediate contact, and that is a pain we can feel every single day – the voice that is no longer at the end of the phone, the absence of a touch, an empty chair. We do not lose, however, the things we learnt from our experience of gold. ‘Gold’ can warm your heart, help you create traditions, shape your outlook, and affirm the goodness within.

Gold remains precious. Memories of gold have power to sustain in times of darkness, to push and promote growth. What is the ‘gold’ you miss the most? For in that ache lies something truly special within you. Grow the gold.