The two St Matronas....

There seem to be two women called St Matrona and both their stories are inspirational and teach us something!! The first that I will write about is a woman who is counted among the 'queer' saints because she dared to do something different in order to be with God. She was from Perga in Pamphylia and married very young and had a daughter. She was in churches and at prayer so often her husband thought she was having an affair and banned her from going out!! She could not bear it and so she ran away, left her daughter in the care of a nun named Suzanna and ran away to join a monastery. The interesting thing about her is that in order to do this she had to dress in men's clothes and become a Eunuch. She had to shed her given gender in order to follow the call of God in her life. Transvestite must not be confused with transgendered! She did not want to become a man, but it does show that male and female were not equal, not surprising considering she was born in 492AD!! Her saints day is November 9th! She died at the age of 100 peacefully after predicting the date of her own death!

The second woman called St Matrona was born in Russia in 1881...born without any pupils and therefore blind she never let it hold her back! As a young child she would sense people's illnesses and healing them of sickness both in body and soul. And all this at the age of 6 or 7!!! She became paralysed as an adult so became an ascetic, living in a room surrounded by icons and praying constantly. In 1945 during the war the Communists were afraid of her influence over the people and tried to arrest her, but she had gone into hiding.

Two inspirational women with the same name living centuries apart, neither fazed by the sacrifices they had to make in order to follow God's call on their lives, both willing to risk everything, crossing gender boundaries, challenging ideas of disability. Our little Russian girl may have been blind but she 'saw' more than many sighted people do in a lifetime. As we remember these amazing women let us ask God what boundaries we must cross and what prejudices we must challenge to help others to grow and love more.

What do you see when you look in the mirror??

I don't mean your physical appearance or whether your clothes and shoes match..what I really mean is what mirror do you have hanging on your wall?

Do you have a magic mirror like in Snow White that is designed to always tell you how wonderful you are? The kind of mirror that even when you know that what you have done is not right, tells you that you are beautiful anyway.

Or do you have a physical distortion mirror, the mirror sold to you by fashion magazines and media which tells you that no matter how hard you try you will never be good enough.

Or what about the parent mirror where either you look at yourself and think, hey mum, hey dad, today I will try and be the wonderful child you raised me to believe in or the one where you could never live up to their standard.

How about the mirror that overly zealous Christians set, the one where you should be constantly happy and worshipping God, or the 'to be a success' mirror where you have a high flying job, or you are an Aid worker to a foreign country. If I left a blank, you could fill it in a thousand ways couldn't you??

Or perhaps you are in the hall of mirrors at the fair, where you can never clearly know the way ahead or which reflection is really yours.

But are we too afraid to look in the clear mirror, our God mirror because we our opinions of ourselves are so low and distorted by the other mirrors that we think that we must look at our worst in our God mirror? Well I believe that looking in our God mirror is only the first step, once we get into the habit of looking in our God mirror then I believe that God wants us to shatter it!! Because I believe that truly seeing ourselves reflected in God means that we come to peace and understanding of who we are and who we are meant to be...but once we are comfortable with who we are then we need to look harder at that reflection we come to understand that not only is the reflection perfect but that is has no limits, it is fluid, changeable and all encompassing.

At that point we need to do away with the mirror completely and live this reflection out. Faith is only at its strongest when we live it out, love is only strongest when we live it out. The out-working of the effects of God on our lives are far more powerful than the effect itself. My theme of the week - WE WERE NEVER MEANT TO EXIST IN ISOLATION!

God did not create us for the purpose of living alone, so once we understand God's outpouring of love in our lives its time to start out-working the vast possibilities in our lives.

Making the blue sky red....

Do we seek meaning or do we create meaning? Are there pre-existent answers that have always been from the dawn of time which if we look hard enough, are 'holy' enough, enlightened enough etc etc that we can eventually deduce from the ether??

There are whole religious orders and retreat centers and courses and books and so on which are solely dedicated to this very purpose. How much of what we do or think is already there to be found?

The simple yet perplexing answer is probably, everything and nothing, because we all know that we do not create factual truth simply by believing something hard enough. For example, simply because the majority of people understand that the colour the sky on a clear day is blue and I decide that in fact it is red (or anything else for that matter) then no matter how hard I believe that I do not change the actual colour of the sky. To be more complicated off course, just because most people agree that the colour of that sky is blue does not force the sky to be blue, it simply makes the word which people use to describe that colour gives the majority of people a similar mental image of a blue sky.

In a similar way, calling God 'Father' or 'Mother' or anything else for that matter does not and cannot force God to be either gendered or parental. This is a highly complex way of understanding the simple idea that just because something is true for us does not make it THE truth. If we can understand this then we open ourselves up to a fuller and more challenging way of looking at our lives.

You see it is great that we want to find meaning or significance for our lives and yet to a certain extent we must understand that any meaning we do find is constructed and unique to ourselves. For the academically minded (and by that I mean dull with little else to do)...does this form the basis of a universal truth??

On facebook, Philip made a funny and, I think, throwaway comment on the meaning of life and the number '42' and one of the responses was from Laura, and my tongue in cheek sentiments are in red, she said "OK, in brief: if you are an existentialist like Sartre then no, life is meaningless (so why bother even looking for meaning or significance) but he was whacked on speed so his views I can take or leave. Existentialist from Kierkegaard says yes life is meaningless but we must take the leap of faith (So simply believe hard enough and meaning will find you). I like him much more. Or you can be an Aristotelian and say that the meaning in life comes from practising and developing the virtues through the use of reason which I think is even better (so if you think through it hard enough you will find meaning)."

So we are back to the everything and nothing and now I want to try simplify this (in other words I will put it like a pastor in a sermon). When there was first creation of any kind, and I believe that we were created, in that creation there must have been the potential to reach beyond ourselves, to find our own meaning, to strive to be even better than we are. And the reason I believe this to be the case is because I see that yearning and that longing in people - to selflessly better themselves. (Look at your yearning to always learn new things Julie!! and our new social justice group etc...) Because I see this longing to be better, to find meaning I believe that we were designed with that instinct in us.

That is the everything..in other words I believe that God put in us unlimited potential to be better. The nothing is that I believe that God does not limit us to one way of finding meaning, but challenges us to try to find the outer limits of our life's meaning. So do I believe that we create the meaning in our lives or does God? Well ~I believe it is both.. God creates the potential for meaning in our lives, every potential possibility that has ever been thought of, God creates our capacity to become meaningful and our ability to follow it through, BUT, like with many things I believe that this comes with a responsibility for us to seek actively how we can, as an individual, make our lives meaningful and significant. This will be different for each and every person and that is what makes life amazing and beautiful, it is the thing that allows me to make the blue sky red! (Removes tongue from cheek..catch up tomorrow!)

Stepping forward in the dark

Faith isn't the ability to believe long and far into the misty future.
     It's  simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step.
                                                                   - Joni Erickson Tada
This is especially for Pam, firstly because she asked where my next blog is and also because I know that being a 'Sage' spiritual type that the idea of moving forward without feeling in control or knowing what's next is a frightening concept. I have to point out (and she won't mind me saying this) that she has in her life faced some extremely difficult times where she has not known what would come next and has put her trust completely in God for her journey...I don't know if I could face cancer with that grace or faith!!

But this is about taking brave steps, even when we don't feel brave about it!! I have found in my life that the biggest pay offs come when we step out in faith, take a chance, do something completely outside the box. The most recent example of this in my life is my sister, Clare, and her husband Mark (plus teenage daughter) who believe that God has called them to move back to South Africa. This would not seem such a leap of faith unless you know that they are going with virtually nothing, no job, no home, school, car...they know that God wants them to do something more with their lives and so my sister and her daughter went there with only a suitcase each. They got rid of EVERYTHING and are starting over, because they believe that God needs them to do this. They are stepping forward in the dark.

A few weeks ago I preached on darkness and about how in the dark all your senses become more alert, your hearing, taste and feeling are heightened.
I believe that at certain times that God calls us to walk (metaphorically) into the darkness on PURPOSE!! Because it is there that we can have our spiritual senses heightened, we can become more fully aware of the Sacred. With nothing else to distract us we can hear God more clearly, feel God more intimately (ooo next blog: God and the erotic!! I love that subject). God becomes more tangible.

The good news is that we don't all need to do something as drastic as moving to South Africa to meet God in this place. Just trust yourself....that voice that keeps coming in the back of your head that is challenging you to try something new, to step outside your box or your comfort zone may well be the voice of God. But so often people ask me, "how do I know it God's voice and not my own?" Now there are times in my life when I fall back on my years ago Sunday School training and this is one of those. In time you learn that there is a different quality, feeling when God is giving you messages, they can come through reading something, through the words of someone else and you can sometimes hear words or thoughts in your soul's ear, but I was taught that whatever it is, it will be an act that comes out of love, will never ask you to do harm, that voice should NEVER make you doubt that you are the perfect creation made in God's image. If it breaks any or all of those rules then it is probably not from God.

But just to finish...heart of the matter group were given this Bible passage to use in prayer, Micah 6:8
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

The grace to stand up and be silent...

Now for those who know me you know full well that silence is not one of my strongest points...I do not do it well...I do not seek it...I do not embrace it very often (if at all). But I do understand its power in the right context. One of the most outstanding examples we have in the Christian faith is Jesus. Yes most people remember how he became angry at the stall owners who 'sold access' to the Sacred but one of the things that seemed to stand out just as much about Jesus is that when it came down to the hardest thing he had to do..he was silent!

It is the contrast of these two situations that for me tells me of the two biggest tests for a person who calls themselves a lover of God, or a person of faith. (Do NOT mistake me for saying that it is only Jesus who taught us this message because I know that many wise and wonderful faith pace-setters and leaders have also set this example, Jesus is merely the one that my faith journey most resonates with).

The first test or standard by which I measure myself is how I act when I see injustice, the way that I react when there is exploitation or wrong doing when anyone who is suffering can not stand up for themselves. Jesus did not pause to ask who in the temple that day had repented, he did not ask life circumstances or their theology...he saw injustice, the name of God being used to say who was in and who was out, and being that this was one of the only times that Jesus really got angry, we can assume that he did not appreciate this.

So what do I do as someone who claims to be a person of faith, someone who wants to make a difference in the world? Sometimes the answer is to take action!! But measure your actions carefully...will it really do good? Is it only your personal crusade? Are you doing it in order to look like a wonderful person? One lesson I have learned in my short time of being in ordained ministry is that you really have to be comfortable at the bottom and (thankfully) on your knees. The last thing it is is to be important or exalted and that's fine by me!! This action MUST be done with the heart of a servant if it is to have any effect whatsoever on the others around you.

The second test for me is how we act when faced with the impossible...it is true that those who face death with dignity and admired by others..but more so when the death is unexpected or unnecessary. Jesus' death was both of those, at least from the point of view of his disciples, so it was not until after the resurrection when they realised that Jesus knew what was coming and that nothing would happen to stop it that they realised the enormity and awesome act of his silence to the cross. 

This is NOT about people of faith being walked all over, being a doormat or letting themselves be abused in some way. It is about the example we set in the face of great adversity. My favourite example of this is Nelson Mandela, who after so many years being imprisoned came out into the world seeking peace and reconciliation. He was not a person who had lived a luxury life telling people steeped in poverty to remain peaceful..he had suffered too. What an example!!

Jesus - a man who bridged the gap between the Sacred and the world, brought the two together. Mandela, a man who bridged the gap between a nation who had been repressed and abused and their abusers, a man, who with the gift of grace, stood up, and was silent!

 

Liminality

I learned some amazing words whilst studying at university and one of them was liminality. A perfectly good English word, its definition is something like, "Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality

This is something that is experiential and subjective, in other words it can be different for each person who experiences it. In comic book terms think Spiderman or Superman who hold in perfect balance within them humanity and superhuman qualities. One never ceases because the other one is more evident. Spiderman does not stop having an emotional connexion to Mary-Jane simply because he is taking out the bad guys.

From a religious perspective there are significant people who have embodied this in the eyes of people of faith, those who stand on a threshold and bridge a gap between one world and the other. In the case of Buddhists there are people who for a time stand between this world and complete enlightenment, at some point they are no longer on the threshold but instead fully in one plce or the other.

For Christians it is Jesus who encompasses fully this liminal existence, and in that existence opening up access to the Sacred. And yet so often people take that as their own and think that where Jesus has made that access free to all and to all things that they as people have the power to deny access to some who do not fit a predetermined mould.

Lets for the purposes of this blog call all those things "queer", as in all those things or people who do not fit the mould for whatever reason. The thing about each of those who as people of faith have stood on this threshold is that they never claimed to have something that no one else could have, each of these folk said that the experience of bridging gaps was something that anyone can and should do.

So people who call themselves people of faith and people who identify also in any way shape or form as queer need to live a life that bridges a gap that has been created by people. We are called to live our lives as people called to exist in the liminal world of the Sacred and the Queer.

And the world blames them...

I have been reading a great series of books that were edited by a committed Christian from one of these big, powerful and charismatic congregations in the US. The books are a series of quotes in alphabetical subject order. Some are funny, jokes, others serious and moving, some bring me to tears while the next can have me roaring with laughter.

However, yesterday I was reading it and was saddened by a particular post which stated that children of single women or lesbians, in fact any home where the birth father is absent, leads to the child being more likely to have low self esteem, commit crimes, commit suicide etc etc... They even gave the percentage chance that the child would be more likely to do or experience these things than a child raised by their male birth parent!

It was evident that the blame lay firmly at the door of the woman or women who for whatever reason had found themselves raising their children in these circumstances.

What it evidently never considered was how much of the issues faced by these children were due to the negative attitudes that society, culture and faith groups have towards their life circumstances. If single mums were not considered to be bottom of the pile, judgement is heaped onto people who do not seem to fit a particular mould.

Children find they are bullied and tormented because they or their lives do not 'fit', and so often this is done in the name of God. Well that is NOT the God I have come to know and love!!!

Young people and children need love, understanding, encouragement and more love. They need to be given enough freedom to find out who they are and what kind of grown up they are going to be. Is it any wonder that those who during this process come up against judgement and hate grow up to be angry and resentful instead of the wonderful, diverse and giving members of society that they could have been.

Not having a birth father in the home does NOT cause children to do harm to themselves and others, it is the messages they hear, the actions that are taken against them and the lack of acceptance that is all too prevalent.

This is my first blog post and I am proud to say that my Lesbian, Christian body is a place where the Sacred and the Queer meet and I have the privilege of seeing this in so many other people too....so follow this blog and find out what it means to live in the liminal space of the Sacred and the Queer.