Rediscovering the Feminine Face of God...

Holy cow….here it is Holy Week, and only five days away from Easter. How did that happen so quickly? Life has been a total whirlwind these past 6 weeks, but in a very, very good way. Before Lent started, my life was (once again) careening out of control—not in a destructive way--but in an over-committed way. I was saying yes to too many things, had far more on my plate than I could handle, and was starting to miss deadlines and fall further and further behind.

So I decided that for Lent I would *Just Say No.* I would take on no new projects, meet no new people, make no new appointments, accept no new social invitations, volunteer for nothing new. For the six weeks of Lent, I would only complete projects already begun, honor commitments already made, and spend time with people already in my life rather than seek out any new connections.

One of those commitments was what I call *doing Lent.* This means fully immersing myself in the practice of Lent, in the hope of gaining spiritual renewal and rebirth. Not that I was suffering spiritually to start with. But with all that busyness, I was getting further and further away from what feeds me spiritually, and I was feeling the disconnect, and noticing the drain on my soul.

So I went into Lent with the best of intentions, planning to fully participate in the myriad Lenten activities offered by my parish, immerse myself in reflection and renewal, maybe even blog about the meaning and traditions of Lent.

Turned out I didn’t need all of that. All I needed to find my renewal in Lent was three nights with the parish mission speaker, Edwina Gately, and several evenings with the women's speaker series our parish now puts on annually during the weeks leading up to Easter.

The good news about finding my answers so quickly, was I was able to get right to work on implementing my new spiritual practices, and my, what a difference they have made. (More on this some other time.) Let’s just say that this is one Lenten season that will see me totally refreshed and renewed, thanks to the hard work, dedication, and devotion of so many women of faith, most of whom I am blessed to know through my own faith life and parish.

The creators of our women's speaker series, Sophia’s Circle, are nothing short of amazing. For years untold this faith-sharing group of about a dozen women talked of offering in love something uniquely feminine and uplifting for their spiritual sisters in our parish, and finally, three years ago, they were able to pull it all together and offer their first speaker series.

They didn’t expect much attendance. Spring is a busy time for women in this small town farming community. Winter doesn’t give way to spring gracefully around here, and in March and April you’re just as likely to be driving to church in a blizzard as you are in shorts and flip flops.

So imagine their surprise that first year when each night of the 6-week series, attendance grew, until well over 100 women showed up. Imagine their surprise when they started out big right away with the second year’s series.

Imagine the time, energy, effort, and creativity that had to go into brainstorming, planning, and executing a whole new series this year. Expectations had been raised in the past two years, hungers had been awakened, and now it was time to deliver.

And deliver they did, in a powerful four-week series that centered around the words Purpose, Passion, Power, and Peace. The series was no less effective for being two weeks shorter than before. Easter is late this year, and people are busy with taking advantage of dry roads and growing things. The words they chose to focus on meshed beautifully, and created a cohesive message of renewal and rebirth representative of the positive face of Lent.

Purpose…the speakers encouraged us to look deep into our hearts, find that which we love, and focus on that as our purpose in life. Sometimes our desires are in conflict with God’s purpose for our life, but eventually we come around, be it by the long, hard road, or the quicker and somewhat less painful one. I say *somewhat* because God never promised there would be no pain in our lives, only that He would be there to share our burdens, maybe even turn them into blessings.

So which route you take to find your Purpose in Life depends on your relationship with God. But either way, if you don’t find it—and that’s not to say your purpose can’t change over time—you most likely won’t be a happy camper and your life will not be as full and rich as it could be. You’ll be like a puzzle piece, part of a whole, but with holes in your life that need to be filled if you aren’t connected to the rest of the puzzle.

So go into the silence, search your heart, find your Purpose, and then pursue it with Passion. I missed the week on passion, unfortunately, as that was opening night for the high school musical and I was there to witness my son and several of his friends’ passion for singing and dancing instead. But I don’t think I’m lacking in that department. If you have any doubt, read my PMDD blog post, They Only See Our Failures.

I repeat: Find your purpose, and pursue it with Passion.

The third week, we were reminded of our Power as women. Women as healers, women as caregivers, caretakers, peacemakers and nurturers, generously endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A candlelight meditation brought the overwhelming amount of positive energy in the room into clear focus. In this week we celebrated the feminine face of God, which goes by many names, including Mother God, Sophia, and Wisdom. We ended the evening arm in arm, singing along with Libby Roderick’s How Could Anyone Ever Tell You (you were anything less than beautiful?).

Find your Purpose, and pursue it with Passion. You have the Power within you.

The final week, our focus was on Peace. Being at peace with ourselves, our relationships, relatives, situations, circumstances and perceived failures, walking in trust with God that all is as it should be and we shouldn’t waste our time and energy on blame, worry, anxiety, and fear. Again, during the meditation, I clearly felt the creative energy and power in that room, as well as a pervading sense of peace that comes to me more and more frequently these days, due in part to my Qigong classes three times a week.

Peace, as it turns out, was the special word I took home from last year’s women's speaker series, and I have made great strides in that area in the past twelve months. Would I have done the same without attending the series? I don’t know, and does it really matter? What matters is that my life seems to be falling into a pattern of Purpose and Passion, Power and Peace that this year’s speaker series has only validated from without, and that is a good and positive thing.

I know where I’m going, even if I don’t yet know how I will get there, but I have the Power and Passion to follow my Purpose, and the Peace of knowing God supports me all the way.

Thank you, women of Sophia’s Circle, for once again bringing us closer to our God, in whatever form we choose to view Him or Her, and to the women we were meant to be.

Getting back up to speed...

It is difficult to steer a parked car, so get moving. ~ Henrietta Mears, Christian educator

What with being sick all last week, and then going away for a long weekend, I’m so far behind I don’t know where to begin. I’ve got ideas for at least four blog posts, and no time to write them. Too busy trying to juggle all the balls--work, writing, and exercise, cooking, cleaning, and home maintenance, driving my son to and from school, appointments, and practices, and keeping up with church activities, which are moving into full swing with Lent just around the corner.

I’m going to “do Lent” this year. Some years I have not fully participated in the process of Lent. Some years I’ve taken full advantage of all the church offers, and others I’ve missed out completely. I know one year I was too sick to go anywhere or do anything—that was right after we moved into a new home and all the off-gasses from the carpet and such made me so ill I collapsed. Another year time simply got away from me and Lent was over before I knew it, with nothing in me changed or renewed.

But this year I’m going to throw myself into Lent wholeheartedly, which I understand to be a time of spiritual reflection and renewal. There are other, more formal descriptions for it, (and I might even get into the history and practices of Lent sometime during the next couple of months) but that’s what I choose to make it—a time for thinking about the positives in life, and not focusing on the negative.

To that end, we have lots of great speakers lined up at church, including the Women’s Series of spiritual events I wrote about last year, and many soup suppers to enjoy.

Speaking of which, I went to a prayer and potluck supper at church this week that was very nice. Kudos to the ladies who decorated the tables with white linen tablecloths and candlelight. The atmosphere was warm and intimate, the company great, and the food incredible—as always. (I think church ladies are the best cooks around, hands down.) Everyone brought a donation for the food pantry and a dish of some sort, and there was more food there than all 60 or so of us could eat.

I made a double batch of cream of carrot soup, which turned out very nicely, if a bit different tasting. It’s spiced with orange peel and allspice, an interesting combination. To thicken it, I blended two cups of broth with fresh, oven-baked squash. It gives the soup a hearty texture you can’t get short of loading up on more fattening thickeners.

Only half the soup was eaten—there was so much food to choose from—so today I went around giving away plastic containers of soup, and will wait to hear the feedback. I had some for dinner, and it tasted almost sweet, but with a tang from the orange peel.

Really, there’s not much going on here, and I’m just trying to catch up from being so sick all last week. I thought it was a cold, but it turns out it was (and is) seasonal allergies, which I am still dealing with, with mixed results success-wise. But at least I am moving forward this week, no longer sitting still J.