Practice love

I continue to hear Becca Stevens' message in my mind:

"We are not called to change the world.  We are only called to love it."

I find this to be so profound and so inspiring. 

I admit, though, that as soon as a preacher starts talking about love, I'm swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.  I can take issue with all manner of theologies, but I can't argue with love. 

I swoon at the idea of loving every little bit of the world.  How liberating to just be able to accept what is.  How powerful to just practice love.

Bliss

Baby E has just seemed to blossom lately, with precious smiles and frequent kisses.  At 18 months, he hasn't yet developed that classic toddler defiance.  It is absolute bliss to be his parent, and I miss him when we are apart during the day.

I've written before about how deeply healing his love is to me, but I realized over the weekend that my desire for more children might really be this simple.  Why wouldn't I want more of this amazing, pure love in my life?  Why wouldn't I want more people who love me with such an intensity?

I can think of a few responses, the first of which is "Ask me again when he is not Baby E, but Toddler E, or Tween E, or Google-forbid Defiant Teen E."

Also, does this desire for more love mean that the love of Papa D and E isn't enough? 

Mother jesus

In yesterday's message, I quoted a passage from The Message Bible, and a bit more research makes it clear why I liked it so much.  Apparently it's a pagan plot, influenced by Matthew Fox and Julian of Norwich.

I'm familiar with Matthew Fox, because of his collaborations with Starhawk.  We even have a lovely book of his for Baby E, thanks to my dear sister.

But I had never heard of Saint Julian and her ideas about the motherhood of god. I'm really inspired by this writing of hers:

"To motherhood as properties belong natural love, wisdom and knowledge - and this is God. For though it is true that our bodily bringing forth is very little, low, and simple compared to our spiritual bringing forth, yet it is he who does the mothering in the creatures by whom it is done. ...This blessed love Christ works in us. And this was showed in everything, especially in the noble, plenteous words, where he says, 'I am what you love.' "

I'm particularly interested in the idea that god does his mothering through us, because I have been feeling something like this lately.

Recently, as I look at the photolistings of waiting children, I have noticed a change in my emotions.  I used to search the thousands of faces, looking for my child, waiting for the lightning to strike and the shiver to run down my spine in rush of recognition.  Honestly, that never happened.

What has happened is that I have started to feel as if they are all my children.  I could be a mother to any of them.  Obviously some of the children fit our "criteria" better - race, ethnicity, gender, age - and some seem like they might better "fit" our family - love of reading, interest in math.  But as I look at each of their faces, I have been feeling absolute kinship, with a love welling up and flowing through me.  I feel like a vessel for that maternal goddess love that used to shower down upon me.  It seems that Baby E has opened my heart and me a pathway for Her love, just as a biological baby opens a mother's womb and birth canal for future children.

I love the way the Julian passage encompasses both of these forms of mothering - bodily and spiritual "bringing forth."

The passage then switches meaning at the end. Jesus says "I am what you love."  This fits in with my recent musings on the divinity of children, and it is also reminiscent to me of final words of the Charge of the Goddess:  "I am That which is attained at the end of desire."

I also read another meaning in this phrase:  that by the act of loving someone or something, we confer divinity upon it.

We've been talking over what it means to love in our house lately.   Every night, as a part of our bedtime ritual, we give Baby E a kiss from dada, a kiss from mama, and kiss from Mama B, and a kiss from all the people who love him.

Many people love Baby E - one birthed him, one nursed him; some share his genes, some share his life; some see him every day, some have never met him.  With all of these disparate relationships, what does it mean to love?  How can one word encompass all of those different feelings for a baby?  We had to embrace the idea that love can grow on diverse soil.

Papa D and I also discussed that love is not just a feeling, it is an act.  You do things to enact and express your love.  For a spouse, this may be listening, concern, consideration, or it may be tiger lilies and diamonds and trips to Bora Bora.  For a child, many of our acts of loving are so mundane - changing diapers, dispensing medication, chopping waffles into little bite-sized pieces.  Others are so profound - birthing, breastfeeding, and comforting.

Sometimes, with children, you love - as a verb - with no hope of returned affections.  And sometimes you are rewarded with the most perfect smile, kiss, hug.

What blessings - from the most god-like being I have ever known - perfect in his love and trust.

Little flower

Baby E did well for the first half-hour of the funeral service, but then he just couldn't keep quiet, so I headed out to the lobby and front of the church. I let him walk around, explore, be a toddler. What I discovered amidst the holy water and pamphlets were two lovely, handmade quilted standards. I hadn't noticed them amidst the crush of people entering the church. One portrayed St. Francis Xavier (appropriately enough) and the other was emblazoned with the message: "Receive Christ as a Little Child."

That seemed incredible, considering my thoughts of the last week. I read it as meaning that Christ is a little child, but some Googling has led me to realize that it usually means I should be like a little child.

You can also see that it represents a nun with a handful of roses and says "Saint Therese." Being ignorant of Christian saints, I had to look this up.

St. Therese of Lisieux lived in 19th century France, where she became a Carmelite nun at the age of 14. Before dying at 24, she wrote an autobiography that lays out her spiritual ideas, her "little way." This is also called spiritual childhood, a "spirit of childhood in all our dealings with God," according to Pope Pius XI.

John F. Russell, O.Carm., S.T.D. writes that "Relationship to the child Jesus emphasizes the humanity of Christ and suggests a sense of dependence, poverty, trust, and wonder. The child Jesus theme is found in the sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and in writings of the Franciscan tradition."

Called the Little Flower, St. Therese used nature as a metaphor for the relationship with the Divine. She promised that, after her death, "I will let fall a shower of roses," and since then, many have seen her blessings in the form of roses. She wrote of flowers and nature:

"I still feel the profound and poetic impressions which were born in my soul at the sight of fields enameled with corn-flowers and all types of wild flowers. Already I was in love with the wide-open spaces. Space and the gigantic fir trees, the branches sweeping down to the ground, left in my heart an impression similar to the one I experience still today at the sight of nature."

"Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the Lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God's glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be."

"Consider the oaks of our countryside, how crooked they are; they thrust their branches to right and left, nothing checks them so they never reach a great height. On the other hand, consider the oaks of the forest, which are hemmed in on all sides, they see light only up above, so their trunk is free of all those shapeless branches which rob it of the sap needed to lift it aloft. It sees only heaven, so all its strength is turned in that direction, and soon it attains a prodigious height. In the religious life the soul like the young oak is hemmed in on all sides by its rule. All its movements are hampered, interfered with by the other trees.... But it has light when it looks toward heaven, there alone it can rest its gaze, never upon anything below, it need not be afraid of rising too high."

"And just as in nature all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to make the humblest daisy bloom on a set day, in the same way, everything works out for the good of each soul."

As a pagan and nature-lover (the same thing?), I find those writing to be beautiful and inspiring. But most meaningful to me is her focus on love. "What matters in life," St. Therese wrote, "is not great deeds, but great love."

That's an idea I can definitely appreciate. I was never and still am not a career-first woman. From childhood on, I was much more concerned with the relationships in my life, and I have long said that I wanted my legacy to be my family, not some external achievements.

Isn't it interesting how our paths present us with the messages that we need to hear? Thank you, Baby E, for taking me into the lobby of the church. Your restlessness is a blessing to me.

Mother and child

I've been ruminating all weekend, and I'm really excited about this new idea (thanks, Alyss, for the encouraging inquiry!). After writing about finding the Divine in Baby E, I realized that perhaps the experience of the Divine hasn't left me, but has changed to a new form.

I used to experience the Goddess as a Great Mother, an enveloping, nurturing presence. She was the perfect parent, ever-present and ever-accepting, with none of the human foibles of my earthly mother.

Now the Divine has entered my life as a child, to whom I am mother. I have changed positions, from being the child to being the mother. It is a totally different energy. There is still great love flowing to me, but there is greater responsibility on my part.

But what does it mean for God to be a child? Is there such a thing as a child God? What does it ask of me?

My first thought was of Jesus Christ. His birth is a well-known story, and images of him as a child are common.


Perhaps this is why I have been drawn to Christian church, to connect with the story of a mother and child.

My next thoughts were of Krishna. Because I was taught about Krishna when I was a child, I think of him mainly as a the mischievous child stealing butter.


Growing up, he was presented as a God we could relate to. Now, I am finding so much more in the story. He was raised by adoptive parents, cowherd Nanda and his wife Yashoda. She is a human mother of a Divine being, who is a different color than she is.


Yet they love each other profoundly. Statues of Krishna are places on special cushions that represent his mother Yashoda’s lap, with bolsters on each side as her hands. "The Lord is said to be seated in the lap of His beloved Yashodama, forever secure that no one will dare scold Him while He is in her lap. No matter how naughty He has been during the day, no matter what the other gopis say, Yashodama will never believe anything ill of her beloved son. She will tell the complainants to look at their own shortcomings, but will never say anything to upset her darling child. His foster mother Yashoda’s love for Him was so dear to Him that the Lord says, 'No matter what the world says, I will always call myself as your son! I will call myself the son of Nanda and Yashoda.'"

I have found a few other examples of child-Gods: the infant Dionysus (famously - and interstingly juxtaposed with typical Madonna images - shown being held by his father, Hermes), the infantile Eros (sometimes shown held by his mother Aphrodite), and Horus, son of Isis and Osiris.

I was intrigued by ideas I found on a website on Indian art:

"According to David Kinsley: 'For the divine to become embodied as a child is eminently suitable, for they behave in similar ways. Each belongs to a joyous realm of energetic and erratic activity that is pointless but not insignificant; aimless, but imaginative and rich, and therefore creative. In play, the mind can go wild; the imagination is set free to conjure and conquer. With the world of necessity left behind, the imagination takes over, eagerly populating a world that knows no limit whatsoever. So it is with the play of children, and so it is with the activity of the gods.'

"In the Harivansha Purana, Krishna's play is said to be "like the fire in the cremation ground," leaping and flickering, erratic and vigorous. The brash and indomitable spirit of the young Krishna makes the world around him sparkle with aliveness. His youthful play lights up the world like a blazing fire illuminates the darkness. The playful actions of Krishna burst forth to tumble and romp like the wind in the trees, unpredictable and free. We have here a description of the other realm where things are as they are meant to be, where life goes on joyously and unhampered, where no thought is given, or need be given, to the future, where life is lived to the fullest every moment. Krishna's playful realm is a description of the heavenly world of gods which is ever fresh, instinctive, and intuitional.

"The theophany of the child god also reveals that as an infant and a child, Krishna is approachable, and can be doted upon and coddled. He can be approached with the intimacy with which a parent approaches a child. Such a god invites man to dispense with cumbersome formality and come to him openly, delighting in him intimately. The adorable, beautiful babe, so beloved all over, does not demand servitude and pomp. His simplicity, charm, and infant spontaneity, invite an affectionate and tender response."

So, one lesson from Mary and Yashoda's stories might be that the role of a God-child is to inspire a maternal love, so strong as to take me beyond myself. That the lesson I need to learn is to release my ego and put myself in service of another's life.

Another approach is more Jungian, like this sermon I found by the Rev. Dr. Daniel Ó Connell preached for the congregation at Eliot Unitarian Chapel in Kirkwood, MO on December 8, 2002. Jung believed this archetype, of the child, "represents the strongest, [inevitable] urge in every being, namely the urge [for a being] to realize itself."

"To lead a more authentic life, we must look within, we must seek, find, and encourage our Divine Child. ...The Divine Child is the archetype of the regenerative force that leads us toward wholeness. 'Becoming as a little child' as expressed in the Gospels. It is a symbol of the true self, of the totality of our being, as opposed to the limited and limiting ego."