An Advent Message

Cathy Ayers, a member of our church, sent me this message the other day,
and I post it here with her permission:



I have been reading about the Mayan Prophecy--wonderful words about transition and transcendence-- and one point resonated deeply. The idea that the Holy Spirit is the feminine balance of the Celestial Father. I found many references to the Holy Spirit as feminine energy:

In ancient writings of the Bible and also Gnostic records, the energy now known to many today as Kundalini energy is called by various names such as: Sophia, Life, Mother of the living, or Wisdom. This force called Wisdom is likened to a feminine energy, and even has a feminine personality, known as "She". In these writings, the words "She", "Her" "Wisdom" and "Holy Spirit" are used interchangeably to refer to this feminine aspect of the Divine, also known in both Old and New Testament texts as the "Holy Ghost", "Comforter", "Counsellor" and "Redeemer".

From the ancient Wisdom of Solomon (Ecclesiastes, Proverbs) written some 2500 years back we read in Chapters and 7:


6.12: "Wisdom is radiant and unfading and she is easily discerned (recognized) by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her."

6.13 "She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her"

6.16: "She goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought."

7.22-24: "For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, dynamic (keen), irresistible, beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent and pure and most subtle."

I am a devout Episcopalian. I attend church every Sunday. I have studied the teachings of Mohammad, Buddha and Thic Nhat Hanh. I find the teachings of Jesus move my heart. In the words of Joseph Campbell, I "follow my bliss" with Jesus' teachings of compassion, joy and abundance of life. I have spent many happy hours in contemplation of the Old Testament Bible stories...Adam and Eve and God's gift of choice; Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his long awaited son Issac out of love of God; Joseph betrayed by his brothers and through that act the source of their survival; Moses and the Israelites, cleansed of Egypt's influence in their pilgrim's walk through the desert; young David the giant slayer who was the center of a great nation, wholely flawed and loved by God; and Jesus, the innocent baby who was the vessel of the very presence of God. It is story of Jesus the baby that brings me back to my theory of the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit:

Both scripture and tradition say that the Holy Spirit appeared to Mary to tell her of God's plan. God desired that Mary be the woman to bring Jesus into the world; to bring the living presence of God into God's creation. The Holy Spirit appeared personally to Mary, told her of God's plan, and overshadowed her. Through the Holy Spirit, God was born into the world as man.

Now, let us think about the idea of the Holy Spirit being feminine.
Image this: the Annunciation....the angel of god appears to the woman Mary...
the Holy Spirit ...feminine...one women talking to another women...
"Here is the plan; I will be with you always...What do you think?"
Woman to woman...bring the savior...change the world...a pure act of creation, birth, and new life.

This theory works for me, and makes the "overshadowing" and virgin birth easier to contemplate.


--Cathy Ayers
Parishioner
Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
Bethesda, Maryland

The Luminous Gospels

Reprinted from the Oriental Orthodox Order in the West blog.

Lynn Bauman, Abbott of the Order, announces the publishing of THE LUMINOUS GOSPELS:

The very first week of this summer, and the opening of the Wisdom Schools here in Texas, saw the publication of The Luminous Gospels authored by myself, Ward Bauman and Cynthia Bourgeault. This has been a years' long project to finally bring into being a text that contains three of the early Oriental Christian Gospels: The Gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip in a single volume. As part of a family of eastern (Oriental Christian) texts, these Gospels illustrate the stream of perennial wisdom that flowed from the teachings and tradition of Jesus; a stream that was subsequently lost or moved underground in the western worlds of dogmatic Christianity. These three Gospels live and breathe the world of images and imagining that come from the interior vision that formed in the Jewish, Semitic, Oriental worlds of the Christian East (East of Jerusalem). This volume of new texts invite us to begin a fresh dialogue with the roots of our faith that will balance the emphasis on exterior conformity to doctrine and creed in the West with the need to practice an interior realization of the singular Presence that is our true Source that was the vision of the East.

Copies of this text may be obtained from PRAXIS PUBLISHING online at praxisofprayer.com.

The Empty Boat

I don't know the origin of this poem,
but it gave the group something to think about
this evening, so I thought I would post it here:

The Empty Boat

Who can free himself of achievement and fame
Then descend and be lost
Amidst the masses of men?
He will flow like Tao, unseen....
He will go about like life itself
With no name and no home.
Simple is he, without.
To all appearances he is a fool.
His steps leave no trace.
He has no power.
He achieves nothing.
He has no reputation.
Since he judges no one,
No one judges him.
Such is the perfect man.
His boat is empty.