Playful wisdom - transgression and mysticism at feminist theology

I have come home from tonight's feminist theology group richly blessed as ever and laden with gifts, including a copy of Grace Jantzen's A Place of Springs. I am so delighted! I also got some very special Faverger chocolate and a splendid bottle of Ecrivain Poète Genevan wine.
Tonight was the last time I shall be with the group for quite some time as it really will not be possible for me to get back from Paris on a regular basis to be with them. This is a shame because the programme for the year ahead is really interesting: "Obéissance et transgression: Créatrices et créateurs à la suite de Dieu".
So we began tonight with an apple on the table as a symbol of trangression and its desirability. I spoke about mysticism and integrating spirituality and faith for this first session and we did various exercises - writing down the name of a woman and man who had been important for our spiritual formation, either folk known to us or historical figures or even ficitonal ones. Each of us spent some time, in the silence of our hearts comparing these two figures - had their influence been different because of their gender, is their a male or female spirituality or mysticism? We held on to and "contained" these thoughts as I went on to lay out some thoughts from Sarah Coakley's book Powers and Submissions about how "kenosis" the notions which have grown up around self-emptying have been seen in extremely different ways in by feminist theologians such as Rosemary Ruether and Daphne Hampson. In her book Coakley works carefully and persuasively through the text in Philippians 2 to offer a non destructive basis for kenosis as a foundation for spirituality. Tonight I was trying to pick up the different ideas around kenosis as a way of trying to move us towards thinking about who the God we pray is - I admitted taht despite decades of feminist theology I have deeply internalised a judgemental God - fortunately not the only God I have internalised but part of teh God I pray to. As we were workign through some of this I asked everyone in the group fot try to write some kennings and encouraged them by offering some that I had written earlier. I wasn't at all sure about using this form in a raomance language but it actually worked quite well. As we had some anglophone folk at the group tonight and I was interpreting myself into English most of the time it worked well as I tried to kenning what people said in French back into English. Two of my favourite ideas about God that came out of this exercise ( and I wish I'd had the presence of mind to write them all down but hey...) were "joueuse sagesse - playful wisdom and berceur d'enfant which I suppose I would translate as lullaby singer - what a glorious image of God.
I am so grateful to this group which has been my lifeline to sanity, theology and laughter over these past 7 or 8 years. I shall miss our time together but hope to drop in from time to time so as to transgress together.
We ended by reading Chouraqui's wonderful translation of the Beatitudes - en marche les matriciels - Get up and go may mercy be born from you...
A wonderful evening. And my kenning for God was "love maker". Maybe all these years of fem theol are finally having a bit of impact!

So do you take off your shoes or eat blackberries? The solace of poetry

... Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God[de]:

But only s/he who sees, takes off [her] shoes,

The rest sit around it, and pluck blackberries...

From Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The quote above came to me today at the bottom of an email from a friend and it sent me off reading Elizabeth Barratt Browning's poetry on the net. I realised that I have hardly read any Barratt since school and that I do not have a collected version of her poetry, something to treat myself to very soon. It is powerful stuff.
Spingtime is not at all the time to think of the autumn harvest of the hedges filled with the finger-staining dark fruit that are blackberries, bringing sweetness just before the winter. I love the flavour and fragrance of the humble blackberry - though given the choice I would probably still opt for the raspberry.
But the quote in this fragment (really that word seems to be one of the major subthemes to my blog these days) of the poem is actually a judgement on those sitting around gorging ourselves thoughtlessly on late summer fruits. The bramble, like the biblical burning bush, is full of thorns. An invitation, a reminder ... of God's grandeur, of humility, of the possibility that like Moses before us, we too could remove our shoes as we remember we are on holy ground.
I glimpsed some of the immensity and beauty of creation this evening, walking through the wonderful trees, smelling the sweet violets and listening to the wonderful birdsong as the sun persisted in picking out the primroses in the grass. With every step I gave thanks for the burgeoning season that is spring - these early flowers speak of fruit to come. Truly a miracle. God turns not only water into wine but petals into fruit and pollen into honey - earth is surely crammed with heaven!

Proclamation of faith and calligraphy from Wythenshawe

Over on Breadbreaker Kate Gray has posted the text below and titled it "A 21st century proclamation of faith in Jesus?"
Kate and her husband Mike Walsh wrote the text for the service of dedication of their son Zebedee.

Our faith is about our whole life lived in the company of God
Our faith says life is precious, to be nurtured and celebrated
Our faith is about living gently with the earth

Our faith is inspired by Jesus and many other people
Our faith is about love and hope for everyone no matter what’s happened
Our faith calls us to mix and mingle with all sorts

Our faith calls all people to get involved in something bigger than ourselves
Our faith encourages us to be ourselves and make room for others
Our faith energises us to make a positive difference

Our faith values people over profit
Our faith is intuitive, sensuous and honours our bodies
Our faith is dynamic and open to challenge and change

Our faith is about creativity over consumerism
Our faith brings healing where there is suffering
Our faith should be seen and heard and obvious to people around us

Our faith has drawn us to and away from and back to church
Our faith inspires us like fantastic music
Our faith dares us to dream of a future with wild imagination

God’s faith in us never stops.
God wants us to make the most of things.
God never fails to surprise, challenge or love us all.

copyright (c) Kate Gray and Mike Walsh

I also have to thank Kate for linking to Stephen Raw's amazing calligraphic oeuvre I've just spent about an hour looking through his website, an artist fascinated by words and letters and inspired by the religious. His work is wonderful, I may have to treat myself or just get inspired to do some work myself.

Desiring God

This God who is my God, the right object of my desire and my love, is the quintessence of my inner self and therefore by no means identical with it.
Hannah Arendt