I’d been slated to preach that Sunday morning, but, given the violent and unsettling events of the week, the worship team thought it would be best to invite a trauma specialist to speak to the community, a decision for which I was grateful.

Earlier that week, on Wednesday, an incident occurred requiring the police to be called. They quickly filed an animal cruelty case. A little while later, one of the congregants working in the church office heard something in another part of the building. He hadn’t gone far from the office when he saw someone he recognized, a person from the neighborhood who had recently been attending the church.

This young man, who wore a tactical vest laden with ammunition, threatened violence. Fortunately, the church administrator had the composure to excuse himself, he told the man, in order to complete a task in the office. Instead, he went out the back door and called the police, who a few minutes later successfully apprehended the armed gunman.

During the intervening days between this episode and Sunday, I felt a measure of relief in not needing to figure out what to say. What is appropriate for such an occasion? For someone who has relied on words as the integrating avenue through which I work, either as a university professor, a writer, or a preacher, I found myself without words. I didn’t know how to step into what was now scarred, sacred space. Even though no additional physical violence resulted on that day, the emotional and psychological wounds were, nonetheless, the most probable result.

It is no secret that we are living in a context where bad religion is fully on display. For all sorts of reasons, the loudest adherents seem to be the ones who have lost the plot. The religious scholar, Karen Armstrong, contends that the way we can ascertain the success of any religious system is to determine how well it cultivates compassion. I’ve often thought this is a helpful idea, especially when what passes for religion is trite platitudes—our thoughts and prayers are with you—rather than the harder, more sacrificial work of suffering with those who suffer.

The service that Sunday began, as it always does, with the beautiful Meditation on Breathing by Sarah Dan Jones: “When I breathe in, I breathe in peace. When I breathe out, I breathe out love.” The anxiety I had brought with me that day began to slip away. I could almost feel my body relaxing, muscles and heart, letting go of negative thoughts and feelings.

What followed was a brief accounting of the events by the congregation’s Board of Trustee’s president. He brought clarity to the situation and how it unfolded, of course, but more than that, too. He articulated a compassionate view of the situation. No one really knows why someone would do and threaten violence, so instead of assuming this community was his target per se, there could be space to realize that we don’t know the depths of what led this person to act as he did. 

With this one observation, the Board’s president brought humanity into the circle by offering an alternative narrative. The accused became more fully, not less human. We did not need to fan the flames of our fear. Instead, we could look deeper, seeking to grasp that motivations and realities beyond our knowledge were, most likely, in play. Softer eyes, a kinder, gentler feeling could be a better response.

Later, during the service there was a time to light a candle, a visual representation of bringing someone into the shared space. Often names are read during the lighting. This Sunday, in addition to those named, including the man now behind bars, the animal who had suffered harm was brought into our awareness. It was an act of reverence and deep care.

It is still too early to know how this situation will continue to unfold. But, one thing is sure. This congregation exemplifies the goal of any religion worth its salt. Bad religion is what usually makes the news and certainly it is what is most often the loudest thrum. 

But in this small and dedicated community tucked away in a residential neighborhood in a city in Texas, there is a place where good religion is practiced. 

And, isn’t it good to know this is so?!

While some were seated around a table and others appeared through computer screens, individual readers of a text became a community of questioners. Slowly but surely, observations not seen before percolated to the surface. Unleashed imaginations began to do the thing they were made to do: letters on the page became nimble and flexible. Curiosity, too, pointed to blank space, interrogating the teller of tales: why didn’t you say more?

Midrash moved into our context, too, asking are we really any different from Moses? Don’t we also wrestle with the sins of patriarchy? Answers took the form of witnessing.

One person shared how she was one of the first female flight attendants—“stewardess,” at the time—and this meant she had to sign a second employment contract, one specified only for women.  In it, she agreed, among other things, that she wouldn’t gain more weight than allowed (based on her weight at the time she signed), that she would no longer be employable after the age of 32, and that she would wear a girdle (yes, there were girdle checks!). As a result, she became a leader in airline unions, convinced that collective power was necessary to change the sexist policies with which she had to endure.

Someone else described how she learned from a male colleague, who was younger, less-experienced, and newer to the university than she, that he made more money. She took this information to her manager, confident that this inequity would be remedied. Instead, her manager responded that, of course, his salary was higher. He had a wife and children to support, after all. She wasted no time filing a lawsuit in order to receive the pay she was due and shortly thereafter, found a different job.

I, too, leaned in, sharing about teaching at an evangelical university when I was the only woman in a large department of ten men. It wasn’t long before I was labeled as a “feminazi.” The problems I presented were endless: I was a woman teaching the Bible; I required students to use a translation other than the revered NIV; I suggested it was important to study Jesus’ life (his death and resurrection being vastly more important in such circles); and, perhaps, most challenging, I suggested doubt is a key component of thoughtful faith. It was all too much. When the campus paper ran a cartoon casting me in front of students with a Hitler-styled mustache, I knew the university administrators were, rightly, nervous about how I might respond.

I imagine those who explore the intersections of feminism and the Bible are rare in most faith communities. But, on this morning, inspiration swirled in the air (it was Pentecost, after all), piquing renewed interest in stories we thought we knew. The result was what Nelle Morton called “hearing into speech.” I imagine Morton wouldn’t have been surprised that this occurred. She had, after all, observed that Pentecost reverses common logic so that hearing precedes speaking (Nelle Morton: The Journey is Home, 128.)

Our Sunday morning community surely wandered a far pace from Moses’ desert. But maybe wandering itself is instructive. Could it be that sometimes the glad surprise of good news is that holy ground finds you when you least expect it?

© Kendra Weddle 2023

Sometimes though, when hot and humid days wore on, clouds turned ominous when they coalesced on the western horizon and began marching across the wind-swept prairie. As the dark banks rolled toward us, we scurried to get tractors and trucks safely in the shed before they released their fury.

Cloud watching was also something the ancient Israelites knew well. When they left home to wander in the desert, they had to pay attention, scanning the sky for the leading presence of God imbedded in a cloud. Pleas for freedom had been answered, but part of the bargain included trusting an always recalibrating sky compass.

I wonder what it must have been like to slowly realize the pathway out of slavery was anything but carefree or clearly marked? Following a cloud, even a divine one, requires some skill. How did they know which particular cloud held the divine presence? What about the days when no clouds emerged or when all of the clouds formed into one long gray day? What direction was right then, and what were the sources of confirmation other than the manna and quail that spoiled overnight?

When I was young, my Sunday school teachers told me the Exodus story was about trust: being willing to put faith in God to make good on a promise. I am inclined, however, to also see within this narrative, the process of discernment; of people using their God-given intuition to uncover the way forward.

Perhaps this journey from enslavement to liberation is not unlike what we face as we emerge from this Covid-19 pandemic. We have experienced a long night where we have been brought face-to-face with the staggering inequities pervading our society. No longer are we able to say we didn’t know, for we have seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, witnessed in multiple ways, how those on our margins have been left in Egypt to fend for themselves.

Like the Israelites of long ago, however, we can discern a way to a future of freedom.

Making our way out of the Pandemic Desert

In 2019 Sister Simone Campbell, director of NETWORK, when given the Clare Award in Clinton, Iowa, listed what she identified as elements of a feminine intelligence, a disrupting force in the midst of the status quo. The insight she shared then is still relevant because, as she noted, the old ways are clearly not working. These guideposts can help us find our footing beyond Egypt. 

We begin, Sr. Campbell said, by being inclusive. 

We must learn to listen to all and not merely those whose voices clamor most loudly. Our transgender friends, for example, are helping us to recognize their struggle. Are we willing to hear them? Will we step out of our echo-chambers to consider the perspectives of those we’ve not heard before?

Our listening must be of the deep and soulful kind, not seeking to spout off in return but instead to take full account of what is being said. 

Bearing witness is a crucial aspect of listening and it requires us to hold space for another’s experience without seeking to insert our own in its place. The platinum rule explained by Dave Kerpin in The Art of People, gets to this point. We should seek to treat others as they want to be treated. In so doing, we will find this might require us to learn new words, identify our pronouns, and, for those in the majority, to feel a little uncomfortable in our skin for a change.

READ: Christian Leaders from Around the Country Read Frederick Douglass’ 1852 Speech

Sr. Campbell also said we need to recognize that all things are connected. 

One of the biggest lies we have told ourselves is that we are separate, that the goal of rugged individualism is somehow holy and right when instead it is unholy and utterly wrong. Jesus’ teaching that the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for another might mean Christians need to quit being complicit with dominant culture and instead lead in efforts for reparations and other ways of acknowledging and repairing the sin of racism.

Empathy must become the guiding principle of our action. 

For too long we have worshipped at the golden calf of capitalism and in its wake we have lost sight of compassion, the great commandment Jesus taught, an action that de-centers ourselves. Erich Fromme once said, “in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power.” And yet, in the end, it is only love that endures. “Tell me to what you pay attention” José Ortega Y Gassett said, “and I will tell you who you are.” Are we committed to reorienting our lives to reflect this reality?

Regeneration, life emerging out of death, is the great unending promise of faith. 

When we feel exhausted from this arduous and unending journey to justice, we must remember that what we see is not the end of the story. As Richard Rohr remarked, “In the larger-than-life, spiritually transformed people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died. They have followed in the self-emptying steps of Jesus, a path from death to life….” Like Moses, we may not make it to the promised land, but our hope resides in the humble walk toward justice.

Today as I write this ending, the sky is gray. There are no white, puffy clouds to study, no thrill from staring through my window to be inspired by what I see. This dismal view accurately reflects what I’m feeling about the pandemic. This year has brought not only national division, but personal, familial strife: differing politics, faith commitments, Covid precautions, vaccine use. In 2019 at the Awakening Soul retreat, Barbara Brown Taylor invited her audience to reflect on clouds as movements of unknowing. They are, when you think about it, opaque containers whose presence could be designed intentionally to increase our unknowing. This is after all, she remarked, “when we are most open to hear the voice of God.” 

May we be disrupted enough to find the liberating path.

Elizabeth Felicetti recently wrote in The Christian Century about how her breast cancer diagnosis, with an emphasis on breast, challenged her previous view of the Incarnation because of Jesus’ male experience. 

I, too, had a breast cancer epiphany. However, instead of challenging my theology, my experience led me to embrace more fully the mothering God found in the first testament, the Hebrew Bible.

Like so many other women, I was instructed to return to the mammography center for a biopsy. Lying face-down with my head uncomfortably turned, multiple people pulled and squeezed, pinched and poked at my breast, while I closed my eyes trying to transport myself out of my anguish. After more than an hour, the technicians finally secured a usable sample to place under the microscope. I was ushered down the hallway and into a dark room where the doctor pointed to the image of my breast on the screen. “This is the area of concern,” she said. “You can see it looks like sand; a change when compared with last year; though it is small, maybe the size of my pen.” Maybe she said something else, too, but I don’t recall. This was the beginning of being in the liminal cancer space where everything was suddenly refracted through the light of disease. My disease.

That evening as I sought respite through some mind-numbing television, everything seemed to be about cancer:  women with metastatic diagnoses, basketball players wearing pink shoes. I turned to Amazon looking for a memoir to take me into a different life. As I scanned the new releases, a common denominator felt disturbingly unavoidable: they were all, seemingly, about the big “C.” 

A few days later, a few hours before I received the call, I learned from a tear-filled colleague that her daughter had been diagnosed with breast cancer over the winter break. Returning to my campus office I felt like I already knew I would have cancer, too. The hints had been too apparent to dismiss.

It was a Wednesday, late in the afternoon, just before 5:00 pm. My husband and I were on the way to the bank to complete some paperwork. One minute I was stopped at the red light—without cancer—and  the next I was inside the bank, waiting, feeling numb, trying to make a mental note of all of the things I needed to do, especially as this was the first day of the university’s semester. Suddenly my “to do” list was infinitely longer and looming. 

A cancer diagnosis is shocking and overwhelming. But there is also the feeling of bodily betrayal, fear, and loss. Perhaps most pervasive, however, is the feeling of loneliness. No matter how much friends and family can offer, you are the only one with the illness. This burden, it turns out, is only yours to carry. 

In a flash, life becomes frenetic: calls to make appointments, receiving calls from doctors and offices who may or may not have been working in tandem, fielding offers from friends and/or family members of comfort and/or advice, filing insurance claims, negotiating with insurance companies about coverage, and worrying about how much everything will cost and insurance rates in the future. 

If ever there was a time for divine aid, having cancer ranks high.

READ: It’s Complicated: A Different Liturgy for Mother’s Day

Years ago, when teaching a course called Women and the Bible, I discovered a divine feminine image that, until then, I never knew existed. Since then, I have shared this insight here and there with students and have sought to expand my own awareness of how this knowledge might work its way through my head and heart, often with less success than I desired. More recently, however, I shared this gem with an especially bright and discerning undergraduate student in an independent study course. In our study, we read the Bible with an eye for feminine language, images, and concerns; aspects that are often ignored and dismissed. We examined El Shaddai, a name for God that most often has been translated simply as God Almighty. “Almighty” conjures up notions of strength, control, power, and most notably, if we are honest, masculinity. This is a God who will stand up to anybody and win because He has all the power! 

In contrast, however, El Shaddai can just as accurately be translated “God of many breasts.” As we sat in my campus office, he and I wondered how this image might undo our patriarchal memory and invite us into different, fully embodied expressions and experiences of the divine. A breasted God surely encouraged intimacy, sustenance, and touch. This divine Mother embraced us: body-to-body, Life-nourishing life. 

Later, when I told this former student about my diagnosis, his response transported me back to this moment in my office. “Know that you are strong and that God our Mother will bring you through,” he said. “After all, She is the Almighty One, the God of Many Breasts.” 

While I did not want this diagnosis, I decided it was the right opportunity to experiment with this mothering image from the Hebrew Bible. How might this breasted body sustain me throughout my breast cancer treatment?

Following surgery, I began radiation. Since the timing of these treatments corresponded with the rapidly expanding pandemic, like most people, I was thinking more strategically about hand-washing, creating a ritual to ensure proper hygiene. Instead of using the happy birthday song as many were doing, however, I chose to sing a feminine version of the Doxology I had learned in my New Wineskins community under the creative leadership of Rev. Dr. Jann Aldredge-Clanton. 

I knew I needed a mantra to help me endure each treatment. The minutes of lying on the table in the cold radiation chamber, hands overhead and gown half-removed, were interminable. Hearing the door lock when the technician exited left me feeling frightened and vulnerable; desperately alone.  I felt my pounding heart reverberate throughout my entire body as the radiation machine came to life. With its ominous hum as my cue, I turned to the Many Breasted One, trusting Her to sustain me. She was the one who knew me intimately, who shared Her very self with me, who held me as the rays entered my body, sometimes creating an unsavory odor. During these anxious moments, I turned to El Shaddai reciting the words I had memorized: 

Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow

Whose Womb gave birth to all we know

Who holds us close to Her warm breast

For nurture, love, and tenderness. 

(by Elizabeth Watson Martin and Lisa Taylor)

For twenty-one days these words filled my head and sank further into my soul, cultivating trust where there had been distrust; hope where there had been despair; love where there had been guardedness.  Years of academic rigor and Christian patriarchal oppression had created within me a hardened shell. Masculine naming and explaining had all but extinguished any remaining delight, magnetism, or mystery.

But as I turned to Her, trusting she could identify with me, could recognize the tenderness of skin changing texture, of life and healing born through loss and pain, I slowly felt the hardening soften. Trust and hope, faith-full love, became possible again. 

My experience points me to both the paucity and possibility of our approach to divine images and language. The Bible, for all of its many flaws and challenges, contains far more expansiveness than we allow or embrace. My former student is now studying and preparing for ministry. This, too, gives me hope that one day our tradition will eventually expunge the idolatry of masculinity and seek in its place liberation for all. May we all come to know, as Jesus did, that our divine Mother has been waiting for us to find Her!