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pinpricks to the heavens

Posted September 18th, 2009 by Dee Black
In Reference to:
What Women Want from Christianity

i'd never heard that before and LOVE it .. leslie said when she was a child she would lie on her back and look at the stars .. " i was sure they were pinpricks to the heavens ".. lovely !

there is so much brilliance in this conversation .. it blew me away .. " express my christness in the world .. what's happening in me and in u and in all of us is universal "

and i wanna know what kind of risky moves that priest was getting in trouble with the local archbishop for .. which leslie secretly giggled about

and david .. " that is a classic question : how could god let this happen? "

a shadow side of community is the witch hunt

and the woman who said .. " if i had access to the gospel of thomas i wouldn't have had to become a buddhist "

practicing spirit there every moment of our lives

leslie's husband nudging her to include men in her group work

michael dowd's metaphor of a loving father not giving the entire transmission to a six year old .. but in servings appropriate to the complexity of the growing mind

that one reminded me of ken saying " to think god would speak once two thousand years ago and then just stop speaking is kind of goofy "

david and leslie asking .. "what is it about this teacher jesus that it has lasted so long? " .. made me think yes and buddha too .. they are buddies among others in their group .. emerging with us as we go

and of course ..  " rest in the sacred heart and u and the world will be transformed "

deep bows leslie and david

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Healing the first tier

Posted September 20th, 2009 by Leslie Hershberger

Dee...It's moving to me as I see what someone else draws from a conversation like this one.  It speaks to the power of these WE interactions in which someone offers something that touches something inside of us that had previously eluded our awareness. Thanks for your post.

I just received an e-mail from a 25 year old woman who is teaching at a Catholic high school.  She wrote: "In conversations (with friends) I have had in just the past weeks we have talked deeply about ‘stepping into our own light,’ and exploring the deeply repressed feminine images of the collective subconscious. I feel that much out there – so much wisdom and experience that hasn’t been voiced. Yet, there is still a sense of hesitancy. Hesitancy to step outside of our prescribed parameters and embrace what is being whispered to us. We are looking for the forms and for ways to understand and be understood by others. To merge what we know in our heads with what we feel in our hearts and connect them to the god/dess that stirs our soul."  And, as she and I have discussed in the past, the engagement with these perspectives won't happen in the mythic structures; we have to create the containers.  

When I get e-mails and Facebook messages such as these, it reinforces my belief that the movement along the conveyor belt must include deep encounters with the feminine divine in all four quadrants.  The skew is just too ingrained in the collect consciousness of Christianity and consequently in Western culture to not address it with full attention.

As I took classes at JFKU, I encountered countless classmates who have been raised in green environments.  Not surprisingly, they have experienced the shadow of green and the evolutionary impulse moves them to a second tier awareness.  They  recognize the dualities and limits of  first tier.  Some insist we do away with categories of masculine and feminine which hold us back from vast, spacious nondual awareness.  I couldn't agree more.

BUT, and this is a big but, if we are to truly be Integral, some of us have to create the containers to facilitate movement from amber/mythic to orange/rational or orange/rational to green/pluralism by giving full attention to the masculine/feminine categories which have defined much of individual and collective consciousness.  I encounter women in the Midwest and I see the suffering engendered by inattention to the sacred feminine within their tradition. 

I see the cost of the limiting perceptions of women as virginal, pure and chaste Mother or Whore which diminishes not only their subjective self identity but also their capacity to fully express their wholeness in the world.  It's painful to witness as they encounter the steel ceiling of mythic and simply feel they have no place to go.  Furthermore, many of them have children and they experience deep pain as the children move into rational, reject the mythic god and sort of float out there with no containers to mediate the sacred.

As a teacher, it's often heartbreaking to witness especially because I know (because of my own experience with my own young adult children) that it doesn't have to be this way.  There is a vast  amount of material which can engender deeper encounters with Christian practice and allow a space for holy doubt, paradox, rational thinking, and deep engagement with other traditions.   Yet, there are precious few holding containers to facilitate such movement, particularly here in the heartland.  

As I said in my last post, we are standing on the edge of mystery.  My guess is much of this will be enacted online and in social media and in small groups and weekend retreats.  

E-mails such as the one I received from the 25 year old teacher stir the impulse inside of me that says, "As tempting as it may be, don't fast forward to second tier in the work you do." Our own personal practice is one thing.  But, one of the core insights of the Judeo-Christian heritage is that of tikkun...a mending of the world.  And, whether we are in El Salvador or the Midwest, there is much woundedness in this tradition that can be healed through creating communal containers which engage mind, heart, body, spirit and shadow.  As practitioners whose roots lie in this tradition, we can do no less.