wisdom

That Old, Old, OLD Story – The Warts and Wisdom of the Ancient

My grandmother Clarine was an incredible human being. I absolutely could not be more proud to be her granddaughter. She started her first teaching position in 1927 at age 17. She met my grandfather in seminary; but despite her clear talent and call, the church apparently felt one minister was enough for the family and refused to ordain her. Undaunted, she famously wrote a one line reply to the bishop: Well, Moses got along fine without it, and Jesus got along fine without it, so I’ll be fine without it, too.

Creating Space for Wisdom Sharing by Katey Zeh

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Along with spending more time in silence, another spiritual practice I’m cultivating is creating space for the wisdom of the room to emerge. At a basic level this involves talking less and listening more.

Keeping quiet is a discipline I’ve had to learn. I was the type of kid who raised my hand to speak in class at every opportunity. One day in fifth grade I was especially especially eager to give the right answer to our class’s math problem. The moment I heard my name called I promptly began articulating the solution. I was so caught up in sharing that I didn’t realize that my teacher actually hadn’t called on me to respond, but instead had called on on another student with the same name. Whoops

A decade later in a different classroom, I sat silently and a bit uncomfortably while the woman across from me talked for what seemed like an eternity. This exercise for our pastoral care class was for my conversation partner to speak for two full minutes (not quite an eternity) while I maintained eye contact and nodded but gave no verbal feedback. Afterwards I was to share with her what I had heard her say. That simple act of mirroring revealed how unnatural it was for me to listen. For so much of my life I had been jockeying for more space to speak. Not talking took focus and listening attentively required skill, but there were also great rewards in doing so: better understanding, deeper truth, and more compassion.

Last week I received this fitting bit of wisdom in an email from the Enneagram Institute:

Listen to others: they are often right, too. And even if they are not, there is almost always a kernel of truth to the point of view they are expressing. By listening to others, you not only will learn more but will become more informed and sensitive. Don Richard Riso, Understanding the Enneagram

Since graduating from seminary ten years ago I have found myself applying the discipline of sacred listening in my group facilitation work and while presenting at conferences. How many of us have attended a workshop or conference breakout session only to spend the majority of the time listening to one person lecture? I’ve decided that I no longer want to reinforce that kind of lopsided dynamic, which leaves little space for others to share their truth. How much wisdom have we all been missing as a result?

Recently, in a room full of wise women gathered for the United Methodist Women’s Assembly, I invited those attending my workshops to dive into the same biblical texts that I focus on in my forthcoming book Women Rise Up. I divided them into small groups, assigned each one a story, and asked them to explore together two simple, though not necessarily easy questions about the passage:

What about this story troubles you?
What about it inspires you?

As I passed the mic from table to table, I was moved by the thoughtful reflections they shared, and I was heartened to hear that some of their understandings aligned with my own. But then one woman shared an insight about the Book of Ruth that was so profound that it sent a shiver down my spine. In all the time I had spent studying and reflecting on this story I had never read the passage in quite that way.

Her wisdom-sharing transformed and deepened the conversation in the room. And it reinforced for me the importance of cultivating space for the wisdom held in the room to emerge. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve approached a text, even a situation, with the belief that nothing new could come from it. I was thankful to be proven wrong once again by the wisdom in the room.

Rev. Katey Zeh is an ordained Baptist minister, a nonprofit strategist, writer, and speaker at the intersections of faith and gender justice. She is the co-host of Kindreds, a podcast for soul sisters. Her book Women Rise Up will be published by the FAR Press this year. Find her on Twitter at @kateyzeh or on her website kateyzeh.com.

Sophia from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri

“Happy are those who find wisdom. . . . She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. . . Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy” (Proverbs 3: 13, 15, 17-18).

Sophia is DIVINE WISDOM, Her name comes from the feminine Greek word meaning Holy Wisdom. She is found all over the Bible (Proverbs, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon..) and in the Gnostic Gospels (unearthed at Nag Hammadi in 1947.) She has been called the MOTHER OF THE UNIVERSE, Mother of Yahweh and HOLY SPIRIT. The words: “Philosophy, theosophy and sophiology” all come from Sophia. The Bible links her to Christ: “Christ is the Wisdom (Sophia)” (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30). There is some evidence that Mary Magdalene was also called “Mary Sophia.”

Because She did not help advance the patriarchal scheme, Sophia was all but deleted from history. Hidden throughout the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, knowledge of the DIVINE FEMININE all but went up in flames. Even a great cathedral build in Her honor in Constantinopole, Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), was burned to the ground twice. It’s newest rebuild was a mosque and is now a museum. NOTRE DAME (Our Lady) has survived but they eventually claimed it was named after the Virgin Mary. (The famous Notre Dame rose windows are a common symbol of the Divine Feminine!). Some say there are secret societies that still exist to keep knowledge of Her alive.

Continue reading “Sophia from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri”

When Spirit Speaks by Katey Zeh

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Though I couldn’t call myself a skeptic in general, I’m always a bit dubious when someone claims to have an audible connection with the divine. I’ve found sacred guidance to be more subtle than that, revealed slowly over time through snippets of conversations and on the pages journals and during walks in the woods with my dog. Revelations are rarely sudden for me. They tend to emerge piece by piece, like clues to a puzzle, until the clarity eventually comes.

Imagine my surprise and subsequent doubt when I heard a voice say recently, “You are already doing the work you want to do.” Continue reading “When Spirit Speaks by Katey Zeh”

On Snakes by Ivy Helman

In the ancient world, snakes represented fertility, creativity, rebirth, wisdom and, even, death. They were often closely connected to female goddesses, priestesses and powerful human females who were the embodiment of such powers. For example, there is the Minoan goddess/priestess holding the two snakes in her outstretched arms. She is closely linked with fertility and domesticity. Similar figurines, with similar associations and dating to approximately 1200 BCE, have also been founded in the land of what once was Canaan, where Israelites also lived. Medusa, in whose hair lived venomous snakes, turned men who looked at her to stone. Ovid’s account of the creation of Medusa credits the Greek goddess Athena with Medusa’s lively hair. Another Greek legend says Perseus, after killing Medusa, gave her head to Athena who incorporated it into her shield. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is portrayed often with snakes wrapped around her as a belt and/or on the floor next to her. Continue reading “On Snakes by Ivy Helman”

Finding Peace in the Wait by Katey Zeh

In Flux Katey Zeh Have you ever tried to download a number of large files to your computer at the same time? If you’ve purchased a TV series through iTunes or received high-resolution pictures from an important event that you couldn’t wait to view, you can probably identify with this scenario.

You sit impatiently as the progress bar barely creeps toward completion—one painful percentage point by painful percentage point. Maybe you get up from your chair, spend a few minutes doing something to take your mind off of the files, and return a bit later only to find that not a single file is complete yet. Argh! If you can manage somehow to sit long enough to watch this mind-numbing process, one file eventually finishes. Hurrah! Then another. And another. Soon enough the progress accelerates as fewer files remain in the queue and eventually the download is complete. The waiting is over.

Lately my life has been feeling like a collection of slow simultaneous computer downloads. My “files” include a book, a podcast, a new professional website, a training, and a number of consulting ventures. Although I’m disciplined enough to work on each of them at least semi-regularly, each effort gets a much smaller portion of my attention than if I were to focus on a single project. Even if I were able to shift my energies to completing only one of these at a time, all of them are collaborative endeavors involving other people. In the end a lot of the progress is beyond my control.

Over the last several months I’ve wasted a lot of energy feeling annoyed with this overall lack of progress in my life. Some of these projects have been going on for years at this point, those pesky “to do” items that I can never cross off my list. I can’t count how many times I’ve expressed to others, “I just want one of these to be done!” Like painfully watching the slowly downloading files, I’ve been sitting anxiously with an inner sense of dread: this process will never, ever be over.

Sometimes I find it somewhat amusing if not entirely useful to entertain briefly the worst-case scenario brought to the surface by my anxiety du jour. What will happen if every single one of these efforts fails? If my book is never published, how will I feel? If my new website is never launched, what will that mean for my life?

I keep coming back to this hard reality: I’ve got big stakes in a future that I have no control over. As long as I believe my self-worth lies in what is beyond my ability to shape, I am destined for a lifetime of suffering.

My go-to coping strategy in these situations is to make myself busy and do a bunch of stuff to make me feel like I’m holding everything together. This time I’m trying something different.

With the guidance and encouragement of wise women in my life, I have been attempting to shift my perspective on this period of anticipation and waiting. Rather than spin my wheels trying to find another strategy to try or project to start, I am beginning to experiment with doing less. Releasing expectations. Holding with curiosity and gentle attention the anxiety and fear of not measuring up to my perfectionistic standards. Instead of doing something to distract myself from them, I’m holding them in my heart with love—or at least tolerance.

Inhale. Breathe in compassion. Exhale. Breathe out love.

My perfectionism runs deep, but the Spirit of love runs deeper.

Katey Zeh, M.Div is a strategist, writer, and educator who inspires communities to create a more just, compassionate world. She has written for outlets including Huffington Post, Sojourners, Religion Dispatches, Response magazine, the Good Mother Project, the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion, and the United Methodist News Service. Her book Women Rise Up will be published by the FAR Press in March of 2018. Find her on Twitter at @kateyzeh or on her website kateyzeh.com.

What is a Crone? By Deanne Quarrie

First of all a Crone is a woman. She has lived most of her life already and has accumulated many life experiences and therefore, can relate to those younger than her with greater understanding. She has acquired the wisdom associated with having had those life experiences. She has reached a place in her life when she may be slowing down. She may have retired from her career. She may want to devote more time to herself, serving more as an advisor rather than as the doer. We can read the poem, Warning by Jenny Joseph to get an idea, or watch her read it here or below…

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”

Continue reading “What is a Crone? By Deanne Quarrie”

Grasping for Truth, Arriving at Wisdom by Leanne Dedrick

“Quite apart from explicit religious belief, every time that a human being succeeds in making an effort of attention with the sole idea of increasing [her] grasp of truth, [she] acquires a greater aptitude for grasping it, even if [her] efforts produce no visible fruit.” Simone Weil, Waiting For God

I think and write a lot about ‘truth.’ I love truth and I hate truth. I love truth for its security, for its comfort, for its ease at organizing thoughts and feelings and, of course, for its honesty. Relationships are never simple however, and I find that all the reasons I love truth are also the reasons I hate truth. This dichotomy speaks also to the relationship I have with myself; one woman in two worlds, or in other words, an ordinary woman and a philosopher of religion.

Truth is fundamentally tricky in its deceptive simplicity. There are three basic ways the dictionary describes the word truth. The first has to do with a quality – the quality or state of being true. The second references fact – that which is in line with reality. The third becomes more problematic; it includes the language of belief – a fact or belief accepted as true. Continue reading “Grasping for Truth, Arriving at Wisdom by Leanne Dedrick”