Gospel Women – Week 3

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Today is the third week of the retreat workshop/contemplation/art commune that I’ve been taking. We spend the week reading and thinking about the two women, and then after a short discussion, we art.

I’d like to share with you the readings for anyone that was interested in doing this at home.

The first woman of the Gospel is the woman caught in adultery. The reading can be found at John 8:1-11.

Our second woman is the woman who anoints Jesus in Bethany. That Scripture can be found at Mark 14:3-9.

Later this afternoon or tomorrow, I’ll share what  came about in today’s hands-on portion.

What Ihave found in the past two weeks and four readings thus far is that we can not only see ourselves in these Gospel women, but often we see the women around us, who encourage us to look at things a little differently and who love and support us. I can only hope to be one of those women to someone else.

Rough Riders

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I’ve been following Aftershock Comics for awhile now. They’re a new comic publisher co-founded by my friend’s brother. Mike Marts has previously edited over at Marvel and DC. I was excited to see this new venture of his and publisher, Joe Pruett.

I immediately signed onto their Facebook, and saw this come up on my feed at the same time my middle son was begging me to read some comic books with him.

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I asked my friend if Adam Glass, the writer credited on the cover was the same Adam Glass who’s writing I’ve loved for so long on the CW’s Supernatural, and was given a resounding YES! My family was so excited to buy me a comic book that we immediately popped over to our local comic shop on Sunday afternoon as soon as church ended, and picked up a copy.

My son seems to think this is my first comic book. It’s not. When I was a kid, I read Green Arrow, Star Trek, and even own a collector’s copy of the Death of Superman. One of my husband’s first gifts to me while we were dating was a signed copy of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.

In issue 1 of Rough Riders, we meet Teddy Roosevelt and Jack Johnson. By the end of this introduction, they’re on their way to add Harry Houdini to their group. Yes, my ridiculously meta self checked and all of the principals on the cover were alive at the time of the date on the cover – 1898. I think there is a bit of a time travel, but I’m not sure as it’s only just begun.

History, Steampunk, and Adam Glass….what could go wrong?!

Congratulations!

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Mondays have been increasingly more difficult for me. They come too quickly and our Sundays tend to run late with the Walking and Talking Dead series. I will try to be better prepared to have something to share on Mondays, but in the meantime, today happened to be a pretty great day for the cast and crew of Hamilton and for Lin-Manuel Miranda in particular.

In addition to the well-deserved accolades, awards and upcoming expectations of Tony Award acknowledgment, today it was announced that Lin-Manuel Miranda was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Hamilton.

Three cheers for him. Well done, sir! Well done!

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A Surprise from the Pulpit

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I wrote this soon after the mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, and shared it on my Facebook page. I wanted to also share it here.

Whenever the topic of abortion comes up in a church setting or with church people, I tend to hold my breath. I don’t know how many people are aware of my pro-choice stance. If asked, I try to be clear that I am for women’s reproductive rights in all the forms that women choose to use them. My most vocal place is probably on my Facebook and Tumblr, and no one from church, save one, is on Facebook or knows about Tumblr at the moment. That’s not to say I’m hiding my beliefs, I don”t think I do, but that’s how it’s been.

I had been looking forward to our Bishop as presider of the Divine Mercy Mass a few weekends ago. When I entered, I was handed a song-sheet and offered a relic to venerate, which I did.

I was early so that I could participate in the recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, before the start of Mass. I find those group chaplet recitations and rosary prayers very moving.

The Mass went as it usually does except that it was the Bishop and there were four other priests in attendance plus the deacon. It gives the feeling of something special; not that each liturgy isn’t special in its own way, but the larger group of religious gives it a certain presentation. We have a really good music ministry and they are always outstanding and were on this day as well.

When the Bishop began his Homily with a reference to an unnamed political candidate who proposes punishing women for abortions, I cringed. I could feel my body tense up. I didn’t expect him to endorse this candidate. It also wasn’t because I expect my clergy to come out and talk about pro-choice or reproduction in any way that is not Catholic doctrine. This is something I accept within the church. In the particular case of my priest, he’s never brought abortion up in a political way; only as part of the prayer of the faithful for life, from conception until natural death, etc. with the exception of promoting 40 Days for Life. I usually add my own two cents of prayer silently to include all those who I feel should be included, and who are most often excluded – the women in their most difficult moments.

So when the Bishop brought up Donald Trump, not by name of course, I held my breath.

He talked about how that isn’t the way we should be thinking about the women who have abortions. He never once mentioned preventing abortions, banning abortions, birth control, adoption, none of it.

What he talked about was how we focus on the baby and we should be focusing on the women. He also used the word women, not mother. He talked about how women have their reasons for abortions and when they have them, we need to support them. Whether it’s their choice or their only choice, we need to show them this compassion we talk about. Real pro-life people don’t tell these women that they’re going to hell or that they’ll be punished. Real pro-life people are there for the women after their abortions and without judgment.

I’ve never heard such a pro-choice sentiment from a clergy person let alone a Bishop.

Of course, I know he’s not pro-choice, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone of his stature talk about women using another choice other than carrying the fetus to full term and having the baby.

I was pleasantly surprised on his focus towards the women.

Compassion and mercy are not talking points from Pope Francis; they are a way of living and I for one am happy to see it outside of the media and inside my own parish and diocese.

Among Women

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[Note: This is a repost of yesterday’s. I decided to divide it into two posts – one the actual reflection on the readings and the second to come later this week on the art project and what each item means to me and to the overall design.]

Today was the second of four weeks spent reflecting on women in the Gospel and the Gospel Women in our midst. We begin each week with a prayer, and are given a glimpse of the two women we will be reading about and reflecting on as the week goes by. We think about last week’s two women and then create art as reflection of them. Or, as I hash-tagged it on Instagram, #artastheology.

I often talk about how I use writing in many ways, including as therapy, and as theology, reflection, meditation. I would claim myself not to be an artist, but in the few retreats that I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of led by artist, Brother Mickey McGrath, I’ve discovered a calmness from the act of coloring, and that has led to simple drawings, tracings, and copying. You can see some of my work on the pages of my website. I’ve tried to stop demeaning my art as an example to my son, who has the potential to be a true artist. He has the talent for it.

We’re supposed to reflect on them through the week, but it wasn’t until this morning that I connected to the Bent Over Woman and the Syrophoenician Woman. I sometimes have trouble connecting to parables and the abstract as well as picturing myself in ancient Jerusalem. I can also see things a little too literally. I’m not bent over, so what do I have in common with her? We don’t really know anything else about her.

But I recognized myself in her quiet; her being there, but not there for anyone else, unnoticeable, unimportant. Jesus doesn’t wait until he’s called upon; he takes the initiative, he heals her, and that’s all. It’s done.

With the Syrophoenician woman, she is there for her daughter. Jesus tells her no. She’s not one of his people, and he’s not going to help her. She talks back to him. She tells him, no, you will listen to me. She stays polite, she makes her point, and he rethinks his position. Maybe he admires her persistence, her love for her child; maybe even her impertinence.

This shows me once again that we have the ability to see ourselves in these women. We hear their stories but do we really hear them? How long does it take for us to listen?

There are women throughout the Gospel. Jesus surrounded himself with women; they were his disciples. Mary Magdalene was the first person to report the Good News. Most of the women in the Gospels aren’t named; only a handful of them, and each of them, named and unnamed,  have something to teach us, to show, to tell.

These four weeks are opening our group up to us as Gospel women and reminding us of the women in our midst who embody the Gospel, Jesus’ words, His Word, and his example.

When we were “dismissed” to begin our art project, we were introduced to the items we could choose from. How will our art reflect the two readings (The Bent-Over Woman and The Syrophoenician Woman) and how are we reflected in them and with the art items?

Piles of letters, feathers, fabric, words, magazines. All things that look like nothing until we choose what appeals to us, and make it into something of our very own. No formal direction, no preconceptions, just letting the spirit work.

One of the items I chose were puzzle pieces; they were there to represent that everything fits together,  it is all connected and interconnected, and after I decided on them, I remembered my words on my prayer bead: Connect, Interconnect.

It really is all connected.

[NOTES: The Bent-Over Woman (Luke 13:10-17), The Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:24-30)]

Last Day on Earth (TWD Meta)

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SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS

Includes spoilers for season 6 (and previous seasons) of The Walking Dead and speculation on character deaths as well as plot points for Season 7. Read at your own risk.

With tonight’s premiere of The Walking Dead’s companion show, Fear the Walking Dead’s second season, I thought I would give you my take on TWD’s sixth season finale before we sat down to enjoy the beginning of the apocalypse, this version on the opposite coast.

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