One of my best friends, Kat, has been my sister since high school. We were raised in the same Evangelical Christian spaces and have walked very similar paths through deconstruction and reconstruction. One of the things we’ve shared over the years is a deep love for the somber reflection the season of Lent offers. We have a tradition of comparing notes on how we plan to observe the season each year. In sharing our plans, we often have found new ideas in each other’s ponderings and from that has sprung some of the richest experiences of faith.
This year, while I was considering giving something up and adding a practice in its place, Kat told me about how the idea of giving something up is not serving her this year. So she went onto our St. Rachel Held Evans’ blog for some ideas and found a suggestion to connect with a saint during Lent by studying and praying for their intercessions. So Kat did some exploring and found herself drawn to St. Margaret of Antioch. When I asked what drew her to this particular saint, Kat told me about how she was disowned by her pagan priest father for converting to Christianity and she went off with her foster mother to keep sheep in peace. Meanwhile, the governor of the Roman Diocese of the East wanted to marry her and for her to renounce Christianity. When Margaret refused, she was tortured and fed to a dragon who swallowed her whole (big Jonah vibes). While in the dark belly, Margaret used a cross to irritate the dragon’s innards and she escaped. Thus she is traditionally depicted emerging from the dragon’s mouth. Kat reflected on how there was something powerful about a woman being swallowed by a dragon but never giving up, holding onto the cross in the belly of the beast; and how sometimes it feels like we’re in the dragon ourselves, and all we can do in the darkness is lean on that cross.
In hearing Kat share these holy ponderings, she gave me the words to describe how I too have been feeling like I’m in the belly of a beast: On a personal level, my experience with depression and anxiety, my body and self image, my finances; on a social level, one of our dear friends who came to the US as a refugee and had to move away from us and go no-contact for her safety; and over all of it, the events that have been unfolding in Palestine while we watch with helpless horror.
This past weekend, I had the absolute joy of co-planning a series of interfaith events featuring the inimitable singer, song-writer, composer, and Torah teacher Alicia Jo Rabins. It was a gift to be able to work alongside my parish priest, my diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, and rabbis and lay leaders from several Jewish congregations and organizations over the past few months. The events were held at a collection of synagogues, my church, and a Jewish community center. The first event I was able to attend was a Havadalah service on Saturday night, at a synagogue whose building was once a church – serendipitously, a transitional sort of Evangelical church that I once attended before joining the Episcopal church. We moved through the Havadalah practice of transitioning from the time of Sabbath to welcoming the week, and then Alicia Jo Rabins led us in a beautiful time of music and midrash – the Jewish practice of creative imagining while engaging text. We engaged with the stories of Hannah, Vashti, and the Proverbs 31 woman, the Eshet Chayil. Alicia led us into our own wonderings of these stories that both Jewish and Christian traditions hold; and she shared her own holy wonderings which she has crafted into poetry and song – her midrash. After going through the story of Hannah, Alicia offered that if anyone while hearing her wonderings felt drawn to a different part of the story and felt a different wondering spring within them, that they too had a midrash within them to share.
What holy, beautiful fire.
It occurs to me, and I wonder, if it is in these communal practices of wondering and pondering that we create safe spaces while we’re in the belly of the beast. This dynamic between community and environment, between people and the situations of fear and oppression they find themselves in, is an age old human experience that has shaped the texts that our religious traditions have held and passed down through generations.
I’m reminded of lyrics from the musical Hadestown: Show the way, so we can see, show the way the world could be. Perhaps, we show the way when we share in community. I wonder, too, if when Jesus said, Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), if when we engage in community, we are showing eachother the way the world could be. If Gd is love and we’re made in Gd’s image and the breath that fills our lungs is the same breath that hovered over the formless deep before time and creation, we get to be co-creators of a more just and equitable society.
We get to show the way.
evergreen vox 