I’ve only been to church a few times in the last nine months. I miss it, yet when I go to regular services, I wish it were different. Since taking part in this new creation, I want now more than ever to hear the feminine honored in church.

When I worship in community, I want to hear “Mother”’ as much as I hear “Father.” (I believe this would make a significant difference in how women are regarded politically, in this country and around the world. But that’s a topic for another day.)

Early in pregnancy and after reading Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, I had a dream that the Mother Goddess, wearing khakis, came to visit me. In the dream I felt torn, as if I were abandoning the Christian God for the Mother. Doesn’t the all-encompassing entity I believe in include the Mother?

Some have said to me, “What a shame you can’t get past the words.” Yet the words I speak aloud in prayer or proclamation are important to me. Authenticity, especially in my relationship with God, is my lifeblood. It’s made me wonder if most others believe God is male or the words just don’t matter to them. I acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth was a man. But beyond the span of that individual life, I don’t know. I hope Jesus Christ, the representative of God, is something entirely larger than mere male or female.

For Christmas, my brother-in-law gave me the New Zealand Prayer Book, an Anglican Book of Common Prayer that is intentionally and respectfully gender neutral. In the introduction, R.G. McCullough writes:

“We have gradually been compelled in our pilgrimage to start searching for ways to address God in language which is other than masculine and triumphal… Even new words are only a vehicle for the worship of God, so that we might reach for the things beyond the words in the language of the heart.”

My spiritual unmooring isn’t just about church liturgy. During pregnancy I’ve had to surrender control over my body to the mystery taking place inside me and to look there for God. During the first five and a half months of growing this baby, nausea kept me off my yoga mat, a sacred place that had previously helped me stay grounded and calm in my daily life. Once the nausea went away, I was able to resume a new kind of practice surrounded by 15 other round-bellied women one evening per week. Especially now that my days are quite busy preparing for my maternity leave from work, I’ve needed the permission to go within and connect with myself and with my baby.

I’ve been working on this posting for months, wondering all the while when it would say what I meant to express. I had a sense that I shouldn’t post it until after the recent WomanKind conference – a glorious, deeply meaningful day of 500 women exploring and celebrating their faith and their questions, led by wise female clergy and lay volunteers. Even while worrying about the impact of my changing spiritual places and practices, I’ve consistently felt protected by a power greater than myself and I knew that the day would hold answers for me.

Reverend Lauren Winner, Assistant Professor at Duke Divinity School and author of the beautiful Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, surmised in her closing WomanKind sermon that perhaps God was saying to us through the Exodus story, “You have already done more than enough. Now I simply want you to be with me.” Perhaps I’ve done enough in pregnancy simply by being a vessel for this Divine new creation. Perhaps now I can just be with God for the last weeks of this spiritual, physical and emotional journey.

Thankfully, when I meditate in the morning, God always shows, sits with me, and says to me, “It’s all going to be OK. I love you. I love that baby. I’m right here.”

This journey of pregnancy is almost over. Two more weeks to wait seems very long, though, now that my belly is big, my walk is slow, and my muscles ache. Yet there is still fat to add to my sweet boy’s body, cells still to develop in his brain, and tiny lungs that need more time to practice before they take their first breath of air.

Ten years ago, I took a Zen writing and painting workshop. During class, I drew an ink painting of a mother’s pregnant belly with a round melon-like baby inside. Along the curve of the belly, I inscribed a quotation from the Zen Buddhist teacher Dogen that reads “You should understand the meaning of giving birth to a child.”

I don’t yet, but I believe I’m on my way. When it comes time, I’m excited for my God-designed body to take over and birth not only a son, but a mother, a father, a family and a new way forward.

I’ve just returned from my niece’s 13th birthday celebration in Portland. Let me tell you, 13 is the new fabulous! It brings me such delight to be in Libby’s company. I could listen to her wise, funny and poignant thoughts on life for hours. She is perceptive, inquisitive and completely accepting. She generates pure joy.  

Her hugs last forever and she’ll still hold my hand when walking off the soccer field after a winning game. She she says things like, “I meditate in bed. I like to embrace the last few moments before I wake up,” and, “I love spending Sundays with Aunt Eleanor and Nanny Kathleen.”

Because she inspires me so with her genuine spirit and unique style (notice feline socks with flowered ballet flats in picture above), I’d like to say a word on behalf of teenage girls for I believe they routinely, unfairly, get a bad rap. Adults label teen girls as “difficult.” We approach them anticipating angst, closure and disregard. If that is what we expect from girls, that is the dynamic we will create.
 
For several years, I’ve been a part of Girls For A Change, an organization that respects girls for exactly who they are. I’ve seen many a girl, including those from challenging circumstances, blossom upon realizing that an adult genuinely cares about what she has to say.
 
As most of you may remember, it is damn hard being a teen girl – on the inside and the outside. Trying to be cool is usually masking painful insecurity. Our society doesn’t make it easy for girls to feel at peace with themselves. Among the twisted messages girls receive about their value, or lack thereof, are this week’s display of young women’s bodies in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and yet another Nicholas Kristof report of a young girl being repeatedly gang-raped in the Congo. 

Last night I listened to a Rob Bell sermon on those who hunger. In it he conveys that we are blessed IN the confusion, screw-ups and pain of our lives, not just when we finally “get it all together.”
 
I hope it is not the case, but if your heart is hurting this holiday season and your dreams are taking a whole lot longer than you’d like, I hope you’ll hang in there and let the ache transform you.
 
The mess is blessed. It’s ok to be here. Something good is happening.

Now, I love being on the feminine side of the spectrum and you know I love digging deep into all that that entails. I love my girlfriends; I love the women who participate in the Women’s Circle.

Sometimes, however – oft times I should say – a gal needs some masculine energy to help hold up the fort. Whether from a man, another woman, her own self or… from Target! And that’s where I found mine this week. In the form of… a watch.

After five years without one, I worried that it would stress me out or cramp my style (the oh-so-flattering style of perpetual lateness!) However, a miraculous thing occurs every time I put it on… I relax! I breathe. I unclench. I feel held within the simple structure this little $14.99 hottie provides for me. Structure that allows me to come undone within its walls.

A few years ago, I participated in a women’s yoga retreat with Sofia Diaz. Because we finished each evening an hour or so past schedule (I didn’t mind because I love her!), mid-way through, Sofia bought a zen clock to help her keep time. She called it her husband.

I really love that we don’t have to do it all. We don’t have to be all of what we need. We can do our part and then we can rely on simple things like a watch or on wondrous things like our partner or a Higher Power.

I’m happy to hold that structure for you each or any Monday in the Women’s Circle. Treat yourself to a 2-hour exploration of what it is like to feel deeply as your feminine self while someone else watches the clock.

“Women constitute 50% of society, but please, we should not forget that they raised the other 50%.” - Shaika Lubna Al-Qassimi, the first woman Cabinet Minister of the United Arab Emirates
 
After I finished laughing, I realized the huge impact we have on the next generation by who we are as women today. 

On this Father’s Day where we celebrate the good men in our lives, I want to ask, how am I and how are we as women showing up for the other 50%?

What will my nephews know about women from the way I love them and from who I am in their presence and in the world?  What will your colleagues know about women from the way you lead a Board Meeting or manage your staff?

How do we show up for our boyfriends and husbands in love one minute and in a fight over his socks on the floor the next? What will all of those not-quite-right dates remember from the way we said goodbye?

What do I show my father about the woman I’ve become when he still remembers a 6-year-old needing his hug and a 16-year-old needing (but not quite wanting) his loving guidance?

I think it is worth exploring and practicing how we want to show up for this other 50% whom we love, lead, follow, learn from, partner with, raise, give to and send on their way.

For ourselves and for others, this is what we help each other do in the Women’s Circle.

My Dad and I in 1970

I’ve heard that our heroes are our heroes because they embody some aspect of ourselves whether we realize it or not. My current heroes include the kind, spiritual and principled President Jimmy Carter and his work with the Carter Center, the kickass, outspoken Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, wicked smart Rachel Maddow, and the coolest, most transparent First Lady to ever hit the planet! I’m not comparing myself (yet!) to these amazing peeps, however I think there is a theme amongst them – they are all courageous, original and hugely impactful in their own way. I would love to be the same.

One of my favorite yoga teachers in Richmond, Karen Hansen of Yoga Wabi Sabi, often ends class with the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya” which loosely translated means, “Salutations to that which I am capable of becoming.” Each week it reminds me that it might just be possible – this inkling and prayer I have of believing I could make an impact on the world for girls and women and thus, for everyone. 

And… at the end of each world-saving day, I want to come home. I want to breathe. I want to feel who I am instead of letting my worries or my ego define me. I want to be there for my friends, my sisters, my mom, my man, my children, my God and my self – as Eleanor – stripped of all outer definitions. I want to feel my spirit in my body, to share myself with an open heart and to love with all I have.

God be in my head and in my understanding
God be in my eyes and in my looking                           
God be in my mouth and in my speaking
God be in my tongue and in my tasting               
God be in my lips and in my greeting                        
 
God be in my nose and in my inhaling
God be in my ears and in my hearing
God be in my neck and in my humbling
God be in my shoulders and in my bearing
God be in my back and in my standing
 
God be in my arms and in my receiving
God be in my hands and in my working
God be in my legs and in my walking
God be in my feet and in my grounding
God be in my joints and in my relating
 
God be in my guts and in my feelings
God be in my bowels and in my forgiving
God be in my loins and in my swiving
God be in my lungs and in my breathing
God be in my heart and in my loving
 
God be in my skin and in my touching
God be in my flesh and in my paining
God be in my blood and in my living
God be in my bones and in my dying
God be at my end and at my reviving
 
by Reverend Jim Cotter, Prayer at Night’s Approaching

I was struck that the author isn’t asking God to “do” anything for him, rather simply to “be” with him, in every part of him.  

In my life right now I am learning and practicing the concept that my beingness is enough… that I do not need to prove my value, that others can actually feel me more in my being than in my doing.

We’ll be exploring this “beingness” and how to find it in ourselves in the middle of our busy lives in my next workshop “Step Outside the Cubicle” on April 5.  If you are interested, please take advantage of the early bird workshop fee of $65! (valid until March 29) Simply email a note letting me know you are coming.  I’d love to see you.

Click here for more information.