Creating Wisdom Space

Heart of Compassion International

Faith Community

Windsor, Ontario, Canada

 

Word Wisdom Communion Celebration

Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 1 pm, EST

Creating Wisdom Space

 Barbara Billey, priestess

Call to Prayer

W1: Come. Come into this place which we make wisdom space by our presence.  Where the ordinary is made sacred, the human is celebrated, the compassionate is expected.  Together we create a holy womb with our every act of celebration.

(Please mute)

Embodied Prayer led by Barbara Billey

Opening Song

Blessed Be (Chant) by Shawna Carol

All is growing and expanding

Blessed be the Light has come.

And a love that's everlasting

Blessed be the Light has come.

Blessed be.

Burning Bowl Ceremony led by Jen Harvey

Sharing Word and Wisdom

W2: A Reading from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene (Mary 9:29)

"I will receive rest in silence," said Mary Magdalene.

The Inspired Word of Mary. We the people say, Amen!

Psalm Song

Silent Heart, Holy Heart - lyrics by Joanna Novosedlik (adapted by Barbara Billey)

Silent heart, holy heart

Inner Light, inner spark

Holding gently our hopes and our fears

Opening space for our joys and our tears

We are listening now. We are listening now.

Holy One, Wisdom Divine

Live within this womb of mine

Shining ever Your loving Light

Radiant in the darkest night

We are listening now. We are listening now.

W3: A Reading from the Gospel of Luke(Luke 2:16-21)

^15-18 As the angel choir withdrew, the shepherd persons talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the shepherd persons were impressed.

^19-20 Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The shepherd persons returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!

²¹ When the eighth day arrived, the day of circumcision, the child was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.

The Inspired Word of Luke. We the people say, Amen!

Community Wisdom Sharing:

 

Homily reflection followed by sharing of communal wisdom: On what and/or on whom are you pondering?

 

W4: At this time, I invite you to share your reflections on today’s Word. I ask that we do this in a spirit of prayer, and that we share what is in our hearts with a witnessing presence and without cross-talk.  At the end of each person's sharing, I invite you to receive their intimate God in-dwelling truth by placing our hands together and bowing or any other gesture of appreciation, which might include silence.

 

Our Faith

W5: In what and in whom do we believe? (All share)

 

Spontaneous Prayer - For Whom and for what will we pray?

 

Response: Lumen Christi, Opening Doors to Mystery

 

The Prayer of Jesus

Abwoon d'bwashmaya/Aramaic Jesus Prayer

 

Offertory Song

At This Table by Idina Menzel

Liturgy of the Eucharist

Consecrating the Gifts of Mother Earth

W1: Sacred Mystery, Source of Wisdom, You birth all of creation from Your life-giving womb. We come as co-birthers to be impregnated by the gifts of Mother Earth and to remember Jesus the midwife of empowerment and compassion.

W2: Wisdom Jesus, before You died You gathered Your friends, as we gather today, to bless and to share bread and drink.

W3: As Your friends, we long to receive You and to be Your Presence for the wholeness of ourselves and all creation.

W4: We extend our hands over the bread and cup. Send forth Your Spirit Sophia upon us and through Her action, make this bread and drink Your Presence.

W5: Loving Creator, intensify the presence of Your Spirit upon these gifts of earth and created by the loving hands of Your people +, as they and we, become one with You in Wisdom Jesus, Our Risen Christ.

Memorial Meal: Do This in Memory of Me (We raise our bread)

W1: Wisdom Jesus, You asked us to pray the words that You shared with Your companions during that last blessing meal.

W2: Therefore, in communion with many Christian communities over the centuries and since that night, we pray.

W3: Wisdom Jesus, You took bread and spoke a blessing. You broke the bread and offered it to Your friends (We break bread). You said: Take and eat. This is my Presence with You.

(Place bread on plate. We raise our plate, and then lower to table followed by a bow.)

 (All raise cup)

W4: Then, Wisdom Jesus, You took the cup of wine, blessed it and offered the cup to Your friends.

W5: You said: Take and drink. This is the cup of new life given and shared with you. Do this in memory of Me.

(We raise our cup higher, and then lower to table followed by a bow)

Sharing Communion

W1: We are one Body of Christ, worthy to receive You and blessed to be healed by You. May we become what we eat and drink, the presence of You, Jesus Christ and the covenant of all our hopes. We all say: Amen. (We all eat and drink)

 

Post Communion Song

Make Sacred Space (Chant) by Shawna Carol

Make sacred space, and be reminded of who you are.

You are spirit and body.

Sacred space.

Wish of Peace and Final Blessing

W2: With one hand on our hearts, we extend our other hand as we bless one another in Your peace, Jesus, and in the peace of all our ancestors in the Communion of Saints.

W3:  May we embody Your Spirit of Wisdom, especially where there is injustice.

W4: When our personal and communal commitments and struggles are too arduous, take us on Your shoulders and help us to raise each other up.

W5: As you draw us into the future, may we realize through our loving actions Your vision of hope and justice for all.

Announcements

Closing Song  

Om Tara by Chloe Goodchild

Tara is the bodhisattva of compassion and action who manifests in female form, a protector who comes to our aide in order to relieve us of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. The chant begins with AUM (from the Upanishads and considered to be the source of all sound)

 

OM Tare Tuttare

Ture So-Ham

  

Woman of the wisdom tree

Goddess of humanity

Singing all the Unity we long for.

 

Mother of Eternity

Naked in her Mystery

Singing all the Unity we long for.

 

Fierce and gentle, wild and free

simple in her majesty

Dancing in the unity we long for.                                     Red #1 2021-01-02         

 

 

Mass of Resurrection: Rev. Dr. Michele Birch-Conery

 

Celebration of Life: Rev. Dr. Michele Birch-Conery

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/birch-conery-remembered

In Memory of Her: Rev. Dr. Michele Birch-Conery

 

In Memory of Her: Rev. Dr. Michele Birch-Conery

(Aug 3, 1939-Oct 11, 2020)

 

Rev. Dr. Michele Birch-Conery’s earthly life spun round charisms connected to language, storytelling, prayer, and to serving others as a nurse, nun, teacher, priest and bishop.

 

She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1939, on August 3^rd, the feast day of St. Lydia, who made her living dyeing, spinning and selling rare and expensive royal purple cloth. The process like life was challenging. According to the New York Times:

 

“To make Syrian purple, marine snails were collected by the thousands. They were then boiled for days in giant lead vats, producing a terrible odor. The snails, though, aren’t purple to begin with. The craftsmen were harvesting chemical precursors from the snails that, through heat and light, were transformed into the valuable purple dye.”

 

Lydia met the apostle, Paul and, through her conversion, she drew many Europeans to Christianity.

 

Many of us have witnessed how Michele possessed the rare gift of waiting on the soul and of transforming its wisdom into words, into the royal purple cloth of a radical hospitality for difference, and compassionate action for change in systems of oppression and injustice. Some of her favorite sayings were “Patience in the Spirit” and “Holy Spirit back-up plans.” Michele’s faith was well-honed and she had the flare of a true artist. Here is the opening stanza of Michele’s last poem, When Grief Opens the Doors to the Sacred published by Suny Press in Unruly Catholic Nuns: Sisters’ Stories in 2017.

 

When grief opens the doors to the Sacred,

we come to the thinning seasons, summer to Autumn, and then

to winter

when eternity enters our awareness keenly. We diminish

somewhat, within the great spaces

of our universe, while parts of our planet enter a resting and

dying time a fallow time to

prepare, without apology, the renewals of Spring.

Our dying, at any time of year, is like this. It is as if we

see

through to and reach into eternity, even as our bodies

         surrender

to their necessities and then weaken toward the moment

of their last breathing. We are held and embraced by

         spaciousness

Beyond ourselves. It is time we are slowly coming to know

 

Michele’s birth mother was Rose Conery, a single mom. She was fostered by a loving family and adopted at four years old. Sadly, her adoptive parents were abusive of Michele; however, this experience influenced her to become a tenacious diplomat and lover of fun.

 

Michele attended two convent boarding schools and became an accomplished pianist. After high school graduation and work as a nurse’s aide for three years, Michele registered for a three-year (‘59-‘62) registered nurses program at Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary, Alberta.

 

Michele writes that she was “privileged to be class president those three years and delighted in experiencing the tremendous loyalty nurses have for each other, their open-mindedness and excellence in nursing.”

 

After graduation, she worked in general duty nursing at St. Martin’s Hospital in Oliver, BC for a year. “It was a 40-bed hospital and I loved it,” she said, “because I got to do everything. I was generally the ‘in charge’ nurse on whatever shift I worked and I organized staff to attend to a variety of tasks. It was an excellent experience.”

 

At the end of the school year in August 1963, Michele entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (SNJM). Four years later, she completed a BA with an emphasis in Education and taught Grade 7 in Everett, WA for one year, and then grade 10 at Holy Names Academy in Seattle.

 

“By that time,” she writes, “it had become apparent that I was more suited to teaching at post-secondary levels.”

 

Because of her writing skills, in 1970, Michele was invited by the Creative Writing Department at the University of Montana to pursue a Master of Fine Arts Degree in the genres of poetry, fiction and drama. She majored in poetry and completed the degree in 1973.

The following year Michele left the SNJM and Montana for the University of Iowa in Iowa City. For the next 10 years, as she worked on her Ph.D. in English Literature, she supported herself working as a nurse, including several years with the ‘Flying Nurses,’ an organization that provided temporary working assignments to under-staffed hospitals in the U.S.A.

 

In 1985, Michele completed her Ph.D. in English Literature with emphases in Modern British and American Literature, Feminist Literary Criticism and Poetry. It included work on the History of Literature, specifically philosophical and literary criticism of current prevailing artistic practices.

 

In 1985, Michele returned to British Columbia “to make it my home,” she said. Two years later she became a professor of English Literature and Women’s Studies at North Island College in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island (where she lived for twenty years after a reunion with her birth mother). She was involved in outreach by television to the surrounding areas, which included special services to First Nations communities.

 

Michele writes: “I was engaged in TV teaching to the entire province by way of a college network run from the University of British Columbia campus. Of special note is my participation in the province-wide Status of Women Committee for the College system. After several years of intensive meetings and labor, we introduced a sexual harassment policy that was accepted by the college union. As a result, the number of harassment cases dropped to nearly zero.”

 

She retired from North Island College in August 2007.

 

Michele recounts, “It is evident from my numerous nursing assignments that I spread my wings and flew far and wide. Twenty years in the professorate gave me similar experience intellectually, creatively and procedurally. Of special importance was the outreach to remote areas of the province by way of small learning centers and television teaching. “

 

In 2004, Michele was ordained a deacon in a ceremony on the Danube River in an initiative known as Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP). In July 2005, she was the first woman ordained a priest in Canada in a ceremony on the St. Lawrence River. A lot of publicity from the Canadian press followed.  Despite the challenges of chronic illness, Michele established three faith communities on Vancouver Island with members of RCWP. She companioned many of the first women and one man in the program of preparation for priesthood. Michele joined the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP) in 2013.

 

In 2014, Michele moved to Windsor, Ontario where she ministered with ARCWP priest Barbara Billey with the Heart of Compassion International Faith Community, and in 2015, after ten years as a priest, she was ordained a bishop within the same association. Michele's role as a bishop was one of the highlights of her life.

 

In Fall 2019, after the recurrence of an extreme illness with a syndrome from her youth, Michele wrote, “And so I approach the closing of my life with a heart full of gratitude for my life and for the lives of all of you. I send you my heartfelt prayers for lives of peace, hope and justice.”

 

In her last weeks of life, Michele was tended by members of her Windsor faith community and wonderful, local health providers in their Church house in Rhea Lalonde’s apartment alongside the Detroit River. She died peacefully and was received into the fullness of Divine Mystery in Hospice at Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital (the same room in which Barbara’s mother had died two years prior) on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in the early evening of October 11. Rhea and Barbara along with Brittany, a Hospice nurse bathed, anointed and shrouded Michele. After Barbara read Luke 23:44; 24:1-10 (Jesus' burial), a smile appeared on Michele’s face.  She already seemed to be enjoying her new life with our Holy One held in the Cloud of Witnesses and in the Communion of Saints.

 

Special thanks to the women of Heart of Compassion who were intimately involved in the care of Michele for many years and at the end of her life: Rhea Lalonde, Sharon Beneteau, Jennifer Harvey, Marg McCaffery-Piche, Kathy Worotny, Suzanne M, and Barbara Billey. Gratitude, too, for Jeni Marcus, Karen Kerrigan and Sydney Condray, priests with arcwp who kept the prayers flowing in liturgy and outside, as well as the prayers, support and love rendered by members of our international women priest movement.

 

Michele’s Mass of Resurrection will be on Sunday, Nov 1, 2020 at 2 pm by Zoom. 

 

Written by Janice Sevre-Duszynska and Barbara Billey, priests ARCWP from information dictated by Michele last year to Marg McCaffery-Piche.

 

Michele’s memoir, Bird Woman: Memoir of a Migrant Mystic, will be published posthumously in 2021.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Dr. Michele Birch-Conery, Bishop ARCWP: She Rises Again

 Michele Birch-Conery, Bishop ARCWP: She Rises Again by Barbara Billey, Heart of Compassion Faith Community, Windsor, ON, Canada 

Michele Birch-Conery, Bishop ARCWP

Hers is a story of biblical proportion. After two years of roller coaster health crises and rebound recoveries, Michele Birch-Conery, bishop arcwp escapes near death once again. This time the trajectory of her resurrection is much different both on the physical and spiritual plane.

Michele was admitted to a long-term care facility in December 2019. The decision was made on an emergency basis, a choice between Hospice and long-term care. Michele's health had significantly deteriorated after a recurrence in August 2018 of a childhood genetic condition called cyclic vomiting syndrome. The pain that accompanies such a condition is dire and often lasts for several days. Michele had to be hospitalized for dehydration and electrolyte imbalances several times since then. Nonetheless, she continued to serve in her capacity as a bishop with arcwp, sometimes teaching us how to pastor, advocate, and collaborate on her behalf through her physical challenges. The justice work of advocating for an elder as her power of attorney from the "outside" was another learning curve for me. 

By the fall of 2019, Michele's health was severely compromised. She wanted to die but was not convinced (nor her medical team) that this would happen in Hospice's mandated time frame of three months. On admission to long-term care, neither Michele, nor any of us, in the Heart of Compassion Faith Community (HOCFC) had anticipated the coming of the covid-19 pandemic.

Initially, our visits and her outings with us made the harsh realities of living in long-term care doable for Michele, until persistent lockdowns and isolation from residents became the norm starting in March 2020. Her lack of freedom was exacerbated by hearing loss and an inability to see. How does one navigate a world where the voice of caregivers is muffled in a mask and the barrier of a plastic shield? Human contact was further impaired because the majority of residents with whom Michele lived had advanced dementia or other physical disabilities that made communication challenging.

In her usual easy-going manner, Michele used these early months as an opportunity to hone her contemplative prayer life and to work on her memoir by phone with me. As  Spring turned to Summer, the hopes of the pandemic ending were nowhere in sight.

An ordained person wherever we go, Michele recounted to me by phone one morning that Harvey, a resident she had befriended had died. She had been matched at meals with Harvey, who apparently talked the entire time, while she listened intently. Michele told me that at the end of every meal, unaware of Covid -19 restrictions about touch, she and Harvey shook hands. They had become friends over the past three weeks. On the morning of Harvey's death and before his body was taken away, Michele slipped into his room and gave him a blessing.

In early July, I could feel in Michele's voice that her spirit was waning. I asked, "What's important to you now?" "I spend every part of my day trying not to go insane," Michele replied. The social isolation was dreadful for her. I felt my heart sink with sorrow and knew that we had to get her out of there. Michele was more than willing.

And we did. Rhea, an eighty-two year old mother of six adult children, a retired psychiatric nurse and a member of HOCFC enthusiastically agreed to have Michele live with her. "It's the right thing to do," remarked Rhea. Other members of our faith community were overjoyed that Michele would be released. We all had missed her deeply. They agreed to help with food preparation, visits, appointments and the move. I secured community health support services and a wonderful medical doctor. Our arcwp priests from Michigan, Jeni Marcus and Karen Kerrigan offered our zoom celebrations, prayers and moral support.

Ordination Anniversary Celebrations

On the occasion of our priestly ordination anniversary celebrations on July 25th (near the Feast of Mary Magdalene) - Michele's 15th and my 5th - about thirty people from all over the world joined on Zoom with our faith community. We hosted our Word Wisdom Communion gathering to renew our commitments and to reflect on the many graces Sacred Presence had bestowed up on us. From her room at the long-term care facility, Michele offers us this wisdom.

"When I think of all of you doing studies about Mary Magdalene, nothing should be more relevant to our times. I think of Mary Magdalene teaching the apostles about what Jesus shared privately with her, as well as preparing them to continue their vocation as teachers of His Way.  She is a woman of our times. If there is any one person significant to those of us ordained as Roman Catholic women priests it is Mary Magdalene. I suggest she be named the patron saint of our movement. I see Mary Magdalene as someone who always maintains the peace, while being quietly vigilant about the needs of her companions and of the people of God. She was disappeared as have been many women of the Church. In her reappearance through contemporary feminist theologians and authors, her significant brings us hope for the future of women in the Church."

Michele Birch-Conery, bishop arcwp

On July 30th, Michele burst through the doors of the long-term care facility wearing a hot pink blazer, pushing her wheeled-walker. This was the first time outside of the building in six months. We happily travelled the twenty minutes to Rhea's apartment on the river where Michele would now live. Like the story in John's Gospel of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44), our Michele - wisdom elder, bishop and spiritual mentor - was returned to us and to herself.

 

As You Draw Near to Us - Ordination Anniversary Celebration Barbara Billey, priestess

Barbara Billey and Michele Birch-Conery, mixed media

This is what Jesus tells Mary Magdalene in a visionary encounter with him. "Where the mind is, there is the treasure (Gospel of Mary Magdalene 7:4)." 

My call to priesthood was birthed in an unexpected way. This sacred invitation came in the summer of 2010 following a worship service at an Episcopal Benedictine Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan. I was at the end of a ten-day silent retreat at nearby GilChrist, a contemplative retreat centre where I had gone for many retreats over the previous five years. I was getting into my car for the drive home to Windsor, Canada when a kindly man, likely a pastor on retreat, approached me with a question, "Are you a priest?" I was shocked that he would see me this way and I told him I wasn't one. In my heart, I heard ‘But I want to be.’ With this awareness, I felt a deep stillness and calm. When I arrived home, the joyous madness began as I shared this new vision with my husband, family and friends. 

For me and for people who know and love me, the call to priesthood was inconceivable from its conception. My childhood play with friends did not include acting like a priest,  distributing cookie wafers for hosts or juice for wine. Although, I was educated in Roman Catholic (RC) schools, went to Mass every Sunday, and briefly, in my late teens, contemplated a consecrated life as a woman religious, I never dreamed of becoming a priest. How could I? I am a woman.

I wasn't interested in parish council, liturgical music or any other ministries of the Church; however, I sporadically was a minister of the Word and Eucharist. I was not an avid Bible reader who was drawn toward theology. I certainly was not a justice worker or activist. I was a psychotherapist with a passion for the soul life of persons and all forms of art, especially dance. I identified, as did many of my generation and younger, as "spiritual not religious." I went about my life being the best person I could be based on the values of love and care that my family and the Church had taught me.

In my youth and early adulthood, I enjoyed Mass at Blessed Sacrament Church where I was baptized and where I received all the Sacraments. The liturgy, especially the music and prayers, sometimes the homilies, inspired me. Probably like most RCs, my mind would wander. I was fulfilling my weekly obligation, because to not attend was considered a sin, even in the late 60s and early 70s of our post-Vatican Church.

My parents would drive my younger siblings and me from our middle-class, white neighborhood to where the Church was located in one of the poorer sections of the city. I really liked the priests, especially Fr. Joe who would rant about the latest bishop edict that didn't fit his notion of living Gospel values. My friend, Joanna was a music leader there. Fr. Joe was open to her subversive and frequent attempts to thread the Feminine Sacred through the music and liturgical movement. He rarely wore a chausable, most often baggy, cobalt blue sweat pants underneath an alb.  

Many good friends have been and currently are women religious and male priests. My passionate interest in the life of the soul and Buddhist practices held my attention more than my involvement in the Church. I was binary: Buddhist-Roman Catholic. In fact, there was a period of time in my 40s when I was so angry that women weren't included in positions of leadership that, in a radical act of defiance, I spent my Sundays walking in the cathedral of the forest near my home. At that time, I left corporate life as an Executive Director and for ten years, Pat St. Louis, a Sister of St. Joseph and I created a business called WellnessWorks. We facilitated retreats, programs or workshops that integrated spirituality, creativity and psychology.

You can imagine how a call to priesthood in the RC Church would have been a dramatic turn that upset the status quo of my comfortable life and of those who loved me. The push back from family and friends was unexpected. Although he did not object to me being a priest, my husband, Ken, in following his own truth, could not in good conscience attend my ordination. He thought I should work for reform from the inside of the Church. My mother told me I should not go ahead with ordination since my husband was not supportive. They were accustomed to my various changes, but this time I had gone too far. Some persons in my spiritual circles deemed my choice as a regression; the RC tradition was fraught with patriarchy and pedophilia. One person called it a cult. All they could see was the confinement of my free spirit by a roman collar around my neck. 

"Where the mind is, there is the treasure (7:4)." In the Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the mind, in Greek philosophy and culture, was considered to be the heart. Follow my heart, I did. I was ordained Saturday, July 25, 2015 soon after the feast day of Mary Magdalene.

If becoming ordained an RC woman priest wasn't enough, living out this calling has been another animal, an elephant. There are many mountains to climb and as far as I know elephants don't climb mountains.

One of the harshest realities of ordination has been the loss of friends who left the RC Church because of patriarchal structures and abuses of women, children and persons who are LBGTQIAS+. Even though our faith community offered a refreshing new interpretation of our tradition, sadly, they were adverse to such an extent as to not be able to reconsider. My hopes were also dashed when only a handful of the 130 people who attended my ordination chose to continue on as a faith community.

As I plod the mountain trails, I discover many learning curves. Some of the requirements of my vocation:

·   1. To be current on global and Vatican politics and to bear the heart-breaking inherent injustices of God's beloved creation;

·   2. To recreate liturgy and Word to be a contemporary expression of Divine Mystery in a model of priesthood that embraces Jesus' values for equality, justice and empowerment. One where feminist, liberation, and evolutionary theologies are core our liturgies and ministries;

T 3. To acquire a third graduate degree, a doctorate in ministry, in addition to completing a program of preparation;

·  4. To examine in myself and to let go of communication patterns that reek of patriarchy and domination in order to be a model and to not repeat the harm that has been done due to these practices by our patriarchal Church and other sociopolitical institutions;

·   5.  To live out a model of priesthood where we flatten out the hierarchy by sharing power and responsibility;

·   6.  To be a computer geek who sometimes feels hermetically sealed to electronic devices; to balance work and family relationships; and to listen to people who know a lot more than I do and;

·   7.  To shift plans in order to be responsive in the moment to emerging pastoral needs;

·   8.  To embrace and enact with others psyche-altering, untried models of collaboration and consensus ;

·   9.  To endure my and others limits of aging and resources (human and financial) and to take care of ourselves and each other;

·   10. To love and to accept persons who are very different from me, and to collaborate with them in creating innovation in our praying and being;

·   11.  To bear the hurt of family members who show no interest in this essential part of me that is a priest;

·   12.  To wash and iron my vestments and table of worship cloths; with my husband to cook meals and to care for our home (unlike the priests who have their myriad assistants, paid and unpaid);  

·   13.  To be publicly identified by a Church official in the diocese of London administration as "excommunicating myself" because Jesus did not ordain women (Jesus ordained no one);

·   14. To do all this for free; and

·   15. To withdraw from the 24/7ness of this vocation to pray, to rest and to play, and to be with the Holy One who sustains us all in our dreaming and doing. 

Had I known what I was getting into would I have said yes?

Yes, I would have. Why? Because the vistas and views of this elephant-climbing-up-the mountain ordination are stunning. At every turn and around each bend is LOVE. Holy Presence draws nearer to me, sends me mountain-climbers to guide the way that have a lot more climbing experience than me. 

First, there are Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and then centuries of Christians who were persecuted because of their faith. Then there are our foremothers in the women priest movement, women who dared to place their feet on the path to ordination, making the way clearer for those of us who follow. They continue to mentor and encourage us.

There are friends and family who stick by me, especially Ken who is helping where and how he is able to give space for the fuller realization of my vocation as a priest. There is the Sacrament of Holy Orders that holds all this in a spiral of grace. 

Finally, there are members of our local Heart of Compassion Faith Community who are at the heart and soul of our holy machinations and mischievous reclamations of our rightful place at the table of worship and in the wider world.  

You, Sacred Presence raise me up so I can climb mountains. You raise me up to be more than I can be.

And now as You, Sacred Presence draw nearer to us, a new vision of faith community is coming toward us, where we are compelled to creatively embody Jesus' vision of open-heartedness, equality and justice through encounters that empower us in praying and contemplation, in sharing power and responsibility, in welcoming the unwelcomed, and in extending compassionate care to those among us in need.

As You, Sacred Presence draw nearer to us, You dance and sing us into more mad joy. Women are birthing the kin-dom of God into being. In our covenant with You, Divine Mystery we feel ourselves as Your garland of beauty and we are Your delight (cf. 61:5).

One Body, Many Voices by Barbara Billey

One Body, Many Voices by Barbara Billey

Judy Chappus, artist

I'm a poor historian. My mind mostly moves in fast-forward with more ideas that I'd like to manifest than my entire life will allow. My Mom was like this, too. She would ask about our plans for Christmas during our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner in mid-October. Before she died from cancer two years ago, I would ask her to tell me stories about my childhood, but she could only remember a few, like the time I didn't follow her command to stay away from the wringer washing machine (now I'm dating myself).

An ever precocious child, Mom was on the phone with a friend when I decided to see what would happen if I inserted the wet clothes into the wringer, as I had seen her do. Mom heard my screams and came running to my rescue soon after my left arm was being dragged along with the clothes into the vice grip of the wringer. This memory is sketched into my body as a skin graft under my arm. Other than this memory, Mom would usually make general statements like, "You were always ahead of your time: six years old going on sixteen."

As I approach July 1, 2020, the second anniversary of her death, memories of Mom flash into my awareness in unexpected moments or as a visitation by her in dreams in the middle of the night. I feel pleasure in these recollections, sometimes grief and sorrow. I miss her.

In Deuteronomy (8:2-3, 14-16), Moses reminds his people of the hardships they had endured after their exodus from Egypt and the constancy of God with them. He tells them that they cannot live by bread alone, but "by every word that comes from the mouth of our God" (Deut. 8:3 ). In John's Gospel in the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus invites His companions to be nourished by Him: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never thirst again" (6:35). Now as the Word made flesh we are reminded of our encounter with the Divine through Jesus.

Jesus also reminds us, "The person who takes this bread for her food will live from generation to generation" (Jn. 6:58b). Each time we share communion as the Body of Christ we are embedded in generations of tradition. At the epiclesis, we invoke the Holy Spirit to transform bread and wine, fruit of the earth and labor of our hands, into the "real presence" of Jesus, the Risen Christ. We are also praying for change in us. As Jesus did at His last meal with his friends on Passover, we say, "Do this in memory of me" (Lk. 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24). This is a dangerous memory. Why?

There's a wholeness in Sacrament of Word and Eucharist when all are welcome and no one is excluded because of gender, race, nationality, class, education, age, ability or sexual orientation. This is not true of the institutional, Roman Catholic Church. How then, can the "real presence" be present when not all are welcome to be fully present?

For many women and persons who are non-Catholic, non-believers or LBGTQIS+, sacramental events in the institutional Church are occasions for profound segregation and alienation, far from the intended celebration of unity within diversity, as explicated by St. Paul. Our baptism, beginning in the early Church, acknowledges the full potential of women and all persons to live the new life of the Risen One. Through the gifts of Spirit, we fulfill the promise of our Creator as imaging this Divinity in our day-to-day human experience. How is this possible when the patriarchal system in which our sacraments are confected, solely by the privilege of a male priest, makes Word and Eucharist politically and socially oppressive?

If there is one grace from the Covid-19 pandemic it is our longing for connection and community. Zoom technology has afforded us the opportunity to connect in ways previously not possible.

Imagine a community where all persons are welcome as spiritual leaders, whether ordained or non-ordained, believer or non-believer, Christian or another tradition, white or BIPOC, heterosexual or LBGQTIS+. We flatten the hierarchy and denounce clericalism. 

My sacrament of Holy Orders is expressed through being in collaboration with others to create encounters with the Sacred. I call myself a priestess not a priest. I support the empowerment of persons to become their own spiritual leaders. 

Word is shared as scripture, a poem, a song, a video clip or a piece of art. Wisdom is a valuing of all voices in response to the movement of our hearts in relation to the Word. Communion is shared equally by all voices during the entire celebration, especially in the epiclesis and memorial meal, with each person (not only the priest) making the liturgical gestures of lifting bread and cup. Some spiritual leaders may choose to favor an expression of Communion that is different than the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Rite or exclude this all together, under the assumption that when we gather we are symbolically in communion. Imagine the creativity and vast expressions of prayer that will be ushered in by our diversity. This is already evident!

Yesterday, I saw a sign while driving on the expressway. On top and at the bottom of capital letters 'JUNE 27' were the words 'A Miracle'. The smallest word in black at the bottom right corner of the sign was 'Unity'. I had seen this sign elsewhere earlier in the day. I wondered what the scripture reading is for June 27, the afternoon when our Community gathers for our Word, Wisdom, Communion celebration. I was overjoyed to read that Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the One who sent me" (Matt. 10: 40 ). My husband later told me that on June 27 people are asked to put a can of food on their doorstep that will be picked up by volunteers and donated to food banks. Record collections of cans have occurred in other communities where this event has taken place.

We are in miracles now. As we continue to deepen into our vision, I will forever remember this moment in our history as a time of becoming one body, many voices.

The Trinity is Not a Straight Line by Barbara Billey

The Trinity is Not a Straight Line

 Barbara Billey, Priestess  

Trinity Spiral, Barbara Billey, artist

A bat infects a rat with Covid-19. This virus, more powerful than any oppressive political leader who can press a button and blow up nations, has forced us into exile from one another. We are are both self and government imposed into isolation. We are leery to touch people whom we love, masked characters in a drama we didn't construct. We are taken from jobs that provide financial security. We are unable to pray and socialize in ways that nourish us. The simple and meaningful gesture of a handshake, a hug or kiss, can put our lives in peril.

During this Covid-19 pandemic, I appreciate more fully the plight of the Israelites of Hebrew Scripture. As they leave Egypt and cross the barren desert for forty years, they are led by Shekhinah, the Divine Feminine and Presence of God. Shekhinah, the Hebrew Word for dwelling or settling, denotes the Divine Feminine in our midst. She first appears in the Book of Genesis, especially present at certain times and in certain situations of dire hardship and exile. Shekhinah is associated with the wind and the Spirit of Wisdom Sophia, the equivalent of the Holy Spirit in our Christian tradition. Might they have sung as we have today, "(Sing) Wandering and lost in this desert, we behold Your mystery and might, Holy Presence that forms clouds of glory by day and a pillar of fire by night" (Exodus 13:21)?

The Israelites carry Shekhinah in their hearts and within the Ark of the Covenant. She is present during their worship, prayer and study of Hebrew scripture. When the Israelites finally arrive in the promised land, Shekhinah is there, too, including in their synagogues. She is woven into every aspect of their spiritual and religious lives.

"All natures, all forms, all creatures exist in and with one another," says the Savoir, one of his last teachings according to the Gospel of Mary (2:2). In the Gospel of John, Jesus assures his companions that after he leaves God will gift them with the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete - Advocate and Spirit of Truth. How?

"You'll know that I am in God, and you are in me and I am in you (John: 14: 20). Is this new language for the Holy Trinity? In Jesus' knowing, the Trinity is not a straight line: Father, Son and Holy Spirit - two men and a dove.

Jesus evokes the image that we are intimately interwoven; perhaps, three Divine, dancing energies and three voices, as in a helix of DNA or a spiral. Thus, we have many ways to be in relationship with the Divine, and we are an integral part of this Trinity!

Again in the Gospel of Mary, Jesus teaches, "... and they will resolve again into their own roots (2:3)," In this Gospel, "roots" relates to "the good" or our own Divine nature. We see examples of this around the world with the current movement "Black Lives Matter". From an outrageous atrocity - the murder of a black man, George Floyd by a white police officer, we witness all races rising up in solidarity for "the good" on behalf of the unheard and the injustice of racism.

In these times of exile by Covid-19, when all our lives matter, it can seem like nothing is like it once was and will likely never again be. Yet, we can rely on Shekhinah, knit within the configuration of the Trinity, as a stable force who sustains and connects us, who gives clarity to be in right relationship, and who helps advocate for justice, even if this has to be at a safe distance from one another. She will dwell within each of us as love and be with us our journey out of exile!

(Sing) Shekhinah, Shekhinah. Your power enfolds us, surrounds and upholds us. Shekhinah, Shekhinah.