May 2023 – Southwest Conference Blog

Fall in Love

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

Since it’s the season of graduation and we get to hear lots of advice of how to live life, I decided to write my own little speech. It’s simple enough; my advice to graduates and to us all is to fall in love.

Fall in love with yourself, with being a child of God, created in that perfect image. Fall in love with your Creator who formed you in your mother’s womb, knitted you to be just as you are, while knowing who you will be. Fall in love with the miracle shining back at you in your reflection.

Fall in love with the world and its magic of starry nights and changing moons, yellow sun and greening earth. Fall in love with the dry desert soil with its hidden seeds and nutrients, with the tender shoot and thin blades of grass. The cottonwoods and rivers, the rocks and creeks and small speckled eggs of blue birds. Love the breeze that changes things, the drift of clouds across the sky, the lean of blooms on stalks to light. Love the color of things, the way the world turns and breathes and tilts. Fall in love with this round planet with its vast horizons and deep waters, its layers of ash and stone and dirt.

Fall in love with your family, mothers and fathers and embarrassing uncles, your siblings, your spouse and your children, how they all learned your dark secrets and still make a place for you and call it home. For the moment that your beloveds took your breath away, remember that, hold onto it, and never ever let the memory of that moment leave you.

Fall in love with being yoked, with having companionship and friendship, with promises made even while knowing how hard they are to keep. Fall in love with the stuff you build together, the places you go, the dreams you make, the inside jokes that only you know. Fall in love with all of those connected to you because marriage and family and friends are what will hold you up when the earth quakes and everything shatters and they are the ones who sooner or later will have to take your calls. That’s just what they do, so fall in love with that.

Fall in love with Saturday mornings with their chores and games, with church and the silence arriving in prayer, with Thursday night spaghetti and Tuesday’s breakfast cheerios, and the taste of ripe strawberries and the smell of a burger on the grill and the chill of ice cold lemonade sliding down the back of your throat.

Fall in love with the way your body moves, for the delight it feels, the touch of water and sun, the hand caressing yours and the ache in muscles well used, for eyes that see and ears that hear and arms that can hold more than you thought, feet that take you from here to there, your heart that breaks and heals, breaks and heals.

Fall in love with the moments that make you laugh so hard you hurt and the ones you wish you could take away or at the very least, forget. Fall in love with them all because every one of them makes up this life that is yours, this life that is you.

Fall in love with what you have and what you want and fall in love with giving it all away because in the end we discover that it is never the things we own that make us happy. Fall in love with mercy and forgiveness and the unpredictability that is forged within the hours of every single day. With hope and faith. Fall in love with love, the love that makes you patient and kind and keeps you from being rude and irritable or having to have your own way.

Fall in love because all of it, all of this, all of life happens so fast and it is all so meaningful and not, important and not, necessary and not; so that the only thing that really lets you surrender at the end of it all is to know quite simply that you have experienced the sweetest and most thrilling part of what it is all about anyway, but only if you fall in love.

All Shall Be Well: “The Doctrine of Discovery: Hearing and Healing”

by Rev. Deb Church

I’m writing this reflection as I near the end of a travel study seminar offered by the Presbyterian (PCUSA) Peacemaking Program: “Native Lands of the Southwest: The Doctrine of Discovery and Its Legacy Today.”

Now if you find yourself thinking, “The doctrine of what?”, you’re not alone! Lots of people are in that boat, and I was, too, until somewhat recently. As I learn about it, however, I can’t not invite others into the conversation…

In a nutshell, the Doctrine of Discovery, whose roots can be found in a collection of 15th-century papal bulls (i.e., Pope-issued decrees), provided the theological and then legal justification used by European explorers, and later, American settlers, to claim lands that had been occupied by indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and additionally, to either convert or remove (which often meant, kill) those people as needed–or desired.

It’s a part of our country’s history that’s uncomfortable and painful–but true nonetheless. And we who have not learned about it (generally through no fault of our own) are left with an incomplete–and inaccurate–understanding of who we are and where we’ve come from as a nation. And even though none of us who’s alive now did any of those things, our lack of awareness and lack of acknowledgement of them contributes to the ongoing injustice and trauma experienced by Native people in our country. And it keeps all of us–not just our Native sisters and brothers, but all of us–from experiencing true healing and wholeness, as God desires for all of God’s creation!

So, fueled by a desire for greater healing within myself, as well as within our Native siblings, as well as within our country, I joined thirty-four others from fifteen states on the travel study seminar mentioned above. Gathering in Albuquerque last Friday [April 28], we boarded a bus, Phoenix-bound, and embarked on a journey of listening, learning, grappling, and growing.

As we’ve traveled hundreds of miles together through some of the Native Lands here in the Southwest, we’ve had the honor of meeting and hearing from quite a few Native Americans. They’ve shared stories of ancient ancestors and of grandparents, of lands lost and traditions preserved, of passed-down pain and passed-on lessons, of dances and foods and memories and faith, and so much more. Some stories have brought tears, and others, laughter; some generated shame and others, pride; some carried heartache and others, joy.

These Native folks have shared so much, and all they’ve asked was that we listen. That we bear witness. And so we’ve listened. And in listening, we’ve learned. In listening, we’ve been deeply moved. In listening, we’ve been changed. In their sharing and our listening, I hope and pray that we’ve all begun to be healed.

The pain is deep. The pain is old. The pain is real.

Hope and healing and transformation are also deep and old and real…

May what is Holy and Sacred within us and above us and below us and beside us and between us create a space among us where we can bear witness to each other’s pain, and in bearing witness, may hope be born and healing begin and transformation become possible…for all of us and all of God’s creation.

May it be so.

Mothering the World Right Now!

by Kay Klinkenborg, (Church of the Palms member), MA, Spiritual Director, Member Spiritual Directors International, Retired: RN, LMFT, Clinical Member AAMFT)

What is not in turmoil is easier to answer than list what is in turmoil in this world and on Earth. Climate change roaring; wars; politically divided countries; democracies fighting for their life; missing Indigenous women and children; mass shootings; trafficking; institutional and personal racism (in all its forms); addictions; more immigrants in the world than those that have a place to call home and we fear the list will run into eternity or the end of the planet upon which we live. What are we to do?

I reel at times with the realities of destruction, pain, terror I witness in the news. How do I stay centered; stay focused on what my core knows is true: LOVE…the world needs love.

Instantly my feminine energy kicks into gear. Mothering. Creation has been ‘mothering’ since the beginning. God speaks of ‘we’ in Genesis; not alone as Creator. Then other Hebrew Scriptures speak of Sophia, Wisdom; which has been interpreted by highly respected theologians as the feminine side of God.

The Talmud also introduces the term Shekhinah to connote God’s presence in the world. Though the term is grammatically feminine, in the Talmud it is not explicitly gendered, though in some passages it refers to moments when God shares in human experiences of loneliness, loss, and exile.¹

In the case of Jewish thought, grammar at times meets theology in as much as impersonal Hebrew nouns are gendered, so that words like hokhmah (wisdom) and shekhinah (presence) over time lent themselves by virtue of their feminine.¹

In fact, the personal name of God, Yahweh, which is revealed to Moses in Exodus 3, is a remarkable combination of both female and male grammatical endings. The first part of God’s name in Hebrew, “Yah,” is feminine, and the last part, “weh,” is masculine.²

I am pleased that I can attest to many men I know that use ‘mothering characteristics’ in their relationships and interactions. I am not suggesting that this is a woman’s task at all. In fact, I think history and biblical interpretations show us that feminine traits are revered. And our world right now needs that kind of love!.

Remember the famous song: “What the World Needs Now is Love, Love, Love.” One word most will resonant with to describe that is a verb: mothering.

Since the beginning of time…’mothering’…to nurture…to care for…to watch after’ has and does occur. It had to have occurred or evolution would not have sustained, extended or be continuing. As the human species evolves our archeological discoveries tell us that ‘mothering’ occurred. It is nature’s form of care taking, survival of the species.

One major thing I continue to learn and have reinforced: ‘getting out of God’s way’. My instinctual need to control, be in charge is being challenged. I am learning more about the spiritual discipline of surrender. Let God evolve. There is no surprise there is mass turmoil. There have always been pandemics, disasters, wars, a disappearance of life as we understand it. None of this is news. Yes, we live in a more informed world, and more technology but the real truth is human’s are still evolving and every generation has to learn for themselves what is means to be human, to love and have relationships with all peoples and creation. Our ownership that this can happen to us is what is new. This is nature. This is the evolving of life in this known Universe.

I have found myself ‘should-ing’; I should do this; I should say that; I should not be having this fear and anxiety. A sampling of my should list. What about ‘mothering myself’? What about starting there in order to have the energy and compassion to extend to others? If I can have compassion for my own journey/feelings during this extraordinary time in history, will not that enable me to understand/hear and have compassion beyond myself. Then I am ready to extend ‘mothering’.

Only in self-compassion and owning my own emotions in this particular journey will I then have the energy and compassionate response to others to be mothering the world. Mirabai Starr writes in her book Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, “…we need a mothering of the world together right now.” We need that feminine energy that is male and female brought forth to face these challenges.

I want to explicitly point out the fact that women who have not born children… mother; men… mother, It is part of our innate design if we own that part of ourselves. A friend taught me a profound lesson about mothering;

One particularly Mother’s Day, I was quite depressed; estranged from our son and blaming myself for his adult choices. A friend sent me a text that day that knew of the circumstances. “Kay, you have been mothering people your entire adult life. As a nurse, friend, manager, counselor, consultant and the list goes on. So today claim all the mothering you have and do. Let that bring comfort.”

So I am challenging myself as I write to this audience, let my ‘mothering show forth’; let my love be visible and make me an instrument that releases a song of ‘Love, Love, Love…’

Going on without denying any aspect of the human drama is what strength is all about. We are carved by life into instruments that will release our song, if we can hold each up to the carving.
Mark Nepo

^1”Feminine Images of God”: Yehudah Mirsky, Jewish Women’s Archive.

²CBE (cbeinternational.org) (Christians for Biblical Equality). “The Feminine Imagery of God in the Hebrew Bible.” Joan P. Schaupp | October 30, 2000.