Dear Earthlings,
The story of women coming into planetary leadership gives us courage and hope. The most precious gift we can give or receive this year is the gift of a new vision for an ecologic civilization including women in leadership. We are being called instinctually, politically, religiously to save our common home for our children, grandchildren and for Mother's and children of all species. Religious stories of pregnancy and birth are metaphoric and inspire men, women and children to give birth this year to a new vision and hope for the future and our survival. Women with courage, tenacity and creativity in politics, religion, education, justice work of many varieties, locally and globally, mothers, grandmothers, maids, movie stars and midwives coming together to work for our survival as a human species.
The planet is on fire and women are calling 911. We don't care if you are Chinese, American or from Kenya, let's just come together and put the fire out before our children, families and communities burn and die. It is a past time to come together as a human family and dedicate ourselves to saving the living Earth. Maybe it has to be with us women boldly stepping into global and local leadership to make manifest this vision of planetary cooperation including the super powers- China the United States. All global leaders, countries and global citizens are invited at the round table of cooperation for conversation that leads to action to create an ecological civilization.
We need vision and hope more now than ever before and our religious stories provide the needed visionary food to grow and develop. As we give birth to a planetary movement we call upon the Spirits of our brave ancestors to help us. Mother Mary is one such individual and the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of many Mother Mary stories of vision and hope amidst genocide and despair.
Mother Mary like Greta Thunberg, is a teenager with eloquence and wisdom far beyond her age. Mary praises God in the Christmas story and gives thanks to her God, the God of mercy and justice, "My soul proclaims your greatness God......you who have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. You who have filled the hungry with good things, while you have sent the rich away empty." We are called during our planetary crisis to follow in Mary's legacy and join all the justice movements of history working for peace and healthy air, water and food-enough to share with all creatures.
This Sunday we will tell the story of courage, hope and vision--the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Set in what is now Mexico, several hundred years ago, the pregnant Mary comes back in a vision cast as an indigenous Native Indian woman. She gives Juan Diego a powerless regular guy marching orders. There is work to be done she says and if the big shots, the power elite laugh at you, never mind. Never give up. No time to give in to fear and despair or take any of the insanity of the superpowers personally. Our Lady does not give us the option to stop when we suffer rejection and failure. No matter how hopeless things appear she eggs us forward to keep trying. She tells us to make a way when there seems to be no way, to rebuild a community of justice and beauty in the same spot where sacred life has been denigrated by Empire. When we tell this story, her message is not only for Juan Diego, Our Lady is speaking directly to all of us during our current planetary crisis.
We have a planetary emergency on our hands and it is time for women to support one another in leadership. As I continue as co-convenor with Rev. Jeff Wells with a new group working with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. our vision is for the US and China to work together to save our world, and to do this with regular people around the world. I need your support. As the first women to serve my first full time church in New England many years ago, at the time, I was the first woman minister in its then 285 year history. Frankly, it has not been easy to be the first woman minister in all the churches I have served. Perhaps women previously have not supported one another, because we felt we were barely hanging on by our finger nails and wanted to stay included in work places where women had not been allowed historically. Necessity is the Mother of Invention as they say, and during a planetary emergency we all are catapulted into supporting one another in new and radial ways. Let's experiment! I want to support you women out there in leadership. Please call on me and share more about the work you are doing and your dreams and visions for a livable future for our planet. I want to show up for your events, sign up and join your organizations, pray with you on the phone or on Zoom, give you encouragement when you feel depressed and like giving up. We need your support here at Church for Our Common Home and our work with Dr. Cobb and the US China Project and our new project of an Interfaith Secret Prayer Garden at the John Cobb Eco Farm. May we all become like Our Lady of Guadalupe and give one another encouragement. Our story we pray will be like hers and may roses bloom in the desert of our planetary catastrophe.
An awesome woman I am working with on the China/US Project is Audrey Kitagawa. She was the first woman president of the Parliament of World Religions when I meet her in Korea a few years ago, at the first ecologic interfaith conference. She was the key note speaker with Dr. Cobb and gifted us with her grace and wisdom. Her beautiful presence warms my heart for she is a global citizen having worked with the United Nations. She is accomplished, wise, beautiful, gracious and please read more about her organization, Humanity's Team Gregg Braden (humanitysteam.org)
Ceasar Chavez called upon the Spirit of Mary and Our Lady of Guadalupe to guide and protect him in his work for justice for farm workers. We plan to paint a mural on our barn of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Ceasar Chavez as we work for justice for the soil and for people and other living things here at the John Cobb Eco Farm. May our prayers here at our Interfaith Secret Prayer Garden and online prayer practice fill us with fruits of the Spirit; Forbearance and long suffering, Forgiveness and Love of Enemies, Patience, Generosity, Gentleness, Goodness, Peace and Self Control, Kindness, Faithfulness, Joy, Courage and Creativity. May our dreams and visions of an ecologic civilization aka justice for Mothers and children of all species be born this Christmas morning.
Sending love, Bonnie
P.S. Sorry I sent a bad link last time and here is a YouTube as a book end to the video above. Funny YouTube Ad
P.S.S. Our Lady of Guadalupe has inspired justice movements and spirit filled art work for centuries. The image of Our Lady in a tree below is written about in the link below. "This piece, which appeared seemingly overnight during the summer of 2017, is the work of South Bend artist Beatrice Bradley, a 20-year-old junior at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, who is majoring in studio art with a concentration in painting."
Backstory: Our Lady of Guadalupe on the tree | Latest | NDWorks | University of Notre Dame\
C