A New Start

I've been thinking about the feminine face of God, and how she seems to haunt me, no matter how I try to "avoid" her. She appears everywhere in my home--on my mantle and especially in my paintings. My mandalas are her gifts to me--it's as if I paint them from her womb. And my other paintings hold her face for me as well.

This is my newest painting--yet unfinished. It's called, She Holds the Key. I have a skeleton key that I'm going to place in the palm of her hand. The idea was sparked by a dream I had many years ago. I dreamed of a garden--lush and beautiful--hidden behind a wrought iron gate. A friend of mine was inside the garden, and I could tell she was contented and happy to be there, but I couldn't find my way in. I was talking to her through the fence. She told me that I had to find my own way into the garden--that there was a gate just for me, and I had to find the key that opened my gate.

Recently, I've been reminded through some of my reading that She may hold the key for me.

It seems strange for me to say that--I've run hard after God, and loved Jesus exceedingly. So this turn in my journey feels "unsafe" in so many ways--yet it has drawn me for nearly five years.

I remember many years ago walking into the chapel at Dickinson Retreat Center and sitting in the back to pray--and looking up to find that I was sitting at the feet of Mary. I felt so safe--that was long before my journey to the Catholic Church.

Even before that, my love was the Bride and the Bridegroom and the partnership with God that spiritual marriage meant.

And I remember the day that Jesus invited Her into my "home" (my heart). I was praying, saying to Jesus, "You are welcome to move into this 'house', rearrange the furniture, make it your place to just 'be'." And I "saw" in my mind's eye Jesus grin and put at picture of Mary the Mother on my mantle.

And it seems She's been there every since--as maiden, mother and crone.

I've found her face in Scripture: the maiden in the face of Solomon's maiden and the face of Mary of Bethany; the mother in the face of Mary, Jesus' mother; and the crone in the face of Mary Magdalene, as she buried the only Jesus she knew, waiting for "something new" to come.

In my forties, I found Jesus' face. In my fifties, I found my own. And now as I enter my sixties, it seems I have an invitation to more fully explore hers.

Blessed be.