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A WORD TO THE VOICES OF SOPHIA FROM THE REV. DR. JANIE SPAHR

INTRODUCTION

Thank you, Mieke, for your wonderful leadership of Voices of Sophia and for your very loving introduction.

Thank you, Susan Craig, for offering your magnificent musical abilities.

Thank you, Barbara Battin for creating a beautiful liturgy.

Thank you, Mary Kuhns and Sylvia Thorson Smith, for creating this amazing organization.

Our dear sister and friend Ginny Davidson could not be with us this year because she broke her hip. I spoke with her last night and how she wishes she could be with us. She sends her love. She is doing better day by day and she says she will be with us in Spirit.

BASKETBALL

It is the “swish” sound of the basketball through the net I think that first stirred me inside - SWISH - and I was hooked on basketball.

As a freshman in high school I would sneak over to the gym in the evening and shoot baskets. There were some nights, the moment the ball left my hands…I could feel the SWISH coming - in she sank. From dribbling to hook shots…I was in tune with my body - my essence - the communion with God was so easy… God, basketball and me.

The mutuality - the team - the passing - the lay up. But it was at night, I would turn on a special lone light in the gym and had my best talks with God and oh how I listened. There was no still small voice…the sound was BIG - yet soft like the SWISH.

In this upper middle class predominantly white (except for international students) Prep School with its ivy-covered brick buildings and manicured lawns, I MET HER.

Yes, one day as I was entering the ivy-covered classroom building, the white wooden door swung open and there she was - her dark eyes pierced into me and I felt known - like I felt when playing basketball - SWISH!

Her name was Annie and in the days and weeks to follow I knew something so beautiful was happening to me and in the evening playing basketball I talked with God about Annie - about the sacred feelings and connection I had with her. These connections were like knowing God in a deeper way. It was in that knowing that Sophia made herself known to me and inside of me. I felt free, alive, ready to do and be me in a whole new way. God, basketball, Annie and me.

As the weeks followed, I overheard friends talking about 2 women who were seniors. I noticed Bebe and Sally - that they too looked at one another in that knowing way. The way that made me tingle inside - like Annie and me. Then the talk began. The quiet whispers, a word I hadn’t heard…they are homosexual, they are dirty, they are bad.

I began to whirl inside. What was this? What were others saying? And in the weeks to follow Sally and Bebe were invited - yes, escorted out of our school.

The cacophony of sound outside - all the noise outside seeped into my insides and the sacred connection, the big sound, began to become smaller. I felt a sense of desperation. I couldn’t feel or hear her in me and I became suspect to myself. What I knew to be true was shattered and I feared myself with Annie.

No longer going to the Presbyterian Church where I taught Sunday School to 1st graders each week, but racing to the local Roman Catholic church - in the quiet - the candles flickering, I prayed…help me godde…how can this be happening? How can anything so good be seen as bad or wrong? But the outward sounds snuffed out my inner one and it wasn’t until I was 38 that two little boys and their Daddy coaxed me back to life once again. The SWISH sound came back into my life. Once again I could feel and hear. I could breathe deeply. I let Sophia in again…SWISH…the deepest crevices shut off were healing. I was coming back and my lesbian self honored by two little boys and their father, began to flourish - and surely as I am standing here before you Sophia said to me “WELCOME HOME TO YOURSELF” and the church said, “Go away.”

From that time onward Sophia has invited me into places and ministries I would never have dreamed possible. From that time onward with a sense of peace in my core, a hermeneutic of suspicion to challenge economic disparity, to challenging environmental disaster. A critical view from my social location as white and therefore privileged caused me to see caste systems and hateful prejudice. I was ravenous to read - to think critically - to live differently.

When did Sophia first visit you? When did you feel her and know her? What happens to us when Sophia rises within us, calling to us to come into the open air - to come to the city gates, to the highways and by ways of our lives - calling us out into what is really going on, calling us forth to dig deeper?

In Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone, as a little girl is raised in slavery, the man who owned her, the man who taught her to read and write, the man who traveled with her who took her everywhere, the one who schooled her, HIS WOMAN, she says this about him,

“R wants to marry me. He asked me on bended knee, and I would have been honored except he wants us to live in London and he wants me to live white.

I crowed at that. I laughed so hard not a tear came. He couldn’t understand it. I don’t often think on how white I look; it has always been a question of how colored I feel and I feel plenty colored. He said no one in London will know I’m supposed to be colored. I said I am colored - colored black - the way I talk, the way I look, the way I do most everything, but he said you don’t have to be. At last that explained everything.

You’ve got to be in your skin to know. It is not in the pigment of my skin - no, it is not the color of my skin - it is the color of my mind, and my mind is dark, dusky, like a beautiful night. I cannot go to London and forget my color. I don’t want to - not anymore.”

Sophia Wisdom - the way of knowing she who is who call us out through our pain, through the oppressive systems into new knowledge. It is tasting, touching, feeling the freedom. It is the voice so small that grows louder and louder inside, your heart racing - OUT OF THE ABUSE, OUT OUT OUT.

Simple fools, Simple fools, she cries us through our tears - her tears into communities of healing and wholeness.

Another person whose life was changed by Sophia is Terry Tempest Williams, writer and naturalist who juxtaposes the progression of her Mother’s breast cancer and death with the perilous rise of the Great Salt Lake that endangers the wild life there. What happened to this Mormon woman searching for her soul? She says,

“Once out at the lake, I am free. Wind and waves are like African drums driving the rhythm home. I am spun, supported and possessed by the Spirit who dwells here. The Great Salt Lake is a spiritual magnet that will not let me go. Dogma doesn’t hold me. Wildness does - a spiral of emotion. It is ecstasy without adrenaline.”

Today this presence she calls Holy intuition, the Gift of the Mother. She says,

“My prayers no longer bear the proper masculine salutation. If we could introduce the Mother body as a spiritual counterpoint to the Godhead, perhaps our inspiration and devotions would no longer be directed to the stars, but our worship could return to the earth.”

Her physical mother is gone, but her spiritual Mother remains. She says, “I am a woman rewriting my genealogy.”

To make our way in and through our Traditions, to question, to reimagine, to rethink, to re-feel, to reclaim who we are, to feel and know Sophia in us and through us… How do we live knowing we are called into a world of commodities of buying and selling? Where bigger is better? Where multinational Corporations run our governments? Where the color of our skin characterizes us as less than? Where the global village is war torn, wounded and run by patriarchal systems of power over relationships? How do we live when we become awake? When we become conscious?

We begin by asking questions. We begin by challenging from our lens and social location. We organize. We begin where we are. We begin here and there. What coalesced inside of me - inside of you - inside of us when Sophia asked, “What will you do now that you know?”

For in fact if Jesus is the Sophia of Godde - is the Wisdom of Godde - then what he did and how he lived was to challenge oppressive systems in which he, too, was challenged by his own racism - challenged by a woman - do we remember?

Who challenges you and me? Who do we read? Eizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Johanna Bos, Dolores Williams, Katie Cannon, Letty Russell, Joy Harjo, Anna Maria Isasi-Diaz, Kwok Pui-Lan, Beverly Harrison?

For me in the inner city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the city where I was raised, Wanda Graham Harris took this well-read white privileged woman and taught her first hand about racism, classcism, ageism, sexism, from her social location. From the streets of Hazelwood in a “changing neighborhood” where hunger and poverty seeped under the doors, where violence lived inside and outside the homes, when absentee fathers and head of household mothers tried to raise their children in a system that was breaking up family and community. It was the city where I was raised. This was a different part of the city where I was told, “Don’t go there, you will be hurt, you will be raped.” But Evie Holmes, a neighbor, called me on the phone and said, “Don’t tell your mother I told you but there is a an opening in Hazelwood and you ought to apply. Don’t tell your mother.”

I was so glad to get that call. Women couldn’t find jobs in ministry, not hardly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This was a nibble and I was going to find out and see for myself. So, Jim and our two sons, Jim and Chet, drove to Hazelwood in time to meet Wanda and her family dousing out a fire around the garbage cans in the back of the church. Kids were meddling here,” she yelled, “Come on in.” My boys went to play with her sons and Jim and I sat in her office and she told us about Hazelwood Presbyterian Ministry.

I knew Sophia - I met her in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You know nothing about being poor - oh you read about it, and you may think you know, but come with me.” She took me to the streets, to the projects, to the schools, side by side we worked through summer programs with black and white city youth on the streets and on retreats, praying from our guts. After the third month - a note was slipped under my door. Welcome to my world, Janie Spahr.” I am reminded here of a saying “If you come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

And so we did. This naïve, liberal white privileged young Mother Preacher went to graduate school in life experience. No longer naïve. Sickened by how racism and classcism devastate a community. We went to work. Wanda mentored me. lways use your privilege for good.” So I learned. I learned to ask for money. I told the carpenters and electricians that it was for the good of their souls to help us out because it was a matter of justice and kindness, yes, because of the faith of Wanda Graham Harris and the presence of Sophia in every justice act we did, I grew up with knowledge deep in my bones.

“There are no children in this church Reverend,” said Mrs. Lamp. Well, Mrs. Lamp, I understand your children have moved away, but there are 75 African American children downstairs in our classroom every Sunday. These are our children, Mrs. Lamp.” It’s a changing neighborhood Reverend.” Yes ma’am,” I said, “and aren’t we the luckiest that we can live into that change?” She smiled at me - at 89 years old - “I like you” she snapped. I like you, too, Mrs. Lamp. Well, when you put it that way about the children, we ought to be glad they’re here.” Yes ma’am,” I said, “we are glad. You ought to stop by next Sunday and see for yourself.” It’s hard for me to get up and down these stairs” but sure enough, she came to see for herself - gave me a wink, she did.

By August, Jim had been let go - fired. Wanda and I sat on her screened in porch. You’re going to a big white church when you move from here.” No way,” I said, “I love the inner city. You’ve taught me so much. I’m scrappy now. I want to be here.” NO, I’ve seen where you are going to be,” she said. Now don’t be pulling all the God stuff with me,” I said. Now listen,” she said. You are going to a big white suburban church. When you go there, I want you to tell them what you learned here so they understand and then I’ll come and I’ll know how well you prepared them by how they welcome me.” And Wanda was right. I did go to a big white suburban church and she did come and visit and she danced and she prayed and she opened the folks there the way she opened me.

When I was invited to become a co-pastor to the Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y., I called Wanda. She said, “You know Janie, I have been curriculum for the Presbyterian Church for 30 years. In the early years folks would come and ask if they could touch my hair.” She asked me, “Are you called to be curriculum for the Presbyterian Church?”

Again, I met Sophia. It was the sound of the drum. The feast day of the Laguna people of the Paguate Village. They were moving in a circle from the youngest 2 or 3 years of age to the oldest in their nineties. In their Traditional dress, the men, women and children pray for our world. Some were Presbyterian, some are Catholic, and some are Methodist. Today they are the Laguna people doing what they have done for centuries. The families of the tribe sit in certain places around the center of the Village. Others had set up tables where on the periphery pottery and silver were displayed as visitors moved about buying and watching as the eagle, buffalo, and deer dancers took their respective turns. The village was alive. To dance, one must pray and fast - to participate - to be ready - to be present. It is a sacred time, where all are invited for food and hospitality. At one time an onlooker, now as though something happened inside, I was a participant in a holy gathering.

We are to know that over 106 Native American Presbyterian churches exist - that hundreds of Native American youth are coming to our denomination. A denomination that has little understanding of land and spirituality. A denomination who has participated in colonizing and christianizing a people to the expense of their culture, tradition, language and religion.

The indigenous people of this church, this country and I dare say this world can teach us well about reciprocity and the sacredness of two legged, four legged, winged friends of the earth which is sacred - called our Mother. All relations mean all - an interconnectedness with all of creation. It is only recently that the Iroquois women have been recognized to have had great influence on such women as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton from upstate New York, who saw the balance and respect among the men and women from the Iroquois nation. From this came a vision for women’s rights…a possibility to be achieved.

This reciprocity is about balance. We are not to co-opt their culture or religion but listen and learn. Many native people feel their religious traditions have been subject to consumption by “hungry non-natives” as a spiritual delicatessen. Says E Donald 2 Rivers in his book Survivors Medicine, “It feels like ‘Give me a slice of sweat lodge and piece of vision quest with mayonnaise on fry bread.’”

I met Sophia again at the kitchen table of Lucy Platero. In the early morning Lucy rises to greet the sun. She likes to get up quietly, fix her coffee, and eat a piece of toast. She was raised in Tohajillee where the mountains surround her community and it is quiet enough to hear the sound of goat bells as the goats feed in a field nearby. I have never known quiet like this.

Lucy survived a government boarding school where native children were brought to “civilize” them, to “colonize” them into leaving behind their tradition and culture. Since community is the center of life, taking children away from family is taking them from their identity. Individualism is hard to comprehend when one’s identity is tied to the land, where one is defined by their tribe and clan. Lucy is Navajo of the Water Edge clan, a Presbyterian elder.

She is comfortable with herself. She has reclaimed her roots, her ancestors, and her pride in speaking her mother tongue, which was denied to her for so many years. She has survived and with that laughs with her eyes - an innocence, a kindness, a way of knowing from generations long ago. She is one whose great grandmother lived through the Long Walk between Fort Sumner in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation in which thousands of Navajo people died at the hands of U.S. Soldiers.

And lastly Sophia arrives once again as I drove up every morning to the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California where elderly Chinese women, having finished their Tai Chi class, bow to me - back and forth we bow.

Here our youth groups were not separated into Junior High, Senior High, or College age as in many Anglo churches. A multigenerational youth group came together for Bible study, fun, and retreats. I loved that my office with the Oakland Council of Presbyterian Churches was housed there for I was able to work with the youth whenever time would allow.

There were two representatives from the Chinese Presbyterian Church who sat on my board. I will never forget at my last board meeting, when I was no longer able to serve after that because I am a lesbian, the two Chinese representatives said, “We don’t care what Janie’s sexual orientation is. She loves our children and they love her. We want her to stay and work among us.” But I never did again.

I am stunned by a Presbyterian church who is so wrapped up now in the Lordship of Jesus Christ that we forget through how many ways, traditions, and cultures God comes to us. Sophia, who is the co-creator with God, she who moves in us, through us and among us, Yes, Sophia shows up in our streets and on our reservations. Sophia shows up in Afghanistan where women have been resilenced, coaxing them into freedom.

SIMPLE FOOLS, SIMPLE FOOLS, Sophia yells. Have you forgotten you cannot bind me? For when you bind little Chinese girls’ feet, I will rise up within them and untie their spirits - I will free them to organize to speak out.

When you cut out the women’s clitoris in Africa, I will heal them - rise up in them for you have cut out the pleasure that was mine to give. I will rise up in their bodies. I will rise up women and men to stop this madness.

Sophia shows up crying out to a church who is rule led rather than Spirit fed. She speaks,

When church, you participate in excluding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children from living out their full selves, causing death, violence, and abuse… I will rise up within them and set them free - for they are my delight and you are messing with sacred mystery.

I am Sophia, the wisdom of God who created you. You cannot confine me. I am the breath of the power of God.

Come into the open air - the city streets - out of your comfortable church pews. Come find me in yourselves once again. Then see what kind of worlds we will build together.

How can we from our social location - peering through our lens - be transformed by Her Wisdom to make a difference?

Sophia says the ball is in your court sisters and brothers of Her Voice.

I hear the SWISH. Can you hear Her? Can you feel Her? Can you feel you?

SWISH - SWISH - SWISH

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