Welcome to the third week of Advent.

The Advent season invites us into the divine feminine – of waiting and co-creating, of cycling through the now and the not yet, of experiencing the birth pangs, remembering loss and darkness, of hoping for life and light. 

We long for a savior as we are pregnant with hope. 

We long for a savior as we labor for love. 

We long for the savior we have imagined would come for us – finally – after all these years. 

We long for the savior who will come and be… with us. 

God with us.

Here. On this Earth. 

Finally.

My guest today is Shannon K. Evans. Shannon is the author of Rewilding Motherhood: Your Path to an Empowered Feminine Spirituality. Writing from the contemplative Catholic tradition, her passion is for an experience of the Divine grows further loving and curious rather than static and complacent. Shannon is a columnist for Jesuits.org and writes and speaks prolifically in a variety of spiritual spaces. She and her family make their home in central Iowa.

Here’s my conversation with Shannon K. Evans. 

[Transcript of conversation coming soon.]

I used to be uncomfortable with the feminine imagery used for God, with the thought of God as one who mothers us. I also once rejected the image of Mary as a depiction of the divine feminine. But I have come around, as I sit at the feet of God, as I know God deeper, as I have become more comfortable with God’s expansive mystery that surpasses my own understanding. And as a read a holy text that portrays God with feminine imagery, as a maternal figure who gives birth (Deu 32:18) and who cries out in labor while doing so (Is 42), who protects (Is 42) and who comforts (Is 66), who has compassion (Is 49), and who nurses her children (Is 49:15). Even Jesus, in both Matthew and Luke, describes himself as a mother hen protecting her chicks.

Perhaps that’s what has led me to embrace Mary as Mother, as the Holy Mother, rather than neglect her extraordinary presence in the life of Jesus and in the life of the Gospel. 

Motherhood, after all, whether it’s Mary’s, or God’s, or our own… is an extraordinary thing. 

PRAYER:

God, thank you for mothering your children
For loving us fiercely when we feel unloveable
For feeding us when we’re hungry
For nourishing us when we’re weak
For protecting us when we’re scared
For comforting us when we’re sad and uncertain
For having compassion on us when we do wrong
For showing up when we’re afraid of the dark
For responding “not yet, but almost”
when we cry out asking if we’re finally there

Are we there yet, God?
Are we? 

Hold us near, God
Keep us close to you while we wait.