Sometimes

Sometimes
I feel like the women in the early church
Asking questions with repetition
Not out of a desire to interrupt the flow of the gathering
But because they wanted to learn
About this Rabbi
About this Teacher
About this Good News

And I feel often that in spaces I am
Asking questions with repetition
Not out of a desire to interrupt the flow of the gathering
But because I want to learn
About this Rabbi
About this Teacher
About this Good News
About this Truth which sets the oppressed free
About this Truth which heals

And I want to learn
And I want to grow
And I hunger and thirst from the depths of my being
To know this Truth in the most intimate of ways
To know this Truth as the fire in my bones
To know this Truth as a lover knows lover

And for years I have had the questions in my bones
But believed that the questions were not mine for the asking
And so I supressed them and chose silence
Because silence was comfortable
But now the questions are boiling out of my bones
And I cannot be silent any longer

And my questions are a worship
And my unabashed laughter a love song
To my Rabbi who looked up from washing my feet into my teary eyes
As I finally understood that this Teacher would wash my feet, too
That I was a disciple, too
That I had gifts to offer to the Church, too
And as I looked into this Teacher's healing eyes
I asked for the washing of not only my feet but my hands and my face and my breasts
And I wept because for the first time I knew that I was free
And I wept because for the first time I knew that I was free
And I wept because for the first time I knew that I was free
Because for the first time I knew that this Teacher chose
Not only men but Me
 
I am the women in the early church
Asking questions with repetition
Not out of a desire to interrupt the flow of the gathering
But because they wanted to learn
About this Rabbi
About this Teacher
About this Good News
As they responded to this "Come, follow me."