A broken tulip

A time for everything but I am beyond time.
They build me a sacred space where few can enter but I am not bound by space.
I meet my daughters where they are in time and space–
fleeing in the desert
working in the kitchen
wondering about pregnancy
sitting under a date palm
wringing hands in a royal palace.

Creation took days to build
and I waited the longest
to make my daughter–
they’ll say she is the crown of creation because of this.
The last very good act before we rest.

Now the women who may not enter the Temple
take the fire in their hands to light Sabbath candles
to usher their families into weekly rest with Me,
linking each woman in a line of flame
to the Promise I made: Light will come
from a woman.

Oh, I wait. They wait.
I watch their home lights burn
like stars across the sand,
as if the Temple was shaken upside down
and the gold and coals both scattered in a storm across the land.

Humanity waits for the promise
and I wait to welcome my daughters home.
They sing with the men that a day in my house
is better than a thousand elsewhere,
and that it is enough to be my doorkeeper.

They are doorkeepers.
They looked on from the outside
as Bezalel melted their mirrors
into an altar beyond their reach.
They wait outside for their men
to meet with me, to make space for me.

I will come soon to a woman
who does not know where to worship
and I will say, worship in spirit and truth
because women, outside the walls, already know this worship.
It is what my Father longs for.

I tell my prophets a day will come
when I gather my sons and my daughters,
a day will come when men and women alike,
young and old, married and single,
will be soaked in the Spirit, will prophesy,
will participate in My signs and wonders.
My daughters will be there, I promise.
They wait. I wait.

This time, Creation will happen again.
This time, Creation will be inversed.
This time, I will begin with a woman
and from her will come Adam.
This time, my daughters will themselves carry
the One who makes the Temple sacred
and no one will call them unclean again.

This time, Creation will begin in a way
no one could have imagined, a way
no one can forget.

This time, the humans will participate.
My sons, my daughters, and I.
They will enter the pain of it.
My daughters already know how to hold pain
and I love them for their fearless faith.

This time, I will come to one woman
named for the bitter waters a tree made sweet,
named for the bitter Mara who I refused to call anything but Naomi.

I will come to one woman
in an act which will gather again the cosmos
into wholeness, into healing, into abundance.

Until then, they light the candles.
We wait.

As I was praying a week ago through the Gospel story, it suddenly struck me how long God waited for women to come freely before Him, with no restriction. These last weeks I’ve been overwhelmed by the welcome of God to each of us — and now, it was specifically the welcome he extends to His daughters. I think this is a good place to start a reflection on what it is to be a woman.

*In Jewish liturgy, the women light the Sabbath candles and the feast candles for Passover, since God brings light to the world through a woman.

Image from Unsplash: photographer is Anton Darius.