The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Peace as a Maternal Force: Reimagining Tranquility in Advent
What does true peace mean in a world fraught with noise and chaos? Join us as we journey into the heart of Advent, a time rich with themes of hope, peace, love, and joy. We offer our gratitude for a year of the Expansionist Podcast by exploring the Hebrew and Greek concepts of peace—"shalom" and "irene"—which invite us to rethink peace not just as an absence of conflict, but as a vibrant state of harmony and tranquility. Through a touching narrative about a friend’s grandmother approaching the end of her journey, we witness peace as a transformative portal to something greater.
In this reflective episode, we embrace the nurturing imagery of peace as a maternal force, inspired by Ada Aroni's evocative poem, "Peace is a Woman and a Mother." This perspective urges us to envision a world beyond war and violence. We ponder the barriers that modern life—media and constant noise—erects between us and the ever-present spirit of hope, joy, and love. The spiritual symbolism of Advent invites us to expand our understanding, drawing parallels with the birth of Christ, the Prince of Peace, and challenging us to cultivate a deeper theology that sees spirit as a pathway to love.
As we close, we contemplate a world yearning for peace amidst dissonance and violence. Drawing inspiration from Inez McBride's poignant quote, we express a collective desire for peace so profound it allows us to "hear the trees sing." This episode is an invitation to listeners to not only reflect but to actively become conduits of peace in their own lives. For those seeking further inspiration, we welcome you to explore more at expansionisttheology.com.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon, Heather Drake. It's so good to see you today.
Speaker 1:Good afternoon, Shelley Shepard. It's my joy for us to be able to be together and to have a conversation that we are going to share with our listeners, and we're in a season of Advent and we've been talking about hope and peace and love and joy all really important themes. All really important themes and this idea of remembering and starting a new. This is an important time for this podcast and for um the adventure we started when we said, hey, we talk about a lot of things, we should start a podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and look at us, we are. We're one year in celebrating um. Coming up on this one year marker of podcasting, let's just have a moment and say congratulations, congratulations to you and to us and what this means going forward, we're very excited to. I feel like I'm just I'm still quite new at what is evolving here, or what is expanding, in other words, but delighted to be a part of this and to see what spirit stirs in us week after week as we learn to become more open and more expansive in our not just our theology, but in our practices with one another and with other people. I think it's just a beautiful way to come every week and converse with you. So thank you for this first year and for our great editor-in-chief, dennis Drake, who is behind the scenes working so efficiently and effectively for us as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also am grateful for all of the people who joined us on the podcast and those guests were really exciting and I'm looking forward to us hearing from some of the same guests again, but some new ones and so maybe some new friends to meet.
Speaker 2:And for those listening right, for those who are downloading and staying with us and paying attention to what the feminine spirit is stirring in me and in you and what that means for the collective voice of what God is doing among us. So grateful for listeners. Thank you, yes, yes, yes, all right. Shall we dive? Shall we dive into peace? Are you feeling peaceful today or are you still? Uh, I know we're in the, we're kind of in the off week here we're, we're podcasting something before it's actually it actually comes, but that's, that's almost like expectancy, right?
Speaker 1:like, yeah, and it's very advent, like where we're awaiting the arrival of something, anticipation and, um yeah, active waiting, I think, is how. I like to describe that for myself Not just, um, something that we're resigned to, but something that we're looking at and going. We get to attend to this. This is something that we get to wait for and anticipate. I think is a good part of that Advent, and so particularly this week we've been talking about hope. The next week will be peace.
Speaker 2:Peace. What an important theme to nurture and pay attention to and let it roll around in us. Yeah, it's a beautiful word in both Hebrew and Greek. I'm not a Hebrew or Greek scholar. I have had some Hebrew waded my way through three semesters of that but in no means am I a Hebrew scholar. But I love the words and I love that there's Hebrew and Greek dictionaries and lexicons that we can refer back to when we are rusty in Hebrew and Greek and look at some of these words in the original and I thought if we could just look at peace for a second and then look at that in Hebrew and then in Greek.
Speaker 2:And most people know the Hebrew word for peace, which is shalom, and I've been kind of testing the Greek equivalent of peace with some people that I'm bouncing into that.
Speaker 2:I wonder if they know it or don't know it.
Speaker 2:But the word is Irenae.
Speaker 2:Peace in the Greek is Irenae, which has this they have this equal weight of what it means to have harmony or national tranquility or places that in that time, in that century or in these periods where these languages would have been written, these languages would have been written, they would have been longing for the same thing that perhaps we are longing for now, and they had these two beautiful words to either pray or lament or pause with or hold that when I look at them myself Shalom and Irene it fosters a stillness and a quietness and a place in me that feels like peace is different when you say something in a different language or you understand what might have been behind it. It's just powerful to me and I wanted to start with that. Those words that sometimes we just we haven't heard them and so peace becomes. Hmm, it's just another word to us, but I think Advent brings to our attention that it's shalom, it's irene, and it is this place of solitude and quiet and getting calm and getting still in this inner sanctuary of our lives.
Speaker 1:I think that peace is a threshold idea. I have a friend whose grandmother is dying this week and I asked how I could be supportive. And she's 101, bless her, and so what a gift. And she is. Up until last week she was living by herself and she is up until last week she was living by herself. So very alert, very still giving to the world. So what a beautiful time. But I asked what I could do to be supportive and he said would you pray peace for our family? Would you pray peace in her passing? Would you pray for us peace that in our expectancy of whatever new is coming, what their lives will look like when she goes? And I was thinking about that because of course I said, yes, I would be honored to pray peace in that moment.
Speaker 1:But very often we don't recognize that the threshold that is open to us, like peace, is a portal to something more. It's not just this place of no war. It's something even bigger than that. It's something more expansive than that this place of God's original design, love's original intention, restoration and then renewal and resurrection, all of those things together. I think that's what peace reminds me of in this idea of going to pray, for peace is to pray an expansive prayer. To live in peace is to live in expansive way, to be aware of there is more and again, nonviolence is the beginning of that, but not the end of it.
Speaker 2:There is an invitation into the creativity of what we're, I think, what we're holding for what you're also saying is that this definition of that we want peace does not exclude this national or this personal welfare. But what you just named is it expands it far beyond that. Yes, yes, like for the whole world to live in peace, like is this possible? Is it possible that we can live in peace with each other and with different cultures and ethnicities, and is it?
Speaker 1:possible for us to live in peace with creation? Is it possible for us to live in peace beyond just our arrogant assumption that it is just people that we need to be at peace with? But the call is really an expansive call. How do we live in the mind of God, how do we pay attention to that Christ who is named the Prince of Peace? The acceptance of Christ is an invitation to accept a way of thinking that allows us oneness.
Speaker 1:When Jesus prays at least this thought reminds me of this when Jesus prays in John 17, when he says to God will you make them one? That, to me, is what peace looks like, this oneness with God. Because in our oneness with God, if we understand that we are so connected to the spirit in this way that it would be change the way that we live, it would change our behaviors, it would change our ideas, it would change for us, I think, an awareness of really who we are, that we are made with a God who names himself peace. Over and over again, the scriptures talk to us about God being our peace, or this call to name it, because I think that understanding or trying to understand that our ego is really about war, about power, about acquisition, but the spirit leads us into this wholeness, this creativity, this kingdom living. It's exciting, it's hopeful, it also feels like a whole lot of work.
Speaker 2:But the Spirit will be there to empower us.
Speaker 2:You've mentioned this a couple times that the Spirit right, that the Spirit will lead or the Spirit will bring Peace is part of the fruit, or maybe the harvest, of the Holy Spirit. Let's talk about that for just a few minutes. When we say that the Spirit is bringing something or revealing something or dropping something into our spirit, this is a part of maybe the practices or the rituals that have evolved in our lives over time. But when I think of peace as a part of a harvest of the Holy Spirit, or it's a fruit of the Holy Spirit, I feel like I want to unpack that a little bit for people that are listening. What does it mean for us to have this peace that comes through Spirit? How do you get that? How does that happen?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that I mean I certainly wouldn't box in the working of Spirit and say that I know all of it, but very often the things of spirit are revealed to people who have listened and practiced in hearing the voice of the spirit, know the evidence of the spirit at work. I mean, when we start talking about peace, then I'm reminded of the mystic Julian of Norwich. I think you can help me with that. But all will be well and and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.
Speaker 1:I mean holding on to the mystic that is a place of peace, to know that things around me can look unstable, things around me can look like this, but if I know that all will be well. Those are the kind of things that Spirit leads us into, this idea of an awareness that calls us to a higher consciousness, to paying attention to the path that Mary Magdalene reminds us of, where we return to love, where we give up ways of thinking that are violent and that are vengeful and we turn to the ways of Christ that call us to a further understanding, but not just in a knowledge base, but that this is so deeply seated in us that we, as followers of Jesus, are people of peace, that we find the voice that is speaking and calling peace on earth. Goodwill to all people. This is the advent, this is the coming of the Christ, and so I think that it speaks in many ways. Spirit does in nature, through our brothers and sisters, through poetry.
Speaker 1:I have a poem, peace is a Woman and a Mother, by Ada Aroni. How do you know peace is a woman? I know, for I met her yesterday on my winding way to the World's Fair. She had such a sorrowful face and, like a golden flower faded before her prime and I asked her why she was so sad and she told me that her baby was killed in Auschwitz and her daughter in Hiroshima and her sons in Vietnam and India and Pakistan and Ireland and Israel and Palestine and Lebanon and Botswana and Rwanda and Chechnya and all the rest of the children, she said, are on the nuclear blacklist of the dead. All the rest, unless the whole world understands that peace is a woman.
Speaker 1:And then I think, in Advent, how we pay attention to Mary who births the Christ, this invitation that God comes in and says here's a new creation and invites the Prince of Peace to be born of a woman. The Prince of Peace to say let the women think, let the women ponder, let the women invite the Holy Spirit to reimagine a world without war, without violence, where everything and everyone is shared in equity. We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom.
Speaker 2:What a beautiful poem, I say. I see it makes me think about something we talked about in the pre-show, about that Luke passage in chapter 1, where it refers to the tender mercy of God being like a woman. There's a Hebrew no, I'm sorry, the translation is this Greek phrase again, the inner organs of mercy. Only found in that one particular verse in the New Testament and the essence of it is to get us to imagine a mother embracing a young child, to get a picture of God's mercy towards us. And in what you just read, wow, if we cannot understand peace or mercy in that kind of reflection, then we cannot understand kind of reflection, then we cannot understand. We cannot understand peace If peace is mother-like what does that say about war?
Speaker 1:Well, I would just firmly believe that peace can. I think that, if I would make this assumption, war is of the ego and peace is of the spirit, and so I don't think there can be a coexisting. I think that there has to be a surrender, and I have hope that the ego would surrender to the love, to the tender mercies of the spirit mercies of the Spirit.
Speaker 1:I am a firm believer that love is the greatest thing, that it is eternal, that eventually everything will bow to love and that we need to be people who are inspired by love. But love, then, in its very essence, is not going to force. It is a choice to surrender to to force. It is a choice to surrender to.
Speaker 1:And if we use our imagination to surrender to peace, surrender to the invitation to go higher, to think bigger, how can we, as a people, be at peace with everyone? What would that take? I think a move of the Holy Spirit, and by that I mean, could we all pay attention instead of prejudices and ideas and experiences we've had that have told us that we're different from one another and we need to be a part of strife or division, but that love would call us all to this threshold of going. This is what it looks like for all of God's children to be not just in unity, but in unity with Christ, in unity with love, in unity with the Father who says I've loved you the same way that I love Jesus.
Speaker 2:When you were talking there, it um. I went to a place and I want us to talk about this a little bit. So I've heard other people say that discontent is a lack of peace. Do you agree with that? That discontent is a lack of peace. To be discontent is to lack peace. Do I agree with it? I'm not sure if I agree or disagree. Does it resonate? But it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I think it does resonate in the sense of what we were just talking about, about the spirit, about spirit, about spirit. The work of spirit is this it's not a step-by-step process, in my opinion, where you get it one day and then you're good for all time. It's more like, oh, it's more like, oh, it's more uh. The work of spirit is, and I believe that spirit is always with us and has always been with us. Right, agreed, and so if last week we talked about that, hope was like a bird or a sewer rat, uh and um, if you haven't, if you haven't heard that podcast, maybe jump over and listen to that. It was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:But if spirit has always been with us, if hope has always been with us, if peace and joy and love and the things that you're naming have always been with us. What is it that keeps us from recognizing that they have always been with us? What is it that keeps us from recognizing that they have always been with us? Is it advertisement? Is it media? Is it the noise that we're listening to that causes this discontentment and robs us of peace or calm or times of solitude? That's the beautiful thing about Advent is we get to purposefully be in the hope, in the peace, in the joy, in the love, and so Spirit gets to flow in a way that maybe she hasn't before Advent, like maybe Advent's the only time that people can really get in the stream of it. But I just wonder, heather, if there is a misunderstanding. Or are the two of us just so expanded in our theology sometimes that we can see spirit as this wide, wide, wide portal?
Speaker 1:into love. Perhaps it is discontent or disenchantedness or desperation that has caused me to look at this and has said I mean, I hear what you say and I understand how someone could say discontentment is a lack of peace. But then I think sometimes discontentment is such a beautiful thing, not when we have abundance and are not aware of it, when we have these ideas of scarcity that cause us to be discontent. That's not what I'm talking about. But to be able to say in our world, just because there is no war at my door, I am discontent. Until there is war at no woman's door, I think there's a holy discontent to be able to say I think that Mary had that in the practice of Advent, looking to her as an example and being able to say she was looking at the world around her and said, okay, when the angel appeared and said we're changing things, do you want to be in on it? And Mary was like, yes, because I'm discontent with how things are now. And so I think that we need to be mindful of platitudes that may be dismissive of what someone is really feeling or what is actually happening, and I hesitate to think that I could name spirit or name what the work of it is, but I can listen to the way that Jesus described it and said the spirit is like the wind you could feel it, the effects of it on your face, and though you may not be able to see it or control it, but you can feel the effects.
Speaker 1:And I think that we are feeling the effects right now, even of a world that says that we need peace so desperately, where division and where separateness is such an illusion that I am different from you, I am separate from you. My life is my own life is very different than what Jesus offers us and said you know, hey, all of you, come, come to the table everyone. We're going to feast here. And this idea of oneness, of a collective people, a collective creation that says there is good here, there is so much good here, and the call to stop pillaging our earth and our neighbor's minerals and our neighbor's ideas, and this idea that peace is a way to live, I believe, like God lives the invitation into something that is so holy, so beautiful, and maybe it's because I'm the mother of four sons three of them and maybe it's because I'm the mother of four sons, three of them who are old enough to be drafted into somebody else's war.
Speaker 1:So there is a discontent in me to say we need peace in such incredible ways.
Speaker 1:I want peace for marriages, I want peace for families, I want peace for corporations and for all people in all places, and then peace with nature that we would stop.
Speaker 1:So I look around and I see all the places where there's lack of peace, and so my words in my heart and my edged are come Lord Jesus, come Prince of Peace, come, spirit of Peace, come and hover over this, look at the chaos we've made, and now we invite you to recreate this. But I think firstly we allow the Spirit to create a peace in our minds and in our souls and then we live out of that peace. And that affects the way that we shop, the way that we vote, the way that we live with our neighbor, the way that we spend time. If our time is spent in anxiety and rehearsing, the worst case us that we're surrounded by poets and painters and artists and musicians and people are just delicious and messy and terrible and wonderful and perfect and imperfect and all of those things. And to be able to say that peace can reign over all of that, oh, I want to hear the words of Julian and all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.
Speaker 1:That, to me, is the invitation to peace.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. There's a biblical definition to peace that I want to read, by Cornelius Planatinga, I believe he's a theologian. Planetinga, I believe he's a theologian. The webbing together of God, humans and all creation and justice, fulfillment and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a ceasefire between enemies.
Speaker 2:In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight, a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder, as its creator and savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be, and what that says to me is, whether it's discontentment, whether it's anger or fear, or loss or grief, or the now and the not yet, that shalom is the place that we all find peace, that shalom is peace, that irene is peace, and how we get there and how we find it, I think are beautiful in multiplistic ways of finding it, but I'm confident that we have to find it.
Speaker 1:I think one of the ways that has been most impactful, or I've seen the most evidence of, is the way of contemplation, the practice of silence, yes yes.
Speaker 1:The practice of sitting in the presence of divine love and just stilling ourselves, and I think what I've experienced is a peace that comes, and there are scriptures that indicate that if you can keep your mind at one with God's mind, that that will be the kind of peace that will surpass even understanding.
Speaker 1:Keep our minds thinking about those things that are lovely, pure, kind and of a good report, not to not think about things that are difficult but to be able to say there's an even higher thought, there's a deeper magic still, there's an invitation to be a people of miracles, where we recognize that peace is a much higher way to live. I was talking with David, one of my sons, before we did this podcast and I had said that this is what we're going to talk about and he mentioned. He said oh, people are often resistant to peace because it is an arbiter of hard work. We are people who love easy, we like microwave, we like fast. I was thinking yesterday, because we've been talking about slowing and even this practice of contemplation, what it requires of you and sitting in silence, and I cannot think of the quality that is ever improved by hurry. Making something quickly never improves the quality of something.
Speaker 1:Slowing, of allowing peace to first settle us and then to invite the whole world into that peace to stay in that peace, that mind of Christ, to stay in hope and then to say that in that peace there's a space for everyone. There's a space for everything because God's creation, God loves, and God is coming for us. And so I love that about Advent, I love that about peace. This certainly is not a conversation that is ever going to, I think, stop for us, but being aware that the practice of Advent calls us to reimagine. What would it look like for everyone to live in peace?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a beautiful thought and a beautiful image to close with. I'd like to share this couple of lines as we finish today, but this is by Inez McBride. My heart is in need of this peace. My prayer is that the dissonance of violence will quiet down so much that we can actually hear the trees sing. I just loved that line that we can actually hear the trees sing. This will be a sign of peace when you can actually hear the benediction of trees. Mm God, we are longing for this peace again and anew.
Speaker 1:May it be so May peace start with us.
Speaker 2:Indeed.
Speaker 1:It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.