Blog 3095 – 04.21.2024
She
Today’s song was featured in the Movie Nottingham Hill, the soundtrack track of which won the 2000 Brit Award for Best Soundtrack that year. I do not pretend to sing it as well as Elvis Costello,but I did give it my best shot.
It is the poetic tribute to “the divine she” that most appeals to me. The theologians of the second century C.E. went to great lengths to try to explain God, the divine, with a complex and incredible theory they called the trinity. In the Christian hymn Holy, Holy, Holy the theory is stated simply in the line, “Holy, holy, holy, God in three persons, blessed trinity.” Many think they may have strained credulity attempting to reconcile the obvious discrepancies between the monotheistic “God is One” and the polytheistic “God of many faces” settling on three , Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we must believe that God is three, I think He/She/We is a better explanation that leaves nothing and no one out.
The whole trinity ideas that the theologians came up with is such a boys’ club idea because that is what they were really, already a far cry from the women dominated movement that Jesus began during his three year ministry.
The New Testament, written by one man, Saul called Paul in letters to the early churches that he had helped to establish in his evangelistic journeys around the Roman Empire says in Paul’s words that the bride of Jesus is the church. But some speculate that Jesus might have had a more literal wife, a partner in ministry and in life. There are three women at the cross:
Dan Brown in his controversial novel, The Da Vinci Code, speculates that the search for the legendary Holy Grail is all about an attempt to discover the divine She, the Mary in the Middle, that Leonardo painted at Jesus side in his Last Supper masterpiece, Mary Magdalene, the true bride of Jesus.
I have heard it said from the pulpit that Jesus did more to improve the standing of women than any other. Not as much as he intended to it would seem. The Boys Club has spent a great deal of time and effort trying to defame Mary Magdalene and to minimize the important contributions of women. The words sung by another Elvis come to mind, “Wisemen know only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you.” In front of, behind, and beside every man who ever lived, She stands, encouraging, and inspiring every accomplishment.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
She
theencouragingword 