Fire In Her Bones
Fire in our bones. Water in our soul.
We have been turning over tables on Wednesdays at Table Conversations. There was a holy fire, holy rage, and holy roar as we held the words of Thecla, from the book, The Girl Who Baptized Herself by
It wasn’t our first time to feel the eruption of the holy in our bones. It will not be the last. We have been turning over tables for years. Decades. Some have noticed. Others have ignored. And still others have been asked to leave tables, churches, businesses or careers when the holy fire became too intense or too apparent or too much.
Perhaps you can identify with a time when holy roar, holy rage, or holy fire moved you. The prophet Jeremiah described it like this “It’s just like fire shut up in my bones.”1
The metaphor used here in his story, helps us see and perhaps identify with an intense prompting that something is about to be said, felt, or heard. Often, there’s no stopping it. No going back. Only forging a way forward. This is the voice of the prophetic.
Like Jeremiah, Thecla’s story is like ‘fire in her bones.’
Her intense desire to preach or lead, or be like Paul was like fire in her bones.
Her intense desire to follow Christ was like fire in her bones.
Her intense desire to get inside the jail where Paul was being held was like fire in her bones.
Her intense desire to free herself, to cut her hair, or to wear clothes like Paul so that she could baptize herself, was like fire in her bones.
Her intense desire to break cultural norms as a woman, to free other women, was like fire in her bones.
Her intense desire to focus on Christ, to see the face of Paul, as she was led to the pyre to literally be set on fire, was like fire in her bones.
Her intense desire to feel this fire, to receive, and to expand this fire has been kindling at our weekly Table Conversations. Each week we gather to discuss the book it feels like the temperature keeps rising.
Her story is teaching us to hold hands with women.
Listen to women.
Believe the stories of women.
To stand with women.
Pour our oils, fragrances, and support in the arena of women.
Bar every door that comes against women.
Infuse sacred compassion where and when she needs it.
Dismantle patriarchy and empire like Thecla. When empire or patriarchy tells us we can’t…
We simply baptize ourselves.
We lead.
We preach.
We teach.
We offer the fire in our bones. Fire that stirs us to action. Water that propels us towards compassion.
We simply cannot, as women, deny holy fire, holy roar, and holy anger2 nor allow it to be dismissed as hysteria.
We are commissioned by Spirit, and by the anointing posture of Mary Magdalene, to encourage the holy within us. To catch fire. A fire that burns through the no and gets to the yes. A fire that aligns our heartbeat to the heartbeat of the ‘girl who baptized herself.’3 Water that flows through us like holy water, wholly reflection, complete in our embodied selves.
Thecla needed both Fire and Water.
Fire in her bones. Water in her soul (baptism).
With the intensity of fire, the compassion of water and the wind of spirit, we are turning over the tables of ignorance.4
We are moving. We are listening.
We are Holy Fire.
We are Holy Water.
Love Expands the Table ~ Shelly
Join Table Conversations each Wednesday as we embrace more love and expand ancient remembering and inner knowing… continuing to hear and listen to Thecla’s story. Share and invite.
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What is stirring like Holy Fire in your bones?
What feels like Holy Water flowing from your soul?
Jeremiah 20:9 … his word is like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. First Testament of the Bible.
The Seventh Power of the ego from Mary Magdalene‘s Gospel. Anger is information. Mary Magdalene Revealed.
Ignorance is our ultimate blind spot. The Third Power of the ago from the Gospel of Mary. Mary Magdalene Revealed.
The Acts of Paul and Thecla. A New New Testament Dr Hal Taussig.