Dear Friends, 
Join us for our Mother's Month of May worship series where everyone is asked to share and tell the truth about "Our Mother's, Being Mothers, Mother Earth and God as Mother!" As we study the teachings of Jesus, we are honoring and studying the divine feminine for Jesus taught us how to be nurturing, caring, merciful, forgiving, loving to "the least of these" and to all those who are vulnerable, faithful and connected to a God of love-- all qualities associates with the divine feminine. Many of us however may not have had mothers who had these qualities. Perhaps you are like me and you learned about how to become a loving mother when you realized that it was a biological instinct. When my first born was placed in my arms, I had this knowing that I had never had before. I was terrified I would not know how to care for my baby but at that moment I realized I was an animal, he was an animal, and as an animal, I knew how to care for my babies even when my culture seemed to be disinterested in my development as a mother.  Many men exhibit these qualities more than some women, making the discussion confusing. What I learned when I began studying the teachings of Jesus very late in my life was that he taught me what I wanted and needed to know and had not been taught in the culture I grew up in. He taught all about love - love that heals, unconditional love from God, and that the meaning of our lives has to do with our capacity to love and be loved.  

Next Sunday is Pentecost, and we will tell the story of how the Holy Spirit descended upon the gathered community after Jesus had been tortured to death and resurrected and although the gathered people all spoke different languages they could all understand one another. This happens where love is spoken. It is a universal language understood by people no matter how different their languages and cultures. A wind rushed in and the Holy Spirit descended upon them  and they saw red tongues of fire descend on the tops of  the heads of those present. I experience this as a vision of our Mother Tongue whose language is universal love, the language of the divine feminine, the language of Jesus, the language of the Mother Instinct, the language  spoken by all loving mothers no matter where they live. This is the fiery passion of the mother instinct that will do anything; fight any force to protect her young. 

I had a painful relationship with my mother and exploring the divine feminine and metaphors for God as mother helped me when I become a mother.   Although I did not grow up in the church or receive any formal religious education in my family of origin, I had a vision in Jerusalem when I was 7 years old of a wooden statue of Mother Mary turning to flesh. It has become a guiding metaphor for my life.  A wooden woman turned to flesh and a seemingly dead mother came back to life!  This is not just my story but our story as a human species. Our mother instinct has died and it is time to bring her back to life. Like the story of Sleeping Beauty, it is past time to kiss the divine feminine awaken in both men and women.  Jesus came to teach the mother instinct. Resurrecting the divine mother is what he was trying to do 2,000 years ago and what we are trying to teach in our new Church for our Common Home. 

In order to heal our wounded relationships that have been inflicted often by our culture, not by the individual people in our lives, we are asked to share our personal stories. In worship, dream sharing, prayer circles, dinner circles and sing along circles we create sacred safe harbors for intimate sharing. We contemplate how our stories are also our collective stories as a human family and how we can create new stories, dream it forward as we work toward  ecologic justice for all creatures. 

Sunday- May 1, 5 pm We "Explored Metaphors in the Bile of the Divine Feminine"  Genesis 1:27"Humankind was created as God's reflection: in the divine image God created them; female and male, God made them."Isaiah 66:13 God as Comforting  mother  "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem."Isaiah 49:14 God compared to a nursing mother:
God: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you." Isaiah 2:14   God as a woman in labor God : "For a long time I have held my peace, I( have kept myself still and restrained myself, now I will cry out like a woman in labor. I will gasp and pant."
Psalm 131:2 God as a Mother "But  have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me"
Hosea 13:8 God described as a mother bear "Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and tear them asunder.,,," Mathew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 God is like a Mother Hen
Jesus: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brook under her wings, and you were not willing!
 
Sunday- May 8, 5 pm We enjoyed our monthly Taize Chanting worship service.  

Sunday-  May 15, 5 pm Worship will include Bonnie's reflections on "Visions of the Black Madonna" and everyone will be asked to share experiences of using mother as a metaphor for God.  We will include painting and drawing of God as the Divine Feminine/ Mother God as a part of worship. 

Sunday- May 22, 5 pm "Extraordinarily Women of Courage" We will watch part of the documentary "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" and begin to consider how women around the world have used the teaching of Jesus, or Jesus Third Way of non-violence  to lead  effective movements  of peace the way Leymah Gbowee did in Liberia. If they can do it in Liberia we can do it here in San Diego. We will consider reading her book Mighty be our Powers during the month of June when we will begin a series on Walter Wink's Jesus Third Way.  Mother's Day was begun by  Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870
 after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Her  Mother's Day Proclamation begins, "Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!" May we do the same during our ecologic crisis. 

Sunday- May 29th 5 pm "Grandmothers United for Peace and Justice" We will consider the Grandmother relationship as an ideal human relationship of maturity and wisdom. We will explore how indigenous grandmothers in, The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, have organized and are in service to peace and ecology for our Mother Earth and consider how our church  can emulate them. How can we as grey haired elders and grandmothers here in San Diego and on the internet can organize and work for our human and non-human family and our home Mother earth. 


Mothers and children.....perhaps the most influential and important human relationship but we have few places to tell the truth about our complex feelings about these relationships.  Perhaps our own mothers did not give us the love we needed or wanted, or we feel we are not good enough mothers, or our children have tragically died or are sick physically or emotionally or we were never able to have children although we longed to be mothers.  Many of us are still dealing with the death of our mothers. Recently, I saw two brilliant movies about women dealing with the grief of the death of her mother that I highly recommend, Wild with Reese Witherspoon and and Australian movie Tracks; both about a woman alone on a wilderness journey. Our Church for Our Common Home recognizes that most of us as woman feel as if we are on a wilderness journey when we go inward, exploring god and our spiritual and religious yearnings.  All of us long for a sacred place, a different kind of church to bring all our complicated feelings. We do not do this as a self involved end in itself. We do this to heal in order to live our fullest potential and to go out as Jesus has commanded and "do unto the least of these." Our own Mother Earth is in desperate need for all or us to care for her just as we would if we were fully mature and our own human mother was dying. Please read my chapter "At the Bedside of our Mother Earth" on the church web site. 

As we sing every week in our singing prayer by Raffi, "Our Dear, Dear Mother, Daily provider, Earth be your name, the time has come to honor you to and to know you and to show our love." 

 Please join us for regular services every Sunday at 5 pm at 13014 Calle de Las Rosas, SD, CA 92129 f ollowed by a soup pot luck, bonfire and star gazing and dancing weather permitting. A new kind of home/internet/radio blog church that does not follow the traditions of the church but teaches the teachings of Jesus. A safe place to share of ourselves, our feelings, our dreams, do art work, sing lively non church music, DANCE, enjoy bonfires and soup dinners. A place where everyone is safe and welcome. 
Mission Statement 
Encouraging awe of creation and the cosmos, we explore the visual and performing arts, dreams, wisdom teachings of Christ-Sophia in the Bible and newly found gospels, prayer, social activism, and relationships as we work to care for our common home Mother Earth, in a new kind of local and global community. We are a home church  with people around the world via the Internet,  exploring a new religious story for our time.
Vision
Our vision is to spiritually awaken and raise our consciousness about the sacred nature of all life and our interconnectedness in order to come together as a human family and care  for our common home and love God/dess with all our hearts, souls and minds and creation as ourselves. 
Mondays join us for Lectio Divina 7-8 pm,
immediately following book group.
 We read and contemplate Gnostic texts (currently the Gospel of Phillip)
 and other scriptures and pray and ask; 
How does this scripture relate to my life and 
how is God calling me to change?  
Centering Prayer every Wednesday 10 am -10:30 am  ish 
13014 Calle de Las Rosas, San Diego, CA 92129
call for more information (858) 248-5123
Please join us for return ing  Monday Night Book Group
5:30-7 pm The Death of the Mythic God, by Jim Marion 
The month of June we will begin a series on Jesus Third Way. Stay tuned. 
New O ur Common Home Counseling Center 
with individual and group therapy services, Spiritual Direction, individual dream sessions, pastoral counseling and human sexuality education for teenagers with Our Whole Lives and more. 
Join Dr. Walter Rutherford and his wife
Rev. Bonnie Tarwater for Tuesday night group therapy. 
Weekly Thursday Dream Sharing Group 7-9 pm
in person or on Skype, bonnie.tarwater



Church for our Common Home | Minister Rev. Bonnie Tarwater | revtarwater@yaho.com 
(858) 248-5123
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