Why Brigid as a model for a well-lived life?
A womanpriest put this quest before me some years past.
I’m glad she asked.
Her curiosity set me on a pilgrimage to find my reason why.
What was I seeking in Brigid's legends?
Perhaps the courage to believe I was more than I had heard
from the world around me, content to make a woman less than a man
in oh, so many ways.
Not here in the world of Brigid,
Goddess of Ireland, saint of Kildare,
Standing with the likes of Patrick and Columba.
She gave her father’s sword to a beggar;
She assured food and drink for all who sought her aid.
She believed: “What is mine is theirs.”
Jesus said something like this—
He also said, "You will do far greater things than I,
because I return to my Source of Life and yours."
We are all one, Brigid with us, we with her and the Christ.
Because of her stories, persisting through the ages
we are More--
We are courage to believe we can be what we came here for:
Lovers of the least
Change agents
Prophets before assemblies
Cherishers of home and hearth as much as the forge,
as much as a carefully crafted word,
as much as every tree and bird, river and rock,
We can turn ahead the clock of Brigid’s time and find today
Our need still to hear these truths,
even more perhaps than in her time.
Life is best found in all that lives,
All that gives a revelation of the Creative power,
On this earth.
We are worse off in our world for having failed to see
what every woman and man can be
Lights of the Beloved,
Free Spirits, called to shine into the dark matter of time
and space. We have a place,
and a call to be as Brigid,
the Exalted One.
Copyright November 9, 2011. Mary Eileen Knoff
