The days are long, the sleepless nights even longer. I was searching my bookshelves for a comfort read and pulled out Whispers: Conversations with Edwina Gately, flipping to passages I highlighted years ago:
“We must not distinguish between spiritual, mental, and physical health. We must put the three together and then we can start to talk about healing, holiness, wholeness. Only then will we understand that God is in all of our being not just the place we call ‘soul’.“
Edwina Gateley
Healing and wholeness. I do not know anyone who could not use a healthy dose of both right now.
Edwina Gateley: An ordinary woman, an extraordinary faith
A writer, theologian and Catholic lay minister described as a modern day mystic and contemporary Dorothy Day, I first heard Edwina Gately speak at a women’s spirituality retreat in 2013.
Petite, and with a seemingly endless energy and gentle smile that belied a booming voice, she held us rapt for three hours with stories about her lifelong spiritual journey, from her childhood in Lancaster, England to her work in East Africa, to the founding of Genesis House in Chicago, a refuge for women involved in prostitution.
Her story isn’t one of an extraordinary woman with an unfailing faith, but that of an ordinary woman on a lifelong journey towards God and an authentic life of PRAYER and work. She also happens to attempt extraordinary things along the way.
Whispers is the result of a week author/photographer Jane Hammond-Clarke spent with Gately in 1999, and the chapters reflect that conversational quality: you can imagine the two women conversing over several pots of tea, long into the evening.
Dare to reimagine your relationship with Him
The chapters take a deep dive into themes of “daring to give oneself wholly to God’s direction”, and in the process finding the hope of healing, wholeness and a more intimate relationship with Him than we might have ever imagined.
She uncomfortably reminds us our ongoing relationship with God will be challenging:
“God was present to the child, but as I grew up that God became elusive. This is where we have to stretch. When we truly have a relationship and truly love, it is not going to be one big jolly relationship. There are going to be heights, and depths and plateaus and we must accept that and grow with it.”
Edwina Gateley
Gately asks the reader to consider that the path to wholeness and healing begins not with the healing of ourselves, but is to be found in the work God calls us to do:
“We are not here to sit and receive God’s gifts, passive recipients from some Santa Claus, we are here to cooperate in miracle work and in transformation! That means we are involved, we are co-creators with God.”
Gately’s words are as poignant today about healing ourselves and our communities as they were two decades ago.
Quote From Whispers: Conversations with Edwina Gateleyote
From the chapter “Passion”:
“Instead of saying, “Wait a minute, how much are we going to make? Is it going to be to our benefit?, we have to say, “What is the most loving thing to do?” If we put our hearts first we would, little by little, heal our world, and ourselves in the process.”
Edwina Gateley
Interspersed with Gately’s original poetry, she implores us to rethink, reimagine, and reevaluate our own spiritual journeys, asking that we let go of our limiting notions of God, accept the inevitable but transitory plateaus, and to stretch beyond what we ever imagined our relationship with Him could be.
Yes, the sleepless nights are long right now in the Spring of 2020. But Gately’s Whispers offers more than the dare to challenge ourselves to connect more deeply to Him; it offers glimmers of hope, that we can heal ourselves and the world around us when we do.
