Letters

She Is Wisdom

I want to say thank you to Natalie Wigg-Stevenson for the lyrical description of her experience of childbirth and the (uncertain) joy of having her baby girl baptized (“The Agony and Ecstasy of Baptism,” March 2016). I share her concerns about misogynistic, patriarchal distortions of God’s truth. For the past decade I have found it helpful and liberating to think of and always call the Holy Spirit “she.” She is the “sophia” (feminine wisdom) of God and the one who breathes life into us all, first at birth and then at baptism. A Hebrew Testament example where wisdom is referred to as “she” is in Proverbs 3:13-18, a really beautiful passage.

Patricia Besseling Holgate
sojo.net comment

Openness of Hearts

After reading Eboo Patel’s “The Gift of Small Things” (March 2016), I found myself weeping at the kitchen counter. The warmth and openness of hearts he described between the Muslim and Christian neighbors in Chicago made me realize how deeply I am wounded by the rhetoric of separation and fear that permeates our national dialogue. Sojourners gives me stories of hope and unity, which help me to keep the faith. Thank you.

Greg Wise
Dana Point, California

Care for the Fallen Sparrow

I fully agree with Rose Marie Berger that fear is at the root of gun violence in the United States (“Afraid and Reaching for a Gun,” March 2016). I appreciate her willingness to “challenge the culture of violence and encourage a culture of life.” However, I respectfully take exception to the idea that “in rural areas a gun can be a tool for wildlife management” or the implication that a legitimate use of a gun is “to shoot copperheads.” If God loves creation, then God loves every part of it—that includes copperheads as well as the fallen sparrow. The living God creates and cares for all creatures. And God must weep when any of God’s children are “managed” with a gun.

Bob Muth
Kalispell, Montana

Fruitful Lives

Your January 2016 issue is my favorite thus far, in which Ellen Painter Dollar takes an unorthodox stance on fruitfulness. In her article “Redefining Fruitfulness,” she challenges the church to accept childless couples as being more than the stereotypes suggest, by seeing the word “fruitful” beyond its reproductive meaning.

Jesus had no children, yet defined fruitfulness; clearly, our loins are not the only way we are called to produce fruit. Procreation and parenting are often God-honoring processes, which I believe put a smile on God’s face, but in no way are they the only way to obey God. God has a different role for each and every one of us. In Ephesians 2:22, it talks of us as bricks in the grand temple of the Lord. Not every brick is going to be a baby-popping machine. Thank you, Ms. Dollar, for such a tolerant and progressive perspective, and may we all succeed in producing fruitful lives in our own godly way.

Sarah Eby
Farmington Hills, Michigan