SURRENDER IS NOT SUBMISSION

(and it's not a paradox to be a feminist in love with christ)

There was that prayer I prayed recently when my little sister was in labor and her blood pressure spiked.

I saw this flash-memory of the moment my mom first put her in my arms when I was nine. I held her with more than my arms, as I gazed into her tiny face, and I felt this presence with me, so real and true, it felt like someone else was in the room, witnessing with me the first moment of real joy, and real safety I felt in childhood.

The prayer I prayed held her in that same way, as she surrendered to the threshold of birth, and I felt the way that this love I loved her with was always more than my own.

There was the morning of Grandma Betty’s funeral. When I prayed that prayer for the words to adequately express during the service how beloved she was to all of us.

And then suddenly, I could have sworn I heard her. Distantly. Momentarily. As if her voice was a radio signal, only tenuously audible, and filled with static. It felt as if I was somehow moving at a great speed from her, so I’d soon pass the point of reception.

Grandma Betty was elated. She was trying to lift me up, to make certain I convey the joy she lived. “All is well,” she seemed to be saying, as tears streamed down my face.

And Christ, Christ was like this transparent bridge making the moment possible. Humble, and unassuming. He was there as if with a wry smile, wanting me to admit the magnificence of it all. But instead, when the signal was lost, I sobbed my face off.

There was that incalculable realm of time, of screaming Christ’s name as I gave birth to my son. His name was the only prayer I prayed. His name was my entire petition.

My hips refused the circumference of my son’s head, combined with his arm and his little fist tucked under his chin. (Still his favorite sleeping position, 16 years later.)

I felt the echo of the lineage of women who gave up their lives to bring new life into this world. Why have we never called them heroes? Or warrior-saints?

But Christ’s name. I wasn’t even consciously saying it. I heard his name as if someone else was saying it. It was the only word real enough to keep me from passing out from the pain. It was the only truth true enough to be with me at the door of life and death.

Then there was that strange night, when I was living in the convent next to Riverside Church. I kept hearing these lessons, every time I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

Lessons about a living cross, a presence, an awareness of love, not as a thing to acquire, or a person to be met. A presence that’s so hard to find because it sees out through our eyes.

Then there was the double yellow line. The steep hill. My dad’s loud amount of cologne. (The tell that he was drunk.) There was the truck going too slow up the steep hill, and then there was me in the front seat.

There was me holding tight to the passenger door handle, as he crossed the double yellow line to pass the slow moving truck and take the sharp right turn at the top of the hill blindly.

He crossed the line without seeing or knowing if oncoming traffic would meet us head on when we pulled out from behind the truck.

There was me leaving my body before finding out.

And there was Christ like an answered prayer before I had time to pray it.

There was Christ like a warmth, like a truth I could hold onto as I hovered above everything, existing elsewhere, anywhere other than in the body of a little girl made homeless on one car ride from her mother’s to her father’s house when she was seven.

Surrender hasn’t always been voluntary. Surrender has come via exhaustion, heartbreak, death, blinding pain, and dissociation.

What I’ve learned is that surrender is also a choice. And it’s also the antithesis to submission. I’ve just avoided choosing it.

Because emotionally I couldn’t untangle the two. Surrender felt like submission. And I will never submit to injustice of any kind, but especially within the church.

I will never submit to being complicit in the power grab of suggesting that anyone of us is greater or less than the other.

For me, surrender is a deepening inward. It’s handing the ego over to this warmth, this love, this presence pressing against the backside of my eyes as I write this.

Submission is what one ego asks of another. Surrender strips us of our ego.

Submission disempowers us from knowing that we belong only to ourselves. Submission confuses us into thinking someone else has power over us.

Surrender reminds us that we are our own.

Surrender reminds us that there is no external form of power that can compete with the power we meet with when we pray ourselves back to the heart.

There was a time when it seemed to my rational mind that it was a paradox to be a feminist in love with Christ.

Now it’s clearer. Now that I’m seeing out through a love that’s far more than my own. I’m a feminist because I’m in love with Christ.

Surrender is not submission.

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The Spiritual Eye of the Heart

Discovering Radical Love & Vision in The Gospel of Mary

THE ART OF LIVING
Boone, North Carolina
June 5th-7th 2026

Join bestselling author and feminist theologian Meggan Watterson for a powerful weekend of connecting to what The Gospel of Mary refers to as “the treasure,” or “the spiritual eye of the heart.” This “spiritual eye” exists within us and allows us to know what’s true and real for us. It’s an inner guide and source of vision whenever we feel lost. This three-day retreat will invite you to learn about the hidden scripture from antiquity not included in the traditional canon, like The Gospel of Mary and The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Scripture that contains a spiritual vision that’s possible for each of us to acquire. Then you’ll also put that wisdom into practice through The Soul-Voice Meditation, a form of focusing inward, and returning to the heart.

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THE POWER OF MERCY IN THE GOSPEL OF MARY

House of Mercy in Asheville invited me to join them to talk about mercy in the Gospel of Mary. We’ll be gathering at The Mule, at 7pm on June 9th. And we’ll save time for questions and a chance to sign whatever book or oracle you might bring for me to sign.

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How Women Pray When The World is on Fire

KRIPALU CENTER
Stockbridge, Massachusetts + Online Livestream
June 12 - 14, 2026

Join feminist theologian Meggan Watterson, for a weekend of exploring a riveting first-century scripture about a courageous saint named Thecla. We’ll examine the seven stages of spiritual transformation in Thecla’s story in order to embody the authority of knowing our own worth. A worth that allows us to move past the expectations of others and listen to what our soul desires.

Through fiery talks about Thecla, and other forgotten voices of the divine feminine, like Mary Magdalene, we’ll illuminate the stories that have been left out of the canon for far too long. And through the practice of the soul-voice meditation, we’ll experience a spiritual path that allows us to release the egoic thoughts that often keep us from what we know is meant for us.

(Available both in person and online)