I am a child of the Earth.
I live and breathe, walk and dance upon Her face.
She is my source and I learn from Her each day. This I know…

Life begins in the dark as Desire.
Deep in that dark place life begins to form, taking root and becoming…..

As life stirs…… deep in the Mother’s Belly,
there is a gentle quickening, movement
that alerts us to a “knowing”
of the presence of something yet to come.

As the Earth prepares Herself with warmth,
the rains and waters come to flood the land,
nourishing the soil in which She is creating new life.

Earth and Water and Fire
come together and Form continues to take shape.

One last thing is needed.
Just as new form emerges,
She breathes Air upon it.
Her Breath, giving Life to all.

In previous posts I have focused on the Earth as the Body of Goddess and well as Her Sacred Waters. Now I would love to play with Air. We cannot live without air. Without air, our breath, we can die in as little as four minutes. We take air into our lungs and it replenishes our body with the oxygen it brings to us. When we exhale, we release what oxygen we did not use, as well as carbon dioxide. The beautiful symbiosis with this is that our plant kindred produce oxygen for us as we release carbon dioxide for them. Air is our “shared breath.”

In our speech, we use many idioms such as:  you take my breath away, like a breath of fresh air, with bated breath, don’t hold your breath, and I don’t have time to breathe.

For air itself, some well-known ones are: a breath of fresh air, have your nose in the air, build castles in the air, air your dirty linen in public, put on airs, clear the air, vanish into thin air, float on air and full of hot air. Of course there are many more.

As an element, air has many magical associations. Some are imagination, clearing, dawn, and birds of prey. In the tarot, we associate air with both the sword and the wand, depending on which traditions we follow. Some of the colors connected to air are yellow, purple, white and lilac. These are all colors that help us to feel “light as air.”

And the hopeless romantic that I am – I am swept away when I hear the words in the song, “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias:

And I will stand by you, forever

You can take my breath away
You can take my breath away …

When we think of air we also think of wind. Wind comes to us from all directions.  It can be warm, cold, wet and gusty. It carries pollen from plant to plant. We might have the pleasure (or dismay) of a gusty wind lifting a skirt. Our feathered friends fly on the drafts and currents of the wind. How many have played as children, running with a kite until the wind catches it and lifts it into the sky?

Some well-known idioms for wind are written on the wind, three sheets in the wind, scattered to the four winds, throw caution to the wind, spitting in the wind, or pissing in the wind.

Our ability to taste our food is primarily a function of our sense of smell. Air carries smells to us.

In his Book of Secrets, Rajneesh/Osho writes, ”If you can do something with breath, you will attain the source of life. If you can do something with breath, you can transcend time and space. If you can do something with breath, you will be in the world and also beyond it.”

Many spiritual traditions include spiritual breathing into their practices. It is a great way to clear your head and calm yourself when stressed. You can become centered, clear and uplifted.

Working with the breath helps open us to a more spirit centered life. It opens us to sacred play. We can transform our breath into prayers. Breathing is the language of the soul.

I like to associate voice with air.  Voice when lifted in song expresses deep emotions through the words of the song as well as in the tune.  These tones arise from deep in the belly.  They are formed through the vocal cords and finally shaped by the tongue, lips and teeth.  These tones release both joy and anguish.

Our spoken voice is the vehicle through which we communicate intelligent sound with others.  They tell our thoughts, express our needs and help us make connections as we travel through life. The voice is used to defend our position, to stand up for what is right and for what we perceive of as wrong.  Our voice, as women, is often suppressed and lost to “power over” control of others. Let us call upon Air to heal this and to open us to reclaiming the power of voice.

We have many arguments today as to when life begins. The ancients believed that without breath there was no life. There were times when a woman would become pregnant and the delivery of her child would occur when food was scarce. Rather than deprive any already living soul, those assisting in the delivery, or the mother herself, would not allow the infant to breathe and therefore, it was never alive.

It is the same with our own creations. We first think them into being. Then we give them form and finally we must breathe into them, infuse them with life so they are manifested into reality.

In Celtic mythology we read:

Nine Maidens, laughing and singing;
Then veiled in the mist, silent as stone.
Changers and Life Makers, Breath of change, Life Breathing all.

In the shifting realm between the worlds, these nine maidens revealed the beckoning cauldron of unknown potential through which life is taken and out of which life is born.

The wind blows away dead leaves that cover the earth, exposing the soil to the new light. We link our concept of Spirit as a metaphor with the breath, breath hovers over the waters.

The wind is seen as a great power behind the natural world and becomes that power’s creative spirit. A strong gust of wind suggests an infusion of creative potential.

The Tuatha De Danann, the Old Gods of the Celtic people, suddenly appeared in Ireland out of the air, on wind-borne clouds.

What this all means to us, is that we must open ourselves to this gift of the life giving breath.  Let us breathe in creative potential.  Let us breathe in sacred inspiration. Let us breathe in the breath that we all share. The breath that we have shared since the beginning of time is the sacred life giving source of life – Air.

Deanne Quarrie is a Priestess of the Goddess, and author of five books.  She is an Adjunct Professor at Ocean Seminary College, teaching classes on the Ogham, Ritual Creation, Ethics for Neopagan Clergy, Exploring Sensory Awareness, Energetic Boundaries, and many other classes on the use of magic.  She is the founder of Global Goddess, a worldwide organization open to all women who honor some form of the divine feminine, as well as The Apple Branch – A Dianic Tradition where she mentors women who wish to serve as priestesses. 

What are the dreams that we dare to dream today?

I was sitting with a young queer student from my Gender Women’s Studies class at the gay coffee shop in Long Beach, California. I offer this option to my students—meet in

Long Beach on Friday of finals week if it helps — realize that I teach in Northridge, so on a Friday afternoon this means perhaps a 2 hour drive to do this. But many students do it—this one student included. It happened that he made this trek on the first day of Gay Pride activities in Long Beach—the Dyke March was that night.

Marie with sister of perpetual indulgence—tippy tappy toes

I asked if he was going to any Gay Pride events while he was in Long Beach—perhaps even attending the Dyke March. He said, “I’m over Pride.” It felt like a game changing statement for a young queer activist.  I asked, “Why?” He said, “Why do I want to go somewhere and have someone try to sell me sheets or …a condo ….or buy pillows…it’s just about money, Professor. It’s got nothing to do with… what it was supposed to be about…?

I said, “Stonewall.”

“Whatever. Gay Pride is not about that. I went to one Pride in Los Angeles. It’s not for me. I don’t relate to it.” He smiled, “I’m sorry. “

He is a 20 something Mexican American majoring in Queer Studies in an urban area, partnered with another young Mexican American male—an aspiring actor. He is also a teacher in a public school –teaching creative writing and self defined as “over Pride.”

Gay civil rights celebrations began in June to commemorate the first televised event—the Stonewall Inn rebellion in June 1969, the day Judy Garland died. Some say this was the inciting event. That to raid the gay bar –the Stonewall Inn, one of the few places gays could dance together—the day Judy died was the “Oh, no you don’t!” tipping point. Whether or not that is the case, this rebellion–the first ever televised (not the first ever rebellion)—happened 46 years ago.

A day after Long Beach Pride I was at the same coffee shop sitting with a totally different age group—women belonging to Forty Plus. Since the group started in the late 1980s many of them are well over 60, but there is a strong membership base in their 50s.

“Did you go to Pride?” I asked a woman at the table, making conversation.

“Yeah, I volunteered,” she sighed. “I’d never pay to get in.”

“Really?” I have volunteered but also often pay to get in…as I always go to the Pride Festival full of well, pride, and wearing rainbows. “I love Pride. The atmosphere. The people watching.”

She shook her head. “It’s all rainbows, rainbows, rainbows. Can’t they sell a plain T-shirt that says ‘Gay Pride?’ The rainbow is on everything. This day-glo rainbow. It means nothing. I’ll tell you one thing—I’m over the rainbow. Really, over it.”

Judy Garland’s anthem from The Wizard of Oz—“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” includes lyrics that ask us if “the dreams that we dare to dream really do come true…somewhere over the rainbow.”

What does it mean then to be “over the rainbow,” as in done with it? Granted when we go to Pride we see a lot of rainbows—on everything from sex toys, T-shirts, key rings, flashlights, belt buckles…to dog beds. But we don’t see a lot of history, of how the rainbow comes to be our symbol or what we can do with our gay pride besides spend money on rainbow colored items (and alcohol).

Are we  really somewhere over the rainbow where are dreams come true… if we do not have marriage equality, LGBT education nationwide in public schools, or gay elder housing (the latter two just getting started in California). Most gay elders fear that their relationships will not be honored in older care facilities so they try to stay at home, rather than receive care somewhere that strips them of their relationship. And gay youth are the nation’s highest suicide risk.

For the pre-Stonewall Judy Garland loving crowd the dream was sometimes as simple as having a drink in a bar with other gay people and not being afraid of a police raid, or being able to fall in love with someone and learn their real name, or being able to tell someone close to you—maybe even a family member—that you were gay and having them still accept you. Or perhaps it was just as simple as hoping that the bar you went to would not close.

What are the dreams that we dare to dream today? For me the rainbow means gay pride whether or not connected to a festival, it means protests, and, since I came out in 1979—ten years after Stonewall, it means a 30-plus year commitment to fighting for things like gay marriage, an end to hate speech, and a commitment to gay rights. Every year during June I celebrate all the steps along the way for that year.

Is it really time to be over the rainbow, as in done with it? Yes– the rainbow is on those T-shirts and earrings…fingerless gloves, pantyhose and tutus. But our history/herstory will tell us for one thing that that costuming is important to us. While it is true that a butch woman probably metered out the first punch at Stonewall…it was quickly followed by street-drag-queen culture, and those street youth were in the drag that they could afford, and this group created a televised revolution! Costuming within our community—the tutus and boas and gloves and wigs—does have a distinguished and honored history.

Marie and Collette, photo by Angela Brinskele

For pre-Stonewall people, a ‘friend of Dorothy’ was code name for a gay person. A few years ago the airline Jet Blue ran an ad that said it would help carry the Friends of Dorothy over the rainbow from one pride event to another.

Are we just a niche market now—to be ferried from one marketing opportunity to another? Or do we go over the rainbow to activate change—and not just the cha-ching of the register? What are the dreams we dare to dream?

Are you a friend of Dorothy? Are you over the rainbow or “over the rainbow?

Let me hear from you.

*All photos by author unless otherwise noted.

Marie Cartier is a teacher, poet, writer, healer, artist, and scholar. She holds a BA in Communications from the University of New Hampshire; an MA in English/Poetry from Colorado State University; an MFA in Theatre Arts (Playwriting) from UCLA; an MFA in Film and TV (Screenwriting) from UCLA; and an MFA in Visual Art (Painting/Sculpture) from Claremont Graduate University. She is also a first degree black belt in karate, Shorin-Ryu Shi-Do-Kan Kobayashi style. Ms. Cartier has a Ph.D. in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University.

The day before graduation, all CST graduates received a rainbow tassel as a free gift from the CSGR, with the following accompanying letter:

May 20, 2013

Dear CST Graduate,

This tassel is a gift from the Center for Sexuality, Gender and Religion (CSGR). It carries with it our congratulations as you receive your diploma from Claremont School of Theology. Well done!

We invite you to wear this rainbow tassel at Commencement and to display it after graduation in a place where you and others will see it on a regular basis.

The colors of the rainbow carry significance in many spiritual traditions; in the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the rainbow signifies God’s covenant with the earth. The rainbow can also signify the diversities of human love, identity, and experience.

A unique part of theological education at CST is a public commitment to the flourishing of, and justice for, persons of all genders and sexualities. On October 11, 2010, National Coming Out Day, the CST faculty unanimously approved the following statement:

Claremont School of Theology affirms its longstanding welcome to LGBTQI students, faculty, and staff. This commitment is in harmony with the specific call of the United Methodist Church toward inclusiveness. It reflects our hope and expectation that welcome and inclusiveness will become the accepted norm throughout the world.

Since 2011, the CSGR has been one of the sponsoring institutions of the Human Rights Campaign’s LGBT Summer Institute in Religious and Theological Study. CST was also selected in 2012 by the Religious Institute as one of the twenty most sexually healthy and responsible seminaries in the nation. Given that CST is a nationally recognized leader in these areas, we hope you will proudly reflect our values in the world as a CST alumnus.

Wherever you serve after graduation, remember that this tassel communicates our best wishes and confidence in you. You are equipped to lead diverse religious, racial-ethnic and social communities, and we look forward to hearing great things from and about you.

With best wishes,

Grace Kao                                            Duane Bidwell                                   Carleen Mandolfo

Co-Director, CSGR                           Co-Director, CSGR                           Co-Director, CSGR 

—-

[All Claremont Lincoln University graduates also received the same gift, with a slightly modified corresponding letter.]

I was ecstatic to see the vast majority of graduates, as well as the faculty, staff, and other luminaries participating in Commencement eagerly don their rainbow tassels (n.b., when I told the president of CST of our plan one month beforehand, he said with a smile “I want one, too!” which then prompted us to purchase enough tassels for other non-students participating in regalia to wear one at graduation at their discretion as well).

The tradition of hosting a “rainbow” or “lavender” graduation began at the University of Michigan in 1995 and honors the achievements, hopes, and struggles of graduates whose identities span across the spectrum of gender identity, gender expression and/or sexual orientation. These ceremonies usually take place at a separate time from the formal graduation ceremony and can include awards to outstanding individuals, a guest speaker’s exhortation, some reflections by the graduating students, and a commemorative gift (e.g., tassel, cord, stole, pin) that the graduates are encouraged to wear with pride during the formal graduation ceremony.

As HuffPost blogger Amy Shiner has observed, “the journey is not the academics but the self-discovery,” which is why every college and university should host one. Her conclusion leads me to wonder about the prevalence of this tradition at other seminaries or divinity schools. Does anyone know?

The Jeanne Audrey Powers Award

Another tradition that we at the Center for Sexuality, Gender, and Religion instituted this year is the Jeanne Audrey Powers Award. The Award recognizes graduating students from CST and CLU who have demonstrated outstanding service or leadership in LGBTQIA communities and displayed a commitment to be an activist for social change on gender and sexuality issues. Winners receive public recognition, a cash prize, and a gift of a rainbow stole embroidered with their school’s logo.

We named this award in honor of the founding donor of our Center. The Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers is a retired member of the member of the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and one of the first women ordained in the UMC (1958). At the time she came out as a lesbian in 1995, she was the highest-ranking UMC official to have done so (n.b., Powers was then Associate General Secretary of the UMC’s General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns).

Pictured left to right: Dara Jaworowicz, Nina Fernando, Jeanne Audrey Powers, Alejandro Escoto

At a celebratory event called Selah! the day before graduation, the Dean saved the announcement of the creation of the Jeanne Audrey Powers Award and its inaugural recipients for last. My heart soared when the audience gave thunderous applause to Jeanne Audrey when she stood to be recognized when invited to do so. My heart soared again when the three recipients received the recognition they richly deserved for their leadership, service, and dedication.

On a more personal note, I was delighted to have been able to “make a difference” in my community by taking the lead in enacting these new traditions. I am well-aware that these actions are more symbolic than anything else, but I would not have pressed to make these things happen if I didn’t believe that symbolism matters.

I should add that my faith in what can be done in small institutions was also renewed in the process. Had we tried to push through these new student awards or a rainbow graduation ceremony at a larger, more bureaucratic institution like my former one, the process would have required the approval of countless committees and likely taken years to actualize, if ever.

But at a progressive school like Claremont School of Theology, the entire process from inception to the solicitation of nominees for the awards to the purchase and distribution of rainbow tassels and stoles took less than 2 months. Hurray for that!

Pictured left to right: Alejandro Escoto (Jeanne Audrey Powers Award recipient), Kathleen Greider (CST faculty member), and Jerry Campbell (CST President)

Grace Yia-Hei Kao is Associate Professor of Ethics at Claremont School of Theology in the Claremont Lincoln University Consortium. She is the author of Grounding Human Rights in a Pluralist World (Georgetown University Press, 2011) and is working on two co-edited book projects–one on Asian American Christian Ethics, the other on a theological exploration of women’s lives.

She congratulates all 2013 graduates for their hard work and perseverance and wishes them discernment, personal growth, and success in next steps and future endeavors.

First was a letter to the editor by Rabbi Howard Berman, published in the Boston Globe on April 21. The title (“Women’s Strides set Judaism apart”) was telling. According to Berman, strict religious hierarchy means that only in (his branch of) Judaism have women’s rights and roles advanced. Mormons and Catholics have no shot – never mind that Mormon women had recently raised the issue of women’s priesthood, or that lay and religious women among Catholics have long been fighting the good fight, sometimes with male allies. He then contradicts himself on the role of official hierarchy: Islam, where there is less centralization than in American or world Judaism, also gives women no chance of gaining authority.

I fumed and mentally composed a pithy refutation, which I never actually wrote.

A few days later, I was happily reading Bishop Gene Robinson’s book God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage. Though it does not seriously contend with critics who argue that same-sex marriage seeks to shore up dominant social hierarchies even as it expands them to include (elite) queer people, on its own terms it is a valuable book. But as the book nears its conclusion, Robinson makes a gratuitous reference to Islam which reminded me, again, that clarity of insight on one topic does not remove all blinders. In a passage where he objects to religious “meddl[ing] in the rightful business of the state” he gives a hypothetical scenario in which a Muslim majority population elects Muslim lawmakers who impose veiling on all women. His objective, I assume, was to pick something his readers would reject as repugnant, leading them to reject by analogy the right of conservative religious groups to oppose same-sex civil marriage. But in presuming that a) veiling is unambiguously required of Muslim women and that b) government in a majority Muslim country would dictate how women dress, he succumb to stereotypes of both Muslim conservatism and Muslim authoritarianism. The former identifies correct Muslim doctrine with that of its most restrictive interpreters and inadvertently affirms their authority. The latter draws on and reinforces hateful ideas about oppressive Muslim regimes. Of dozens of Muslim-majority countries on the planet, only Iran and Saudi Arabia enforce veiling. Such negative images, as with homophobia which he repeatedly abhors, have real-world consequences. They feed a climate of fear and hate.

I wrote a letter. Perhaps I will get a response.

The next Sunday, primed by both of these incidents as well as the general climate in Boston after the marathon bombings, including an attack on a woman wearing a headscarf in a neighboring town, I ran a local “Heroes and Villains”-themed 5K dressed as Dust, an X-men character with mutant powers who happens wear a face veil and abaya. And again, a negative comment seemed to demand a response. In an online essay, which it was mildly cathartic to write, I tried to connect my experience to bigger questions about stereotypes of Muslims, especially Muslim women, and about US policies and the feedback loop of resentment, hate, and more violence that they help create and sustain. I linked to sources that would substantiate my points about Iraqi civilian deaths, drone attacks in Pakistan, and so-called “”collateral damage” in the Afghan war, which nourish the perception among Muslims worldwide that the American government doesn’t care about Muslim lives. Extremists use these facts as a pretext for anti-American violence. And the resulting stigmatization and profiling of Muslims worldwide and in the U.S. – analogous to the stigmatization and persecution of mutants in the X-Men universe – strengthens only those who believe, like the X-Men villain Magneto, that peaceful coexistence is impossible.

Having written the blog entry, I was concerned that my assertions about U.S. policy would prove controversial, or my comic book references too obscure. Silly me; I needn’t have worried. The commenters, like the rabbi and the bishop, only want to talk about women and the the veil.

Kecia Ali is an Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University where she teaches a range of classes related to Islam. She writes on early Islamic law, women, ethics, and biography. Her books include Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2006), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (2010), and Imam Shafi’i: Scholar and Saint (2011). She lives in the Boston area with her family.

Her name was Tricia Meili. Their names were Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Korey Wise and Kevin Richardson.  On April 19, 1989 all of their lives were irrevocably changed. They would never meet, but their lives would become forever linked.  When they entered into Central Park on that night, did they know that they were stepping into a haunting history of dismembered bodies?  Tragically, their bodies would become another story to be told in that history.

On that April day in history some 34 years ago one white female body went into Central Park for her routine jog. Five black and brown male teenage bodies went into Central Park to hang out, but soon became a part of a crowd engaged in mischievous if not dangerous and out-of-control harassment of other park visitors. As the night wore on, police were called and arrests were made. It would later be discovered that Tricia was brutally and sadistically raped, but not by Yusef, Raymond, Antron, Korey or Kevin. Yet, the five young teenagers were badgered into confessions, charged with the rape and sentenced to prison.

This is the story of innocence lost. Tricia’s innocence was ravished by the rape. The boys’ innocence was destroyed by the criminal justice system.  And for all six, innocence was defiled by history.  By the end of the day, six bodies were objectified, dehumanized and exploited, but perhaps worse yet they were betrayed.

As I watched the film about this, The Central Park Five, several nights ago and engaged in discussion with two of the teenagers, now men, as well as the filmmakers, I was yet again sickened by the violent web of history that continually ensnares and imperils the bodies of women and of black/ brown men. Even more disconcerting to me  while I listened was how this history repeats itself by consistently pitting two of the most disregarded and disempowered bodies against each other. This is the history yes, of Emmitt Till and other untold lynched black male bodies, but it is also the history of the Suffrage Movement in relation to the Black Abolitionist Movement, the Contemporary Women’s Movement in relation to the Black Power Movement, The LGBTQ Movement in relation to the Civil Rights Movement. Though a cliché, it is true: fundamental to power is the ability to divide and conquer its victims. In African American culture we call it the “crabs in the barrel” theory. As long as you keep the crabs fighting with each other, pulling each other down, then those at the top are never in danger of losing their position. And so, as I sat watching and listening to the events that were set in motion on that April 19^th evening in Central Park, I wondered how long that young woman and those five young men, and bodies like theirs, would continue to be betrayed not by the history past, but by the history we are now making.

We betray their bodies as womanist and feminist scholars if we are not “proleptically audacious” in the history we make.  The discursive and activist work we do must chart a different future in our very present realities. We must write with our words and through our actions the future we want to see for our daughters and sons. This is a future where their bodies will not consistently be threatened and denigrated by a racialized patriarchy that sets the parameters of justice in a way that denies them and defines what it means to be human in ways that discount them. And so how do we write this future?

Fundamentally, we must not fall prey to the tactics of power which divide and conquer. These divisive tactics are carried out most effectively through the manipulation of sexualized narratives which not only objectify female and black bodies, but nurtures distrust and fear between the two communities of  bodies.  In other words, as the innocent and chaste white female body is contrasted with the beguiling and rapacious black male body, the stage is set for the two bodies to become antagonists in battle not partners in struggle.  As womanist and feminist scholars we must not get caught in the “contagion” of victim blaming, castigating and demonizing one another. We must not fall prey to the temptation of staking claim to our victimization while we fail to fully appreciate the plight of others. We must remain ever vigilant in recognizing and naming the ways in which racist, sexist, and heterosexist narratives interact to protect patriarchal power, even when others are not so vigilant. We must see the ways in which we aid and abet the power of patriarchy every time we fail to see the ways in which we are connected in our debasement and abuse—even when we appear to be enemies. We must resist the dualistic thinking that says the freedom of one depends on the oppression of another. We must reject the dualistic paradigm that does not permit complex realities of guilt and innocence to be named and recognized.

The work we do must be that which projects into our present realities the way to the future of our gods and goddesses where all created bodies have a safe  space to grow, thrive and contribute to the bettering the world.  We must be committed to the reality that all bodies have a place in this world and thus we must claim that place for all. Our work must be chart a future not where the last become first and the first become last, but instead where one cannot distinguish between the first and the last because all are treated fairly and justly.  And so what kind of work is this? It is work where we spend just as much time listening to the story of others as we do telling our story—if not more. It is the work where we engage each other, as Martin Buber once said, in I-Thou relationships. We don’t see each other as objects of study or curiosity, let alone as antagonists, but we find ways to participate without agenda’s in each other’s history, in each other’s lives, in each other’s struggles. It is out of   participation with one another that our scholarly work should flow.  I am convinced that it is through participation in “I-Thou” relationality in our work and in our activities that a foundation for a different history can be written.

Several tragedies of history occurred surrounding the events that took place that April 1989 night in Central Park.  Not only was the brutal rape not properly solved, but communities were set against each other as they each protected their rightful claims of being victims. And victims they were, but not of one another. In the meantime, the systems and structures that created the space for the crimes that took place on that night, let alone the people who were complicit in them, remained unscathed and protected. Quite frankly, I am tired of hearing Central Park Five stories. Yet, some 34 years after it happen we continue to be live into this history and write it into our futures.  And as we do that, we betray not just the bodies of Tricia, Yusef, Raymond, Antron, Korey and Kevin but also the bodies of our daughters and sons. As womanist and feminist religious scholars we must break chart a new paradigm of being and working in the world. What we are doing here in this blog is surely the right beginning—but still left for each of us to do is to find a way to write a different history in the place we occupy in the world.

Kelly Brown Douglas is Professor and Director of the Religion Program at Goucher College where she has held the Elizabeth Conolly Todd Distinguished Professorship. She was recently awarded The Goucher College Caroline Doebler Bruckerl Award for outstanding faculty achievement. Kelly is a leading voice in the development of a womanist theology, Essence magazine counts Douglas “among this country’s most distinguished religious thinkers, teachers, ministers, and counselors.”  She has published numerous essays and articles in national publications, and her books include The Black Christ, Sexuality and the Black Church, What’s Faith Got to Do With It?: Black Bodies/Christian Soul.  Black Bodies and the Black Church: A Blues Slant is her most recently released book (Palgrave Macmillan, Fall 2012). Kelly is also a priest in the Episcopal Church and has served as Associate Priest at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church in Washington D.C. for over 20 years.

Photo by Manhattan College

This is a response to Carol P. Christ’s blog of April 29, 2013 on why she decided to leave the Christian tradition. Carol and I discuss these questions further in our forthcoming book Goddess and God Since Feminism: Body, Nature, and Power.

You raise the important question of what factors lead feminists to leave or remain within the religion of their birth. Your central challenge to me is how I can commit myself to a tradition in which God is imagined as a violent warrior when these images have harmed and continue to harm women and the world. How can I not recoil from using such images in worship? Why is the power of symbols less important to me than to you?

The first thing I would say is that, like you, I find these images profoundly problematic. One of the projects I have taken on in my retirement is reading the Bible from cover to cover, and I was appalled in going through all the prophets together at the amount of violence in their teachings. When I have spoken on the topic of dealing with difficult texts in the Jewish and Christian traditions—a subject that is dear to my heart—I always talk about God’s violence in addition to texts that demean women. And, yes, I have sometimes asked myself how I can remain part of a tradition in which God is depicted in this way. So I do not disagree with your critique of this imagery, but obviously for me, it is not decisive. Why not?

I think, as you suggest, that the different status of belief in Judaism and Christianity is a factor, though I’m not sure it is determinative. My experience of the importance of belief was very different from yours in that I never felt pressure to affirm certain things about God or about the origins of Torah; nor was I ever asked to defend or even to articulate my convictions. I always felt free to raise critical questions and, indeed, understood doing so as part of what it meant to be a Jew. While this may be one of gifts of my Reform upbringing, within certain parameters, it also characterizes the Jewish tradition more generally. Disagreement and debate are central modes of religious expression in rabbinic Judaism. The Talmud preserves minority positions and, in a famous passage, depicts a heavenly voice as responding to an ongoing dispute between two important rabbinic sages with the message, “These and these are the words of the living God.”

Beyond this, my Jewishness has shaped my identity in fundamental ways. Being perceived as “other” as a Jew was my first experience of otherness, long before I became a feminist. From a young age, I valued viewing the world from the perspective of an outsider. My life-long concern with issues of social justice came to me through Judaism. I certainly would not claim that the value of justice is exclusive to Judaism. But the idea of being kind to the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt creates a powerful link between the central Jewish narrative and the ongoing task of repairing the world. I find the Jewish story a powerful story—both the biblical account of Exodus and wandering and the continuing saga of the survival of a tiny, often persecuted, people, over the course of three millennia. It feels like a tremendous gift to be part of that long history and at the same time to have lived through the immense changes wrought by feminism over the last forty years. These changes strengthen my conviction that Judaism is an evolving tradition, that it has repeatedly transformed itself and can continue to do so. I also value both the theological importance of community in Judaism and the specific Jewish communities that have enriched my life. When I sit and sing with my havurah (a small Jewish worship group), I do not experience God as king or warrior, and my experience weighs as heavily for me as what you call the core symbols of the tradition.

In another context, you asked me whether I am not concerned with how the image of God as dominating male Other will affect my granddaughter and other girls. Thinking about my granddaughter puts me in touch with a whole dense network of symbols, other than those most troubling to you, that is central to my experience of Judaism and that I hope will be part of hers. Already at fourteen months, when Hannah (my granddaughter) saw the table set for the Sabbath, she put a kippah (skullcap) on her head and pretended she was singing. True, her father recites the blessing over wine using male God-language, but is that more important than sitting with her family around the table for a relaxed meal, dipping her finger in the wine, or feeling the texture of hallah in her mouth? At her first Passover Seder, she got to see a table laden with symbols, to taste the crumbly matzah and dip parsley in saltwater, combining a taste of spring with the tears of slavery. In a couple of years, she will be able to spill ten drops from the second cup of wine when we name the plagues as an expression of sorrow for the drowning of the Egyptians. In the fall, she will taste apples dipped in honey for a sweet year, hear the blasts of the shofar,  and a couple of weeks later sit in our sukkah, decorated with pine needles and laden with fruit and gourds. Certainly, none of these symbols individually is as central as the male God, but together they make a web of sensuous, embodied connections to what it means to be a Jew. She will have at least one grandmother who will talk to her about how God is in all these things and can be thought of as a girl like her and not just as male. She will grow up in a family in which asking critical questions is part of what it means to be Jewish and will be taught to think about the stories and images she is being bequeathed. Do I wish that more Jews used Marcia Falk’s blessings instead of the traditional ones? Yes. Do I see her exposure to male language as something to be discussed with her and questioned? Yes. Would I prefer that she be deprived of all these experiences because of the centrality of male language? Definitely not.

It seems to me that, in focusing on the damage inflicted by the symbol of the male, warrior God, you discount all the positive things that Judaism (or Christianity) offers its adherents. As you yourself have discussed in numerous places in your writing, many historic Goddess traditions also contain warrior imagery. But this does not lead you to reject all such imagery; rather you edit and transform it. Why should I then reject, rather than seeking to transform, a tradition that has enriched my life in innumerable ways?

Judith Plaskow is professor emerita of religious studies at ManhattanCollege and a Jewish feminist theologian. This spring, she and Orthodox feminist Blu Greenberg are team-teaching a course at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.

The meaning of relational theology has changed, and not for the better.

Over the last couple of years, I started to notice “relational theology” crop up in what I considered unlikely contexts.  I had previously associated the term primarily with the feminist and womanist work of Carter Heyward, Catherine Keller, Rita Nakashima Brock, Katie Geneva Canon, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Kelly Brown Douglas, and Sharon Welch, as well as the gay/feminist work of Gary David Comstock.  In each of these thinkers, the pursuit of relationality as divinity was always linked to a profound wrestling with suffering and oppression.  Furthermore, a clear diagnosis of individualism, transcendence, and other forms of disconnection as manifestations of patriarchal/hierarchal forms of subjectivity was central to the rationale for doing relational theology.  As I experienced it in the 1990s, relational theology was simply a dimension of feminist theology.  Forging through the searing pain of oppression to the roots of problems in order to propose radical solutions to real social evil, not general ruminations on divine being, was the first step.

My first sense that the basic meaning of “relational theology” had shifted occurred when I saw an open an “Open and Relational Theologies Group” at the American Academy of Religion.  Some theologians whose work I like participate in the group – including Catherine Keller.  My interest was piqued until I saw the actual themes and titles of papers given.  The themes were fine (I’m not quite ready to follow queer theorist Lauren Berlant into having a problem with “love”), but I sensed a movement toward an abstraction of the dynamic relational praxis that clearly grounded previous relational theologies.  Last year, one session focused on “Miracles in Theology and Twenty-First-Century Science.”  I moved on.

Later, I noticed the term cropping up in the rare instances I bumped into Evangelical and Emergent church spaces on the internet.   In light of the Emergent Church’s problem with privilege, it was clear that proclamations of “relation” did not have the same commitment to delving into the oppression/liberation dynamic as the central task of spiritual growth.  Something was up.  I needed to look into this some more.

My initial, preliminary findings confirmed my worst fears.  A Google search for “relational theology” does not get us to feminists!  If someone who has never heard of relational theology takes the most obvious route to learning something about it, its feminist roots are invisible.  Yet again, the contributions of women to an intellectual movement have been erased – a pattern that happens with distressing regularity as Dale Spender demonstrates in her epic Women of Ideas (and What Men Have Done to Them).

In the new relational theology, feminist, womanist, and liberation theologies are optional.  The rationale of the Open and Relational Theology group declares: “This Group brings together scholars of diverse interests and concerns. Prominent among those who participate are scholars who label themselves as process-oriented, openness-oriented, Wesleyan, feminist, liberationist, Arminian, trinitarian, evangelical, etc.”  Theologies that start with analysis of oppression and domination are included under the umbrella of relational theologies – but they are not integral to the new understanding of relational theology.  As my Google search confirmed, the result of feminism and womanism being “included” in the umbrella of “relational theologies” is that they have become peripheral to a theological movement to which they have made enormous contributions.  Nowhere is this marginalization more apparent than in the fact that Heyward’s tour de force Touching Our Strength: The Erotic and Power and the Love of God is out of print, as is her breath-taking collection of essays, Our Passion for Justice: Images of Power, Sexuality, and Liberation.  No one should be saying anything about relational theology without a thorough familiarity with all of Heyward’s work.

Not only has the rise of a larger category of “relational theology” marginalized feminism and womanism, it has removed the critical element, the hermeneutic of suspicion, from the theological task.  The introduction to Relational Theology: A Contemporary Introduction begins with a synopsis of biblical narrative that is indistinguishable from an Evangelical one.  The intertwined critiques of patriarchy and anti-Semitism by Rosemary Ruether, Carol Christ, Carter Heyward, and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza disappear in the absorption of “relational theology” into a Christian normalcy that bypasses the reality of inter-religious violence and colonial legacies. The Open and Relational Theology Group lists the following general assertions:

“Theology involves speculation about who God truly is and what God really does:

God’s primary characteristic is love

Creatures — at least humans — are genuinely free to make choices

God experiences others in some way analogous to how creatures experience others

Both creatures and God are relational beings, which means that both God and creatures are affected by others in give-and-take relationships

God experience changes, yet God’s nature or essence remains the same

Creatures are called to act in ways that please God and make the world a better place

The future is open — it is not predetermined by God

God’s expectations about the future are often partly dependent upon creaturely actions”

It is entirely possible to write theology according to these general principles without thinking about the significance of horrific events unleashed by kyriarchal forces.  It is hard to see how one could begin with such innocuous principles and get to a religious vision that could genuinely subvert anything.  In contrast, feminist relational theologians came to understand “relation” as key because of a keen understanding of power imbalances.  Rita Nakashima Brock’s Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power opens with a vivid analysis of the pervasiveness of child abuse. Carter Heyward’s The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation opens with diary entries attesting to the alienation arising from a theology affirming transcendence and probed the work of Elie Wiesel as an example of non-relation.  By questioning the very nature of power through an analysis of African-American literature, Sharon Welch’s A Feminist Ethic of Risk moved forward to a thoroughly relational understanding of divinity, critiquing Heyward’s formulation “ground of relation” as still too tied to an understanding of divinity as entity, opting for an understanding of God as adjective, not noun.

The radicality of Heyward’s and Welch’s theological proposals points to a tension within feminist relational approaches: the extent to which some form of theism can be recuperated.  Heyward began her theological journey with a deep interest in the Death of God movement and Welch asserts that the God of classical theism is irrational and unworthy of worship.  On the other hand, Catherine Keller, Rita Nakashima Brock, Monica Coleman, and, in her most recent work, Carol Christ, ground their theologies in a process metaphysics that affirms panentheism.  In many of the newer relational theologies, however, “relation” is simply a way to paint a “kinder, gentler” theism (younger readers may not remember the first president Bush’s use of the phrase to paint over the continued brutality of Reagan’s policies in his presidency).  Where Heyward asserts that “God is our power in mutual relation” – not a being that exists independently of the relational matrix – the newer relational theologians often sneak a God who exists independently of the world back into the equation.

Relational theology was a way I positioned myself as a theologian.  With the cooptation of relational theology’s radical beginnings by a bland search to make God nice, I’ll have to find another vocabulary – or fight harder to get the critical element back in.

Dirk von der Horst is a visiting scholar at Graduate Theological Union.  He earned his doctorate from Claremont Graduate University in Theology, Ethics, and Culture.  He is the co-editor of Voices of Feminist Liberation: Writings in Celebration of Rosemary Radford Ruether (Equinox Publishing, 2012). Dirk can be followed on Twitter @dirkvonderhorst.

Men’s Initiation Rites

When we consider principle practices of Western Buddhists, primarily daily meditation and meditation retreats we might enquire something like this: since monastic practice is a model for our Western lay practice, do Buddhist monasteries constitute an extension and continuation of men’s long houses, places of men’s initiation rites?

Vladimir Propp, a Soviet scholar of folk tales, argued that the motif of a fight with a large monster, which is present in many folk tales and myths, including St George and his dragon, has its roots in the practices of boys’ initiation in hunter-gatherer societies. That is a stage of societal development through which we all went.

These men’s initiation rites included excruciating physical trials (beatings, sleep deprivation, hunger, hanging the boys by hooks through the skin off the ceiling etc.). The goal was putting boys to test and also causing a change in their consciousness. See academic articles on this topic here and here.

Long houses survived in our fairy tales as houses in forests where a group of males live (as in Snow White). The features of long houses – exclusively male company, hard ordeals that are taken on together, secrets, hierarchy, sense of belonging and achievement – carry on into our society in such institutions as army, sports clubs, gang culture, and various closed groups and professions, for instance a predominantly male University Faculty, a political party, and boy-only boarding schools. Many of these institutions either rule their societies or educate ruling elite for their societies.

In the UK graduates of private paid schools (which are called public schools) are disproportionally represented in Government. See The Sutton Trust’s report for 2010, and articles on educational inequalities in the UK in Economist, and The Telegraph. It costs £150,000 to be educated at Eton.

You get ahead in the army or in a political party by being the toughest, by pushing yourself the hardest. I have noticed that in Buddhist circles “success” and “seniority” is often measured by as the number of “strict retreats” one has attended. Isn’t this related to patriarchal system of values? And, considering family commitments of women, are they not left behind when assessed by the number of strict retreats they have done?

A strict Buddhist retreat varies from tradition to tradition and from centre to centre. For Theravada school, it would mean rising early (say, 5 am), going to bed early (9 pm), eating only breakfast and lunch before 12 pm, and nothing afterward, and maintaining silence. The rest of time is spent in sitting and walking meditation, with toilet breaks. There also might be chanting involved, and possibly a Dhamma talk delivered by a teacher. Practitioners also have a chance to talk to the teacher in private about their meditation practice.

I will let you on a secret that few Buddhist teachers will tell you from the outset: in the early stages of your meditations training your body will probably respond to meditation with pain. In my case, it was pain in my back for a year and a half. Many people also experience emotional pain. This is a normal part of the process, and you get instruction on how to deal with it. However, most Buddhist meditators laugh when they are asked: “So, did you enjoy your retreat? Did you relax?” Buddhist retreats are not for enjoyment or relaxation.

Another feature of male initiation ceremonies, as well as of hunting, men’s predominant activity for hundreds of thousand of years, is silence. We encourage the practice of silence at our retreats and wider practice.

Sometimes silence in Buddhist practice is presented as counterweight to “idle chatter”. This might be relevant for men, as in patriarchal societies men are not encouraged to share their emotions or insights through speech. However, women, who are forced by patriarchal society to be carers-for-everyone-who-happens-to-be-in-the-vicinity, that is not a problem. When women speak to each other, it can be idle chatter, or it can be a meaningful exchange of deep emotions and insights.

In addition, silence prescribed to women on Buddhist retreats may be regarded as an echo of women’s situation in patriarchal society: we are not supposed to raise our voice. Whereas it might be beneficial to men in patriarchal societies to stop imposing their views on their world by stopping to speak, this is not relevant for women.

It has to be said that the ethos of being tough goes against that aspect of the Buddhist teaching which deals with relaxing, letting go and accepting any situation as is. It seems that Buddhism sends a mixed message: relax, but be very disciplined. Everything is all right as it is, yet the historical Buddha vowed on the Enlightenment night to stay under the Bodhi tree until he achieves Liberation even if his flesh and blood dry up.

I heard a Dhamma talk where a teacher mentioned a case of practitioners ending up in hospital after taking this vow literally. They caused some damage to their joints, I believe – which were treated successfully.

Thus, as Nancy Vedder-Shults mentioned in her comment for Part I of this post, “once the religion has become institutionalized WITHIN A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY, men take over the leadership roles”. Once a religion has become institutionalised within as patriarchal society, its features, which have to do with violence, conquest, and domination become magnified, whereas its features that have to do with body, sensuality, joy, freedom, love and spontaneity become downplayed.

In the Buddhist case, conquest and domination mostly relate to internal strife, but it is a struggle nevertheless. And in the process of possibly beneficial curbing of negative personal traits encouraged by patriarchal societies, Buddhism also suppresses women and prevents them from developing their own version of spirituality, or even their own version of Buddhism.

Oxana Poberejnaia was an Officer of the University of Manchester Buddhist Society while studying for a PhD in Government, and has been involved in organising the Manchester Buddhist Convention, now in its 9^th year. Oxana is now exploring the Sacred Feminine through celebrating seasonal festivals, working with her menstrual cycle, frame drumming and shamanic journeying, while keeping the practice of Buddhist meditation. Oxana is an artist and an author. Her works can be found on her blog.

 “We, the women and men of the church, we are in the middle of a love story: each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is.”   Pope Francis

Welcome words of love and acceptance.

Not so the words and actions of Cardinal Tim Dolan who shut of the doors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the faces of LGBT Catholics and their supporters on Sunday, May 5.

Leading a silent—but eloquent—protest in New York in response to the  Cardinal’s recent likening of LGBT Catholics to “dirty hands” that needed to be washed clean, Joseph Amodeo describes what happened when the group tried to quietly enter the Cathedral with symbolically charcoal-blackened palms:

We were greeted by four police cars, a captain, and eight uniformed officers. We were informed by the NYPD’s LGBT liaison that the Archdiocese was prohibiting us from entering the Cathedral, because of our dirty hands. When we tried to enter the Cathedral, security advised us that we could not enter. The representative for the Cathedral said that we could only enter the church if we washed our hands. I truly believe that Christ would have welcomed and embraced us. Instead, we stood vigil in front of the Cathedral for an hour. The Archdiocese’s response further reinforces the feeling of spiritual homelessness that many LGBT Catholics and their friends feel.

There was no word on whether the Cardinal refused others with truly dirty hands entry to the church. Whether the NYPD was called in to bar entry to every Wall Street banker, every politician and every businessman or woman whose hands are stained with the blood and suffering of those who have been sent off to fight illegal wars, been put out of their homes through dishonest mortgage and re-financing practices, been made to work under exploitative labor practices, been denied help to feed their families. Are we to conclude that “whited sepulchers” are more welcome in the church than people whose God-given sexuality makes some clerics act in ways that Jesus would have denounced?

Spiritual Homelessness and Estrangement

How, if the church is a love story, and if each of us is a “link in this chain of love,” is this kind of rejection possible? How long will Pope Francis let this managing of the church as if it were a fiefdom, this posting of guards at the gate, continue?

Why, if we are indeed all links in this chain of love, are women and LGBT Catholics made to feel like the weakest links; unworthy of equality and respect in the church?

What about these passages from the Gospels do the Bishops not understand?

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. - Matthew 23:13

When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.  You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. - Luke 11: 37-41

Offer a Weather Ball

Puanani Burgess, Hawaii Mediator, Zen Priest, Builder of the Beloved Community.
Pix by Ginger Miller

The world that multi-cultural Zen priest, mediator and community organizer from Hawaii, Puanani Burgess envisions as she talks about “Building the Beloved Community” is filled with stories of her children and grandchildren, her husband and other family members and neighbors from her beloved rural Wai`anae. We hear about little Poha who remained disappointingly unmoved by the cows and horses and other sights and sounds of his neighborhood as his grandmother walked him around, pointing them out– until she bent down and realized that at his level, he was not seeing much beyond the long grass. Lifted up on her shoulders, he squealed in delight at the world now visible to him.

Seeing what others see. Feeling what they feel. That too was the lesson of the “weather ball.” This is a small squeezable ball that Puanani offers anyone who comes looking for advice or wanting to talk.  “Tell me what the weather is like inside you,” she asks, before they even begin talking about the issue at hand.

Cardinal Dolan. Bishops. Pope Francis: Offer women a weather ball. Offer LGBT Catholics a weather ball. Ask what the weather is like inside us, where our deepest hopes and fears, our longings and our love resides. And ask of each of us, as the very wise and attentive Puanani Burgess asks: what is your gift?  Because we come bearing many, ready to share. Why would a church that is a love story, a chain of love, belittle us or turn us away?

 “Special” but not Equal?

Before Pope Francis tells women once again that they are “special” or reaffirms the actions taken to investigate women religious, he might try following the example of Poha’s grandmother. The Pope has named a new advisory panel to help him with some much needed spring-cleaning of the Vatican. That’s the good news. The bad news is the panel is entirely drawn from the very group whose activities need to be cleaned up.

The panel made up of eight cardinals—all men, of course—will pronounce on women’s reproductive rights and obligations among other things without the benefit of counsel from any women in their midst. They will tell women how they should behave, what they should think and how they should discern the lessons of faith and keep serving a church that regards them as “special”—just not equal.

All this without once asking women to tell them what the weather is like inside their hearts and minds and the core of their being.

Without asking us what gifts we bring.

Dawn Morais Webster is the mother of two young adults, wife of a man with Quaker and Episcopalian roots, was raised in a strongly, pragmatically Catholic family in Malaysia and was educated by Franciscan nuns whom she loved and admired. She currently spends a good deal of time talking back to the neanderthal leadership of the Catholic church in hopes of reclaiming the faith from the stranglehold of its institutional perversions. Her blog at http://freecatholic808 is a small voice–but she believes she is part of a much larger community of dissident voices. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii, Mānoa in 2008. Hawaii has been her home for the past twelve years–and  the homage that the islands and the Hawaiian culture pay to the voices of its kupuna (elders) as well as the strong sense of spirituality and rootedness in place and people are healing and allow the soul to sing.

                                                     (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, The Final Stage of Growth, 167)

Last month we lost a good friend unexpectedly.  His death, just days after his 49^th birthday caused me to confront my own mortality. His death also makes me think about that void in life that we leave as well as the legacies we leave behind. How will I be remembered?  Did I make a difference while on earth? Have I served and given back enough?  

We all think death has a specific order – generations pass in successive order, a parent should not outlive their child; but that is not reality.  Death is a profound personal experience that is shared; it is also subconsciously active throughout our life, no matter how we try to avoid thinking about it.  Schubert Ogden in The Reality of God states “it is this very awareness of our mortality that endow the moments of our life with vividness and intensity. In this sense, our who existence is, in Martin Heidegger’s phrase, a ‘being toward death’ (Sein zum Tode)” (224).  Heidegger’s phrase seems to restate Freud’s view about the “death drive,” represents an inherent urge to return to a state of calm without danger, an inorganic or dead state, a place of safety like our mother’s womb where life originally emerged from.”

No matter how different cultures react or cope with death, common elements exist; a psychological and social need to adjust with loss or come to terms with the natural process of death.  Halbwachs distinguishes physical death from social death.  Physical death is biological, but social death deals with the “social significance” that remains of the person that is physically gone. This leads me to the point of legacy and how we are to be remembered.

Because this subject has been weighing on me lately, I began to read more on the theology of death and doctrine of God.  While researching, I came across an article by Sallie McFague, “Falling in Love with God and the World: Some Reflections on the Doctrine of God.”  She explores her own mortality through an ecological lens of God:

“Seventy-three years ago I was seven years old and experienced God for the first time. Coming home from school one day, I suddenly realized that some day I would not “be here” for Christmas, and even more shocking, I would not be here for my birthday. “

There was a time that we did not walk the earth, and there will be a time when our walk will end.  This is a reality that no one can escape.

McFague describes herself as “contingent” – created by another, not on this earth forever, dependent on something else.  Because so much of the written work about death is rooted in creation, “contingent” becomes a new concept that emerges in this theology, especially in connection with God.  She further compared the  experience like an  awakening that occurs through the unconnected experiences of transcendence and immanence as though she was sleepwalking “in full stride” or “brought back from cardiac arrest or from drowning.” Possibly a “conversion” experience?

Besides this notion of being contingent, I really liked McFague’s statement that:

“if we live within God now, then surely when we die we will simply live more fully in God….what we cherish now – the God who is closer to us than we are to ourselves here on earth – will be even closer when we die.”  “Death is not to be feared nor is it the only time we meet God. God is the milieu of earthly existence and ‘heaven’ is here and now.” “My death will be a seamless transition to living more fully within God.”

Death is all around us. With each breath we take, we are one breath closer to death. Alfred North Whitehead speaks of this as “perpetual perishing.”  Death is final. Ogden asks “can anyone really be comforted solely by the thought that (s)he will live on in the memories and appreciations of poor mortals no more sensitive than him (her) self? Is the final meaning of my life simply the ever-decreasing impact I make on the other (wo)men who come after me?”  This for me speaks to legacy and mentoring – who have I touched, impacted, or inspired.

In Natalie Kertes Weaver’s book The Theology of Suffering and Death, she provides a spiritual inventory (106):

• Who have I been all this time?
• How have I used my gift of human life?
• What do I need to “clear up” or “let go of” in order to be more peaceful?
• What gives my life meaning?
• For what am I grateful?
• What have I learned of life and how well have I learned to love?
• What have I learned about tenderness, vulnerability, intimacy, and commitment?
• How am I handling my suffering?
• What will give me strength as I die? What is my relationship with this, which will give me strength as I die?
• If I remembered my breaths were numbered, what would be my relationship to this breath right now?
• Am I satisfied with my relationship with people close to me? If not, what might I be able to do to increase my satisfaction level with my relationships?
• Am I satisfied with my relationship to God/Higher Power/The Divine/my faith community, as I understand it? If not, what might I be able to do to increase my satisfaction with my relationship?
• Am I satisfied with my sense of self? If not what might I be able to do to increase my satisfaction with my own self?
• Have I asked others for help I might mend in improving these relationships?
• Have I forgiven others, myself, and God for the disappointments in my life so that I can life, and, when it is time, so that I can die freely and in peace?

McFague also states that we should rejoice “in the present moment” and learn “to appreciate the sacrament of the present moment, how every bit of creation mirrors and indeed ‘rings out’ that unique aspects of the divine that one is.”

Michele Stopera Freyhauf is currently a Doctoral Student in the Department of Theology and Religionat Durham University. She has a Master of Arts Degree from John Carroll Universityin Theology and Religious Studies, is a Member of Sigma Nu, performed post-graduate work in History focusing on Gender, Religion, and Sexuality at the University of Akron, and is an Adjunct Instructor in the Religious Studies Department at Ursuline College. Her full bio is on the main contributor’s page or at http://durham.academia.edu/MSFreyhauf. Michele can be followed on twitter at @msfreyhauf.