Katey Zeh

From the Archives: Politicians Make Dangerous Theologians by Katey Zeh

This was originally posted November 21, 2017

Accounts and allegations of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse perpetrated by mostly straight white men in power have flooded the U.S. news cycle for months. Each new revelation confirms that sexual violence is an epidemic fueled by systems of unchecked power and authority, including patriarchy, white supremacy, and Christian supremacy.

After The Washington Post published the story of Leigh Corfman who recounted the sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager at the hands of Roy Moore, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler came to his defense and argued that this would have no political impact since Moore “never had sexual intercourse with any of these girls.”

We all ought know by now that such allegations of sexual abuse, even when the perpetrator admits to them, bear little weight on the electability of white male politicians (see: November 8, 2016). Even so, I was stunned by a poll that revealed that 29% of Alabama voters answered that they are now more likely to vote for Roy Moore since allegations were made against him.

Unexpected Divine Encounters by Katey Zeh

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As I finalize my manuscript for Women Rise Up, to be published with the FAR press in early 2019, I want to share this excerpt from my chapter on Mary Magdalene.

The Spirit of God moves at unexpected times and places. When I spot a single red bloom among the barren trees in wintertime. When I watch my daughter takes a bite out of sun-ripened strawberry. When something catches me off guard and pulls my full attention to the present moment. These breath-taking moments illuminate the presence of Spirit at work.

One frigid Saturday morning I took the two-hour train ride from New Haven, Connecticut where I was living at the time to New York City for the day. I’d been invited to join a gathering of advocates working to end gender-based violence. Around a hundred of us made our way to an upper-floor classroom at The New School in Greenwich Village. When we entered the room, most of us were strangers, but in a matter of hours, we managed to form a sacred community of survivors. We took turns sharing our own pain-filled stories of violence, betrayal, survival, and hope. Both gut-wrenching and healing, the act of naming our collective suffering fused us together: our cacophony of individual experiences blended into a unified chorus for justice. What once was hidden had now come into the light. Continue reading “Unexpected Divine Encounters by Katey Zeh”

Longing for (Dis)Connection by Katey Zeh

yuzki-yuqing-wang-585257-unsplash As I type this post, I have another browser window open to track the path of Hurricane Florence due to make landfall in my area sometime later this week. Though I now live a few hours inland, I grew up in a coastal town, so I know how unpredictable storms like these can be. It’s entirely possible that we will get a bit of rain and wind and nothing else–and it’s just as possible that we’ll be spending quite some time without power. I pray that the latter is the absolute worst of what we all endure here.

In preparing for the storm and potential power outage, I was reminded of a time about a year ago when I was returning home after dropping off my daughter at school. As I approached the first stoplight on my route, I noticed that it wasn’t working. That’s odd, I thought. I drove on, navigating through another half dozen malfunctioning traffic lights before arriving safely back home only to discover that the power was out there too. Continue reading “Longing for (Dis)Connection by Katey Zeh”

Claim Your Expertise by Katey Zeh

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Years ago I attended a women’s workshop hosted by The OpEd Project, an organization dedicated to diversifying voices in the media. The first exercise was for each of us to state our particular area of expertise to the group. I remember the anxiety I felt as I attempted to articulate what felt truthful and authentic to claim as an area of personal mastery. I ended up reciting something practically verbatim from my job description at the time, stumbling over the phrase “I am an expert…” It was terribly uncomfortable.

Recently I’ve experienced similar discomfort when several folks have referred to me as a “podcasting expert.” A podcasting expert? Hardly! Sure, I co-host a podcast. Yes, we produce it ourselves. Indeed, we’ve published more than twenty episodes in the last year, and we’ve built a consistent following. But, it’s not like we’re topping the charts over on Apple Podcasts. Those people are the “real” podcasting experts. Continue reading “Claim Your Expertise by Katey Zeh”

See, Hear, and Believe Women’s Pain by Katey Zeh

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Rachel Fassler was in so much pain that she couldn’t remain still long enough for the emergency room nurses to take her blood pressure. After hours of being overlooked, dismissed, and misdiagnosed (she was initially treated for kidney stones) by two male doctors, Fassler was finally treated appropriately by a third physician, a woman, and rushed into emergency surgery to have a swollen ovary removed.

The details of Fassler’s horrific experience in the hospital that day was told by her husband Joe Fassler in The Atlantic back in 2015. The piece “How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously” opened the floodgates for women to share their stories of having their pain ignored sometimes for years by mostly by male doctors, though not exclusively. Rachel Fassler refers to this as “the trauma of not being seen.”

Continue reading “See, Hear, and Believe Women’s Pain by Katey Zeh”

Creating Space for Wisdom Sharing by Katey Zeh

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Along with spending more time in silence, another spiritual practice I’m cultivating is creating space for the wisdom of the room to emerge. At a basic level this involves talking less and listening more.

Keeping quiet is a discipline I’ve had to learn. I was the type of kid who raised my hand to speak in class at every opportunity. One day in fifth grade I was especially especially eager to give the right answer to our class’s math problem. The moment I heard my name called I promptly began articulating the solution. I was so caught up in sharing that I didn’t realize that my teacher actually hadn’t called on me to respond, but instead had called on on another student with the same name. Whoops

A decade later in a different classroom, I sat silently and a bit uncomfortably while the woman across from me talked for what seemed like an eternity. This exercise for our pastoral care class was for my conversation partner to speak for two full minutes (not quite an eternity) while I maintained eye contact and nodded but gave no verbal feedback. Afterwards I was to share with her what I had heard her say. That simple act of mirroring revealed how unnatural it was for me to listen. For so much of my life I had been jockeying for more space to speak. Not talking took focus and listening attentively required skill, but there were also great rewards in doing so: better understanding, deeper truth, and more compassion.

Last week I received this fitting bit of wisdom in an email from the Enneagram Institute:

Listen to others: they are often right, too. And even if they are not, there is almost always a kernel of truth to the point of view they are expressing. By listening to others, you not only will learn more but will become more informed and sensitive. Don Richard Riso, Understanding the Enneagram

Since graduating from seminary ten years ago I have found myself applying the discipline of sacred listening in my group facilitation work and while presenting at conferences. How many of us have attended a workshop or conference breakout session only to spend the majority of the time listening to one person lecture? I’ve decided that I no longer want to reinforce that kind of lopsided dynamic, which leaves little space for others to share their truth. How much wisdom have we all been missing as a result?

Recently, in a room full of wise women gathered for the United Methodist Women’s Assembly, I invited those attending my workshops to dive into the same biblical texts that I focus on in my forthcoming book Women Rise Up. I divided them into small groups, assigned each one a story, and asked them to explore together two simple, though not necessarily easy questions about the passage:

What about this story troubles you?
What about it inspires you?

As I passed the mic from table to table, I was moved by the thoughtful reflections they shared, and I was heartened to hear that some of their understandings aligned with my own. But then one woman shared an insight about the Book of Ruth that was so profound that it sent a shiver down my spine. In all the time I had spent studying and reflecting on this story I had never read the passage in quite that way.

Her wisdom-sharing transformed and deepened the conversation in the room. And it reinforced for me the importance of cultivating space for the wisdom held in the room to emerge. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve approached a text, even a situation, with the belief that nothing new could come from it. I was thankful to be proven wrong once again by the wisdom in the room.

Rev. Katey Zeh is an ordained Baptist minister, a nonprofit strategist, writer, and speaker at the intersections of faith and gender justice. She is the co-host of Kindreds, a podcast for soul sisters. Her book Women Rise Up will be published by the FAR Press this year. Find her on Twitter at @kateyzeh or on her website kateyzeh.com.

Is there Space for Beyoncé in Worship? by Katey Zeh

Last month nearly 1,000 people gathered at Grace Cathedral, an Episcopal congregation in San Francisco, to participate in a worship service notably referred to as the Beyoncé Mass. Several of Beyoncé’s songs, including “Survivor,” “Flaws And All,” and “Freedom,” were sung throughout the liturgy. The service included a reading from Ella Baker and two versions of the Lord’s Prayer, the traditional English prayer and a modern Womanist version. The timing of the mass fell just weeks after Beyoncé’s stunning two-hour performance at Coachella (#Beychella), the first time a black woman headlined the event.

When Spirit Speaks by Katey Zeh

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Though I couldn’t call myself a skeptic in general, I’m always a bit dubious when someone claims to have an audible connection with the divine. I’ve found sacred guidance to be more subtle than that, revealed slowly over time through snippets of conversations and on the pages journals and during walks in the woods with my dog. Revelations are rarely sudden for me. They tend to emerge piece by piece, like clues to a puzzle, until the clarity eventually comes.

Imagine my surprise and subsequent doubt when I heard a voice say recently, “You are already doing the work you want to do.” Continue reading “When Spirit Speaks by Katey Zeh”

When Disappointment Stings by Katey Zeh

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Disappointment seemed like the theme of 2017–and not just because of the results of the U.S. Presidential election. It was more personal than that. At least that was how it felt. Over and over again I got this close to an opportunity before it was awarded to someone else. It happened so much that it almost become comical. Almost.

“Always a finalist, never an offer.” It’s a painful, soul-crushing position to find yourself in, but one that’s inevitable if we are ever to go after anything in life: a new job, a new relationship, a new faith community. There’s always the possibility that disappointment awaits us.

I have trouble managing my expectations. If I’ve mustered up the courage to try for something, I’ve surely convinced myself that I might actually achieve it. And if it’s in the realm of possibility, then I’ve certainly gone down the path of imagining it working out the way I’d hoped. Then it begins to feel inevitable that things will go my way. Continue reading “When Disappointment Stings by Katey Zeh”

Saying Yes to Saying No by Katey Zeh

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I was sitting in my then-therapist’s office one day, feeling exhausted and hopeless. Between mourning a break-up and constantly traveling for work, I felt like I’d been digging myself out of an ever-deepening hole of despair for months.

“When someone asks you to do something, how do you decide when to say ‘yes’?” she asked.

“If I’m not committed to something else at the same time, then I usually agree to do it,” I responded.

That was my only criterion: was I physically able to do it? If I was, I did it.

I was living in Washington, D.C. at the time where I was surrounded by other ambitious, overachieving twenty-somethings who seemingly never turned down an opportunity that might help them succeed professionally.

Continue reading “Saying Yes to Saying No by Katey Zeh”