Academics

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Woman and Nature: Our Bodies Are Ourselves

This was originally posted on June 26, 2017

This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire the strength in each other, all that we have suffered, all that we have lost, all that we know. We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.

These words are from Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature which I often recommend as one of my favorite books. Over the years I have read this passage and others from Woman and Nature aloud with my students, and we have always been moved, most of us to tears. More recently these words have become the center of the “Morning Blessing” on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete.

Toward an Alternative Ecclesiology by Xochitl Alvizo

I mentioned in a recent post that I would share a little more about my current research, as one of the aspects of my life I gained more clarity in during my recent process of regrounding was in the area of my research.

Two things stood out to me as I reflected on my work and scholarship: my concern for individual human dignity drives my work—it is an underlying thread in how I think and theologize. The second is that I want to make a major contribution to the theology of the church—I know I want to write a feminist ecclesiology. These two things are obviously related. I have witnessed enough of the ways that not only Christianity harms people, but how the church specifically is a conduit for the damages Christianity causes. At the same time, Christianity remains a living tradition, a shared story and language, and a community to which many are committed. So just as people are harmed by church, some are also nurtured and held by it. While it is true, then, that church indeed harms people and violates their dignity, often also justifying that violation on theological grounds, it need not do so and has other possibilities before it.

Thus, I want to contribute to a theology of church that is a grounded and liberating alternative to the problematic one to which people most often default or inherit. A queer, feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial ecclesiology.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ:“Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr”: Unacknowledged Co-author of Great Works of Theology?

This was originally posted on August 26, 2019. It fits in with our new project of Unsung Heroines.

A few days ago while watching the movie The Wife, I kept hearing the words “Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr,” in my mind. I knew the reason was Ursula’s unacknowledged collaboration on the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, which I discovered while writing an earlier blog on uncredited co-authors.

I had not been particularly interested in seeing The Wife because I assumed it was the familiar story of the woman who gives up her career interests when she marries. Want to become a rabbi? Marry one. Want to become an artist? Live with him and become his muse. This is a very old story, and for me, not a very interesting one.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: His Terror

Moderator’s Note: This was originally posted on March 25, 2019. AND the issues are still with us and as vivid as ever.

The first two parts of Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature, “MATTER” and “SEPARATION,” are written in the authoritative voice of western philosophy and science that declares matter to be dead and the body an impediment to thought, and proceeds to separate the mind from the body. All of this, Griffin suggests, is based in the fear of death.

As Griffin notes, in this equation woman is identified with the body and her voice is silenced. Re-reading these parts of Woman and Nature for the umpteenth time for a class I am teaching felt even more painful than it had before. I was reliving parts of my own story.

I was brought up in the tract home suburbs of post-war Los Angeles in a world of women. Both of my grandmothers played central roles in my upbringing, introducing me to nature and the spirit of life they experienced as we explored trails the Los Angeles County arboretum before it was fenced or when we frolicked in the waves and picked up sand dollars at the seashore south of San Francisco. When I was ten years old my family moved to a new neighborhood that was almost entirely made up of families like ours with small children, fathers who worked, and mothers who stayed home.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: “Fertility” and the Regeneration of Life

This was originally posted on October 12, 2020

Prehistoric and indigenous religious traditions are often disparagingly mischaracterized as primitive fertility religions, concerned not with higher morality, but rather with the processes of reproduction of humans, animals, and plants. When these religions feature a Great Mother Goddess, it may be assumed that these religions are primarily focused on birthing human babies. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Indeed, archaeologist Marija Gimbutas discovered that in the symbol systems of Old Europe, the Goddess is only rarely imaged as pregnant or giving birth. Nor is She portrayed solely in human form. Rather, She is portrayed with a bird head, wings, and a plethora of other animal and plant features. If She is a Great Mother Goddess, She is revered as the Source of Life, not simply as a mother of human babies. Gimbutas states that in Old Europe the Goddess was worshiped in as a symbol of the powers of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Gimbutas said these societies were matrilineal and probably matrilocal. Recent research into matrilineal and matrilocal egalitarian matriarchies provides insight into the values of prehistoric societies. The Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia are matrilineal and matrilocal, with family ties being traced through the mother line and land being held communally and in perpetuity by the maternal clan. Though the Minangkabau trace their ancestry through their mothers and grandmothers, it is important to note that, as Peggy Reeves Sanday discusses in Women at the Center, it is not birth or the ability to give birth that is celebrated as the highest value, but rather the nurturing of the weak and the vulnerable.

The Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Weaving and Spinning Women: Witches and Pagans by Max Dashu A Review

Moderator’s Note: This was originally posted on September 19, 2016

Max Dashu’s Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion 700-1000 challenges the assumption that Europe was fully Christianized within a few short centuries as traditional historians tell us. Most of us were taught not only that Europe became Christian very rapidly, but also that Europeans were more than willing to adopt a new religion that was “superior” to “paganism” in every way. Careful readers of Dashu’s important new work will be challenged to revise their views. When the full 15 volumes of the projected series are in print, historians may be forced to hang their heads in shame. This of course assumes that scholars will read Dashu’s work. More likely they will ignore or dismiss it, but sooner or later–I dare to hope–the truth will out.

History has been written by the victors—in the case of Europe by elite Christian men. These men may have wanted to believe that their views were widely held, but Dashu suggests that they were not. Combing artistic and archaeological records, Dashu finds (to give one example) that images of Mother Earth nursing a snake are far from uncommon and can even be found as illustrations in Christian documents and on Christian monuments. Clerics rage against people—particularly women–who continue to visit holy wells and sacred trees and to practice divination and healing rituals invoking pagan powers. To paraphrase Shakespeare: “Methinks the cleric doth protest too much.” Were these things not happening and happening often, there would have been no need to condemn them. Using these clues, Dashu provides intriguing new readings of the Poetic Edda and Norse sagas.

Teacher Appreciation Week & Appreciating Teaching by Sara Frykenberg

Part of discovering my love for teaching and moving through my anxiety involved reconsidering my “ideals” of teaching, which were numerous and high minded.

I always wanted to be a teacher. Sure, I had other career dreams as a child too. I wanted to be a model, because I wanted to be pretty like a model. I wanted to be a flying missionary to please my father—you see, it was not quite enough just to do missions. I also needed “save” (pun intended) people with my daring airplane recuses. And in moments of practical mindedness, I thought I should definitely be a “cleaning lady” (aka a housekeeper), because I was very good at cleaning, which was a way of life and survival in my home. But “teacher” was a persistent calling, so I followed in my teacher-mother’s footsteps AND tried to satisfy paternal aggrandizement by becoming a professor.

It occurred to me recently that I have actually been teaching now for nine years. I’ve also discovered in the last few years that I like teaching. And no, I didn’t always know this. I always wanted to like teaching; and sometimes I was sure that I did indeed like teaching. But non-teaching associated trauma during my early career and my social anxiety also sometimes made (and makes) the process excruciating. (Neo-liberal and late-capitalist academic practice, politics and policy don’t help either.) Part of discovering my love for teaching and moving through my anxiety involved reconsidering my “ideals” of teaching, which were numerous and high minded.

“Fertility” and the Regeneration of Life by Carol P. Christ

A Case for Context by Sara Frykenberg

I have a close family member who is staunchly Republican and frequently posts videos from the conservative platform PragerU or “Prager University.” Video topics include: why the Democratic Party is the “real” racist party (as though either party is innocent of racism), the “war on boys” and masculinity, and how feminists don’t care about Muslim women (as though some Muslim women aren’t also feminists), among other issues. You get the picture. It is a propaganda media source founded by radio talk show hosts which creates short videos on every topic there is, presenting the conservative viewpoint as the simple “God’s honest truth” about the issue.

I’ve seen some of these videos. They are as offensive as they are misleading. But one element that is particularly egregious to me is their complete disregard for larger context. Continue reading “A Case for Context by Sara Frykenberg”

What’s Changed? by Elise M. Edwards

Friends, it has been a few months since I’ve posted in this community. I’m amazed at how much our world has changed since then. Here in the northern hemisphere, spring came and went. It felt like a tide of turmoil rolled in, leaving debris all along the shore and now we are trying to clean it up while keeping our eyes on the sea for more dangerous waves that are coming.

The issues we now face began before March, but for many of us, that was when the COVID-19 pandemic began to alter our patterns of daily existence. In-person instruction at my university and most schools was suspended and spring semester courses shifted online. In March and April, we quarantined, self-isolated, and sheltered in place. While a gradual re-opening of businesses and services has occurred in the months since then, I don’t know anyone who has resumed daily life as it was before. The virus continues to spread and the death toll rises.

Continue reading “What’s Changed? by Elise M. Edwards”

Ancient Mothers, I Hear You Calling Me to Crete by Carol P. Christ

On a cold and rainy morning in Lesbos, I ponder the advice of my intuitive friend Cristina to reflect on the spiritual dimensions of my decision to move to Crete. When asked why I am moving from Lesbos to Crete, I tend focus on the negative: I am lonely in my small village; and I am disheartened by my neighbors’ lack of compassion for the refugees who come to our island from Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.

As I begin to think again, I recall the many wonderful things I have experienced in Lesbos. This is the island where Sappho sang, and I too have been inspired by the muses who arise from the land. It is here that I first felt Greece calling me to leave my home. It is here that I learned to speak Greek. It is here that I listened to the stories of the old people who remembered a time when everyone lived closer to each other and the land. It is here that I learned to dance the traditional dances of Greece. It is here that I learned to identify over 300 species of birds that visit the wetlands on spring migration or are year-around or summer and winter residents. It is here that I dedicated a decade of my life to the effort to protect the wetland home of the birds I came to love. It is here that I was asked to run for regional and national office by the Green Party Greece. It is here that I met green friends I will always hold in my heart. It is here that I became an amateur geologist, learning the volcanic history of an island that has been declared a UNESCO Geopark. It is here that I imagined the time before 1922 when Turks, Armenians, and Greeks lived together in my village. It is here that I renovated a small Turkish house in a neighborhood that once had a mosque and later, a Neoclassical “mansion” (not particularly large by American standards) built by a Greek shipowner who transported goods brought by camels along the silk road from China. It is here that I learned to drink retsina and to relish food drenched in olive oil. I will carry all of this with me, for it is in my blood and in my bones.

But now, Crete is calling me. Continue reading “Ancient Mothers, I Hear You Calling Me to Crete by Carol P. Christ”

The Door by John Erickson

Faith is something we get from each other, and sometimes in the most magical of circumstances, faith becomes embodied by the person you love the most.

I have a Ph.D. in American Religious History but I’ve never been much of a religious person. It’s been one of the conundrums of my life but nevertheless, I found religion and its role in influencing, for good and bad, the lived experiences of the LGBTQ community something worth exploring.

I’ve been struggling with writing this post ever since I graduated and officially became “Dr. John.” In preparing for my defense, the Chair of my Dissertation Committee requested that at the start of the defense, he wanted me to introduce my project, its overall scope, and most importantly why I wrote it.

Why did I write it? How does one answer why they chose to devote 8 years of their life to a single subject in search of an original idea? While some would sit and grapple with this question, I knew what the answer was all along because it always was (and always will be) about my maternal grandmother, Gladys Hritsko.

I wanted to know what made me different. Throughout my dissertation, I interviewed people who, much like myself, grew up in similar small towns, attended the same conservative church services, and heard the same damning things that I did about my sexuality being preached from the pulpit. Many of my subjects were deeply hurt by religion and it set some of them up for years of searching and painful memories and experiences that both forced them to leave their religious and faith-based communities they grew up in or, in the worst case, being kicked out by their family as a result of their religion.

Continue reading “The Door by John Erickson”

Reimagining the Classroom: Embodied Ecofeminism and the Arts Course on Hawai’i Island by Angela Yarber

“The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.”-bell hooks

Like many academics, my “in the box” dream was to be a professor. The full-time, tenured kind. Like many queer feminist academics, I know that such dreams are rarely reality. When you’re also an artist and activist with a strong penchant for wanderlust, these dreams are simply unattainable fairytales. Never one for “in the box” living, I left the traditional academy and traditional church years ago, wandering over the garden’s walls with Lilith as my intrepid guide. I’ve told the story before. My wife and I left our jobs, sold our home, traveled full-time with our toddler, and turned the Holy Women Icons Project into a non-profit while building an off-grid tiny house on the television show Tiny House Nation in Hawai’i. It’s become old news. But since we’ve been doing this for several years now, those faraway dreams are finally starting to become reality. The academic classroom, the activist’s platform, the artist’s studio, the feminist’s megaphone, and the farmer’s orchard are fusing into one creative, life-giving, empowering space for teaching. The Holy Women Icons Project’s first academic course, “Embodied Ecofeminism and the Arts,” is actually happening. Seminarians and doctoral students from Berkeley join us in January. They’re soon followed by undergraduates from New York and seminarians from Atlanta. And I’m reaching out to more and more schools interested in creatively, subversively, and sustainably decolonizing the classroom with us for one week on the Big Island.

Continue reading “Reimagining the Classroom: Embodied Ecofeminism and the Arts Course on Hawai’i Island by Angela Yarber”

Double, double… rhymes are trouble by Katie M. Deaver

I never considered myself one of those people who gets really “into” Halloween. But, as one might expect having an eight year old, especially an eight year old who celebrates her birthday shortly before the holiday, has made me much more in tune with the excitement and preparation which surrounds Halloween.

One of the traditions that I do very much enjoy is watching Halloween movies like Hocus Pocus and Double, Double, Toil and Trouble and, new to us last year, drinking warm mulled wine after coming home from a chilly (and this year possibly snowy!) night of Trick or Treating.

In my work as a church musician Halloween is book-ended by the celebration of Reformation and All Saints Day, so it tends to be a fairly busy time for my work schedule. As a result this is often the time of year that I reconsider my self-care and centering routines in the hopes of somehow preparing myself for the coming holiday season and the end of the year. This year, as I checked in on my current practices I realized that I haven’t been reading as much poetry as I used to when I was in grad school. As a result I have been trying to get back in the habit of reading some poetry a few times each week to help center myself. As luck would have it the last few weeks have found me stumbling upon poetry with connections to the Halloween season. I want to share with you a portion of two seasonal poems that I have encountered and are sticking with me.

Continue reading “Double, double… rhymes are trouble by Katie M. Deaver”

Pro-Choice and Christian: Reconciling Faith, Politics, and Justice BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver

In 2015 Kira Schlesinger wrote piece for Ministry Matters about how her own pro-choice stance on abortion had become more complicated the more she explored the issue of abortion. The article was widely read and shared, as well as hotly debated by many. You can read this article and the many comments here. Out of the response to this article grew Schlesinger’s Pro-Choice and Christian: Reconciling Faith, Politics, and Justice.

The book does a great job of walking the fine line of being both academically engaging and an easy enough read to engage a book or Bible study group as well. Schlesinger uses the first couple of chapters to dig into the history of abortion, listing recorded examples of the process as early as 1300 BCE. From there she briefly walks the reader through the roughly 100 years (Comstock Act in 1873 until Roe v. Wade in 1973) during which abortion was illegal in the United States. Finally, she wraps up this beginning historical section with details about the generations after Roe v. Wade up to our current reality.

Continue reading “Pro-Choice and Christian: Reconciling Faith, Politics, and Justice BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver”

“Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr”: Unacknowledged Co-author of Great Works of Theology? by Carol P. Christ

A few days ago plus one, I was watching reruns of Judge Judy on Youtube when the recommendation to watch Sarah Plain and Tall with Glenn Close came up on the screen. While watching it, I was directed to an interview with Glenn Close that turned out to be about her starring role in The Wife. Close told the interviewer that for her the big question was: “Why didn’t she leave him?” Continue reading ““Ursula Niebuhr, Ursula Niebuhr”: Unacknowledged Co-author of Great Works of Theology? by Carol P. Christ”

Movement of Moving and Spiritual Journey by Elisabeth S.

It looks like it is time again for me to pack up and drive a few hundred or more miles to a new destination, a place I will finally try to plant roots, this time offering commitment + endurance, hoping to build a life of more balance and authenticity. I assume I will need a constant reminder of gratitude, quelling the entitlement that can bubble up when I think “this should be easier.” I’m not sure when, why, or where I’ve picked up that refrain, but I see it in others and myself and wish for an alternative.

With the help of several people, I’ve secured a full-time college teaching position on a beautiful college campus of a kind of institution I am certain is doing its part to heal the world. At least that is what I feel when I serve at a community college, a place where I feel inspired and challenged by students who have a diversity of needs. I’ve been teaching in such institutions for so long, I’ve fallen in love and know, by experience, that I can help in such spaces.

Continue reading “Movement of Moving and Spiritual Journey by Elisabeth S.”

Beaches and Books by Esther Nelson

Even though I’ve traveled and lived throughout much of the world, I’ve never thought of any one place or geographic location as home. I have always felt a little envious of people who claim to have a strong, visceral connection to a particular house, garden, village, landscape, or city in a specific, geographic area.

We often use the word home to indicate a space where we feel accepted, safe, nurtured, loved, and at peace. Although I’ve never sunk deep roots anywhere I’ve lived—or even visited—I feel most grounded when standing on a sandy beach anywhere in the world, overlooking an expansive view of the ocean. Perhaps the cowboys in American folklore and legend felt “home, home on the range where the deer and the antelope play,” but I don’t. I am much more at ease with home, home on the beach where the wind swirls the water and sand.

I often hear the beach calling me. Sometimes I listen and allow myself to fall under her spell and into her fluid embrace.

Continue reading “Beaches and Books by Esther Nelson”

The Finish Line by John Erickson

I see it…do you?

It’s just within reach and I’m almost there…the proverbial finish line to my Ph.D.

That’s right folks, I’m graduating.

To say that this has been an easy journey, one that many of you have read about and witnessed, would be an understatement. For many of us, that finish line is far away or getting there seems more like a hope and dream rather than a reality. Whether or not it is because of economic hardships, life in general, or the regular types of “isms” that so many of us face while trying to better ourselves via academic enrichment, the struggle is real. Continue reading “The Finish Line by John Erickson”

His Terror by Carol P. Christ

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Part 3 by Carol P. Christ

Warning contains images of rape in the history of art portrayed through the pornographic male gaze

According to the myth, Danae was the only child of the King of Argos who longed for a male heir. After an oracle declared that Danae would indeed bear a son, but that he would kill his grandfather, the King locked his daughter in a tower. Hearing the story, Zeus decided to breach the tower. Transforming himself into a shower of gold, he entered the tower through its roof and raped Danae. When Danae gave birth to Perseus, the King locked them both in a chest and dumped it into the sea. Zeus rescued them, and Perseus went on to behead Medusa, but that is another story.

The myth of the rape of Danae has been a popular subject for male artists from classical times up to the present. It is unclear whether, when they dreamed of “golden showers,” the artists had in mind degrading activities involving pee or whether they thought of sperm as inherently golden, perhaps as the mirror image of golden treasures stolen as the spoils of war. In any case, they were fascinated with the image of golden sperm. In their works, Danae is portrayed as beautiful and rape is normalized. The brutality of the facts–that Danae was locked in a tower by her father, that she was raped while imprisoned, and that her father tried to murder her and her infant son–are overlooked.

I was little more than a child myself when I began to study images like this in the history of art. I spent countless hours gazing at them in the museums of Europe before I was twenty. I am not sure I even knew what sperm was at the time. Nor had anyone explained to me that rape is always a violent act. Like Danae, I accepted rape: the rape of my innocence, the rape of my mind, the rape of my psyche.

#JustSayNo

Do not accept what you are taught. Do not accept that rape is beautiful. Do not accept that paintings of rape are beautiful. Do not accept rape culture. Do not let anyone tell you that Greek myths are beautiful. Do not let anyone tell you Greek myths are archetypes of the psyche. Question. Question everything.

Also see: https://feminismandreligion.com/2018/12/03/this-is-what-rape-culture-looks-like-then-and-now-by-carol-p-christ/ and https://feminismandreligion.com/2018/12/10/this-is-what-rape-culture-looks-like-in-great-art-by-carol-p-christ/.

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer, activist, and educator living in Crete. Carol’s recent book written with Judith Plaskow, Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology, is on Amazon. A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess is on sale for $9.99 on Amazon. Carol has been leading Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete for over twenty years: join her in Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honneger.

Listen to Carol’sa-mazing interview with Mary Hynes on CBC’s Tapestry recorded in conjunction with her keynote address to the Parilament of World’s Religions.

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like in “Great” Art by Carol P. Christ

Warning: contains images of rape portrayed through the lens of the objectifying pornographic male gaze

When I reflected on the discovery of a rape fresco from ancient Pompeii that depicted Leda and the swan, I did not mention that the image of the rape of Leda by Zeus along with related images of Zeus raping Europa as a bull and raping Danae as a shower of gold are favorite themes in the history of western art up to the present day. Myths of rape not only give artists permission to paint or sculpt naked women but also to normalize rape as an aspect of culture. In the imagination of western artists, noble or immortal women are portrayed as passively accepting and even enjoying being raped. The fact that these women are understood to be icons of female beauty delivers the message that female beauty invites rape.

I am beginning to understand my university education as brain-washing. I was 17 years old and in my first semester of college when I was shown images of Zeus raping women on a large screen in a darkened auditorium while being told that I should pay attention to perspective, brush-work, and detail. I understood that in learning to appreciate great works of art I would be considered intelligent and sensitive by other intelligent and sensitive people whose ranks I hoped to join. I learned what I was being taught. I was not told was that my “education” was grooming me to accept rape as part of high culture and as beautiful. Continue reading “This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like in “Great” Art by Carol P. Christ”

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Then and Now by Carol P. Christ

I was not paying full attention when I heard a news report on CNN saying that archaeologists had uncovered an “ancient erotic fresco” in Pompeii. Hmm, I thought to myself, this story deserves further investigation.

I had heard whispers about frescoes that only men were allowed to see when I visited Pompeii as a student years ago. I now know that these were idealized pornographic wall paintings in brothels of handsome young men engaging with beautiful prostitutes in variety of sexual positions. In real life prostitutes in Pompeii were slaves who worked in appalling conditions in dark, dank, windowless cells. No doubt many of their customers were unwashed toothless dirty old men.

The fresco in the news turned out to be an image of the rape of the Spartan queen Leda by Zeus disguised as a swan; it was found in a bedroom of a house or villa in Pompeii. Continue reading “This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Then and Now by Carol P. Christ”

A Precious Gift by Natalie Weaver

This has been another hard month. I don’t feel it to be hard. I just know objectively that it is. The typical challenge of balancing my work with the children’s needs and the management of a household has been intensified by the onset of a serious medical condition in my family. I now enter that phase of elder care, which I understand is more or less bound to bankrupt the average household. I have become the much-begrudged adult child, compelled to make decisions for other people’s lives and regarded in the fog of suspicion. My intentions are now under scrutiny; my time is usurped; my efforts are thankless. I’m not complaining really. I am just describing.

In the midst of things, I have managed to take my older son to the seeming ends of the earth to visit potential high schools. I am managing a Destination Imagination team for my fourth grade son’s class. I am teaching six courses, and my home is relatively clean. I am running a weekly lecture series, I volunteered at the Church this month, and no one has missed any meals. I even managed to sew a blanket for a friend’s new baby. There are many more serious family, medical, and economic issues that underlie my day-to-day, but along with everyone else, and perhaps a little more so than some others, I just accept that I am amazingly over-extended.

Continue reading “A Precious Gift by Natalie Weaver”

“First Blood” Celebration by Esther Nelson

This semester I’m teaching a course titled “The Abrahamic Traditions: Women and Society.” Because I believe story is one of the best ways to understand a point of view, I use a novel or memoir to accompany each tradition. The novel I use in the Judaism unit is Anita Diamant’s, The Red Tent.

The Red Tent focuses on Dinah, Leah and Jacob’s daughter. Early in the novel, the narrator says, “My name [Dinah] means nothing to you. My memory is dust….The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men who had no way of knowing.”

The biblical account (Genesis 34) tells us that Shechem, King Hamor’s son, “seized her [Dinah] and lay with her by force.” It also says that Shechem’s “soul was drawn to Dinah” and “he loved the girl,” and insisted that his father arrange things so Dinah could be his wife. Nowhere in the biblical account do we hear Dinah’s voice. She’s portrayed as a victim and used as a bartering tool by Jacob and his sons in their attempt to gain power in the region. Jacob and his sons required that Hamor and all the men within his kingdom be circumcised as a condition for the marriage between Dinah and Shechem. King Hamor agreed, but on the third day after the men were circumcised and in pain, Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, entered the city “and killed all the males,” for “defiling” their sister. “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” Dinah then disappears from the narrative.

Continue reading ““First Blood” Celebration by Esther Nelson”

You Can Make Your Own Rose BOOK REVIEW by Lila Moore

You Can Make Your Own Rose by Andrea Nicki is a collection of poems infused with the spirit of feminist sensibility, social justice and activism. The poems offer more than mere therapeutic comfort while depicting shamanic-inspired healing rituals and magical encounters. They are trauma-free in the sense that Nicki doesn’t ask for our sympathy nor does Nicki simply wish to share traumatic memories. On the contrary, she utilizes somewhat analytical and educational language, interlaced with subtle picturesque and lyrical details alongside a severe social critique, to depict the emotional, intellectual, and social landscape of her reflections on incest and other gender-related forms of abuse.

Continue reading “You Can Make Your Own Rose BOOK REVIEW by Lila Moore”

Death and Re-birth through a Project by Elisabeth S.

For about a year and a half, I have been working on a collection of poetry that I feel is worth something. I have been writing poetry since I scribed pages hidden between my math textbook when I was 9, gone through poetry workshops in graduate school where I produced a creative thesis, and continued to write off-and-on after that. I have an extensive cornucopia of poetry, but it was around last October of 2016, perhaps, that I decided to write my experience.

As a pre-teen, I wrote about what I thought my life could be, fantasizing about being an older woman with mottled relationships, missing opportunities to discuss my fragile relationship with my parents as the only-child-golden-child, my passion and doubts as a religious, my shame at not being more experienced. Even when I was in graduate school for poetry in Ohio, I didn’t think my life was worth excavating. I wrote dreamy, dense poetry that was surreal and symbolic but largely incoherent. I could again have written about my evolving religious beliefs, my curiosities and risks I took living outside of my home state of Oklahoma as a young woman for the first time, my declining relationship with my mother, or my insecurities again, but this time as a lesser-prepared graduate student in comparison with my literary and theory-laden colleagues.

On one hand, some might say the culture I come from is narcissistic and navel-gazing. I would agree, but just like I feel women can sometimes be selfish in a quite necessary and liberating way (as opposed to those around her accusingly saying she is “so selfish” for abandoning them/following her own path/needing a room of her own), I feel the confessional and self-reflective can be the healing and helpful side of the coin. For me, at least in my experience, my “finished” collection feels exactly this way.

Continue reading “Death and Re-birth through a Project by Elisabeth S.”

The Play of Emotional Insecurity and Pull by Elisabeth S.

It is not easy navigating the world with fragile boundaries, self-worth, and a potential history of manipulations. I often seek wisdom in spiritualities and unfamiliar religions because I need a substitute for the childhood traditions I have abandoned as a raft mid-stream. I am attracted to fashioning another raft, this one not pre-fabricated but gathered over some time by reaching for branches and tendrils. I am never confident about my assessments concerning relationships, and I mostly avoid going very deep with people anyhow or keep my head down so as to go unnoticed or divert the interest of others because I don’t yet know how to have healthy relationships that entail elements of balance or stay more-or-less in the middle way. It is awkward and fumbling to do life on one’s own, and I am hardly a victim. I completely admit that healing is within my purview and I simply have not tried hard enough, or that I just need to accept that no relationship is perfect and one cannot exactly have pleasure without pain, and so allow my body to sink into the underwater worlds and be taken by the sensory suctions of sea urchins and stings of jelly fish. Perhaps a relationship can also be one of peace and calm passions where those involved keep their attachments in check. I guess that is possible.

Continue reading “The Play of Emotional Insecurity and Pull by Elisabeth S.”

Reflection for the End of the Year by Sara Frykenberg

At my school, a religious institution, we start every faculty meeting with a reflection, meant to inspire us, make us think, help us to connect, etc. I am admittedly, sometimes very uncomfortable with these reflections. I don’t always like corporate ‘prayer’ because of my past experiences in an abusive faith. They make me uncomfortable, defensive; even though I understand the value of collective ritual. Challenging me to face these feelings, my department chair asked me to give a reflection for our faculty assembly. So I did so by sharing the way I know how to share (in a collective way) best: in a blog. And here I present these reflections, my blog, with all of you as well. My thoughts about taking the year apart, and putting ourselves back together again at the end of the year:

(Reflection has been edited slightly in terms of length and clarification for presentation to this online audience.)

Faculty Assembly Reflection: Sara Frykenberg, April 2018 Continue reading “Reflection for the End of the Year by Sara Frykenberg”

Meet the Bible Bitches: Interview with Rev. Laura Barclay and Sara Hof

What do you get when you have two ladies, one a Baptist Minister living in KY and one an agnostic living in LA, making jokes and talking about the Bible? Don’t know? You get the new and exciting podcast Bible Bitches! We hope that you’ll take a moment to check out this new and exciting podcast that explores the F-word in Religion (among many other topics) and read the Q&A below with the creators Rev. Laura Barclay and Sara Hof! Click here to listen to the podcast (now on episode 5)!

Continue reading “Meet the Bible Bitches: Interview with Rev. Laura Barclay and Sara Hof”