Activism – Page 34 – Feminism and Religion

The Women’s March on Washington: I’ll Be There in Spirit by Carol P. Christ

The Women’s March on Washington has released its statement of vision and principles, and what a stunning testimony to intersectional feminism and collaboration it is! The statement is woman-centered, while at the same time addressing a multitude of issues that affect women’s lives: from access to abortion for all, to an equal rights amendment to the constitution, to the rights of women as domestic and farm workers, to police reform, and so much more.

I was thrilled to read the list of women honored as foremothers to the march:

Bella Abzug*Corazon Aquino*Ella Baker*Grace Lee Boggs*Berta Caceres*Rachel Carson*Shirley Chisholm*Angela Davis*Miss Major Griffin Gracy*LaDonna Harris*Dorothy I. Height *bell hooks*Dolores Huerta*Marsha P. Johnson*Barbara Jordan*Yuri Kochiyama*Winona LaDuke*Audre Lorde*Wilma Mankiller*Diane Nash*Sylvia Rivera*Barbara Smith*Gloria Steinem*Hannah G. Solomon*Harriet Tubman*Edith Windsor*Malala Yousafza

Many of these women have inspired me, particularly (but not only): Bella Abzug, Rachel Carson, Shirley Chisholm, Malala Yousafza. I have taught books by or about many of them, including: Rachel Carson, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Harriet Tubman, Barbara Smith.

I hope these names will be read at the beginning of the ceremonies, followed by an invitation to all present to speak, shout, or whisper—all at the same time–the names of all the women, known and unknown, who have inspired their own activism for women’s rights. In this way, no one’s name is left out. We have a similar ritual on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, and it is incredibly powerful.

I first heard the Women’s March on Washington discussed at the meeting of the Feminist Liberation Theology Network held in conjunction with the meetings American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature ten days after the (so-called) election of Donald Trump. At that time a number of women asked if this march would be a white women’s march. Would women of color feel called or able to come? In the interim, women of color have become leaders of the Women’s March on Washington and it is definitely not “for white women only.” It was suggested that women of color might feel safer at local marches. These have been organized as well: learn about Sister Marches here. At the time of this writing 370 Sister Marches had been organized—in all 50 states and in more than 40 countries.

If, like me, you are feeling weary and despondent these days, the statement of the Women’s March on Washington may help to re-inspire your commitment to all women’s rights:

The Women’s March on Washington is a women-led movement bringing together people of all genders, ages, races, cultures, political affiliations and backgrounds in our nation’s capital on January 21, 2017, to affirm our shared humanity and pronounce our bold message of resistance and self-determination

Recognizing that women have intersecting identities and are therefore impacted by a multitude of social justice and human rights issues, we have outlined a representative vision for a government that is based on the principles of liberty and justice for all. As Dr. King said, “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

Our liberation is bound in each other’s. The Women’s March on Washington includes leaders of organizations and communities that have been building the foundation for social progress for generations. We welcome vibrant collaboration and honor the legacy of the movements before us – the suffragists and abolitionists, the Civil Rights Movement, the feminist movement, the American Indian Movement, Occupy Wall Street, Marriage Equality, Black Lives Matter, and more – by employing a decentralized, leader-full structure and focusing on an ambitious, fundamental and comprehensive agenda. Read more.

Learn more about the march. Readers of FAR might want to participate in the march with WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual). I’ll be there in spirit from Molivos, Lesbos, Greece.

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Be among the first to order A Serpentine Path, Carol P. Christ’s moving memoir of transformation. Carol’s other new book written with Judith Plaskow is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. Carol also wrote the first Goddess feminist theology, Rebirth of the Goddess.

Join Carol on a Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in 2017. Save $200.

Read two of the chapters in the book: Mysteries and Dionysian Rites.

Thanks to Judith Shaw for the cover art “Downward Serpent.”

A Gift Offered in Faith and Love by Elise M. Edwards

“The day begins with the sun and ends with the moon and stars; what you do in between is your gift to the world.” – Reyna Craig

The new year has begun, and many of us take this marking of time as an occasion to set intentions, goals, plans, or resolutions for the year ahead. For us feminists, the year ahead holds clear challenges. We know that the bodies, spirits, minds, hearts, and souls of women, racial and ethnic “minorities,” and all sorts of vulnerable people will be attacked. We know that the protections secured under the law for these bodies, spirits, minds, hearts, and souls have been eroded and continue to be dismantled in the name of… well, what exactly? Justice? Life? Religion?

We’ve seen voting rights eroded in the name of democratic ideals. We’ve seen challenges to bodily autonomy in the name of life. We’ve seen state-sanctioned murder in the name of law and order. We’ve seen a rise in religious intolerance in the name of religious liberty. Our work in this age must be to continue to expand our collective understandings of these ideals. This is the gift we offer to the world.

Continue reading “A Gift Offered in Faith and Love by Elise M. Edwards”

A Movement Needs A Song by Esther Nelson

esther-nelson I’m back in Las Cruces, New Mexico, spending the break between semesters in the spot where I plan to eventually retire. When I was here last summer (2016), I visited the Unitarian Universalist Church so decided to join the people gathered there on Christmas Day. Not many showed up—about twenty or so. The service was abbreviated. The emphasis was on singing Christmas carols from the hymnal. Unitarian Universalists, it appears, love to sing.

Inside the bulletin on a separate sheet of paper, Catherine Massey, the Director of Music, wrote an essay titled “Sunday Music Notes.” She asks, “How can music help us respond to the needs around us?” She listed several ways we can benefit from singing and chanting. One way is calming the self, enabling us to better cope with life’s struggles. Singing can also bring comfort to the sick and/or dying as well as to their families. She used her final paragraph to write about the necessity of music in social action movements.

…[S]inging has been an integral part of many social action movements, from the American Civil rights movement of the 1950s-60s to the anti-apartheid movement of South Africa. Ysaye Barnwell, member of the African American women’s a cappella group “Sweet Honey in the Rock,” has said that for a social justice movement to gain and maintain momentum, it needs songs to be sung by the people. She believes recent movements, such as Occupy Wallstreet, have had limited success because the people on the streets haven’t found their songs.

I am still grieving about the choices many American citizens made during the recent U.S. election. Although disheartened, I know I am not alone in my grief and outrage. I hope that decent people will push back against the misogyny, heteronormativity, racism, xenophobia, and just plain hatred that this new administration stands for and will, no doubt, perpetuate. We need music and songs to carry the “resistance” forward. Continue reading “A Movement Needs A Song by Esther Nelson”

Contemplative Education: A Pedagogical Approach of Compassion by Elisabeth Schilling

green path Even though I encountered wisdom literature when specializing in Hinduism during my Religious Studies doctoral program, through reading the works of Christian female mystics and the liberation theologies of feminist spiritual guides, it took a book I never encountered in my academic studies to give me a spiritual foundation that feels complete after my departure from Christianity: Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. It led me to the place where I am now, practicing mindfulness, being aware of the ego, and attempting to live in the present. Now I can return to wisdom literature with a lens that helps it make sense. Although I did not know it when I began utilizing these ideas in the classroom, there is an entire pedagogy based on them.

Contemplative education is based on the observation that the world is in need of healing and the majority of people have not encountered helpful ways to deal with their suffering. Why not use the classroom for healing and to create healers? Contemplative education has five goals or elements: 1. deep, or critical, thinking, 2. constructive communication, 3. awareness of the global impact of our behaviors, 4. personal development/well-being, and 5. a non-sectarian admiration for and inclusion of wisdom literature and traditions. This last element is what really distinguishes this pedagogy from others. And I see how it shares a great deal with feminist practices as well, especially as feminist pedagogy honors experiential knowledge, self-reflection, and activism. Continue reading “Contemplative Education: A Pedagogical Approach of Compassion by Elisabeth Schilling”

Make Art. Tell the Truth. Fight Back. by Marie Cartier

yvonne-estrada-photo For my dear Feminism and Religion family:

I’m sorry I have no words really this month. As many of you know I was very invested in Hillary Clinton’s campaign– and am devastated by her “loss”—or rather what I see as the corruption in the U.S. system which allowed a cheater to “win.”

So, I offer you in the spirit of picking myself up, and hopefully you also, this poem by a dear friend of mine, Terry Wolverton. Terry is a fabulous Los Angeles poet and every year sends out a card with a poem on it appropriate to the season. This year’s poem struck me so deeply that I asked if I could share it with you all. (The photo which illustrated the card is also reproduced here, by Terry’s wife, the artist and writer Yvonne Estrada.)

Here is the poem. I hope it gives you solace, as it did for me.

Make art. Tell the truth. Fight back.

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Ice Age

This was the year Snow Men
rose up against us,
ripping trees from ground
with their stick fists.
Their icy pallor under dimmed moon,
their coal hearts.
Our fervor could not melt them;
we too stand frozen
in the blue light of computer screens
flickering with catastrophe.

So many who inspired us
have walked the long road this year,
leaving us to our own silence.
Only the wind sings,
song of smoke and promises.
We fear we cannot match their artistry.
We know we must be strong enough
to keep alive the fire,
keep its flames arcing heavenward,
gather around it everyone who feels the chill.

–Poem by Terry Wolverton, 2016

Marie Cartier. Dr. Cartier has a Ph.D. in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall(Routledge 2013). She is a senior lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies and Queer Studies at California State University Northridge, and in Film Studies at Univ. of CA Irvine. She is also a published poet and playwright, accomplished performance artist, scholar, and social change activist. 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) and an MFA in Film and TV (Screenwriting), both from UCLA; and an MFA in Visual Art (Painting/Sculpture) from Claremont Graduate University. She is co-chair of the Lesbian-Feminisms and Religion session of the national American Academy of Religion and co-chair at the regional level of the Queer Studies in Religion session, founder of the western region Queer Caucus, and a perma-blogger for Feminism and Religion. She is also a first degree black belt in karate, Shorin-Ryu Shi-Do-Kan Kobayashi style, and a 500 hour Yoga Alliance certified Hatha Yoga teacher.

A Letter to Those I’ve Lost by John Erickson

Out of all of these things, the one thing that has kept coming to my mind is G-d. What is he (or she) thinking? I feel like I’m back in one of my Old Testament classes discussing the harsh and cruel G-d that thrust so many horrible things onto their believers. Maybe, the worst part about the election isn’t Donald Trump, but it is the realization that G-d may be dead after all.

Dear [Insert Name Here],

Something died on November 8, 2016, and I do not think I’ll ever be able to get it back. I sat there, walking back to my house, in disbelief and utter shock and scared about the next 4 years of my life.

For weeks leading up to the election, I had found myself praying in the copy room at my work almost daily. I would sit there, silent and alone, having just read some misleading article or alt-right post from a family member that called Hillary Clinton the devil, and wonder: when did everything go so off the rails?

Although we’ll spend years trying to figure the answer to my above question out, for me, it is a question I have been asking myself ever since election night and specifically knowing how certain members of my family would, and ultimately did, vote. Continue reading “A Letter to Those I’ve Lost by John Erickson”

The Refugee Crisis: Through the Eyes of the Children: Review by Carol P. Christ

The Refugee Crisis: Through the Eyes of the Children by Robert and Robin Jones. Santa Barbara, CA: Blue Point Books, 2016. $19.95. Website: http://www.throughtheeyesofthechildren.com

Arriving in Molivos, Lesbos for a summer break, Robert and Robin Jones quickly became caught up in the refugee crisis engulfing the island that had been their second home for over forty years. Initially Robin and Robert provided water to weary refugees walking along the roads of Lesbos, grateful to have arrived in Europe. Soon, Robin, an artist who holds a certificate in art instruction, began providing marking pens and paper to recently arrived refugee children awaiting transport to processing centers at the other end of the island.

The children’s drawings are the centerpiece of this moving book, while Robin’s photographs and Robert’s words set them in the context of one of the many humanitarian crises of our time. “According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 1,000,573 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe from the Middle East and North Africa during 2015. Of these, some 850,000 landed on the Greek islands. Of these, 49 per cent were Syrian, 21 per cent Afghan and eight per cent Iraqi.” 573, 625 arrived in the island of Lesbos between January 2015 and February 2016. Continue reading “The Refugee Crisis: Through the Eyes of the Children: Review by Carol P. Christ”

Low Impact Giving as a Holiday Gift to Mother Earth by Elisabeth Schilling

Beach As the winter months approach, at least one “Christmas” gathering will be on my schedule. As this holiday has been co-opted by consumerism as evidenced by my memory of the throngs of sales and shoppers in large shopping centers to get “the perfect gift,” I wonder how to give the perfect gift to Mother Earth simultaneously. At the December meeting of my local chapter of the Sierra Club, one of the members passed out a list of gift ideas for a “low-impact” season. Some of the items on the list include or have inspired the following:

Gift Coupons for Services – cleaning out a garage, taking care of someone’s kids for the day, a home-cooked meal for a family, showing someone how to set up composting, teaching someone to knit.

Memberships/Lessons – Yoga classes from a studio, membership to a museum or a gym, art lessons, music lessons.

Gift Basket of Sustainability-Minded Products for Cleaning/Bath

Donations in Honor of Someone

I am sure many of us are already creative in our gift giving. So hopefully you will all comment and share your low-impact gift traditions. For those of us who haven’t quite transitioned or have never fully thought of pursuing this course of action, there can be some resistance encountered in those who receive low-impact gifts. Continue reading “Low Impact Giving as a Holiday Gift to Mother Earth by Elisabeth Schilling”

Positive Presence in Tiring Times by Chris Ash

Christy Croft I am tired.

I’m tired in that way that happens when mind-overload, followed incautiously into concrete corners, limits the ability to conceive of solutions and dig up hope. I’m tired of reading commentary and I’m tired of thinking about the seeming impossibility of resolution, though I seem to be doing both compulsively. I read the news and it is overwhelming. I read theory and it is immobilizing: the more I learn, the more I realize how every possible choice of action is complicated by its impact on some person or power structure.

I’m tired in that way that happens to people who take in the world just as fully through their bodies – through touch, sound, breath, feeling, and movement – as they do through their minds. I’m tired in the way of those whose hearts well love and grief that flow up in gentle washes or powerful surges until they must escape in sighs and sometimes tears.

We live in tiring times.

We love in tiring times.

For several years, I was a leader in New Thought churches that held strict adherence to the “Law of Mind-Action” – that we change the blueprint of the universe to manifest according to our thoughts and beliefs – and the “Law of Attraction” – that we attract all experiences into our lives based on our thoughts and beliefs, whether conscious or unconscious. Under both of these principles, the material world, and thus the body, are subject to the will of the mind – subservient, docile, and reactive – just as women (traditionally associated in many cultures with the land and processes of the body) were considered inferior to and expected to remain subservient to men. Continue reading “Positive Presence in Tiring Times by Chris Ash”

Violent Virtue by Esther Nelson

esther-nelson I just got home from the first yoga class I’ve attended since the recent (11/8/16) U.S. presidential election. I cried for the entire 75 minutes—through forward folds, downward facing dogs, exalted warriors, and especially shavasana (corpse pose). The young man (probably in his thirties) doing his yoga practice next to me asked after the closing Namaste, “Are you all right?” “No, not really. I’m very upset.” He nodded his head as if to say he understood.

Ever since the nation’s president-elect declared victory, I’ve felt a huge sense of angst. Why? A huge percentage (81%) of white evangelical voters propelled him to that victory. I grew up in a branch of the evangelical church. The church, to a large degree, is all about translating a particular understanding of God’s will as “revealed” in Scripture into public policy and law, keen on imposing that interpretation on our pluralistic society. Continue reading “Violent Virtue by Esther Nelson”