This week’s Torah portion is Emor, or Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23. It details purity and the priesthood including whose funeral a priest can attend, who can marry a priest, bodily blemishes and temple services, and under what circumstances daughters of… Read More ›
This week’s Torah portion is Vayikra (Leviticus 1:1 – 5:26). Vayikra is essentially one long discourse on animal sacrifice with an occasional grain or oil offering included. This killing of animals, their subsequent burning and the shared eating of their… Read More ›
This title isn’t entirely true. Eve would need an exceptionally well thought out replacement for Her name to be as sweet as it already it. That is because Eve’s name is unique, multi-dimensional and integral to the Bible’s mysteries. The… Read More ›
Parshah Vayigash covers Genesis 44:18 to 47:27. It involves the reunification of Joseph with his brothers and his father, the immigration of Jacob’s entire family to Egypt and Joseph successfully leading Egypt through famine. In other words, the parshah provides… Read More ›
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…. Read More ›
The parshah for this week is Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27). I’ve actually written about Lech Lecha on this forum before, concentrating on the parental aspects of the divine. See here. However, this time I want to look at the Torah… Read More ›
The Torah parshah for this week (to be read on 15 September) is Vayelech (Devarim/Deut. 31:1 – 30). September 15th is also Shabbat Shuvah (return), the Shabbat that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is the time of… Read More ›
This is the first part of a series of reflections on the weekly Torah portions. For those of you unfamiliar with Judaism, we read the Torah in sections. There are 52 parshot (or portions), one parshah (portion) is read each… Read More ›
When I toured with The Passion of Mary Magdalen, opening by belting out the first paragraphs of the novel’s prologue in song, (ending with the line “when only a whore is awake!”) that question almost always came up. In celebration… Read More ›
“I am the Queen of Sheba and I am not impressed.” This is the first line of one of the monologues from chris wind’s book Thus Saith Eve. This book features 18 stories of biblical women, and a 19th, Lilith,… Read More ›
“Where is my mother? I am thirsty.” My four year old is crooning quietly to her dolls. She is making sense of the crucifixion through play, asking her Disney princesses to stand in for Jesus, the Marys, and “the bad… Read More ›
Nurture life. Walk in love and beauty. Trust the knowledge that comes through the body. Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering. Take only what you need. Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations. Approach the… Read More ›
Five years ago, I moved to Texas from California. In that time, my spiritual practice and my feminist and womanist worldview has grown through contemplative practices. It’s ironic. “Everything’s bigger in Texas!” the saying goes, but in the presence of… Read More ›
I hear a lot of people talking lately about how they are no longer proud to be Christian. They point to the vocal conservative churches and leaders who support Trump, condemn and exclude LGBTQ people, oppress female bodies and sexuality,… Read More ›
My daughters came to me after Sunday School one day, concerned about a story they had heard in which God drowned almost everyone on Earth. So I sat down and thought about why a community might want to tell that… Read More ›
I’ve recently found myself in one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in San Francisco, helping provide over 2000 meals a day to those in need. Let me reiterate that number… 2000+ meals. A day. Not only does this number illustrate… Read More ›
So, I am perusing my twitter feed and I come across this headline: White House Bible Study Led by Pastor Who Is Anti-Gay, Anti-Women and Anti-Catholic The opening paragraphs read like my LGBTQ+ religious studies nightmare: “The first Bible study… Read More ›
I recently had the opportunity to travel to my undergrad institution on a student recruitment trip. During this trip I was able to preach during the college’s weekday chapel service. Despite the fact that I have lived, studied, and worked… Read More ›
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!
Queen Esther An orphan child, who became a well respected queen, Esther, the Queen of Persia, was a woman of integrity, Wisdom and courage, a beautiful woman, truly supreme, favored by God, She had a awareness of dependability, steady strong,… Read More ›
The Book of Esther tells a story in which women’s power is not so much repressed as asserted. The king who banishes one queen finds himself submitting to the will of another. Numerous women writers of various ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries have found inspiration in the stories of both Esther and Vashti’s disobedience to an autocratic king.
I am so frustrated that we are still fighting to affirm women’s place in leadership. I’ve been thinking about this struggle in the context of church ministries (especially preaching) and social activism, seeing a stark contrast between the way institutional… Read More ›
I’ve always been troubled by the story of Boaz found in the Book of Ruth. While there are plenty of biblical narratives that horrify me–Hagar, Tamar, and other “texts of terror” as Phyllis Trible called them–the story of Boaz is… Read More ›
LGBTQ+ people in biblical religions often turn to the story of Jonathan’s love for David as an example of biblical affirmation of same-sex love. The biblical narrative in 1 and 2 Samuel stresses Jonathan’s love for David from the moment… Read More ›
I grew up in a suburban town stuck in the middle of rural Indiana. I drove through corn fields to get to school and on more than one occasion I did have to crawl through my sun roof to get… Read More ›
Last week, I listened to an episode of Krista Tippett’s series On Being that featured an interview with poet Marilyn Nelson. I am not very knowledgeable about the world of modern poetry, but I am familiar with Nelson’s work. A… Read More ›
Readers, please note: this post includes accounts of rape and violence agianst women and quotes distrubing statements of assault made by Donald Trump. These are easily identifiable by the use of italics or as indented, quoted text. Of course I’m… Read More ›
Ecclesiastes 3:14 – I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all that should stand in awe before him. Nothing can be added… Read More ›
The morning air is hot around the pillars of Jerusalem stone, but the congregation is already tired. The prayers are old, pro forma and remote, drawing power now from the sound of the Hebrew more than from the meaning of… Read More ›
How will the world end? No, it isn’t Lucifer himself coming from hell to bring in the end times, it is someone far worse, and his name is Donald Trump.
