communication – Page 2 – Feminism and Religion

Reflections on the Theology of Simone Weil by Elisabeth Schilling

French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil, in Gravity and Grace, says forgiveness is knowing I am other than what I imagine myself to be (9). For Weil, our true selves seem to be inextricably intertwined with each other, with the universe; knowing this can bring compassion for the self and world.

Upholding the constructed self that needs to be justified, protected, and admired can cause a lot of stress within our bodies and perhaps violence in relationships. Weil says that the cause of war is that we do not know we have access to the universe in our own bodies (86). Sometimes I feel that we avoid each other, looking in to each other’s eyes, because we cannot bear the weight of energy, the collision of spinning vortex that might occur the closer we move. Our DNA might hold memories, shared vibrations with ancient mountains, and the bodies we inhabit feel so intensely. Every cell seems alive with sensation, and most of us want to avoid the pain that cannot always be extracted from the pleasure that is also ready to be encountered.

One of my students asked me, as we discussed Weil in class, why we should improve, try to become better people, what the point was of anything. I don’t always know the answer to these questions or what might prompt them, but what I think for the time being is that we get up off the floor because there are these moments of intimacy where the universe is felt through our veins, and to experience that, even occasionally, might be worth everything. To do what we might be destined to do, to co-create and do that in healing, pleasurable ways, is to align with something beyond, but not excluding, ourselves.

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If You Can’t Flirt, Don’t Have Sex by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

If you don’t know how to flirt, you shouldn’t be having sex with anyone.

I admit it… I used to love flirting. It can be incredibly fun. I flirted outrageously with guys I had no intention of dating, and guys flirted with me who weren’t interested in dating me. It wasn’t about sex, either. It was just awesomely fun. The only time I minded was if it turned out they were married/in a committed relationship.

Flirting is like dancing. Both people have to agree to participate. It involves a lot of asking the other person what s/he is comfortable with. Sometimes it is kind of sexual, sometimes it is beautifully spiritual or exciting intellectually. Sometimes it’s tequila body shots, sometimes it’s holding a gaze just a little longer than normal, sometimes it’s making witty but not cruel jokes at the other person’s expense. But it has to be fun, it has to be happy. Like sexual intimacy. If at any point, one party becomes uncomfortable, the other party has to back up and figure out why, and what is needed now.

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How Do We Heal Rape Culture? Part 2: How to Help Men Become Safer by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

In Part 1, I presented a spectrum of male behaviors and attitudes, from violently misogynistic to safe ally. Next it is time to think about how we – as women, male allies, and society – can help men move up that scale to become increasingly safer for women. The strategies will differ depending on where a man starts out. However, using current research about change theory, we can find some concrete strategies to help us start to make progress.

The Research

Social scientists have conducted many studies about persuasion and social change, and I encourage everyone to follow these research trends. For this piece, I will focus on a few simple ideas about what works. I’m gearing this advice mainly toward men who want to become safer and to help other men become safer, but some of it applies to women as well. It also applies to religious communities – if they prioritize this issue, the men who attend will learn to be safer.

Continue reading “How Do We Heal Rape Culture? Part 2: How to Help Men Become Safer by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

Fostering Conversation and Connection in Community by Katie M. Deaver

I recently began a new job as the Associate Director of Admissions for the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, one of the seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This week was orientation for our new and returning students and much of the time has been focused on getting to know one another as well as getting to know the corner of Chicago in which we are located. There have been so many life giving conversations as well as so many questions!

Our mornings featured speakers who helped us to engage one another in conversation as well as to start thinking about the unique reality of our place within not only the LSTC community but also within the rest of the Chicago community and the larger world. Throughout these presentations and getting to know you activities my thoughts continued to be pulled back to the question of how to have life-giving conversations in a time when so many of us feel emotionally and spiritually drained by the world around us.

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Gratitudo et Fortitudo by Natalie Weaver

One of the bigger problems with being the only Classics major at a Jesuit university is that all my friends were fairly old men before I had even reached drinking age. Now, they are pretty much gone back to the cradle of the grave, save one, who is on his way to a remote retirement home. As a young woman, my coterie wasn’t a terrible problem for me because some deep part of my psyche had been convinced, since I was about nine years old, that I myself was an old man. I sort of felt at home reading about the Second Punic War and identifying with the sexual ramblings of the naughty old Latin poets, noting between me and my teacher-purveyors of such materials only the occasional, modest differences in skin elasticity and dental sheen.

I never felt like a girl, although, to be sure, one’s ability to assess such a thing is limited to one’s observations and conceptions about what, for example, a girl is or does or thinks. I found myself “ungirlike” in comparison with my conceptions of “girl-ness,” perhaps most notably in the operations of my mind. I felt “old” and “serious.” I remember contemplating with enormous focus the abstractions of total being and absolute nothingness from my nursery room. My big wheel was solid black, and my Dad got me into fishing and hooking live bait. I had read Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil by eighth grade; my favorite book was Camus’ The Plague until it was replaced by Hesse’s more romantic investigations in Narcissus and Goldmund; and I spent my days writing philosophical poems and trying to teach myself to paint in the style of Chinese ink and wash painting. I couldn’t stand Sweet Valley High novels, and even my doll play was odd. I had a gay Ken doll, whom I named David, and his best friend was a shaven-headed Western Barbie, whose backstory was a woeful tale of drugs and topless dancing. Continue reading “Gratitudo et Fortitudo by Natalie Weaver”

Story Woman by Molly

“Human connections are deeply nurtured in the field of shared story.” –Jean Houston

“The universe of made of stories, not of atoms.” –Muriel Rukeyser

This month I went searching for a quote for one of my Red Tent Initiation students. She had shared some powerful reflections about the vulnerability required to reveal our personal stories—there can be a lot of risk, sometimes shame, and more, bound up in our ability to uncover ourselves and speak our truth. What I wanted to communicate with her was the idea that in sharing our stories, including the painful pieces, we free other women to do the same. Our courage to be vulnerable, to be naked, to be flawed, to experiment with ideas, concepts, or ways of being gives permission for other people to do the same.

In 2012, I went to a dancing workshop at Gaea Goddess Gathering. The facilitator mentioned that when facilitating ritual, you have to be willing to look a little ridiculous yourself, have to be willing to risk going a little “over the top” yourself, because in so doing you liberate the other participants—“if she can take that risk and look a little goofy doing so, maybe it is okay for me to do it too.”

After a lot of digging around, I found the quote! I should have known it was from one of my favorite authors and sister FAR blogger, Carol Christ, who said:

“When one woman puts her experiences into words, another woman who has kept silent, afraid of what others will think, can find validation. And when the second woman says aloud, ‘yes, that was my experience too,’ the first woman loses some of her fear.”

This is part of what makes Red Tent Circles so powerful. When women are willing to dig into the questions, activities, and processes, to turn them over, to explore how they work in their own lives…they lose some of the fear and they encourage others to lose their fear too. Continue reading “Story Woman by Molly”

Connection by Deanne Quarrie

As an introvert, I do a lot of listening. However, I have noticed that when I am in a group and think I am listening, quite often I have tuned out and am lost in my own thoughts. That doesn’t happen nearly as often when I am with one person, sharing in conversation.

Clearly there are times when I am with someone who is a “talker” and our conversation is mostly a monologue. I find this need to talk comes either from being alone most of the time or from not being listened to by anyone. So when I care about someone, I simply listen as they rattle on. Pretty soon however, the pace slows down and the content of the conversation takes on substance and if we are lucky, a true conversation can begin. If it doesn’t, then at least the other person who needed to be heard got a chance. Continue reading “Connection by Deanne Quarrie”

What is the F-word Anyway? by Kile Jones

Social justice. Progressive politics. Improper media depictions. What exactly is the F-word (feminism) about?

I have always understood feminism as a project that casts a very wide net, the goals and values of which can keep quite a few people dry under the shade of its umbrella. But more and more, I see a narrowing of who can count as a feminist. There are a few reasons for this constriction. First, the more the F-word becomes a pejorative in contemporary society, the greater the need is to circle the bandwagons and set up camp. Second, when a particular group has elevated levels of in-fighting occurring, it makes sense to start psychologically splitting people into “feminist” and “not feminist.” Or, on a spectrum, “strong feminist” vs. “weak feminist.” Third, there is a pragmatic need for groups to find an optimal tension with society. When social groups are too counter-cultural or revolutionary, they get branded extremist and fanatical, but when they are wishy-washy and lukewarm, they become another extension of the status quo and lose their prophetic fire.

As an atheist, I see all of this occurring in non-believing circles as well. And I’m not really sure how to navigate it. There is also no shortage of men in this social group–from Dawkins to Boghossian–who think of feminism in the negative. All of this has to do with what they think the F-word amounts to. Continue reading “What is the F-word Anyway? by Kile Jones”

Putting Faith in Interfaith Dialogue by Esther Nelson

Why do it? Sit around a table with people who profess a faith tradition different from our own, drink coffee, nibble on snacks, and talk. What’s the point? No doubt the reasons vary depending on the particular people getting together. Nevertheless, there is the sense that if we “sit down together and talk together about our faiths,” we’ll “break down barriers,” and….then what? Do we think (or hope) that those on the other side of the table will eventually “come around?” Is conversion a goal? Or, perhaps we just want to become more “tolerant” of other faiths.

So, for example, if Muslims share facts with Christians about the history of Prophet Muhammad, the Sunni/Shi’a division, and Shari’a law, will that help Christians tolerate Muslims? Books on the history of religions abound. Yet, religion-based violence flares around our globe. Would learning about doctrinal beliefs–“truths” based on (usually male) interpretation of scriptural narrative–be helpful? Christians understand Jesus to be God incarnate. Muslims reject any doctrine that compromises the oneness of God. Now what? Are barriers broken down? Are we more tolerant? Continue reading “Putting Faith in Interfaith Dialogue by Esther Nelson”

The Mosaic Language of God by Andreea Nica

Throughout my “bible-thumping, smitten with God” years, I scribbled countless thoughts and prayers in four devotional journals. Recently I came across these journals, wiping away the years of dust accumulated. As I have been detaching from the Pentecostal god, it was a painful, downright mortifying experience to read through my past communication with god. This god seemed so foreign now given my liberated, enlightened, evolved self. I remember writing to and about Him, but I couldn’t help thinking how dysfunctional and convoluted the language I used really was.

I love you Father. Take me…surrender me to your will…your ways. Let me not lean on my own understanding and foolishness.

Mary Daly in Beyond God the Father advocates, “Time to go beyond God the Father. Don’t you see? If God is male, then the male is God. Reclaim the right to name your self, your world, your God. The liberation of language is rooted in the liberation of ourselves. Be a wild woman…God is not A Being. God is Be-ing.”

Many social scientists contend that language is the foundation of our socially constructed realities. We use language as a creative tool and guide to frame our perceptions of the world around us. We also use language to create our own unique creative expressions. That even though we share and appropriate from the accessible pool of creative expressions, each individual designs and discovers their own true form. Continue reading “The Mosaic Language of God by Andreea Nica”