Community – Page 2 – Feminism and Religion

Be A Friend: A Conversation on Self-Care by Mary Gelfand & Rev. Bernadette Hickman Maynard

Mary:
Like many of you, I struggle to balance spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being in these chaotic times. As women, we’re conditioned to prioritize others—family, work, community—while systemic injustices demand our energy daily. It’s like Sisyphus pushing his boulder: exhausting, endless. But rediscovering the FRIEND acronym, created by Reverend Bernadette Hickman Maynard, helped me reframe self-care and I wanted to share this with my FAR community. Bernadette, how did this concept come to you?

Bernadette:
In December 2023, I was the pastor of a church, deputy director of a community organizing nonprofit, mom to four kids, and a wife. My body rebelled and I had pain in five areas, dizziness, heart palpitations, panic attacks. I’d cry uncontrollably. I was burned out. Finally, I took six weeks off from everything. During that time, I realized I couldn’t fight for others’ liberation while sacrificing my own. So I created FRIEND—six practices to reclaim my joy – and determined to “be a FRIEND to myself” every day.

Mary:
Your story resonates deeply. We’re rarely taught to prioritize ourselves and pay attention to our physical and emotional needs. There’s always another task that seems to take priority over self-care and it’s easy to burn-out. How does Be A FRIEND work?

Long Live Queer Nightlife! by Amin Ghaziani – Book Review by Marie Cartier

I was invited to be on a panel for the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) in San Francisco this past March for a new book by Amin Ghaziani, Long Live Queer Night life (Princeton University Press, 2024).

Since I wrote Baby, You Are My Religion – Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall and have discussed aspects of this work here I thought the FAR family would also enjoy this conversation on where queer nightlife is now.

The book is interspersed with visits to club nights, something Ghaziani says helps widen the possibilities for communities—different communities can have their own nights and these chapters where he visits these various hot spots are exciting and first person.

#SHARE THEIR STORIES by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I was walking along the street the other day thinking about the comforts I find at home, my favorite tee-shirt, the three or four books I’m reading at a time, photos of loved ones. Around that time, I heard the news that Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was whisked off the street by ICE agents in Massachusetts. She disappeared into the system until she showed up in detention in Louisiana. This is the facility that has been called “a black hole” by civil rights groups. So many have been swept off the street, how do we keep track? Ozturk had a valid student visa until the State department revoked it without notice nor telling her. She was on her way to break her Ramadan fast with friends. After her arrest she asked for food, not having eaten for 13 hours. She was given snacks. She still hadn’t eaten a meal by the next day and was feeling faint. She was given more snacks.

I began thinking, who are her friends? What was she going to eat? In fact, what are her favorite foods? In other words, who is she as a person. Her name is foreign, she comes from another country so it might be too easy to dismiss her as one of many. But if we know her story, if we humanize her, her story becomes harder to dismiss. The first step in the authoritarian playbook is to dehumanize people for some feature of who they are. When someone is dehumanized, it is far easier to do hateful things.

The antidote is to know their stories, share their stories, speak their stories.

Showing Up, by Molly M. Remer

When we return home, I see a meme on social media that says: “Ten minutes online will show you everything that is wrong with the world. Ten minutes outside will show you everything that is right.” I think about the students and professors, each one alight with enthusiasm, with passion, for their work, their projects, their art, the contributions they are making. This is what we need. We need to see, spend time with, and BE people who are involved, connected, committed, and passionate. People who are creating instead of destroying. People who are connecting instead of controlling. People who are reaching out to offer what they can, who create and care, and who show up.

We may let connections thin
and interests slide,
forgetting that it takes work
to nurture and tend
to what we love,
that following what is easy
can be the wrong direction,
one that eventually leads
to the withering of what we value
and to the shrinking of our worlds.
We must evaluate the balance
between effort and ease,
yes,
but let us remember
that both are essential to thriving.
Let us lean into effort sometimes,
when there is meaning on the line,
put our backs into it,
feel sweat on our brows
and the satisfaction that comes
from choosing to immerse ourselves
in wholehearted living,
in presence,
in the work of reaching out
and holding on.

This past weekend, I went to my oldest son’s next college campus. The green spaces were filled with students working on art. The halls of the buildings were lined with art by high school students there for a visiting show. The art gallery was filled with diverse works of many mediums. The speakers for the day were filled with enthusiasm for their subjects, talking about study abroad trips to Paris and being part of the chorus or the band. We pass the student theater, abuzz with activity, and listen to a young man playing rippling tunes on the piano in the atrium of the library. This school is in a rural Missouri farming community, where we passed tractors laden with hay on the potholed road. Their mascot is a mule (“the only college with live mascot in Missouri!” they proudly report. The mule’s name is Molly, so I like her right away). Missouri is a “red state” and yet the students handed me the school paper with a front page story about protests at the capitol and a large color photo of someone holding an “Impeach Elon” sign. I happily picked up a library button proclaiming “libraries are for everyone” and another saying “what’s more punk than a library?” as well as snagging a “plant queer” sticker from the LGTBQ+ alliance table for my sister. The History table gives me a bookmark reading: “Don’t make me repeat myself.” –History

“Not Like Us” by Marie Cartier

I walk my dog at night—usually after midnight I walk in my neighborhood with my dog, Zuma, a dead ringer for Toto from the Wizard of Oz. We are both quiet. I have a small flask of chardonnay I keep in my breast pocket. I might photograph the moon. I might do Wordle and send my result to my wife. Answer a few emails, but I don’t stay on the phone.

I say my “gratitudes” out loud – at least ten of them before I even look at my phone…I say, “I’m grateful for…” (fill in the blank)—the fact that my truck has a moon roof, and I opened it on the way home; My wife is cooking chicken soup; I saw a former student at the coffee shop; I wrote the web footnotes to chapter 12 of the 2^nd ed. of my book; due to the publisher this spring – these are all real gratitudes I said out loud yesterday.

The John Howard Society: Poetic Justness & Hope by Margot Van Sluytman

COMMUNITY

Unexpected comfort
Permeated raw, cold ache.
Warmth melted sorrow.
Embraced we are.
Once again
Knowing we are loved.
And loving too.
©Margot Van Sluytman

~~~
“Supporting neighbours. Protecting communities. Providing supports. Rebuilding lives.”
Donna De Jong, Executive Director of The John Howard Society, Hamilton-Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
~~~

I think often about why and how community matters. About joy and justice and hope and healing. And indeed, the importance of spaces such as our own here on FAR, this community of poets, writers, artists, activists, advocates, allies, academics. Each whose choice to put pen to page, affords light and life to throb and to thrive.

The Field of Belonging, by Molly Remer

May we be resilient
in the face of conflict and change.
May we lean in,
reach out,
root down,
and deepen into
the practices that nurture us
and sustain us.
May we cultivate wise discernment.
May we persist in reclaiming our power
and our attention.
May we embody our prayers.
May we dance bravely
on the bones of the coercive systems
that try to drag us down.
May we lift our heads
to meet the eyes of life.
May we persist in seeing,
in being,
in lifting our resilient and stubborn joys
up to soar.

I know we are weary, overwhelmed by how much damage can be done by sweeps of pen and distant deciding, callous disregard seeming to seep into all the edges and change how the world feels to live in. We may feel frozen with indecision, unsure of what to do or how to help or what to say. So much asks for our attention and our time, asks us to look and to not turn away. We wonder what there is to celebrate in the face of so much anger and so much need. It is hard to feel so small and human, hard to keep hoping, to trust in our own inherent magic and that goodness and beauty are still at work amid the pain.

Healing What Ails Us and Coming Together: Politics and Other Forbidden Subjects by Caryn MacGrandle

I met my best friend growing up in Third Grade. I moved around the country after high school, but regardless, her and I have managed to stay in touch. I spoke with her last weekend and asked about her parents. Even though its been years since I’ve seen them, I remember them as if it were yesterday. Going out to their cabin at Lake Texoma. Seeing them around the house.

You see Kim and I were tight. We saw each other pretty much daily for years. In some ways it was a much more innocent time. I remember summers leaving the house in the morning and not going back until sunset, muddy and barefoot. Crawdads and horse models. Playgrounds and baseball games.

But in some ways, it was a much less innocent time. We dabbled in quite a lot that we should not have as the term helicopter parent was unheard of. Our skies were wide open. The good and the bad. The large majority of us were latch key kids, and we raised ourselves. No apps to tell our parents where we were or check in. We went as the wind blew us.

Acharei Mot: Build Each Other Up.

The parshah (Torah portion) for May 4, 2024 is Acharei Mot, Leviticus 16:1-18:30. It explains how to approach the divine and who should approach the divine in the context of establishing a yearly day of atonement to absolve the people of their sins. This atonement day proscribes various rituals for the high priest to perform that day including immersions in ritual baths, special clothing, many animal sacrifices and sprinklings of blood, an incense offering, and a goat let loose in the wilderness carrying the sins of the community. In addition, the parshah warns against idolatry and forbids the drinking and eating of an animal’s blood, as it contains its soul. The parshah ends with a list of prohibited sexual relations. This is a tricky parshah as it is often cited as proof that homosexuality is forbidden by the deity, and this has caused much pain and struggle for us within the LGBTQ+ community.

Archives from the FAR Founders: We are Worth the Time it Takes to Create a Practice by Xochitl Alvizo

Incarnation, Goddess spirituality, Xochitl Alvizo, god became flesh This was originally posted on September 10, 2014. It seems relevant to me these days as I continue to develop practices for my groundedness, community, and well-being.

Recently, in response to the excellent conversation following Nancy Vedder-Shults’ post on the goddess Kali, Carol Christ commented to Nancy, “I too love our conversations, wish there was more in depth talk on our blog [FAR], maybe there will be.” Carol’s comment* struck a deep chord within me. One of the main objectives that the FAR co-founders had in creating Feminism and Religion was that it be a place where we could and would engage with one another across a diversity of feminist issues and the broad range of feminist passions and work – where we could discuss, critique, and build upon on each other’s efforts.

So two things came to mind as I reflected on Carol’s comment. The first was my personal lament that I have not been as actively participating in the discussions that follow the FAR blog posts as I did when we first started Feminism and Religion. FAR has such rich and valuable material – it really does provide a great opportunity for conversation and dialogue – and sadly I have been a passive participant as of late. I read and learn from the discussions, but I have not been joining in. I lament that. FAR is definitely a place where I could engage with others in deep conversations, but how actively am I actually doing this? Continue reading “Archives from the FAR Founders: We are Worth the Time it Takes to Create a Practice by Xochitl Alvizo”