Category: Community

How Can Change Happen If We Can’t Imagine It First? by Darla Graves Palmer

More than one hundred years ago, a small group of women joined together and decided to create their own village, one rooted in relationship and guided by spirit. They weren’t the first such women-led town in the country – there was a web of sister villages throughout America, some formed as early as the seventeenth century – but Chantilly Lace was unique. Rising out of the dust of an abandoned Gold Rush era in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, a time when many women were abandoned by men seeking further adventures or widowed when husbands lost their lives in the mines, this mostly female community determined its own fate. Now the modern women (and a minority of men) faced new challenges in the twenty-first century: how would they adapt and thrive?

If this had been true, how might things be different now for all of us?

The above sets the stage for a fictional series of books I’ve been writing (the first book is complete). The locale was always going to be a small town in the Rockies (because I’ve lived there), but the broader ideas about the town’s development have been evolving steadily, especially since the last presidential election. I keep asking myself how a culture based upon principles of peace and values of belonging, established firmly upon a spiritual core, might function in our capitalist patriarchy.

How can change happen in real life if we can’t imagine it in fiction? I’m challenging myself to make it happen.

Continue reading “How Can Change Happen If We Can’t Imagine It First? by Darla Graves Palmer”

Photo Essay–Long Beach, California by Marie Cartier

Long Beach Pride 2019
50 YEARS OF PRIDE CELEBRATING
THE STONEWALL REBELLION of 1969!
**All photos by: Marie Cartier**
See the photo essay from last year’s Pride week-end here.
And the photo essay from Pride 2017 here.

Continue reading “Photo Essay–Long Beach, California by Marie Cartier”

Gift-Economy in a Time of Lack by Elisabeth Schilling

Carol Christ wrote about gift economy on this blog in 2013, and I am taken by her story of the woman who brought raisins or cracked nuts to the group even though she had very little. In beginning to encounter the literature on gift economy myself, I am wondering how it all works, especially wondering, perhaps outside of such a conversation if it doesn’t relate or misses the point, what someone who feels they have nothing to give can give.

When Genevieve Vaughan wrote about gift economy in Ms. Magazine in 1991, she wrote, “where there is enough, we can abundantly nurture others. The problem is that scarcity is usually the case, artificially created in order to maintain control, so that other-orientation becomes difficult and self-depleting.”

I think we start to look for other ways of existing when we experience the brokenness of a current existence. The exchange economy under mindless capitalism does not honor equal, fair exchanges. If we could keep from manipulating and being deceptive about what a product is worth, if we could more generously assess the contribution of workers, then some of us might not be bothered. Of course, for that work which is never compensated by money, mostly women’s work, that is the other issue that might not be solved by more equal exchange, and probably more the point of Vaughn’s.

Continue reading “Gift-Economy in a Time of Lack by Elisabeth Schilling”

Talking about Privilege with Nuance by Elise M. Edwards

elise-edwardsYesterday evening, I led a seminar at a local church as part of their series on “Unpacking Privilege.” Once before, I’d been invited to this church, Lake Shore Baptist Church, to speak about intersectional feminism with one of my colleagues, so I expected them to be open-minded and welcoming.  They were.  Although the attendees were overwhelmingly white and older than me, they were attentive and engaged.  We had an enriching time together diving into topics like male privilege, white privilege, and class privilege with Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” as a resource.  (If you are unfamiliar with it, I recommend taking a few minutes to read it and reflect.)

In the essay, McIntosh writes about becoming critical of male privilege and men’s obliviousness to it through her work in Women’s Studies, which then led her to see her own race privilege (as a white woman) and her obliviousness to it.  The essay does not offer a precise definition of white privilege, but the entire piece is a reflection about it.  She explains:

“I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”

Continue reading “Talking about Privilege with Nuance by Elise M. Edwards”

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”

Sawbonna: Godde and Another Route to Forgiveness by Margot Van Sluytman

From the day my Father, Theodore, was brutally and callously murdered in Toronto, on Easter Monday, March 27, 1978, I wanted to meet his killer. I wanted to know how it was possible to do such a horrific thing. I wanted to know how he felt about destroying the lives of so many; my family’s, and his own.

We did meet. The meeting occurred in July of 2007. Because of reading about an award I received for my Therapeutic Writing Workshops and the publication of my books about healing, voice, and agency, he emailed me. Our meeting, our reconciliation, even those many years after that dark, dark day, was a rich blessing in my life, and proved helpful for him too.

The word forgiveness, is one that can lead to great suffering for victims and offenders alike. Victims are told that if they do not forgive, they cannot heal. Offenders are told that if they are not forgiven, they cannot move on from the crime they have committed. Forgiveness is a loaded word, with as many understandings, expectations, and definitions as there are experiences of savage loss, savage grief, savage pain.

Continue reading “Sawbonna: Godde and Another Route to Forgiveness by Margot Van Sluytman”

Exercising Women’s Religious Voice and Authority – Why is this Still an Issue? by Elise M. Edwards

elise-edwardsOver the past few days, I’ve been spending time at a church in Alexandria, Virginia conducting oral history interviews.  I’m doing research for a project about the arts and the church that has me diving deep into the church’s congregants’ and leaders’ experiences. Yesterday’s conversations offered insight about many theological topics that interest me, but what was particularly encouraging was what I witnessed concerning women in ministry.  That’s not what I was looking for, but it is what I needed to see.

Before beginning these interviews, I had already been thinking about the ways women’s authority and voice are often challenged.  This past weekend, I attended a regional religion conference where I assumed a leadership position and my voice was sought out for advice and insight.  I had great conversations with other women in academia about wellness and success while I was there.  Attending the conference provoked fond memories of a similar conference many years ago, when I connected with many colleagues in this FAR community and we discussed the theme of “Women and Authority.” Those were positive experiences.  But I had an unpleasant encounter, too, when I was on the receiving end of a male colleague’s condescending remarks.  I was also made aware of a disturbing incident in which a woman of color was publicly disrespected while speaking at a university event and subsequently trolled.  Those experiences triggered anger and deep sadness. To be honest, I also felt a sense of resignation and defeat.  Patriarchy is just so persistent.

Continue reading “Exercising Women’s Religious Voice and Authority – Why is this Still an Issue? by Elise M. Edwards”

A Meditation on Revolution In the Vagina Monologues by Marie Cartier

Photos by Kimberly Esslinger

“It’s like feminist summer camp, except it’s in February,” said Shaina, the director, “I’m not sure how to re-enter the world.”

I agreed. How to re-enter the world where vaginas have little voice? Where asking a woman what her vagina would wear does not make sense. Or what would it say? It’s not just what would it say, it’s not having a voice at all.  My vagina.

I have performed in West Hollywood, California’s production of the Vagina Monologues (to benefit Planned Parenthood, check it out here and here) for the past three years. This year we raised over $5,000.

Continue reading “A Meditation on Revolution In the Vagina Monologues by Marie Cartier”

I Celebrate Love by Elise M. Edwards

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I know, I know… so many of us do not like this holiday.  It’s too commercialized, we say.  We don’t need card-makers or florists to tell us how or when to show affection.  Some of us don’t like Valentine’s Day because it reminds us of loves we have lost or never found.  I get it.  This day can seem shallow, overhyped, and falsely sentimental.  It can be lonely.  And yet, I won’t let today pass without celebrating and honoring love.  Love is too important to concede to commercial interests.

Love, in its many forms, keep us alive and able to endure. Love is powerful because it is expansive, growing in unexpected places and ways.  We tend to separate our celebrations of romantic love, friendship, familial love, self-love, and religious devotion.  We make distinctions between our valentines and “galentines.”  Rarely do we shout for joy in ecstatic worship while also celebrating the passionate longings of our innermost desires.  But occasionally, in my religious tradition, we let our disparate loves come together.  We unite them on holy feast days, enjoying the sensual pleasures of good food and company to mark spiritual occasions.  So that’s my inspiration.  Today, I’m celebrating love by reflecting on various forms of love merged together and sharing insight from poets and mystics about the power and beauty experienced in love.

Continue reading “I Celebrate Love by Elise M. Edwards”

Find Your Warrior Archetype, Sisters: We are in the Fight of our Lives by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

I read a news story this week about dozens of children sex trafficked at an auto show in Detroit. I read about a young man getting no jail time for sexually assaulting a six year old girl… sex traffickers targeting and grooming girls through internet apps for children… white women still earn $0.80 for every dollar men earn, and women of color even less… the Supreme Court may kill Roe v. Wade this week… five women executed in a bank, and the media ignored it… many men used the government shutdown to coerce (rape) poor, desperate mothers into trading sex for money or food… yet another gunman shot his ex-girlfriend and four other people…

There’s plenty more bad news. We live in a collapsing, apocalyptic dystopian misogynistic nightmare. Misogynist violence floods to us in a toxic deluge from billboards, magazines, movies, TV shows, ads, games, and most interactions with family, friends, and our culture.

How do we survive in this holocaust? How do we keep sane? How do we protect that which we hold most dear?

Continue reading “Find Your Warrior Archetype, Sisters: We are in the Fight of our Lives by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”