“I get that consumers generally prefer to buy produce that looks a certain way, but can the routine act of trashing whole bags of clementines, apples, or tomatoes because of a few imperfections be justified in a world that is full of hungry and malnourished people?”
Renowned climate change activist and author Bill McKibben spoke at our graduation earlier this year. Among the charges he gave to all of us in attendance (i.e., not just the graduates) was for us older folks to be willing to bear more of the possible “costs” of political activism. His reasoning was that being a 20-something with an arrest record was not a particularly good thing for young job-seekers today.
I was inspired. I thought to myself, “I have tenure, I work with colleagues who champion prophetic civil disobedience, and my class privilege would allow me to post bail if arrested.”
When chatting with a graduate that afternoon, I told him that I’d like to make good on something we once discussed in class during a session on the ethics of consumption—I’d like to go dumpster diving with him.
Mind you, I don’t fit the stereotypical urban scavenger profile (although middle class dumpster diving is on the rise). I grew up in a gated community, once brought my portable curling iron on a junior high church group camping trip, and today am more bourgeois than Bohemian. So what interest did I have in electively digging through garbage?
Can women have it all? Possibly. Can men ever have it all? Maybe. Regardless of however we put it, the are ills to every good deed in the world and we need to get back to understanding how and why we use each other in order to fully understand that behind every good man might be a good woman but also behind every good women there might also be a good man.
Growing up, my favorite movie was The Associate staring Whoopi Goldberg as a woman at a Wall Street firm attempting to climb her way up the corporate ladder through hard work and dedication. Her character Laurel Ayres does all the work and comes up with the ideas that clients eventually invest in, her partner Frank takes all the credit and eventually surpasses her at work by getting the promotion she had been vying for. In a prodigious scene that I still vividly remember from my childhood, Laurel quits her job and starts an investment firm on her own; betting every cent and piece of property she has on the eventual success of her new business adventure.
In an attempt to break through the proverbial glass ceiling and play with the big boys of Wall Street, Laurel eventually discovers that although she can be (and is) the genius behind many of the great ideas that would save companies millions, she still needs to have her ideas expelled by a man she creates in order to win over clients, which eventually leads her to become successful. However, while Laurel is reaping in the benefits of having Mr. Cutty, her made up business partner, by her side, she eventually learns that no matter what she does she will always be secondary to her male business partner. Continue reading “Why Men (and Women) Can’t Have It All by John Erickson”
Spiritual Power is arguably the most dangerous power of all. In the wrong hands, it gives the power to make judgments even about the eternal fate of another person. It needs a sign on it at all times saying, ‘Handle with extreme care.’ The greater the power a person exercises, the more need there is for checks and balances before it is used and accountability after it is used.” – – Bishop Geoffrey Robinson
May 6th, I addressed the issue of abuse of power in the Catholic Church and how we seem to be unraveling any kind of progress made since Vatican II. Since writing that article, the Leadership of the LCWR met with Vatican Officials and expressed their concerns openly. A dialogue occurred and left no resolution, just information that the leadership will discuss with the community at their August meeting. That meeting will reveal their next step in this controversy – concede and follow the conditions and rules sets forth by the CDF or disband and form a new religious community or maybe there will be another option revealed.
I have to ask though – Was this a meaningful meeting or was it meant to pacify the Sisters and their supporters? Will the Vatican change its stance? Certainly, the U. S. Catholic Sisters have not been
pacified, nor have their supporters. For example, there is a “Nuns on the Bus” tour traveling around the United States, prayer services for the Sisters, #nunjustice and #whatthesistersmeantome campaigns on Twitter. Even the Women’s Ordination Conference delivered a petition containing over 57,000 signatures to the Vatican in support of the Sisters. Certainly, the support for the sisters and their mission is not dwindling, but growing stronger every day.
As for the Vatican, a change in their position is doubtful, but we can continue to pray. I am, however, very discouraged by a statement attributed to Pope Benedict that indicates a desire to have a smaller more faithful Church of Catholics then a large Church of people who do not adhere to Church Teaching – seeking out a small, strong, holy community.
Obviously, it is my hope that this statement was taken out of context, but I have to be honest and say
Women’s Ordination Conference delivering Petition Picture reprinted from WOC’s page on Facebook
that my hope is filled with doubt. This is not the first time I have heard clergy make this statement. Priests have made this statement in my presence – wanting a more faithful flock and dismissing those that do not adhere to their interpretation of Church teaching. This stance does not bear fruit, but is rather a power play – a play that can be called many things – misogynist, arrogant, non-pastoral, cold-hearted, and frankly un-Christian. It also plays with a person’s spiritual fate and in many cases their soul. The psychological impact of something like this is dangerous for some. Some ordained will go so far as to withhold sacraments or even compromise the person’s status in the Church, including their role in ministry, for the sole purpose of inducing compliance – a tactic that dates to the medieval period.
What le renard teaches le petit prince is that when people tame each other, they spend time together and get to know each other. It’s not power-over, but power-with. We become important to each other…. The world is made more sacred. That’s what we pagans and good, honorable people in the other religions who talk to each other without preaching are doing.
In Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by the French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the little prince takes advantage of the migration of wild birds to leave his home, the tiny Asteroid B 612, because he running away from a vain and fickle rose. After he arrives on earth, he sees a whole garden of roses, and it breaks his heart because he thought his rose was unique in all the world. When he returns to the desert where he originally landed, he meets le renard, a very wise fox. The fox tells the prince that they should “tame” each other. “Apprivoise-moi,” he says, “tame me. Let us create ties so that we know each other.”[i]Continue reading “Rien n’est parfait by Barbara Ardinger”
These chocolates embody a truth — the truth that resources are valuable, that living ethically is not ‘cheap,’ and that cheap is an illusion…
Information is everywhere and is being collected about each one of us every minute of every day. If you are reading this post on your computer you have just fed the information gathering machine new information about yourself, your interests, your trends – and if you click on any of the links embedded within this post – all the more so. Welcome to the 21st Century.
In a way it sounds terribly “Big Brother-ish.” And maybe so, but I don’t think of it that way as that would be terribly overwhelming and perhaps even paralyzing. Instead, I simply see it as capitalism in full force. Capitalism depends on a consumer economy – the more we buy the more profit a small percentage of people make. And the consumption of goods is heavily reliant on marketing, which nowadays is being streamlined more and more so that it can to be targeted and personalized for each individual. In order to do this the powers that be need information about us – detailed information and lots of it! Here enter Google and Facebook – the great gatherers of all the personal information we freely give them. They gather information and share it with corporations so that these may in turn more effectively market products to us that we are more likely to buy. We are now in what is called the Google Age, the great servant of capitalism and our consumer economy.
“I rejoice in this most recent admission of institutional racism. I am not naïve enough to believe that this public acknowledgment, like previous ones to other racial-ethnic groups, was untainted by political calculations. But I am also not Kantian (so I reject the view that anything done out of mixed motives accordingly lacks moral merit).”
I have a beautiful picture of vagina hanging on my wall. However, for the longest time it was in the back of my closet, with a plastic bag covering it. I wasn’t ashamed of it but my ex-boyfriend, like most gay men, refused to have it on the wall where he could see it. He is now long gone; the vagina is now out and proud.
I bid on the picture one fall during a showing of the Vagina Monologues at Claremont School of Theology. One of my best friends was in the show and I had always loved its powerful message. I walked out of the theatre, waiting for my friend, and there it was: the picture of the vagina. I found myself caught up in its beauty. Its gaze had mesmerized me. The outlying layers of red, the contours of its shape, they all began to mold into a figure before my eyes. While I have never thought of myself as a religious person, I realized that at that moment I was no longer looking the old photo but rather I was staring at the outline of the Virgin Mary. At that moment, I realized that I had to have the picture.
My ex boyfriend was ashamed of the photo. I let him shame me into putting it in the back of my closet and cast it away like it was nothing. Like the experience, call it religious or not, had never happened. When we ended our relationship, I found myself inconsolable and pacing up and down my stairs in a never-ending cycle of sadness and downheartedness. As I was pilfering through our items, I came about the picture. I saw it and for a split second, I was no longer sad. Continue reading ““Vaginas are Everywhere!”: The Power of the Female Reproductive System by John Erickson”
Think back to the sexual education you received—or did not receive. Think of all of the topics you covered in school or at home and how positively and confidently you talk about it today. Many people will say that this sentiment does not resonate with them. Much of the population receives subpar sexual education in the current public school curriculum and often times even worse sexual education in faith-based programs. The sexual “taboo” that people feel when it comes to sex education—the fact that parents will leave it up to schools and the schools rely on parents to cover the “important stuff”—is a bigger injustice than many people care to realize.
The structure of sexual education in our society today is extremely inadequate. Let us focus on sexual education in parochial schools for instance. Many graduates of the elementary parochial curriculum that I have met have had a very miniscule sexual education. When I ask them if they felt adequately prepared on the topic of sex the answer is often “no” commonly followed by an even more unsettling “what sexual education?” Continue reading “Sexual Education: The Limits of Conscience Formation by Mark Levand”
In the original blog I explained that the students were asked to identify a private or public a problem that they could find a full or partial solution for and that their actual final had to actually implement their proposed solution. Students had to use “The Feminist Ethical Toolbox,” or what they call “Cartier’s Toolbox,” in their solution. The toolbox addresses questions such as, “Is everyone affected by the decision (the solution to the problem) at the decision making table?” and “If they are not at the table, are they represented at the table by someone who will speak to their interests?” among others.
The second blog addressed combining art with scholarship/activism so that we do not only change minds but also move hearts. Students had to attempt to combine art with their problem/ solution-consciously using art as a “toolbox” element helps facilitate social change. It is in the integration of both art and scholarship that the most poignant and effective social change strategies are birthed. Continue reading “Feminist Ethics Class and Final Problem Solving by Marie Cartier”
I am all of these things and more. By the recent attacks by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, I am beginning to think I am the problem. I seem to stand foreverything the Vatican and USCCB seek to silence. Is it because of my organizational ties with the U. S. Vowed Religious and Girl Scouts, or my writings as a Feminist and Theologian? Maybe the answer is simply – because I am a woman.
According to the criticisms launched by the USCCB and the Vatican, I seem to be part of the problem rather than the solution. Why is this so? It was not until I started my journey in ministry that my idealistic “Catholic” bubble popped – not so much by me, but by those in ministry and leadership, by those that did not like laity to pose questions and think critically about their faith beliefs, and by those that do not like people who do not fit within the preconceived mold of what a “good Catholic” should be. This ideological construct is difficult enough when you are part of a Church community, but when you begin to embrace leadership as a woman, question teachings, exercise your canonical rights, your peers and even people you thought were your friends, no longer talk or associate with you. The betrayal is vicious and runs deep – it is behavior not becoming of a minister or one who professes the Catholic faith.
If the attack on you is not enough, these same people victimize your children through their words and behavior. It is a difficult position for anyone to survive spiritually. For children of the Church who bear witness to this hypocritical behavior, a journey begins – they search for meaning within the spiritual realm and become disgruntled with anything that resembles organized religion. A place where one seeks community and spiritual nourishment becomes a place of oppression and starvation. If attacking family is not enough, let’s start attacking groups that promote community – groups like the Girl Scouts of America.
Renowned climate change activist and author Bill McKibben spoke at our graduation earlier this year. Among the charges he gave to all of us in attendance (i.e., not just the graduates) was for us older folks to be willing to bear more of the possible “costs” of political activism. His reasoning was that being a 20-something with an arrest record was not a particularly good thing for young job-seekers today.
Feminism and Religion 