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 ›
Even though Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, first Roman emperor, the empire didn’t celebrate that birth until three centuries later when his birth date was moved to mid-winter to match the birth date of the sun god… Read More ›
This is a time of increased vulnerability for many minority populations in the United States: people of color, immigrants, LGBT people, native peoples. The policies and rhetoric of the current administration have left all these groups exposed to hostility. Women… Read More ›
Witness It was dark when I first heard Her whooing overhead bearing witness, ushering in the First of the Harvest Moons. The seasonal wheel turning towards ripe fruit and swelling seeds. Summer’s Bounty. This goddess is cloaked in feathery… Read More ›
Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, graphic sexual content In Part 1 of this story, I introduced a discussion of Johan Galtung’s theory of cultural violence as it relates to my experience as a young woman in an abusive… Read More ›
Part 1: The Question It is October, the veil is thin the year is waning the leaves are turning I am trying to say goodbye to my grandmother she is dying. I do not know what to say. The leaves… Read More ›
In 1929, my grandmother wrote the word “HOME” in resounding letters across the bottom of a photo of a herself and my grandfather, smiling lovingly and confidently, with my infant mother propped in between them on a rattan chair. Within… Read More ›
My husband’s stepmother, Ginny, died last week. She lived several months past her 97th birthday. Here is her obituary. Ginny shared her life with three husbands, outliving each one. Three sons were born from her first union. She then married… Read More ›
2.24.2017 During a meditation before bed, I saw an image of a candelabra similar to what Jewish people use for Hanukkah. It was yellow/gold in color, engraved/etched onto a surface. All at once I saw the imagery of a star,… Read More ›
One of my Facebook friends—someone I’m quite fond of—posted the following remarks given by her pastor, Dr. Jim Somerville, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia, to the congregation on July 15, 2018: It was Thanksgiving 2016, and my brothers and I… Read More ›
Why can’t social media be fun anymore? Why can’t we spread happy pictures of puppies, babies, and rainbows? While the answer may be simple to many of us, let me state it plainly to my relative: Because the world is on fire and we have a racist in the White House creating edicts that call for babies and children to be placed in ‘tender age’ facilities.
I started this blog June 18, 2018, writing about the horrific policy of the trump administration of separating children from their parents who seek asylum at the border. And this is where we are…a human rights disaster. Then I watched… Read More ›
Ah, confession. I admit I never really much understood the Catholic practice of confession to a priest; as a United Methodist growing up, the idea of confession – while challenging – nonetheless seemed to belong squarely between myself and the… Read More ›
“It’s a wild snail festival out here!” —Tanner (age 3) This spring we took a family mini vacation to Table Rock Lake, about three hours away from home. At its best, working and schooling from home with our family of… Read More ›
My grandmother is a gangster… a spiritual gangster I recently attended a funeral for a relative-in-law. The grassy patch at the cemetery was filled with many familiar faces as well as unfamiliar. My side of the family was asked to… Read More ›
Who are the Dsir? Freyja, known as “Ancestor Spirit”, is viewed as the timeless, self-renewing energy in the universe. She witnesses and shapes the direction of creation and undoing. She is not the originating, creating Goddess, but rather a conduit… Read More ›
Carol P. Christ has described spending meaningful time with her grandmother as a child and the unconditional love she received from her mother and grandmothers: ‘my relationships with my mother and grandmothers were full of love. This makes it easy for me to imagine the… Read More ›
Dear Mom, I want to take this opportunity to tell you I have learned so much from you over these years that I have been privileged to call you “mom.” I watch you, as you get older, as I also… Read More ›
Please, Let’s Give Feminists a Break. I remember so vividly entering graduate school in my early forties and being told I was an “eco – feminist” by my professors. What does that phrase mean I asked having no relationship that… Read More ›
(Written the day after the Parkland high school, Florida shooting.) Last night, my husband and I went outside to our driveway to sit in the car and have a beer. Those of you with lots of children will understand that… Read More ›
Eve and Adam had many children. Two of them, the sisters Cain and Abel, were best friends. When they grew up, Cain became a farmer, and Abel became a shepherd. In their community, people shared what they had with each… Read More ›
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 ›
In my genealogy research, I traced my father’s grandmother, Catherine, to her roots on the Iloff farm in Cherry Ridge, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of New York City. Catherine’s parents were Henry Iloff, who emigrated in 1841 from… Read More ›
My paternal side of the family comes from an extensive line of farmers. They were notable for growing eggplants, but they held all sorts of agricultural knowledge. My maternal side of the family has a hushed history of female kobiraj/ natural medicine practitioners…. Read More ›
“When winter comes to a woman’s soul, she withdraws into her inner self, her deepest spaces. She refuses all connection, refutes all arguments that she should engage in the world. She may say she is resting, but she is more… Read More ›
The holiday season is a particularly difficult time for grief. Whether it is grieving someone who died earlier in the year as you celebrate your first holiday season without them, or the lasting memories of loved ones who are no… Read More ›
Dear FAR readers—you will be reading this blog the day after Thanksgiving, which is one of my favorite holidays. It didn’t used to be—but it is now. Over twenty years ago, I remade this holiday for myself. At that time… Read More ›
There’s nothing like the holiday season to bring out everyone’s least feminist self. In one of the courses that I teach—Gender, Food, and the Body in Popular Culture—students are assigned to examine gender roles throughout the holiday season through the… Read More ›
Mark Twain is reported to have said that while history does not repeat itself, it often rhymes. Let’s see what rhymes we can find in Tudor and Jacobean England and Trumpean America. Here’s the history lesson. What has changed in… Read More ›
I lie in bed with him, cementing the details in my memory. The way the morning air is heavy and green. The sound of last night’s raindrops continuing to drip from the overfull gutters on the roof. The insistent stab… Read More ›
