Category: Feminism and Religion

Coming to Terms with Privilege: A Personal Reflection by Elise M. Edwards

elise-edwardsIn my two previous posts, I shared my recent experience talking about privilege at a church near me.  Today, I will wrap up this short series with a more personal reflection about privilege from a Christian perspective.  Last month, I was thinking theologically about what those of us who have privilege should do with it.  But, as feminists and womanists, acknowledging our privilege can be complicated.  Most of us in this FAR community do possess some forms of privilege while, at the same time, we lack other forms of privilege.  Each of us remains the same person wherever we go, yet our status can change when we switch contexts.  As a black woman, I do not have white privilege or male privilege.  But I am privileged when it comes to education and class and physical ability.  I am a Christian who works at a Christian university in a part of Texas that is culturally predominantly Christian. So that’s a form of privilege.  Although as a single woman without children, I don’t fit the cultural norm where I live, my sexual orientation and cis-gendered identity afford me some privilege, too.

Continue reading “Coming to Terms with Privilege: A Personal Reflection by Elise M. Edwards”

To Find My Soul by Katie M. Deaver

Breathe in… 2…3…4… breathe out… 2…3…4…

Pay attention to your footfalls, make sure you are landing correctly, breathe and count…

Breathe in deep… fill your lungs… and breathe out the stress and the heaviness.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to get back into running. A few years ago I discovered that I loved running. I loved being alone with my thoughts, focusing only on how my feet hit the ground and continuing to breathe as I ran far more consecutive miles than I ever would have imagined possible. I even ran a half marathon, which I never would have believed I would be capable of… but, somehow, I was… and actually it wasn’t too bad, I looked forward to doing it again and even started to day dream of the possibility of one day running a full marathon.

In the typical day to day busy-ness of life I hadn’t been able to run much last fall and then this winter I took a bad fall on the ice that left me barely able to hobble along at a walk let alone run any distance. After many months of physical therapy and (mostly) sticking to my stretching and strengthening routine, I finally decided I was brave enough (and trusted my knee enough) to try and get back into my running groove.

Continue reading “To Find My Soul by Katie M. Deaver”

Trial by Fire, Healing by Water by Carol P. Christ

It wasn’t really fire. I came home to Lesbos from a soulful Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete and a discouraging emergency meeting of the Green Party Greece totally exhausted and wanting nothing more than to rest. It was the hottest June on record and my house with its many windows felt like a furnace. Due to a dispute with the installer, it took eleven days to get the air-conditioning fixed. My little dog who could see when I left for Crete, was blind when I returned. I wondered if I would have to put her down and could not bear the thought. I was so tired and so hot that I could not think straight. It was beyond my capacity to even consider moving to a hotel. I didn’t have the energy to unpack. And I didn’t have a car as the old one had been sold and the new one was still at the dealership in Crete. So I couldn’t escape. Instead I tried to hold back tears.

After the air-conditioning was finally fixed, I was able to unpack, wash my clothes, and repack for my return to Crete. The night before I was to leave, I jumped the St. John’s day (midsummer) fires. The locals say they jump the fires for fertility (jumping fires does warm the nether parts) and health. In the photo I am sitting at a table directly behind the first fire, but I soon got up and jumped all three of them, affirming the powers of birth, death, and regeneration.

Continue reading “Trial by Fire, Healing by Water by Carol P. Christ”

Patriotism Reconsidered by Carol P. Christ

Originally published on July 8, 2013 on FAR under the title “What Is Patriotism?,” this blog asks questions that seem even more important today, when tanks have been paraded in front of the Lincoln Memorial and children are held in appalling conditions at our borders because their parents dared to seek asylum in the United States.

July 4, American Independence Day, has come and gone. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to reflect on patriotism. What is it? What does it mean from a feminist perspective?  What is the relationship between patriotism and militarism?  Can one be a patriot and oppose war?  Can one be a patriot and deny that “America is the greatest country in the world,” the foundation of  the doctrine of American exceptionalism?

In a recent blog, Caroline Kline called attention to the use of patriarchal God language in the patriotic hymns her child was asked to sing in the 1st grade.  She wondered if this God language could be changed to female positive or gender neutral.  Her post prompted me to ask if changing pronouns would be enough and to revisit the question of patriotism and nationalism. Continue reading “Patriotism Reconsidered by Carol P. Christ”

FAR Project Intern – Join Us!

It’s about every three years when we at Feminism and Religions put out a solicitation for a new intern to join our team. Back in 2013 we had the great privilege of having Kate Brunner join us. She came on as an intern and stayed to become one of our permanent co-weavers who help run the day-to-day behind-the-scenes of this collaborative project. She reorganized the structure and rhythm of how we run things and made it easier for us to bring in the next person. Enter Katie M. Deaver at the end of 2016. She is the superhero who so smoothly swooped in as Kate stepped back to attend grad school. Katie shared all the values and ethos of FAR – it was the most organic match we could have hoped for. Truly FAR couldn’t have survived without each of them.

FAR is an all-volunteer effort and now, again three years later, we are looking to bring on a next team member. From the very start, we have been of the mindset that the more voices and perspectives we can bring into constructive, community-building dialogue, the better. So…might you be up and ready to contribute to this collaborative feminist task? Continue reading “FAR Project Intern – Join Us!”

Embracing Elderhood by Joyce Zonana

jz-headshotIn Europe and Mexico, younger women and men of all ages regularly offer me their seats on buses and metros. I usually refuse, although at home in New York City, I’m always a little miffed when no one bothers to make a place for me. Yet cashiers never balk when I ask for a senior ticket at the movies or in museums. At first I was surprised: how do they know, I wondered. But of course it’s the gray hair, along with the wrinkles and  sagging skin that now mark me.

I first decided to let my hair be gray fourteen years ago, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I was on the road, blindly driving north with my laptop, my passport, two cats, and a friend beside me when I knew it was time to let nature run its course. For some ten years before that, I’d been religiously dying my hair dark brown or black, visiting a hair salon every four to six weeks for long hours of “treatments,” compulsively keeping my hair in a meticulously trimmed pixie cut. But the storm emphatically taught me how life can definitively change us: we are transformed, sometimes in an instant, both internally and externally, by our experiences–and I no longer wanted (or needed) to hide that change. I enjoyed letting my hair return to its natural colors, and took pleasure in the new measure of respect some people gave me. Continue reading “Embracing Elderhood by Joyce Zonana”

The Doorway Part Two by Sara Wright

When I look into his face

I wonder

what he is thinking

as he loses himself

in sweet mountain mist.

He’s alone now.

His fear of the unknown

keeps him vigilant

ears erect,

mouth tasting air

standing on two legs to see

beyond summer’s diaphanous veil.

No wonder he climbs trees.

 

He’s not yet two.

Did she warn him

about the others

before she left?

Two legged threats armed

with hatred,

the need to destroy life

men addicted to power,

who will gladly spew fire

through his gut,

strike out an eye, maim a paw

so he cannot flee?

Continue reading “The Doorway Part Two by Sara Wright”

If Holly Near’s Simply Love Album Were a Musical by Elisabeth Schilling

For many of us, listening to women-loving-women songs is a spiritual experience. That is because somehow it makes us feel seen, puts a sense of hope into our world as well as daydreams of romance. We can understand the challenges and the regret or guilt that comes with disappointing others and ourselves, them for not being who they wanted us to be and for us, not being who we are for far too long. Holly Near’s Simply Love album narrates a story that I might envision as a musical theatre production, and I really wish someone would ask me to write it and then hold the casting call (yeah, I’d want to be in it too, so save me a part). I offer some of my thoughts on two central songs in the would-be musical in hopes of sacred liturgy on a potential stage.

Simply Love has 28 songs and was released (according to Spotify) in 2000. I think the synopsis would be surrounding Cassandra, in a loving relationship with her partner, reflecting on her journey to this place of authenticity. I can imagine how it might be living one’s live in an exploratory way and coming to new revelations later in life.

Continue reading “If Holly Near’s Simply Love Album Were a Musical by Elisabeth Schilling”

Moments by Katie M. Deaver

The phone rings loud on the bedside table near my head, and I wake with that tiny heart attack that only truly jarring things, like middle of the night phone calls, seem to trigger. It takes me a moment to gather myself, to remember who I am, where I am, and what that sound is… and then I grab the phone, hop out of bed and cross the hall into the office where I can finally answer.

It’s a familiar voice, Eli, my colleague and friend from the domestic violence and sexual assault shelter where I volunteer. They’ve just received a call from the emergency room about a sexual assault survivor asking for an advocate and I’m the volunteer on-call this week.

Eli handles himself so very well, knowing that while he is awake working the night shift I am still trying to grasp his words, trying to shake the sleep from my body and my mind. As his words sink in I write down the survivor’s name and start pulling on clothes to head to the hospital.

Though I’ve taken a fair amount of these calls during daylight hours, this middle of the night call is a new experience for me. I live in the upper peninsula of Michigan and while I love it here, this particular night also happens to be yet another night with significant snowfall, and it takes me quite a while to dig my car out enough to get it out of the tiny alley next to our house and up the hill toward the emergency room.

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A Beary Peaceful Day Part One by Sara Wright

It is overcast and a few drops of rain are falling. I have been out talking to Tree Bear (TB), a yearling who has brightened my life in these dark soul days. Tree Bear comes up the mossy pine strewn path to the clearing and peeks at me from behind his white pine intermittently as he snacks.

There are so many old felled trees full of tasty grubs and ants now that the spring grasses have matured and gone by; soon the berries will ripen and Tree Bear will begin to put on weight. Acorns will be the choice of food for fall. Few people know that Black Bears are 93 percent vegetarian.

The other night I watched TB in the cherry tree, sitting in the branches like a monkey calmly combing out his thick under fur as he munched on cherry leaves and hard green cherries. He is a healthy looking and very beautiful yearling with brown eyebrows and a bump in his nose that is only visible from some angles. He probably weighs 50 – 60 pounds and has some brownish fur in places.

He was recently separated from his mother who left him because she needed to mate and his little sister has also disappeared. His face is so full of compassion that it takes my breath away. I say compassion because my personal experience has taught me that some (if not all) of these animals understand human suffering and respond to it by taking concrete actions. One slept outside my window while my dog was dying, another came to sit by me one night while I was wildly weeping outside in the dark. Stark and hopeless depression brings them in. Empathy flows like a deep underground river between us – why – because bears like other animals have deep feelings that are not mediated by abstract intellectual rational thinking.

Continue reading “A Beary Peaceful Day Part One by Sara Wright”