Feminism and Religion – Page 67 – Feminism and Religion

What I Believe (Post-2016) by John Erickson

Ever since the election of You-Know-Who, I have been doing a lot of creative writing.

Ever since the election of You-Know-Who, I have been doing a lot of creative writing. Unlike academic publications, policy reports, or my dissertation, creative writing, much like my mentor Dr. Marie Cartier has written about, provided me with a needed escape from a world that seems to grow darker with each passing day. In college, I served as Poetry Editor for the Wisconsin Review, the oldest literary journal in Wisconsin. Continue reading “What I Believe (Post-2016) by John Erickson”

Call for Contributions: She Rises Volume 3 Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality

She Rises Goddess Feminist Activism Collective Writing Project: Call for Contributions

She Rises: What … Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 3 Two books: The main book and a sectional booklet including poetry, prose, art, the like.

Coeditors include Deanne Quarrie, D.Min., Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

I am the source, I dream the dreams, I am the spark, Creation lives in me. Jana Runnalls, The Source, Speaking in Tongues

Using She Rises Volume 1 and Volume 2 as a springboard, the collective writing project of She Rises Volume 3 aspires to interweave new patterns in the tapestry of Goddess feminist activism. She Rises Volume 3 invites possible contributors by asking the questions: What do you envision for Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? What is Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality for you? What do you seek from Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? What are our practices that will bring more Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality into the world?

You may like to engineer the question on your behalf or answer it for us all. Here are some examples of the question: “What keeps me continuing in Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?” or “What does Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality mean to me?”

The first volume evolved around stating/proclaiming the rational or cause of our Goddessian/Magoist commitment by answering the question, “Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?” and the second volume took a step further to ask the “How?” question, “How… Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?”

It is our hope that the question “What?” potentially produces a record number of ways we engage in Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality. We foresee the possibility that She Rises Volume 3 may become a guidebook of the common cause for Goddess feminists and activists.

She Rises, Volume One, asked WHY? and 93 contributors answered the question with depth, honesty, insight, creativity, imagination, and inspiration. She Rises, Volume Two, asked How? and 96 contributors answered the question with depth, honesty, insight, creativity, imagination, and inspiration.

Now we are asking What? Your answers will offer:

a guidebook for those beginning their journey with Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality,
a confirmation for those already engaged with Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality,
another thread in the tapestry of Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality that is being woven by women and men all over the World.

Let’s weave a tapestry of answers! Are you interested?

To be part of this weaving, please send your contribution to both emails (please indicate “She Rises Volume 3” in the subject line) See submission form and guidelines below:

Deanne Quarrie – deanne.quarrie@outlook.com

Helen Hwang – magoism@gmail.com

Primary Deadline: January 31, 2018

Submission details:

Short writing – up to 200 words

Longer essays – up to 4,000 words

Research papers – 4,000-12,000 words,

Poetry – any length (please indicate formatting)

Art, photography, illustrations – any form, which may be accompanied by a descriptive paragraph attached as a separate Word file

Please include a brief bio of no more than 100 words at the end of your Word document.

Text: As attachment of Word files (.doc or.docx)

Font: Garamond or Times New Roman (12 font size, 1 spaced)

Style: Chicago Style, footnotes

Art, photography, and illustrations: As attachment of jpg files (must be 300 dpi)

For sample short writings, see below:
http://magoism.net/…/special-post-1-why-goddess…/

For ongoing submissions, see below:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/

Multiple proposals are allowed. The submission form is included below.

Submission Form

Please fill out the following form and pasted it in the body of your email submission.

Your name and email address:

“I agree that my proposals may be published in the main book AND the secondary sectional book (poetry, prose, and art).”

Number of proposals and their genres:

List the titles/contents of attachments including your short bio:

Discerning is the Journey by Katie M. Deaver

This past weekend I had the privilege of officiating for the wedding of a dear friend. Despite having undertaken all of my graduate and doctoral degrees at a seminary, I had not seriously considered ordination since the beginning of my master’s program when I discerned that my calling was to the academic side of theology rather than to leadership of word and sacrament. When my friend called me nearly two years ago to ask that I officiate her wedding, it never occurred to me that something as simple as an online ordination process would push me toward further vocational discernment… and yet, I think, just maybe, it has.

As a long time church musician I am accustomed to being a part of people’s special days. I have certainly played or sang for more than a few weddings, as well as other services that mark some of the various stages of life – baptisms, confirmations, funerals. I’m no stranger to carefully (and prayerfully) crafting these types of services to fit the families and individuals involved, but I imagine I do leave a certain amount of professional space between myself and these events in most cases.

Continue reading “Discerning is the Journey by Katie M. Deaver”

Learning Gratitude for the Gifts of Life on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Carol P. Christ

In Crete we are always being given gifts—fresh cherries, ice cold bottles of raki, yogurt swimming in honey, and so much more. Over the years it finally hit me that this spirit of great generosity is a living remnant of the ancient Cretan egalitarian matriarchal tradition of gift-giving.

In egalitarian matriarchal cultures gift-giving is not something reserved for birthdays and holidays. It is a way of life rooted in the primary understanding that life is a gift that is meant to be shared.

Our lives are a gift from our mothers. Our individual lives have are not something we create or created for ourselves. We all emerged from the body of a mother. We were all given the gift of care and feeding by a mother or others. Our mothers did not create themselves. They emerged from the bodies of mothers and were cared for and fed by mothers or others. And so on back to the original mother of the human race, known as the African Eve.

Continue reading “Learning Gratitude for the Gifts of Life on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Carol P. Christ”

Consideration by Valentina Khan

Yesterday I sat in my car, buckled and ready to reverse just when I looked out my side window to see the people getting into their car next to mine.

There was a very elderly lady being seated in the back ever so gingerly. Her caretaker (that is what she appeared to be) carefully buckled her in, and then offered her a sip of ice water. Meanwhile I was in mid reverse, my engine running, on the go, and yet the ladies didn’t notice anything around them.

Simultaneously the elderly lady’s wheelchair didn’t have its brakes on and rolled into my rear side door. Instantly, I thought OK a little rude, these people aren’t really being considerate of the tight space we are sharing, should I roll down my window and say with as much patience as I can “excuse me”? Or should I let it go? I let it go. Those immediate feelings of impatience and annoyance washed over me, because I made myself stop and observe the situation, and the details of these ladies. Continue reading “Consideration by Valentina Khan”

The Spirit and Jarena Lee: Inspiration to Break Boundaries by Elise M. Edwards

I am so frustrated that we are still fighting to affirm women’s place in leadership. I’ve been thinking about this struggle in the context of church ministries (especially preaching) and social activism, seeing a stark contrast between the way institutional churches and universities promote and subvert women’s authority and the ways movements like Black Lives Matter do.

Particularly, I’ve been struck by the ways that more radical movements employ language and practices that are based in spirit more than hierarchical authority. I have found a theme emphasizing equality in humanity’s access to spirit in both historical and contemporary movements and writings about religious experience. I’m certainly not the first one to notice or discuss how appeals to Spirit have empowered those excluded from dominant systems of power to challenge constrictive social structures, but I would like to share how this dynamic has become more visible to me so that, together, we might find encouragement, inspiration, and food for thought.

Continue reading “The Spirit and Jarena Lee: Inspiration to Break Boundaries by Elise M. Edwards”

The Medieval Beguines: Models for Spiritual Agency Today by Cynthia Garrity Bond

In a recent article from U.S. Catholic, Common Law lawyer Karen Gargamelli and her newly founded lay community Benincasa are profiled. Established in New York’s Upper West Side, Benincasa, is named and patterned after 14^th century mystic and theologian, Catherine of Siena. It was established as house/retreat center, the emphasis of which is placed on prayer and the pursuit of social justice.

While Gargamelli practiced housing law she found it difficult to incorporate an ethos of Christian justice and spirituality into a secular matrix of thought. At the same time, living alone in a studio apartment, Gargamelli also felt an alienation and lack of spiritual support from her local parish. “I have a sense that before my time parishes were places where people felt supported,” laments Gargamelli, “I don’t know that the parish is really a home base anymore.” Gargamelli cites the Church’s focus on sacraments, along with less emphasis on theological reflection/adult education, as perpetrators of her spiritual malaise. Continue reading “The Medieval Beguines: Models for Spiritual Agency Today by Cynthia Garrity Bond”

Cleaning and Cleansing: Rituals of Embodied Life by Carol P. Christ

While the world is falling apart all around me, I have been slowly engaged in a major cleaning and cleansing of my home.

It started when I began to move my summer clothes to my main closet in June. Here in Greece we have no tradition of second-hand stores, Goodwill, or Salvation Army. This makes it difficult to get rid of anything: often the garbage can is the only option. Still, I began with my clothes, tossing out even some much loved and still beautiful things that no longer fit. My Greek-Albanian cleaning lady took all of them, and I didn’t ask her what she did with them.

Then I moved on to the kitchen. Continue reading “Cleaning and Cleansing: Rituals of Embodied Life by Carol P. Christ”

The Internet and the Divine? by Ivy Helman

study When my dad was in town for the wedding, he asked me a question about Prague. I didn’t know the answer. So, I said, “let me look on my all-knowing phone.” I googled the question, found a reliable website and told him what it said.

I used to only mention the qualifier all-knowing, or omniscient, in relation to theology, often in discussions of theodicy: who is the divine in the midst of evil and suffering? If we presume that G-d is all-knowing, does that mean that the divine has competition? Perhaps that is a crass remark, but I also think there is a measure of truth to the idea. In reality, the phone is not a divine competitor, but the internet might be. And, maybe, then the phone is our intermediary or our way to access the divine. Computers belong to this distinction as well.

This concept of technology taking the place of the divine is not new. The television set has been accused of being an altar. That is clearly not a compliment. Continue reading “The Internet and the Divine? by Ivy Helman”

SHEELA-NA-GIG by Carol P. Christ

On a trip to Ireland several years ago, I was fortunate to have been able to see the Sheela-na-gigs in the National Museum of Dublin. Two of these Sheelas including the one removed from the Seir Kieran Church of County Offaly, pictured below, are currently on display. They stand at the doorway of a room dedicated to items from the medieval period and easily missed. As there was little interest in them and they are not in cases, I was able to silently commune without interruption.