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.
Category: Feminism and Religion
Mary Daly: Can I Love the Luddite and Deplore the Transphobe? by Dirk von der Horst
Mary Daly was one of the most prescient voices of her time with regard to environmental disaster.
Daly was also an explicitly transphobic thinker.
These two facts are deeply related.
What links these two directions in her thought is a radically anti-interventionist ethic. Daly repeatedly shows how the patriarchal impulse to control everything in the world not only destroys womens’ lives but is destroying the living, natural world. She describes boundary violation as one of the key elements of control, and her concern for the ability of nature to be on its own terms extends to such unconscious phenomena as comets. In Quintessence: Realizing the Archaic Future, she laments scientists “harpooning a comet, just to see what’s inside,” revealing the extent of her respect for the integrity of natural processes. (3)
In contrast to the technological use of science to bend nature to human purposes, Daly advocates participation in Be-ing. Be-ing is a natural process of unconstrained movement, in which various Selves and Elemental forces unfold. In an unalienated state of participation in Be-ing, connection is genuine and unforced, and the relations that emerge in this process further spur the development and creativity of a natural unfolding process. Among the many words Daly reclaims and plays with, her use of “Wild” describes women’s participation in Be-ing, and it especially brings out a sense of uncontrolled creativity.
Honey: A Thousand Flowers by Mary Beth Moser
Today I am finishing the last bit of the honey I hand-carried home from my most recent trip to Trentino. Sun yellow in color, it is made from the nectar of mountain flowers. Its label tells its origin—di montagna, of the mountains, and its type — mille fiore, often translated as “wildflowers.” Literally, however, it means “a thousand flowers.”
The valley where my maternal grandmother was born, Val di Sole, is renowned for its honey. In Croviana, one of the villages in the valley, new honey is celebrated in July with a sagra, a communal food festival. There are more than a dozen different types of honey from Trentino, including apple, chestnut, and rhododendron. These are plants of place – nature’s gifts that appear in the folk stories and are present in everyday life. Continue reading “Honey: A Thousand Flowers by Mary Beth Moser”
A Marriage Blessing by Carol P. Christ
Asked the secret of her long and happy marriage, Dorothy Hartshorne, wife of the philosopher Charles Hartshorne, posed a question: “What do you think you must never do in a marriage?” The young woman thought for a moment and replied, “Never hurt each other?” “Oh no,” Dorothy responded, “you will hurt each other all the time. What you must never do is bore each other.”
In the years since I first heard this story, I have come to understand that a good marriage requires that both partners have their own interests and be willing to share them, and that each partner be interested in at least some of the interests of the other. Happy people share an interest in life in all of its diversity and difference. A person who is interested in life may ask herself why her neighbor is so unhappy and offer an ear to listen to her story. Or he may ask about the birds that come into his garden—learning their names and behaviors, while delighting in their beauty. It doesn’t matter if the things you are interested in are large or small, but you must be interested in life.
Second, each you must be interested in yourself and in your partner. If conflicts are to be resolved, if hurts are to be assuaged, you must always be willing to ask: why was I angered or hurt in this situation, and why did my partner act or react in a particular way? This will not always be easy. Often one of the partners will feel more comfortable talking about feelings. Patience and deep listening may be required of one of you, and moving into unfamiliar territory of the other. If you are not interested in your own feelings and those of the other, your relationship is likely to founder—not only in hurt and anger, but also in boredom.
Dorothy’s husband Charles Hartshorne was fond of saying that the golden rule to love your neighbor as yourself implies that you love yourself. This is wise counsel. We are often told that marriage involves loving another, but less often that it requires loving yourself as well.
As you, Shelby and Mark, enter into marriage, I offer you these blessings:
May you always retain your interest in life.
May love yourself as well as the other.
May you never bore each other.
May you have many long and happy years together.
* * *
Carol gave this blessing at the wedding of Shelby Carpenter and Mark Miller on August 3, 2017 in Molivos, Lesbos.
Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.
FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess.
Join Carol on the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Space available on the fall tour.
In the Words of the First Poet and Historian: “I am” by Michele Stopera Freyhauf
These days I find it hard to write – I feel plagued with negativity, and the news and violence and overall hateful actions of others have weighed deeply on my soul. While I personally am ready to celebrate a milestone birthday, am another year closer to completing my Ph.D., witnessed the graduation of one daughter, experienced the independence of another, a milestone for my twins, as well as my father’s successful completing of another orbit around the sun after a year plagued with health issues – rather than joy, my heart is filled with pain – pain of the election, pain of the failure of our political system’s supposed checks and balances, pain of violence and bigotry like that enacted in Charlottesville, pain of terror attacks in England, Spain, Finland, France, etc. Where we ought to be united, we are divided. Thus, I write from a place of remembering – a place of strength – a place to say I count (as you count) – and I begin this blog in the voice of Enheduanna, where she becomes the first voice in history to reveal herself – her name, by simply stating – – “I AM.” Continue reading “In the Words of the First Poet and Historian: “I am” by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”
On the Removal of the Confederate Statues by Stephanie Arel
In the wake of Charlottesville, and following Xochitl Alvizo’s recent post on the topic, I review the May 2017 speech from New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu who made a compelling case for the removal of confederate statues from public view in his southern city. In his argument, he poses a simple question related to how an African American mother or father explains to their 5th grade daughter the reason why a statue of Robert E. Lee holds a prominent visual position on the New Orleans landscape. He asks, pointing to the audience, “Can you do it? Can you do it? Can you look into her eyes and tell her why Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her?” The implication of course is, “No,” because Robert E. Lee is not placed upon high in this stronghold of southern history to inspire her.
Landrieu asserts in the speech that the wounds of slavery remain raw because they are wounds that have not only gone unrecognized but they are wounds that have never been allowed to heal. Instead, he says, American cities have committed “lies by omission” failing to honor memory through the confederate emblems, instead erecting statues to pay reverence to men and only parts of their legacies. If this were not the case, if the whole story were told, then memorials at lynching sites and monuments of slave ships would be present in the United States, but they are not.
The statues celebrate, he asserts a “fictional sanitized confederacy ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for” erected to send a message about who was still “in charge.” Continue reading “On the Removal of the Confederate Statues by Stephanie Arel”
Talking Gender and Islam at the Grassroots by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
In my current trajectory linked to community development — via both activism and my professional field — I’ve learned that popular education is a very useful practice and methodology to decentralize all types of knowledge. Since I embraced Islam, part of my activity has focused on creating spaces for the production, discussion, and appropriation of religious knowledge for women at the grassroots. Religion is not separated from the daily life of believers, therefore, each of them carries knowledge that has been deliberately obliterated by hegemony.
The feminist hermeneutic of Islam is a paradigm that aims to provide Muslim women with skills and concepts that allow them to boost their agencies in their respective contexts, encouraging a transformation in the understanding of religious phenomena and its trajectory towards gender justice. For this transformation to be possible, knowledge must be accessible in language, methodology and location.
Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of liberation is a tool I consider to be critical and necessary for feminism, including Islamic feminism, at a time when debates about decolonization are very fashionable in academia. Freire’s methodology is democratizing because it allows, on one hand, to transfer knowledge from privileged circles to the margins and, on the other, to make visible the experiential knowledge produced in the periphery — to include them in the spectrum of what we understand and as such subvert, in this way, the dynamics of power, representation and discourses.
During my time in South Africa, I have engaged with popular education on topics related to Islam and Gender with Muslim women from the Cape Flats. These women have different backgrounds, races, life trajectories, and religious journeys. They exist in the geographic, cultural and epistemological margins of the social reality of Cape Town. Their experiences as Muslims do not appear in academic journals, nor are they even “noticed” by their highly androcentric communities of belonging.
For the past 7 months, I have met with them on a regular basis to talk about Gender and Islam. “Talk” is a methodological definition that means that we are placed in equal and interchangeable positions of teacher-student during our dialog — assuming than rather than learning something new, we are facilitating for each other a way to communicate things we already know. Muslim women of the Cape Flats know, indeed. But they have been told that they do not know by a system of privilege formed for the ulemas, for academia, or for the Islamic institutions. Continue reading “Talking Gender and Islam at the Grassroots by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”
Healing from beyond the Grave by Carol P. Christ
Despite having thought that I had resolved my issues with my father, shortly after his death I fell into a lethargy accompanied by stomach flu and a cold. After about two weeks, the only symptom was a lingering cough. But I had no energy. I knew there were a number of essays to write or edit in the pending file on my computer, but didn’t have the will to do anything.
During this time, I came across the Greek Orthodox prayer rope (komboskini) that had been spontaneously removed from her person and given to me by the Mother Superior of the Paliani Convent in Crete a few years previously. Made of black wool yarn with one hundred intricately woven knots and a cross, it was not something I could easily wear in my everyday life. But as I was still lounging around in a black jersey nightgown, I put it on. I felt it on my skin and cradled between my breasts. Continue reading “Healing from beyond the Grave by Carol P. Christ”
Self-Care is a Feminist Issue: Holy Women Icons Project’s 7-Day Online Self-Care Retreat by Rev. Dr. Angela Yarber
Several years ago, I was pastor of a welcoming and affirming church. As a queer clergywoman, I thought that such a place would be the perfect place to flourish and thrive as a pastor. And yet, because of heterosexist and sexist microaggressions, I found myself anxious, depressed, and in need of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual care.
After a three-day retreat filled with self-care and soul-nourishment at a non-profit retreat center that catered to activists and artists , I felt as though a tremendous weight was lifted off my shoulders, that I could focus and find clarity in my vocation. Pausing to care for myself gave me the courage to leave my toxic job and live more fully into my calling. This experience taught me the vital importance of self-care.
Womanist Audre Lorde once proclaimed, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Because caring for the self violates the patriarchal norms that traditionally dictate that you should be the one caring for everyone else. Yes, everyone needs to pause to care for the self. But oppressed minorities have a particular need for self-care, not simply as a way of refreshing oneself in order to do the work of justice, but as a vital part of the work of social justice. Because caring for yourself in a society—and a church—that wishes for you to do otherwise is an act of political warfare. When feminists care for themselves, it is a radical act of soul redemption, spirit rejuvenation, and a political and spiritual act of acknowledging your holy and innate self-worth. In case anyone has told you that you are not worthy, let me reassure you. You are worthy. And you deserve to care for yourself.
Reclaiming My Time: A Meditation about Mindfulness and Faithfulness to One’s Purpose by Elise M. Edwards
You may have seen the viral video of Congressional Representative Maxine Waters’ demands for “Reclaiming my time!” Video was taken during a proceeding in which Representative Waters is questioning Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who responds with long-winded answers and indirect statements. Ms. Waters appears annoyed, and she is not interested in flattery. She wants a direct response to her question. When she does not get it, she appeals to protocol, which allows her to “reclaim” the time allotted to her (intentionally) wasted by a man who wants to dodge her questions.
The video was very popular on my social media feeds. I know of preachers who used “Reclaiming my Time” in their sermons the following Sunday. There were memes, of course. There was even another viral video of Mykal Kilgore singing his gospel composition of Waters’ words. He and Waters appeared on a TV show soon after.
It’s fairly obvious why this video–and the sentiment behind it–struck such a chord with so many people. We wish we could reclaim our time in situations where we are moving forward with a purpose, only to be met with delays and roadblocks from those who want to deter us. Sometimes, these delays are unintentional. But too often, they are strategic attempts to wear us down, distract us, and redirect our energy away from our goal. Ms. Waters wasn’t having it. She called out the delay tactics and held firm to what was rightfully hers. Her time.
Feminism and Religion 