General – Page 272 – Feminism and Religion

Apathy by Deanne Quarrie

When I sat down to write my article this month, I browsed through my computer for ideas. As I did, I found this article that I wrote about 18 years ago for a newsletter I prepared for my workplace. Because it is still a very relevant topic to me today, I thought I would share it here. ( food for thought – I am an introvert, a triple Aries and a Myers Briggs INFJ)

I have spent a lot of my life sorting through very strong feelings in order to decide to express them or not. Of course, there are those that erupt before given the opportunity for that kind of sorting! Just ask my friends and family! I have often wondered if everyone has this going on inside their heads. It is part and parcel of being an introvert to ponder such things. I have even wondered if perhaps some just don’t have that experience of heavy duty “feeling”! Of course, that’s a ridiculous idea. We all have feelings. We all just have varying levels of willingness to share them. Continue reading “Apathy by Deanne Quarrie”

Jesus, Mary and Joseph: Who Are Our Saints? by Marie Cartier

Tomorrow I will be going to a friend’s 7^th grade classroom presentation of “famous people in history.” She has 120 students who will be dressing up as someone in history and doing a presentation board about this person—as well as dressing in costume. She asked me to come in costume as Frida Kahlo. As many of you know, I admire/adore Frida Kahlo and wrote a blog last year extolling her praises; actually it was a “valentine towards an ethics of loving women and art.” (And every year I dress as Frida and help a friend do a lively lotería game at an LGBT celebration of Cinco de Mayo at our Church.)

My friend told me that while there would not be a Diego Rivera in her crowd of costumed living historians—there would be Frida’s lover Josephine Baker (someone saw the movie Frida and knew Josephine and Frida were “friends”), and there would be several Guadalupes.

This got me thinking that for children/teens – especially children brought up in religious households (and especially Catholic households, of which I was such a child) – saints and real people are often conflated. And famous real people one admires often are given “sainthood” in one’s imaginary church. Continue reading “Jesus, Mary and Joseph: Who Are Our Saints? by Marie Cartier”

Theological Reflection: Outward, Not Inward by Kelly Brown Douglas

I was asked recently what frustrates me most about theology. I am a theologian, and love doing theology. Nevertheless, I do have my moments of frustration with the theological enterprise. I am most frustrated when theology loses its dynamic edge and focus. Too much of theological reflection has become “navel gazing” falling prey to the infamous accusation of Medieval theology, that is, wondering “how many angels can dance at the end of a pin.” It seems to me, that we must not lose sight of the fact that the foundation of theological reflection is the revelation of god, which is nothing less than god’s movement that is god’s dance, in human history. All that we know about the transcendent reality is made known to us by that reality making itself known by entering into our world. The best of theological reflection, then, is a response to that revelation, wrestling with the meanings and challenges of god’s revelation to us. Again, far too often our theology is consumed by intellectual strivings as opposed to struggling with god. We, as theologians and religious thinkers, find ourselves debating the essence of god—who god is in god-self, what we call the godhead—as opposed to who god is in relationship to us and our world. Too often we focus our attention on the appropriate pronouns and nouns that we should use to define god as opposed to the verbs that describe the very movement of god in our world. And so, despite the fact that we do not know god in “god-self” or in the god head, theological reflection is spent debating it, and has a long history of debating it. In the meantime, the world stays just as it is—which is anything but a reflection of the gods/goddesses we claim to follow. Even as we can assume that who god reveals god-self to be is a reflection of the very essence of god, theological reflection is best served not by this upward, inward turn to god, but by following god outward into our world. As god moves toward us and into our world, so too are we to move toward one another and into the world, for this is where we will find god. Theological reflection must not be about who god is in god-self, but rather about who god is for us and who we are to be for god. Theology, as it is essentially grounded in the notion that god acts first, is at best an attempt to discern how god is acting so that we can act back in a responsive and responsible way. So what does this mean? Continue reading “Theological Reflection: Outward, Not Inward by Kelly Brown Douglas”

No Parenting Anxieties (Yet?) About Passing Down the Faith by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

I’ve recently read Jim Belcher’s In Search of Deep Faith: A Pilgrimage into the Beauty, Goodness, and Heart of Christianity (2013). Even though I had several issues with the book, I couldn’t put it down once I started reading and finished it in the space of one day.

What’s the book about?

Continue reading “No Parenting Anxieties (Yet?) About Passing Down the Faith by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

Who’s Got the Money by amina wadud

After doing my usual pre-travel research (expected weather, electrical plug usage and currency exchange rates) I tried to amply prepare for a continuous trip between India and Switzerland on one ticket: not too many clothes in my suitcase, but enough for the climate disparity. At the time I checked in, that disparity was something like 90 to 60 degrees (F) respectively. I opted for cotton clothes with layers and sandals with or without socks. As it turned out, India got hotter (nearly 100F) and Switzerland got colder (45F) with biting rain and winds. So I spent a LOT of my down time in my hotel room.

I had stuff to read, casual and work related and managed to keep myself busy. On occasion, I would turn on the TV. All the stations in Fribourg were in French or German with one exception: the financial news channel. I could only take that news for so long. My last day in Fribourg, there was a break in the news and instead they played back-to-back episodes of some program about the “super rich”. It turned out to be more distressing than the news. You’d expect people with so much money to have one thing you might wistfully dream about. But nope, I really have no interest in private planes or huge yachts with custom fitted gold faucets, or Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Yes, I would like to live near the beach, but a small bungalow would do me just as well—no need for the 25,000 square feet vacation home they were showcasing. Continue reading “Who’s Got the Money by amina wadud”

Gray is the New Black by Jamila Sumra

I am 47 and I have gray hair. I decided to stop coloring my hair some months ago. A decision that was and should be a personal one, set me up, like a badly dressed starlet in the pages of a fashion magazine, for commentary from everyone.

This includes my mother and assorted sisters in law, cousins and stepson, friends and even salespeople.

Perfect strangers.

I was prepared for my mother’s reaction who is in her late 60s and starts getting restless when a minuscule amount of hair roots begin to show their natural colour every couple of weeks. Who still has her eyebrows threaded in that ultra thin style that was (thankfully) only fashionable in the 1970s. Obviously then, when I first announced to her that I was going to abandon the hair dye, she wasn’t thrilled.

Imagine being confronted with a powerful and disturbing image illuminating the vagaries of time beside a daughter, your child, with a head of gray hair, when your own is burgundy brown.

Or at least that is what it says on the box.

A stranger, a woman in hijab, stopped me in a supermarket aisle and told me I was ‘brave’.

“I wear the hijab and I wouldn’t ever stop coloring my hair,” she further stated.

A gorgeous friend, always perfectly manicured, expressed confusion, “but why, baby?”

One of my cousins, to whom I sent a selfie, text back, aghast, “Ya Allah!”

In Cape Town, a fashion conscious young woman who works for my mother in law caught me alone one day and approached me warily.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” she asked.

“Yes”

“Is your hair natural or did you pay to get it done?” she continued.

“It’s all natural”

Continue reading “Gray is the New Black by Jamila Sumra”

Christian Sex Ain’t So Vanilla by Andreea Nica

My recent literary digests have included memoirs and nonfiction audiobooks on sex, relationships, and non-monogamy. A recent listen, Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage by feminist activist Jenny Block, provides insight into the paradigmatic features of open marriage drawing on the personal experiences of a bisexual woman. Currently, I’m musing over my latest read: The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures written by psychotherapist Dossie Easton and author and sex educator Janet W. Hardy. Through my literary adventures, I can’t help but reflect on my own sexual conditioning and upbringing in the Pentecostal church.

The authors of these feminist-friendly, sex-positive books and social movements did not exist in the church I grew up in, and I feel quite saddened by this. While my sexual conditioning in the church was far from liberating, these reads have helped me realize that the religious community wasn’t as mundane as I thought. My early sex education which was conservative consisted of the anatomical and biological basics (Arizona education system, need I say more?) and early conditioning of sex morals and ethics in the church. The latter was more influential to my perception of sex, gender, and relationships. Of course the media and my peers constructed my views of sexual culture and gender norms, but the church had the greatest impact during my childhood and adolescence. Continue reading “Christian Sex Ain’t So Vanilla by Andreea Nica”

Feminist Musings on Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Yes, I said it, but Mother’s Day invokes within me a certain hesitancy. Now before you say, “Well that’s because you don’t have children of your own so you don’t understand what it is like to be a mother or because your relationship with your own mother is awful, you hate the day.” I would respond that that is an unfair assessment of the situation. First, Mother’s Day doesn’t bother me because I don’t have children. (By the way, I find the idea that I don’t truly understand love or commitment and/or motherhood because I don’t have kids unbelievably condescending. Yes, motherhood can give one gifts and insights but those can also come from other areas of one’s life and/or other experiences.) I am also not hesitant about Mother’s Day because my mother and I have an awful relationship. We don’t. In fact, it is quite good.

Rather, Mother’s Day bothers me for three reasons. First, it often seems fake. People seem to go through the motions because it is expected and not because they sincerely want to honor their mothers. Second, I often wonder if Mother’s Day isn’t just some consumer-driven, capitalist, patriarchal creation asking us to buy expensive cards and “remember” all our mothers have done for us this one very special day of year.

Third, what are we celebrating about mothers? Most of the cards at the store and advertisements on television (if we would take them as research on what the general sentiments on Mother’s Day are) honor a mother’s love, support, guidance and acknowledge the child’s needs. They thank mothers for all they do. Continue reading “Feminist Musings on Mother’s Day.”

Songs for the Soul by Elise M. Edwards

During the Christian season of Lent, many Christians focus on spiritual practices or disciplines that bring them closer to God. This year, I did not really engage in this type of reflection until the end of Lent. I have been wrapping up my first year teaching college students full-time, I’ve been focused on several writing projects, and I’ve been traveling. I did not intentionally think about spiritual practices until I participated in a silent retreat before Holy Week and traveled first to spend the holiday with my family and then again to mourn and remember the life of my aunt. I reflected on them when I most needed them.

Continue reading “Songs for the Soul by Elise M. Edwards”

Grading in Purgatory? How about a Change of Scenery? (A Little Levity and Thought for the End of the School Year) by Sara Frykenberg

I am sitting on the patio in front of my apartment as I write this blog. It’s hot-ish and windy. Ventura is always windy. The jasmine vine in my garden (also known as my strip of dirt, or ‘the facilities’ for all neighborhood cats) is in full bloom and my potato bush is covered in purple flowers. When I planted this bush, that is now taller than my head, it was just a stick—a stick that can apparently become a tree-size monster; but, it is my favorite plant monster and it hosts the loudly buzzing, giant black bees that visit my home. No bees today though, just a badly needed change of scenery…

Many of the teachers and professors who read this blog can probably empathize with me when I say that I have been trapped in my office for weeks grading. The last day of classes this semester was Friday of the past week. I’m not quite sure how I managed to so fully and completely overestimate my ability to read, comment on and score hundreds of pages, but I did, and so, I am sentenced to ‘hard time’ at my desk. As the Arcade Fire song The Well and the Lighthouse goes, “I’m serving time all for a crime I did commit.”

My twin sister rubbed this in a bit. She called me as I sat in my office Monday morning after a long weekend of grading and asked me what I was doing. I told her, “grading,” and she promptly started laughing at me and bellowed, “You’re in purgatory!!” She continued to laugh for some time; and then proceeded to post references to purgatory on my Facebook page throughout the day. (Consequently, she later noted my lack of response to her posts. Of course, I had been too busy to reply—see above comments on overestimating, end of semester and grading.) Continue reading “Grading in Purgatory? How about a Change of Scenery? (A Little Levity and Thought for the End of the School Year) by Sara Frykenberg”