General – Page 279 – Feminism and Religion

Freedom and Faith by amina wadud

In September past I travelled to Zanzibar with a long time friend from Singapore. I intentionally planned to visit the places where other Africans, like my ancestors, were bought, sold, and held in waiting like fish in the fish market. The slave trade in east Africa is linked to this historical island, which was like a Fed Ex hub: a central location to facilitate the transfer of slaves—stolen, captured in war, kidnapped, or bought elsewhere to be traded, from there to parts of Persia and Arabia.

I explained to my friend, EVERY African-American identifies intimately with slavery. We talk as if it were only yesterday. We say “we,” as though speaking of relatives in another city or town. We also say “they” about slave masters and traders, about the over seers who beat us, the men who raped our foremothers and sold off their children, the few who taught us to read in secret, or turned a blind eye at our efforts to escape. Yet, I know of NO WHITE person who identifies with their history as slave masters.

My intention was to perform some simple ritual interface at the markets and holding cells. I had not planned any details, I had only reflected on the value of sacred expiation and the reality of living blood still flowing because my ancestors gave their blood, sweat, and tears. Perhaps my blood would mingle with the spirit of the blood of my ancestors. At least I hoped I could, through some selected prayers or liturgy, release anger, pain, and humiliation in exchange for a life of freedom. I owe my life to them and I wanted to consciously renew the bond and then, like Nelson Mandela’s walk to freedom, to LET it go. To honor my ancestors I must live fully and in freedom. Continue reading “Freedom and Faith by amina wadud”

Goodnight, Sweet Friends by Natalie Kertes Weaver

Yesterday, to this day of my writing, two of my friends died. Both endured years of struggle against cancers, and both finally yielded to death at nearly the same hour. I received notices of their passing within moments of one another. We sat vigil with the family of one of my friends until late in the evening, while the other friend was prepared for repatriation in the land of her ancestors.

In the home where we sat vigil, I entered the room where my friend had passed away. I wanted to feel the last fading traces of her physical presence. I don’t know whether any part of her was there or not, but I was grateful to be in the place where she had been. The room was very full. It held the medical equipment that had briefly sustained her life for the last few days, but it was mostly stuffed with the clutter and the souvenirs of a life. Porcelain trinkets, formal family portraits, travel photographs, colorful shot glasses collected from the cities she had visited, and everything covered with a fine layer of dust. Continue reading “Goodnight, Sweet Friends by Natalie Kertes Weaver”

“Inheriting Our Mother’s Gardens”: Trans/lating, Trans/planting and Trans/forming Life by Sara Frykenberg

This Friday, March 7, 2014, the Women’s Caucus (WC) of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region will be hosting its annual “Professional Development Panel and Workshop” in Los Angeles, CA. During the workshop panelists and attendees will consider what ‘gardens’ we have grown in, who our ‘mothers’ are and how this impacts what we bring to the table or what ‘gifts’ we bring to the table when dialoging with and across differences. Our title and praxis at this event is also meant to honor our feminist mothers. Specifically I would like to recognize and honor Letty Russel, Katie Geneva Cannon, Kwok Pui Lan and Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz. Among many other accomplishments, these women edited the 1988 volume entitled: Inheriting Our Mothers’ Gardens: Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective. This book helps to give voice to women marginalized within feminist theological discourses and is the inspiration for our panel’s title this year.

Preparing for this panel, I reflected that many of those who contribute to this blog have written about their mothers (biological or non-biological) and mothering. (Most recently I found myself inspired by Marie Cartier’s meditation on aging, health, her mother and religion.) I realized that I have said very little about my own mom; my mom, who I am so like, who I look like, and who is both my mother and my friend. I have definitely ‘inherited her garden,’ so to speak: flowers, herbs, weeds, rocks and all. So, momma, this blog is for you.

Continue reading ““Inheriting Our Mother’s Gardens”: Trans/lating, Trans/planting and Trans/forming Life by Sara Frykenberg”

Was Ariadne the Most Graceful Bull-leaper of All? Deconstructing and Re-visioning Greek Mythology by Carol P. Christ

Sometimes we think of Greek myth as a pre-patriarchal or less patriarchal alternative to the stories of the Bible. After all, Goddesses appear in Greek myths while they are nearly absent from the Bible. Right?

So far so good, but when we look more closely we can see that Greek myth enshrines patriarchal ideology just as surely as the Bible does. We are so dazzled by the stories told by the Greeks that we designate them “the origin” of culture. We also have been taught that Greek myths contain “eternal archetypes” of the psyche. I hope the brief “deconstruction” of the myth of Ariadne which follows will begin to “deconstruct” these views as well.

Ariadne is a pre-Greek word. The “ne” ending is not found in Greek. As the name is attributed to a princess in Greek myth, we might speculate that Ariadne could have been one of the names of the Goddess in ancient Crete. But in Greek myth Ariadne is cast in a drama in which she is a decidedly unattractive heroine.

In the story told by the Greeks, Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, a handsome young man who was sent with 11 other Greek young people to be fed to a monster (who is half man, half bull) known as the Minotuar. The Minotuar is Ariadne’s half brother (see below). Because of her “love” for Theseus, Ariadne helps him to murder her brother. She then flees with Theseus on his boat.

However, this “love story” does not have a “happy ending” as Theseus abandons Ariadne on a nearby island–long before he arrives home in Athens. Theseus is ever after celebrated as a hero who killed a monster, while Ariadne is just another cast-off female. Whose story is this? Continue reading “Was Ariadne the Most Graceful Bull-leaper of All? Deconstructing and Re-visioning Greek Mythology by Carol P. Christ”

Birthdays and Aging and Feminism and Religion by Marie Cartier

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”
― Yoko Ono

If you are reading this on February 28, 2014, then you are reading it on the day after my birthday—I am 58 years old now. I wrote previously about aging and feminism and reclaiming our bodies—my fears of wrinkles—well, not fear…my surprising distaste/revulsion of them, and then yes, fear. My ability to maintain peace inside my aging body came about because I have a life-long history of feminism and I practice yoga. I explored all of this in one of my first blog posts for this site, “If You’re Lucky, You Get Old.” That was two years ago.

I am happy to say that I am no longer scared by my face—by its changes. I believe that “if we are lucky, we get old.” Now—I don’t want to just “get old,” I want to get old and be healthy—and by healthy I mean I want to keep my mind.

This past month I went back to the East Coast to attend the funeral of my mother. She died of Alzheimer’s. Yes. Feminism and Alzheimer’s. Women get Alzheimer’s more than men—women constitute 2/3 of those who get the disease. I know many friends who are afraid now—their mothers had it—are we going to get it? There is a lot of research on Alzheimer’s and little information. There is however the information that women get it more often than men. Some of the things that can prevent Alzheimer’s are physical exercise, healthy diet and social activity. Are these harder for women to attain than men? Continue reading “Birthdays and Aging and Feminism and Religion by Marie Cartier”

Encountering “the Change” as a Personal Exodus and Liberation by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

The story of Exodus, through a liberation lens, has different meanings depending on the person’s experience in life. I recently experienced my own kind of liberation, a freedom from decades old enslavement. Through this realization, I celebrated with many other women with the reminder – you are not alone!

The story of the Exodus is a familiar one. It is a text of oppression, journey, and freedom – a freedom that finds us in new surroundings, a place of revelation and transformation. Many have written about the Exodus text found in the Hebrew Scriptures from different ideological lenses and social locations. For me, I propose to apply this to menopause (also known as the “change”).

It is not too far fetched to look at menopause as a transformative event in a woman’s life. For a woman like me, who struggled with the disease Endometriosis since my teen years, menopause it is not only transformative, but liberative. The only effective treatment for this disease (for me) was the injections of Lupron Depot that put my body in “medical menopause.” Because of that experience, I felt like my body was being liberated from disease – this disease that debilitated me monthly or, at the very least, caused me tremendous pain.

A few weeks ago, I had the experience of attending a musical with a group of friends. I am not in the habit of blogging about my personal life, but I cannot help but wonder if my story and experience might help another. The problem about “the change” is that we joke about it and usually face it with unbelievable dread. I propose to look at the “change” as a positive – a new beginning, with a reminder to all women out there – you are not alone!

I received this revelation several months after my surgery at a musical named – you guessed it – Menopause! What started out as a much needed get together of friends turned into an awakening and celebration. Something that has me celebrating the change – even as I fan myself through the hot flashes (I prefer “personal summers”), tear-up during emotional commercials for no reason (something I haven’t experienced since pregnancy), clinching my teeth due to a quick-igniting temper that causes me to exercise remarkable restrain (and you thought patience was a gift to children and teens), to searching every cabinet for that holy grail of comfort food – chocolate. As I reflected on that evening, it occurred to me that I was living my own exodus story and the very thing that enslaved me can no longer hurt me – I am now free – renewed and emerged, but still in a strange wilderness that holds different challenges. Continue reading “Encountering “the Change” as a Personal Exodus and Liberation by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

Making Our Way – Updating the Guide for Women in Religion by Kecia Ali

Mary E. Hunt, Monique Moultrie, and I are updating the Guide for Women in Religion. The original version was edited by Mary with an impressive cast of contributors and first published ten years ago. Organized with entries from “A” (AAR) to “Z” (Zeitgeist), it was the successor to the 1992 Guide to the Perplexing, which billed itself as a “survival manual” and was team-written by a group that includes several now-legendary figures in the field, then junior folks trying to find their way in the sometimes hostile, often bewildering landscape of academic religious studies, particularly at the AAR and SBL.

With each iteration of the Guide, some important things have changed. (Others have not, but that’s another blog.)

One thing that has changed for the better: There are now plenty of women in senior positions, women who have attained the rank of full professor (and retired as emerita), or direct major organizations, who are recognized as leaders in their scholarly fields. Women’s studies in religion has gained prominence as a serious subfield, and gender as a crucial category (or factor, or variable, or consideration, or analytic lens) appears in a great deal of scholarship and not a few job ads. Continue reading “Making Our Way – Updating the Guide for Women in Religion by Kecia Ali”

We Rose for the One Billion on V-Day by Jameelah X. Medina

Every February I gear up to participate in local V-Day 1 Billion Rising events where activists rise up to end violence against women and girls. This year’s theme was the journey to justice, and there were two local events. I delivered a speech at the second event. This is so meaningful to me because it testifies to how far I have come in my journey. Just a few years ago, I would never have spoken what I considered the unspeakable. I have found that with each utterance, I gain more freedom and encourage others to do the same in their own way.

One in every three women/girls will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime, and someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes in the USA. Knowing this and being one of these women, I dedicate this month’s post to my fellow survivors in hopes that you find some healing in it. Below is what the crowd heard from me on V-Day:

Justice is one of those tricky concepts that has many faces. For some survivors, justice is restorative where they are willing to engage in a dialogue with the perpetrator, community, and other stakeholders to attempt to repair the harm that has been done to them. For others, justice is poetic. It comes in the form of retribution and punishment whether it involves incarceration, physical harm or illness, or death by homicide or suicide. Yet other survivors feel that there is no such thing as justice any way you look at it. They feel that there is nothing that can ever be said or done to erase or minimize the life-long effects of the violence perpetuated against them. Continue reading “We Rose for the One Billion on V-Day by Jameelah X. Medina”

Friendship by Deanne Quarrie

Many years ago I read the book, Soul Mates, Honoring the Mystery of Love and Relationship, by Thomas Moore. I was very impacted by what Thomas More discussed in this book. Prior to reading it I knew that in order for relationships to remain healthy, attention must paid to them but I had never seen the process described as he did in this book. He says that all of our relationships have a “soul” and that the soul of every relationship requires nurturing. Understanding this is an absolute requirement if we want the relationships we have to be healthy.

I have come to realize, as I have aged, that I have not always been the best at relationships. Sadly, it is not one of my strong suits. There are some who would so lovingly disagree with my statement, but then there are those who would jump on it with a vengeance in their agreement! Mostly I believe that long lasting, quality relationships have been elusive for me because of the nomadic life I lead. Also, I have a tendency to see potential in people – I see possibility but sadly, quite often fail to see what is “real” and thus enter into relationships with unhealthy people. To be honest, I haven’t quite figured it all out yet! The result is, however, that the relationships I do have are precious to me. Continue reading “Friendship by Deanne Quarrie”

The Real Reasons America Hates “Octomom” by Tricia Pethic

Many of us participate in dehumanizing Nadya Suleman, depriving her even of her own name by virtue of using the term ‘Octomom.’ Suleman has few people on her side of the ring, partly because she embodies what both conservatives and liberals hate most. Suleman recently made news again on charges of welfare fraud; she may spend up to eight years in prison. If Suleman does go to prison, I hope she ends up where I work so I could tell her what I really think: that America’s hatred of her has more to do with them than it does with her. And I’d remind her of God’s mercy and compassion: something I think has been absent from this discussion.

We recognize the name Nadya Suleman, yet how many people recognize the name Michael Kamrava? Kamrava was the doctor who injected Ms. Suleman with twelve embryos which earned him a suspension of his medical practice. Why is Ms. Suleman not known primarily as a victim of medical malpractice? Continue reading “The Real Reasons America Hates “Octomom” by Tricia Pethic”