Category: General

IN THE NEWS: Wives – Silent, Hidden, and Unnamed

“Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…'”

It is now public news that there is a fragment of ancient text in which Jesus makes reference to a wife. Based on testing of the papyrus fragment the text is calculated to have been from 150 years after Jesus died, a time when Jesus followers are still discerning how they should live and what practices they will keep. Though scholars all agree that this does not prove Jesus actually had a wife, it does reflect the liveliness of the debate nonetheless: Karen King explains, “This fragment suggests that some early Christians had a tradition that Jesus was married…There was, we already know, a controversy in the second century over whether Jesus was married, caught up with a debate about whether Christians should marry and have sex.”

The fragment also makes reference to a female disciple. Continue reading “IN THE NEWS: Wives – Silent, Hidden, and Unnamed”

A Sea Change Towards Women’s Ordination by Mary Ellen Robertson

If I see a flaw in contemporary Mormon feminism, it’s that we haven’t ventured outside our own religious community to partner with other religious feminist activists. Working separately or in ignorance of the work already done by other religious feminists, we’re more likely to spend time reinventing the wheel than building upon the lessons learned.

Fortunately, there’s an exciting shift afoot.

Last week, Catholic and Mormon women came together for a dialogue on women’s ordination.
Hosted by Claremont Graduate University, this discussion brought together six women from  patriarchal religions to explore what happens when we call an all-male priesthood into question and examine the theological and cultural assumptions upon which an all-male priesthood rests. Continue reading “A Sea Change Towards Women’s Ordination by Mary Ellen Robertson”

Goddess as Love: From Experience To Thealogy by Carol P. Christ

If theology is rooted in experience, how do we move from experience to theology? In my life there have been a number of key moments of “revelation” that have shaped my thealogy. One of these was the moment of my mother’s death.

In 1991 my mother was diagnosed with cancer. While she was being treated, I realized that I had never loved anyone as much as I loved her. When I wrote that to her, she responded that “this was the nicest letter” she “had ever received” in her life and she invited me to come home to be with her and my Dad.

My mother died only a few weeks after I arrived, in her own bed as she wished. She was on an oxygen machine, and I heard her call out in the dark of early morning. When my Dad got to the room, he tried to turn up the oxygen, but it didn’t help. Then he called the doctor who reminded him that my mother did not want to go to the hospital under any circumstances.

My Dad then sat by my mother’s bed and held her hand.  As my mother died, I felt that the room was” filled with love.” I sensed that my mother was “going to love.” Continue reading “Goddess as Love: From Experience To Thealogy by Carol P. Christ”

To Garden by Kathryn House

My work is transformed when I view the task at hand through verbs I learned through gardening: tend, nurture, sow, dig, weed, share, till, harvest, nourish, rest.

Yesterday was the autumnal equinox, which means that fall is officially here. Right on cue, the first leaves are changing from green to shades of gold and crimson. The air is crisp, and the nights are cooler. In the Northern Hemisphere, fall also marks the beginning of the harvest season. Tending a garden has certainly changed the way I think about food, but it has also given me a lens through which to reflect more broadly on community, justice, faith, and hope. I love that gardening invites me to consider a way of being that is governed by a rhythm all its own. This steady beat brings my tendency to rush without reflecting to a halt. Every garden is unique and every gardener has a different philosophy, of course. For myself and for the housemates with whom I have gardened over the years, these three raised beds have come to constitute a sacred space. A space of hospitality, of nurture and delight, they are a space around which we are reminded of finitude, of beginnings and endings, of gratitude. Continue reading “To Garden by Kathryn House”

Metamorphosis by Deanne Quarrie

The peri-menopausal woman displays the unbounded limits of her own self.  She explores and shares the amazing power of her emotions, now less contained, now erupting in a glorious array of color and sound.

Sometime between the ages of 35 and 55, give or take, a woman enters a phase in her life that can only be described as metamorphosis. Yes, most call it peri-menopausal or menopausal, but truly such changes occur in each woman’s life at this time and it truly is a metamorphosis.

It is that time in her life when she stops producing as much estrogen but the production is often haphazard, sporadic and certainly unpredictable. This affects every aspect of her life. She might notice her eyes being dry in the morning, feeling like grating sand when she tries to open them. Her bleeding times may come on at different intervals or not at all. She may bleed more – she may bleed less. She may experience hot flashes – you ask, “What does that feel like?” Imagine a wave of hot air hitting you in the back of your neck and head – instantly causing you to break out in a sweat. You might even get red in the face! All of this, of course, is without warning, and happening at the most inconvenient times. You will often exclaim, “Is it hot in here?”  Continue reading “Metamorphosis by Deanne Quarrie”

No-Gift Birthday Parties by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

Continue reading “No-Gift Birthday Parties by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

Lucy Burns, A Look at a Catholic American Suffragette by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

As we approach the election period infused with controversy, saturated by television commercials, as well as endless advertisements on the radio, Internet, and yes, even Facebook, we must remember the sacrifices made by our foremothers during the suffrage movement, which gave women the right to vote.  While all elections are important, this one has targeted issues involving women in a way that could negatively impact our rights – to the point of rewinding the clock on progress made in women’s equality during the last 40+ years.  This election needs the voice of all informed voters.  However,  it is imperative for all women to make their voices heard this year by casting a vote.  To turn a blind eye to these issues diminishes the sacrifices our foremothers made for us. To not cast a vote takes away your voice, makes you a silent bystander – something that was tried by the government and patriarchal system during the suffrage movement.

To illustrate this, I would like to highlight Lucy Burns and the Night of Terror endured at the Occoquan Workhouse by her and many of her friends.   Of all Suffragettes, Lucy Burns spent more time in jail then any other protesters.  Born 1879 in Brooklyn, Lucy was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition by a father who believed that his sons and daughters should be educated equally.  Burns gradated from Vassar College in 1902, then attended Yale Graduate School studying linguistics.  She eventually went to Oxford University in England to resume her studies.  It was at Oxford that she became involved with activism and the suffrage movement. Continue reading “Lucy Burns, A Look at a Catholic American Suffragette by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

IN THE NEWS: An All Women’s City in Saudi Arabia – Liberating or Continuing the Cycle?

It was recently reported that Saudi Arabia will develop a women’s only city in order to allow career oriented women to pursue work while abiding by the countries Islamic laws. While work for women is not outlawed by Sharia Law, currently only 15% of the workforce is made up of women in Saudi Arabia.  This new municipality will produce women run firms and production lines and will create a total of 5000 new jobs.    Continue reading “IN THE NEWS: An All Women’s City in Saudi Arabia – Liberating or Continuing the Cycle?”

Violence Begetting Violence by Carol P. Christ

Why is it that some who experience violence as children repeat the pattern while others imagine a world without violence?  I have been pondering this question in recent weeks. 

Yesterday while visiting a neighborhood grandmother who is recovering from surgery, I witnessed a truly horrifying scene.  The grandmother’s son, who knows I ran for office on the Green Party ticket in the recent elections, stormed onto the terrace, pointed his finger at me, and said with a vengeance, “You should know that everyone is going to be voting for the Golden Dawn from now on.”  The Golden Dawn is the fascist neo-Nazi party that won 18 seats in the Greek Parliament and now claims the loyalty of nearly 10% of the Greek people.  Golden Dawn members and supporters have (allegedly) been involved in hundreds of violent attacks on illegal and legal immigrants since the June elections.  The police have done little so far to stop these attacks, perhaps because many of them support the Golden Dawn. 

“We can’t go on like this,” my neighbor continued, “we must do something.”  Continue reading “Violence Begetting Violence by Carol P. Christ”

Working and Working Out: “Health,” Obesity, and Labor by Stefanie Goyette

What I think we must consider in analyzing any form of “health” that is encouraged, and even enforced, is that such encouragement comes back in the end to the ability to work, to be “productive,” and, in turn, to spend the money that one earns. 

What is “health”? What does it mean to be “healthy”? Physical well-being and energy? Mental and emotional balance? A sense of general control over one’s body and self? I had originally meant to speak of the frequent reduction in our culture of “health” to appearance: sexual attractiveness, muscle tone, body size, etc., but Lesley Kinzel has already given an analysis of this paradigm, twice, in fact. Go read her articles, then come back here and we’ll talk about some other stuff.

Attractiveness as a measure of “health,” which we will consider as being already established as a cultural fact, effectively defines health neither as a personal sense of well-being nor as a set of conditions agreed upon in consultation with a physician. Rather, aesthetic criteria render health a metric that lets other people judge – and judge others on – a level of “health.” This judgment affects women disproportionately and, being external, reduces the value of female subjective experience and the power of subjectivity in the individual. Yet this externalization by no means ends with quotidian social interaction, but also extends to the medical establishment and the regulation of bodies in terms of the normal and the pathological – no great revelation here (Foucault already said it) – and these measures are already part of the intrinsic layout and values of the culture to which a given medical establishment belongs. Continue reading “Working and Working Out: “Health,” Obesity, and Labor by Stefanie Goyette”