“The day begins with the sun and ends with the moon and stars; what you do in between is your gift to the world.” – Reyna Craig
The new year has begun, and many of us take this marking of time as an occasion to set intentions, goals, plans, or resolutions for the year ahead. For us feminists, the year ahead holds clear challenges. We know that the bodies, spirits, minds, hearts, and souls of women, racial and ethnic “minorities,” and all sorts of vulnerable people will be attacked. We know that the protections secured under the law for these bodies, spirits, minds, hearts, and souls have been eroded and continue to be dismantled in the name of… well, what exactly? Justice? Life? Religion?
We’ve seen voting rights eroded in the name of democratic ideals. We’ve seen challenges to bodily autonomy in the name of life. We’ve seen state-sanctioned murder in the name of law and order. We’ve seen a rise in religious intolerance in the name of religious liberty. Our work in this age must be to continue to expand our collective understandings of these ideals. This is the gift we offer to the world.
Continue reading “A Gift Offered in Faith and Love by Elise M. Edwards”
Even though I encountered wisdom literature when specializing in Hinduism during my Religious Studies doctoral program, through reading the works of Christian female mystics and the liberation theologies of feminist spiritual guides, it took a book I never encountered in my academic studies to give me a spiritual foundation that feels complete after my departure from Christianity: Eckhart Tolle’s 
If you are like me, you are still reeling from the election results in the United States – trying to make sense of it, while at the same time going through the steps of mourning. As I write this, it is difficult to call our country United – because it is anything but. In reality, we have become the Divided States of America – and worse, we have had friendships lost and detachments with relatives over this election. And I guess I could say, what’s even worse – we learned about the bigotry and viewpoints of people we used to consider friends or even learned this about family members, even spouses.
I am the mother of three adult children. I am also the mother of an addict living the nightmare of denial and the consequence of said addiction. Like many, my family of origin is riddled with alcoholics and addicts. I learned to “detach” (not always in love) from their demons, drawing clear lines in the sand for my own future. I thought a geographical relocation in another state would give me the distance and perspective needed to live my own life absent the insanity substance abuse can bring. When I discovered my spouse of then seven years was an addict my world fell apart. For the life of me I could not understand how this could happen—again. What did I miss?
Feminism and Religion 