Women’s Voices – Page 10 – Feminism and Religion

The Need for Roots: Mutual Aid by Beth Bartlett

In those first few days after the holidays, when the togetherness, warmth, and happy times with family and friends came to an abrupt end, a song my son used to sing as a small child kept running through my mind:

Keep Christmas with you all through the year.
When Christmas is over, save some Christmas cheer.
These precious moments, hold them very dear
And keep Christmas with you all through the year..

The simple glee of my 21-month-old grandson finding ways to scoot and slide down the small icy slope in our backyard was enough to keep the grief over the loss of my sister and my recent loss of my dearest friend at bay. But in the days after their departure, as I spent time with my friend’s family planning her memorial gathering and visited another dear friend who has chosen to enter hospice in her final days of a terminal illness, coupled with the hooded ogre of the approaching Project 2025, saving Christmas cheer has had its challenges.

But my son found a way. He and his wife decided they didn’t want the precious times to end, and within a week had decided to pull up stakes from their home 150 miles away, found and signed on to buy a house just five minutes from our home so that the precious moments could continue.

I Am Wicked by Chaz J.

*When I refer to Black women, I am referring specifically to descendants of African peoples that were forced to experience the dehumanization of chattel slavery in the United States. I refer to those who would build the foundation of the country, uncredited. Those whose descendants continue the legacy of fighting for liberation.

When a sister-friend invited me to see Wicked, I was hesitant. I’d never seen the show, and my attention span hadn’t even allowed me to finish The Wizard of Oz or The Wiz (the Black rendition). However, seeing the wicked witch, Elphaba, portrayed as a Black woman changed everything. It felt deeply personal; a reflection of my own life as a Black woman in predominantly white environments. As a womanist theologian, centering Black women’s experiences is central to my daily and theological framework, and this felt like a powerful synchronicity and spiritual experience aligning with my newly entered villain era!

Broken Human Bonds by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Author’s Note: I originally wrote this in the fall when Andrea Robin Skinner started going public with her own story. It has taken me a while to contemplate posting it. It feels like this is such a common story that it needs to be shared. We all need to know that we are not alone and that each of us is lovable.

Whenever I hit a personal and/or emotionally raw topic, my first instinct is to turn to Tarot cards to see what lessons I need to learn. I use Rachel Pollack’s Shining Tribe deck (more on that later). I have been finding myself in this situation recently with the revelations of Andrea Robin Skinner, daughter of the renowned Nobel Prize winning writer Alice Munro. Andea waited until her mother died before she revealed publicly that her step-father began sexually abusing her when she was nine years old. When she had told her mother about it, Munro blamed Andrea for damaging her marriage. The stepfather at issue publicly called Skinner even though a child at the time, a “homewrecker.” He did this in a letter which included death threats. Abuse, blame, threats tools of patriarchy all. Skinner’s own mother didn’t seek to protect daughter but chose instead to shield the abuser. A betrayal of the most primal sort!

From the Archives: “Shemot: Women’s Misbehaving and Disobeying as the Key to Liberation.”

Author’s Note: This blog was originally published five years ago to the day (12 January 2020). It rings as true then as it does today.

Shemot will be read in synagogues on 18 January 2025.

This week’s Torah portion, or parshah, is Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1). This parshah sets the scene for the liberation of the Israelites from slavery both by introducing main characters and elaborating on just how difficult life was for the Isrealites under Pharoah’s rule. The parshah contains many noteworthy aspects: the death of Joseph and the multiplication of the Isrealites in Egypt; the increasing wrath of the Egptians; the birth and adoption of Moses; Moses’ encounter with the Divine in the form of a burning, yet unconsumed, bush; the revelation of the divine name, G-d’s plan for Moses’ role in the liberation of the Israelites from slavery; Moses’ attempts to get out of his assigned role; and Moses’ first confrontation with Pharoah.

In addition, there are many women, who are integral to the salvation of the Israelites, in this parshah. For the most part, Jewish tradition has acknowledged their part when it comes to discussions of this parshah, especially Shifra and Puah. Yet, their role is often overshadowed by Moses’ varied miracles, the mighty power of the divine, the revelation of the Torah, the wanderings in the desert, and so on. However, the Israelites’ liberation from slavery would have looked quite different without women.

Guanyin: My Very Own Goddess of Compassion

It was a class that changed the course of a personal history. Mine. The year was 2001. I had arrived in the United States a couple of years earlier to study journalism. In my last term – after four semesters of trying hard to navigate the American education system, what with its confusing terminology of credit hours, electives, majors, minors, I decided to venture out of my comfort zone (this was my Breaking Bad moment) – and took a 3-credit grad course, Religion in China, as an elective (that word again; and oh, when I first arrived, I thought 3 credit hours meant dedication to a grand total of three hours of coursework over the entire semester; you get to choose when).

It was in this class I was first introduced to Guanyin, the Chinese goddess of Infinite Compassion and Mercy. Guanyin, a bodhisattva[i] who rushes to the aid of her devotees upon hearing their cries, herself has quite an interesting history. She arrived in China from India as Avalokiteshvara or “the lord who gazed down at the world” as a male. Little wonder then that this gender fluidity makes her a popular deity among members of the LGBTQ community. Somewhere along the journey, Avalokiteshvara transforms into Tara. Apparently, so moved was Avalokiteshwara by the suffering of those trapped in samsara[ii] that he wept copiously, his tears creating a lotus from which sprang the goddess Tara.

Archives from the FAR Founders: Grounding My Love by Xochitl Alvizo

This was originally posted June 6, 2019

I love living in a second-story apartment. Having a view of Los Angeles, of the palm trees, the expansive sky, the distant mountains, and the city lights of downtown, makes life feel bigger, more full of possibilities. In the struggle of transitioning my life back to L.A., the view from my second floor apartment helps make me feel ok in the world. I’m in love with Los Angeles – the land, its topography, its sky, its desertness – and even its traffic. Beside the fact of sometimes being made to arrive late somewhere, I don’t mind being in our famed L.A. gridlocks – I don’t mind being in the slow moving flow of cars. I kind of enjoy being among the thousands of other folks sharing the collective experience of trying to get someplace. Traffic becomes for me a leisurely time when I get to do nothing else but enjoy the city.

From the Archives: Painting Herstory: Our Lady of Silver Lake by Angela Yarber

This was originally posted August 8, 2015

It has become my new routine during the first phase of my queer little family’s year-long journey. After completing my chores, I run along the trails surrounding Silver Lake and once I’m thoroughly drenched in sweat, I grab a book and push our enormous 15-foot canoe into the frigid waters of the little lake we’re calling home for three months. With a smile that has yet to wipe off my face, I paddle fiercely. I’m typically the only person on the lake.

It’s a steep mile hike from the trailhead, and we’re the only ones “living” here for the summer, so my giant green canoe ripples the silvery waters in solitude. Once I find the right spot, I stuff my life vest behind my head and cozy down into the belly of the canoe, book in hand, goofy grin still spread across my flushed face. In the warmth of the sun, I read. In the belly of the canoe, I drift into the history of the lake, the unwritten annals lapping alongside my rocking boat, the portions on record filling the book in my sun-warmed hands.

Movement of Infinite Mind Expands Faith in Humanity by Cheryl Petersen

Daania and I met while outdoors on a walking trail. At first, we crossed paths and echoed to one another “have a great day.” But sometimes we paced our journeys together, engaged in conversation, and got to know one another. Daania does not celebrate Christmas. I do. We both celebrate the forces that move us with love and truth.

One day, Daania and I moved with swift steps because the weather outside was frigid. The frosty air did not keep us from talking. Even though heavy scarves were double wrapped around our mouths and ears, we proved skilled at interpreting our muffled chit-chat.

“Now I Will Have Respect”; “Now I Will Be Looked Up To” – Women Assert Their Worth in the Christmas Story by Liz Cooledge Jenkins

“The Giver of Breath has looked upon me with kindness and has taken away my shame. Now I will have respect in the eyes of my people.” -Elizabeth (Luke 1:25, First Nations Version [FNV])

“From deep in my heart I dance with joy to honor the Great Spirit. Even though I am small and weak, he noticed me. Now I will be looked up to by all. The Mighty One has lifted me up!” -Mary (Luke 1:46-49a, FNV)

Two women, one older, one younger. Both unexpectedly pregnant. Both key players in the Christian Advent story. Both living in a world, not unlike ours today, where women were not fully acknowledged as complete human beings, with all the strength and agency this entails. And both, for this reason, starving for the respect of their loved ones and communities.

Gardens Bloom Between our Wombs by Chaz J.

For years, I have dedicated my life to empowering and uplifting all women in all ways. I have loved women as mothers, aunties, sisters, friends, cousins, teachers, mentors, daughters, God, and most recently myself. The depth of sweetness and emotion for women runs as deep as my life’s work. My life’s work centers and finds a deep well of inspiration in women and women’s lived experiences. My feelings concerning women were confusing for a long time and for a long time I have loved women in every way, except two: sexually and romantically. Giving myself permission to love women in every way has been one of the most liberating personal experiences of my life. It is one of my most radical revolutions. It is self-acceptance and self love in totality.

The object of my desires is fluid and delicate. She is intuitive and evasive. She is real and ethereal. She is Wombman. She created and is the fundamental elements that constantly gives birth to the world around us. She has given birth to all of us. She is fire and fury. She is Mother Gaia. She is the winds of change. She is water’s depth and grace. She is the sunlight after a storm. She IS the storm purging impurities. She is a creator and she is destruction. She simply IS…