Feminism and Religion

What If…She’s Stronger than She Knows…by Molly Remer

“When I dare to be powerful–to use my strength in the service of my vision–then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

–Audre Lorde

“The purpose of life is not to maintain personal comfort; it’s to grow the soul.”

–Christina Baldwin

When teaching childbirth classes, I would speak to my clients about shifting the common fear-based “what if” cultural dialog of birth to “positive” anticipation rather than fears, encouraging them to ask themselves questions like: “what if I give birth and it is one of the most powerful, thrilling moments of my life?” While I stand by this practice, I also think about the what ifs that crawl out of our dark places and lodge in our hearts. The what ifs that snake around the edges of our consciousness in the early hours of the morning. The what ifs we try to push down, down, down and away. The what ifs that stalk us. The what ifs so very awful that we fear in giving voice to them, we might give life to them as well.

We may feel guilty, ashamed, negative, and apologetic about our deepest “what ifs.” We worry that if we speak of them, they might come true. We worry that in voicing them, we might make ourselves, our families, our communities, our work, or philosophies, our faiths, or whatever look bad. We want to be positive. We want to be blissfully empowered, confident, and courageous. And, guess what? We are. Sometimes that courage comes from looking the “what ifs” right in the eye. Sometimes it comes from living through them. My most powerful gift from my pregnancy with my daughter, my pregnancy-after-loss baby, was to watch myself feel the fear and do it anyway. I was brave. And, it changed me to learn that.

What if we can learn more from our shadows than we ever thought possible? There is power in thinking what if I can’t do this and then discovering that you CAN.

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Shariah is not a Law by Esther Nelson

I will never forget the day Nasr Abu Zaid (1943-2010), an Islamic Studies scholar and teacher extraordinaire, told me, “Shariah is not a law.” In spite of his assertion, many people—both Muslims and non-Muslims—are convinced that Shariah is synonymous with archaic legal rulings that are at odds with democracy and modernity.

What is Shariah, then, if not a law? When we see or hear the word Shariah, the word “Law” almost always follows. Shariah literally means a path—a well-trodden path such as animals use on their way to a watering hole. Shariah, then, can be understood as something that when embraced has potential to give life and sustenance.

Muslims believe that the Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel circa 600 C.E. That revelation—Muslims believe it to be God’s actual speech—took place over a period of approximately twenty-one years. The Qur’an contains Shariah (path) in the form of information, narrative, and poetry. Since Shariah is essentially a path that leads to life, the critical question centers on how Shariah can be appropriated, leading us to the water that sustains.

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How do you feel about me now? by Natalie Weaver

How do you feel about me now?

I was talking to an old friend the other day, and when I asked how he was, he said, “I’m getting by.” “Getting by? Not tearing it up, not taking ‘em down, and taking names?” I joked. “No,” he replied too dryly, “not at my age.”

“Well, how old are you now?” I inquired playfully. “Eighty-three,” he said. “Oh,” I paused. “And, I tell you, Nat,” he continued, “I don’t know about these last twenty years. I just don’t know what happened to me. Never imagined my life would turn out like this…” he spoke, trailing off.

His talk prompted me to wonder about the girl I once was, the woman I used to be, the mother I had imagined in myself at the outset, the scholar I prepared, the indefatigable friend I was to my peers as a teenager, the filial duty I felt in my youth, the honor I ascribed to my vocation as an educator, the family I tried to create. I have changed too, I realized. These last twenty years have been markedly transformational for me as well. As I considered, I saw in all of the things I tried to do how my spirit and my faith walked alongside my life unfolding as companion and guide and interlocutor.

At each step along the way, my faith both informed and framed the meaning of my choices and my disposition toward the outcomes of my efforts. For a long time, there was a harmony and an alignment between my meaning, my disposition, and my experience of living purposefully. But then, sure as rain, the wheel turned, and I began to lose clarity on that alignment. The idealism I had brought to each of my roles and endeavors was tested and tried as a matter of course. But, in some instances, the trial was egregious.

I concluded that some disappointments run so deep they change who we are. Some wounds are structural enough that they scar the tissue permanently and alter the curvature of our spines. Some blows are so devastating that our speech transforms and our thinking must be rewired to survive. Whether they are inflicted by the self or by others, whether by accident or intent or illness, injury has a common thread – it calls the Spirit to awaken and challenges it with the question: “How do you feel about me now?” Continue reading “How do you feel about me now? by Natalie Weaver”

On Our Beit Midrash: Kavannah, Writing and Study by Ivy Helman

study Kavannah is a Jewish concept meaning intention or motivation, perhaps most associated with Hasidism. Hassidism teaches that prayer and the fulfillment of mitzvot connects one more with the Holy One if the right state of mind is cultivated before participating in said activity. While going through the motions (prayer, mitzvot, etc.) is important and still technically fulfills the mitzvot, it is not as spiritually beneficial to the individual as is doing those tasks with kavannah. Praying and fulfilling mitzvot within a certain mental space more fully connects you to the divine. Judaism is not alone regarding this religious insight. Clearly there is something to it.

Hasidic teachers often inspire and encourage their adherents to find a way to enter into the right mood before starting prayers or performing mitzvot. What works for you may not work for me and vice versa. The same is often not the case within community. Continue reading “On Our Beit Midrash: Kavannah, Writing and Study by Ivy Helman”

Painting, Privilege, and “Going Tiny” in Hawai’i by Angela Yarber

It started with Pelé, the Hawai’ian Volcano Goddess who governs fire, lightning, volcanoes, and the flow of lava. When my little family set off on a big adventure in June 2015, I knew I’d research and paint her as a Holy Woman Icon, but I wanted to get to Hawai’i first so that I could experience her power firsthand. After three months volunteering without running water in Vermont, a month in southern Virginia’s finest fall foliage, and a holiday season traversing the country from east to west in a camper named Freya, we crossed the Pacific in search of Pelé.

The long-term goal of nearly two years of full-time travel was to discern next steps for our queer little family, and to find land to open an intersectionally ecofeminist retreat center. We always imagined returning to the southeast, likely buying land and creating the retreat center in the North Carolina mountains. Pelé had something else in store.

After three wild months volunteering on the Big Island, we fell in love, enlivened by this place we now call home: its beauty, the diversity of people, access to living off-grid, access to growing your own food, its rich culture and history, access to a vegan lifestyle, and the ability to live the majority of our life outside. In short, all of our plans were upended and recreated in the most beautiful and challenging ways because we knew Hawai’i must become our home. Continue reading “Painting, Privilege, and “Going Tiny” in Hawai’i by Angela Yarber”

Mulling over Movies: Moana, Pt. 1 by Elise M. Edwards

I love going to outdoor movie screenings. Sitting outdoors on a summer evening with good company brings me joy. Last week, I went to an screening of Moana, the Disney movie about a teenager who goes on a quest through the Pacific Ocean with the demi-god Maui. Moana goes on this journey to help her people. The movie came out last year, but I didn’t see it. I have to admit that I wasn’t even interested in it until Simone Biles performed a dance to one of Moana’s songs on Dancing with the Stars. It was then that I realized that the movie has an empowering message. I asked my friend Natalie, who is also a feminist religion scholar, about Moana. She has three young daughters, so I trusted her to be more current than I am. Her enthusiastic response sold me, as did her remark, “There’s not even a love story in it!”

Ah, Disney princesses and their love stories! I’m old enough that I didn’t grow up with the Disney culture that children in the past few decades have, but I haven’t been immune to the Disney princess phenomenon. I childhood pre-dated DVDs and digital downloads, but I still knew and cherished the Disney characterizations of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. These young women were kind and virtuous and beautiful (according to Eurocentric standards), but their stories culminate with marriage to a charming prince. It’s also problematic that so often, the villains in these movies were older women—wicked stepmothers or evil witches—who were motivated by jealousy and hate.

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Resisting Shame and Choosing to Live through the Loving Eye by Stephanie N. Arel

This week, I finished reading The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory by Marilyn Frye, a text I had not encountered in my studies of feminism (in literary theory, psychology, philosophy, or theology) until now. In some ways, I wish I would have read it sooner. In other ways, I am grateful for this more recent rendezvous. From my current position and perspective – theoretical and personal – I was, I think, more able to hear the core message Frye conveys than I would have been years ago. I have less to protect now, and my ego is less fragile. In the text, she names the mechanisms around which Western – and patriarchal – cultures are founded. Her argument is fluent and cogent, even as it threatens the stability this culture offers. Our lives are embedded in it, even if our personal ethics point to alternative, feminist ways of living. Frye pushes her readers to live alternatively, so that we can recognize the times that we conspire/feed into/comply with patriarchal messages and clean the residue of servitude off of our skin.

For the purposes of this post, I engage two opposing concepts Frye presents in the text: the arrogant eye and the loving eye. Located in the chapter entitled “In and out of Harm’s Way: Arrogance and Love,” Frye investigates how men in phallocentric culture exploit and enslave women. The opposing, contradictory eyes of arrogance and love directly relate to the experience of shame which effectively serves to subjugate women in patriarchal culture.

Shame functions within what I call a logic of exposure. Shame relates intimately to the concept of being seen. Affectively, shame results from our interest/excitement being partially truncated. For instance, we are drawn to someone (real or imagined); we are interested in their response to us, and somehow something interferes with the desire to connect. Contact is cut off, and interest/excitement partially halted. Shame ensues. We experience that someone (real or imagined) seeing us as other, different, foreign, maligned, wrong, or worthless. We are seen wrongly. This misperception alleviates joy and relates to the gaze of the arrogant eye under which (as the default gaze of phallocentric culture) we often find ourselves seeking approval.

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Breaking Down the Concept of Arranged Marriages by Vibha Shetiya

13327613_10208448645447348_6913754683590458893_n One of the first things my American friends and family ask me when they learn I used to be married to an Indian man is: was it an arranged marriage? I understand the intrigue, the bewilderment and even horror that the phrase “arranged marriage” can conjure up in unfamiliar Western minds. Images of forcing women to marry strangers encountered upon the street or child betrothals or women being dragged to the wedding site to be married off to mustachioed men are likely to flash before one’s eyes. While such incidents may have occurred from time to time, and in the past, as with child marriages, the long-established concept of “arranged marriage” is very different and not as frightening as may seem.

Traditionally speaking, proposals materialized through word-of-mouth – family and friends recommended a good alliance, or a parent would approach someone directly or indirectly to ask for a daughter or son’s hand in marriage. Even then, personal histories were well researched into, before both parties decided to “see” each other. Marriages in India continue to be alliances between families, and so it is important to check into family background – what are the parents’ and siblings’ occupations? How much does the prospective groom earn? After all, he may be the sole earning member of his family and may not be able to provide for his own family once he starts one. Is there a history of crime or mental illness? This investigation makes perfect sense in a society that is community and family-oriented, and wherein joint family situations are still the norm, especially in smaller towns and villages. It is thus imperative that everyone try and get along. “Arranged marriage” is certainly not synonymous with an “Oh-let’s-just-get-rid-of-our-daughter” arrangement.

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Make Humanity Great Again by Gina Messina

Gina-MD-5-Ursuline The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu has become my latest guilty pleasure. I rarely watch television and when I do my channel is set to MSNBC. But the news has been almost too much to handle. I still find myself living in disbelief that we are a nation under the Trump Administration. And it seems that if you miss one day of the news cycle, you’ve missed a year with all the Trumptastic failures that continue to arise.

I decided one night to switch over to this series I had heard so much about. I was instantly gripped by the plot and the eerie reminder of what our nation could become with a growing alt right population. And with social policy continually being utilized as a weapon against women’s rights, there are many parallels to draw with The Handmaid’s Tale and our supposed “Christian” Nation. Even escapism landed me back in the frightening reality of our world.

81% of Evangelicals and 65% of Catholics voted Trump into the White House. While some argue faith has no place in politics, the real issue is that most do not vote with their faith in mind. Or perhaps they do, but the foundation of the Christian tradition is lost on them. Like the characters in The Handmaid’s Tale, many God-fearing Christians live “under His eye” and see progressive attitudes as a threat to natural order. The response is to overlook hatred in favor of calming fears. We fear what we do not know, we fear those who think differently than we do, and that fear has taken a hold of our nation with encouragement from our POTUS 45. Continue reading “Make Humanity Great Again by Gina Messina”

A New Story for the Summer Solstice by Barbara Ardinger

This year the summer solstice occurs on Tuesday, June 20 in the Northern Hemisphere. (In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the winter solstice and it occurs on June 21.) For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is the longest day of the year. The word “solstice” means “sun stands still.” It’s when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and seems to stand in the same place before it begins moving toward the winter solstice. We like to think that the primary solar deity is Apollo, but there’s a whole crew of solar gods who are born near the winter solstice and live for a season in great honor, after which they’re sacrificed, spend a season underground, and are reborn.

But before there were solar gods, there were solar goddesses. Patricia Monaghan’s New Book of Goddesses and Heroines (Llewellyn, 1997) lists 58 of them, from Aclla to Xatel-Ekwa, who have been honored all around the world. Monaghan also tells us that Cinderella and Rapunzel may have been goddesses before they became heroines of what the Brothers Grimm called household tales. (Not fairy tales—no fairies in their stories.) Cinderella might have been a goddess of fire, and fire includes the sun. Rapunzel might have been “a sun maiden who would bring spring if she were not held prisoner by the witch of winter” (p. 265). Let’s reimagine Rapunzel in a solstice story… Continue reading “A New Story for the Summer Solstice by Barbara Ardinger”