Feminism and Religion

Another Excerpt from That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier

Author’s Note: This post continues to serialize excerpts from my novel, That Christmas Morning Feeling. Please see last month’s post for the initial entry.

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Book Number Seventeen

Look, I’m not the one. I don’t have an investment here. This is not about me. But, I think that when you think you can actually do some good in the world you should do it. I mean what if you have this whole body of knowledge. And you say nothing. Is that morally acceptable? I think not. I’m sure everyone has thought it. You are going along in your life, and you stop suddenly. The color of the trees, sparkle on the water, but maybe not so wow world, you are cool stuff. Maybe just the mundane world, maybe even the curve of the paint on the wall, even paint drying as the saying goes, could be enough to catch you up and you realize – life. Life’s here. Right now. And it needs me. Do I love it, or do I not? And if you do, if you love, love it – just life. Then you have to do something about it, to make it better. Like if it was your kid, you couldn’t just sit by – right? Well, you could. People do, God knows.

Or he doesn’t. You’d think he would do something, or she. Guess it doesn’t work that way. Maybe it’s true what they said in the church last Sunday. I’ve been thinking about it… even though I was only half listening. Personally I usually hate being there, big waste of time. But it is a waste of time, and in some ways that’s a good thing…just a predictable waste of time, nothing dramatic happening –that’s a new way to look at Church. I guess. Have to remember that.

Maybe God is in “the least of us.” That would be me. And it is up to us to decide what God does, how God acts, or rather to act like God. Then we can get God to change things. Otherwise God is just an idea…without a body. Not much you can do on planet Earth in that state. We have to figure out we are not really in Oz, like Dorothy, no mystical wizard to help us…just some fabulous dream shoes and a great idea about home, and no place like it, whatever she’s rattling at the end… and then going there to do something about it. She can’t do it from Oz. Too bad, but true. She has to wake up there in the middle of the black and white world and get out of bed, presumably without the fabulous shoes. So she just has to get out of bed and get on with it. At least I hope she gets out of bed; we never really saw that part.

We are really here, so we can do something about the here and now.

So no one is talking Incest. No one I personally know of course, since I talk it. That is not because Incest is not happening as an event. It’s just not a newsworthy concept, really. Because it isn’t a concept is it…? It’s an event, as in, “This happened to me.” But it is not a language that is spoken on planet Earth. No language here, except Incest, could transform that event that happens into a concept that’s newsworthy… not that I know of. And no one is taking language labs in Incest. So no one can write about it in the newspapers, etc., etc. It’s obviously a vicious cycle.

Continue reading “Another Excerpt from That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier”

Inanna’s Autumn Gift: Fearless Spirituality by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Carolyn Lee Boyd Fall, the time of the Day of the Dead and All Souls Day, is a perfect season for us to contemplate “fearless spirituality” as we face our most essential fear, that of death. Though humans have celebrated these days for millennia, fear with a religious veneer pervades our culture, whether in hate towards women and the LGBTQ community, lies that demonize followers of other religions, terror of eternal punishment and spiritual unworthiness, and more.

When I seek guidance for cultivating spiritual fearlessness, I look to ancient Sumer’s Inanna and her willing descent into death. Her story cycle begins in fear of the Sky and Air gods and her desire to destroy her huluppu-tree, Earth’s first life. Gilgamesh hacks it apart to rid it of a serpent, a bird, and Lilith. The tree’s remains are made into Inanna’s throne and bed. In the next story she takes all the divine powers of her father, Enki, the God of Wisdom, and then joyfully celebrates her body and sexuality in her marriage to Dumuzi. Continue reading “Inanna’s Autumn Gift: Fearless Spirituality by Carolyn Lee Boyd”

#SheBelieves: How Women’s Soccer is Continuing the Feminist Fight By Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Soccer is considered the international sport. The success and fervor of soccer across the global has created a form of religious mythos. Many football fanatics have described their love for their club and their attendance to a match, as a ‘religious experience.’ I myself felt like I was on holy ground when I stepped foot onto the grounds of FC Barcelona and Aston Villa FC. And it is on this sacred ground that women are continuing the struggle for equality.

The US Women’s Soccer Team has struggled since its inception in 1985. It has struggled to gain sponsorship, viewership, and even validation that women could play 90 minutes in one of the most physically demanding sports. Continue reading “#SheBelieves: How Women’s Soccer is Continuing the Feminist Fight By Anjeanette LeBoeuf”

On Staying and Leaving by Katey Zeh

The pastor couldn’t have been more than five minutes into his sermon when I starting getting antsy. I leaned over to my husband and whispered, “He needs to be careful with this.” We were visiting a new church, an experience that nearly always puts me on edge. Whenever I attend a worship service for the first time, I come prepared with my mental checklist of liturgical offenses, ready to check each one off, so I can tally them up later and justify why we need to eliminate yet another congregation from our list of possibilities.

I recognize that my attitude about church is downright terrible, and that if I want to participate in a faith community, I have to find a way to deal with this impulse to judge so quickly and fiercely. Up until that point I had been working really hard that morning not to go to that negative place in my mind. If that meant cutting the pastor some slack, then so be it. “Give him a chance,” I said to myself.

The sermon was the first in a series about church membership and was loosely inspired by the story found in both Mark and Matthew in which a man is healed of demons which Jesus casts into a herd of pigs. When the man begs to stay with Jesus, Jesus says that he must go back to his community and share about how God had healed him. The pastor spoke about this as an example of when God calls us not to a new place, but to remain where we are. To stay put.

The pastor spoke about his own affinity for fleeing, how almost like clockwork every four years he gets the itch to move to a new place. Speaking to a congregation of mostly young adults, he talked about the generational shift among millennials who unlike their older counterparts no longer expect to live in a single place for their entire lives, nor to work for a single employer for their entire careers. Millennials, of which I am technically a part, have grown so accustomed to upheaval and transition that fleeing has become our default mechanism for coping with boredom, conflict, and discomfort. When the going gets tough, the millennials get going…out the door.

This trend among young people is particularly alarming for institutions like the church, so it’s no wonder that a pastor preaching a sermon on church membership would focus on it. He talked about how over the last few decades our collective understanding of what it means to be a regular church attendee has shifted from showing up weekly to showing up a few times a year. To commit to a church, the pastor continued, means that we agree to show up and stay put.

Remain where you are. Commit.

Gazing around the packed room I looked at all of the women, men, and children taking in his words. How many of them, I wondered, were in situations of abuse that they are trying to flee? What were these words on the virtue of staying put doing to them? Didn’t the pastor know that this was the first Sunday in October, and that it was Domestic Violence Awareness Month? I prayed a quick prayer that his words wouldn’t cause them harm.

Stay put. Commit.

As he continued talking, I couldn’t help but return to that my mental checklist of typical church behavior that irritates me: a white, privileged man not acknowledging his bias, referencing only biblical men, male scholars, and other male ministers. Check. Check. Check! The more he talked, the more agitated I became. But since the sermon was about staying, I stayed even though his words made me squirm. I listened even though I wanted to disengage completely. I tried my best to give him the benefit of the doubt. I waited patiently for the caveat that would surely come. But it never did.

Resist the urge to flee. Commit.

I’ve grown weary of the notion that church decline is due solely to my generation’s fear of commitment and nomadic tendencies. It’s also that we no longer subscribe to the notion that we ought to preserve the institution for the institution’s sake. As I’ve journeyed with my sisters and brothers who have made the decision to leave the church, I have witnessed their arduous struggle to break free. Sometimes leaving is a moment to be both grieved and celebrated at the same time.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had difficult, important conversations with close friends and colleagues who are in the midst of huge transitions in their lives. In their own ways, each of them has mustered up the strength to move on from their present circumstances, either to seek something they desperately need or to leave behind something that is sucking them dry. None of them is doing so without tremendous courage.

I know that this pastor had every good intention. In many ways his words were a much needed counterbalance to a culture that lures us into a perpetual search for “elsewhere.” But I also know that “for everything there is a season,” and there is both a time to stay and a time to leave. We must honor both.

Katey Zeh, M.Div is a strategist, writer, and educator who inspires intentional communities to create a more just, compassionate world through building connection, sacred truth telling, and striving for the common good. In 2010 Zeh launched the first and only denominationally-sponsored advocacy campaign focused on improving global reproductive health for The United Methodist Church. She has written extensively about global maternal health, family planning, and women’s sacred worth for outlets including Huffington Post, Sojourners, Religion Dispatches, Response magazine, the Good Mother Project, Mothering Matters, the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion, and the United Methodist News Service. Find her on Twitter at @ktzeh or on her website www.kateyzeh.com.

The Pilgrimage We Need Is Not To Mecca by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

Many people have been writing about the Hajj from a critical perspective, telling Muslims it is a time to reflect seriously and deeply about what is happening there in Saudi Arabia with our sacred places and rituals. I am here to add my two cents to that fountain but also, to say that the Hajj we need is not in Mecca.

Even when the season of Hajj is over, it is never too late to ponder the idea that Islam is a spiritual path that encourages a way of life based on reflection, responsibility and ethical decisions. The Qur’an encourages believers through many verses to reflect on the reality surrounding the way of life and on our role in it like in 29:43, 30:21, & 30:22. Among the things Muslims should reflect on and take action concerning are firm opposition to oppression and raising their voices against injustice. That is the call of Allah in 57:25, 4:76, 4:135, 5:8, for example.

We all know what happens in Saudi Arabia. So, I wonder, if we believe the word of Allah is true: why do some of us, declaring ourselves believers, continue to fuel the arrogance, injustice and oppression of the usurpers of our Faith? Why are we still funding the oppression occurring in Saudi Arabia with performing the Hajj? Are you naive or sheep-minded or unwilling to take responsibility for the role you play in the maintenance of oppression in the name of Islam?

You pay thousands of dollars to the Saudis for the Hajj, and with that you finance a million dollar business that has nothing spiritual or halal .. yes, hear me well: HAS NOTHING HALAL ABOUT IT! Then at the Mosque, Mussala or Derga you are shocked that the Saudis invaded Yemen to kill Muslims, make deals with Zionism, leave thousands of people to die at sea without giving them shelter, torture dissidents and activists and treat women like animals. After all of that, why do you complain if you don´t have the courage to act as prescribed by the Quran and oppose injustice? Instead you fund oppression and become part of the problem. You are an oppressor by omission and payment via PayPal or Visa! Continue reading “The Pilgrimage We Need Is Not To Mecca by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Not a Woman of the Cloth- an excerpt from Murder at the Rummage Sale by Elizabeth Cunningham

When I finished writing The Maeve Chronicles, I returned to a mystery novel, abandoned thirty years earlier. I was finally ready to write about the small town Episcopal Church where I grew up in the 1950s and 60s and to explore the points of view of characters based on my late parents. When I began seeing through my mother’s eyes, the intensity of her suppressed fury took me by storm. Trapped in the role of minister’s wife, Anne Bradley strikes me as an embryonic feminist. In the scene below, Anne is hanging up laundry when she is approached by a pesky parishioner who makes a veiled reference to the death of Anne’s son.

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“Hello there, Mrs. Bradley,” Mildred Thomson said, adding some obligatory remarks about the weather. “I was hoping to find Father, I mean *Mr. Bradley in today. Do you know when he might be back?”

Anne did not. In fact, she realized she did not even know where he was. Hospital calls? A diocesan meeting? Surely she would have remembered if he’d gone all the way to New York. He had probably told her, and she had probably not listened. He was not there most of the time, or if he was, he was not available, not to her or the children. He stayed in his study in the parish house where no doubt Mrs. Thomson had hoped to ambush him.

“I’m afraid I don’t, Mrs. Thomson,” said Anne, feeling for her cigarettes in her apron pocket. Hell’s bells. She must have left them in the back hall on the shelf above the washer.

Anne turned back to the clothesline. Three children meant a lot of laundry, though in the summer the load was a little lighter, shorts and short sleeves, not so many filthy elbows and knees. There were always Gerald’s shirts. Short or long-sleeved, they had to be ironed, something she could not even contemplate till the cool of the evening.

“Did you have an appointment with him?” Anne asked, hoping the question did not sound too much like a reproof.

“No, no,” Mrs. Thomson said vaguely. “I just happened by. I suppose I ought to make an appointment. I never did with Father Roberts. He never minded my popping in.”

That was definitely a reproach. Anne felt almost sorry for her husband, almost. But it was part of his job to listen to parishioners maunder on, as much as holding services on Sunday and galvanizing his congregation to do good works in the community.

“Mrs. Bradley, may I ask you a personal question?”

Could she say no, Anne wondered? Or at least, excuse me while I get a cigarette? But Mrs. Thomson took her hesitation for consent.

“Do you ever struggle with your prayer life?”

Anne bit back a bitter laugh. She could hear it in her head, a sound a dog might make, something between a yelp and a snarl.

“I suppose you don’t,” Mrs. Thomson said wistfully.

Continue reading “Not a Woman of the Cloth- an excerpt from Murder at the Rummage Sale by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Is it harmful to assign positive qualities to women? by Oxana Poberejnaia

I have recently learnt about features assigned to women and men by a Tibetan Lama. Women are seen as having better access to qualities of space and therefore holding special kinds of wisdom that lead to Enlightenment. Men, on the other hand are better suited to create and act within space, and this they are rightful owners of the actions that lead to Enlightenment.

In popular Goddess spirituality it is also normal to find distinction between women and men’s core traits. The properties assigned to the “feminine” and the “masculine” usually follow the same pattern: Goddess stands for interconnectedness, and thus relations and caring for others. God (if there is a place for him) is about protection and action.

I am afraid to say that to me, this approach only embeds patriarchal order by putting women firmly in the sphere of domesticity, even if in the elevated role of “Domestic Goddess”, while men are still expected to go out, fight and thus organise and rule society, which women are expected to preserve.

Continue reading “Is it harmful to assign positive qualities to women? by Oxana Poberejnaia”

It’s Mom’s Fault by Esther Nelson

esther-nelson My conservative, local newspaper ran an article recently titled, “Gun Control is Not the Answer.” The author, Jay Ambrose, is a contributing columnist employed by the Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Denver, Colorado. The group’s stated mission according to Wikipedia is “…to empower individuals and to educate citizens, legislators and opinion makers about public policies that enhance personal and economic freedom.”

As expected from the title of his article, Mr. Ambrose is against gun control. He writes, “…any move short of the absurdity of confiscation would unlikely reduce killings.” He cites Russia as an example, noting that Russia’s murder rate, with its strict gun restrictions, is more than twice that of the U.S. “Guns,” he writes, “undeniably facilitate murder…[but] do not make a culture.” He contends that “culture is a prime mover of violence.”

And then he says it! “…one cultural circumstance ceaselessly cultivating criminal conduct in offspring is the enormous growth of single-parent–usually single-mother–homes.” Continue reading “It’s Mom’s Fault by Esther Nelson”

Invisible Giants: On Women, Mosques, and Radical Activism by Juliane Hammer

hammer At times, being ignored, erased, and made invisible, is more hurtful than open debate and disagreement. Such silencing and marginalization render the energy, activism, and work of so many people mute and, ultimately, they do not serve the communities and society we are attempting to change. In what follows I insist on uplifting and naming some of the radical Muslim activists and advocates for gender justice I saw ignored in a recent Muslim community event.

On Labor Day weekend, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) met for its annual convention in Chicago. On Friday evening, in a well-attended panel, ISNA unveiled (pun intended) its latest statement and campaign on “the inclusion of women in masjids” (places of worship) and issued a call and invitation to sign the statement and implement its central demands in mosques and community centers across the United States and Canada. Panelists at the launch included Hind Makki, the creator of Side Entrance, a tumblr collecting pictures of the various (good, bad and in between) accommodations for women in mosques, and member of the ISNA task force on the issue; Dr. Ingrid Mattson, professor of Islamic studies and former president of ISNA; Imam Mohamed Magid, also a former president of ISNA; Dr. Sarah Syeed, chair of the ISNA task force and Dr. Ihsan Bagy, another member of the task force. Continue reading “Invisible Giants: On Women, Mosques, and Radical Activism by Juliane Hammer”

Story Woman by Molly

“Human connections are deeply nurtured in the field of shared story.” –Jean Houston

“The universe of made of stories, not of atoms.” –Muriel Rukeyser

This month I went searching for a quote for one of my Red Tent Initiation students. She had shared some powerful reflections about the vulnerability required to reveal our personal stories—there can be a lot of risk, sometimes shame, and more, bound up in our ability to uncover ourselves and speak our truth. What I wanted to communicate with her was the idea that in sharing our stories, including the painful pieces, we free other women to do the same. Our courage to be vulnerable, to be naked, to be flawed, to experiment with ideas, concepts, or ways of being gives permission for other people to do the same.

In 2012, I went to a dancing workshop at Gaea Goddess Gathering. The facilitator mentioned that when facilitating ritual, you have to be willing to look a little ridiculous yourself, have to be willing to risk going a little “over the top” yourself, because in so doing you liberate the other participants—“if she can take that risk and look a little goofy doing so, maybe it is okay for me to do it too.”

After a lot of digging around, I found the quote! I should have known it was from one of my favorite authors and sister FAR blogger, Carol Christ, who said:

“When one woman puts her experiences into words, another woman who has kept silent, afraid of what others will think, can find validation. And when the second woman says aloud, ‘yes, that was my experience too,’ the first woman loses some of her fear.”

This is part of what makes Red Tent Circles so powerful. When women are willing to dig into the questions, activities, and processes, to turn them over, to explore how they work in their own lives…they lose some of the fear and they encourage others to lose their fear too. Continue reading “Story Woman by Molly”