Feminism and Religion

The Girl Who Lived: Reflections on Malala, the Middle East, and Feminism by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

As I return home from a busy day signing off on proofs and churning out cutesy paper patterns, I find my husband, Neil, at the kitchen table. He wears a complicated frown as he pores over a score of tiled browser windows telling various iterations of a singular story. “Come here,” he says, flipping to a second tab, “you’ve got to see this.” It’s The Daily Show, and as I poise for Tea Party zingers and Obamacare barbs, I see instead a girl in hijab, a brilliant smile, and a whole new hope for world politics.

The story was all about a girl. Malala Yousafzai achieved international fame one day when she took a Taliban bullet to the head. Her vocal support for girls’ education had earned her a spot on the Taliban’s hit list. It’s a group with an all-too-familiar radical bent that thrives, among other things, on the cultural ideal of women’s inferiority and silence. One moment Malala was boarding a bus and the next, she faced a hopeful assassin, eager to erase her words and her work from the world. Continue reading “The Girl Who Lived: Reflections on Malala, the Middle East, and Feminism by Erin Seaward-Hiatt”

Painting Martha Graham by Angela Yarber

Joining Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, and all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is the dancing revolutionary Martha Graham. So, as the contemporary and modern dancers on So You Think You Can Dance continue to amaze us this summer, let us remember from whence they came.

Martha Graham’s contribution to the world of dance cannot be overestimated. She is regaled as the Picasso of the dance world, revolutionizing it by introducing an entirely new quality of movement known as modern dance. Not only did Graham revolutionize the dance world, like Isadora Duncan before her, she also made great contributions to feminist spirituality. One of her most famous statements may well have been “wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.” Like most dancers who are so in tune with their bodies, Graham new the holiness therein, the ways in which the body can express the ineffable when words alone simply cannot. “The body never lies,” she famously reminds us.

Continue reading “Painting Martha Graham by Angela Yarber”

Eating: Thinking about Bodily Practices, Pt. 1 by Elise M. Edwards

I am currently preparing to teach a course on bioethics in the fall. I plan on combining some common, secular materials on biomedical ethics with some theological material and some feminist readings. After all, in a course that centers around practices related to the body, birth, and death, there seems ample opportunity to introduce feminist themes. Some feminist perspective, of course, is typical, like when we will discuss abortion and contraception. (Or at least it is common in my courses where try to present multiple sides of an issue.) Anything related to conception, pregnancy, and birth is easily understood as a “women’s issue” and therefore something that feminists address. I’ve discussed abortion and contraception in previous posts on this forum.

However, I realized in going through readings for this course that I have not focused much on other practices related to the body in my scholarship or personal reflection. Specifically, I have not connected them to theological principles or feminist convictions. Perhaps not everything concerning the body is directly relevant to feminism. But I am sure if I thought about it, I would be able to make the connections. We are physical creatures and the feminist movement generally affirms recognizing our embodiment.

Continue reading “Eating: Thinking about Bodily Practices, Pt. 1 by Elise M. Edwards”

The Outraged Ancestral Mother by Molly

crop027 During the fifth week of the Rise Up and Call Her Name curriculum by Elizabeth Fisher, “We honor the Outraged Ancestral Mother and the belief that the sacred and secular are one.” When I priestessed this session for my women’s circle, I was caught by the idea of the Outraged Ancestral Mother and we spent some time discussing her and the degree to which humanity has hurt our planet. The next morning while I was practicing yoga, snippets of a poem came floating to my mind. I had the distinct feeling that the Outraged Ancestral Mother was ready to speak to me. I went down to the woods to listen to what she had to say.

Continue reading “The Outraged Ancestral Mother by Molly”

Redefining Spirituality, One Church for All by Andreea Nica

As a former lover of Christ and ex-Pentecostalist, I had countless visions and dreams that one day I would be a spiritual leader. While growing up in the charismatic church, it was even prophesied that one day I would become one.

Nearly ten years after leaving the church, I carried a distrust in religion’s relationship with women and its barrier to free thought. My work as a freelance journalist led me to discover a spiritual women’s retreat held in North Bend, Washington. Inspired to experience a non-religious, spiritual gathering, I registered for the retreat held by Center for Spiritual Living (CSL) in Seattle.

CSL is described as a:

“Trans-denominational, inter-generational, not-your-usual church, that was started in 1921. A safe place for ‘the rest of us’ who are looking to connect with God/Higher Power/Universal Presence, but don’t really fit in with any one religion.”

The spiritual center’s core teaching philosophy derives from “Science of Mind” or Religious Science, a New Thought spiritual, philosophical, and metaphysical movement founded by practical mystic Ernest Holmes. The spiritual principles rely on the laws of physical science in establishing its core beliefs. Continue reading “Redefining Spirituality, One Church for All by Andreea Nica”

A Message From My Mother by Mary Beth Mosèr

Recently I traveled to Texas to receive the Kore Award from the Association of Women in Mythology for my dissertation in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies, “The Everyday Spirituality of Women in the Italian Alps: A Trentino American Woman’s Search for Spiritual Agency, Folk Wisdom, and Ancestral Values.”

Shortly after I had arrived in San Antonio, and met my younger sister and her daughter who were in town, we received word that my Mother was not well. Although Mom had been in precarious health throughout the last year, she had pulled through several times. That night in the hotel room, we hoped for the best. The next morning as I lay in my dream state, I felt someone come and lay beside me in bed, compressing the covers, which I have come to understand as a visitation from my Mother. Then the phone rang with the news that Mom had died peacefully that morning. It was comforting for me to be with my sister and niece, especially since we were away from home. Together, we made it through that long, rainy day.

Later that morning, my other siblings, who were gathered around my Mother’s kitchen table, called the hotel room where I was staying. They passed the phone around to each person, voicing their consensus that I should stay in Texas to attend the conference, give my presentation, and receive the award. There was nothing I could do in the next few days if I flew to Denver, they said. All the arrangements had already been made; the funeral wasn’t until the next week. So, reluctantly, I surrendered to their decision. My heart wanted to be with them. However, I stayed, unsure. . . . Continue reading “A Message From My Mother by Mary Beth Mosèr”

Sexism and “Jerusalem” by Ivy Helman

Three weeks ago, I played a video entitled “Kingdom of David: Rivers of Babylon” from the PBS Empires series. The series first aired in 2003. For the first time, and I’ve played the video in class for probably six semesters in a row, I noticed that all of the biblical scholars, archaeologists and rabbis interviewed to discuss the Torah, the history of the Jews, the Talmud, the exile and the prophetic tradition were men. This reminds me of a few months back when a female colleague of mine discussed about an encounter she had had with the producers of another documentary about the Hebrew Bible. They had only interviewed one woman. When asked about this decision, the producers told her that their audience finds men more authoritative than women when it comes to explaining topics of a religious nature.

***

Two weeks ago, on a Wednesday, an older woman walked into the liquor store where I work. She wandered around for awhile and then appeared somewhat overwhelmed, which is usually my cue to inquire if the customer needs help. She said she was just fine. Five minutes later she was still wandering the store apparently unsure what to purchase so again I approached her and asked if she’d like some help. She seemed somewhat desperate at this point and asked for my opinion on the Irish Cream Liquors and which one tasted the most like Bailey’s. I told her I wasn’t exactly sure. I had not tried them all but the one she was holding in her arms was very popular and we sell quite a bit of it. She continued to hem and haw explaining to me that she was having a bunch of old ladies over for lunch. She intended to offer them sips of Irish Cream afterwards. Then out of the blue she looked at me and said that she still couldn’t decide so she was going to ask a man for his opinion. This man also happened to be my boss. He said that he hadn’t tried it, but that it was very popular. His words, exactly the same as Continue reading “Sexism and “Jerusalem” by Ivy Helman”

Book Review: Hild & The Patron Saint of Ugly by Mary Sharratt

Literature touches our spirit in a way that film, television, and even art cannot. Instead of presenting the passive viewer with a visual image, good writing demands our participation and co-creation. The words become the springboard for our own imagined vision of other worlds and other lives. In this imagined space, we can experience profound insights and revelations–soul-growing experiences we carry with us forever.

Books that try too hard to be spiritual can have the opposite effect. Discerning women demand books that respect us instead of preaching to us. Too often religion has been interpreted by and for men, but when women writers reveal their spiritual truths, a whole other landscape emerges, one we haven’t seen enough of.

Marie Manilla’s The Patron Saint of Ugly (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, June 17, 2014) and Nicola Griffith’s Hild (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2013) are two such transporting novels. They both draw on the lives of female saints in fresh and evocative ways.

Continue reading “Book Review: Hild & The Patron Saint of Ugly by Mary Sharratt”

Love Facing by Safa Plenty

This piece titled, ‘Love Facing’ is a meditation on the intergenerational dynamics of family violence and our need to move beyond labels in order to understand the complexities of American violence. It begins with a narrative critic of spanking as a corrective measure and its propensity to escalate into other forms of violence. The poem continues with reflection on how male privilege and power impact the disempowerment of women and girls. It signals forgiveness as a possible means of understanding intergenerational trauma and stress, however. The piece advocates an understanding of male privilege and dynamics of power and control, as a means of empowering women and children, affected by family violence. Furthermore, it examines our societies failure to raise healthy men and boys, who are comfortable openly expressing their emotions. In the end, the poem signals our human need for unconditional love, respect, and honor and need for religious and spiritual practice imbued with compassion, mercy, and kindness, or feminine attributes of the Divine.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ― Jimi Hendrix

Continue reading “Love Facing by Safa Plenty”

Monkey See…by amina wadud

When I was a little girl the Washington D.C. Zoo did not have that extra security fence between gawking spectators and the cages of certain animals. My mother used to climb up onto the cage and hand peanuts to the monkeys. I don’t know, maybe that was the beginning of my lifelong love of monkeys. When I moved to Malaysia as Assistant Professor at the International Islamic University I was driving down a main roadway and along the side of the road I saw a monkey scurrying along much like we see squirrels in the US. A new phase in my life began. How many ways to repeat my mother’s antics? Could I possibly top that? This introduction might seem silly but I just have to share one of the most sublime experiences of my life and for that I need to give you a feeling for just how much I love monkeys.

When monkeys are in the wild they are not always amenable to such antics as we humans can do or imagine. I think that’s probably part of survival, don’t you? Anyway, in Malaysia, even though they were as plentiful as squirrels and just as accessible, like squirrels they are not at our beck and call either. We were pretty much limited to the evenings at a local park when they would come down from the trees and let us feed them. Like children do with Canadian geese at Merritt Lake Park here in Oakland, or any where they roam. Once we climbed up more than 1000 stair-steps to the top of the Batu Caves a Hindu temple and tourist spot, to see the sights and feed the monkeys. That time one wily monkey snatched the whole bag of food from my daughter’s hand while she wasn’t looking and that was the end of it. No way to go back to the car and run back with more! Continue reading “Monkey See…by amina wadud”