Resurrecting Scars by Shelly Rambo

What does it mean to be created through the scars of a (m)other? And what does it mean to be made new—to be recreated—by them?

It is my first Easter without my mother. My sister Jody reminded me of how much my mother loved religious holidays, especially Easter. One of my striking last moments with my mother was in the hospital operating room when the nurse was preparing her for a surgical procedure. As the nurse opened up the back of the hospital gown, she exclaimed: “What beautiful markings you have.” She was referring to the scars on my mother’s back from a previous heart surgery. “It’s like a work of art.” My mother never viewed them like that. Instead, she often kept her multiple scars hidden from us. But there were moments, as a young girl, when I would glimpse them, those in the front between the buttons of her tightly starched blouses, and those on her back when she’d be ironing her Sunday dress in her satin slip. I was both intrigued and scared by these tracks on my mother’s body, just as I was by the ticking of her mechanical heart valve that I could hear when I stood next to her, the traffic in the house at a standstill. Both were reminders to us that her life was sustained yet fragile.

Much of Western literature tells the stories of fathers and son. And the dominant Christian storyline has also been patrilineal. Continue reading “Resurrecting Scars by Shelly Rambo”

A Family Conceived, Lost, and Resurrected by Gina Messina-Dysert

As I had written about in a previous post, my husband and I had a very long struggle with infertility.  After nine years, multiple failed rounds of infertility treatments, and much heartache, we decided to look at alternative options to grow our family.  Once we had made the decision to adopt, I felt new hope.  There was a light at the end of the tunnel and I knew a child would be coming home to us before long.  I had a dream that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had come to me and told me that I would be a mother.  She promised that a child was waiting that needed our love and would arrive soon.  I began praying to a shrine of Mary at a local parish near my home; she became my source of strength and solace.

Not long after we had been approved for the adoption waiting list, we took a family trip to Italy to visit my father’s hometown and meet our relatives.  It was quite an adventure and during our excursion I stopped in every church we passed to say a prayer to Mary.  Half way through the trip we received a call that a child had been matched with us.  To say we were overjoyed would be a complete understatement.  We tried to catch an earlier flight home but were unable.  A once in a lifetime trip to Italy was suddenly of no interest to us as we sat around our hotel room looking at baby items, reading parenting info, and preparing for the homecoming of our first child.   Continue reading “A Family Conceived, Lost, and Resurrected by Gina Messina-Dysert”

Heavenly Mother and Theological Jealousy by Brooke Nelson

It was a sad day for me when I realized that I could never, no matter how hard I tried, be the Virgin Mary.

Putting aside her biggest claim to fame, I sincerely doubted that I was born immaculately, had never sinned (even in thought) or would be happy married to a much, much older man whom I didn’t get to pick. Growing up in a Roman Catholic household, however, the Virgin Mary was really the only model available for girls like me. When I realized I could never be her, I found myself wondering about who I could be. Was there even a place for people like me in a theological system that held up unobtainable goals as my only option?

That is when I started envying the Mormons. Continue reading “Heavenly Mother and Theological Jealousy by Brooke Nelson”

Mary, Mother of God or Godd/ess?

While I have always intuitively seen Mary as more than Theotokos, my training in orthodoxy came to overshadow my orthopraxis of Mary. But today I hold a different stance because  I have come to view my Marian practice as indeed worship of the Divine Godd/ess. 



At a surprisingly early age, perhaps ten or eleven years old, I became the author of my own religious narrative, meaning, I took it upon myself to initiate and pursue the deep mysteries of my Catholic faith. Weekly Mass became an event, not an obligation, and something to which I attended independent of my large, Irish-American Catholic family.  The singleness of my worship at such a young age drew stares and whispers from those families that arrived intact.  And while I was not unaware of their curiosity, I found it easier to lose myself in the absolute wonder of my environment.  This environment of the tangible and non-tangible is what Andrew Greeley has since come to identify as “the Catholic Imagination,” where a Catholic sensibility is manifested in cathedrals and high art, but is also awash in the mundane of our daily lives. Additionally, our family’s dependence on Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, was a close second to a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  By this I mean to suggest that she was our go-to heavenly figure when in need, and I, the appointed family petitioner. Continue reading “Mary, Mother of God or Godd/ess?”

Do Man-Made Laws Trump the Authority of Jesus? Reflecting on the Meaning of Humility, Priestly Service, and the Issue of Women’s Ordination by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

Maundy Thursday – the imitation of Jesus’ act of service and submission is re-created.  Controversy surrounds the “disciples” – must they be all men?  Are women allowed?  Who steps into Jesus’ role?  Men, women, or both?  Why, when it comes to imitating the act of  humility and priestly service (rooted in our baptismal call), does a distinction of gender need to made at all?

As I progressed towards the intersection, I looked up to witness a grand procession of men dressed in white albs with stoles that often contained subtle hints of gold, worn in a manner to distinguish their role as priests and deacons.  They moved slowly down the sidewalk entering the Cathedral to begin their celebration of the Chrism Mass – a celebration of priesthood and priestly service within the Diocese where all priests and deacons gather to celebrate and re-affirm their commitment to ministry and service to the Church.  It is also during this Mass that the oils used in sacramental celebrations, used by each church, are blessed by the Bishop.

As I continued to watch, I could not help but search the processional line for those with a hair color other than gray.  I wanted to see  how many young priests were in that processional line.  What I found was no surprise –  an aging group of men with the sporadic appearance of younger priests.   The numbers stood as a staunch reminder that we, as a Church, may be faced with a severe shortage of priests in the future.  Something already known and planned for by the Diocese in its campaign to consolidate and close parishes.

Another sad observation was put on public display  –  the absolute absence of women. Continue reading “Do Man-Made Laws Trump the Authority of Jesus? Reflecting on the Meaning of Humility, Priestly Service, and the Issue of Women’s Ordination by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier

Photo of Marie Cartier by Lenn Keller

This spring I am teaching “Feminist Ethics” at California State University Northridge. For the students’ midterm and final we are doing an innovative project that we want to share with the “Feminism and Religion” blogging community. My students have been asked to find a problem in the public world, or their private world, that they wish to interact with and provide a solution for. The solution can solve the problem or a piece of the problem. They must deconstruct the problem and then construct the solution for the midterm. For their final they actually must *do* the solution.

In creating their solution, they must address and use the tools in what I call “the Feminist Ethical Toolbox.” These tools are ones we have been extracting from the class readings (so far we have read the anthologies Feminist Theological Ethics, and Feminist Ethics and Social Policy, and Carol Gilligan’s philosophical treatise on the patriarchy, In The Deepening Darkness, and the students have been using the toolbox and its accumulated (and accumulating) tools throughout the class, in their own lives, and interacting with the toolbox in the reading response journals in terms of looking at wider world issues.

The tools in what my students call “Cartier’s Toolbox” are as follows: Continue reading “The Feminist Toolbox by Marie Cartier”

The Hunger Games, Holy Week, and Re-imaging Ritual by Xochitl Alvizo

Being passive spectators of violence and injustice, even if mournfully so, is not just a thing of Panem, it is our everyday reality.

In The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins takes the reality of an unjust society and gives it an imaginative makeover. In Panem, most people are kept at such extreme levels of hunger that even when they do eat they cannot fill the hollowness that has settled in their stomachs, while others are deciding on the next cosmetic alteration they will undertake – whiskers, jewel implants, or green-tone skin color? The disparate conditions between the rich and the poor, the few and the many are absurdly and starkly portrayed but done so in a way that we can still recognize our world in theirs. And at the center of this world is the state imposed ritual of punishment and control, the yearly Hunger Games – a nationally televised competition that all the people of Panem are required to watch. The 12 districts watch mournfully as two kids from each of their districts compete to the death, and the wealthy watch gleefully, for the games are the height of their excesses and entertainment. The yearly Games conclude when one kid, the lone ‘victor’, is left standing. All while the nation watches. Continue reading “The Hunger Games, Holy Week, and Re-imaging Ritual by Xochitl Alvizo”

THE CARELESS SPIRIT OF ANNIE CORLISS: TRUMPING DESPAIR IN THE NEW WORLD by Carol P. Christ

Annie Corliss was my great-great-grandmother. The Corliss name, also spelled Corlis, Corless, Corlies, Corlers, and Carlis, is derived from “careless” meaning someone who is “carefree” or “happy-go-lucky.”

Annie Corliss was the daughter of James and Mary Corliss, both born in Ireland. Her parents may have been tenant farmers, but given that their surname could refer to someone who doesn’t settle or own property, they may have been Irish Travellers– itinerant craft persons and traders, sometimes called tinkers because they mended cooking pots and farm implements.  “Irish Travellers are a traditionally nomadic people of ethnic Irish origin, who maintain a separate language and set of traditions. … Irish Travellers have their roots in a Celtic (and possibly pre Celtic) nomadic population in Ireland.” Continue reading “THE CARELESS SPIRIT OF ANNIE CORLISS: TRUMPING DESPAIR IN THE NEW WORLD by Carol P. Christ”

No One Is Safe from the Parodist (Part 4) by Barbara Ardinger

Now you can learn the secrets of the New Alchemy and make your life free from all outside government  interference! Tornado or hurricane in the neighborhood? Don’t call FEMA. Take care of it yourself! Finances unstable where you live? Listen to Old-Phashioned Phinancial Philosophers and print more money yourself!

D’alchimie nouvelle;

Or, The New Alchemy

Friends and bons amis, imagine facing the day free from pain and woe. Imagine living your life free from mendacity. Frater Romulus Augustulus (Reborn), Doctor of Philologorrhea, Founder of The Academy of Rhetorical Terpsichory, the World’s Greatest Expert and Author of the No. 1 Best-Seller, invites you to join him and other seekers of truth and freedom for a Weekend of Transition, Transcendence, and Trance Dancing. For a small monthly fee—just $33 a month for 72 months—you can mix and meet with others who claim libertarian liberty and complete independence.  Continue reading “No One Is Safe from the Parodist (Part 4) by Barbara Ardinger”

The Power of Feminist Rituals by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

“These were very simple rituals and yet they were so powerful.”

Jeanette Stokes’ 25 Years in the Garden is on my bedside table. It’s a book I read several years ago with a small group of feminist Christians when I was living in Blacksburg, Virginia. The following passage from one of her essays got me to thinking back to the 2012 PANAAWTM conference (Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry) I had attended just two weeks ago:

“Rituals are part of everyday lives: reading the newspaper, checking the weather, waiting for the mail to come, or talking with a family member at the end of the day. Rituals can also mark the extraordinary events in our lives: the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a birthday, marriage, anniversary, or divorce” (Stokes, 2002, p. 37).

Continue reading “The Power of Feminist Rituals by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”