Feminism and Religion

On Friendship: Part Two by Beth Bartlett

In Part One I began the examination of nine requisites of friendship. The first three are love, reciprocity, and honesty and trust. In Part Two, I continue the examination of the final six: world-traveling, commitment, reconciliation, loyalty, fun and play, and graciousness.

4) World-traveling. Maria Lugones’s prescription for truly knowing and loving another is to travel with them to those places where they are most at home, playful, and at ease. This may mean knowing them in their homes, meeting their families, or literally traveling to their countries, knowing them in what may be cultures and languages different from our own. This has been especially important for me as I’ve sought friendship with those whose identities are different from mine – the lesbian community in the ‘80s, the indigenous community. It has been a vital part of my friendships to travel and be with friends, and create friendships, in those places where they thrive, find meaning, and are most fully themselves.

On Friendship: Part One by Beth Bartlett

I’ve been fortunate in my life to have friends, to be a friend, though I’ve also had periods of drought without the nourishing stream of friendship in my life. The nature of my friendships have changed over time – with friends in childhood being primarily playmates, in adolescence – friends traveling in packs – gangs of girls; in grad school, mostly my colleagues. And then I discovered feminism.

I bonded with people with whom I shared a passion, a cause, and the work to bring our vision into being. We gathered in consciousness-raising groups where, in Nelle Morton’s phrase, we heard each other into speech. We helped each other discover ourselves by sharing our truths out loud – without criticism, argument, interruption, advice – simply being heard. The self-discovery in sharing the truths we had not even been willing to tell ourselves was powerful. Most importantly for me was the feminist theorists I was reading – Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Susan Griffin – who challenged me to be my authentic self, honest, open, no longer hiding behind the façade of being someone I thought others wanted me to be – myself.[i]

In Deep Gratitude to Donald Trump by Caryn MacGrandle

“Show me someone without an ego, and I’ll show you a loser.”
― Donald Trump

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The fabric of our world is falling apart.

And it is necessary.

Last night, I took a job entering early results for elections. My assignment was in a small city 30 miles away from me. I found the courthouse and the courtroom where the election officials, law officials and others had gathered.

As I was waiting, I listened and observed.

Becoming Plant by Sara Wright

“I did not know to recognize you as individuals when I bought you, but I know to recognize you as individuals now…”
Xochitl Alvizo

This morning, I read an excellent essay by Xochitl Alvizo about ‘extending compassion’ by choosing to become vegan. Her personal story touched me deeply because it was a tale of awakening to the sanctity of animal life.

My story was different, but perhaps just as compelling. I include my partial response to her article here:

I grew up as a meat eater, and ANIMAL lover… by my mid – twenties I started to feel very uncomfortable about eating meat, so gradually I ate less and less… I took a philosophy course. The professor shocked me. Was becoming vegetarian the answer? Wasn’t I still eating living things? By then I had already developed deep personal relationships with plants both inside and out – I already knew they responded to being loved and cared about. If I really wanted to get away from killing things, then would I be willing to take a pill to get the nutrients I needed instead of eating any more food he asked? I loved to cook. I loved food. I loved plants and animals. No, I thought.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Violence Begetting Violence

This was originally posted on September 17, 2012

Why is it that some who experience violence as children repeat the pattern while others imagine a world without violence? I have been pondering this question in recent weeks.

Yesterday while visiting a neighborhood grandmother who is recovering from surgery, I witnessed a truly horrifying scene. The grandmother’s son, who knows I ran for office on the Green Party ticket in the recent elections, stormed onto the terrace, pointed his finger at me, and said with a vengeance, “You should know that everyone is going to be voting for the Golden Dawn from now on.” The Golden Dawn is the fascist neo-Nazi party that won 18 seats in the Greek Parliament and now claims the loyalty of nearly 10% of the Greek people. Golden Dawn members and supporters have (allegedly) been involved in hundreds of violent attacks on illegal and legal immigrants since the June elections. The police have done little so far to stop these attacks, perhaps because many of them support the Golden Dawn.

Sh’mini: An Egalitarian Argument for Women and Girls

The parshah for April 6, 2024 is Sh’mini (Shemini), Leviticus 9:1-11:47 and since it is also Shabbat Hachodesh, we read Exodus 12:1-20 in addition to Sh’mini. Sh’mini contains commandments regarding animal sacrifice, the death of two of Aaron’s sons, lists of which animals are kosher and which are not, and distinctions between clean/unclean and holy/profane. The excerpt from Exodus, read as the maftir, describes the last plague before the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt, the establishment of Pesach, and the eating of unleavened bread or cakes. In today’s commentary, I’m focusing on the only mention of femaleness in Sh’mini and by doing so I hope to find more room for women and girls within contemporary Judaism.

Activate your Body to Navigate Overwhelm

We live in a time of radical change, in a steam cooker of accelerated alchemy. No wonder most of us struggle with chronic overwhelm.

Beliefs, habits, thought patterns and organisational structures don’t change overnight, and we need ways to boost our resilience in the long arc of paradigm shifts. How can we look after ourselves during this personal and collective dance of change?

In this post I reflect on the connection between movement and health, breathing, and the role of our nervous system. I propose 5 simple steps to minimise and transform overwhelm when it happens.

The Mothers, the Goddess, Lost and Found, part 2 by Elizabeth Cunningham

Excerpts in two parts adapted from My Life as a Prayer: A Multifaith Memoir. Part 1 appeared yesterday. You can read it here.

The Goddess finds me

Between the birth of my son and the birth of my daughter, I had a second miscarriage. The signs that something was wrong were subtle at first. I drove myself to a doctor’s appointment, hoping to be reassured that everything was all right (though I already sensed it wasn’t). En route to the office, perhaps to distract myself, I pondered why it was that I had never written about the church, or Christianity. Then…

I turn onto the main street. I glance at an old clock tower, and there she is superimposed against it, huge, big as the sky, vast as the earth.

I hear her voice.

“You have been searching for me all your life.”

She speaks inside me, all around me.

“The wild mother, the witch in the wood.” [She shows me the stories I’ve written.] “You have been searching for me all your life.”

The Mothers, the Goddess, Lost and Found, part 1 by Elizabeth Cunningham

Excerpts in two parts adapted from My Life as a Prayer: A Multifaith Memoir
(Note: Both excerpts have been edited for brevity)

The author’s mother as an architectural student.

The Mothers

When I was fourteen years old, I had a dream. I was pregnant and riding a donkey through a landscape, all golds and browns, hills crowned with ancient trees. I arrived at a monastery where monks with brown hands helped deliver my baby. From that time on, I longed to have a child.

My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage. I was devastated. Not only had I lost my longed-for baby, I had always taken my body for granted. Despite illnesses and injuries, I had assumed my will and my body’s health and strength were one. Now I knew in my own flesh that I was not in control; doing all the right things (thinking all the right thoughts) could not save me from sorrow. I sat in my own small version of Job’s ash heap.

Archives from the FAR Founders: Extending Compassion and Vegetarianism by Xochitl Alvizo

This was originally posted on June 26, 2013 and continues to be a story I love retelling!

“I did not know to recognize you as individuals when I bought you, but I know to recognize you as individuals now…”

I had been a vegetarian, and sometimes pescatarian, for more than 10 years before becoming vegan. Despite the length of my vegetarianism, in all that time I had not been inclined to go vegan. First, I really didn’t know too much about veganism and only began meeting a few vegans about five or six years ago here in Boston, none of whom had shared a compelling enough reason for their choice (at least not compelling to me). Further, I had no imagination for life without cheese or Cherry Garcia ice cream(!), and so I happily continued with my vegetarian ways. Then enters Carol Adams…