Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
Driving north on I-35 after having just left a powerful Somatic Experiencing® training session in which I relived significant moments of my heart transplantation, tears streamed down my face as I blasted the musical Rent at full volume on my car’s CD player.
♪There’s only us
There’s only this
Forget regret or life is yours to miss
No other road no other way
No day but today
There’s only now
There’s only here . . .
No other path
No other way
No day but today♪
February 5, 2024
Dear Taylor Swift-
Am I completely lost? I haven’t listened to your music –I mean NOT REALLY listened to it…that I totally know of–and now I see on the Grammys that you have won more best albums than anyone in history- can I be excused because I’m a writer?
I think you seem like a kick ass take no bullshit kind of woman, which I like… being one myself…but so are a lot of women in the music industry—which I am not…but listen, if you get far enough to have won the most best album Grammys of anyone ever then—girl you had to be kicking some serious ass…and…well…you had to be…we’ll talk about that. I mean, Beyonce.
I mean I am so excited for your relationship – with the NFL player—Travis Kelce…again, I don’t watch football but I am on social media, I mean I’m not hopeless…I’m just as I said, a writer…and I’m happy for you and I think the bubbas who hate that you show up at football should take a back seat or no seat at all because hey! It looks like you are saving football by showing up as your diva self and… you know…you go girl!
Continue reading “Dear Taylor Swift by Marie Cartier”
I was recently asked: Who is a theologian you admire? Since I’ve been deeply steeped in the Christian tradition, plenty of Christian theologians could come to mind—Christian theologians, that is, in the sense of humans educated in the Christian theological academy with the theology PhDs to prove it.
But when I think of theology, these days, I find myself thinking more broadly. Like Kat Armas, who wrote Abuelita Faith as a way of reflecting on and honoring the theological contributions of marginalized women, rather than men who sit in the seats of academic power—and like Sarah Bessey, who writes that theology, at its best, is a field where “everyone gets to play”[1]—I am skeptical of the assumptions Christians often make about who is or isn’t a theologian. And so, when I thought of theologians I look to for wisdom, I thought outside the box. I thought of writer and activist bell hooks.
Continue reading “Embodying bell hooks’ theological vision by Liz Cooledge Jenkins”Moderator’s Note: This post is presented as part of FAR’s co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. This was posted on their site in 2021 and then again on March 21, 2023. You can see more of their posts here.
Healing hearts and nations is what Joy Harjo does. Standing up for justice is what Joy Harjo does. Joy Harjo is a teacher and leader for our times, for all times.
When she asks this question in her book, Poet Warrior:
“What do I do with this overwhelming need for justice in my family, for my tribal nation, for those of us in this country who have been written out of the story or those who appear to be destroyed or perverted by false story?” (46),
Continue reading “POET WARRIOR BY JOY HARJO: HEALING HEARTS AND NATIONS by Maria Dintino”
Faith was full of a sorrow so deep that she was drowning. Threatening forces swirled inside and outside her creating an impenetrable cloud that conjured up frightening dreams.
Faith loved animals, especially dogs, birds, and trees. The dogs and birds comforted her on a regular basis. Lately, even the earth beneath her feet seemed to be rising to embrace her, an intricate crocheted net that sometimes pulsed with lights, so why was she so numb? Faith shared her grief with her mother. Otherwise, she remained mute.
Continue reading “Faith’s First Light by Sara Wright”This was originally posted on Feb. 13, 2012
Elizabeth Kelly Inglis died in 1927 at age 62 from complications of a stroke. Secondary causes were malnutrition and exhaustion.
When I was a child, my father, though he was very close to his own parents and sister, spoke very little about his ancestors. I knew that both of his parents lost their fathers when they were small children. I was told that the Christs were German and the Inglises were Scottish and Irish. My grandmother Mary Inglis Christ was as Irish as the day is long. She prayed to the blessed Virgin and took me to church with her in the early mornings where she lit candles and whispered the rosary while fingering faceted lavender beads. She voted for Kennedy because he was Irish and Catholic—to the horror of my father and his father who had no use for the Democrats. My grandmother sometimes cried when she showed us photographs of her family, especially when she pointed to her sister Veronica, called Very. I sensed that my grandmother felt sad to have left her family in New York when she moved with her husband and children to California during the depression, but I was too young to understand fully. As far as I know, I never met any of the relatives from her side of the family, even when I moved to “back east.”
Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: I am Beginning to Understand”
According to the Universe, the true nature of reality is relationship. In fact, at the level of quanta, the smallest objects in the cosmos, we don’t even exist outside of our relationships1. How different this is from our common 21st century understanding of ourselves as inherently alone in our bubbles of existence, our societies conceived of as a collection of individuals all wrestling each other for the basics of life. What if we took this truth about quanta to heart on our human level? What if we began to think of ourselves as not primarily alone, but rather as a node in a web of connection, an essential part of a greater, even universal, whole? How might our lives and societies be different? When I experience Goddess myths and traditions and look at some of the societies from which they rose, I seem to catch a glimpse of what this change in perception might be like in our daily lives.
Continue reading “The Nature of Reality Is Relationship by Carolyn Lee Boyd”
I used to tell my dance students that the dance floor was like a Big Mama, aways there to catch them, always there to sink into, always there to press back. This was my way of teaching them to trust the floor, that it was not a place where they needed to fear crashing into, but a place that wanted to take them in, hug them, love them. As dancers, we spend much time focused on the floor, how to release into it with control, how to push off it, even how to defy it and manipulate it. It becomes our partner in all dances, this blanket beneath us. But I haven’t been in a dance studio for a few years and so I have found myself looking up, instead of down.
Continue reading “Big Mama by Arianne MacBean”
Imagine walking into a space surrounded by the woven stories of 1,000 women from around the globe and feeling you are at home. The Women’s Village at the Parliament of the World’s Religions conference in Chicago in August of 2023 offered a place where women could feel welcomed, safe, understood, honored, and inspired. It was surrounded by the color and texture of the Women’s Woven Voices project tapestry.
I am the founder of the international, collaborative, art project- Women’s Woven Voices- that supports women in claiming their powerful voices through writing, weaving, and sharing their stories. For six years I had been inviting women to reflect on their lives, write about their strengths, challenges, joys and what made them feel whole, and then, weave a strip of cloth to represent their story. I collected the woven “Story Cloths” and stitched them together into a collective tapestry. Having stitched over 1,000 stories into the tapestry from women from 10 different countries, I applied to participate in the Parliament as an art installation and then joined the Women’s Task Force to create a very special space for the thousands of women who would be attending the Parliament.
Continue reading “Women’s Woven Voices at the Parliament of the World’s Religions by Brecia Kralovic-Logan”“Instead of looking to the male world for approval, I had to learn to rely on my own instincts. In some strange way, the rejections I faced strengthened me, but only because they forced me to learn to live as I saw fit and to use my values and judgment as my guides.”
The Flowering: The Autobiography of Judy Chicago
Janet: I live near New York City and am fortunate to be close to many museums. The New Museum has been showing an exhibit by Judy Chicago that takes up the entire facility of four floors. And it is remarkable. Not only is the breadth of her work astounding but so are the stories of how she has had to fight to be accepted in a man’s world of art. Joyce Zonana first recommended that I go. This blogpost came about as part of a discussion between the two of us.
Continue reading “Judy Chicago, Feminist Trailblazer by Joyce Zonana and Janet Maika’i Rudolph”
Feminism and Religion 