Carol P. Christ – Page 35 – Feminism and Religion

Claiming the Power to Choose Our Lovers and Partners by Carol P. Christ

My dear friend Carol Lee Sanchez once told me that the women of the Laguna Pueblo– whose culture is an egalitarian matriarchy–taught her that women must choose their men, not wait for the men to choose them.* This was a new idea for me, and though I was attracted to it, I found it difficult to assimilate. The reason I did not understand what Carol Lee was teaching me was that I was still operating out of a patriarchal binary: either the man was in control, or the woman must be.

Like many otherwise independent women, I have often reverted to a kind of passivity in love affairs. As a girl, I was taught to wait for the man to choose me. As a feminist I knew better, but I didn’t know how to change this cultural pattern, especially when most of the men I knew still expected –even if only unconsciously– to be in charge. In addition, having learned that a man who wants an independent feminist woman is hard to find, I often gave up on ever finding a man. Not actively looking, I would be pleasantly surprised when a man took an interest in me. Then, all too often, I would give myself to him, hoping that he was the right one. Continue reading “Claiming the Power to Choose Our Lovers and Partners by Carol P. Christ”

A Victory for the Environment: For Birds and for Us by Carol Christ

On February 20, 2018, the Greek government issued a Presidential Decree mandating the formation of government bodies to monitor and protect the more than four hundred bird and wildlife habitats in Greece designated as part of the European law Natura 2000. This decision came after decades of government inaction regarding the enforcement of the Natura law it accepted as part of its entrance into the European Union.

Whether the Presidential Decree will result in protection on the ground remains to be seen, but it is an important step in the right direction. The Presidential Decree was issued after years of negotiations initiated by the European Commission to compel the Greek government to comply with the law. A Complaint to the European Commission regarding failure to protect the Natura wetlands of Lesbos on which I was the first author formed part of the basis of these negotiations.

a ditch drains a wetland to produce agricultural land

Almost as soon as I became a birdwatcher in 1999, I began to notice the degradation of bird habitats by dumping, drainage, and building, especially in wetland areas. Wetlands are seasonal bodies of water created by winter rains that dry out in the summer heat. Generally, they are shallow, which means that they are a perfect stopping over place for migrating birds. The most common visitors to wetlands are wading birds that stand in shallow pools and puddles without immersing their bodies in the water. Lesbos, the island where I began to watch birds, has some of the most important wetlands in Europe, visited by birds migrating from Africa to Europe in the spring for rest and feeding. Because of this, Lesbos is also a destination for birdwatchers.

Wetlands are not only important for birds. In rainy periods they act as a sponge between rivers and the sea and dry land, absorbing water that otherwise could cause flooding. The devastating flood damage to New Orleans in recent years is the result of building on wetlands. Similar damage occurs regularly wherever wetlands are drained, including on the island of Lesbos.

In 2001, I wrote a petition that was signed by over 600 birdwatchers and others urging the Greek government to protect the wetlands of Lesbos. I presented it at an open meeting in May 2001 organized by the Mayor of Kalloni, Lesbos, Aris Eleftheriou, to explain the plan to protect the wetlands of Kalloni which had been funded by the European Union. Instead of being congratulated for his work and vision, the mayor was met by an angry mob. Many of the Natura wetlands are privately owned fields traditionally used for grazing sheep and goats. As local economies were transitioning to tourism, landowners did not want any restrictions placed on their ability to drain and build on their land.

flamingos are now permanent residents of Lesbos

It was in this context that John Bowers, a longtime birdwatcher in Lesbos, an environmental economist, and the first to sign my petition, formed Friends of Green Lesbos, an international internet-based group dedicated to protecting the wetlands of Lesbos that soon counted over 800 members. I became its Vice President. In 2003, Friends of Green Lesbos, in co-operation with Idatinos, a local environmental group, drafted an internet letter and petition, that was automatically sent to the Greek government every time it was signed, asking the Greek government to fulfill its legal responsibility to protect the wetlands of Lesbos. The government responded that it was required to enforce the Natura law even though no specific Greek law had been passed specifying how this was to be done. A committee in the department of building and land development in Lesbos was created and charged with the responsibility of protecting the local wetlands.

We did not understand that this committee would not be monitoring the wetlands on a regular basis, but would only respond to complaints. This was clarified at a meeting organized by World Wildlife Fund in Athens in 2005. I was then put in touch with a new local environmental group, Nautilos en drasi that was also formed to save wetlands. Together with WWF, we began to draft complaints about the degradation of individual wetlands. These complaints, numbering well over fifty, were all decided in our favor. Fines were issued, but there was no mechanism to ensure compliance. Numerous meetings with the Governor of the island resulted in promises that were not kept. We finally realized that he was more interested in currying favor with landowners and developers than in enforcing the law.

In 2008 while lecturing at a conference in Ireland, I met a Green Party member of the European Parliament who encouraged me to write a complaint to the European Commission. After six months of intense effort, I completed a formal complaint of over 100 single-spaced pages, supported by two large files of documents, detailing the government’s failure to protect the wetlands under the Natura law. It was immediately approved by Friends of Green Lesbos and Nautilos en drasi, but it took over two years for World Wildlife Fund and Hellenic Ornithological Society to revise and sign it.

The complaint was submitted to the European Commission in September 2011. After several requests for additional documentation, the Commission found Greece in violation of the Natura law in Lesbos in October 2014. In August 2016 the Commission informed us that it had made our case part of horizontal negotiations with Greece regarding its failure to protect all of its Natura sites. The February 2018 Presidential Decree is the fruit of these negotiations. It is certain that the European Commission will continue to watch the situation in Greece to ensure that the government follows through with the monitoring and protection mandated by the new law.

This has been a long and tiring and often discouraging struggle of nearly two decades and it is still ongoing, but if the end result is the protection of all of the Natura sites in Greece, it will have been well worth it.

Others involved in Natura struggles in Lesbos besides John Bowers and myself include Eleni Galinou, Michael Bakas, Costas Zorbas, and Stellios Kraonakis, and in Athens, Foteini Vrettou, George Chassiotis, and Elias Tzirtzis of World Wildlife Fund Greece, and Malamo Korbeti of Hellenic Ornithological Society.

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer and educator currently living in Heraklion, Crete. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. FAR Press recently published A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. Carol has been leading educational tours based on the religion and culture of ancient Crete for over twenty years. She is active in the Green Party Greece and has run for office in regional and national elections. Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger.

Children of German Immigrant Farmers in Cherry Ridge: American Stories by Carol P. Christ

In my genealogy research, I traced my father’s grandmother, Catherine, to her roots on the Iloff farm in Cherry Ridge, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of New York City. Catherine’s parents were Henry Iloff, who emigrated in 1841 from St. Nicholas, Saarland, and Catherina Lattauer who emigrated in 1845 or 1846 from Ober-Floerscheim, Hesse-Darmstadt. They were married February 2, 1846 at St. Matthew’s Church in “Little Germany” on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

In 1850, Henry and Catherina purchased land in Cherry Ridge, Honesdale, where they built the farm that remained in the family for a hundred years. In 1851 Catherina’s sister Agnes Lattauer Schweizer emigrated with her family from Ober-Floerscheim to Cherry Ridge. The Schweizer farm also remained in the family for a hundred years.

I had been told about the family Henry Iloff had with two wives who were somehow related: nine children with his first wife and nine with his second over a forty year period–fourteen of whom were living at the time of his death in 1889. I was shocked to learn that when his first wife died in 1869, Henry married his wife’s sister’s daughter Johanna Schweizer–who was half his age and his children’s cousin. I suspect that the marriage was considered scandalous in a conservative farming community, and that it did not sit well with the children of the first marriage, four of whom left the local area. Nonetheless, Henry Iloff was elected to the prestigious position of Wayne County Commissioner a decade later. Continue reading “Children of German Immigrant Farmers in Cherry Ridge: American Stories by Carol P. Christ”

Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ

The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with birds or snakes and only rarely portrayed as mother. Yet we tend to equate the Goddess with the Mother Goddess. I suspect that images of the Virgin Mary with Jesus on her lap and prayers to God as Father have fused in our minds, leading us to think that the Goddess must be a Mother Goddess and primarily a Mother.

In a recent blog, Christy Croft reminded us that in our culture, women’s experiences of mothering and motherhood are not always positive:

[The mother] doesn’t always appear in our stories in simple or easy ways. Some of us mother children we did not or could not grow in our bodies; some of us birth babies who are now mothered by others. Some of us are not mothers at all. Some of us had mothers who could not love us unconditionally, or did not have mothers in our lives, or had mothers who brought us more pain and humiliation than comfort, from whose effects we are still recovering, are still healing.

Women who have had negative or painful experiences of motherhood or mothering may find the symbol of the Mother Goddess off-putting. Continue reading “Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ”

Run Women Run! You Can Do Better than a Mediocre White Man! by Carol P. Christ

When I was in graduate school, I learned to doubt myself. Despite having won Danforth and Woodrow Wilson graduate fellowships that paid for my tuition and living expenses, I was continually told by professors and male students alike that I would not finish my degree and that if I did I would get married, have children, and never use the degree I had earned. I tried hard to maintain my confidence in myself, but it was difficult when I was the only woman in the program. There was one other woman my first year, but she was older than I was, a nun, and I never saw her in class or at social events. My self-esteem was gradually eroded. If I had not had a fellowship, I would probably have dropped out.

Fast forward a few years. There were several more women in the program, but only one in theology, my friend Judith Plaskow, and she too struggled. I was working on my comprehensive exams and wondering if I had what it takes to pass them and then write a Ph.D. thesis. After the initial shock of being treated as if I was not the equal of the male students in the program, I began to look around me. A few of the male students seemed really bright, many of them were average, and some of them were plodders. I hate to admit it, but I looked at the least competent among them and said to myself, “If he can do it, then surely I can.” And I did. I passed my exams. A few years later my Ph.D. thesis was approved.

If contributions to the field are any indication, Judith Plaskow and I were not only as good as the most mediocre men in our graduate program, we smarter than the average ones, and at least as smart as the smartest ones. But we didn’t know that then. Men have been getting degrees and being promoted and moved up that ladder because other men like them, identify with them, feel sorry for them, and for lots of other reasons having nothing to do with excellence, and sometimes not even do do with competence.

Last week I heard Cecile Richards say something to Lawrence O’Donnell that reminded me of this. Speaking of the huge numbers of women who—inspired by the women’s marches–will be voting, registering voters, campaigning, and running for office in 2018 and beyond, she said women “totally understand that they can do better than who’s in office now.”

For far too many years women have been held back by lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. We didn’t think we could and we didn’t. We don’t think we can and we don’t. We thought men were smarter than us or had more time or more drive. The founder of the Society of Women Engineers at San Jose State told my classes that women who got even one B+ in an engineering class were likely to drop out of the program, while men graduated who graduated with C averages went on to get great jobs. Now we see truly mediocre white men holding public office all across the country and in its highest offices. The harm they are doing to women, to children, to the elderly, to people of color, to the environment has been a wake-up call for all of us. There are so many mediocre white men in office that women–of all colors and ethnicities–are realizing that we can do better than that! Once we begin to see what we can do when there are large numbers of us holding office all across the country, there will be no stopping us!

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist writer and educator living in Molivos, Lesbos, who volunteers with Starfish Foundation that helps refugees, assisting with writing and outreach. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. Join Carol on the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger.

The Beauty Way by Carol P. Christ

When I learned about the Navajo Beauty Way, I understood it to be a path in which human beings respect all beings in the web of life and live in harmony with them. But I didn’t understand why this path was called the “Beauty Way.” As a young woman, I knew that my worth was defined by many in terms of my ability to conform to ideals of female beauty promulgated in movies, tv, and advertising. I didn’t believe the Navajos were talking about beauty in that sense, but because of my conditioning, I was not yet able to fully grasp what they might mean by beauty. I would have called the way they were describing a “Way of Harmony” or a “Way of Respect for Life.”

Still, I wondered: why the Beauty Way?

Marija Gimbutas described the societies of Old Europe as peaceful, settled, agricultural, highly artistic, matrifocal and probably matrilineal, and worshipping the Goddess as the power of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Though I am impressed with the beauty of the many small works of art Gimbutas reproduced and interpreted in The Language of the Goddess, I sometimes inadvertently omit the words “highly artistic” when repeating in her definition of the culture of Old Europe. I have tended to view the fact that Old Europe was peaceful and matrifocal as more important than the fact that it was highly artistic.Yet this judgment is wrong. In calling the cultures of Old Europe “highly artistic,” Gimbutas was trying to convey her understanding that appreciation of the beauty of life was fundamental within them.

We have been taught that “high” or “great” art is most often monumental in size. The Pyramid of Giza is over 230 meters (756 feet) tall. The Great Sphinx of Giza is 20 meters (66 feet) high. The Parthenon rose to 14 meters (45 feet) and the statue of Athena inside it was 9 to 11 meters (35-40 feet). It is telling that we use the words “high” and “great” (originally measures of size) to describe the value of artistic creations.

Statue of Athena in Parthenon reproduction in Nashville, Tennessee

The purpose of monumental works of art is to diminish the viewer, to make the her feel small, to induce her to bow down, to worship, and to obey a power or powers greater and higher than herself.

In contrast, the small scale of the art of Old Europe does not diminish anyone or anything. Its purpose is not to make anyone one want to bow down. Instead small works of art make the viewer feel comfortable, welcomed, and part of the beauty of life that is depicted.

Marija Gimbutas viewed ancient Crete in the Bronze age as the final flowering of the culture of Old Europe. In Crete too, everything is on a small scale. Though the so-called Palaces or Sacred Centers are large, the rooms within them are small. There is not a single room where crowds could have bowed down to a King or Queen. Nor are there images of deities larger than life. The famous Minoan Snake Goddesses are less than 15 inches tall and the well-known pitcher Goddesses are even smaller. Such objects would have been held in hands during rituals or set on low benches in small rooms lit by oil lamps.

Snake Goddesses of Bronze Age Crete c. 1500 BCE

When my friend’s daughter Klia was seven years old, she spent her afternoons collecting stones by the sea. One day I asked her if the stones spoke to her. “Of course,” she replied. “What do they say?” “They say, ‘we are very beautiful.’”

Klia intuited the meaning of the Beauty Way. It has nothing to do with artificial beauty standards. It has nothing to do with size. It is recognizing beauty everywhere and in everything. When we do so, we walk in beauty, in the grace and joy of life. And yes, the Beauty Way has ethical implications, for no one who truly recognizes beauty could want to harm it. This was understood by the Navajos, the Old Europeans, and the ancient Cretans, and many others. Only we seem to have forgotten. We can remember.

“Oh For a Pair of Clean Dry Warm Socks” by Carol P. Christ

Stories about refugees in the island of Lesbos (where I live) are no longer front page news. Yet according the United Nations Refugee Agency, 12, 742 refugees arrived here in 2017. This number is equivalent to 15% of the year-around population of the island. Though this number is huge, it does not compare to the estimated 91,506 arrivals in Lesbos in 2016. In January 2018, 7572 refugees are estimated to be stranded in the island waiting for their applications for asylum to be processed. The government-controlled reception center has a capacity of 2000, but up to three times that number are being housed there at any one time, in conditions that must be described as inhumane. It is suspected that “someone” in Greece or the European Union is slowing the asylum process in order to discourage refugees from attempting to enter the EU via Lesbos.

Recently I have begun to work with the Starfish Foundation, a local non-profit helping refugees on the island, using my skills as a writer to help with outreach. Today I share with the FAR community a blog I wrote to contextualize the desperation of the situation the refugees find themselves in.

Think about it. Before you go out walking in town or countryside, you put on a pair of clean socks and then a pair of athletic shoes or boots. Your socks, which you take for granted—except when they get wet—protect your feet from blisters, callouses, and foot infections. Now imagine yourself as a refugee or migrant who has come across the wine dark sea, fleeing war. Your socks and shoes are soaking wet when you arrive. If you are lucky you will be given new shoes and socks, but then what happens?

You are taken to a refugee camp to wait for your asylum papers to be processed. While you are waiting, and it could be months or even a year, what happens to your socks? For sure they will get dirty, for you often have to walk on muddy and even sewerage infected paths in the camp. The toilets are filthy and when you have to use them, you try not to step in the muck, but sometimes you do.

You keep on wearing your socks, because you do not have a second pair. One day you decide to wash them and on that day blisters appear on your feet and become infected. You have always been a clean person, washing socks and underwear and all sorts of clothing for yourself and your family every day. But now you are facing the unknown, without even a clean pair of socks to put on your feet. You bind up your wounds and pray that your one pair of socks will not be stolen from the wire fence where you hung them out to dry.

There is an urgent need for socks in the refugee camps of Lesvos where thousands of refugees wait to learn if they will be granted asylum. It is hard for us who take our socks for granted to understand the difference a pair of clean dry socks could make in the life of a refugee. A pair of clean dry socks could make all the difference in the world.

A plea for 300 pairs of socks for men and women from Euro Relief was one of the first postings on Starfish Foundation’s web page Needs Hub, established to connect organizations helping refugees on the island of Lesvos with donors. The request for 300 pairs of socks may soon be answered, but the need for socks in the refugee camps is on-going and immense. And socks are only one of the many things—from baby strollers and wheelchairs to shampoo and toothpaste–that the refugees need. Your gift, whether large or small, really could make all the difference in the world to a vulnerable person who needs your help.

Starfish Foundation is a Greek non-profit organization. Founded at the height of the refugee migration to the Aegean islands, which was called the greatest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, Starfish Foundation works in co-operation with other organizations dedicated to helping refugees and migrants in the island of Lesbos. Please visit Stafish’s web page Needs Hub to learn what you can do. Donate to Starfish Foundation here.

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known writer and educator living in Molivos, Lesbos, who volunteers with Starfish Foundation to assist with writing and outreach. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. Join Carol on the life-transforming Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger

Reclaiming My Body by Carol P. Christ

Shortly after writing “Asking for Help,” a blog in which I described losing my physical strength following a series injuries, I finally took a friend’s advice—mainly to stop her from badgering me—and went to the doctor. This is something I don’t usually do, as not only have I almost always had excellent health, but also, I believe that, for the most part, the body can heal itself. The first doctor sent me to an orthopedist who told me that the persistent bursa on my knee was nearly healed and to go ahead and exercise in order to regain my strength.

A few days later, I found myself walking to the end of my cobblestone street with my little dog and continuing on to the harbor, a walk of about fifty minutes that included a good deal of up and down, as my house is situated above the sea. As I had only planned to walk a short distance, I was amazed that I found the strength to go farther. Soon I found the perfect walk. Leaving home at 4:30 in the afternoon, I follow the road past houses and open fields down to the sea and around the harbor quay out to the lighthouse. The sun sets while I am on the quay and on most days the clear winter sky lights up and the sea turns rose-gold. The return around the harbor takes me past the little church of Agios Nikolaos where I stop to light a candle and say a prayer. Then back up the hill to my house, where I arrive just before dark. Continue reading “Reclaiming My Body by Carol P. Christ”

My Guardian Angel Is a Socialist by Carol P. Christ

When I began to research our family tree, my father told me that his grandfather George Christ emigrated from Germany because he was a socialist. I eventually learned that it was not George Christ but his parents, Thomas Christ and Anna Maria Hemmerlein, who emigrated from Bavaria. Thomas died in 1863 when George was an infant and George died in 1895 when my grandfather was an infant, which explains how their stories got confused.

Thomas and Anna Maria emigrated less than a month after negotiations for a new constitution following the uprisings of socialists and democrats the 1848 revolution ended in failure. Thomas and Anna Maria boarded the ship to America under different surnames and listing different villages of residence. This suggests that they had fallen victim to concords signed by the church and state that prevented poor men from marrying. Besides not being permitted to marry her beloved Thomas, Anna Maria was herself an illegitimate child, one of three born to sisters in the family of the poor teacher George Hemmerlein after he died.

It is easy to imagine Thomas and Anna Maria supporting the revolution of 1848 in hopes that they would be allowed to marry and be given land to farm. Nor is it difficult to understand that they were deeply disappointed and perhaps afraid of being persecuted for their beliefs when they decided to leave Bavaria in 1849. Anna Maria, who lived until 1907, would have been the one who told these stories to her son and grandsons. Continue reading “My Guardian Angel Is a Socialist by Carol P. Christ”

“It Came Upon a Solstice Morn” by Carol P. Christ

It came upon a Solstice morn,

that glorious song of old,

with angels bending near the earth,

to touch their harps of gold.

“Peace on the earth.

good will to all,”

from heaven’s all glorious realm.

The world in silent stillness waits,

to hear the angels sing.

I wake in the dark of Solstice morn.

Mountains shrouded in clouds,

cold wind blowing,

light dawns.

My mother heard

the angels sing,

on Solstice eve,

calling me to life,

her Christmas Carol.

Blessed Mother Always With Us.

Longing for my beloved,

on Solstice morn,

I heard Sappho sing:

Thank you, my dear

You came and you did

well to come: I needed

you. You have made

love blaze up in

my breast–bless you!

Bless you as often

as the hours have

been endless to me

when you were gone.

Cold tiles,

bare feet,

coffee brewing,

elderly dog stirring,

I open the garden door.

And there it is.

Solstice miracle.

Three purple irises.

blooming in the cold.

Life triumphing over death,

every time.

New words to the traditional carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” by Carol P. Christ.

Sappho translated by Mary Barnard.

Thanks to Miriam Robbins Dexter for the digging iris bulbs from her garden for me to plant in mine.

My mother promised my father to name me Susan or Peter but when she heard carolers in the hospital, she changed her mind.

* * *

Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow, is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.

FAR Press recently released A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess.

Join Carol on the life-transforming and mind-blowing Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. It could change your life! Spring tour filled, sign up now for Fall 2018.

Carol’s photo by Michael Honegger