Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
Root Woman
Tree Woman
Sky Woman
Dear friends
Greet,
converse with one another
on the steely silver edge
of Truth and
Change.
Weaving together
roots
twigs, leaves,
clumps of dirt,
the two carve out
an underground story.
Mythic toads instruct them
about the Ground Way
of Being: Continue reading “Two Friends by Sara Wright”
In November 2017 I wrote about pie baking.
And in November 2015 I also wrote about pie baking.
In November 2016, I was destroyed by the “election” and wrote a post in November of that year “For Strong Women” just to help many of us keep going.
Continue reading “And the Pies! Ongoing Grateful Thanks for Tradition by Marie Cartier”
My first memory as an activist is of attending my first political public meeting to listen leaders of the resistance talking against the Dictatorship, marching holding a sign that read “Democracy Now,” and taking my first dose of tear gas. It was 1988. I was 13 years old. My first menstrual period had come six weeks before. At that time, I didn’t know what feminism was; there were many books forbidden. Social Sciences such as Anthropology, Philosophy, and Sociology were banned in most universities.
But lack of theories could never prevent experience from happening and leaving its imprint. In 1990, at 15, I was gender conscious without recognizing my actions as feminism.
Continue reading “30 Years of Activism by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”
There are so many massive tragedies in the world that need to be addressed at the moment. However, for me, there is only one that I want to write about today and it is the passing of my dear friend, Joseph LaGuardia. Although he often referred to himself as a “nobody,” Joe is a person who touched countless lives and made our world a more loving place.
Joe was the first person to welcome me to Ursuline College more than four years ago. Before I began my position as dean, Joe, who was serving as interim dean, met with me every week for about 2 months. As we both transitioned to new roles, we exchanged gifts without knowing the other had purchased one. We laughed that we both bought each other books. Joe shared with me his book of poetry Life Seasons, which of course is brilliant. And I gave Joe the book The Presidents’ Club and joked with him that as only those who had served as presidents knew what it was like in the oval office, he and I were in the Dean’s Club, and we were among the few who knew what it was like to serve in the dean’s office.
I was so fortunate that Joe agreed to continue to mentor me and we met weekly for breakfast, lunch, etc. to discuss how to manage the many things that would pop up in the world of academic administration. It was not long before Joe and I became very close friends. Continue reading “In Memory of Joseph R. LaGuardia: The Good and Faithful Servant by Gina Messina”
This past weekend I had the privilege of officiating for the wedding of a dear friend. Despite having undertaken all of my graduate and doctoral degrees at a seminary, I had not seriously considered ordination since the beginning of my master’s program when I discerned that my calling was to the academic side of theology rather than to leadership of word and sacrament. When my friend called me nearly two years ago to ask that I officiate her wedding, it never occurred to me that something as simple as an online ordination process would push me toward further vocational discernment… and yet, I think, just maybe, it has.
As a long time church musician I am accustomed to being a part of people’s special days. I have certainly played or sang for more than a few weddings, as well as other services that mark some of the various stages of life – baptisms, confirmations, funerals. I’m no stranger to carefully (and prayerfully) crafting these types of services to fit the families and individuals involved, but I imagine I do leave a certain amount of professional space between myself and these events in most cases.
Continue reading “Discerning is the Journey by Katie M. Deaver”
November, which begins with All Saints Day (yesterday) and All Souls Day (today), gives us a quiet, welcome break between the loud make-believe of Halloween and the incessant caroling of the winter solstice season with its popular holidays. In the Northern Hemisphere, the days are noticeably shorter and darker now. Where I grew up, it’s gray, cloudy, and often rainy. It has always seemed to me that people are turning inward and the month is closing in on itself. Even today in southern California, I feel a delicious melancholy composed of silence and rest from hard work.
For two millennia, the standard-brand churches have admonished women to be silent. As it is written, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2: 11-12).
Let’s say that today is a typically gloomy November day. The sun is lazy and clouds are floating mysteriously across the sky. Look, they’re gathering over there in the east. As clouds often do, they begin to assume shapes. Let’s look closer…and we begin to see a fiery mountain. Above that fiery mountain floats a giant head. Listen! The head is speaking. “I am One, the Great and Powerful. Thou shalt not take My Name in vain. Thou shalt have no other gods before me for I am a jealous God—”
But the silence of this gloomy November day is suddenly broken as the women standing in the mud at the foot of the fiery mountain suddenly begin to shout back at the preaching giant head. “There’s been plenty of gods before you,” one woman shouts. “And even more goddesses came before you,” calls another woman. Continue reading “November, A Silent Month? by Barbara Ardinger”
Many years ago I read the book, Soul Mates, Honoring the Mystery of Love and Relationship, by Thomas Moore. I was very impacted by what Thomas More discussed in this book. Prior to reading it I knew that in order for relationships to remain healthy, attention must paid to them but I had never seen the process described as he did in this book. He says that all of our relationships have a “soul” and that the soul of every relationship requires nurturing. Understanding this is an absolute requirement if we want the relationships we have to be healthy.
I have come to realize, as I have aged, that I have not always been the best at relationships. Sadly, it is not one of my strong suits. There are some who would so lovingly disagree with my statement, but then there are those who would jump on it with a vengeance in their agreement! Mostly I believe that long lasting, quality relationships have been elusive for me because of the nomadic life I lead. Also, I have a tendency to see potential in people – I see possibility but sadly, quite often fail to see what is “real” and thus enter into relationships with unhealthy people. To be honest, I haven’t quite figured it all out yet! The result is, however, that the relationships I do have are precious to me. Continue reading “Friendship by Deanne Quarrie”
Rather than release the sadness, heartache and struggle we put into the bowl out into the world, we meditated …to transform what we could of this energy, re-membering the parts of ourselves that had helped to create these blocks and are responsible for transforming them. We took the transformed energy back into ourselves.
As I have written about many times before, I believe that contemporary Western society operates within a largely abusive paradigm. I often think of oppression in terms of an abusive cycle. Theologians like Cater Heyward and Rita Nakashima Brock describe the impact of the theologies that generate such abusiveness, noting how we become smaller to ourselves and smaller to one another. We do not believe that we are enough, nor are the people or the planet around us ‘enough’ to fill the vacuous alienation that substitutes itself for real relational need in an abusive context. Judith Shaw wrote eloquently about the environmental impact of conflating need with greed in her Friday post, “Can We Honor Inanna and Her Gifts?”
Shaw writes, “At first glance we appear to be abundant with things, energy, experiences. But in our mad desire for more and more and always more we neglect the balance of the very earth who provides us with all.” Many people, particularly in industrialized nations, have been taught to fill the need for a sense of abundance, connection and ‘enough-ness’ with more stuff: more things, more money, more food, more land, etc. And yet, ironically, this quest for ‘more’ can also prevent us from experiencing the very abundance we seek. We can create blocks to abundance by trying to fill the vacuum instead of our actual needs: and difficultly, abusive patterns and cycles can prevent us from seeing the difference between the two. Continue reading “Unblocking Abundance: A Ritual by Sara Frykenberg”
“So it all kind of depends… even in men compared to men, and women compared to women, you would have to have a counterpart to judge something as yin or yang—you are never statically just yin or just yang…”
Elisa Fon is a student of acupuncture, graduating this semester from Yo San University in Santa Monica, CA. She also studies reiki, energy healing, meditation and yoga. Elisa and I have known each other for most of our lives as friends, as one another’s support and as chosen family. Over the last few years, however, we have more consciously fostered an intentional aspect of our intimacy: a challenge to each other to live more authentically, to walk counter-abusively and to live towards physical, spiritual and emotional empowerment. One privilege of this relationship has been the opportunity to create a language together in order to speak across our differences and share our respective passions: feminist theo/alogies (mine) and Chinese medicine/ healing arts (Elisa’s).
Searching for a way to better understand and teach feminist Taoism, I reached out to Elisa for dialogue and language, which gave birth to the following interview about the relationship of one feminist to Taoism, or a Taoist to feminism. Continue reading “A FEMINIST TAOIST VOICE PART 1: MY DIALOGUE WITH ELISA FON, ACUPUNCTURIST, TAOIST, FEMINIST AND FRIEND by Sara Frykenberg”
Last week I attended the funeral of the one man, who in my feminist musings, was able to image the maleness of God as father, friend and pastor. If I had thought about it, I would have given him the T-shirt that reads, “This is What a Feminist Looks Like,” but it never occurred to me until now.
A successful sales manager, Tom decided at the age of 36, and with 6 young children, to enter full-time ministry by enrolling in Pacific Lutheran Seminary at the GTU (in Berkeley). Imagine undertaking an MDIV degree with that kind of responsibility? As the adage states, “It takes a village,” and it did. Marie, Tom’s wife, took charge of the kids while his four brothers help support him until his graduation in 1965. Continue reading “The Undoing of Patriarchy in the Life of Tom Jorde (1922-2011)”
Feminism and Religion 