multifaith – Feminism and Religion

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.

Coexist or Contradict? How about Resist Instead by Katey Zeh

Version 2

While stopped at a red light on my way home one day I noticed that the two cars immediately in front of me had the same “Coexist” bumper sticker. You’ve probably seen one like it. Each of the letters of is a symbol representing a major religious or spiritual ideology. For example, the “C” is a crescent moon symbolizing Islam, and the “X” is a Star of David symbolizing Judaism.

This was a particularly long traffic light, which gave me time to realize that I was mistaken. In actuality the bumper sticker on the car just ahead of me did not read “Coexist” but “Contradict.” Underneath that it read, “They can’t all be true-John 14:6.” Despite my early days of earnest scripture memorization I couldn’t recall this particular passage, but I had a hunch it was the verse in which Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” I was right.

I’ll admit my eyes rolled back in my head over this display of Christian moral superiority. Continue reading “Coexist or Contradict? How about Resist Instead by Katey Zeh”