predators – Feminism and Religion

Preaching with a Predator in the First Pew by Angela Yarber

Seeing him in the first pew was distracting. Legs splayed in expert manspreading fashion, both arms draped unaware across either side of the backrest, belly protruding over a worn leather belt. He wasn’t a tall man, yet his sprawling body occupied nearly six feet of space. A slight smirk was always smeared across his lips and his eyes were fixed on me.

Preaching to a predator is never easy. So, while I could never imagine what it would be like to speak truth to power like Bishop Budde at the National Prayer Service, I’m confident that, like me, every clergywoman in America knows what it’s like for a pussy grabber to leer at you from the first pew. Even the finest vestments, highest clerical honors, and the divine herself cannot protect you from that.

From the Archives: A Tiny Life by Barbara Ardinger

When I first wrote this post in 2014, I said the news was getting me down. A terrorist gang in Nigeria had kidnapped, raped, and “married” two hundred schoolgirls. Kids were even then taking guns to school. What’s better as I rewrite this in March 2022? Not much. The pandemic and idiots still refusing to be vaccinated. Putin’s invasion of a former soviet satellite country. (I think Putin thinks he’s the tsar and wants to rebuilt “his” empire.) Road rage, hate crimes, kids still taking guns to school. I think we can all agree that the news is still awful. The following is what I wrote in 2014.

A couple Saturdays ago, I heard an enormous noise of cawing and shrieking and wings flapping outside my window. It went on for several minutes, so I finally set my book aside (I was trying to ignore Eyewitless News), got up, and looked out into the courtyard. Two huge, noisy crows were chasing a smaller bird. I think it might have been a scrub jay. I have no idea what the jay’s crime had been in the crows’ eyes, but they were chasing it back and forth and up and down until one of them finally speared it with its beak. The jay fell. The crows landed on the roof of the building across the courtyard and strutted back and forth for several minutes. One of them went down for a closer look at the fallen jay. Then they flew away.

Father Root by Sara Wright

My habit has been to hide

once I know he’s around,

to deny his presence, the fright that

springs from every cell,

my body on scream.

I harm myself forcing me

to do his will – ‘Keep going’

I screech cruelly, soundlessly,

‘so what if it hurts,

You cannot afford to feel’.

At 3 AM I shoveled ice

with strength I no longer have

driven by his demonic voice.

He’d already murdered the day before.

My grouse whose delicate spiral

footprints brought joy to

my heart became his first kill.

A Tiny Life by Barbara Ardinger

The news is getting me down. Nearly three hundred Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boku Haram. The capsized South Korean ferry and more than 300 drowned students. Kids taking guns to school and the governor of Georgia signing a law that says anyone can carry a gun almost anywhere in the state. The ever-continuing feminization of poverty. A couple Saturdays ago, I heard an enormous noise of cawing and shrieking and wings flapping outside my window. It went on for several minutes, so I finally set my book aside (I was trying to ignore Eyewitless News), got up, and looked out into the courtyard. Two huge, noisy crows were chasing a smaller bird. I think it might have been a scrub jay. I have no idea what the jay’s crime had been in the crows’ eyes, but they were chasing it back and forth, up and down, and one of them finally speared it with its beak. The jay fell. The crows landed on the roof of the building across the courtyard and strutted back and forth for several minutes. One of them went down for a closer look at the fallen jay. Then they flew away.

I’ve seen crows attacking other birds before. They’re extremely intelligent birds, but they also get aggressive. Some years ago, I sat at a desk in an office, gazing out the window, and saw a crow destroy a hummingbird’s nest and eat the babies. Sad, yes, but this is how crows around the world find food. My coworkers wanted to storm outside immediately and (I guess) shoot the crow and maybe tear the little tree out of the ground. “No,” I said. “Leave it alone. Tennyson was right when he wrote that nature is bloody.” Continue reading “A Tiny Life by Barbara Ardinger”