Tag: Sara Frykenberg

A Gift I hope I can give: A Thank you to Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz by Sara Frykenberg

At some point, I finally asked the mentor what her name was and with a smile and joy that I do remember, she said, “I’m Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz.”  OH MY GOD/DESS.  I was completely taken aback.  I really couldn’t believe that I was sitting at a table and casually talking with this woman whose work I had read and loved: a woman I considered famous.  More than this, however, I couldn’t believe that she was talking to me.

I attended a memorial panel for Mujerista theologian, teacher and activist Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz at the American Academy of Religion National Conference this year.  After panelists shared their memories of their friend and mentor, audience members were also invited to speak.  Sitting in the audience, listening to story after beautiful story of this woman’s life, I was amazed not only by how many people Isasi-Diaz affected in that one room, but also by the similarities of the stories I heard.  Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz was a woman who shared her gift with many people: empowerment and access to their own power.  She generated confidence, both by creating opportunities directly and indirectly for others, and by rewarding the faith of those who believe in her work by living her ideals in an obvious, open and caring way.

I was lucky enough to meet Prof. Isasi-Diaz once in my life.  I was attending a women’s mentor luncheon as a graduate student, hoping to meet a more senior scholar who could tell me something I needed to know in order to get a job some day.  I sat down at a table with another student and a woman older than both of us who seemed to be our mentor representative.  I do not remember the entire conversation.   However, I do remember that we, the students at the table, did most of the talking and the mentor asked us questions.  Continue reading “A Gift I hope I can give: A Thank you to Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz by Sara Frykenberg”

On being an imperfect feminist: releasing definitions built in shame By Sara Frykenberg

A few weeks ago, a very interesting and in some places, tense discussion arose from John Erickson’s post, “Hands Off,” some of which related to the difference between what it means to be a liberal feminist and what it means to identify as radical.  Since then, I have been thinking a lot about what the identification “feminist” means to me, what it means to be an ally and how I am defining these categories.  Rather, I mean to say, against what kind of a standard am I applying this definition.

I think I have asked myself these questions many times in my life, in different ways, but perhaps most significantly I asked myself “am I a feminist?” when I started graduate school.  I was sitting in a classroom, set up like a circle, and all the women and two men in my… I think, “Gender and Education,” class were introducing themselves.  “Hello, I am so and so, and I have been a feminist for X number of years and I do this, etc.”  “Hello, I am so and so, and I am a feminist ally and I do such and such, etc.”—as I remember, some classmates identified more as allies.  When it came time for me to introduce myself, I said, “Hello, my name is Sara, and I am not sure if I am a feminist or not.  I thought I was, but I don’t know now.” Continue reading “On being an imperfect feminist: releasing definitions built in shame By Sara Frykenberg”

Taking my body back from… the pill? A call for more of “her stories” about contraception By Sara Frykenberg

I recently made what felt like a very big decision in my life to stop taking the birth control pill… not to try to get pregnant mind you, though some of those I told incorrectly read this as the subtext of my decision. I stopped taking the birth control pill because I didn’t like what it was doing to my body.   So, I am taking my body back… but from the pill? Really?  Didn’t it, in some ways, give me a kind of freedom?  Didn’t it do what it promised and help me to feel that I was being responsible in my sex life (since I don’t want kids right now)?  Yes, I suppose it did; and I very much believe that access to contraception is a very important feminist and religious issue.  … But after a three year on and off relationship and six years steady with pills, all with different side effects, all with different demands on my metabolism and libido, I began to feel a stranger to my nether regions and so I have decided to stop. Continue reading “Taking my body back from… the pill? A call for more of “her stories” about contraception By Sara Frykenberg”

A Meditation on a Mantra: Sat-Nam By Sara Frykenberg

The following is a guest post written by Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D., graduate of the women studies in religion program at Claremont Graduate University.  Her research considers the way in which process feminist theo/alogies reveal a kind transitory violence present in the liminal space between abusive paradigms and new non-abusive creations: a counter-necessary violence.  In addition to her feminist, theo/alogical and pedagogical pursuits, Sara is also an avid fan of science fiction and fantasy literature, and a level one Kundalini yoga teacher. 

Sat-Nam.  It means, “My name is truth.”  Or if you will, I am who I am.  It is an affirmation in the Kundalini Yogic tradition, a greeting and a mantra.  According to one of my teachers, saying the phrase “Sat-Nam” even once changes something inside of you and accesses a resonant power attached to the vibration of the mantra.  Sat Nam.  I am speaking myself.  I am authentically me.

Sat-Nam. “I am who I am”… “I am that I am”… I write this interpretation of the mantra twice because it is uncomfortable for me.  It sometimes still feels blasphemous to utter this phrase: a phrase that I was taught in my Christian upbringing belonged to God and was the name He gave Himself (sic).  But when I feel this way, I am now inclined to ask myself, what is wrong with saying that I am me?  Do I really feel like this is a power that god/dess reserves for herself?  No.  I affirm me.  I exist. “I am,” means to me that I am living, breathing, lively and thriving in this space between life now and life later that I like to think of as an event horizon full of gravity and opportunity. Continue reading “A Meditation on a Mantra: Sat-Nam By Sara Frykenberg”

In my defense against an abusive God… what I forget and what I am learning By Sara Frykenberg

I spent a great deal of my life believing that the smaller and smaller I made myself, the bigger God would be in my life and the more power He (sic) would have to do the good things He had planned.  If I could just get out of the way… If I could resist my humanness… If I could be “alive to Him and dead to me,” as one of the songs we sang in my college church group reminded me.  I stopped believing this when I felt I had become so small and lost so much of myself that I couldn’t bear it anymore.

I don’t know how to explain it otherwise, but I had a physically violent reaction to any more of myself disappearing.  I yelled and snapped at people like a wounded animal; and when I reached out to members of my Bible study for help, I remember one woman suggesting that maybe demons were involved in some way.  I’m not sure if she thought I was being possessed or attacked, but I remember feeling like she hadn’t heard me at all.

I didn’t understand… excuse me, couldn’t understand why the God I was always taught to believe in, the God who was in control of everything and the God who purposefully made things the way they were, would plan for all the suffering and loss I saw around me—for the loss I was experiencing.  A man who is my ally and my spirit friend listened to me explain this feeling.  He then looked up at me and asked, “You think that God is abusive, don’t you?”  And I replied, “I guess I do.” Continue reading “In my defense against an abusive God… what I forget and what I am learning By Sara Frykenberg”

What about “the final frontier?” Saying goodbye to the Space Shuttle Program By Sara Frykenberg

The following is a guest post written by Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D., independent scholar and graduate of the Women Studies in Religion program at Claremont Graduate University.

“It all started when they messed with Pluto,” my husband joked to me as we listened to the NPR report last week about the end of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.  I imagined a slighted god of the underworld smiting our exploration of the heavens!  “How dare you tell me that Pluto doesn’t count,” he yells, dragging our shuttles out of the sky.  But joking aside, I am really, truly bummed about this new “development” is US space exploration.  The idea that human beings have the ability to travel in outer space is a great source of hope and inspiration for me— but why?  And why am I so bummed?  I decided that I needed to examine these feelings from both a feminist and a spiritual dimension.

Does feminism care about the Space Program?  That is a question, because I really don’t know.  I know particular feminists do.  I know some don’t. Continue reading “What about “the final frontier?” Saying goodbye to the Space Shuttle Program By Sara Frykenberg”

Why (I) Work? The Difference Between A House Wife and Being Unemployed By Sara Frykenberg

The following is a guest post written by Sara Frykenberg, Ph.D., independent scholar and graduate of theWomen Studies in Religion program at Claremont Graduate University.

Ever since I graduated I have been keenly aware of the fact that am no longer a student who is “not working right now,” but am in fact, unemployed.  I do not have a job and have accumulated countless hours, applications and my fair share of rejection letters to attest to this fact.  However, something else has changed in my life this year: I also became a wife and gained a husband… and in between my job searches, while I am cleaning the house, planning meals and working on a GARDEN (which is thriving by the way, despite my previous occupation as a serial plant-killer), I’ve found myself considering, “Am I unemployed or am I a housewife?”

I ask myself this question, as I water the money tree next to my desk: a graduation gift from a friend.  *Am I imagining things or did it slightly quiver when I thought about getting an (outside) job* 

Planti-cide aside, the more I have considered this question, the more of a spiritual issue and a feminist issue its has become for me.  How do I find a balance between my sincere belief that the choice to be a homemaker is a beautiful one, and the feelings of shame or worthlessness I sometimes struggle with because I have not found a “real job.”  I find myself listing all of the things I have accomplished in the house each day to my husband when he gets home, as though I have to justify my existence or earn the grocery money I no longer have in my own bank account. Continue reading “Why (I) Work? The Difference Between A House Wife and Being Unemployed By Sara Frykenberg”