Zora Neale Hurston – Feminism and Religion

HOPE IS NOT OPTIMISM by Esther Nelson

Recently, I discovered a quote attributed to Seamus Heany, Irish poet and playwright (1939-2013), perhaps best known for winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. This is that quote:

“Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.”

The origin of the quote, though, might be a paraphrase from a former president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel (1936-2011), who reportedly said: “It [hope] is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” Heany seems to have used Havel’s conception of hope and voiced it poetically.

Regardless of the origin of the saying, I like Heany’s poetic expression.

Invisible Connections: The Hidden Web of Women Writers, part 2 by Theresa C. Dintino

You can read part 1 here.

The erasure of this web is to make women feel alone and disconnected. Maybe it would make them want to give up.

Angela Davis and Toni Morrison

This may sound extreme but imagine this scenario: You are a young woman starting out and you are told that the path you wish to follow is one of pain, loneliness and lacks any kind of support or network with other women that came before you. There are plenty of men but you are left out of that network.

Why would you want to do it? Because in your soul of souls you are a writer, or an artist or a scientist . . . So you decide to do it anyway. But instead of expecting support and connection you have already decided, based on what you have been told, that there won’t be any and so you start to not expect it.

Breath, part 1 by Beth Bartlett

By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit, we are all one.

The air that is my breath . . .is the air that you are breathing.
And the air that is your breath . . . is the air that I am breathing.
The wind rising in my breast . . .is the wind, from the east, from the west,
From the north . . . from the south; Breathing in, breathing out.

So begins singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen’s song, “By Breath,” bringing together many elements I’ve been pondering in the last several days – breath, air, wind, spirit.

Wisdom Fiction (Part 2) by Elise M. Edwards

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

In my previous two posts, I’ve discussed the wisdom that can be found in black women’s literature. Continuing this series, I’m sharing a statement from the most well-known novel written by Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was an American novelist, folklorist, anthropologist, and cultural critic whose work was first published in the 1920s-1940s. Their Eyes Were Watching God was published in 1937 and has since been reissued and adapted into film.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” This quote is one that has circled around my mind every New Year and every birthday for many years. These times of year are when I’m likely to reflect on the previous year and wonder what has come from it.

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Truth in Storytelling by Elise M. Edwards

“[Shakespeare] was an alright writer. I did not always understand him, but some things he said were beautiful and he made some things so clear the way he explained people. But one thing he was wrong about. That ‘To be or not to be?’ is not the first question. ‘What is the truth?’ – that is the question! Then ‘To be or not to be?’ is the second question.”

-from “Feeling for Life “ in Some Soul to Keep by J. California Cooper

This past weekend, I taught a lesson for an adult church group about Christian imagination in the short stories of J. California Cooper. The quote above comes from one of her stories. I was invited to teach a lesson as part of a series on exploring God through literature. It was a delight to participate for several reasons.

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