Most of my life I’ve resisted being anyone’s keeper or being kept by anyone else. I don’t mean being a “kept woman”—like by some man for his sexual pleasure. No, that would surely lead me to suicide or homicide. Maybe a deep sense of belonging or true love, but it would have to be mutual. It’s hard to give with no take. Then again, what would be the spirituality of keepership?
On Thursday May 16th at noon I will be speaking on the topic “Am I My Sister’s Keeper?” for the lecture and discussion forum called Women Explore (WE) at 45 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge. All are welcome. “Am I My Sister’s Keeper?” is one of the topics scheduled for WE’s spring series on women immigrants, sex trafficking, women’s rights, and more.
I was invited because I asked—how obvious—and because I am a lifetime female explorer. People mostly think first of Columbus, or men heading out to cross dangerous seas to discover new lands, crossing frozen tundras, scaling the peaks of Everest, when they think of explorers. Of course women can and do explore this way. And I’m not the only woman who has a deep intuitive sense of a bright, splendid, ineffable, unnameable, and unmanageable Mystery that lies beyond her grasp but that she can discern shimmering in a child’s face, or in human kindness, as well as in the glory and ferocity of nature. Some call this energy soul; some call it spirituality. It’s worth exploring together.
WE provides lectures and discussion within a feminist learning community for women, to connect with the sacred dimensions of their experience and to support and encourage each other in the world community. It began as T.O.P., the Theological Opportunities Program at the Harvard Divinity School in 1973. Sacred? Theological? Divinity School? I called WE. They’d had a cancellation for this topic. Timing is everything. But am I my sister’s keeper? I know for sure I wasn’t such a great keeper of my own biological little sisters. Still, the topic became emblazoned in my imagination. I love to infuse meaty scriptural wisdom with feminine energy.
WE is committed to liberation politics and is aware of many ways in which women are still oppressed living in a patriarchal system. God knows all scriptures and all religions are familiar with the unjust structures of patriarchy. But would this group take a Rev.?
The issue about being another person's keeper appears in an ancient biblical story about the first murder and cover-up. (Genesis 4:1-16) Contemporary societies should be right at home! After the Garden of Eden affair, things go down hill fast for the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, jealous of his younger brother Abel’s apparently earning divine approval, murders Abel, then covers up the ugly deed. God suspects evil, yet questions Cain about his brother’s whereabouts. (Isn’t that funny, when most of the world thinks God knows everything anyway, yet God courteously—respectfully— asks anyway? ) Cain, defensive, pops his infamous question to God: “How should I know? Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The story unfolds in fascinating ways. It is not historical/literal, but boy, is it true to human experience! The question the story poses, though unanswered, has gravitas and still hangs over history and human conscience to this day. And now WE is wondering about the gender implications. Are women our sisters’ keepers? Am I?
I set to wondering. Is this question more sensitive for women, and also men, who have struggled with addictions and codependency issues? How does care-taking differ from caring? What does the word “keeper” really mean? What about parenting? What does Christian faith have to say about this issue? Was Jesus Christ anyone’s keeper? This topic is rich and I plan to consider it with care—after I consult with my flesh-and-blood living sister.
I will speak to Women Explore (WE) from my own spiritual experience and professional training, using my own words. PLEASE JOIN ME to explore this tender topic. Come at 11:30 to 45 Mt. Auburn Street. Check website for parking information. http://www.womenexplore.org/lectures.html
So just maybe I'm a keeper.
Showing posts with label feminists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminists. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Sunday, January 31, 2016
2016.01.31 Feminism, What Brand?
I am an unashamed feminist. In the same way I’m an Episcopalian, a Christian, and a woman. Feminism is a movement working on behalf of women to assure that they be accorded equal respect, status, and, yes, pay, ($$$) all over the world and in the church.
Camille Paglia (b. 1947, Endicott, NY) writes essays on feminism, culture, art and politics for mainstream publications.
A self-described feminist, and a fierce one, Paglia is a critic of the movement. Paglia’s parents immigrated to New York from Italy. Her father, Pasquale, was a high school teacher and World War II veteran. Young Camille was argumentative in school; her former Latin teacher said of her in 1992, "She always has been controversial." Once, at camp, she poured too much lime into the latrine and it exploded. She told The New York Observer, "It symbolized everything I would do with my life and work. Excess and extravagance and explosiveness.”
This feminist is angry, and no narcissist. She observed that the increasing narcissism of feminist politics and spirituality has derailed the movement from its goal. She is a fighting feminist and a skilled writer, not afraid of her voice.
Paglia wrote: "Let's get rid of Infirmary Feminism, with its bedlam of bellyachers, anorexics, bulimics, depressives, rape victims, and incest survivors. Feminism has become a catch-all vegetable drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their moldy neuroses." (A neurotic is one who takes too much responsibility for everything and loses her sense of herself. But, with focus, any good neurotic can also take some responsibility for change and making justice anew.
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989), historian and author of the pulitzer prize winning book, The Guns of August, said: "If a man is a writer, everybody tiptoes around past the locked door of the breadwinner. But if you're an ordinary female housewife, people say, 'This is just something Barbara wanted to do; it's not professional.’" She probed deeply the annals of history and found pieces that had not been accurately recorded about the Great War. She exposed lies, a scholarly feminist.
And what about our biblical sisters? In the gospel of Mark (14) there is a story of a woman who is bold and wise enough to enter a gathering of men, Jesus' followers, with a plan to anoint Jesus with the only gift available to her, some costly ointment of nard. She knew a woman would not be welcome at such an in-house political gathering, yet she discerned that Jesus himself might need some soothing, given that he seemed to know he would face violence and death in Jerusalem. This unnamed woman approached Jesus and anointed him (not just his feet) beforehand for death. Jesus' disciples were enraged at this intrusion and offense, but Jesus scolded them. He said: "Leave her. She has done a beautiful thing for me." This anointing woman took great risk to offer a tender and compassionate, also realistic, touch. She was a quietly compassionate healing feminist.
Supposedly, we are now in a fourth wave of feminism, one that will include attention to spirituality as well as politics, one that will pay attention to what is happening to women and children the world over, one that concerns itself with the quality of women’s lives both in church and society, one that lobbies for women in leadership positions, one that rages in protest at the current rise in violence against women,
We live in a celebrity-driven culture and it’s going global. The latest celebrity seems to be violence itself. Violence is part of our daily diet of news. Words like trauma, torture, horror are almost glamorized or at least over-sensationalized. I mean who really wants to read about Whitey Bulger or see a movie about him and organized violent criminality? We do! Why are we Americans not beyond the Billy the Kid/Bonny & Clyde/Mafia/Don Corleone/Tony Soprano era? Our tastes are conditioned to a degree by media, but that’s facile.
Sensationalizing of violence has two main effects: (1) It dulls our senses, inures us, so we hardly feel its impact or startle at the sound of guns and screams of victims. “Just Another Death In New York City,” a folk song by Australian singer Judy Small, says it all. Oh, someone jumped from a skyscraper window to crash on the pavement below—noticed and unmourned as quotidian. (2) It attracts us to violence, so we think that large and small scale violence is actually a solution to any and all problems. It’s exciting and glamorous. We can be heroes, celebrities—dead or alive. It makes us violent! Have we made an idol of violence itself while preaching against it?
What to do? I don’t know. Just keep on singing, crying, howling, writing, praying, lamenting. Above all, use whatever gifts you have to make sure you don’t yawn at the next report of violence.
Be a Christian feminist. It only means that, as a Christian, you don’t want anyone to be treated like [expletive]. Jesus was treated very violently. He also advocated for women. Women first recognized the risen Christ and spread the word. No one believed them. They just wouldn't shut up. Women persuaded men to see this: resurrection is the divine last word.
God would be a great feminist if we’d let Him [sic] be free of any gender.
I never burned a bra, just stopped wearing one—for the most part. I’m not militant, or a radical, and I don’t hate men. I just keep noticing and speaking and writing about women—what they do and say with courage, and what they suffer. I never stop wondering, questioning, observing, and working for gender equity. I'm a determined but not too noisy feminist—no warrior.
My favorite definition of feminism comes from the writer Roxanne Gay, professor of English at Purdue University and author of an essay collection, “Bad Feminist.” Her definition of who feminists are: “Women who don’t want to be treated like [expletive] for being a woman.”
Feminism is a movement, not an eccentricity. Gay is a truth-telling feminist.
Gay expands on her pithy, expletive-reinforced definition to say that “women deserve to have full and satisfying lives in the same way that men do.” (NY Times Magazine, July 27, 2014) But I don’t mind the expletive. It gives clout to her commitment, and it’s not exactly violent speech. We all know which four letters belong between those brackets. But isn’t it fun to pretend innocence with brackets?
Camille Paglia (b. 1947, Endicott, NY) writes essays on feminism, culture, art and politics for mainstream publications.
A self-described feminist, and a fierce one, Paglia is a critic of the movement. Paglia’s parents immigrated to New York from Italy. Her father, Pasquale, was a high school teacher and World War II veteran. Young Camille was argumentative in school; her former Latin teacher said of her in 1992, "She always has been controversial." Once, at camp, she poured too much lime into the latrine and it exploded. She told The New York Observer, "It symbolized everything I would do with my life and work. Excess and extravagance and explosiveness.”
This feminist is angry, and no narcissist. She observed that the increasing narcissism of feminist politics and spirituality has derailed the movement from its goal. She is a fighting feminist and a skilled writer, not afraid of her voice.
Paglia wrote: "Let's get rid of Infirmary Feminism, with its bedlam of bellyachers, anorexics, bulimics, depressives, rape victims, and incest survivors. Feminism has become a catch-all vegetable drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their moldy neuroses." (A neurotic is one who takes too much responsibility for everything and loses her sense of herself. But, with focus, any good neurotic can also take some responsibility for change and making justice anew.
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989), historian and author of the pulitzer prize winning book, The Guns of August, said: "If a man is a writer, everybody tiptoes around past the locked door of the breadwinner. But if you're an ordinary female housewife, people say, 'This is just something Barbara wanted to do; it's not professional.’" She probed deeply the annals of history and found pieces that had not been accurately recorded about the Great War. She exposed lies, a scholarly feminist.
Supposedly, we are now in a fourth wave of feminism, one that will include attention to spirituality as well as politics, one that will pay attention to what is happening to women and children the world over, one that concerns itself with the quality of women’s lives both in church and society, one that lobbies for women in leadership positions, one that rages in protest at the current rise in violence against women,
We live in a celebrity-driven culture and it’s going global. The latest celebrity seems to be violence itself. Violence is part of our daily diet of news. Words like trauma, torture, horror are almost glamorized or at least over-sensationalized. I mean who really wants to read about Whitey Bulger or see a movie about him and organized violent criminality? We do! Why are we Americans not beyond the Billy the Kid/Bonny & Clyde/Mafia/Don Corleone/Tony Soprano era? Our tastes are conditioned to a degree by media, but that’s facile.
Sensationalizing of violence has two main effects: (1) It dulls our senses, inures us, so we hardly feel its impact or startle at the sound of guns and screams of victims. “Just Another Death In New York City,” a folk song by Australian singer Judy Small, says it all. Oh, someone jumped from a skyscraper window to crash on the pavement below—noticed and unmourned as quotidian. (2) It attracts us to violence, so we think that large and small scale violence is actually a solution to any and all problems. It’s exciting and glamorous. We can be heroes, celebrities—dead or alive. It makes us violent! Have we made an idol of violence itself while preaching against it?
What to do? I don’t know. Just keep on singing, crying, howling, writing, praying, lamenting. Above all, use whatever gifts you have to make sure you don’t yawn at the next report of violence.
Be a Christian feminist. It only means that, as a Christian, you don’t want anyone to be treated like [expletive]. Jesus was treated very violently. He also advocated for women. Women first recognized the risen Christ and spread the word. No one believed them. They just wouldn't shut up. Women persuaded men to see this: resurrection is the divine last word.
God would be a great feminist if we’d let Him [sic] be free of any gender.
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