Religion, Women, Spirituality

In this volume we have 13 Australian women who tell the stories of journeying with religion and spirituality. Each woman continued to grow and develop even when that desire for growth has led to them pruning off from their lives religious traditions which inhibit flourishing. The cultural context means that each woman has encountered Christianity at some point, but not all continue with that tradition. Instead some have embraced Wicca, others have explored Goddess, Buddhism and New Thought.

Isabel de Villena, author of Humanism, offers a female paradigm of government in her Vita Christi: the Virgin Mary as queen and as pope. Through queenship, she formulates a new political ethic that she presents as a model to power male holders. Its study confirms the participation of the author in the “Querelle of Femmes” and show coincidences with contemporary courts of queens like Isabel I.
Isabel de Villena, autora del Humanismo, presenta un paradigma femenino de gobierno en su Vita Christi: la Virgen María reina y papisa. Mediante la reginalidad formula una nueva ética política a seguir por los titulares masculinos del poder. Su estudio refrenda la participación de la autora en la Querella de las Mujeres y muestra sintonías con cortes de reinas contemporáneas como Isabel I.

Uno de los rasgos más llamativos de la vida religiosa de la Baja Edad Media fue el espectacular incremento de las mujeres consagradas a Dios, la diversificación de sus formas de vida y el gran peso de lo femenino en la simbología y el lenguaje religiosos. En estas páginas se analiza la complejidad del fenómeno partiendo de su característico vínculo con la ciudad por considerarlo factor decisivo. Se muestra el papel ejercido por las mujeres religiosas en la construcción y evolución del entramado sociopolítico urbano bajomedieval, tanto en una dimensión de libertad y autoridad que dio origen a nuevas formas de socialización e incidencia política femeninas, como de control por parte de los sistemas de poder institucionales y oligárquicos. El trabajo se centra en el contexto andaluz por la gran riqueza de sus manifestaciones religiosas femeninas considerando que ello tiene mucho que ver con la acción de las mujeres en la configuración de las nuevas cristiandades urbanas nacidas tras la reconquista. La amplitud del marco cronológico permite percibir su evolución y los cambios en el tránsito a la Edad Moderna.

Between the Middle Ages and modern times there was in Castile a phenomenon of feminine prophetism with great public impact. Among its main exponents are two tertiaries, the Dominican Mary of Santo Domingo and the Franciscan Juana de la Cruz. Both women incarnated the word of God in a particular way. We will analyze the communication systems that these women used to be heard trying to evaluate the weight of orality and writing in a moment of change from an oral culture to a "civilization of writing" because some important aspects of its prophetic announcement are found here.
En la transición de la Edad Media a la Moderna se dio en Castilla un fenómeno de profetismo femenino con gran repercusión pública. Entre sus principales exponentes destacan dos terciarias, la dominica María de Santo Domingo y la franciscana Juana de la Cruz. Ambas encarnaron la palabra de Dios de forma peculiar. Analizamos aquí los sistemas comunicativos que emplearon para hacerse oír intentando valorar el peso de la oralidad y de la cultura escrita en el momento de cambio de una cultura oral a una “civilización del escrito” por entender que aquí radican algunos aspectos importantes de su anuncio profético.

Elizabeth Kelly Inglis died in 1927 at age 62 from complications of a stroke. Secondary causes were malnutrition and exhaustion.

When I was a child, my father, though he was very close to his own parents and sister, spoke very little about his ancestors. I knew that both of his parents lost their fathers when they were small children. I was told that the Christs were German and the Inglises were Scottish and Irish. My grandmother Mary Inglis Christ was as Irish as the day is long. She prayed to the blessed Virgin and took me to church with her in the early mornings where she lit candles and whispered the rosary while fingering faceted lavender beads. She voted for Kennedy because he was Irish and Catholic—to the horror of my father and his father who had no use for the Democrats. My grandmother sometimes cried when she showed us photographs of her family, especially when she pointed to her sister Veronica, called Very. I sensed that my grandmother felt sad to have left her family in New York when she moved with her husband and children to California during the depression, but I was too young to understand fully. As far as I know, I never met any of the relatives from her side of the family, even when I moved to “back east.”

This paper studies the life and work of the foundress of the female Third Regular Order of Saint Francis, Angelina de Montegiove. This woman  raises a very interesting gender problem that manifests the difficulties generated by a female model of apostolic and active religious life and by new institutions governed autonomously by women. The reaction of the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance started a fight between tertiaries and friars that developed over two hundred years. These women represented their identity and self-consciousness in the paintings with which decorated the walls of their convent of Saint Anne in Foligno. They vindicated their value and capacities in order to develop and active life and to use public word. The later institutional construction of Angelina's sanctity reveals political gender maneuvers manifested in  topical religious models for women based in the ideal of female enclosure.

Cradle Catholic and Woman

Educated by the U. S. Vowed Religious

Support the U. S. Catholic Sisters

Support, Minister, and Live the Social Gospel

Theologian, Feminist, and Critical Thinker

Former Girl Scout Leader of Three Troops

Former Girl Scout

I am all of these things and more.  By the recent attacks by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, I am beginning to think I am the problem.  I seem to stand for everything the Vatican and USCCB seek to silence.  Is it because of my organizational ties with the U. S. Vowed Religious and Girl Scouts, or my writings as a Feminist and Theologian?  Maybe the answer is simply – because I am a woman.

According to the criticisms launched by the USCCB and the Vatican, I seem to be part of the problem rather than the solution.  Why is this so?  It was not until I started my journey in ministry that my idealistic “Catholic” bubble popped – not so much by me, but by those in ministry and leadership, by those that did not like laity to pose questions and think critically about their faith beliefs, and by  those that do not like people who do not fit within the preconceived mold of what a “good Catholic” should be.  This ideological construct is difficult enough when you are part of a Church community, but when you begin to embrace leadership as a woman, question teachings, exercise your canonical rights, your peers and even people you thought were your friends, no longer talk or associate with you. The betrayal is vicious and runs deep – it is behavior not becoming of a minister or one who professes the Catholic faith.

One of the three books I took with me on vacation is by the world’s leading interpreter of the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann. It’s not actually on the Bible, but something he published in 2008 called Prayers for a Privileged People.

A book like this is well-suited to me for two major reasons. First, I live among what Brueggemann identifies as the “haves” because of my “education, connection, power, and wealth.” Unlike far too many children in the world, I received (free) public education from K-12; unlike far too many families in the United States, mine never struggled financially to send my brother and me to the colleges (and then to the medical/graduate schools) of our dreams. Today, I may not rank among the 1%, but I live a very comfortable middle class life and thus must be counted among the privileged.

The second reason I originally bought this book (and am reading it now) is because I would like to develop my spiritual life. While so much today is made of the growing numbers of the “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), I have always thought of myself as inclining towards the opposite, of being “religious, but not spiritual.”

One test of a thealogy is whether it can help us “make sense” of our lives—even the senseless parts of them.

Recently a friend told me that the teen-aged daughter of a friend of hers had committed suicide. “What would your thealogy say to that?” she asked me. Here is what I might say to a friend who lost her daughter:

I am so sorry for your loss. This never should have happened.

I remember times when I wanted to commit suicide. My pain was intense and my mind was stuck. All I could think was: this hurts too much to go on, and it will never change, so I might as well die. I am so sorry if your daughter felt that way, because I know it is a horrible way to feel. I am sorry she was not able to understand that it could have–and probably would have–changed. Don’t blame her. Sometimes pain is so overwhelming you really cannot see beyond it. Don’t blame yourself either. I am certain you did everything you could think of to help her. I know that if you could have prevented her, you would have. It really was not your fault. I don’t blame you, and no one else should either.

“Is Ivy Helman Jewish?”  This question and knowing that eventually I’d have to respond one way or another to it has caused me many sleepless nights.  At the same time my faith journey has become integral to who I am and I would like to spend some time today sharing it with you.

Why share this and why now?  Well, first, I have not been ready until now.  In addition, external forces which I will talk about in a minute are making my spiritual path an issue.  So I share my story with a measure of concern about its possible effects but also with a great deal of joy about the ways in which my faith journey has challenged me to grow, reflect and change.

Margaret Farley emailed me about two weeks ago asking me how I identified religiously.  Someone had emailed her asking if I was Jewish because this person had read one of my past blogs in which I wrote “my rabbi” on feminismandreligion.com.  This same person is reviewing my book: Women and the Vatican: An Exploration of Official Documents.  Here is how I answered Margaret: “Hi Margaret, I’m Catholic although I do attend services at a Jewish synagogue on occasion since I was raised in essentially a multi-faith home.  On that blog, there really is no Jewish voice, so I try to comment on ideas from that tradition as much as I can.  Ivy.”  I felt unauthentic sending that email.  But, I did.

Why is it OK to insult women, our bodies, and our sexuality in ways that it is no longer OK to insult other groups?

The recent controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s rant about Sandra Fluke would not be so important if Limbaugh were not the “voice” allowed to say things that Republican politicians cannot say in public. Republican politicians wish to appeal to men who would say exactly what Rush said, while watching Fox News or over a beer with their buddies.

The Virgin-Whore split is alive and well in our culture. Sandra Fluke  finally did get to testify in a hearing called by Nancy Pelosi.  She  assumed a woman’s right to choose when and with whom we have sex and whether and when we will have children, but she did not focus on sexual freedom. One of her examples was a married woman who could not afford birth control and another was a woman who needed birth control pills for reasons having nothing to do with sex or sexual activity. She did not appear in Congress in a mini-skirt (though she should have had every right to do so) but in a business suit. Yet she was called a slut and a prostitute and asked to post porno films of herself on the internet.

I attended a service at Congregation Shalom in Chelmsford, MA two Fridays ago.  During the service, Rabbi Shoshana Perry spent a few minutes addressing the last word of a Hebrew prayer found in the Reform siddur, Mishkan T’filah.  It was translated in the siddur as “God rested” but the Hebrew word used was vayinafash, which comes from the word nefesh, or soul.  The prayer emphasizes on the seventh day that God did not rest as much as God took time out to re-soul.  Rabbi Perry believes that our Shabbat should be spent doing things that help us also re-soul.

Initially, I spent quite a long time considering why God would need to re-soul and what exactly God would do to re-soul.  When I realized the futility of trying to sort that out, I moved a little closer to home: what do I do on Shabbat to re-soul?  I was quite overwhelmed trying to answer this question as well.

NOTE: This paper has been abandoned. I find this to be a pathetic piece of writing with no possibility of improvement. Please do not quote. Thanks!

"Religions answer people’s questions about death and afterlife, and provide support to overcome tangible problems of life, such as poverty, illness and strife, and to make sense of life amidst them.  Traditional religions thus developed their concept of salvation from the problems of life, the world’s ills, and ultimately the perceived consequences after death.  Christianity developed an entire religion around soteriology, and means to salvation became the central interpretation on Jesus Christ’s mission, life, death and resurrection narratives.  Modern seekers of feminine spirituality often come out from heavily soteriological religions in which sense of guilt is part of their indoctrination process.  In proposing alternatives to those “salvation-based” patriarchal faiths, thealogians have not yet developed a coherent soteriology to adequately respond in a pastoral setting.  The lack of working soteriology in a Goddess faith may be a driving factor in its inability to penetrate classist barriers and keeping the Goddess faith mostly an intellectual exercise and a social experiment by and for the university-educated, white middle-class women; and work toward a Goddess model of soteriology is essential in making feminine spirituality a living tradition shared and accessible by, and meets the needs of, people of all socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
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