Are we pregnant with God or is God pregnant with us?

It is always interesting to interpret, especially philosophical and religious French as I did this morning for Rabbi Marc Raphael Guedj who was once more sharing his insights at the Bossey inter-faith summer school. Guedj always insists on the way values inform one another: not justice or charity but charity and justice, not just the letter but also the spirit, not just the spirit but also the letter - he often quotes Emmanuel Levinas' idea that "the letter is the folded wing of the spirit". Not just the written tradition but also the oral tradition. Not just one single and fundamentalist interpretation, but many in discussion and even in disagreement with one another.
Today he took us into rather different territory as he tried to get across the idea of immanence and transendence. At several points he said things along the lines of God being pregnant with humanity, wanting to offer some trace, some outline of Godlikeness to humanity. He spoke movingly of the feminine qualities of God, in the same terms as of the Western (wailing) wall of the Temple in Jerusalem - a totally dependable support. Interesting to think of a feminine quality in those terms. He went on to say that humanity, made in the image of God, is also in some way pregnant with a trace of God, wanting to give birth to that search for the Divine.
The word for pregnant in French in "enceinte" - it has the same root as the French for belt, ceinture, also "une enceinte" is a girded place, within the castle walls for instance. If you want to say in French that a man, or a male gendered object like "un pont", is pregnant it is almost impossible to do this grammatcally - you should say "le pont était enceint" but today of course Rabbi Guedj said "c'est comme si Dieu était enceinte de l'humanité". I really wish I had been able to take notes and so offer more than these fragments of remembered words which went into my ears and sort of came out of my mouth, I do know that I smiled as I heard him say that - knowing that the word "pregnant" in English would not entirely get across the shock of what he had just said.
Thinking about it now it reminded me of Ursula Le Guin's wonderful line "the King was pregnant" in the Left Hand of Darkness. And so I googled and got to this re-reading of Le Guin and now I know one of the books I shall be taking on holiday with me.
So I wonder, what trace of God might I be able to be pregnant with, to give birth to?

Reading the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse - the Duties of Womanhood by Mirta Yañez

I treated myself to The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse from the University bookshop on my first day in Jamaica, now I finally have a moment to read some of it. Actually poetry is the perfect reading companion for a conference like the IEPC, it transports to other realities and requires short bursts of concentration but not too much sustained attention.
It has some wonderful poems in translation and I'm looking forward to reading more on the plane this evening. For now though this has really touched me and made me smile, perhaps a little sadly. Several of our colleagues have now travelled to Cuba for the 70th anniversary of the Cuban Council of Churches, maybe one of the reasons I started reading the Cuban verse in the collection first. I've just noticed a poem called Liberation theology - better read that next! I give thanks for those who labour to write poetry, offereing us all fragments of deep understanding of our lives.

The Duties of Womanhood - Mirty Yañez

We learned the duties of love and silence,
of obdurate loneliness and anguish,
our duty to witness fear and death
and the arduous task od structuring dreams

We learnt the duties of twilight and desolation
the labour of poetry
of gregorian chants
the mysterious firmament of the stars
the inexorable rituals of waiting
the ceremonies of terror and valour
the secrets of the bow and its invisible arrow
of the night and the fires illuminating it.

We learned of joy
of smiles
light and shadows
magic and science
a tree, an apple, a paradise,
the serpent, a flight of birds,
Mythology and enigma.

We learnt men's ways
an seized others meant only for gods.

Water the source of life – and not of violence - reflection by Priscille Djomhoue

Women carrying water, Nile, Egypt. Photo: Walwyn/Flickr

Over on Seven Weeks for Water Professor Priscille Djomhoue reflects on the resonances between women's lives in the Bible and present day Africa. She also tells stories of women and girls suffering terrible violence and vulnerability because of lack of access to decent water and sanitation. Yet she asserts clearly "Water is the source of life, not of violence".

Here are two tasters from her meditation:

in many developing countries, not everyone has access to drinking water. In towns and in rural areas water is worth its weight in gold. People often have to travel long distances to find a supply of water in a river or a spring, and then carry it on their heads or their backs, exposing them to the risks of malformation of the spine or other back troubles. In many town areas, as is often the case in Cameroon, water has to be bought from a neighbour who has been able to have a well dug or who has mains water. That is not a new situation, since in the Bible, water was often such a scarce commodity that mention is made of people paying for it (Num. 20:17-19; Lam. 5:4).

In Africa, many women are denied their rights and do not have the money to buy water from their neighbours. This situation makes them vulnerable when an urgent need for water arises. In September 2009 in Yaoundé, in an area called Mendong, two young girls under the age of 12 were regularly sexually abused by the man in charge of the well where they often had to go to fetch water for their mothers. The police took up the matter, but it was too late. The physical and psychological damage done to them was immense.

Drink a toast to yourself and to all the other women surrounding you

International Women's Day was busy and fun around the ecumenical centre. Elaine Neuenfeldt led morning prayers and told us the story of the women from a village in Mauritania, several of them grandmothers, who trained to become solar engineers. It is a wonderful story of education and empowerment. Why train women rather than men? Because the women will remain in the communities and train others, meaning that the knowledge and transformation are shared and passed on from one generation to the next. To change the village educate a girl or a grandmother. Men would be more likely to leave the village and try to earn money with the new found knowledge.

Then at midday a great impromptu library lunch was held with Father Daniel Groody from Notre Dame University, his theme was migration as a theological method - I'll come back to some of the reflections and discussion around the observations he shared in a later post. For now suffice us to say that it made for a really invigorating lunchbreak with good theological and intellectual stimulation.

In the late afternoon and early evening the World YWCA hosted a wonderful laid back and welcoming reception to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. It was the first time this year that I went out in the afternoon without my coat on, the sun was shining, the spring flowers covered the grass in front of the World YWCA building in a profusion of pink and it was quite simply a glorious sunny time. Here was an opportunity to network, to chat, to laugh, all presided over with enormous grace, good humour and aplomb by Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda the YW's general secretary. At one stage she got us to go around the room and simply say our names and one word which describes us - the words were many and the one chosen most often (by myself and by Nyaradzayi as well!) was "passion". A good word with which to enter Lent!
Nyaradzayi also got us to toast ourselves, to affirm ourselves as unique women and to toast the women on either side of us. It was time out, time to celebrate women's achievements over the past 100 years, time to look forward to what still needs to be done. It was also time to share stories of our work and lives- from the recent UN Status of Women meeting, to receive gentle greetings from around the world "this is my first international women's day outside my own country", to affirm inter-generational learning, to smile and share news and gossip. It was WONDERFUL!
And then I spent the evening with three very beautiful, very intelligent, very lovely female friends and got home not too long after midnight ...

In praise of Mariella Frostrup freshening up the feminist agenda

Sometimes I get bored with calling myself a feminist. It seems sort of tired and old fashioned, yet it is very much part of who I am and what makes me tick. I admit I have sort of given up smiling every time I get comments such as "when are we going to have an international men's day". It is not in fashion to be seen to be championing women's issues or rights. It is interesting that people are quick to moan about what is termed "political correctness"and slow to be challeneged by the clear inequality so many women have to live with day in day out, year in year out, generation in generation out.
So today I felt energised and encouraged when reading Mariella Frostrup's excellent essay in the Observer.
Encouraged because this is a woman who puts the case erruditely and passionately:

In the western world the greatest triumph of spin in the last century is reflected in attitudes to feminism. Our struggle for emancipation and equality has been surreptitiously rewritten as a harpy bra-burning contest while elsewhere, in less affluent parts of the world, the response is altogether different. From Mozambique to Chad, South Africa and Liberia, Sierra Leone to Burkina Faso, feminism is the buzzword for a generation of women determined to change the course of the future for themselves and their families. At female gatherings all over sub-Saharan Africa you'll find enthusiasm and eager signatories to the cause.

...

I visited Internally Displaced Peoples camps in Chad where women refugees from Darfur were being raped daily when they ventured out to gather firewood so they could cook for their children. In Mozambique I cried frustrated tears as the 12 women farmers gathered around me raised their hands in shame and in unison to indicate that every one of them was a victim of domestic violence, a crime they were campaigning to have outlawed. And yes, this was only last year.

Frostup has also transformed her anger and sense of helplessness by founding GREAT the Gender Rights and Equality Action Trust

this is not a women's issue any longer; this is a human issue. There's a new wave of support sweeping from the developed to the developing world through women joining forces and rolling up their sleeves to lend a hand. Weareequals.org is a coalition of NGOs large and small, which have joined forces to pursue gender equality as a tool for economic empowerment. Countries where girls are educated and women play their part in government are places where peace reigns and economies begin to flourish, and women are more interested in ending wars than starting them – there are endless statistics that prove this to be the reality.

Some of the statistics in Frostrup's article about the reality of women's lives globally even shocked me. Frostrup was born in Norway but has spent much of her life in the UK and what I like abotu her essay is the way she links the global statistics to local statistics in the UK and other affluent countries:

Two-thirds of children denied school are girls, 64% of the world's illiterate adults are women, 41m girls are still denied a primary education, 75% of civilians killed in war are women and children, causing Major-General Patrick Cammaert, the former UN peacekeeping commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to declare in 2008: "It is now more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in modern conflict."
These are staggering statistics, and yet not powerful enough to make arguing for women's rights a respectable pursuit, rather than the aggressive histrionics of popular perception. International Women's Day, the one day a year when we're encouraged to celebrate what we've achieved and highlight what still needs to be done, conjures less bile than the F word, but also more apathy. When women are allowed to vote, work, choose when to have babies and dress in whatever fashion pleases them, what on earth do they need their own day for as well?
The fact that 700,000 people will experience domestic violence in the UK, and 90% of them are white British females, that there are sex slaves imported daily to this country who live lives of abject terror, that equal pay is still not a reality nearly four decades after the act enshrining it was passed, that the conviction rate in rape cases still hovers around 6.5%, that only 12% of the UK's boardroom seats (as compared to Norway's 32%) are occupied by women, are just a small smattering of reasons why women's rights should remain a priority

So on March 8 this year, which will mark the 100th anniversary of international women's day, how will you be celebrating women's achievements? How will you be contributing to helping women and men lift themselves out of violence, poverty and powerlessness? Time to feel encouraged to feel that we can make a difference. Thank you Mariella for finding words, passion and commitment. Thank you for making me feel less tired and old fashioned when I say I'm a feminist and for renewing my energy, just what I needed to start this week which I shall enjoy celebrating with my sisters.

Midwifery for the barren - Advent thoughts

Midwifery for the barren

She is caught, between two men and her passion
She is caught wanting to give birth to the future
But has lost her voice
They control the money and the power
She no longer even controls her emotion

For a seemingly endless few weeks the belly of her future seemed empty
She was bereft of tomorrow
No heartbeat could be detected
But the pain and the tears...

Small everyday petty betrayal gnawed at her sense of self
Yet the depression has been a tool
And now she senses the future might once more be quickening
How to overcome her fear and midwife a future
Shining with a passion for integrity and not hatred
How to midwife a future of light and meaning

So this barren woman will bear the birthpangs
And the pushing
And the long hard labour
Yet if the men who know the joy of having children
Insist on carrying away the power as their right
The future will continue to be stillborn
And the only one to notice will be her
For they are lost in their dreams of control

She will not let her intellect be appeased
Nor her sense of humour depart
Without laughter the future will remain barren
Without joy there is no heartbeat
Even and especially the barren have a stake in the future

Throughout she will be challenged by her own preaching
And the vision she received through her tears
Only together can they do this
Only together

Will she find strength once more in generosity
And learn to go forwards, wounded but not bitter
Controlling the story … and giving it away

On being a midwife - are women really that subversive

I had a wonderful and powerful conversation with a good friend today. We talked of midwifery and the pain of our roles, trying to birth something into being and being hindered and held back, sometimes by not daring enough to be ourselves, to take on what my friend calls "our grace-filled subversive role as women". She pointed to the five women cited in Christ's genealogy in Matthew's gospel as being powerful subversive models in different sorts of ways:
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and "Miriam of Nazareth" - as my friend always calls her.

These women, inscribed through grace into the history of a male saviour, bear the future subversively, carry children in their bellies and give birth to the future despite everything - being seen as prostitutes, foreigners, wife of the wrong man, single mothers ...
Of course even the men God chooses to write salvation history through are hardly the handsome hero types - Moses has a speech impediment, David is the youngest son (and becomes more than just a bit of a philanderer), Abraham is such a man's man that he pretends his wife is his sister to get himself out of a sticky situation ... Cain kills his brother, Jacob steals his brother's blessing...

Then of course there is Joseph. If he had dared perhaps Shakespeare would have said Joseph was cuckolded by God. Earlier this week my friend challenged we female midwives to think about Joseph as a midwife, certainly as a birth attendant, at Jesus's birth. So many male partners are the only ones there to help new life into the world, to tend to the women they love at this most critical of times. Just as there are female doctors so there are also male midwives.
As we trangress and bend gender roles all of us take on some of the power of the subversives.
That subversive power is graced by God.
Happy Advent, happ waiting.

Women at the table ...

I have just returned from the installation of Rev. Martin Junge as general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. It was a lovely service, with glorious music led by Rev. Terry Macarthur, who is so full of enthusiasm and creativitiy.
One lovely moment I particularly liked was towards the beginning of the service when we sang Tenemos Esperanza. Martin left his place on the front row and came and joined us in the choir, accompanying us on his guitar and leading the singing of the tango rhythym and words in Spanish. It was good moment of the leader being one of the people, it symbolised something but it was also very authentic.
The other moment that moved me was having two women celebrating communion. There were so many women clergy and women bishops processing in alongside male colleagues. It was a colourful and heart-warming sight.
Having two women at the altar was also a real choice. On the United Nations Day for the Elimination of violence against women I was proud of Protestant churches who know that sometimes it is important to set up signs. This was one for me at least. So many photos of church events only have men on them, this said to me gently but surely, we are willing to share power, to give up power to try to begin being more fully a community of women and men together.
Earlier in the week I had listened to what I consider to be complete nonsense on the radio from some male clergy in the Church of England who were putting forward the argument that having women bishops or women clergy discouraged men from going to church. Oh dear they obviously haven't realised how much their own leadership seems for several hundred years to have discouraged men from coming to church - or maybe they haven't noticed.
Anyway this ought to be about celebration. A good, tuneful and colourful service to which some serious thought about signs and inclusiveness had been given. I felt nourished and blessed... and I so enjoyed singing such great music.
Martin also preached a great sermon which you can read here.
Oh yes and I tweeted the whole thing at http://twitter.com/oikoumene
Sorry about my dreadful typing!

Dealers in purple - a sermon

Well here is my sermon from this morning. I think I shall call it "dealers in purple". I enjoyed praeching this morning, despite my sinusitis. Sometimes things just work and this simple service marking the UN's day for the elimination of violence against women on November 25 worked well by re-using material from earlier in teh year but framing it differently

Psalm 1
Acts 16 11-15

Blessed are those who build community for they will be blessed with the future

So, Brothers and sisters, women and men
How are you feeling this morning?
Are you feeling happy - thank God it's Monday!
Like those who meditate God's law in Psalm 1 do you feel like a tree planted by a stream of water?

Perhaps not (particularly given how very cold it is in the chapel this morning)
Perhaps you are feeling fatigued
even at the beginning of the week
perhaps compassion fatigue has set in
or commitment fatigue
perhaps you are wary and weary of new campaigns and challenges.

More than 20 years ago in one of the most privileged environments in the world I experienced the awful complacency and cynicism compassion fatigue can create
I was studying theology at the University of Oxford and all students for church ministry that year were invited to an all day ecumenical seminar organized by Christian Aid (I’ll spare you the details of how much of an ecumenical achievement it was to simply get all of the denominations to agree to such a day.) We gathered for prayers, there were lectures and workshops on various issues linked to development and advocacy. All of the workshops were able to take place with one exception. Almost noone had signed up for the workshop on women and poverty - I still remember Michael Taylor then director of Christian Aid, challenging us pretty forcefully about both our understanding and our commitment. He faced us with our own smugness and complacency about political correctness. Across the world then as today, the poorest of the poor are women. Of course this doesn’t mean that there are not men living in abject poverty – unfortunately there are of course millions of men and boys suffering from the iniquities of poverty, injustice and war. For every unjustly poor man there is an even poorer woman.

A Monday morning meditation is not the place to remind you of the statistics, you can easily look them up on google yourselves. But it is not a coincidence that some of the key areas for achieving the millennium development goals have to do with women’s health and the access of girls to education.
Later this week the UN will mark once more the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. A reminder of one of the additional burdens women across the world bear.

However, before I continue in this perhaps rather ranting tone, I think I should remind myself of a couple of lines by one of my favourite poets and also invite all of us not to a rant but to a celebration:
The German poet Berthold Brecht wrote
"Even anger against injustice makes the voice grow harsh.
Alas we who wished to lay the foundations of kindness could not ourselves be kind."

Today I really don’t want my voice to grow harsh – not only because I’m nearly losing it thanks to my sinusitis. Today I want to point to the possibility and the reality of what we achieve as a community of women and men together. I don’t want to focus yet again on women as victims. I want much more to encourage us to commit to what we can do together as women and men.

Particularly this week when the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Council of Churches will mark the publication of a new book “In God’s Image From Hegemony to Partnership – a church manual promoting positive masculinities”


So with Fulata (on Friday) we looked for a positive female biblical role model who could speak to the community of women and men and we decided to choose the story of Lydia for this morning’s meditation.
The first person on the continent of Europe to become a Christian, to hear and believe in the good news is a woman – without her many of us here might never have become followers of Jesus Christ. She gave generations afterwards a future.

Lydia invites those with the message she believes in into her home, they are persuaded by her invitation.
She allows them close to her
She shares with them, together community is built

The evangelisers will move on

But one evangeliser will also stay put, in her own community, living out her baptism in her own place, converting those she comes into contact with through family life and business
Truly she is blessed with the future.

There was of course another reason Fulata and I chose Lydia
She was a dealer in purple 
Purple - the colour of the women’s movement,
the colour of nobility and royalty and riches
Was she a well off business woman or a poor worker selling on the dye she worked long hours to make? Scholars differ

When I think back to that ecumenical day in Oxford and particularly to the female colleagues I trained alongside from the Church of England, I admit to feeling a little sad and angry.

Not one of those women training with me can yet become a bishop and exercise the leadership of oversight in their church. When we were training together we still didn’t know whether they would be allowed to even become priests.
None of them can officially deal in purple yet … some have already retired before this will be possible for them.

(Perhaps I should add that I come from a church that doesn’t deal in purple for either men or women, those who exercise oversight have in recent decades included women. We did though ordain the first woman to the Christian ministry in Britain in 1917 – a year before women in that country had the vote. And just over two years ago we appointed the UK’s first woman church leader at the national level.)


All of us need to overcome fatigue and reinvigorate our commitment. One of the ways I do that is by reading detective fiction, issues seems to get resolved more finally than in some theological circles. I tend to feel that much of the best detective fiction is written by women. I was though surprised when re-reading one of my favourite authors Sara Paretsky - to find detective fiction also offering me encouragement and not just escapism:

"you must live in hope, the hope that your work can make a difference in the world."

Let us never fall into complacent fatigue
But let us never forget to celebrate what we are able to do together as women and men, men and women.

As I was thinking about some symbolic action we could all participate in together in this morning's service I realised that a really important practical thing we can commit to together would be to stand together as women and men for climate justice.

Annegret and I have prepared some of the posters and at the end of the service I invite you to hold the posters and take one another's photos with you mobile phones and cameras and then upload them to the campaign part of the WCC website as part of the photo petition. (or on facebook)
The posters read:
We Care for Creation
Climate Justice Now!
And this is my favourite, I think they used to say love your neighbour even when he plays trombone but this one says: Love your neighbour: Fight climate change

It is only by being together as the community of women and men who follow Jesus Christ that we will be able to combat climate change and so much else besides.
I pray that we may continue to build and celebrate that community.
In that way, bishops or not, we shall all exercise oversight and be dealers in purple, bearing witness to our baptism.

Blessed are those who build community
For they are blessed with the future

Amen

Reconciled diversity begins at home as we try to pick up crumbs ...

This morning the World YWCA and YMCA led the service in the chapel as they began their international week of prayer.

The service was drawn up by Terry MacArthur and Luzmarina Campos Garcia, you can find it at the end of the Week of Prayer booklets after the daily meditations. The service was a simple liturgical reflection on women building a safer world and used the encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman to focus our thoughts and prayers. She who says to Jesus but even the crumbs you might give to the puppies would be ok for me ... was it Chutzpah or humility?

Ana Vilanueva from the World YWCA danced both for mercy and with joy as we listened to music and readings from the gospel story. We received small pieces of brioche - as it came into my hand I realised I had not eaten breakfast - and we reflected on our lives in fragments, in crumbs - the bits and pieces nature of things. Later as we ate the bread we recognised the responsibility to transform even the tiniest crumb into hope.
And as I thought about the fragments and pieces of my life I realised that reconciled diversity - something we talk about so much in the ecumenical movement - it begins with me. With my ability to live with the inconsistent and jarring and lovely and loving and petty and good and laughing and weeping and clever and stupid and preachy and gentle parts of myself - and with all those pieces others are busy reconciling in their own lives...

Here is part of the text on crumbs from this morning:

Crumbs. We have so many in our lives. A crumb is a fragment of bread. A dispensable small thing that we easily throw to the dogs or in the garbage.
Have you ever felt like a crumb? Have your people felt like a crumb?
Despised, betrayed, dispensable? Have you ever treated somebody else like a crumb?

(The woman holding the crumb, takes it with the other hand and eats it) But we are not crumbs. We fight, shout, pray, get educated, hold together in the face of pain and suffering.
And we want more than crumbs. At this moment, while the crumbs come to you, you are invited to name the ways you have been overcoming fear, despair, exclusion, oppression, pain. Hold the crumb in your hands.

(after people get the crumbs)
Crumb, a dispensable small thing that in the mouth of a wise woman became an irrefutable argument changing Jesus’ way of thinking and acting. We continue being called to transform crumbs into bread, pain into company, exclusion into inclusion, oppression into liberation, despair into hope.
We are invited to eat the crumb we have in our hands as an affirmation of faith that our crumbs are being transformed into bread.

World YWCA and YMCA week of prayer - women creating a safer world

This week is the World YWCA and YMCA's week of prayer. People from the two organisaitons will lead prayers this Monday in the Ecumenical Centre.

Each day of the week there are meditations on the theme of women creating a safe world and there's a good liturgy for groups to participate in. The booklet with the thematic material also contains daily Bible readings for the whole of the year ahead to be shared with the wide constituency of the YW and YM. Two organisations doing tremendous work across the world.

You can find the material online here and I should of course declare an interest as I wrote the daily meditaions and had good fun doing so. I shall be reposting some of the material here as the week progresses. Meanwhile I look forward to praying with all working for change so as to create a safer world for women and girls, a safer world for all.

Bravery, generosity and feminist theology

Yesterday evening I came home and decided to try for something a bit more serious than the previous day's reading on theology and detective fiction (edifying though that had been).
Another of the books that arrived this week from the SCM sale is Controversies in Feminist Theology by Lisa Isherwood and the late Marcella Althaus-Reid.
As I read I was moved to find two writers putting so succinctly things I have not actively tried to express myself. I "recognised" something of myself in what they write. It was like an ache I hadn't realised I had suddenly no longer being there, yet the ache was in some way replaced by a deep longing and also some sadness. The resonance with their thoughts did me good - the life of the mind can be healing even when it rouses painful emotions.
Then this afternoon a colleague came to see me, a person so wonderfully centred and clear about her role and convictions. We talked about a publication project and I mentioned my reading from the previous evening. She had known Althaus-Reid, studied with and been inspired by her. We spoke about difficulties and motivations, about bravery and tears being the source of strenght. We spoke also of future projects, things we wanted to write, people we wanted to get to write and the idea of having a feminist theology lunch. When she left she said "As Marcella said 'our work continues'". It was a strange sort of blessing but I recognise it for the benediction it was - our work continues. Ah the generosity of a conversation.

So here are a few bits and pieces from the introduction to controversies in feminist theology which resonated particularly with me - not even for reasons I can clearly state, they simply "echoed" with me as the French would have it.

"What feminist theologies offer, when we get it right, are a political challenge to a world that believes, or large parts seem to, that democracy once decided on can be exported with bombs and repression for the good of all. Freedom through death is a concept feminist theologies gave up on long ago! For feminist theologies, democracy means that controversy will remain at the heart of what we do and that it will fuel us to greater engagement with a world in need of our passion. Our ability to live with disunity is our greatest strength and our greatest question remains how to have the disputes, not whether to have them.
Feminists have always been brave women; they have and do put their lives on the line for the debate to be opened or to continue. Most of us are never asked to actually lay down our lives but we do have to show bravery in the way in which we continue to question and not hide behind either moral certainty or the morality that calls some not to offend the many. We need to be brave in continually questioning our own thoughts and keeping those too open to the unfolding future; a future that 'takes place every time a possibility is imagined, a collective self reflection takes place, a dispute over values, priorities and language emerges' ...Feminist theologies arise from the the lives of allwomen and are aimed at expanding those lives through justice-seeking and right-relation, this is an embodied activity which loses all credibility when confined to the page."

I cried, perhaps with recognition or something else, as I read that last night and tears fell this evening again as I typed these words.

A day of blessings and presents

Today was my first day back at work after three weeks away. It was great to meet up with colleagues again and to start the week back in the chapel. As always though after a long holiday there is the slight feeling of re-entry, so I was extraordinarily blessed to return to my office after lunch and discover a card, a huge purple flowering orchid and a great new handbag. To then discover that these presents were from female colleagues at the World YWCA was like an added blessing of sisterly solidarity.

In just over a month the World YWCA and YMCA will holday their annual week of prayer

This year’s YWCA/YMCA Week of Prayer will be held from the November 14 to 20, 2010 . The theme is ‘Women Creating a Safe World,’ which is also the theme of the World YWCA Council and International Women’s Summit to be held in Zurich, Switzerland, in July 2011. The International Women’s Summit will explore the intersection between violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights and the spread of HIV. The theme celebrates women as leaders and co-creators of life everyday. In the company of many faith traditions, Christianity explores and affirms the role of women in creation, nurturing life and reaching out to the other.

I was asked to write six daily meditations for the week which you can find by scrolling down and clicking on the week of prayer booklet link here. And here are the themes for the six days:

Day one: Blessed are those who risk, for they shall be offered safety
Day two: Blessed are those who refuse to violate women, for they
have chosen life
Day three: Blessed are those who recognise and value the unique
talents of others, for they shall succeed
Day four: Blessed are those who raise their voices for health justice,
they shall be heard
Day Five: Blessed are those who build community, for they will be
blessed with belonging 13
Day Six: Blessed are those who dare to change, for they shall be
blessed with the future

Here is the meditation from day two, you'll have to go to the booklet for the questions and prayer. And thanks once more to my wonderful colleagues at the World YWCA for their generosity, support, creativity and leadership. This week they mark their week without violence.

Blessed are those who refuse to violate women, for they have chosen life
But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. (Judges 19:25)
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

The Bible text in Judges 19:22-30 tells a terrible story of gang rape. Do the men inside the house listen to the woman's screams as they last through the night or do they sleep? Do they pray for her or for themselves? Do they fear that she may not make it through the night and that the gang will come back to use them in the same way? If the gang comes knocking again, should they offer the virgin daughter of the host in order to protect their male honour?

Well, she was only a concubine. Not a real wife. And she's only a woman…

As terrible as the shrieks and violence during rape may be, terrifying too is the silence often imposed on women - by others or by themselvesafterwards.
Dare we speak and name what has happened?

There is a thumping sound next door, muffled shouts and cries. My neighbour is hitting his oldest daughter. He has been drinking. She is pregnant. How will his sons learn that this is not the way to treat the women in their lives?

And it's called "domestic violence" as if it were something tame. It is not.

The word "home" sounds so safe yet it can be a place of terror for many women.
To "choose life" is to campaign against everything that treats women as objects rather than as equal human beings. Choosing life is about longterm work with individuals, families and societies which examines the root causes of violence in sexism and the feelings of disempowerment.

Across generations, class, race and nations it is time to clearly say that violence in the private sphere is also unacceptable. We have the right to be safe in our homes. We choose life.

La rebelle - a bottle of wine in the feminist tradition

I said it would take at least 10 posts to begin to do justice to our feminist theology evening last night and I sense that I am probably going to run out of energy before I get to the end of what I want to say - unlike our brilliant 89 year old speaker Jacqueline Berenstein Wavre.

We always give our speakers a present to say thank you for their time and last night Ria carefully included a bottle of local pinot noir wine from this vinyard which celebrates local Genevan and Swiss personalities for it various "cuvées".

La rebelle is the female rebel and as soon as Jacqueline received it she started to talk to us about Emilie Gourd in whose memory it is named. I did not know that Gourd had founded an early feminist journal called "le mouvement féministe" in 1912. It will celebrate its 100 anniversary in just under two years. The journal has gone through problems in recent years as has much print media but is continuing with a web presence which I think I may have manged to track down here.

As is often the case when you remember one person from the past you also recall others and speaking about Emilie Gourd prompted Jacqueline to talk to us also about her friend Jeanne Hersch, who had been a close friend of her husband's and a passionate defender of human rights.
So much to learn about about women's history, so much to read, so much to be enlivened by ... just like good rebellious wine!

"La Rebelle" rend hommage à Emilie Gourd, Genevoise qui se battra toute sa vie pour la condition féminine. Ce n’est qu’en 1960, quatorze ans après sa mort, que son rêve se réalise enfin : le droit de vote est accordé aux citoyennes genevoises.

Between the past and the present, live in the present

Jacqueline Berenstein Wavre is pictured here speaking to us at our first evening of feminist theology for the new year. She chose words from Judges 6.14 - the vocation of Gideon - as her leitmotif for the evening - somehow I find this works and resonates much better in French than in English "Va avec la force que tu as". "Go in the strength you have" really doesn't have quite the same élan at all!

She used this phrase to talk about her life and political campaigns - about which more in a later post - but also more particularly to speak abotu what she had discovered really quite late on in life through attending our feminist theology group. "I'm not a theologian but I do have a Bible at home" she said.

Surprisingly it was an evening with Armenian Orthodox theologian Teny Pirri Simonian which gave her most pause for thought. Until then Jacqeuline admits to never having thought much about the Holy Spirit. Thinking about the spirit helped Jacqueline to look at her own life through a rather different lens and consider the energy that drove her forwards and sustained her. None of the campaigns she was involved in were won quickly. Still today she is living proof of extraordinary tenacity.

I was deeply moved to hear Jacqueline speak about her husband, whom she married when she was 40 and who was a secular Jew. He was a lawyer and Jacqueline spoke about how important law is in Judaism and how important faith is in Christianity - in French of course this has the lovely assonance of "loi et foi". In our wide ranging discussion following her presentation I mentioned that the festival of the law in Judaism was taken over in Christianity as the festival of the Spirit - Pentecost.

Et Dieu créa la femme - an amazing evening at feminist theology ...

It will take me about ten posts to begin to try to communicate the sheer joy and energy that I felt after last night's first feminist theology session of the new season.

Ria van Beek had the brilliant idea that we should invite Jacqueline Berenstein Wavre to speak to our group. A few years ago Jacqueline, a famous local Swiss politician and women's rights activist turned up to our group and we felt very honoured. She was genuinely interested in learning more about the faith into which she had been baptised and the idea of feminist theology was quite new to her when we began our francophone group about 5 years ago.
Anyway I shall begin with the ending, here is Jacqueline putting on her her coat at the end of the evening and showing us that even her coat has a feminist message - "And God created woman... " Et Dieu créa la femme - the infamous Brigitte Bardot movie!
"So, Jacqueline" I said - after teasing her for being a socialist and wearingis this designer model coat - "is this coat a few years old?" "oh a bit more than that - I inherited it from one of my sisters in law!" and then she proudly displayed the taped repairs she had made "about 10 years ago"! Twirling like a young woman at least 70 years younger as she did so.

I came home last night feeling truly privileged to have been able to listen in quite intimate circumstances to an extraordinary woman talk about her life and times, her convictions, questions and also of course her current campaigns.
Jacqueline is 89 years young, full of life and the most wonderful example of tenacity and vivacity. She also spoke extremely powerfully about faith and law and the Holy Spirit, more on that in another post very soon I promise.
Ah yes and Jacqueline in on Facebook and also has a blog!

a press release about the 7 deadly sins of women in leadership

7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership: Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviour in Work and Ministry (author Kate Coleman)

Prominent Christian woman leader reveals ‘7 Deadly Sins’ of women leaders in new book launched in Birmingham this Saturday (September 11th 2010)

Leadership mentor Kate Coleman, the first black woman Baptist minister in the UK, has written a new book highlighting specific self-defeating behaviours, ‘7 deadly sins’, women in leadership need to avoid regardless of their profession or calling.

In 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership: Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviour in Work and Ministry, Revd Dr Kate Coleman, a former President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, suggests that rather than sloth, greed and gluttony, deadly sins for women leaders include ‘Limiting self-perceptions’, ‘Failure to draw the line’ and ‘Inadequate personal vision’.

“For the first time in modern history, God is placing women in strategic positions of influence and leadership within the church, public, corporate, charity and voluntary sectors, in unprecedented numbers,” says Coleman. “Women are called to flourish in these arenas. However, there are significant external and internal issues that hinder women in leadership in unique ways.” (Kate Coleman in 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership)

In 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership, which receives its official launch in Birmingham this coming Saturday (11 September), Kate Coleman considers what lies at the root of the many challenges facing women leaders and discusses ways of dealing with them including, adjusting how you see yourself, establishing boundaries, developing a tailor-made personal vision and cultivating a healthy work-life rhythm.

The book is based on a leadership development programme designed by Kate Coleman and delivered through Next Leadership, of which she is founder and director. Kate has extensive experience of mentoring leaders from across all sectors and also advises and supports pastors and churches. Next Leadership was established in order to develop and equip leaders from diverse arenas.

Author, speaker, broadcaster and President of Tearfund, Elaine Storkey describes 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership as “A 'must read' book for anyone in leadership, including those who wonder how they got there!.. It's rare to find such careful research, gripping narrative and positive mentoring all in one book. I loved it!” Kay Chaldecott, Managing Director of Capital Shopping Centres also adds, “I would recommend this book to all women at any stage of their leadership journey...”
Kate Coleman believes that the book, now available from Next Leadership.org, Amazon and other online stockists, will also appeal to many men in leadership and any woman in leadership, regardless of whether they are on a Christian faith journey or not. “This book will enable all women to identify and overcome self-defeating patterns of behaviour, in ways that will radically transform their leadership capabilities,” she says.

ENDS

Note to Editor

7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership: Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviour in Work and Ministry is published by Next Leadership Publishing and is available at £14.99 from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, TheBookDepository.co.uk, WHSmith.co.uk, GardenersBooks.com, neilsen.co.uk
The official launch of the book will take place at Anthony Collins Solicitors in Birmingham on Saturday 11 September at 10:30 am.
The ‘7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership’ featured in the book are Limiting self-perceptions, Failure to draw the line, Inadequate personal vision, Too little life in the work, Everybody’s friend, nobody’s leader, Colluding and not confronting and Neglect in family matters.

About the Author

Kate Coleman is founder and director of Next Leadership and a former President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. She was the first black woman Baptist minister in the UK with over 25 years of leadership experience, including 24 years as a Baptist minister. Kate is widely recognised as ‘one of the most influential black Christian women leaders in the UK’ (Keep the Faith magazine). She has extensive experience of mentoring, advising and supporting pastors, churches and leaders from across all sectors. Kate is a popular speaker and leadership consultant and has made numerous contributions to magazines, books and journals. ‘7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership’ is her first solo publication.

For more information and to interview Kate Coleman please contact Cham Kaur-Mann on 07886 633831.

Florence Nightingale as theologian and Liverpool's lady chapel exhibition

The Lady Chapel at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral is currently housing an exhibiton by Alice Lenkiewicz on "noble women" - noble women is the theme of the women celebrated in the Lady Chapel's windows. I'm reading about them thanks to this great little book. One of the few working class women celebrated in the windows is Kitty Wilkinson who promoted practical hygiene and education in a selfless way. A statue of her is due to be erected. Kitty's story is less well-known than the story of Grace Darling pictured here or than Florence Nightingale whose legacy is better known and is also being highlighted this year as the 100th anniversary of her death is marked.

Nightingale was particularly remembered at the service in the Cathedral we attended - 13 August is the day she is remembered in the Anglican calendar. There is an excellent article by Rachael Kohn on Nightingale 's theology on the ABC religion and ethics site here.
Because my own view of Nightingale is so influenced by childhood tales of her heroic hospital reform in Scutari, I remained fairly ignorant about her theological writing. Judging by Kohn's piece it sounds as if I would have had much in common with her thinking - a deep spiritual longing combined with a broad church approach to understanding God.

"You say that mystical or spiritual religion is not enough for most people without outward form ... For myself, the mystical or spiritual religion as laid down by John's Gospel, however imperfectly I have lived up to it, was and is enough."

Kohn's piece is based on Val Webb's book Florence Nightingale: the making of a Radical Theologian (Chalice Press, 2002).
Perhaps one day hundreds of years into the future there will be other windows in other cathedrals depicting wonderful women - be they noble or not. Most of the "nobility" celebrated in the Liverpool windows was not so well behaved. Most of the women had to transgress to get anywhere ... this makes them a hard act to follow.

Congratulations to our friend Karin Achtelstetter - new general secretary of WACC

Exactly 6 months ago today our good friend Karin Achtelstetter was ordained in the chapel of the ecumenical centre. That was the night Dr B was taken to hospital ...
Today the news that Karin will be moving to Toronto to take up the position as general secretary the World Association of Christian Communication. Congratulations Karin. Delighted for you, pleased to see a woman appointed to a leadership position.
Sad of course to lose you from Geneva and already in October 1st but looking forward to coming to Toronto to see you there. Good luck and Gottes Segen!

10 reasons why men should not be ordained

Hat-tip to my colleague John Baxter-Brown who posted the link to Theopoetic musings10 reasons why men shouldn't be ordained. Here are the first 5 - and of course I take these no more seriously than if the word "woman" replaced the word "man".

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.