Tag Archives: women

A Prayer for International Women’s Day

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Current Events, Pop, Social Justice

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Mother God-

As the sun breaks the bounds of the horizon, we celebrate the limitations broken by women in our world.

From work in humanities to the hours spent researching in labs, we honor the gifts of women throughout this world. May they continue to see wisdom and knowledge that comes from you.

We celebrate and bless women’s agency – especially regarding health care and careers. May they work with you to discover the best path for their own lives.

We continue to work for equal pay and health care for women. Continue to transform our hearts to see women as beams of strength and courage.

Bless the ones who are mothers and those who mother. Heal the hearts of the ones who hurt from not yet being a mom. Bless all older and younger and middle age. Bless transgender women and the ones who love women. May they live into your calling – even when that means both career and motherhood, and may we as a world honor and create roads for their sacred paths.

The possibilities of their work are endless, God of Love. Clear paths and open the souls in our world so that your light can be seen beaming from them.

Amen.

1 Corinthians 13 for Me

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Life, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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In an effort to promote an authentic and healthy love of self as many of us fail to do, I’ve taken 1 Corinthians 13 and made it into a statement that a person can speak to themselves.

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I could speak or write brilliantly in the language of humans and heavenly beings, but let’s be honest – if I do not have love for myself, all my words are just a bunch of noise.

And if I seek justice and peace for the world, and understand all and know all, and if I have an amazing faith on paper, which may look like I could move mountains,
ALL OF THIS…
But
do NOT love myself – you know, the unconditional way that God loves me –
my work is empty… even hypocritical.

If I give away all I own to appear as a fabulous philanthropist,
and if I dress up my body so that I may boast that I look young or hot,
but do not have genuine self-love of my essence and soul, I gain nothing.

Loving myself through all my errors takes patience.
Loving myself means that I am required to be kind to myself.

Healthy love of self doesn’t mean that I’m envious of others (which I am quite often).
It does not allow me to brag over and over of my accomplishments or become arrogant and rude to prove that I am better than others.

Love of self absolutely can not be shadowed in shallowness,
and it requires me to reflect when I’m irritable or resentful of someone else’s accomplishments or celebrations.

This unconditional love does not allow me to rejoice when someone else errs, and it leaves no space for me to berate myself when I make a mistake.

It rejoices in what is best for everyone.

In order for my soul to thrive, true love of self will seek help when life is harsh.
It believes that anything is possible.
It continues to hope for all things
It endures when love seems present no where else.

Authentic love for myself is meant to be permanent and eternal.

But as for the work I do, it will eventually come to an end as my body ages or my mind falls away.
As for the brilliant language that I write or speak- it’s all going to cease.
As for knowledge that I possess here on this side of heaven, it will come to an end.

Let’s face it, now I see myself and God and others only in part. All I do will always fall short because of that partial view I have.
But when the complete comes somewhere on that side of heaven, the partial will come to an end.
The complete view of me and God and others and the universe will be all I can see.

I remember when I was a teen. I spoke like a teen, and I thought like a teen.
I reasoned like a teen.
I was disgusted by myself the way a teen would be.
Since becoming an adult,
I’ve been working on not to look at myself the same way I did at 14.

For I must remember that I see myself in a dim, cloudy, foggy mirror.
But someday, somewhere I will see the true view of my face and heart and soul.
For I must remember that right now I only myself in part-
But at some point I will know fully, even as God knows and loves me fully.

When nothing goes right and the world seems hopeless and I’m thinking so little of myself, I must remember that these three pieces are my foundation:
faith, hope, and love.

And even when faith in myself weakens and hope for the future wanes, God’s authentic, unconditional love for me will guide me back to where I need to be.

RevGalBlogPals Post- The Dangerous Theology of Women, Bodies and Pain

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in Health, Life, Pop, Religion

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Recently, I read The Week’s article “The female price of male pleasure” by Lili Loofbourow. The article speaks of the pain many women endure as collateral for men’s gratification. Loofbourow states “Women are enculturated to be uncomfortable most of the time. And to ignore their discomfort.” She continues by noting “The real problem isn’t that we – as a culture – don’t sufficiently consider men’s biological reality. The problem is rather that theirs is literally the only biological reality we ever bother to consider.”

Many of us women have adapted to a culture of pain. In exercise, terms like “No pain, no gain” become mottos by which we live. Like the article mentioned, many of us become accustomed to beauty regiments that require some discomfort. From waxing and plucking to wearing high heels and waist trainers, becoming conditioned to wear these items in order to become attractive and find a partner is common.

From the time we were young women, a number of us have endured physical anguish each month with our periods. When this pain became excruciating through diseases like endometriosis, some doctors would just dismiss the woman and tell her that it’s normal. And like The Week article notes, numerous women endure pain with sex. Yet only 393 clinical trials study women’s painful sex, seeming extremely sparse compared to the 1,943 studies which exist for erectile dysfunction.

In the article, Loofbourow said “Women have spent decades politely ignoring their own discomfort and pain to give men maximal pleasure.” Except that this goes beyond one or two generations and a few decades.

Pieces of scripture have allowed for this narrative throughout the past two or three millennia. Some of our Christian narratives do not help our efforts to live a low-pain existence. Our faith tradition is rooted in an origin story in which the first female human is cursed to moments of pain for the choice she made.

To read the rest of the article, visit  The Pastoral Is Political: The Dangerous Theology of Women, Bodies and Pain

A Prayer in the Face of Misogyny

18 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Pop

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God, you’ve seen the way the Bible has twisted the lives of Eve and Vashti and Tamar and Mary Magdalene…

And you see how the stories and images of women are twisted today.

We are tired, Mother God.

We are tired of the b-word and the frequent use of the words “whore” and “slut.” We are tired when people in power obviously work to intimidate us more than the men in our lives. We are tired when we are spoken over or told how we should feel. We are tired when we speak out and not believed. We are tired when our sheroes are attacked with greater fervor than the men who hold power. We are tired wheb being refused jobs because of gender (because, let’s face it, our reproductive organs have nothing to do with our qualifications). We are tired of the shame that comes with being born a daughter of Eve.

We are tired that Mother is not a good enough title for you, God.

We are tired of the little comments made to us or about us that make us feel less than human. We are tired of the larger ways our bodies and our accomplishments are tossed aside or belittled. Our energy is spent in ensuring that humanity sees us with the same dignity as cisgender men. Our sisters of color and our transgender siblings must spend even more of their spirits than we who are white women trying to achieve this dignity.

We are exhausted to hear how we should be grateful for the crumbs that have been scattered for us.

Crumbs are no longer enough. We are more than b*tches and whores and ditzes and witches. We will speak out when our voices are ignored, and we will no longer keep our stories silent.

We are worth every single piece of energy you used to mold us in your image. We are your children and deserve the inheritance of your kin-dom on earth as much as our male siblings.

You stand on the side of justice, and one day we will be equal in the eyes of our neighbors just like we are equal in your eyes.

Amen.

April, Fiona, and the People We Are Missing

29 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Current Events, Pop, Pop Culture, Social Justice

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pexels-photo-83901This article was originally published at the SONKA UCC blog.

Like much of the greater Cincinnati area, I’ve been following the progress of the young hippopotamus Fiona. It’s amazing and inspirational to see her improvement each week. Likewise, I pop in to see how the gestational period of April the giraffe is progressing. It’s a nice distraction from the tough stories we read about in the news or the difficulties in our own lives.

But as we focus our attention on April and Fiona, what is going on with the stories we don’t hear much about?

The other day, I saw a story on how 14 young women of color went missing in the Washington D.C. area in one day. The information was not correct. However, as solid facts became more visible, we still see a pattern of young people (especially women) of color disappearing in the area. While the numbers have been decreasing in the past couple of years, there is still concern for the number of women of color who are missing.

Assumptions are made on their disappearance, believing that they ran away instead of considering that something more sinister is happening, like kidnapping and human trafficking. If the young women did run away, some have not been investigating why they left as there could be abuse in the home. Little media attention has been given to the issue – especially if the missing person is a person of color.

While the false claims of the initial post drew me into the conversation, as I did more investigating online, I still noticed that young women of color were still not given the media attention they deserved.

And while I love to see hippo Fiona making progress and giraffe April waiting to have her calf, our call is to make certain that news stories about marginalized human beings have just as much media attention.

Do we pay more attention to animals and some human beings of privilege than other human beings in our society? Do people who are marginalized feel like the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7, just wanting the equivalent of attention to their well-being as we give Fiona the hippo or April the giraffe?

What can we do to be an active part of making people aware of critical issues? First and foremost, we work to ensure that we are following and reposting information that is factual.  Secondly, we post information that can raise awareness of issues of groups of people who have been largely ignored by news stories. We talk about these issues in our worship services and in other faith formation opportunities in our congregations. Third, we work to remove our own biases to see that humans very different than us are experiencing real challenges in their lives that we cannot understand. We avoid assuming that their behaviors are done out of defiance and rebelliousness and, instead, ask for investigations into why they are missing or leaving home.

It’s a wonderful break from the ugliness in our world to see Fiona growing and April about to give birth. But through social media and our networks, we are given the opportunity to discover what is going on with our sisters and brothers on this earth and work to guarantee that they are treated as we would want to be treated. Young women of color’s lives matter, they are children of God and made in God’s image.