Thinking About Femininity and Spirituality

As we dive into the topic of gender and spirituality, I should say that I am not thinking about sexuality or how to discuss what it means to be partnered well. Sexuality and sexual orientation brings with it a different set of questions and issues that deserve a good amount of space and time to sort through and think about but, again, that is not what I want to discuss. Instead, I'm more concerned with societal, media, and discipleship norms. Regardless of who we are and how we locate ourselves in the world, we all take in and respond in various ways to these outward influences in our lives.

The biggest issue is that whenever spirituality is discussed, the first order question is really about one's personal experience and that that experience is inexplicably linked to these outward influences. Thus, when talking about gender and spirituality, we sometimes talk about how we feel or what we have experienced, while at other times we may start with what we were taught to think of as normative. This is the point of discernment, rejection, integration, congruence, and/or differentiation. I would argue that a healthy spirituality can hold all of these various stages and suspicions; rebellions and reversals; conversions and commitments.

When I think about my own faith I realize that I am in it for the long haul. Faith, Hope, and Love in the Triune God of the Christian faith has been and is my home. Because I believe in a God who created all things and has been, is, and will be that same God for all time, I really think a little criticism of how we practice our spirituality is truly worth our time. Plus, it will do little to change God, but it will change our experience. Again, well worth our time for we are the church today...

With all of that said, here are a few articles and videos about body, femininity, and spirituality. Not all of these are meant to be directly spiritual, but all are connected to an embodied way of being.

1) First up is an op-ed found in the NYTimes this weekend that I found provocative. It is by an Psychiatrist that is frustrated how over medicated women in America are, and what this says about what it means to be a woman in our culture: Dr. Julie Holland, "Medicating Women's Feelings." (She is the author of Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You are Taking, The Sleep You're Missing, The Sex You're Not Having, and What's Really Making You Crazy.)

2) Second is a funny video that goes with the first ... This is from That Mitchell and Webb Look, because it is funny and it gets at something in our culture ... 



3) Third is the upcoming workshop happening at The Seattle School this weekend: Redeeming Food and Body. I don't think this is a particularly female issue though it does seem to reek more havoc with and in women's bodies. Kate Sweet, one of our grads, is one of the facilitators. Kate focused much of her integrative project on Michelle Lelwica's work around eating disorders and spirituality. If you are interestsed in this subject, check out Lelwica's Starving For Salvation: The Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Problems Among American Girls and Women.

4) Fourth, Nuns and Oblates! I wrote a blog post recently on Sister Joan Chittister on her views regarding the place of women in the Catholic Church, check it out. I also just ran across a fun little article in The Atlantic about Europe's last Brewmaster Nun, Sister Doris Engelhard. And a nod of the hat has to go to Kathleen Norris, who is a benedictine oblate. Her book The Cloister Walk came at a pivotal time in my spirituality, giving me new language for prayer, spirituality, creativity, poetry, the prophetic, and femininity. She helped me with language around a more embodied spirituality that helped me to embrace both my deep sense of faith and practice and, in many ways, my deep sense of betrayal that I felt from and through the spiritual tradition in which I was raised and discipled. I have experienced over the years that God endures even past our frustrations and critiques. Plus, in the process, we might even realize that there are many good gifts that have been given and received along the way.

5) Rachel Held Evans. I think she is the current voice of (post)Evangelical women. Her current book is Searching For Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church. The other voice that many of my friends and students turn to is Lauren Winner. She teaches at Duke Divinity School and is also a memoirist. She has a book coming out later this month, Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God.

6) And, Tina Fey, just because ....

Of course there are many more things, videos, etc. that we could look at along the way. My list is not very diverse. Other things to add?