Emerging Women

Well, one problem with being a book lover and the mom of a toddler is that books suddenly disappear when you are about use them, and so this post isn’t going to have any quotes. I hope if you’ve had a chance to dip into the book you’ve found some gems of your own, and please feel free to share any that inspire you!

In the latter part of the book, Karol talks about the breakup of the old order, with its imposition of sameness, at the cost of individuality and the voices of the sisters. She describes the crisis of community that occurred when after years of oppression, the freedom to dissent suddenly arose, causing the foundations of friendship, sisterhood and solidarity to be shaken, and the cost both of that oppression, and the pain of its lifting after being normative for so long.

1. Where is your community at in the process of valuing the voicing of its members, even when it means the loss of uniformity?

2. What is your community doing or not doing to foster an environment where people are/feel loved and safe enough to stretch beyond comfort zones to include the Other, even when the other is the person in the next seat or pew?

3. Describe a time you took a risk and voiced a dissenting opinion about theology, community or spiritual life? What was it like?

4. Describe a time you did not voice a dissenting a opinion, but felt one? What was it like?

5. Describe a time when someone else’s dissenting opinion felt threatening to you? What was it like?

6. What is your heart’s urgent prayer for the church/God’s people?

I’ve started the new (to me) spiritual discipline of lectio divina for personal spiritual formation in conjunction with a project related to grad school, and it made made realize how my spiritual disciplines are awfully mundane now that I’ve been introduced to so many throughout the church’s 2000 year of history of them.

I wanted to see what are your favorite spiritual disciplines?

(If your interested in learning more— Tony Jones wrote an AWESOME, down to earth, and helpful book/handbook I’ve been enjoying called “The Scared Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life”.)

Which ones do you practice or enjoy?

One of the main themes that emerges in this book is the issue of blind obedience. We have suffered so much for being/not being blindly obedient to our churches, to theologies, to authorities who come in the name of God, be they spiritual or political. I love Sister Karol’s voice because she offers a third way: that of sensing the voice of God in our authorities and in ourselves, our peers and those whom we influence as authorities.

Karol Jackowski writes,

“It’s not that I didn’t believe sister Beatrice’s [her superior] voice was the of God — I did. But I also believed that we too speak with the voice of God, and listening to what we had to say was an important part of being obedient.” (p 149)

And,

“Nothing is more deadly to the holy spirit of community that silencing the divine voice of i
ts members, because it’s then that we silence the voice of God.” (p150)

1. What has been your experience with blind obedience?

A. Are you by nature a white sheep who tends to follow blindly, even to the slaughter?
B. Are you a black sheep who tends to buck anything that smells faintly like authority?

2. What ideas do you have for how we can listen to the voice of God in all people? What practices and methods of discernment help root you and your community, if you have on, in the Spirit as you seek to listen to the voice of God in authority, in yourself and in all who travel side by side or in your care on the path?

I recently had the opportunity to review two new books by women that I wanted to mention to the community here.

First from well known speaker Nancy Ortberg is Looking for God: An Unexpected Journey Through Tattoos, Tofu, & Pronouns (Tyndale, March 2008). Consisting of series of essays, this book explores the diverse ways we can encounter God and be moved to serve him. My review is here.

Then there is Susan McLeod-Harrison’s Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Mends A Divide (Barclay Press, Feb. 2008). This book explores the ways in which the church has hurt women and the biblical hope that can be found instead. My review can be found here.

I appreciated both books for their unique perspectives. Neither book is written just for women, but I found that authors’ have messages that can reach out to women. Just wanted to pass on the info – enjoy!

By Sister Karol Jackowsky

I picked this book because although it tells the somewhat unique and quasi-esoteric story of a young woman becoming a nun in the sixties, its deeper theme is about the relationships between laughter and spirituality, blind obedience v.s authenticity, finding sisterhood in the face of oppression, and what it means for spiritual pilgrims — and the church — to both catch up with the changes in the world and find a new identity as a lover of God in this new world.

Although Forever And Ever, Amen,is the story of Sister Karol Jackowski’s coming of age as a nun during the sixties, when, as a result of the second Vatican council, Catholicism and its religious orders were as scented with change as the flower children, change did not arrive *quite* in time for Karol’s early training as a Postulate and a Novice.

Sister Karol writes hilariously of her party days in high school, her calling, and its consequences, the mischief common among the ranks of nuns-in-training — and even amongst certain nuns-in-waiting –at-God’s doorstep — all amidst a quickly changing world and a church trying to catch up and then figure out its identity in the aftermath of change.

Here are some quotes to spike the discussion:

“I partied so heartily in high school that I earned the nickname “Suds” in my sophomore year because of my capacity to drink.
I loved high school because of the friends and fun I found there; it was my first taste of what I now know as sisterhood.” (p8)

“…I don’t have an undisciplined prayer life. I have a playful God.” (p84)

“I learned to keep still in the postulate, and in the silence I began to discover my real voice, the inner voice, the writing voice, the voice of God. With everything suddenly taken away in the beginning, we reached a soulful impasse that through us back onto ourselves, stimulating the impulse for reflection and watering the seeds of consciousness..” (p 71)

1. What do these or any other ideas in the book bring up for you?

2. How does this woman’s story connect with your story?

3. What do you see as spiritual interplay between rule following and (holy?) rule breaking in a healthy spiritual life?

At what point does doubt slide into some form of agnosticism or deism? Is it possible to be a Christian if you’re not even sure if God exists?

I ask because I’m becoming less and less certain of my beliefs. Most days, I’m relatively sure that there is *something* out there…but not always. And often I can’t say whether that *something* is God as we think of him/her. I just don’t know. Strangely, this isn’t a disturbing thing to me in most situations. Although it can become a little awkward when other Christians attempt to convince me of X by pointing out bible verses or saying, “the church teaches….”

To me, those sort of arguments are beginning to make about as much sense as attempting to prove that Santa exists because his name was on some of the presents under Johnny and Sarah’s Christmas tree last December.

A Zen Christian Poem

By Jemila Kwon