Sarah Holst’s art and reflection is the second installment on our monthly bad-ass biblical women series. If you would like to contribute to the series, email lydiaiwk@gmail.com.
By Sarah Holst
Last year I attended a workshop led by Onleilove Alston on her work uncovering and uplifting the Black Presence in the Bible. She spoke about the Black Madonna and the importance of reading Mary of Nazareth in the context of her economic, political and cultural setting: a very young woman with brown skin, turned-out, looked-over, and, as poet Kathleen Norris puts it, “capable of walking the hill country of Judea and giving birth in a barn.” This is the historical Mary that was called to participate in liberation and redemption, smuggling God into the world inside of her body.
Girls hold certificates stating their new official names during a renaming ceremony in Satara, India, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Almost 300 Indian girls known officially as “Unwanted” have traded their birth names for a fresh start in life. Given names like “Nakusa” or “Nakushi” _ or “unwanted” in Hindi _ they grew up understanding they were a burden in families that preferred boys in Maharashtra state. (AP Photo)
This month, we are beginning a year long monthly series on biblical women. Women from around Turtle Island will be honoring the women in scripture with poetry, art, storytelling, and love. This month, Joyce Hollyday starts the series with Jephthah’s daughter. If you are interested in contributing to the series, email lydiaiwk@gmail.com.
By Joyce Hollyday
Judges 11:29-40
Her name is lost to us—excised by the male chroniclers of faith history who understood that to name something was to give it power. And she was about as powerless as anyone could be. Jephthah’s daughter. Young, naïve, and female. Defined, possessed, and controlled by a violent and volatile warrior-father who ended her life in a ritual murder.
So, why launch a series on biblical women with such a tragic tale? Because Jephthah’s daughter is with us still. Her story is present among us in every form of male control: in the assumption that those of us who marry men will take their names and those who choose women must be “set straight”; in domestic violence and discriminatory pay; in denial of education and forced child marriages; in genital mutilation, sexual slavery, and female infanticide. Continue reading “Sacrificed: The Story of Jephthah’s Daughter”→
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. First published on Geez’s blog.
The sun hits my face hard as I listen to the water from the fountain. As I look up and around, I am aware how little this downtown resembles the city I know anymore. The faces are all young and white (not unlike my own) playing beach ball, listening to live bands, sipping mid-day cocktails, and eating from food trucks. I look down at the 25 black bodies lying on the cement draped with signs and names of those killed at the hands of the police. On my lap sits the one-and-a-half year old who is my constant companion and teacher these days. He watches intently holding an air of seriousness in his body. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Speaking Truth to Innocence”→
In patriarchal culture males are not allowed simply to be who they are and to glory in their unique identity. Their value is always determined by what they do. In an anti-patriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved. bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004)
—————– Lydia Wylie-Kellermann and Tommy Airey, co-editors of RadicalDiscipleship.Net & “backdoor neighbors” in Detroit, are both white and both come up solid INFJs on the Myers-Briggs personality test. When it comes to the Enneagram, Lydia is a 2 with a 3 wing. Tommy is a 3 with a 2 wing. But the similarities may end there. Lydia grew up in Detroit, is in a traditional same-sex marriage, the mother of a 2-year-old, a disciple of the Harry Potter series, an avid gardener and knitter. Tommy grew up in suburban Southern California, is scandalously married to a former student, an avid distance runner and starts every morning sipping on home-roasted coffee, journaling and reading the sports page and academic theology. Below is the transcript of an eDialogue we recently had on the current state of North American masculinity.
—————— TA: I’m not sure if you are familiar with Jim Harbaugh (photo above: in a recent game of shirts and skins). He might be the most popular white guy in Michigan right now. The University of Michigan recently signed him to a $7 million per year contract to be their football coach. He’s coaching football clinics all over North America to try to recruit the best players to play in your native Michigan. I came across this quote last week: Continue reading “The Good News on Masculinity: There is Another Way”→
To achieve healing and hope for the Mennonite Church through the inclusion and welcome of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and their supporters. Pink Menno Vision Statement
“I love nature. Nature is cool. The forest is my classroom. The earth is my school. Trees are my teachers. Animals are my friends. And on this school all life depends.” Joe Reilly, I Love Nature
Isaac tiptoes through the forest, climbing over fallen branches and stopping to smell each flower. We follow behind delighting in the comfort he finds in the place. Down the hill and around the bend of the stream, we walk the deer’s path honoring their daily wisdom and knowledge of this wood. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Beside the Beaver’s Dam”→
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before. Continue reading “Mother’s Day Proclamation”→
Sexuality is an invisible identity. We can walk around choosing not to be seen as lesbians in spaces we know would be unwelcoming. This comes with its own layers of grief and internalized homophobia. But we can hide it and we do.
“Keep your eye on these fish for a few days. You don’t want him to be around if one of them dies,” she whispers so Isaac can’t hear.
For his two year old birthday, we got three fish which he quickly named “Two, Baubee, and Three.” He’s learning to count and there really isn’t anything more exciting at the moment than the numbers two and three. He can tell them apart and feeds them every day. And when bedtime comes around he refuses to turn off their light because, he insists, the fish do not want to go to bed- just like him.
Yesterday, one of them did died. It started growing something gross on its face and by the time we got home, Baubee was gone. The store attendant’s voice was ringing in my head, “you don’t want him to see if one of them dies.” Actually, I think we do. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Fish Funeral”→
I was pruning these same apple trees and grape vines when I first felt the pull of contractions. Today, it is a two year old that calls me down. “Mooommy,” he calls. He’s standing in the green turtle box filled with sand he collected with his grandpa from the shores of Lake Huron last summer. He stands there barefoot having demanded to take his shoes off even though it’s the middle of March and the snow has not yet fully melted. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Blessed by Sand”→
Sarah Holst’s art and reflection is the second installment on our monthly bad-ass biblical women series. If you would like to contribute to the series, email lydiaiwk@gmail.com.
Radical Discipleship 