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# 2024-10-27 - Womanguides by Rosemary Radford Ruether | |
Duel Between A Woman And A Dominican | |
This book caught my eye in a used book store. It's not my usual cup | |
of tea, but i found it interesting. I love the subversive nature of | |
the writing and the scrappy eagerness to tackle the task of creating | |
an alternative culture, DIY style. The following paragraph sums it | |
up for me. | |
> In doing so, we read canonical, patriarchal texts in a new light of | |
> that larger reality that they hide and deny. In the process, a new | |
> norm emerges on which to construct a new community, a new theology, | |
> eventually a new canon. The new norm makes women as subjects the | |
> center rather than the margin. Women are empowered to define | |
> themselves rather than to be defined by others. Women's speech and | |
> presence are normative rather than aberrant. | |
# Introduction | |
Feminist theology cannot be done from the existing base of the | |
Christian Bible. The Old and New Testaments have been shaped in | |
their formation, their transmission, and, finally, their canonization | |
to sacralize patriarchy. They may preserve, between the lines, | |
memories of women's experience. But in their present form and | |
intention they are designed to erase women's existence as subjects | |
and to mention women only as objects of male definition. In these | |
texts the norm for women is absence and silence. When praised for | |
their compliance or admonished for their "disobedience," women remain | |
in these texts "the other." Their own point of view, their own | |
experience, their own being as human subjects is never at the center. | |
They appear, if at all, at the margin. Mostly, they do not appear | |
at all. Even their absence and silence are not noted since, for | |
women in patriarchy, absence and silence are normative. | |
Thus the doing of feminist theology demands a new collection of texts | |
to make women's experience visible. How does one make the right | |
start in developing such a collection of texts? Does one seek out an | |
alternative, matriarchal religion and resurrect its canon? | |
Unfortunately, such a canon cannot be found. | |
Should we reject all roots in the past and create something totally | |
de novo? Even if we pretended to do that, we could not. Our stories | |
would be built in some way on old ones. | |
Even though there is no canon of an alternative feminist religion of | |
ancient times, we are not left without sources for our own experience | |
in the past. We can read between the lines of patriarchal texts and | |
find fragments of our own experience that were not completely erased. | |
We can also find, outside of canonized texts, remains of alternative | |
communities that reflected either the greater awe and fear of female | |
power denied in later patriarchy, or questionings of male domination | |
in groups where women did enter into critical dialogue. Whether | |
anathematized and declared heretical or just overlooked, some of | |
these texts are recoverable. We can resurrect them, gather them | |
together, and begin to glimpse the larger story of our experience. | |
In doing so, we read canonical, patriarchal texts in a new light of | |
that larger reality that they hide and deny. In the process, a new | |
norm emerges on which to construct a new community, a new theology, | |
eventually a new canon. The new norm makes women as subjects the | |
center rather than the margin. Women are empowered to define | |
themselves rather than to be defined by others. Women's speech and | |
presence are normative rather than aberrant. | |
... We can read these patriarchal texts from the underside and note | |
their hidden message--namely, the struggle to reverse reality, to | |
make subjects into objects, to reduce to silence those who sometimes | |
spoke, to make absent those whose presence was thereby actually | |
acknowledged. | |
These texts purposely do not go beyond the border of the Western | |
Christian culture of its author and, it is presumed, of most of its | |
readers. ... The purpose is to provide a working collection that | |
reflects the basic paradigms that have shaped our cultural | |
consciousness, both what we have chosen to remember and something of | |
what we have tried to forget but, in some dim way, still remember. | |
# Chapter 1: Gender Imagery for God/ess | |
The psalms written in the name of the Lord whose name could not be | |
named echoed the patterns of psalms once sung to other deities. Thus | |
in the psalm to Ishtar, which we read from a seventh-century B.C. | |
Babylonian text, we readily recognize the parallels with Hebrew | |
psalms. | |
# Chapter 2: The Divine Pleroma | |
The Wisdom of Solomon was written by an Alexandrian Jew of the second | |
century B.C. It reflects both the mythical cultures of Egyptian and | |
Hellenistic world, which identified Goddesses with Wisdom, and also | |
philosophical concepts that speak of an immanent power of divine | |
truth and knowledge that comes forth from the transcendent world to | |
found and guide the cosmos. The predominant imagery for Wisdom is | |
drawn from light. Wisdom is like a spiritual effulgence that | |
radiates from the divine source of light. | |
She is the image of God for she translates into form the unspoken or | |
unmanifest latency of transcendent divinity. As agent of creation, | |
she translates divine potency into act in created beings. As | |
revealer, she translates the search for God into clear forms of | |
knowledge and divine precept. She is both the objective and the | |
subjective side of divine revelation for she not only manifests the | |
latent power of God but enters into the seeker of truth and goodness | |
and enables him to find knowledge and virtue. | |
The final text in this section comes from the nineteenth-century | |
Shaker Bible, which drew on a comprehensive understanding of the | |
androgyny of the divine, of the order of creation and the New | |
Creation. The Shakers took literally the Genesis text that God | |
created humanity male and female "in their image" to mean that the | |
Deity is male and female. The plural form of the Genesis text, "let | |
us make humanity in our image," they understood to be the discourse | |
between the Father and Mother in Deity. This eternal Mother they | |
identified with the Wisdom of the Hebrew tradition. It is this | |
female Wisdom who speaks as the voice of the revelation of God. | |
## Divine Wisdom as Effulgence of God And Bride of the Wise | |
Wisdom shines bright and never fades; she is easily discerned by | |
those who love her, and by those who seek her she is found. She is | |
quick to make herself known to those who desire knowledge of her; the | |
man who rises early in search of her will not grow weary in the | |
quest, for he will find her seated at his door. To set all one's | |
thoughts on her is prudence in its perfect shape, and to lie wakeful | |
in her cause is the short way to peace of mind. For she herself | |
ranges in search of those who are worthy of her; on their daily path | |
she appears to them with kindly intent, and in all their purposes | |
meets them half-way. The true beginning of wisdom is the desire to | |
learn, and a concern for learning means love toward her; the love her | |
means the keeping of her laws... | |
# Chapter 3: Stories of Creation | |
The reference to their possession of the "image of God" here should | |
not be construed to mean that the priestly author sees this deity as | |
androgynous. Rather, the concept of "image of God" refers to this | |
role of the human pair as representative of the sovereignty of God | |
over the universe. | |
See Phyllis Bird, "Male and Female, He created Them: Gen. 1:27b in | |
the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation," Harvard Theological | |
Review 74, no. 2 (1981): 129-159. | |
# Chapter 4: Humanity: Male And Female | |
Although the language of the Second Genesis story is by no means as | |
misogynist as the later rabbinic and Christian commentaries on it, we | |
cannot escape the conclusion that the structuring of the story as a | |
male reversal of birth carries an intention to make the male the | |
primary human being and then to locate the female as secondary and | |
auxiliary to him. | |
Male mythology is succeeded culturally by male "science," but this | |
male science carries much the same purpose as patriarchal creation | |
myths, namely, to prove that the subordination and inferiority of | |
woman is "according to nature." | |
In his biology, Aristotle describes the reproductive act as a release | |
of active male formative principle to female materiality. The male | |
semen provides what we today might call the entire genetic code of | |
the embryo or its active power of formation. The blood of the female | |
womb provides the matter shaped by the male active power. But the | |
female herself is a deformed or imperfect human. And so, although | |
every male seed strives to fully form the maternal matter and produce | |
a male, sometimes this fails to be perfected. The resistance of the | |
female matter fails to "take" the male form perfectly, and so a | |
defective human, or female, resembling the mother is born. | |
The influence of this Aristotelian biology on Christian theology, | |
especially on medieval scholasticism, can hardly be underestimated. | |
Aristotle's biology gave "scientific expression" to the basic | |
patriarchal assumption that the male is normative and representative | |
expression of the human species and the female is not only secondary | |
and auxiliary to the male but lacks full human status in physical | |
strength, moral self-control, and mental capacity. This lesser | |
"nature" thus confirms the female's subjugation to the male as her | |
"natural" place in the universe. | |
The ancient Sumerian and Babylonian texts that depict an independent | |
Goddess also typically describe sexuality in delighted and | |
pleasurable terms. By contrast, the patriarchal texts in this | |
chapter give evidence of a male distaste for sexual relations with | |
women, as though the physical consorting with such a degraded being | |
comes to be seen as degrading to the male. | |
This distaste for female sexuality is also expressed in Greek | |
idealization of homosexuality. Love of men makes one manly (the | |
opposite of current American assumptions), brave, wise, and strong. | |
As adults, such men become lovers of youth and thereby also tutor | |
youth in the ways of manliness. | |
# Chapter 5: The Origins of Evil | |
The perception of good and evil is basic to human consciousness. By | |
this perception the human being sets itself over against existing | |
reality, names aspects of that reality as contrary to "what ought to | |
be," and thereby also generates a vision of an ideal world that | |
becomes the standard by which existing reality is judged as deficient. | |
A second way of relating the two is to see the ideal world as a | |
future possibility that is unfolding through a developmental process | |
or through a conflictual struggle. A third way of relating the two | |
is to see the ideal world as a heavenly world available only to the | |
gods (and a privileged aristocracy) but denied to ordinary mortals. | |
Through cyclical ritual the lower moral world might be fleetingly | |
blessed by this divine world but would never capture it in a complete | |
and final form. Ancient Near Eastern religion tended toward this | |
third, pessimistic form. | |
Moses shatters the tablets in rage when he sees this apostasy. But | |
he also placates the rage of God and prevents God from casting off | |
his people altogether. The sins of Israel are purged by a | |
bloodletting in which the Levites slay three thousand Israelites. | |
This act reflects the rivalries of the different priestly | |
confraternities in the ancient Hebrew temple and was written to | |
vindicate the Levitical priesthood. Their willingness to pitilessly | |
slay their own brothers and sons proves their total devotion to God | |
and wins them divine blessing. ... loyalty to God demands a violent | |
ethnocentrism that rejects all dialogue with other human cultures and | |
requires one to be ready to murder one's own relatives if they adopt | |
foreign practices. | |
Early Christianity was profoundly divided by radical readings of | |
Scripture that suggested that the new humanity in Christ delivered | |
the redeemed from the present world system--politically, culturally, | |
and religiously. A new spiritual equality of woman was one | |
implication of this radical reading of Scripture. Paul himself was | |
divided between radical reading of redemption and a conservative | |
reading of coexistence with the present world system. But his | |
followers in the next generation split into two camps. Some, | |
represented by figures such as Marcian or by the popular Acts of Paul | |
and Thecla, believed that the baptized transcended patriarchal | |
restrictions on women. | |
# Chapter 6: Redeemer/Redemptrix: Male And Female Saviors | |
Contrary to the parties of Torah righteousness and zealous | |
nationalism, [Jesus] announced that God's favor had come upon those | |
who had no chance in the present system of social status and | |
religious observance--the poor, the unclean, and the unlearned, the | |
despised underclasses of Palestinian society, including women among | |
these underclasses. | |
The way of redemption was the way of love and service to others, | |
especially to the humiliated of society. [Jesus] used the term | |
servant in the prophetic sense of a relationship to God that freed | |
one from servitude to all human masters. | |
In early Christian martyr texts the martyr who might be a woman slave | |
can be hailed as "another Christ." Such Christianity could encounter | |
Christ in "our sister." But imperial Christianity could no longer | |
encounter Christ in slaves or women. | |
# Chapter 7: Repentance, Conversion, Transformation | |
The definition of repentance and conversion is, by nature, relative. | |
What conversion means is relative to how one has defined what is | |
wrong with humanity. The goal of conversion will be an ideal | |
correction of this definition of what is wrong. | |
Jonah is sent to the great city of Ninevah, capital of the Assyrian | |
empire, a city that symbolized all manner of evil for traditional | |
Jews. Jonah is told to tell the inhabitants of Ninevah that unless | |
they repent of their sins they will be overthrown by God. Jonah | |
tries to run away from his mission because he doesn't want Ninevah to | |
be saved. But, after various adventures, he is forced to carry out | |
his mission. To his great chagrin, all the inhabitants of Ninevah | |
repent from the highest to the lowest. ... When God sees this | |
repentance of Ninevah, he repents and spares the city. | |
The story of the repentance of Ninevah is told as a joke on Jewish | |
particularists who believed that God wills the salvation only of | |
Jews. This is why the conversion of Ninevah is told in an amazing | |
way. The author wants to make the point that God's concern extends | |
to all peoples. Sin is understood as public and collective. Ninevah | |
is an evil city because in it reign conditions of all types of | |
corruption, both injustice and debauchery. There is no division of | |
private, personal sins (sexual) and public sins (injustice). | |
Repentance likewise is public and collective. | |
# Chapter 8: Redemptive Community | |
The word Eclesia means a citizen assembly, gathered to do the | |
business of the community. This was the word adopted for the Church | |
of the New Testament. In the Greek Septuagint this term was also | |
used for the assembly of Israel. It thus took on the connotation of | |
a religious assembly gathered before God. | |
This patriarchal community that excluded women from leadership also | |
symbolizes itself collectively as female, as a Bride or Wife of God | |
and Mother of God's People. Why? The bridal-maternal imagery stands | |
within the basic symbol system of patriarchy. If God is like a great | |
Patriarch and the assembly of males like his "sons" or "servants," | |
then the community collectively can be imaged as like a wife of God | |
whom God elects. Such symbolism of the covenant of Israel as like a | |
patriarchal sacred marriage reverses the sacred marriage imagery of | |
Sumerian, Babylonian, and Canaanite religion. Here the Goddess was | |
the dominant divine figure, and the bridegroom represented the King, | |
the representative of human community. | |
As Woman-Church we repudiate the idol of patriarchy. We repudiate it | |
in the name of God, in the name of Christ, in the name of Church, in | |
the name of humanity, in the name of Earth. Our God and Goddess, who | |
is Mother and Father, friend, lover and helper, did not create this | |
idol and is not represented by this idol. Our brother Jesus did not | |
come to this earth to manufacture this idol, and he is not | |
represented by the idol. The message and mission of Jesus, the child | |
of Mary, which is to put down the mighty from their thrones and | |
uplift the lowly, is not served by this idol. Rather, this idol | |
blasphemes by claiming to speak in the name of Jesus and to carry out | |
his redemptive mission, while crushing and turning to its opposite | |
all that he came to teach... The Powers and Principalities of rape, | |
genocide, and war achieve their greatest daring by claiming to be | |
Christ, to represent Christ's mission. The Roman Empire clothes | |
itself in the mantle of the Crucified and sits anew upon its imperial | |
throne. | |
As Woman-Church we cry out: horror, blasphemy, deceit, foul deed! | |
This is not the voice of our God, the face of our redeemer, the | |
mission of our Church. Our humanity is not, cannot be represented, | |
but is excluded in this dream, this nightmare of salvation. As | |
Woman-Church we claim the authentic mission of Christ, the true | |
mission of Church, the real agenda of our Mother-Father God who comes | |
to restore and not to destroy our humanity, who comes to ransom the | |
captives and to reclaim the earth as our Promised Land. We are not | |
in exile but the Church is in exodus with us. God's Shekinah, Holy | |
Wisdom, the Mother-face of God has fled from the high thrones of | |
patriarchy and has gone into exodus with us. She is with us as we | |
flee from the smoking altars where women's bodies are sacrificed, as | |
we cover our ears to blot out the inhuman voice that comes forth from | |
the idol of patriarchy. | |
As Woman-Church we are not left to starve for the words of wisdom; we | |
are not left without the bread of life. Ministry too goes with us | |
into exodus. We learn all over again what it means to minister; not | |
to lord over, but to minister to and with each other, to teach each | |
other to speak the words of life... | |
# Chapter 9: Foremothers of Woman Church | |
In this chapter we lift up the names of women leaders in Israel and | |
early Christianity. Rather than to make the story endless, we | |
restrict the texts to a few classical exemplars for the found periods | |
of the Jewish and Christian communities. Although these women can be | |
called by such titles as priest, judge, apostle, martyr, and mystic, | |
the primary category for women's leadership in the Biblical religion | |
is prophet(ess). | |
Prophecy represents the power of freedom and newness of life in which | |
God's word breaks in to speak in judgment on established modes of | |
life and to open up new possibilities. It is significant, therefore, | |
that the power of authentic prophecy was the one ministry never | |
denied in theory to women... | |
# Chapter 10: The New Earth: Visions of Redeemed Society And Nature | |
The hopes for a new age of peace and justice constituted the meaning | |
of redemption most central to prophetic Judaism. | |
... the laws recognized that there is a continual drift toward | |
alienation of society and land. Some get rich and others poor, and | |
so people lose their land and their freedom. Thus, periodically, | |
every 50 years (a great Sabbath, i.e., every seven times seven or | |
forty-nine years), there should be a restoration of society to the | |
ideal norm. Those who have been enslaved will be released. Those | |
who have lost their land will be able to redeem it. Land should lie | |
fallow for a season and animals should be allowed to rest. | |
[Redemption] is a continuous process that needs to be done over and | |
over again within history. | |
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the anarchist concepts of a | |
balanced community, a face-to-face democracy, a humanistic | |
technology, and a decentralized society--these rich libertarian | |
concepts--are not only desirable, they are also necessary. They | |
belong not only to the great visions of man's future, they now | |
constitute the preconditions for human survival. | |
What is most significant about ecology is its ability to convert this | |
often nihilistic rejection of the status quo into an emphatic | |
affirmation of life--indeed, into a reconstructive credo for a | |
humanistic society. | |
# Chapter 11: The New Heaven: Personal And Cosmic Eschatology | |
The religions of ancient Near Eastern culture, Sumerian, Babylonian, | |
and Hebrew, did not originally hold out hope for human escape from | |
mortality. | |
However, in the later stages of the various Mediterranean religions of | |
antiquity, this trade-off of human mortality for seasonal renewal | |
became unsatisfactory. | |
However, as these [this-world] hopes were disappointed by expanding | |
imperial systems, Hebrew hope became increasingly apocalyptic. | |
But this introduction of resurrection of the dead of past times broke | |
the essential historical context of future hope. | |
Later apocalypses developed this eschatological element, eventually | |
imagining a historical period (millennium) when the just will reign | |
within history and then an eternal new heaven and earth when the | |
cosmos itself will be regenerated and become capable of bearing | |
immortal life. | |
# Chapter 12: New Beginnings | |
Neither revelation nor the telling of stories is closed. | |
So feminism, too, recognizes that patriarchal texts deform the | |
liberating spirit for women, rejects a theology confined to | |
commentary on past texts. We are not only free to reclaim rejected | |
texts of the past and put them side by side with canonized texts as | |
expressions of truth, in the light of which canonized texts may be | |
criticized; but we are also free to generate new stories from our own | |
experience that may, through community use, become more than personal | |
or individual. They may become authoritative stories, for it is | |
precisely through community use in a historical movement of | |
liberation, which finds in them paradigms of redemptive experience, | |
that stories become authoritative. | |
# The Parable of the Naked Lady written by Anne Spurgeon | |
The young women gathered round him and one of them asked, "Master, | |
tell us what is the best image of womanhood that we can become? We | |
feel uncertain about the ways of our mothers." And Jesus said to her, | |
"Women, what you ask is something I can not decide for you." And he | |
told them a parable, saying: | |
A naked woman sat at the crossroads where the road that went north | |
and south met the road going east and west. People passed her; some | |
were ashamed, some were angry, but most looked upon her with | |
disapproval. Some threw clothes at her--all different types, colors | |
and sizes. The woman knew she was naked, but did not lift a finger to | |
cover herself. | |
There was a woman in a golden gown who stopped her journey and went | |
to the naked woman saying, "Take my dress. See how beautiful it is, a | |
golden brocade covered with pearls and diamonds." She took off the | |
garment and handed it to the naked woman who instantly felt its | |
weight. | |
"This is very heavy," said the naked woman. | |
The elaborate woman nodded. "The wearer of that gown must always look | |
beautiful, must always act charming, must remain still and maintain | |
beauty for her husband. She must constantly display her husband's | |
wealth no matter what its cumbrance. She must not lose her figure nor | |
grow old. She must put up with her husband's temperament, appetites | |
and decisions." | |
"I do not want this dress," said the naked woman. "Here, take it | |
back." | |
But instead, the elaborate woman threw the dress in a heap by the | |
side of the road. She sat down next to the naked woman. | |
There was a woman in a simple gray dress who stopped her journey and | |
went to the naked woman saying, "Take my dress. See how simple it is; | |
it takes no special care and is easy to move in." She handed the | |
dress to the naked woman, who felt that its burden was also great. | |
"What causes the weight of this dress?" she asked. | |
"Thankless toil," said the simple woman. "Years of washing, | |
scrubbing, vacuuming, diapering, cooking, chauffeuring, arguing, | |
punishing, remembering, organizing and catering. The wearer of that | |
dress is forever the backbone of her home--she can never tire, get | |
sick, leave, be alone or cultivate her own interests. She loses her | |
color and her youth and watches as her man's eye looks elsewhere for | |
beauty." | |
"Here, take back your dress," said the naked woman. But the simple | |
woman put her dress with the golden dress by the side of the road. | |
She sat down next to the elaborate woman and the two began to argue | |
about whose garment had been the heaviest. The three women sat at the | |
crossroads. | |
There was a woman in a short red dress who stopped her journey and | |
went to the naked woman. "My dress might suit you. It is easy to get | |
in and out of and is very soft and alluring. Here." She handed the | |
dress to the naked woman. | |
"Don't be deceived," said the sensuous woman. "It too is heavy laden." | |
"Why?" asked the naked woman. | |
"The wearer of this dress must bear the burden of frigid wives. She | |
must always be available for the sexual demands of men. She is the | |
keeper of lies and deceits, and must endure the hate of women who do | |
not like what she does, but wish they had her power. The woman who | |
wears this dress must open her legs to feed herself, to clothe | |
herself, to house herself, and to care for any misbegotten offspring. | |
She must always be soft and sensuous, bold and enterprising, | |
calculating and owned. She lives with the knowledge that she must | |
always welcome men who never stay." | |
"This dress will not do either," said the naked woman. "Take it | |
back." But the sensuous woman tossed the red dress among the others | |
at the side of the road and sat down next to the simple woman. She | |
joined in the argument that had not let up. | |
There was a woman in a long black habit who stopped her journey and | |
went to the naked woman. "My child," she said, "you are naked, let me | |
clothe you. Here, take my habit. It is warm and safe." | |
"Safe?" questioned the naked woman. "It's weight is very great." | |
"Yes," said the holy woman. "It holds the secrets of a hundred | |
thousand souls. One must be very strong to wear it, but must show | |
that strength in silence and servitude. The wearer of this habit must | |
understand birth, but never bear; must understand the cravings of the | |
flesh, but never experience them; must understand the ways of the | |
world, but never be part of it. The woman who wears this must | |
sacrifice herself constantly for the needs of others and never fill | |
her own. She must punish herself for thoughts and longings that | |
extend beyond the confines of cloistered walls." | |
"I am neither cold not fearful," said the naked woman. "Take back you | |
habit." But the holy woman placed the habit with the other dresses at | |
the roadside and sat and entered into the argument that continued | |
between the elaborate woman, the simple woman and the sensuous woman. | |
There was a woman in a grey suit who stopped her journey and went to | |
the naked woman saying, "Here, this tweed would look smart on you. | |
Its lines are professionally tailored to give a serious appearance." | |
She handed the suit to the naked woman. | |
"Now why does this garment carry so much weight?" | |
"Don't be fooled by its professional appearance. The wearer of this | |
suit must live in the sterile world and must never be part of any of | |
the worlds you have seen so far. This woman must never be beautiful | |
and artistic, for that would distract people from the business at | |
hand; she must never bear children or have any relationship that | |
would slow her progress to the top of her field. She must never be | |
sensuous, for she would then be the mark of wolves who would find any | |
way to destroy her and her power. She must also endure being mocked | |
as a dyke by those who fail to understand the purposes behind her | |
sexlessness. She must never be holy, for the world of the spirit | |
weakens the power of the world of the rational. It is seen as | |
foolishness and gets in the way of advancement with its silly notions | |
of ethics and morality. So the wearer of the dress must remain closed | |
like a prison against all outside forces that would drain her of her | |
power." | |
"Your world is frightening," said the naked woman. "Take back your | |
suit." But the professional woman tossed her suit among the other | |
garments, sat and joined in the argument, insisting that of all the | |
other garments, hers had been the heaviest. The women argued beside | |
the naked woman far into the night. At some point their argument | |
changed from self-pity to blame upon the other. As each experienced | |
the pointed finger of the others, she began to see that there were | |
things about her dress that were worthy and good. There were things | |
that each was not ashamed of or encumbered by. | |
"I know how to enjoy my body, to feel the pleasure of physical love," | |
said the sensuous woman. | |
"Oh, teach me that," said the holy woman, "and I will teach you the | |
wonder of the quest for union with God." | |
"I know how to organize a large business and make it run smoothly, | |
and how to handle many things in the face of emergency," said the | |
professional woman. | |
"Oh, teach me," said the elaborate woman,"and I will teach you how to | |
make yourself beautiful so that you can enjoy the appearance of your | |
body." | |
"Teach me my attraction also," said the simple woman, "and I will | |
teach you how to bear and love a child." | |
New life sprang up among the women and they fashioned for themselves | |
garments out of the clothing that had piled at the side of the road, | |
each unique and sharing parts of each. As they taught and worked, the | |
naked woman got up and walked to the next intersection east of them; | |
and sat down. | |
And Jesus said to the young women, "Those who have ears to hear, let | |
them hear." | |
author: Ruether, Rosemary Radford | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Rosemary_Radford_Ruether | |
LOC: BL458 .W572 | |
tags: book,gender,scripture | |
title: Womanguides | |
# Tags | |
book | |
gender | |
scripture |