Category: Uncategorized

An 18-year-old African American high school senior became a heroine of mine in July 1996. Her name is Keshia Thomas. Keshia was part of a crowd of 300 people assembled to protest a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A man who looked like a white supremacist was spotted in the protesters’ midst and there was suddenly an angry mob surrounding him. The crowd started beating him, knocking him to the pavement, and Keshia, who had been one of the people who was going to verbally confront him, threw herself on top of the man to protect him from the attack. The picture in the July 8^th People magazine of this young woman grimacing, using her body to protect the bald-headed, tattooed man as he lay on the ground, is etched in my memory, as is Keshia’s explanation of what she did. Keshia’s was a decidedly woman’s act of courage. She was there in the first place to stand against violence and oppression. And when she actually witnessed them, it was the feminine voice which arose, fearless, strong, powerful, in protection of all life. “You don’t beat a man up because he doesn’t believe the same things you do. He’s still somebody’s child,” she said. Then she laughingly told the People reporter that “this will all be over in a New York minute. People don’t have to remember my name. I just want them to remember that I did the right thing.” I remember both, Keshia, and you give me the courage to be a woman fighting for what I believe in.

The word heal comes from the Anglo-Saxon haelan which means to be or to become whole. To be a woman healing myself is to be a woman becoming whole; giving myself the time and the space I need for the journey. No one grows up without wounds– Continue reading “I am a woman HEALING MYSELF”

LOVING MYSELF

How many times and for how many years I have looked into the eyes of another – friends, lovers, even strangers – asking “will you love me?” Yet no one can give me what I have not given myself. I cannot replace self-love with the love of others because unless I love myself, I can’t take in the gift. That’s the paradox. I want to be loved to feel lovable, but Continue reading “I am a woman LOVING MYSELF”

My body, at last, I claim you! I live here! I am not some disincarnate spirit using just any vehicle to get around. I live in the full, round, soft, juicy, wet, strong, agile, capable, Spirit-filled, nurturing, graceful, flowing, comforting, lovely, smooth, dancing, singing, playing, working, praying body of a woman!

For so many years I rejected my body; judged it because it isn’t perfect according to the standards of my culture. I have been unfaithful to it, letting other’s opinions turn me against it; allowing others to use it Continue reading “I am a woman RECLAIMING MY BODY”

Touch is sometimes abused. Some people use touch inappropriately to molest children, and this terrifies us all. Some teachers have molested young students. Some priests molest grade-school parishioners. It must stop. Of this there can be no doubt. But how?

Some communities are passing new laws designed to protect the children. Attorneys are meeting with school teachers to educate them in the new standard of acceptable behavior. It turns out that the proposed solution to the problem that some people abuse touch is to focus not the offenders, but on touch itself. The approach to the problem doesn’t ask “how can we get a better handle on these disturbed people?” or “how can we raise people who know how to use touch appropriately?” No. The solution to the problem of people who abuse touching is to stop all people from touching.

So now Continue reading “A Reflection: On Becoming a Champion of Touch”

Other people can be my greatest source of freedom or the chains which I allow to ensnare me. When their ideas stimulate me to search for my own knowing; to stretch for a new comprehension of an old problem or to venture forward in my own creativity, they are a pathway to freedom. But when I allow other people’s ideas and beliefs to determine what I will allow myself to think, feel, do, be or say, Continue reading “I am a woman TELLING MYSELF THE TRUTH”

Saying Yes!

YES! YES! YES, the word of affirmation, of opening, of movement and flow; the word which means it is so. YES, giving permission, allowing unfolding, non-ambivalence and sureness – YES! Now, finally, I am saying YES! YES to all of me, all of the parts. YES to the light and loving and free parts. YES to the dark and angry and scared parts. YES to all of my feelings, the ones I like and the ones I don’t like. YES to my tenderness and loving and nurturing. Yes to my wisdom and strength and courage. YES to my fears, longings and confusions. YES to my sexuality, my passion and my responsiveness. YES to my longing to hold another; to join, to merge, to know ecstatic union. YES to my need for solitude, spiritual practice and communion with God in nature. YES to walking as woman in this world; no hiding, no shame, no apologies. I stand tall and centered on the earth, reaching my arms upward and I become YES and I say YES to the unfolding mystery of my life. I am a woman saying YES!

Saying NO!

NO! Such freedom in saying NO! A tiny word, prohibited for so long, forbidden to leave the lips of a good little girl, or a sweet young woman. NO, carefully avoided as a professional on the career ladder who mustn’t be accused of not being a team player. NO withheld in intimate relationships because NO is so selfish and so, well, negative. I do not know if it is age alone which has transformed my relationship to NO, but Continue reading ” I am a woman SAYING NO”

USING MY VOICE TO CREATE CHANGE

Raising my voice, if that is what it takes to be heard, is not being a hysterical female. Declaring my anger without apology is not being a bitchy female. Allowing myself to feel my rage when I am confronted with abuses of power which reduce human beings to things, I am not being a bleeding heart. Well, actually I am being a bleeding heart Continue reading “I am a woman USING MY VOICE TO CREATE CHANGE”

FINDING MY VOICE

Did I first lose my voice when I learned not to cry too loud or make too much noise so I didn’t wake up daddy? Or was it when I learned that talking in church was a sin (unless it was to a priest). Was it the first time I didn’t say what was inside of me because I didn’t want to make someone mad, or was it the first time that I said what wasn’t true because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings? No matter now. Now, Continue reading “I am a woman FINDING MY VOICE”