American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting 2010

I presented at AAR for the first time! So of course I want to share :)

This is just my part of the presentation although I was in the company of some amazing women. I wrote it to be read out loud of course - so you can imagine that part of it for yourself...

Celebrating and Con-Questioning Mary Daly

AAR 2010 Women and Religion Section

October 31, 2010

It was 5 years ago here at AAR

that I saw Mary Daly in person for the first time.

At that session, one of the women who spoke along with Mary Daly

said,

“Nothing is complete. There is no complete system – there are only conversations,

we can learn and receive, and we can give and teach from each other.”

And that is part of what I want to emphasize here today.

I want to focus on how we can build on each other’s work, build up each other’s work.

One of the first things Mary Daly did at that AAR session 5 years ago was conjure our foresisters.

It was a beautiful practice and a new one for me that I witnessed her model that day.

She started by quoting, "you will forget us but maybe someday someone will remember us," - so we remembered them.

Sappho

Sojourner Truth

Hildegaard

Theresa of Avila

Virginia Woolf

Matilda Joselyn Gage

Some of the women I knew, and some I did not.

But you better believe that the ones I didn’t know, I went home and looked up after that.

She set a mood of gynergy, remembering the liberating work of women gone before us. She affirmed that their energy and work still exists

and was present to us.

Mary Daly herself invited women to build on her work and each other’s work.

For nothing is complete – there is no complete system.

At times Mary Daly’s work reads as if she thought she had a complete system –

but she herself knew better.

I got to work with her the last two years of her life.

I got to learn from her and to con-question with her, as well as engage in the mundane tasks of every day life with her, the beta.

…Although, with Mary’s fiery spirit, nothing ever was really mundane!

That first day I was in Mary Daly’s presence for the first time 5 yrs ago – I lost my breath, I lost all ability to articulate any words – I was a bit of a bumbling goof.

But I went from that first moment – to being with her during her last days,

the days when her own breath was leaving her, when she was losing her breath.

It is one of those rare experiences that makes you really believe that divine forces are at work for your delight. J

But that’s not my point, my point is that Mary Daly expected us all to continue building on each other’s work, learning and receiving from, questioning and building on.

When we would raise questions to her, or disagreed with her, she would say –

“Good then, Now go build! Go beyond what I’ve done.”

She did not take for granted the wisdom we receive from one another and the fact that we can continue building on it. Because no wisdom is complete.

She knew that

And so she called women to Con-Questioning – that is, to the practice of questioning together, the proclivity/activity of Nag-gnostic searchers – who are women who Nag our Selves and Others with recurrent awareness of questions and uncertainties.[1]

Too often in academia, or academentia as she liked to call it, We define concepts and ideas in exclusive terms – something is this and not that.

We define ourselves in opposition.

But things are never that simple or clear cut.

The human spirit and lived reality does not fit nicely into exclusive or binary categories.

We cannot be reduced in such ways. And we should not want to be.

I am feminist – proud and empowered.

I am also Latina, Mexican-American and Mujerista.

I am Christian, I love Jesus and I love Goddess.

I am lesbian, I came out some four years ago, and yet, my family, the one I share my every day life with, still includes the man I married eleven years ago.

And as Gloria Anzaldua writes, “would you chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label?”[2]

J

Some of us cross boundaries and borders,

blurr lines and categories,

every single day.

And so We need methods and ways of engaging that make room for all that – that invite our con-Questioning and don’t lead us to define or reduce one another so definitively.

Mary Daly only ever inspired – sin-spired – my be-ing. Never stifled it.

Reading her work was the spark that ignited my awakening.

In her work I found language, ideas, and affirmation that made me want to be better, to be more, to leap toward ever greater participation in the Divine.

To be the best me.

But there are areas of her work that we need to build on.

There are areas of her work that are not only stifling, but denying of some of our sister’s and brother’s be-coming - of their full participation in Ultimate Intimate Reality.

I believe that Mary Daly’s own understanding of her work not only invites our critique and our building, but requires it.

Her very desire and commitment for women’s full participation

in God that is Verb, requires that she –

by her own philosophy,

affirm every person’s be-coming regardless of gender or biological sex.

And so…we Con-Question with her.

And together we build on her work so that it reaches beyond what she herself even thought possible.

We build with one another in solidaridad, in solidarity, because as Mary Daly affirmed: “Only be-ing can call forth be-ing. And only confirmation of one's own Reality awakens that Reality in another."[3]

But She didn’t always do this well. For example, she didn’t understand how a woman’s body might differ from her own. And that is a shortfall in her work. But, like someone said at the session at AAR 5 years ago, “Nothing is complete, there is no complete system.”

So we must all continue the work of decentering each other’s systems so that all women and men may flourish.

We must blur the lines for her.

We must take her work and build on it.

We must expand her category of woman so that it takes account of all women.

AND

We can do that on the basis of her- own- work!

Her very understanding of Be-ing, of active participation with Ultimate Intimate Reality – compels the affirmation of all people’s embodied reality –

People’s embodied wholeness is part of their courage to Sin Big – To Be in that elemental breath taking way that she desired for all women!

It is in her own philosophy. I truly believe it.

Her elemental philosophy for women’s liberation, as much as she wanted it to spark all women’s be-coming, would of course fall short – but that’s true of all philosophies.

We as scholars are not exempt of shortfalls, of blind spots. As much as we would like to think that we are producing and likewise expect our colleagues to produce

logical, reason-based, thoroughly-researched, multi-dimensionally grounded work,

it will always, inevitably, be deficient.

So yes let’s speak out against the parts of our own and each others work that stifles or would deny any of our participation in Ultimate Intimate Reality.

Let us continue to refine our methods – Continue the Dalyan tradition of conjuring new words and images that capture more and more of the complexities and intersectionality of our situations and our embodied realities

– and that do not result in the need to tear each other up.

Wisdom is passed from Maiden to Mother to Crone and back again. This is how we learn and build and weave a new reality.

So let us partner with one another to build on each other’s work, and take it to new horizons, weaving new webs that make room for us all.

- That way I don’t have to be chopped into little fragments, and tagged with my many labels. J

It’s Halloween today – appropriate I think for our witchy Dalyan endeavors – And Mary Daly must be close. And today I am sure she is further awakened to her own reality as we awaken to ours, and in this way call forth each other’s full be-coming.

---

[1] Daly, Mary. Wickedary, p. 113.

[2] Moraga, Cherrie and Anzaldua, Gloria, eds. This Bridge Called My Back, p. 205.

[3] Daly, Mary. “Be-Friending: Weaving Contexts, Creating Atmospheres,” in Weaving the Visions, eds. Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, p. 201.

Revolutionary Road

Mary Daly's Memorial Webcast!

If you cannot attend but would like to witness

Mary Daly's Memorial

Saturday, May 1st,

watch the live webcast!

Please tell everyone you'd like. The directions to sign up to view the program are below.

Please note that arrangements must be made before Saturday, May 1, to view it.

Webcast of Memorial Service for Mary Daly.

Please note: the quality of the image and sound will be affected by the speed of your internet connection. Please register to attend. You will receive a confirmation email with information for accessing the webcast.

When: Saturday 1 May 2010, 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US and Canada)

To register for this event, please go the following link:

http://eds.adobeconnect.com/daly/event/registration.html

and enter the requested information to register. Then re-check your email for a message which will include access to the event. Be sure to check your "Junk Mail" folder if you do not find this message right away.

If you have difficulty with registration please contact Chris Carr atccarr@eds.edu before the day of the event.

PhD Hoops

I watch Criminal Minds sometimes cause I love watching the awkward goofy genius guy at work. Of course, the show is about *criminal* minds and the FBI behavioral analysis unit that tries to figure out the mind of the criminal - so their work is no walk in the park. So at the end of one episode the chief, recounting the difficulty and horror of the day's work, wondered of the other agents: "How many more times will they be able to recover the pieces of themselves that this job takes?"

I could so relate.

Sometimes, I feel this way about the whole PhD process. Sometimes I struggle to re-call, to experience, the passion for learning that brought me to this in the first place, wondering if the stifling effects (stifling to me) of this degree program in this discipline will keep me from being able to recover the pieces of myself that I feel it takes from me. Sad but true.

But then I re-call my feminist sisters and their courage and it inspires me to go on. I must go on. Once I have my "license to practice" (what one friend calls the PhD) I will be able to spread my wings more fully

and

flap them

WILDLY!!

Mary Daly Memorial - May 1, 2010

The power of your presence

is requested

at a memorial

Re-membering mary daly

A celebration of her life and work will take place on

Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 2 P.M.

The Auditorium of Washburn Hall

Episcopal Divinity School

99 Brattle Street

Cambridge, MA

All are welcome.

It will help in our organizing if you visit www.marydaly.org by April 4, 2010 and let us know your plans to attend.

Linda Barufaldi, Emily Culpepper, Mary E. Hunt,

Nancy Kelly, Nancy O’Mealey, Jennifer Rycenga

Directions: http://www.eds.edu/sec.asp?cat=16&page=139

Parking: http://www.eds.edu/sec.asp?cat=198&page=188

Mary Daly, Oct. 16, 1928 - Jan. 3, 2010

I write with a lot of sadness - my shero and friend, the Courageous Mary Daly died in the early morning of January 3rd. She was with sister Hags by her side when she died peacefully to the words of her own Elemental work, the Wickedary.

It goes without saying that the world is different because Mary's life force has been through it. I know I am different. I will miss her terribly. I also know that she continues to change the world as those of us who have been changed by her continue to do our own work in the world - to Live and to Rage and to Be. Her very person was a gracious gift to this world. I am grateful.

Even to the last moments of her life, Mary was her strong, feisty, witty self. As my friend said when she saw Mary doing so well last week in hospice, "She has always been a strong woman...I suppose we should have expected her to be strong in death as well."

May her powerful strength always be with us. With me.

-X

Throw your life as far as it will go. -Mary Daly

To Dialogue Across Difference

What is required to dialogue across difference? My brain thinks about this all the time. It all started when I learned about Audre Lorde's "Open Letter to Mary Daly"...

First of all, a disclaimer – I love Mary!! So to learn about Audre Lorde's letter to Mary, where she raises some very important issues about Mary's ethnocentrism and the tensions among feminists across race, and to hear that Mary Daly did not respond, was a bit devastating. But then Mary's latest book came out, Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big, and in it she addresses the “Open Letter,” to which she had responded personally to Lorde but that Lorde never publicly acknowledged.

Agh! I was so discouraged.

Why did Lorde never publicly acknowledged Daly’s response?

Then I asked Mary Daly about it…and to see her pain...it was still a hurtful experience for her. So, I began to wonder...“how can we engage in dialogue across our differences without causing that kind of hurt and damage to one another – and – to the work we want to accomplish, which we are more likely to do if we partner, collaborate and creatively pursue it together?” In my pursuit of this, I began to gather, study and analyze cases in which women were able to engage in dialogue across differences or where women failed to do so and I looked for insights to my questions. I obviously did not find clear answers, but only a starting point for this dilemma.

I have 5 themes I picked up on and at the end, two practical first steps to offer that I think may make a difference in our efforts to engage in dialogue and connect across differences. I offer these now.

1 - People want to have their experiences and their perspectives, acknowledged and understood by the other:

But our experiences shape our unique perspective and understanding of things, and we speak out of these. And to speak out of these is to make ourselves vulnerable. It is to open oneself up to the potential of being misunderstood and hurt.

2 – There is a fear of being erased or dismissed by one another.

And part of the fear is that one will be dismissed or erased as a result of being misunderstood or from being disagreed with. To communicate, is to be vulnerable, and thus to risk rejection or dismissal; to communicate requires courage.

3 – There is an affirmation that the Old Patterns do not work and New Patterns must be created. We can learn from what did not work in the past and create new patterns for the present and for the future without having to invalidate the efforts of those who came before us. Instead we can (and must) work together to create new patterns/practices in partnership with those who have come and begun the work before us.

4 – There is a Hope or Aim that inspires them and out of which feminists work – sometimes made explicit, sometimes not:

Feminists are all working out of a hope or aim that inspires them; this is always personal and therefore also fragile.

5 – And there are Barriers to the Hope.

There are barriers to that hope that we are working to overcome – and sometimes it is in response to these barriers that we speak.

Some of the barriers are:

- Lack of awareness

- Generalizations and oversimplifications

- Not struggling through the hard parts

************

But I am left with the question, “How do we avoid reaching the point where we hurt each other irreparably?”

Lorde wrote to Daly, “I would like to not have to destroy you in my consciousness,” (Whimsy, 97).

Eventually Daly did represent, for Lorde, all the white women who refused to deal with race differences.

And for Daly, she experienced Lorde as having betrayed their sisterhood – of scapegoating her for political gains and of not giving their dialogue a chance.

And she is still affected by it to this day.

(And for Daly, did her experiences and hurt by the church cause her to only speak from her own experience without realizing how it would hurt the sisterhood?)

In conversation with my own friend “across difference,” I have come up with two basic starting points for how to engage in dialogue across difference.

1) As a speaker/writer:

We must recognize and explicitly state that we speak from our own experiences.

We “know” what we know and are certain of it because we have experienced it, it resonates with our reality – but that is not necessarily the case with others.

And on the flip side others have just as much certainty about what they know and have experienced, and the truth of their reality – but neither offers the fullness of any reality, it is limited and recognizing that can open us up to hear one another’s contributions.

2) As the listerner/reader:

We must keep each other human. Each person is distinctly shaped by so many different experiences, from terribly hurtful experiences to wonderfully life-giving ones, and their complexity as a human cannot be reduced to any one aspect of what they express, or of what we understand them to be expressing.

For example Lorde states – “To examine Black women’s literature effectively requires that we be seen as whole people in our actual complexities – as individuals, as women, as human – rather than as one of those problematic but familiar stereotypes provided in this society in place of genuine images of Black women,” (FTR, 290).

Could we not do this of one another when we engage with any particular thing another person says and writes? Can we remember to keep each other’s contributions in the context of their whole humanity of which we are only aware of in part?

Can we remember that all of us have all kinds of varied experiences that make us humans? Katie Cannon wrote to Carter Heyward in Whimsy, page 36:

“When we, as various people, can claim the beauty of our innerselves, then we do not have to exploit, oppress, disenfranchise other people in some kind of hierarchical, vertical sadomasochistic pecking order.”

Perhaps in these two small practices of how we listen and how we speak to one another, we can begin to move even closer to the reality of the transformed world that inspires and moves us.

**********

Texts Used:

A) Audre Lorde’s “Open Letter to Mary Daly,” in This Bridge Called My Back, Eds. Cherrie Moraga (94-97) and Gloria Anzaldua,

and Mary Daly’s response in Amazon Grace, by Mary Daly (25-26).

B) Letters between Katie Cannon and Carter Heyward in God’s Fierce Whimsy, (35-59).

C) Renita J. Weems’ blog, Something Within January 31, 2008 entry “Baby Girl, Where’s Your Line in the Sand.”

D) Also consulted:

a. Rosemary Radford Ruether’s lecture from the “Religion and the Feminist Movement” Conference at the Harvard Divinity School: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/wsrp/scholarship/rfmc/rfm_video3.htm

b. Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology, “The New Intergalactic Introduction,” (xxix-xxxiii).

c. Alexis De Veaux’s Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, (233-239, 246-253).

d. Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “La Prieta,” in This Bridge Called My Back, (198-209).

My Theological Conversations

I think I just realized something. Even in doing theology, my first instinct is not to draw on the "sources" of Christianity or from within the history of the church - because then if I did that, I would only be talking about those and to those within the church. My conversations are with people not necessarily in the church - my conversations, even my theological conversations, are with feminists and other people on the boundary of the church. So I begin with sources I come across in daily life, with more popular sources and 'secular' feminist sources that may connect with people to whom Christian sources are not engaging or interesting. At the point of offering my own contribution to a theological topic, I then draw in from one of Christianity's primary source, the Bible, in hopes of creating an alternate entry point and interpretation for people not in the church.

Why? Probably because 1) I am always working out (read justifying) my own participation and continuation in a religious tradition that is patriarchal and has many times served to oppress, and so I offer my interpretations and reflections to those with whom I do not want to lose connection because of this continued participation on my part, and 2) because I do indeed really see an alternative and life-giving way of living and relating in the life of Jesus as he lived it in his time and place and with his companions. Jung Young Lee says all theology is to some extent autobiographical...I am definitely guilty.

It's a confusing thing let me tell you. But worse, it's not very conducive to trying to fit my theological work, that which I am inclined to do because it's ultimately what inspires and motivates me, within the method and expectations of my chosen field of Practical Theology...not good!!

Mary Daly - The Name and the Person

So, although my blog is called Solidaridad, the blog address is 'marydaly' and I feel kind dumb about that. You see, I loooooove Mary Daly - she basically changed my life. I have blogged about this before and have even explained that if it wasn't for Mary Daly I would not be able to continue to be part of the Christian church (ironic, I know - don't tell Mary she facilitates this for me! I blog about that here.)

I started this blog when Mary Daly was that, "Mary Daly," the name of a writer, scholar, feminist philosopher whose ideas and writings revolutionized my life. The name of someone I only knew in books. She was not Mary, a woman, an embodied human being, who comes with the vastness of experiences that make up a whole person. She was a name that changed my life through her books.

And because I failed to see and engage her work within the context of her whole humanity - I foolishly felt the freedom to use her name as my blog address! Yes, it was out of love for her work and all the ways it impacted my life, but it is her name! And I failed to give it the respect it deserves, that she deserves as a human person whose name is her own.

So now what do I do?

First, I want to share what I have learned along the way as I have gotten to know Mary, as the Amazing and Elemental human being that she is. I remember posting after I saw Mary in person the first time - and the surrealness of the experience for me. Then I posted after the first time I talked to her on the phone as I responded to the possibility of working for her. And after that, I couldn't post anymore! Friends were asking me, "What happened with Mary Daly - did you get the job?" But I couldn't respond - why? Because after meeting, working with, and getting to know Mary - that she loves jelly filled munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, that she still gets emotionally affected at the mention of Audre Lorde, that she reads the newspaper avidly, and loves Frappucinos! - I realized that the way I had blogged and talked about her before was objectifying. I was not referring to her as a whole human being - I wrote and talked about her as a phenomenon to oooh and aaaah over. As a result, that is also how my friends would ask me about her :-( And I felt terrible! I didn't want to talk about her like that anymore - or anyone else for that matter.

But I learned a lesson. It's basic, and now so obvious to me that I am a little embarrassed it took me so long to learn. Too often we/I engage a text (any particular writer's work) as an abstraction, an object to be analyzed, scrutinized, critiqued, and sometimes deconstructed - we're actually taught to do this as academics. But as a result, I think we also end up doing this to the writer, the human in the text, themselves. Do we realized that there is a person, a whole and complete human being, with all the complexities and experiences that that entails, behind this text, in the text? A person has given of their time, their thoughts, their emotions and experiences - they give of their very self - in order to offer us something they find meaningful and valuable and worth sharing with us! Do we, can we, engage each other's work with the respect and generosity of spirit that it deserves? We can and we should!

Now... do I change my blog address??

Being Younger, Making Friends

Apparently I was more of an introvert when I was younger. If you know me now, that may seem quite surprising, but its true. I was not a very social kid, and sometimes I was actually quite mean...I have repented though! I wasn't one to be bullied, at least not in elementary school, and Jr. High too actually. I remember one time a boy tried to stick his hand down my dress, around 3rd grade, and without even blinking an eye I totally kneed him, you know, where it hurts boys! Ai! A little violent I know. :-/

Anyway, back to my point. I was a shy kid. I didn't like talking to people I did not already know (how I got to know them in them first place remains a mystery). Even with company my parents would have over our house, I had no interest in even saying hello. When my parents would direct me to greet the company, I remember being totally annoyed and saying, "I don't know who they are, why should I say hello?" I liked being left alone with my books and in my bedroom (the walls of which were completely covered with "stuff"; posters, drawings, magazine cutouts, buttons, plaques, you name it!). And if you see almost any one of my childhood pictures, I am never smiling. Not that I wasn't a happy kid, I was just a very serious one!

Despite all my shyness, I do remember making very particular friends. I remember that when it came to certain people, I was never shy about approaching them and trying to make friends with them. If there was a person who stood out as not fitting in or if there was someone who seemed be trying to hide into the background, it was as if I was on a mission! Of course at first it would be hard, thinking they may have no interest in being friends with me, and building the courage to talk to them in the first place. But eventually I would not be able to resist. The possibility, the potential of getting to know this mysterious person who no one else seemed to be engaging was just too exciting to resist! My curiosity was too great. The possible treasure this mysterious person could be was impossible for me to pass up!

People really are mysteries. We are each a mystery. It's just pretty trippy to think about. I think my curiosity about people has helped me to be able to connect with others across our differences. Maybe curiosity should be a virtue! hehe :-P

Mary Daly

Mary Daly saves women's lives - everyday.

I Just Discovered Amparo Ochoa

She is so awesome! Here is a song called "Woman"



And here is another one about loving even in times of war, "Para Amar en Tiempo de Guerra"