She was “not always nice,” stated my cousin Wilma in her tribute to our aunt Gertrude (Harder) Klassen at her funeral last Monday. I smiled; I heard some chuckles. Yes, we all knew what she meant. Other words that came up to describe our aunt in the course of the day were “direct,” “forthright,” “feisty,” “determined,” even “intimidating.” Continue reading
As news of the death of Osama Bin Laden broke last evening, with that peculiar voyeuristic excitement such events take on as we sit nearly mesmerized in front of the television and listen to commentators say the same thing over and over again — Osama Bin Laden is dead, Osama Bin Laden is dead, Osama Bin Laden is dead — the reaction seemed all jubilation. I felt uneasy, I confess, but wasn’t sure if I should. I’m Canadian, after all, not a New Yorker, not an American. But this morning I began to hear others expressing similar dis-ease, in comments on Facebook, in blog posts, places like that. Here’s one piece of wisdom (“Vengeance does not equal peace”) that touched me especially, from Heather Plett, because she spoke to this situation from a place of deep learning of her own.
And then I was running some errands and caught Jian Ghomeshi’s interview with Maya Angelou on Q at CBC. And that was another gift of wisdom on this Monday, nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden, but one sentence after the other in that thoughtful, melodious voice of hers, about being human, getting the job she wanted when no one would give her the time of day because she was “Negro,” saying sorry, how we carry home with us, being a role model, and more. If you have 23 minutes or so, why not have a listen, here. Hers is such a beautiful spirit.
I’ve been mulling over a couple of paragraphs by Sarah Coakley in the recent account of her personal theological journey, “Prayer as crucible” (in the “How my mind has changed” series in Christian Century), about how silence and submission in prayer relate to action — to speaking up, that is, — especially for women.
At the heart of the prayer of silence is a simple surrendering of control to God…. Not only was this shift into practiced loss of control intrinsically anxiety-making, it also brought with it for me a taxing feminist paradox. Was not lack of control, lack of autonomy, precisely the problem that women were countering with feminism? Was not vulnerability an ill to be avoided rather than a precious state to be inculcated? Was not this, in other words, a dangerous invitation to sexist discrimination, even abuse? ….
It took me a while to work out that a seriously false dichotomy was at work here, and that submission to God and silence before God — being unlike any other submission or any other silence — was that which empowered one to speak against injustice and abuse and was the ground of true freedom (in God) rather than its suppression..
As both feminist and practitioner of prayer, I find her words encouraging and true.
[The entire article is currently available online only to CC subscribers, but I also recommend an interview with Sarah Coakley here — “Living prayer and leadership” — and a moving piece about practicing the prayer of silence with prisoners — “Meditation as a Subversive Activity.”]
Borrowing Bones 