Poetry on Feminist Catholicism

I wrote a poem about Adam and Eve. Well, more about Eve than Adam.

I don't believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis. I don't believe in the apple, the garden, the tree, the temptation, the Fall, or the banishment.

I do believe that oral story telling is a rich part of tradition and somewhere along the way, telling stories began to lose their power of metaphor.

In the literal, vein, however, I wrote this poem and designed a backdrop as I think more about my Catholic faith.

Transformative Blogging: A Free Write on Pregnancy, Feminism, and the Internet

Three years ago, I started blogging.

I was newly married, working at a university, confronting my disdain for the midwestern common, and beginning to fall in love with photography.

Today I am 4 months pregnant, working at a spiritual center, combing through my complex relationship with geography and identity, and am a freelance writer and photographer. My dreams are more realized, I can humbly admit to myself.

This summer has been a fragmented blogging experience. I've loosened my ties with the online world after experiencing an avalance of its toxicity. But I know of the power of the internet, the power of online communication and exchange, and I know that I will never completely sever my ties with blogging.

The frequency of my blogging came alongside the confidence to speak my mind about mainstream feminism, kyriarchy, and the destructive practices of dominating US-identifed feminists in the field of gender, sexuality, and "feminism." Somewhere, in the Bermuda triangle of my mind, online expression became necessary strength-training for my feminisms. Online exposure - seeking external information from strangers and "experts" - became one of the most frequently visited gyms to exercise feminist discourse. Until now.

Pregnancy has taken me inward. Deep into the reflective tissue of memory, trauma, joy, and motherhood. It has taken me into these far off places of security and fear, health and death, responsibility and loss of control. I've retreated into my body, less focused on the rest of the world and simply in the world growing below my belly button.

This event, for lack of a better word, has transformed me again beyond any trip, research, or moving poet could ever shift me before. At no other time in my life have I walked more slowly, spoke less with more to say, and allowed to open my life to truly not caring about the world whilst still loving it deeply, wildly from my corner in Cleveland, Ohio.

Early pregnancy was very much like discovering the internet - information overload. There was story upon story of miracle (once infertile now fertile) to the heartwrenching (still born stories that made me weep for days) and more "advice" than I could handle. It left me staring at my ceiling in bed, convinced I was sick, was headed into an unhealthy pregnancy, and needed more medical attention than any other person who had ever given birth in the history of baby-making.

I harbored no trust, particularly for my own mind.

My early experience of feminism and the internet was similar. Three years ago, my blog was somewhat directionless. It was filled with thoughtful entries, some humor, and candid glimpses into my life, but it lacked any true identity. It lacked the substantial stamp of SELF. PERSPECTIVE. AUTHENTICITY. TRUTH.

The exploration of how to effectively use media, the internet, blogging, and feminism to transform ourselves and our pockets of the universe remains an unchartered course, a hike for which an infinite weight of rations is needed. This might take a lifetime. But I have learned that while blogging has been very much a gift - delivering relationships, realizations, connections, and insight - it is also a place that can sometimes take you away. Away from your body, away from listening to your own authentic creations. I realize one of the biggest differences in my writing over the past three years is that I write less reactionary pieces and responses than when I first began blogging. I was exploding like a firecracker to a zillion commentors and posts that led me nowhere except away from truly reflecting and moving within my own consciousness.

This gift of pregnancy has not only given me necessary reflection and work to emotionally prepare for a new role as mother, but it has deterred and sharpened my eyesight to be selective in who I choose to read and listen to. It has taught me that more is not always better and reading an endless parade of memoir writing about motherhood will never grasp what the experience means to ME. What is happening to my body, my brain, my bones right now.

It has been through pregnancy that I see "Feminism" with new eyes and I see much more red than I ever saw before. Red bias, red intentions, red discrimination, red narrowness...I see red. Reproductive health rights are arrows pointing to the majority of heterosexual, young white women. Sexuality and spirituality are rarely explored as an interlaced relationship. The conferences change names, but still move in their same agenda. "Liberal" and "progressive" are thrown around without much depth and review. Blog wars still flare from time to time, roaming from appropriation to racism, but after a few months of quiet, you'll still find the same bloggers rowing in the currents of mainstream thought and contributing to US-centric, heteronormative rhetoric that alientates and ostracizes "unpopular" issues like the fact WE ARE STILL AT WAR IN IRAQ, WE ARE NOT A POST-RACE SOCIETY BECAUSE WE HAVE A BI-RACIAL PRESIDENT, and the violence of poverty and rape still choke the life out of womyn everywhere in the world.

Maybe the point is not for the blogosphere to be transformed, but for me to transform according to my offline life, my quiet purpose. And just hope and pray that others are doing the same. Maybe if we all did that, our blogosphere, our world would change. Maybe we could all go through something similiar to a pregnancy where we witness new life growing in some way and we are drawn inward to listen to the new beat of existence, a changed way of being.

Maybe if we listened more, talked less, we could actually hear something other than the deafening needs of our egos and more of the muted chants of our yearning hearts.

Emerging, A Feminist Faith

What does it mean to be a feminist of faith?

Specifically, what does it mean to be a Catholic feminist? Is this a living contradiction? Can the two blend together in a search for truth, meaning, or even justice?

How can two radically different ideologies and practice possibly come together?

I always wanted to write about my faith and, funny, it seems the more confident I grow in writing about my faith, the more capable I am of asking questions in my writing. There are no ways to move through faith without poignant questions of practicality, relationship, and the living out of our faith.

It sometimes feels like those of us who do have some sort of active spirituality that is exercised through organized religion are often segregated, left in our own strange world of ritual, tradition, and silence.

I wanted to write about faith because I find so little feminist writers who write out of a plain existence. So many articles and books about Catholicism are written from the religious, or the scholars, the ones who have dedicated their entire lives to understanding. I've come to find I've dedicated my entire life to questioning and, therefore, often took myself out of the running to write about faith. Too scared about what people would think, too scared to find what I might possibly overturn in my own soil, but mostly, I didn't write because I didn't feel I had authority to write about faith, feminist faith, my faith.

How ironic, isn't it? As a person of faith, as a person dedicated to the preferential option for the poor, social justice, and relevant theology, I never really saw myself as someone who had anything to say about faith. It was my backbone, but never my specialty to write. It was my crux, but I was convinced I would only be adding to the noise. There were plenty of people with enough opinion out in the world, and I never felt really justified in adding mine to the increasingly loud voices.

Besides, I thought to myself, the world needs people with answers and maps to help them feel better. All I have is hope and helluva lot of questions. And, I curse too much.

Once I was through categorizing my short-comings as to why I would never write about faith and feminism, I began drafting a book proposal about radical marriage. In my drafts, I began reflecting on my life, the things that most resonated with me that shaped my views on marriage. There was really no way to write authentically without centering the one thing that remained constant - my questioning and growing faith. There would be no book about radical marriage, or any topic, really, if I denied a part of myself that influenced every choice I ever made in my life. My writing, giving myself, would be something authentic. Challenging and provocative. To be a writer of substance, I had to trudge up the things that I most feared and was reluctant to address. To address my experience and understanding of marriage, I had to talk about God.

To write less, would mean to be less.

When I talk about God, some of my dearest friends still think I judge them, their lives, and their belief system, or atheism. Truthfully, I tell them, the presence of a living spirit has little to do with what you talk about, but more on how you live. The way you live is more important than whether or not you say you believe in a God or not. They don't believe me. To this day, many of my friends still fret that I judge them for not having an active and practicing faith.

My last answer is this: If it bothers you this much, then it's not about me or our friendship. You need to come to a place within your own life where you are comfortable and confident with what you do and do not believe. No amount of my coaxing, comforting, or shrugging will satisfy a heart laden with guilt, anger, or dismissal.

And so, the hesitancy to write about faith grew. And then, several years ago, someone gave me a quote that went something like this: You do no one a favor by shrinking yourself. It does nothing to become one with darkness out of solidarity. Be yourself. Be light.

By pretending faith was not important to me, I spent years in the dark trying to blend in the background. The veil has been pulled and these are my colors. I am a womyn, a feminist of faith. And for all the questions, contradictions, and controversy that brings - well, it's better to face those things head on, with no pretense, than to submit to a writing life with no authentic tongue.