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Favorite quote from the hang out on “Can I be a Feminist and Spiritual” is the following paraphrase:
“I’m recognizing that I have felt a profound need to build the framework and the structure first so that I can defend what it is that I want to say. To feel like I have to defend first, to say what I already know, plays havoc with me. It’s the system we live in. That’s the problem with patriarchy. That’s the problem with the church. It’s the problem whether you are conservative or progressive. It’s an academic mind frame. I have to help you understand why I can say what I say before I can say it. I’m so sick of that.
The work for me and for all of us is, if I’m a feminist, is that what I intuitively know and academically understand is worth saying and I don’t have to prove why I want to say what I have to say. I just need to say it. I shouldn’t have to deconstruct first. I shouldn’t have to give you the history of theology first. I want to be in a place where I’m trusting what I know, what I sense, what I understand is worth being said. Period. Then end. ”
I think I’m going to noodle on this for a bit…
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This topic was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
starfielder.
That was a great quote…and to add to that, those who want to keep the status quo feel absolutely no need to explain themselves. They will say “That’s how it has always been. Case closed.” But yet we wear ourselves down by feeling the need to justify everything we believe.
I’m finding that it silences me… this need to have it all figured out before addressing it or speaking my question out loud.
WOW! I’ve always known I was an odd one out, but Great Granddad would never have described himself as a feminist, but Starfielder’s parphrase seems to say it all – the inability of church leadership to get away from an academic mind frame, and just listen to those who sense that they have something worthwhile to say.
Life moves on but this has prompted me to load something to my blog that I wrote a couple of years ago – “The Undefended Life“.
I don’t expect others to see things the same way – we have all been on very different journeys – we all have very different perspectives – based on what we focus on in our own lives. There is surely a need to recognise the significance of cognitive dissonance.
When I read the quote again I realize just how imprisoning it is: this internal (and to some degree external) need to defend a stance, a position, an opinion, a belief. Which then negates a trust in my own internal knowing…which, ultimately, is enough and frankly, what matters. SO much emphasis has been placed on applied knowledge, on a body of “truth” that we must absorb and practice and ascribe to. There is goodness in the mix, to be sure; but when it causes us (translate: me) to no longer have the ability to hear or trust my own voice, that’s problematic…and sad.
Oh, for contexts in which we continue to nourish and nurture each others’ deep, intuitive knowing; where we trust some deeper source of wisdom from within. And then from/through which we speak – and write – and live.
Thanks for capturing this quote starfielder. Truly.
Anonymousto some extent I feel like this quote–I do not have the biblical background (never went to bible school, never mind a degree — actually one of my biggest regrets is I didn’t go to University but that’s another topic –) to defend my beliefs, I just know what works for me yet if someone was to challenge me on it, I’d fold.
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This topic was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
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