Response to"Kari McBride" Sent: 15 November 2000 19:59
Subject: hello

Kari, I have sometimes before seen this polarity described
between

>>these two paths--leaving and (re)inventing
vs. staying and reforming

going back to I think Ruether who defined it as a choice between
reformist or radical feminist theology.

I should just like to point to another 3rd group this overlooks
who in building a personal faith neither leave nor stay, since
not everyone starts out in one of the "world religions". Some
grow up atheist/ agnostic, or shamanic/native, or in a NRM (new
religious movement) etc.
I was myself brought up on a mixture of Marcus Aurelius, the
Sioux, Jean Jacques Rousseau etc and so thankfully free of
institutionalised dogma - though not free of shibboleths in other
areas!

Like you

>>I find my religious
tradition to be so entwined with everything else I do/think/value

but while for you this is a reason to stay in a difficult place
of struggle, this was the reason I adopted a faith that did not
impose those struggles.
Many years on, the community is becoming powerful and complex and
now ironically does present struggle with the tendencies towards
institutionaliosation. But at least the tenets still validate me
totally without reservation as a woman and priestess.
Many people speak of Goddess as "coming home" as it embraces so
much of our lives. So I found your "entwined with everything else
I do/think/value" familiar, yet unfamiliar applied to something
that causes pain.

So I cannot agree that

>>I suspect that these two paths--leaving and
(re)inventing vs. staying and reforming-- represent a difficult
choice
for most women today who are religious or spiritual seekers. ...

(it) remains a very difficult almost daily choice.

It doesn't have to be. It is, very much so, for reformers who
stay and fight, and at first, for those who leave. Such courage
on both choices as you say deserves respect.
I used to be sceptical as to the value of reformism but I learned
from Ursula King that the centuries of foremothers who suffered
and struggled for better things under the "great faiths" deserve
remembering, and that their struggle should not be filed away
just because we have other options now. And for many who grow up
always accustomed to certain ideas it is just not possible to
change them.

As well this is not to deny my other post re the persecution we
can face due to Christian propaganda. Some like me find it a much
much smaller pain to have to be discreet except among those we
trust, compared to living with the constant invasion of ugly
mutilating ideas about myself as a woman. At least among my own I
can stand utterly proud free and self respecting, knowing I am
sacred because I am a woman, not merely in spite of it. That's
worth (to me) any amount of silly people being rude and nasty in
the wider world.
And sanctuaries like this List are all the more valuable.

For others again this is too hard; their strength lies in other
directions, not in standing apart from the main group. We are a
gregarious (herd) species, and living against the public grain is
just not possible for many who need to be part of the mainstream.
Such a need should never be disrespected, it is herd instinct
that makes us cooperative and loving.

However I find Fiorenza's comment as you quote it troubling.
Stubbornly not leaving an abusive situation because of an
unwillingness to give away ground, is characteristic of battered
wives. Having invested years and years into surviving abuse the
wife increasingly does not "see" it, so that events that horrify
others cause little (conscious) distress to her because they are
normal to her.
She is engaged in a locked power struggle with her dominator,
where her victimisation becomes yet another weapon in her
struggle to indirectly dominate him, as he struggles to dominate
her. The greater her damage the greater her sense of power in her
survival.
She is determined that he is not going to win, and so she refuses
to leave.

(This analysis is only one aspect and does not include the fear
and ingrained powerlessness after years of abuse that makes it
terribly hard/ impossibly hard to imagine leaving.)

I do not think staying should be about continuing the power
struggle. That just continues the power struggle on its own
terms.

If people bred in "world faiths" stay in them I should prefer
them to stay because that faith brings them
frequent deep joy, expanded living,
myriad pleasures in sex/intellect/affection/art,
enriched wisdom,
and from these solid foods a strength to pass through natural
sufferings as we live, and finally to look forward to trust in
the moment of death.
A faith that cannot offer these things to its people is no worthy
faith (to me).
These gifts do not need holy books, priesthood, liturgy, holy
institutions though they may survive these things. They do need
us to know we are divine.

Shan