Bednarowski, Mary
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- | Well thank you very much, Mary. | 0:01 |
I wanted to get some background information from you first. | 0:03 | |
So if you could say your name. | 0:07 | |
- | Mary Ferrel Bednarowski. | 0:08 |
- | Thank you, and are you lay or clergy? | 0:11 |
- | I am a laywoman, a Roman Catholic laywomen. | 0:13 |
- | Yes, thank you very much. | 0:16 |
- | There is no other kind. | 0:18 |
- | Really. (laughs) | |
Good point. | 0:20 | |
Where and when were you born, Mary? | 0:22 | |
- | I was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1942. | 0:24 |
- | Really? | 0:27 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Okay, Green Bay. | 0:29 |
- | Mm-hm. | |
- | Where did you go to school, graduate or divinity school? | 0:31 |
- | I went to graduate school at Duquesne University | 0:34 |
in Pittsburgh in English. | 0:37 | |
And we moved to St. Louis. | 0:39 | |
And I spent a semester in the PhD program in English | 0:43 | |
at St. Louis University. | 0:47 | |
And then we moved to Minneapolis. | 0:49 | |
And the Jesuit who was my advisor at St. Louis University | 0:53 | |
said when I asked, would you write me a reference letter? | 0:58 | |
He said, "Oh don't go in to the English Department. | 1:02 | |
"You'll never come out again. | 1:05 | |
"Go into American Studies." | 1:07 | |
He had his PhD in American Studies. | 1:09 | |
That was best advice anybody ever gave me. | 1:11 | |
- | What did he mean by you'll never come out again? | 1:14 |
- | I think his sense was that people didn't finish | 1:16 |
their degrees or enough of them didn't that it was alarming. | 1:19 | |
- | Yes. | 1:23 |
- | So obedient | 1:24 |
(Interviewer laughs) | ||
young Catholic thing that I was I said, "Okay Father. | 1:26 | |
And it was perfect for me. | 1:28 | |
- | Why was it perfect for you? | 1:30 |
- | It was perfect because | 1:33 |
I had a kind of interdisciplinary inclination | 1:35 | |
that I discovered retrospectively. | 1:39 | |
So I had written my dissertation, my MA thesis | 1:42 | |
and it turned out also my dissertation | 1:46 | |
on 19th century American spiritualism. | 1:49 | |
And I just got very involved. | 1:52 | |
It was the poetry, the MA thesis was the poetry | 1:55 | |
of a spiritualist medium. | 1:59 | |
- | Oh interesting. | 2:01 |
- | And I just kind of moved away from an interest | 2:03 |
in the poetry which was pretty derivative, pretty cornball. | 2:06 | |
And just went interested in spiritualists | 2:11 | |
and their crises in faith. | 2:14 | |
And I think, I think appealed to me so much | 2:17 | |
because these were the years of Vatican II, | 2:21 | |
just post Vatican II. | 2:25 | |
And I was undergoing my own crisis of faith. | 2:27 | |
So those Victorian stories made perfect sense to me. | 2:30 | |
- | Of course. | 2:34 |
- | But again I didn't make the connection immediately. | 2:35 |
I didn't know why I loved those so much and thought, | 2:37 | |
"Oh I get this." | 2:39 | |
(Interviewer laughs) | 2:41 | |
- | It so often happens that way doesn't it? | 2:43 |
You understand retrospectively, yeah. | 2:45 | |
So what kid of work or ministry were you doing | 2:46 | |
at the time of Reimagining? | 2:50 | |
- | I was teaching at United Seminary. | 2:53 |
And I think because I was always trying | 2:55 | |
to maintain my identity at United. | 2:57 | |
As someone who was not in ministry. | 3:01 | |
Even though people would say well teaching is ministry. | 3:06 | |
I was not receptive to that. | 3:10 | |
Even though I knew exactly what they meant. | 3:13 | |
So I did not think of myself as being in ministry | 3:16 | |
although many of students of course were going into ministry | 3:19 | |
and I loved the idea that they were doing it. | 3:22 | |
So you know, just identity crisis after crisis. | 3:24 | |
It was always non-traumatic and clarifying for me | 3:28 | |
so maybe crisis isn't the right word. | 3:33 | |
- | Yeah, yes. | 3:35 |
And could you say a little bit more about | 3:36 | |
what you taught there and some of what you've written? | 3:38 | |
- | I was hired as an adjunct professor | 3:46 |
at United in 1976. | 3:50 | |
And director of the MA program, the MARS program, | 3:54 | |
Master of Arts in Religious Studies | 3:57 | |
because my friend Gail Yates | 3:59 | |
who became to director of women's studies | 4:01 | |
at the University of Minnesota had recommended me. | 4:04 | |
- | Okay. | 4:07 |
- | We had just moved back to Minneapolis | 4:08 |
this time from Milwaukee. | 4:10 | |
And, we did a lot of moving. | 4:12 | |
- | You did (laughs)? | 4:15 |
- | Yeah. | |
And I was hired to teach a course at United | 4:16 | |
on women in American religious history. | 4:21 | |
Which I had already taught at the University | 4:24 | |
of Wisconsin Milwaukee. | 4:26 | |
And it was one of my major, emerging interests | 4:28 | |
even though the resources are pretty scarce in those years. | 4:32 | |
So I ended up at United kind of through | 4:36 | |
a fluke in some ways. | 4:40 | |
Because I'd gone to graduate school with Gail. | 4:42 | |
And because she applied to be director of women's studies. | 4:45 | |
So the dean interviewed me | 4:48 | |
when she recommended me. | 4:50 | |
And we talked about whether it would matter | 4:53 | |
that I was Catholic. | 4:55 | |
We both decided it wouldn't matter it would be interesting. | 4:57 | |
I was sort of, well I was kind of diversity embodied | 5:00 | |
for those years | 5:05 | |
with my American Studies degree. | 5:07 | |
- | Yes. | 5:09 |
- | The fact that I was Roman Catholic, | 5:10 |
I was a woman, I had an ethnic last name, | 5:12 | |
I had a secular degree. | 5:15 | |
So I had felt lucky ever since that that happened. | 5:19 | |
And I gradually moved into full time teaching there. | 5:23 | |
And taught courses on religion in American culture. | 5:26 | |
New religions. | 5:30 | |
Women in religion and literature in addition to | 5:33 | |
women in American religious history, | 5:38 | |
religious autobiography, | 5:40 | |
different kinds of literature courses. | 5:42 | |
And then I team taught some of the introductory courses | 5:45 | |
with my MDiv oriented colleagues. | 5:49 | |
Theological method, religious studies method. | 5:53 | |
I had a very good time there. | 5:57 | |
- | It sounds like it, it really does. | 6:00 |
- | And I acquired, | 6:02 |
you know if you're in Catholic school for 16 years | 6:03 | |
from first grade through graduate school, | 6:07 | |
you do have a theological education. | 6:11 | |
Even if it not named as such. | 6:14 | |
And so I acquired another one, a different kind | 6:16 | |
at United just through being there. | 6:21 | |
So I'm a bit of a theological hybrid I would say. | 6:23 | |
And grateful that I've had those experiences. | 6:28 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | 6:31 |
And I'm sure it's good for United, too | 6:34 | |
worked out well. | 6:36 | |
- | Oh I would just love | |
to think that. | 6:38 | |
(both laugh) | ||
- | How and when did you first become aware | 6:40 |
of feminist theology? | 6:44 | |
- | You know I noticed that question as I was looking through | 6:45 |
the questions you sent me and I was thinking | 6:49 | |
when did I think in terms of feminist theology? | 6:53 | |
And I think it was probably in the early years at United. | 6:57 | |
I was long since interested in women | 7:01 | |
in American religious history. | 7:03 | |
And being at United began to make me think about | 7:05 | |
the theological creativity of women. | 7:09 | |
And there was the overlap with new religions | 7:14 | |
because so many of them have women leaders | 7:17 | |
or they gave women opportunities for leadership that were | 7:20 | |
not possible in the established traditions. | 7:23 | |
And it took me a long time to think of nuns | 7:27 | |
as women in American religious history. | 7:32 | |
But I began to catch on to that reality too | 7:35 | |
that they were actors, agents in the history of religion | 7:38 | |
and culture in America. | 7:43 | |
So I would say that was in the '70s I became | 7:46 | |
more consciously aware | 7:50 | |
that this was theological work of a different | 7:53 | |
and more creative kind. | 7:57 | |
With a different entry point, the gender issues | 8:00 | |
was a different entry point. | 8:02 | |
Into the study of theology. | 8:06 | |
- | Well thank you, that's really helpful. | 8:09 |
Should we move to Reimagining? | 8:12 | |
- | Sure. | |
And could you say some about your relationship | 8:14 | |
to the Reimagining community, what roles you played? | 8:17 | |
- | You know I was thinking that over too and I, | 8:20 |
the details are a little fuzzier than I would have assumed. | 8:23 | |
But I remember going to one of the big planning meetings. | 8:28 | |
I think I only went to one of those. | 8:33 | |
But Sally Hill asked if I would be on | 8:36 | |
the planning committee for Thursday night, | 8:41 | |
for the opening night. | 8:43 | |
Sue Seid Martin, Madeleine Sue Martin | 8:46 | |
was als in that committee, Pam Jurne was on that committee, | 8:51 | |
Karen Diamond, did you ever run into her? | 8:55 | |
- | No. | 8:57 |
- | She was a Presbyterian clergy woman. | 8:59 |
I think she was at central Presbyterian at St. Paul | 9:02 | |
then she moved to New York. | 9:05 | |
So she wasn't living here | 9:07 | |
when the actual first | 9:11 | |
1993 Reimagining occurred. | 9:13 | |
She was back for it. | 9:17 | |
So she was not a part of all of that planning. | 9:18 | |
But Sally, and Sue, and Pam, and I met | 9:22 | |
it seems like forever. | 9:26 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
And it was, we probably met for the first time, | 9:30 | |
it might have been as early as 1989. | 9:34 | |
- | Wow. | 9:37 |
- | But certainly 1990. | |
And I was thinking, | 9:39 | |
"We're meeting now by the conference? | 9:42 | |
"You know, 1993, good grief." | 9:46 | |
But that conference. | 9:49 | |
I'm sure you've heard this from other people. | 9:52 | |
There was not a unanimous sense | 9:54 | |
of what shape it would even take. | 9:57 | |
- | Right! | 10:00 |
- | And I remember | |
one discussion early on, | 10:01 | |
might this just be a gathering of 50 women? | 10:03 | |
Because Sally's idea was to bring together | 10:06 | |
some of the theologians that we had all been reading | 10:10 | |
for, I don't know, | 10:14 | |
mutual enlightenment. | 10:17 | |
And so it began | 10:21 | |
to grow from something pretty small and focused | 10:23 | |
into this great big thing. | 10:28 | |
And I can't remember | 10:31 | |
by what time in the history of the planning | 10:34 | |
it became apparent that there were going to be | 10:37 | |
a lot of people there | 10:39 | |
rather than 100 or 200, | 10:41 | |
so I was on that committee, | 10:45 | |
and I think that was kind of my major function. | 10:48 | |
And I would hear about all the other committees | 10:52 | |
that were meeting. | 10:55 | |
And because Madeleine Sue Martin was on our committee, | 10:56 | |
I knew a lot about the ritual committee. | 10:59 | |
- | Yes. | 11:02 |
- | It seems to me, this is the way I remember it, | 11:03 |
that little Thursday night planning committee | 11:07 | |
involved ritual. | 11:10 | |
Then I think I became fairly clear that there | 11:14 | |
needed to be a rituals committee. | 11:16 | |
And maybe there was one from the beginning. | 11:19 | |
I don't remember. | 11:21 | |
- | Sure. | 11:22 |
- | But Sue | |
kept meeting with us. | 11:24 | |
I remember one time being in Sue's house | 11:26 | |
and listening to lost of different kinds of music, | 11:29 | |
trying to decide what would be the appropriate music | 11:32 | |
for the whole conference and especially | 11:35 | |
for Thursday night. | 11:37 | |
And then I, | 11:40 | |
someone must have asked me. | 11:42 | |
I can't remember who asked me. | 11:44 | |
Maybe the people in that committee, | 11:46 | |
if I would give a presentation | 11:48 | |
on the opening night. | 11:50 | |
And I was very honored to be asked | 11:52 | |
and terrified at the thought of it. | 11:55 | |
- | Why terrified? | 11:59 |
- | Well, it just seemed kind of overwhelming. | 12:00 |
And Bernice Rain was going to be one of the other speakers. | 12:04 | |
- | Did I back up for just one minute? | 12:09 |
How did you know Sally Hill? | 12:12 | |
- | Sally is a United graduate, but she had graduated | 12:16 |
before I got there. | 12:19 | |
- | Okay. | |
- | And it seems to me that in the, | 12:22 |
probably in the early '80s, | 12:26 | |
I was on the local faith and order committee | 12:30 | |
for the greater Minneapolis Consul of Churches. | 12:33 | |
- | Okay. | 12:37 |
- | And she was on that | |
committee also. | 12:40 | |
In fact, I think she sat that committee | 12:42 | |
and the one in St. Paul as well | 12:44 | |
in the Minnesota Consul of Churches. | 12:46 | |
And I'm pretty sure at that time I got to know her. | 12:47 | |
- | Yeah. | 12:50 |
- | And just enjoyed | |
her a lot. | 12:51 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | I just liked her. | 12:53 |
- | Yes. | |
- | So when she asked me to do things, I would say yes. | 12:55 |
(interviewer laughs) | 12:58 | |
- | Oh. | 13:00 |
How would you describe that process? | 13:02 | |
It was several years. | 13:06 | |
- | Oh yes. | 13:08 |
- | Yes. | |
- | It really was. | 13:09 |
- | What was that process like? | 13:11 |
- | Because I was part of such a small committee, | 13:12 |
it was a wonderful process. | 13:16 | |
We really mulled a million things over. | 13:20 | |
I don't remember any kind of | 13:23 | |
difficulties other than trying to do it all | 13:25 | |
and beginning to realize how big it was going to be. | 13:28 | |
Hmm, I'm not quite sure what else to say about that. | 13:37 | |
- | Yeah, that's helpful. | 13:41 |
I would like to know what was it like, | 13:42 | |
do you remember what it was like | 13:45 | |
when you actually gave that opening presentation | 13:46 | |
at the conference? | 13:48 | |
- | Yeah, I do. | 13:52 |
I was, of course, | 13:54 | |
a wreck. | 13:56 | |
I think that was a normal response. | 13:58 | |
- | Yes. | 14:01 |
- | It felt like a heavy responsibility, | 14:02 |
but usually, | 14:04 | |
I'm running kind of close to the deadline, | 14:06 | |
but I had that thing ready to go | 14:08 | |
three or four weeks ago and I had several people read it. | 14:10 | |
But I do remember the format, | 14:13 | |
some kind of a see-through podium | 14:17 | |
and our instructions were to move this way, | 14:22 | |
and that way, and that way | 14:26 | |
so we addressed all of the corners of the room. | 14:27 | |
And do you know, Mary? | 14:31 | |
You must know, Mary Kay Mettinger. | 14:32 | |
- | Yes, I do, yes. | 14:34 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
- | Yes. | 14:36 |
- | And at one point, | |
I can still remember the way | 14:38 | |
that I was looking out and I saw Mary Kay's smiling face | 14:40 | |
and I thought, "Oh, I feel better now." | 14:45 | |
(both laugh) | 14:48 | |
It was one of those grounding moments. | 14:50 | |
- | Yes. | 14:51 |
- | But I also remember | |
that Marlene White Rabbit Halimal | 14:53 | |
was rubbing my shoulders before it was my turn. | 14:57 | |
- | Really? | 15:01 |
- | That was, | |
I never make puns on purpose. | 15:02 | |
It just happened to be by accident, | 15:06 | |
but it was a touching moment. | 15:08 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 15:09 | |
Because my speech was ready | 15:12 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | And because other people had looked at it, | 15:17 |
and because we were busy that day. | 15:19 | |
I don't know what we were all doing. | 15:20 | |
I remember being at the convention center. | 15:22 | |
I don't thing we were putting up crepe paper, | 15:24 | |
but it was that kind of stuff. | 15:26 | |
- | Right. | 15:28 |
- | By the time the moment came, even though I had | 15:29 |
stage freight in that instant, | 15:32 | |
I had spent the day having a pretty good time. | 15:35 | |
- | Oh, I'm glad. | 15:38 |
- | With the rest of the gang. | 15:40 |
- | Now I don't know if you remember this, | 15:41 |
but I was listening to your presentation | 15:43 | |
and I was struck by the fact that you, early on, | 15:46 | |
said something along the lines of, "We've been waiting | 15:49 | |
"for this for a very long time." | 15:53 | |
- | Yeah. | 15:56 |
- | Something like that. | |
And the room just exploded with applause | 15:57 | |
and you said something like, | 16:00 | |
"I only have 20 minutes," or something. | 16:01 | |
Did you remember how that felt? | 16:04 | |
Did you expect that kind of reaction? | 16:07 | |
- | No, no. | 16:09 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I didn't, | 16:11 |
but very quickly I knew that it was a receptive audience | 16:12 | |
- | Yes. | 16:16 |
- | And I didn't, | |
I didn't have anything to worry about. | 16:19 | |
I just had to do my best. | 16:21 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | Because people wanted it to go well, | 16:23 |
the whole thing. | 16:27 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | Not just my presentation, | 16:29 |
but the whole thing. | 16:30 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | People were excited to be there. | 16:31 |
- | Yes. | 16:33 |
- | It really | |
was a festive spirit. | 16:34 | |
It was so damn much fun. | 16:36 | |
It really, really was. | 16:40 | |
- | Do you have some other favorite memories | 16:42 |
from that conference? | 16:44 | |
- | I remember the, | 16:46 |
what was the controversial | 16:47 | |
litany? | 16:50 | |
- | Milk and honey. | 16:52 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | The milk and honey. | 16:53 |
- | Yes, yes. | |
- | And the nectar between the thighs. | 16:54 |
- | Yes (laughs). | 16:57 |
- | I remember thinking, | |
"Oh, my goodness!" | 16:59 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
And I looked up and it's Kay Vanderbort is somebody | 17:02 | |
you probably would have known. | 17:04 | |
I had been on a women's interfaith Holocaust tour together. | 17:06 | |
- | Oh! | 17:11 |
- | Kate Vanderbort | |
and Mary Kay Mettinger, so that was how I knew | 17:13 | |
some of the women who were there. | 17:16 | |
The wisdom ways who run the web center women. | 17:19 | |
And I remember just kind of looking up | 17:23 | |
and seeing Kay Vanderbort's eyes | 17:26 | |
and we just thought, "Whoa!" | 17:30 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 17:34 | |
That was a moment | 17:35 | |
that I especially liked. | 17:36 | |
- | Yes, yes. | |
- | I liked it Bernice Johnson Righton | 17:38 |
burst into song. | 17:41 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | I enjoyed that a lot. | 17:44 |
I was so startled. | 17:45 | |
I thought, "Oh my gosh, how wonderful and why not?" | 17:46 | |
The sweet honey and the rock, | 17:49 | |
the concert. | 17:53 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | Pam Splay | 17:54 |
and all of that, | 17:59 | |
that spontaneous dancing at the end. | 18:01 | |
I wonder. | 18:05 | |
I have no idea what that music was, | 18:07 | |
but I'd love to hear that again. | 18:08 | |
Must be somewhere. | 18:11 | |
- | It is! | 18:12 |
- | Something must be | |
recorded on something. | 18:14 | |
- | It's digitized. | 18:15 |
- | Oh! | 18:16 |
- | We have it! | |
- | That's fun to know. | 18:17 |
- | Yes, yes. | |
- | Yeah. | 18:18 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Now after '93, you were involved in other ways, | 18:20 |
- | Yeah. | 18:25 |
- | Other conferences. | |
- | I don't remember missing any of the conferences. | 18:26 |
I spoke again in 1998 | 18:31 | |
and I am trying to think. | 18:34 | |
I think Pam Jurne and I, | 18:38 | |
Sally and I, I can't quite remember. | 18:40 | |
In 2003, the last meeting. | 18:43 | |
- | Yes. | 18:47 |
- | We invited | |
two younger women, | 18:48 | |
Claire Bishop and, and, | 18:49 | |
Rachel. | 18:53 | |
- | Rachel Gaffron? | 18:54 |
- | Yeah. | 18:55 |
- | Yes. | |
- | To speak. | 18:56 |
- | Yes. | |
- | And they then wrote a book of essays | 18:58 |
about younger women and feminism | 19:01 | |
and it just seemed it was time to hear other voices, | 19:03 | |
to hear younger voices. | 19:05 | |
So I remember being at, | 19:08 | |
some of the middle ones run together. | 19:10 | |
- | Sure. | 19:13 |
- | I'm trying to think of the one where | 19:14 |
Mary Daily and | 19:15 | |
- | Rebecca Walker. | |
- | Rebecca Walker got into | 19:19 |
- | Yes. | |
- | A little tiff over generations. | 19:20 |
- | Yes. | 19:22 |
What do you remember about that? | 19:24 | |
- | I just remember thinking, "Probably inevitable, | 19:27 |
"but a shame." | 19:31 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | |
- | And it made me laugh to read Madeleine Albright | 19:34 |
saying, "There's a special place in hell for women | 19:38 | |
"who don't support each other (laughs)." | 19:41 | |
- | Right! | 19:43 |
- | And I guess | |
that just popped into my mind as you were asking me | 19:44 | |
about that moment. | 19:45 | |
- | Yes. | |
Yeah. | 19:47 | |
- | I just said, "Oh my gosh, | |
"we have so much work to do." | 19:49 | |
- | Right. | |
- | What are we doing together? | 19:51 |
But there was one, | 19:55 | |
I think it was 1998 where some young women of color | 19:58 | |
were on the stage talking about how excluded they felt | 20:01 | |
and I remember | 20:06 | |
how much work went into trying to make it | 20:08 | |
more inclusive | 20:10 | |
and how defeated we felt. | 20:14 | |
Not only defeated, but that feeling like, | 20:17 | |
"Oh my gosh, we just don't know how to do this." | 20:19 | |
- | Yes. | 20:22 |
- | And feeling sad | |
about that. | 20:23 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Thinking okay, we keep at it. | 20:25 |
- | Yes. | 20:27 |
You know, that has been a recurring theme | 20:28 | |
- | Yeah. | 20:31 |
- | As one of the challenges. | |
- | Yeah. | 20:32 |
- | Do you have any thoughts | |
on why it never really, | 20:36 | |
there was always an effort to have diverse speakers, | 20:39 | |
but the audience | 20:41 | |
tended not to be the group. | 20:44 | |
Do you have ideas on why it remained | 20:47 | |
pretty much a white organization? | 20:49 | |
- | Oh, I have a few thoughts about that, I guess. | 20:53 |
Part of it, one of the challenges in different communities | 20:56 | |
and even though I throw up my hands | 21:01 | |
and say, "Oh, my gosh!" | 21:03 | |
when people say it's a luxury to be a white feminist, | 21:05 | |
I can't even go on | 21:13 | |
about all of that and all of the complexities of it, | 21:14 | |
other than to acknowledge that at some levels, | 21:17 | |
that's true | 21:20 | |
and at other levels, it isn't, | 21:21 | |
that there's other work that needs to be done. | 21:23 | |
In communities of color, that seems to be more important. | 21:26 | |
I think that might be another reason. | 21:29 | |
I'm not certain | 21:36 | |
why the pattern persists, | 21:37 | |
but it's certainly an historical pattern. | 21:40 | |
It's nothing new. | 21:42 | |
- | Right. | |
Yeah, yeah. | 21:43 | |
That's helpful. | 21:47 | |
The backlash. | 21:48 | |
Now I know you're aware of it. | 21:50 | |
It sounds like it didn't affect you directly. | 21:52 | |
- | No, it didn't. | 21:54 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Other than, you know, | 21:56 |
my compassion for my friends who were. | 21:57 | |
Sally acknowledged feeling a depression | 22:00 | |
after all of that, | 22:05 | |
and I think it's in the Reimagining book | 22:08 | |
that Nancy Berniking and Pam Jurne | 22:11 | |
edited where she said that | 22:13 | |
when she, | 22:16 | |
as overwhelmed as she felt like that, | 22:18 | |
when she, by that, | 22:19 | |
when she realized the extent | 22:22 | |
to which gay and lesbian people at that time, | 22:25 | |
we didn't have quite so many initials, I guess, by then. | 22:30 | |
I'm trying to remember. | 22:32 | |
Anyway, the pain they had suffered | 22:34 | |
and yet they persisted in the church. | 22:36 | |
She said something to the effect | 22:40 | |
that she knew she just better get over this. | 22:42 | |
I didn't see it coming, | 22:47 | |
which is laughable. | 22:49 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
I mean, it's ludicrous and it's awful, | 22:52 | |
but it's that point about history. | 22:54 | |
We lose our history. | 22:56 | |
I know enough about women and American religious history. | 22:58 | |
I should have known enough to have anticipated that, | 23:02 | |
but we just, | 23:05 | |
it felt to me | 23:07 | |
so harmless. | 23:10 | |
And I don't mean harmless in effect, | 23:12 | |
but how could anybody not see | 23:14 | |
that this was a revitalization of the churches? | 23:17 | |
A demonstration of the resilience and the depth | 23:21 | |
of Christianity, not something that was going to | 23:25 | |
threaten it. | 23:27 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I was deeply shocked (laughs). | 23:29 |
- | You weren't the only one! | 23:33 |
- | Yeah. | 23:35 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | But I should have known better. | 23:36 |
- | Well, and already you started to answer this question, | 23:39 |
but how do you account for it? | 23:41 | |
The backlash. | 23:43 | |
- | Well, you can look at historical patterns | 23:44 |
and one of my favorite moments in research | 23:47 | |
in my very early days | 23:50 | |
of doing research on the subject, | 23:52 | |
I was putting together a speech in something like | 23:55 | |
1974, I think, | 23:59 | |
in Milwaukee on women in American religious history, | 24:03 | |
and I was desperately searching for sources | 24:11 | |
because there really weren't very many things | 24:15 | |
that pulled it all together. | 24:17 | |
- | Wow. | 24:19 |
- | So I looked at Gerda Lerner's book, | 24:21 |
Women in American History, | 24:22 | |
and when I looked up religion in the index, | 24:24 | |
it said see dissent. | 24:28 | |
- | Really? | 24:31 |
- | And I just pulled together | |
all of the work I had done on women | 24:33 | |
like Mary Baker Heady, Eddie, | 24:35 | |
or Mother Ann Lee, or Helen of Blavatsky, | 24:37 | |
or Ellen White. | 24:41 | |
All of the women leaders | 24:42 | |
of alternative religions | 24:45 | |
that some people call cults. | 24:49 | |
And I thought, "Oh, my gosh. | 24:51 | |
"There is that pattern." | 24:54 | |
So the fear of women's theological creativity, | 24:59 | |
that is always seems dissenting, | 25:02 | |
and it is! | 25:04 | |
I mean, it has to be up to a point. | 25:05 | |
You have to dissent in order to say we deserve to be heard. | 25:07 | |
More than deserve. | 25:10 | |
We have lots to contribute. | 25:12 | |
How could you not want to hear | 25:13 | |
how women experience their religious traditions? | 25:16 | |
- | If I remember correctly in your book, | 25:20 |
you talk about dissenting and conserving as well. | 25:22 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 25:25 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I think that is exactly what is going on, | 25:29 |
or at least one of the things that's going on. | 25:30 | |
- | Yeah. | 25:32 |
- | And I'm especially interested | 25:33 |
in how people | 25:37 | |
use their early religious formations | 25:39 | |
in creative ways. | 25:42 | |
- | Say some more about that. | 25:43 |
- | Well, I have been, for many years, | 25:45 |
collecting stories that people tell | 25:47 | |
about moments of insight, | 25:51 | |
or moments of, | 25:54 | |
I used to call them lump-in-the-throat stories, | 25:55 | |
but people find that a little sentimental. | 25:57 | |
It can be | 25:59 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | A little bit sentimental, | 26:01 |
but kind of where the brain and the heart | 26:02 | |
meet in the throat. | 26:04 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | And you have a physical response that tells you | 26:05 |
you know something deeply, | 26:08 | |
and it's both intellectual and emotional. | 26:12 | |
- | Yes. | 26:14 |
- | And I like those stories | 26:16 |
where people will say I realized that the Eucharist | 26:19 | |
is deeply meaningful to me, | 26:24 | |
even though I could no longer participate, | 26:27 | |
et cetera, et cetera. | 26:29 | |
I would find some alternative Eucharist to go to, | 26:31 | |
feminist Eucharist, | 26:33 | |
or no matter what we say about | 26:37 | |
the Bible, | 26:40 | |
there is a depth to it that we don't want to give up on. | 26:42 | |
And here's a story about the moment where I realized that. | 26:45 | |
Those sorts of stories. | 26:49 | |
- | Yes. | 26:52 |
- | Or, | |
maybe Meinrad Craighead is a good example. | 26:53 | |
The Litany of a Great River. | 26:57 | |
Have you ever looked at that? | 26:59 | |
- | No, I know her. | 27:00 |
I don't know that, yeah. | 27:01 | |
- | Well, it's a lovely book, | 27:02 |
has her paintings and it has litanies that are | 27:03 | |
kind of natural, | 27:06 | |
litanies do natural phenomena-like, | 27:08 | |
like a river, or mountains, or some such thing. | 27:11 | |
And she talks about how, as a young Catholic girl, | 27:15 | |
the rhythm of the litany became part of her body wisdom. | 27:17 | |
So the form of the litany | 27:23 | |
shows up in her later work, | 27:26 | |
which is not a traditional litany. | 27:29 | |
It's not a litany of the saints. | 27:31 | |
It's not the litany of the blessed virgin | 27:33 | |
or the sacred heart. | 27:35 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | A different kind of litany, | 27:36 |
but the form is there, the rhythm is there. | 27:38 | |
And where did that come from? | 27:40 | |
That early religious training that still | 27:42 | |
moves her deeply and that she draws on, | 27:45 | |
even though she said she's no, | 27:47 | |
she said she can't leave the church. | 27:50 | |
There's no way she could leave it, | 27:53 | |
but she's not in the institution. | 27:54 | |
- | Yes. | 27:56 |
- | I haven't heard | |
much about her lately, but I think she's still alive. | 27:57 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 27:59 |
Why do you think that intrigues you so much? | 28:01 | |
- | Because I've always, | 28:05 |
that's an interesting question that I ask myself. | 28:08 | |
I think because I have moved back and forth | 28:14 | |
in terms of my relationship to Catholicism. | 28:18 | |
I was just profoundly formed by that tradition. | 28:21 | |
I have a Catholic mind, I think, | 28:27 | |
Catholic psyche, | 28:30 | |
but I'm mad as hell about lots of things. | 28:32 | |
But the rituals still move me. | 28:37 | |
I spend time with people | 28:39 | |
who act | 28:42 | |
in powerfully just and merciful ways | 28:44 | |
out of their devotion to that tradition, | 28:48 | |
again, wherever they stand in relation to it. | 28:51 | |
And intellectually, I just find it very interesting | 28:54 | |
the extent to which early, early religious ideas | 29:01 | |
can shape later intellectual work. | 29:07 | |
Have you ever run across John Caputo? | 29:12 | |
- | No. | 29:15 |
- | This is a non-woman, | 29:17 |
but he taught at Syracuse. | 29:18 | |
Villanova for many years in Syracuse | 29:20 | |
and he writes deconstructionist things. | 29:22 | |
He popularized Derrida | 29:25 | |
- | Okay. | |
- | Insofar as that's possible. | 29:27 |
(interviewer laughs) | 29:29 | |
But grew up in an Italian Catholic household, | 29:30 | |
was a Christian brother for a while | 29:33 | |
and then married and had kids. | 29:35 | |
But he has just very interesting things to say | 29:37 | |
about what's still there | 29:42 | |
even though he's an atheist. | 29:45 | |
I think of him as an atheist. | 29:47 | |
Maybe he's an agnostic. | 29:49 | |
I can't remember which A-word he uses. | 29:51 | |
- | Right. | 29:53 |
- | But he certainly is not a traditional theist | 29:54 |
in any way at all, | 29:56 | |
but is not at all winning to discount | 29:58 | |
the social justice work | 30:01 | |
of religious believers | 30:03 | |
and he has moved definitions for God. | 30:06 | |
He said God does that exist, | 30:10 | |
God insists. | 30:12 | |
The idea of God is powerful enough to move people to, | 30:15 | |
whatever is behind that, | 30:18 | |
whatever multiple things are behind that | 30:22 | |
traditional word, God, | 30:25 | |
something is going on there. | 30:28 | |
Right. | 30:32 | |
But relay it back to Reimagining. | 30:33 | |
There was both a dissent | 30:36 | |
and a conserving at the same time, | 30:38 | |
would you say? | 30:42 | |
- | Sure, I think people were taking | 30:43 |
the symbols and the rituals, | 30:45 | |
the teachings, the scriptures | 30:47 | |
of the tradition very, very seriously. | 30:50 | |
So the dissent, it seems to me, | 30:55 | |
was from the narrowness | 30:59 | |
of the understanding of all of that | 31:01 | |
that makes up Christianity. | 31:04 | |
The inability to recognize that if you don't hear | 31:08 | |
from half the members, or if you're afraid | 31:12 | |
of them or suspicious of them, | 31:15 | |
or condescending toward them, | 31:16 | |
that's not a good thing. | 31:18 | |
The obvious. | 31:21 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
- | So it wasn't just the dissent | 31:28 |
and conservation. | 31:33 | |
It was also, I think, expansion. | 31:34 | |
So people saying things like, | 31:37 | |
this sounds pretty obvious, but saying things like, | 31:41 | |
this, whatever the this might be, | 31:44 | |
could mean more than one thing, | 31:47 | |
or it could mean something other than what we thought it did | 31:50 | |
for centuries or insisted it did, | 31:55 | |
or questions like, | 31:58 | |
or this could mean many things | 32:01 | |
all at the same time | 32:02 | |
and it deepens. | 32:04 | |
I really should have some antecedent here | 32:07 | |
for my pronouns. | 32:09 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
I seem to be saying it and them, | 32:11 | |
and they a lot. | 32:13 | |
But to discover that deeps the tradition | 32:16 | |
and broadens it. | 32:18 | |
It doesn't threaten it. | 32:20 | |
(women laugh) | 32:22 | |
- | And I think | 32:26 |
you're already, in a certain sense, doing this, | 32:27 | |
but I'll still ask this. | 32:29 | |
How would you define Reimagining? | 32:30 | |
- | Well, I think Reimagining, just the process of it, | 32:34 |
or even saying such a thing as Reimagining exists, | 32:39 | |
it requires the acknowledgement | 32:42 | |
that all of these things were imagined in the first place | 32:45 | |
and that to imagine them is part of creative human work | 32:49 | |
and therefore, if they have been imagined, | 32:55 | |
they can be reimaginined | 32:58 | |
and we can see things in new ways. | 32:59 | |
We don't have to be so damn scared of it all the time, | 33:01 | |
which leads me to questions like, | 33:06 | |
what is theology for? | 33:09 | |
Is it to just hold it all together as tightly as possible | 33:12 | |
so nothing can ooze out? | 33:16 | |
Or is it always to be opening up to more | 33:20 | |
and more without losing sight | 33:24 | |
of some thing that's still familiar to the community. | 33:27 | |
I think you can't get so far out ahead of the community | 33:33 | |
that they no longer recognize what you're talking about. | 33:37 | |
Although, some people do that it and it eventually | 33:41 | |
benefits the community. | 33:44 | |
You can probably tell I'm an abstract thinker. | 33:47 | |
(women laugh) | 33:50 | |
- | Well, I'm enjoying this. | 33:51 |
This is wonderful. | 33:52 | |
- | How kind of you. | |
- | (laughs) No, it's true. | 33:53 |
There were, of course, critics who claimed | 33:55 | |
that's exactly what Reimagining did, | 33:56 | |
that went so far outside the boundary | 33:58 | |
that the didn't recognize it, but. | 34:01 | |
- | Yeah, and I think the boundaries | 34:03 |
are broader, I think they're more porous. | 34:06 | |
As we are saying these days. | 34:10 | |
And I've always thought, | 34:12 | |
I think this about literature | 34:14 | |
when, let's say, | 34:17 | |
poets or fiction writers | 34:18 | |
use material that's recognizably part of a tradition. | 34:22 | |
In this case, Christianity or more specifically, | 34:27 | |
Catholicism, that those symbols | 34:30 | |
can go on journeys far beyond the boundaries | 34:34 | |
of traditional doctrine | 34:37 | |
and they make their way back transformed | 34:39 | |
and, I think, more powerful. | 34:42 | |
And again, more resilient. | 34:44 | |
I keep using the word resilient, I like that word. | 34:45 | |
- | It's good, it is! | 34:49 |
Do you remember? | 34:51 | |
Getting concrete here for a minute (laughs). | 34:53 | |
This has been wonderful, though. | 34:54 | |
- | I don't get that. | 34:55 |
- | Don't worry, | |
we'll get abstract again. | 34:57 | |
I promise you. | 34:59 | |
Do you remember? | 35:01 | |
Were you part of the formation of the community | 35:02 | |
after the conference? | 35:04 | |
Do you remember why it happened | 35:06 | |
and how it happened? | 35:08 | |
- | Well, the sounds a little goofy | 35:10 |
and a little crass in some ways, but there was money | 35:12 | |
leftover. | 35:14 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
I remember, this wasn't my specific responsibility, | 35:16 | |
but I certainly heard about the worries, | 35:20 | |
would we make enough money to come out even | 35:23 | |
and if we didn't, where would it come from? | 35:25 | |
And there was money left over | 35:28 | |
once it concluded. | 35:30 | |
And I think part of it was just thinking, | 35:32 | |
now what should we do with that? | 35:34 | |
That is my memory of it, anyway. | 35:36 | |
- | Sure, yeah. | 35:38 |
- | So one of the ideas was to have a newsletter | 35:39 |
that Nancy and Pam edited. | 35:42 | |
And I remember going to, I think | 35:46 | |
they were editorial meetings for the Reimagining newsletter. | 35:49 | |
- | Do you remember anything about those meetings? | 35:54 |
What that was like? | 35:56 | |
What they were trying to do? | 35:57 | |
- | I remember | 35:59 |
talking about thees for particular issues. | 36:01 | |
Who would contribute, | 36:04 | |
what would be in it, | 36:06 | |
essays, reviews. | 36:07 | |
It's a pretty general memory. | 36:09 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I don't remember a particular moment | 36:13 |
- | Sure. | 36:15 |
- | Where some crisis | |
was resolved or emerged. | 36:18 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | |
- | But it seemed to me that, | 36:22 |
it was just kind of fun figuring out | 36:24 | |
how to make this work. | 36:27 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
And it did, it went on for 10 years (laughs). | 36:30 | |
- | Yeah. | 36:33 |
- | Okay, here is a more abstract question. | 36:35 |
- | Okay, oh, good. | 36:37 |
(women laugh) | 36:39 | |
- | How did feminist theology affect the structure | 36:40 |
and functioning of the community? | 36:41 | |
- | Well, I think there was so much effort | 36:47 |
to be egalitarian, | 36:51 | |
but I think sometimes that had gotten away. | 36:53 | |
- | Say some more about that, how? | 36:55 |
- | Well, I don't know much about it personally | 36:57 |
because I was on that small committee. | 36:59 | |
- | Right. | 37:02 |
- | So it wasn't a problem with my small committee, | 37:03 |
- | Yeah. | 37:04 |
- | But just sort of | 37:06 |
grapevine stuff about how to proceed, | 37:09 | |
should there be collaborative leadership, | 37:11 | |
should there be one or two acknowledged leaders | 37:15 | |
and some lament | 37:19 | |
that here we were, | 37:22 | |
doing the best we could to be egalitarian | 37:25 | |
and it was taking a damn long time | 37:26 | |
- | (laughs) yes! | 37:28 |
- | To make things happen. | 37:29 |
- | Right. | 37:31 |
- | But I don't remember specific incidents. | 37:32 |
I never found myself in a situation | 37:34 | |
where I had to say, okay, | 37:37 | |
I vote for this way of going forward, | 37:39 | |
but not for that way of going forward. | 37:42 | |
- | And other than egalitarian, were there other ways | 37:45 |
you thought that they tried to do it in a feminist way? | 37:48 | |
- | There were certainly, | 37:52 |
I suppose this is related to egalitarianism, | 37:54 | |
but I'm concerned that every voice be heard, | 37:57 | |
which also can be cumbersome and time-consuming. | 38:00 | |
So the ideals, | 38:03 | |
the ideals | 38:06 | |
were tough to live out often. | 38:08 | |
And what was your experience with that? | 38:10 | |
Have you heard about that since? | 38:13 | |
- | Absolutely. | 38:15 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Exactly that thing, yes. | 38:16 |
- | Yeah. | 38:17 |
- | Yes. | |
And there came a point when you just had to get things done. | 38:18 | |
You're planning a conference (laughs). | 38:22 | |
- | Somebody had to make it. | 38:23 |
- | Right, exactly. | |
Exactly, yeah. | 38:26 | |
- | And I think at one point, there was some, | 38:28 |
I don't think it was acrimony, | 38:31 | |
but maybe different perceptions | 38:33 | |
of the role that ritual would play. | 38:36 | |
And I had always | 38:39 | |
thought to myself | 38:42 | |
that the Reimagining conference, | 38:44 | |
the idea of it, | 38:47 | |
was the gift of primarily the Protestant women | 38:49 | |
to the community. | 38:53 | |
But the ritualizing of it was the gift | 38:54 | |
of Catholic women, | 38:57 | |
and I always liked that, | 38:58 | |
but I think there were some discussions, again, | 39:00 | |
this was grapevine information for me, | 39:05 | |
about how much ritual there should be at the later | 39:08 | |
conferences, was that important, | 39:11 | |
as important, as the presentations. | 39:14 | |
- | When you say it was the gift of the Catholic women, | 39:17 |
Sue Side Martin and Madelin Sue Martin was huge. | 39:20 | |
- | Yeah. | 39:22 |
- | In planning it. | |
- | Oh, she was. | 39:24 |
- | Absolutely informative. | |
- | Yeah, she was. | 39:25 |
- | Did that continue to be the case | 39:27 |
that, do you happen to know that Catholic women | 39:29 | |
were really involved in the ritual planning? | 39:31 | |
- | I don't think it was only Catholic women, | 39:34 |
but my retrospective perception | 39:37 | |
is that there were a lot of Catholic women | 39:39 | |
had gone there | 39:42 | |
- | Yes, yes. | |
- | In the ritual, partly through Sue's connections. | 39:43 |
- | Yes, yeah. | 39:46 |
- | And I can't remember what year Sue died. | 39:49 |
- | I don't remember that either, actually. | 39:52 |
- | It now seems like kind of a long time ago. | 39:54 |
- | Yeah, yes. | 39:56 |
- | Maybe as long | |
as 10 years? | 39:58 | |
- | Yeah. | 39:59 |
- | I think she was dead | |
by 2003? | 40:00 | |
- | I think that's right because already | 40:03 |
in one of the quarterly publications it was mentioning | 40:04 | |
that she was ill, so. | 40:07 | |
And that was around 200, 2001, maybe. | 40:09 | |
- | Yeah. | 40:12 |
And she was sick the whole time. | 40:13 | |
She had, what was that called? | 40:15 | |
I can't remember. | 40:16 | |
Some rare disease that attacked the soft tissues. | 40:18 | |
- | Oh, my goodness. | 40:20 |
I didn't know that. | 40:22 | |
- | Yeah. | 40:23 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | And I think most people with that disease | 40:24 |
had lung issues | 40:27 | |
and she didn't have so much lung issues, | 40:30 | |
but I know that her tear ducts dried up, | 40:32 | |
her salivary glands. | 40:37 | |
It was a really tough | 40:38 | |
kind of a total body bad thing that she had. | 40:41 | |
- | And she had this for years? | 40:45 |
- | Yeah, she did. | 40:47 |
- | Wow. | |
- | Yeah, she certainly had it when I met her | 40:48 |
and I think I, | 40:51 | |
I don't think I knew her before we started | 40:53 | |
these planning meetings. | 40:56 | |
I think that's how I met her. | 40:58 | |
- | She's not someone I knew, but I know | 40:59 |
from hearing from other people, | 41:02 | |
she was so loved and respected. | 41:04 | |
- | Oh, my gosh! | 41:06 |
And she was a tough cookie. | 41:07 | |
She had very, very high standards | 41:09 | |
for how you plan ritual. | 41:13 | |
It's not an off the cuff kind of thing. | 41:16 | |
- | Yes. | 41:19 |
- | You plan. | |
What is this for, what are we trying to accomplish? | 41:21 | |
She just was a lovely person. | 41:24 | |
Loves of fun, | 41:28 | |
but also demanding of herself and the people who worked | 41:29 | |
with her, | 41:32 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | Which I admired. | 41:34 |
- | Yes. | |
And lead to really good results (laughs). | 41:36 | |
- | Oh yeah. | 41:38 |
- | One of the things I found in the archives | 41:39 |
is her description of ritual | 41:40 | |
and her philosophy behind it | 41:42 | |
- | Oh, okay. | 41:43 |
- | And it's very, | |
it's a really important thing to find. | 41:45 | |
- | Oh! | 41:46 |
I would think so, yes. | 41:47 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
We have kind of talked some about this, | 41:48 | |
about the challenges. | 41:50 | |
You have mentioned some. | 41:52 | |
Are there any others that you would think of | 41:53 | |
or challenges that the community faced | 41:54 | |
and how they addressed them? | 41:56 | |
- | Well, I think the fact that the community | 41:57 |
went out of existence, at least briefly in 2003. | 41:59 | |
- | Yeah. | 42:03 |
- | Suggests that this was one very intense | 42:04 |
moment in history, and it's hard to know | 42:08 | |
how to maintain that kind of intensity, | 42:09 | |
and I think the, for me anyway, | 42:13 | |
the fact that it persisted as long as it did was a surprise | 42:16 | |
because I don't, | 42:20 | |
again, there was the leftover money | 42:23 | |
- | Right (laughs). | 42:25 |
- | That somebody | |
needed to do something with, I guess. | 42:26 | |
Or we had the chance to. | 42:28 | |
But I don't think there was much sense that I remember. | 42:30 | |
Maybe I just wasn't aware of it, | 42:34 | |
that this would go on. | 42:35 | |
My assumption was that this was one big bang up thing | 42:37 | |
and then that was it. | 42:40 | |
So how do you carry on? | 42:43 | |
Do you carry on? | 42:45 | |
How do you carry on? | 42:46 | |
Why do you carry on? | 42:48 | |
And I think that why question got pretty big | 42:49 | |
- | Yes. | 42:52 |
- | By the time. | |
Were you part of the, what would you call it? | 42:55 | |
The dissolution? | 42:58 | |
- | I was. | 42:59 |
I was on the, | 43:00 | |
- | Dissolution? | |
- | I know, yes, yes. | 43:01 |
- | The waning. | |
- | (laughs) I was, | 43:02 |
I was on the coordinating council then. | 43:04 | |
- | Oh. | 43:05 |
- | Yeah. | |
And it was, | 43:06 | |
people were very tired | 43:08 | |
and it was a volunteer organization. | 43:09 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 43:12 |
- | And just | |
lack of funds, lack of energy, all of that. | 43:14 | |
- | Yeah. | 43:16 |
- | Just finally, | |
it was a grassroots for 10 years. | 43:17 | |
Then it just. | 43:19 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Had to move on. | 43:21 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 43:23 |
- | But how interesting that it's rising again. | 43:24 |
- | Exactly. | 43:26 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 43:28 |
Significance. | 43:30 | |
What aspects of Reimagining were most significant to you | 43:32 | |
and why? | 43:35 | |
- | Let me think about that for a second. | 43:38 |
- | Sure. | 43:42 |
- | I think there was something very moving | 43:44 |
and significant about the fact | 43:47 | |
that this phrase | 43:50 | |
always sounds condescending and boy, | 43:53 | |
I sure don't mean it that way. | 43:55 | |
Ordinary church women really put this together, | 43:56 | |
and the academic women were involved. | 44:01 | |
Everybody was, yes. | 44:04 | |
But everybody was mixed up together. | 44:06 | |
- | Yeah. | 44:08 |
- | And I didn't | |
have a sense that. | 44:10 | |
Any human community has hierarchies | 44:12 | |
of various kinds, | 44:16 | |
but I thought there was a pretty powerful sense | 44:18 | |
that everybody had things to contribute | 44:21 | |
and the volunteers were so astute | 44:23 | |
and so filled with energy | 44:26 | |
and so much fun, and so creative. | 44:30 | |
I think just that | 44:34 | |
is something to point to. | 44:37 | |
What good things happen | 44:39 | |
when lots of different kinds of women | 44:41 | |
and the few good men come together | 44:43 | |
- | Yes. | 44:46 |
- | To plan something. | |
I love that. | 44:48 | |
- | Yeah. | 44:49 |
- | And I remember Mary Hunt | 44:51 |
writing after that she didn't know | 44:55 | |
where all that backlash had come from | 44:57 | |
because for her, you know, | 44:59 | |
as wonderful as it was, | 45:01 | |
it was just another women's theological conference, | 45:03 | |
no different than many she had been to. | 45:05 | |
- | Right. | 45:07 |
- | So why, at that moment, at that time, | 45:08 |
did this one draw so much attention? | 45:11 | |
- | And I guess the Presbyterian laymen | 45:13 |
was part of that, but why? | 45:16 | |
Sally used to speculate that it had to do with issues | 45:19 | |
of sexuality that were so acrimonious at that moment | 45:22 | |
in the history of the Presbyterian Church USA, | 45:26 | |
so maybe that was a kind of lightning rod. | 45:30 | |
The goddess, the milk and honey | 45:34 | |
that somehow really got people going. | 45:37 | |
So I think there were specific things | 45:41 | |
going on there that made it significant | 45:43 | |
in terms of the adversarial atmosphere that followed it. | 45:47 | |
- | Yes. | 45:52 |
- | But you know, | 45:53 |
adversarial stances towards women's theology, | 45:56 | |
as we already discussed, is not new. | 45:59 | |
- | Huh-uh, no. | 46:01 |
- | So why did it coalesce around that conference? | 46:03 |
I don't know. | 46:05 | |
- | Yeah. | |
Yeah. | 46:07 | |
- | I remember reading something. | 46:09 |
I think it was newsletter from the laymen | 46:11 | |
or something. | 46:12 | |
A guy whose work I had admired at Princeton. | 46:14 | |
Diagonies Ellen, he was a philosopher. | 46:19 | |
I used to read his stuff | 46:22 | |
and pretty interesting. | 46:23 | |
He made a couple of comments | 46:25 | |
on the presentation I had given | 46:27 | |
and some | 46:30 | |
pretty barbed critiques of what I had said. | 46:33 | |
And so I looked at what I had said | 46:37 | |
and the very next sentence, I qualified | 46:40 | |
what I had said | 46:43 | |
in a way that would have responded to him. | 46:46 | |
And I thought, "Did you not read the next sentence? | 46:48 | |
"Or did you not want to see that?" | 46:50 | |
- | Yes. | 46:52 |
- | "Or did you not care? | 46:53 |
"Did you just want to make your case?" | 46:55 | |
I was kind of disillusioned by that. | 46:56 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | 46:58 |
- | So there are feminist theologians | 46:59 |
who have been so used to controversy | 47:04 | |
for so long | 47:08 | |
that that's exactly what they would expect, | 47:11 | |
but I hadn't had much of that in my life. | 47:14 | |
I just didn't do the kind of work | 47:17 | |
that stirred up a lot of controversy. | 47:18 | |
- | Yes. | 47:20 |
- | So, | |
I thought, "Oh!" | 47:22 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
That's terrible! | 47:25 | |
I am deeply shocked. | 47:27 | |
I was deeply shocked. | 47:28 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | |
Well, I'm curious. | 47:30 | |
Did your involvement in Reimagining in any way change | 47:33 | |
your perspective either on feminist theology | 47:36 | |
or on the church? | 47:37 | |
- | I don't think so. | 47:40 |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I mean, it probably confirmed my commitment | 47:44 |
to women's theological creativity. | 47:48 | |
- | Yeah. | 47:52 |
- | And it confirmed | |
my experience | 47:54 | |
that it's going to be a long, hard road, | 47:56 | |
that it always has been, it always will be, | 47:59 | |
that we do lose our history and we have to regain it, | 48:02 | |
some sense of our history. | 48:06 | |
- | Yes. | 48:09 |
- | And when I would teach courses on women in American | 48:10 |
religious history and we would look at earlier centuries | 48:13 | |
like Soriana. | 48:17 | |
Do you know of her? | 48:19 | |
- | I don't. | |
- | She's a Mexican. | 48:20 |
Famous Mexican, | 48:21 | |
seventeenth century writer. | 48:23 | |
- | Oh, yes I do know her! | |
Yes, I do, yes. | 48:24 | |
Took me a minute. | 48:26 | |
- | She had some very funny things to say, | 48:28 |
but she suffered a lot | 48:30 | |
because she was an intellectual. | 48:32 | |
- | Yes. | 48:34 |
- | And there wasn't much | |
encouragement for that, and she got into trouble | 48:36 | |
with the bishop. | 48:37 | |
And one of her famous, | 48:39 | |
maybe her most famous writing | 48:41 | |
is called La Respuesta, | 48:45 | |
the Response to the Bishop of Pueblo | 48:47 | |
and she talks about the fact that, oh, she says | 48:50 | |
if Aristotle had cooked more, | 48:54 | |
if he'd spent more time in the kitchen, | 48:57 | |
how did the rest of that go? | 48:59 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 49:01 | |
It was very funny. | ||
- | Yes! | 49:03 |
- | And right on, | |
but how difficult it was for her | 49:05 | |
- | Yes. | 49:07 |
- | To lead a life | |
of the intellect in the circumstances | 49:10 | |
in which she found herself, | 49:13 | |
but she was in a convent, | 49:14 | |
so she had more opportunity than most. | 49:16 | |
- | Yes. | 49:19 |
- | But when she | |
cited Biblical passages | 49:20 | |
and at first, my students would say, | 49:22 | |
"Oh, that's so familiar!" | 49:24 | |
And then, "Oh." | 49:27 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 49:30 | |
"All those years ago." | 49:31 | |
Same Biblical passages, same arguments, | 49:33 | |
same suffering. | 49:35 | |
- | Yes. | |
Same Biblical passages and arguments | 49:38 | |
about women's? | 49:40 | |
- | About women | |
in the role of women | 49:42 | |
and women needing to keep silence. | 49:43 | |
- | Right, right. | 49:44 |
- | So you look at Anne Hutchinson, who probably was | 49:47 |
a pain in the butt in many ways in her community. | 49:51 | |
- | Yes. | 49:54 |
- | Or Anne Bradstreet, or, | 49:55 |
you know, you go through every century | 49:57 | |
and there it all is again. | 49:59 | |
You think oh my gosh. | 50:02 | |
- | Well, I can't resist asking. | 50:03 |
Do you feel like, | 50:05 | |
is it just the same thing again and again? | 50:06 | |
Is there progress? | 50:08 | |
Have we gotten anywhere? | 50:11 | |
- | I am ambivalent about that. | 50:13 |
- | Say some more about that. | 50:15 |
- | I guess that I was so idealistic 40 years ago, | 50:18 |
but I just thought this is so obvious. | 50:23 | |
Of course it will all change, | 50:26 | |
and it hasn't. | 50:28 | |
It has changed some, but it's changed slowly. | 50:30 | |
It goes backward and forward, | 50:32 | |
just all the stuff about Hillary and young voters. | 50:35 | |
And then, when I get discouraged, | 50:38 | |
I think, "Okay toots," | 50:41 | |
(interviewer laughs) | ||
we have our moments in history, | 50:43 | |
we do what we can, we say what we can, | 50:46 | |
and that's all we can do, is keep at it. | 50:48 | |
- | So you call yourself toots? | 50:51 |
- | I do. | 50:53 |
- | I like that (laughs). | 50:55 |
- | On occasion, yeah. | 50:56 |
When I need to give myself little talking to. | 50:57 | |
- | Pep talk? | 50:58 |
- | Yeah. | 50:59 |
- | That's good. | |
- | Yeah. | 51:00 |
- | I may have to try that. | 51:02 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 51:02 |
- | Yes. | |
I'm sorry, I was listening to the rest of what you said, | 51:04 | |
but that really, I enjoyed that. | 51:05 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 51:06 | |
- | Well, thank you. | |
- | Do you think that Reimagining made specific contributions | 51:07 |
to Christian theology and, or liturgy? | 51:12 | |
- | Hmm, I guess I'd have to give that | 51:16 |
a little bit more thought also. | 51:19 | |
- | Sure. | 51:20 |
- | I think it offered a powerful example | 51:21 |
of what's possible | 51:24 | |
and a place to take off from. | 51:27 | |
- | Yeah. | 51:31 |
- | Pointing to the significance of ritual | 51:32 |
and holding communities together. | 51:35 | |
- | Yeah. | 51:38 |
- | I thought that was the role of ritual | 51:39 |
in Reimagining. | 51:41 | |
It held some pretty diverse components together | 51:43 | |
and I just love that about it. | 51:48 | |
I think that's the major purpose | 51:51 | |
of ritual, and then ritual | 51:53 | |
gets us off our butts. | 51:55 | |
I'm very interested, probably because I'm Catholic | 51:57 | |
and the social justice aspects of liturgy and ritual. | 52:00 | |
I always like it when I come across | 52:07 | |
some mentioning of Reimagining in a book of some kind | 52:12 | |
in American religious history texts. | 52:17 | |
I think, "Oh, for heaven's sake! | 52:20 | |
"It's not gone." | 52:21 | |
- | Right, | |
it's part of the history. | 52:23 | |
Yes. | 52:25 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I just want to go back for a minute. | 52:26 |
Could you give an example of how | 52:27 | |
the rituals serve to bring the different parts | 52:28 | |
of the community together? | 52:31 | |
- | I think | 52:37 |
this is pretty simplistic. | 52:39 | |
I think when people sing together and dance together, | 52:41 | |
they feel like they're together. | 52:45 | |
- | Yeah. | 52:48 |
- | So there was kind of that right in the moment | 52:50 |
and the songs that we sang, | 52:53 | |
that we would sing again at the other, | 52:56 | |
that just evoked the whole magnificent spectacle of it! | 52:59 | |
- | Yes. | 53:04 |
- | I think that was a big deal. | 53:05 |
- | Yeah. | 53:08 |
- | And probably, | 53:11 |
some little sense that there are a variety of ways | 53:12 | |
to live out | 53:15 | |
your feminist ideals, | 53:18 | |
that it's not just talking and writing, | 53:21 | |
it's singing, it's dancing, it's being together. | 53:23 | |
And I like that. | 53:27 | |
I like the way they work together. | 53:30 | |
- | Yeah. | 53:33 |
- | And I am never | 53:36 |
too drawn to the head, heart dichotomy. | 53:38 | |
I do think that in every idea, there is a lot of emotion. | 53:42 | |
And in every emotion, there are a lot of ideas | 53:46 | |
if you want to emphasize | 53:49 | |
that aspect. | 53:52 | |
Why did we? | 53:54 | |
How would we articulate the insights | 53:56 | |
that came out of those feelings? | 53:59 | |
What underlay those feelings of hopefulness and joy? | 54:02 | |
And then, some of the more | 54:08 | |
esoteric aspects of feminist theology come out | 54:10 | |
of people's emotional lives | 54:13 | |
as well as their intellectual lives. | 54:15 | |
- | Yes. | 54:17 |
- | So I like it all | |
mashed together, and then I like to take it apart, | 54:18 | |
and then I like to put it | 54:21 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 54:23 | |
together again! | ||
- | That lump in the throat. | 54:24 |
- | Yeah, exactly. | 54:25 |
- | Yes. | 54:26 |
- | For me, | |
that's a pretty powerful image. | 54:27 | |
- | I could see why. | 54:29 |
Yeah. | 54:30 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | As we're ending, this is wonderful. | 54:31 |
Can we look toward the future? | 54:33 | |
And what do you think is the greatest legacy | 54:34 | |
of the Reimagining community? | 54:37 | |
- | Well I would repeat that since a lot of people, | 54:39 |
a lot of women, mostly women, | 54:44 | |
who came from very different parts of church life | 54:46 | |
but also overlapping parts of church life | 54:51 | |
brought this off | 54:56 | |
in a particular moment in history | 54:59 | |
in a region of the country that, perhaps, | 55:01 | |
isn't always given quite as much credit | 55:06 | |
as I think it deserves for progressive thought. | 55:08 | |
- | Yes. | 55:10 |
Yeah, it happened here. | 55:11 | |
- | Yeah. | 55:13 |
I love that. | 55:14 | |
- | Yeah, yes. | |
- | A little regional pride. | 55:16 |
- | Yes (laughs)! | 55:18 |
What would you say Reimagining means today? | 55:20 | |
What does Reimagining look like today? | 55:24 | |
- | Hmm, I don't know. | 55:27 |
I don't know the answer to that. | 55:29 | |
I mean, it's still a powerful memory, I think, | 55:31 | |
for many people. | 55:33 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | So it can be | 55:38 |
still then, because it's a powerful memory, | 55:40 | |
a jumping off place for more, | 55:43 | |
which is obviously happening. | 55:46 | |
- | Right. | 55:48 |
- | And I'm surprised | |
that it's happening and I'm thrilled | 55:49 | |
that it's happening. | 55:52 | |
- | What do you think as you look at the churches today? | 55:54 |
What needs to be reimagined? | 55:57 | |
Is it the same things? | 56:00 | |
- | Well, I think about Pope Francis who was a non-woman, | 56:06 |
- | Yes. | 56:11 |
- | But what are we here for | |
has to be reimaginined, and gender has to be | 56:13 | |
one of the categorizes that's reimagined | 56:17 | |
along with that broader question, | 56:20 | |
what is the church for and how do we all fit into it? | 56:23 | |
Which gets me back to my question of, | 56:28 | |
what is theology for? | 56:30 | |
Is it a static category, or is a dynamic and creative | 56:32 | |
category of inquiry? | 56:35 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | Is it proscriptive or is it evocative | 56:37 |
and forward looking, and ever opening up, | 56:42 | |
but still grounded in the tradition? | 56:45 | |
I think I've lost track of where I was going with that. | 56:50 | |
(interviewer laughs) | 56:52 | |
- | Reimagining for today. | 56:54 |
- | Oh, that's right, that's right. | 56:55 |
Why was I holding for it on that? | 56:56 | |
- | I don't know. | 56:58 |
Well, I liked what you just said, | 56:59 | |
so that's fine (laughs). | 57:00 | |
- | Oh, thank you. | |
You're very kind. | 57:02 | |
- | Okay. | 57:04 |
Last specific question. | 57:05 | |
- | Yeah? | |
- | Very specific. | 57:07 |
Do you have recommendations for what | 57:09 | |
should be included in the Reimagining website | 57:12 | |
who would benefit from it? | 57:15 | |
How could people find out about it, | 57:17 | |
any of those things. | 57:19 | |
And suggestions you might have. | 57:20 | |
- | Well, I suppose there are a lot of vehicles, | 57:22 |
denominational newspapers, | 57:26 | |
or The National Catholic Reporter | 57:28 | |
or the Christian Century Common Wheel, | 57:30 | |
all of those places that anybody in this group | 57:32 | |
could think of. | 57:34 | |
- | Yeah. | |
- | I think it would be pretty interesting | 57:37 |
to have a feature that includes the sighting | 57:39 | |
of Reimagining in other historical, American | 57:42 | |
religious history textbooks or something. | 57:47 | |
So I know that Anne Brody has mentioned it | 57:50 | |
and one of the books that's she's. | 57:53 | |
Do you know Anne Brody? | 57:56 | |
- | I don't, no. | 57:57 |
- | Anne taught at Macalester and she taught | 57:58 |
at Carlton. | 58:00 | |
First Carlton and then Macalester. | 58:03 | |
And for many years, probably 20 years, | 58:05 | |
she's been the director of women in religion program | 58:08 | |
at Harvard Divinity School. | 58:12 | |
- | Oh. | 58:14 |
- | And she wrote her first book | 58:15 |
on spiritualist mediums | 58:16 | |
as people who promoted progressive politics. | 58:20 | |
So I've always, | 58:28 | |
I've known her for years and years. | 58:29 | |
- | Yes. | 58:31 |
- | And what the heck, | 58:33 |
it's a smaller book, it's part of an Oxford series, | 58:35 | |
but it's about women and I know that she mentions | 58:37 | |
Reimagining, so that's just one of many. | 58:39 | |
Phillip Jankens, who was writing about, | 58:42 | |
gosh, I reviewed the book. | 58:45 | |
It was something about new religions. | 58:48 | |
He said, do you know his work? | 58:49 | |
He's at, I think, Penn State. | 58:51 | |
He's written I don't know, 500,000 books | 58:54 | |
or something, but in this particular book | 58:57 | |
on new religions that came out probably 2001 or 2, | 59:03 | |
I wrote a review of it. | 59:09 | |
And I think he probably has a lot of graduate students | 59:10 | |
doing research and some of the facts were not right | 59:12 | |
and a fact about Reimagining was not right, | 59:16 | |
like, its origins, | 59:20 | |
but he did mention it | 59:21 | |
in this book. | 59:24 | |
So those are two that I can think of, | 59:26 | |
and I think there are quite a few more. | 59:29 | |
I wonder if I. | 59:31 | |
- | There's a book, | |
Her Story, it has a paragraph | 59:33 | |
about Reimagining as well. | 59:36 | |
- | Oh! | |
Okay. | 59:37 | |
- | So yeah, exactly. | |
- | Yeah. | 59:38 |
- | That's interesting. | |
- | I think those would be | 59:40 |
- | Yes. | |
- | It would be good to say | 59:41 |
here is how this first event | 59:44 | |
anyway | 59:47 | |
- | Yes. | |
- | Is being remembered and preserved in memory. | 59:49 |
- | That's a great idea, yes. | 59:53 |
- | And that would be kind of fun for me to see. | 59:54 |
- | Yeah. | 59:57 |
- | In fact, I 'll look around a little bit. | 59:58 |
- | That would be wonderful, Mary. | 59:59 |
Anything you could send me would be great | 1:00:00 | |
because I have found several places | 1:00:01 | |
- | Yeah. | 1:00:03 |
- | Where it appears | |
and I'm welcoming more. | 1:00:04 | |
That's right. | 1:00:05 | |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
It doesn't turn up just in textbooks. | 1:00:06 | |
- | Yes. | 1:00:08 |
- | So often I think in American religious history textbooks, | 1:00:09 |
there will be one chapter on women. | 1:00:13 | |
- | Yes. | 1:00:16 |
- | And that | |
about gender, as if men are not gendered. | 1:00:18 | |
- | Right? | 1:00:21 |
- | I think here's our gender chapter | 1:00:23 |
and it's about women and now we're done. | 1:00:24 | |
- | Right. | 1:00:27 |
- | That always bugs me. | 1:00:29 |
- | Yes (laughs). | |
- | And I think that persists. | 1:00:31 |
Maybe it's not as bad as it used to be, | 1:00:33 | |
but it persists. | 1:00:34 | |
- | Is there anything that we haven't discussed that you | 1:00:37 |
would like to add? | 1:00:41 | |
- | I'm never good at this question because I always think no. | 1:00:43 |
(women laugh) | 1:00:47 | |
But I will certainly contact you | 1:00:48 | |
if I have a sudden inspiration. | 1:00:50 | |
- | Wonderful. | 1:00:51 |
This has been delightful. | 1:00:52 | |
- | Oh, it was lots of fun for me. | 1:00:53 |
- | And I really appreciate it. | 1:00:55 |
Thank you so much. | 1:00:56 | |
- | Oh, my goodness. | |
It's wonderful that you're doing this work. | 1:00:57 | |
- | It's a lot of fun, | 1:00:58 |
- | What? | 1:00:59 |
- | I can tell you that much. |
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