Hi, Good Readers!
This blog, for the time being, is closed, but feel free to browse the archives. I am working on trying to finish up a book manuscript, and am taking a break from blog writing for quite a while.
Thanks so much for visiting.
~Kimberly
I woke up this morning to the news that a friend of mine, Rev. John Helmiere, who is also a Yale Div grad, a faithful activist, a minister, a creative thinker, a loving visionary, a peacemaker, and a supporter of human rights and justice, was beaten by the police and arrested while protesting for workers’ rights in Seattle. Read his galvanizing story here.
Between learning of his situation, and following all week this preposterous bill that radically un-democratizes America, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on what is really at stake in this historical moment, and what we all can be doing to be part of significant change in our world and local communities. As John quotes in his article, “Not taking sides is effectively to weigh in on the side of the stronger” (quote attributed to the preacher/activist William Sloane Coffin).
I will be honest: I think things are going to get really serious in the coming months and years. Yes, we will be collectively working toward new tipping points for justice-making. But, as John’s story reminds me this morning, there will be hardships, pain, suffering, beatings, imprisonment. In response to my friend’s courageous actions yesterday, I wrote this list of 5 things we can be doing to prepare ourselves:
1. Practice meditation, prayer, singing, and centering. Why? Because in the coming years, as these movements for justice gain energy, so will the powers of greed and abuse work to resist your efforts of creativity and love. You might need to know how to stay calm in a jail cell, after being beaten, as my friend John experienced yesterday. For while Love will always ultimately be stronger than its opposition, it is also true that within American history, people who have stood for justice—think abolition, women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and the Civil Rights movement—have always had to be prepared to receive imprisonment and physical violence (and even death to their earthly bodies), as they in turn sought non-violent forms of resistance. And, furthermore, let’s not forget that while police brutality is making headlines because of Occupy Wall St., communities of color in the U.S. have long endured police violence and false imprisonment and have long led resistances to such injustices. Prayer and meditation and singing together are skills that have historically helped sustain bodies, spirits, and communities as we work to transform such systemic evils. (I often think of this scene from Iron Jawed Angels, in part because I have read suffragist’s Alice Paul’s letters to her mom from jail describing the suffering of her hunger strikes.)
2. Think across systems. Think in the “in-betweens.” See the connections that are so often kept hidden from us, as you consider how economic injustice, racism, sexism, neo-colonialism, militarization of the U.S., homophobia, greed, and the destruction of the environment are interacting to create suffering. For instance, as inspired as I am by the above clip of Alice Paul, who helped to secure the vote for me— a white woman—she did not partner with the efforts of African American women, who would have to wait 45 more years to get the vote. (And, it’s worth pondering that the clip above uses an African American spiritual to inspire us with Alice Paul’s story of suffering—a bit of a theft, really, if you ask me, considering African American women’s activist efforts are made pretty invisible in the movie.) We have often heard the argument, “you can’t take on all issues.” Of course we can’t—but we can and must cultivate understanding the connections across multiple systems.
3. Honor your creativity. Writing, painting, dancing, and cooking can harness in you improvisational and intuitive modes of presence. Such skills will be necessary: for in these situations that seem so framed by the “either-or” (or “us” and “them”) dilemmas, it is your creativity that will help you find the forgotten 3rd or 21st or 56th options. And it is your creativity that will help you not to be shaped by the unjust systems, even as you spend so much time resisting, thinking about, and deconstructing the systems. It is, after all, our ever-renewed imaginations that will help us envision, believe in, and create redemption on earth.
4. Cultivate presence. While our technologies are gifts to be harnessed, it is also true that the stimuli of our inboxes, Facebook updates, and streams of hyperlinks can impede us from being really present both with ourselves and with others. Our bodies and minds can literally become programmed by the influx of stimuli, such that we forget how to hold other modes of sustained attention and reflection. Amidst the kinds of creative, courageous acts that are so needed in our world, we also need to pair reflection with our actions—which means slowing down, pausing, noticing, wondering, being still and listening.
5. Consider your role. You are limited in mind, heart, and energy, and you should honor your limitations, and not try to be the world’s savior. You can even celebrate your smallness, as it frees you from the grandiose impulse to take on the world’s suffering, an impulse which will emotionally and psychologically crush you. (I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, I am afraid.) But— and this next part is very important— you must simultaneously recognize that you are also braver than you know, stronger than you realize, more creative than you’ve yet tapped into, and an indispensable part of this greater movement. The trick is to find your participation in the larger whole (like these fabulous art students I heard about this week).
Note #1: My professor Janet Ruffing, as well as writers Paulo Freire, Audre Lorde, and Martin Buber, as well as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the rabbi who taught the Sermon on the Mount, as well as the teachings of Emilie Townes in her class, Metaphors of Evil, as well as my friend and colleague Jason Craige Harris, as well as Jenny Blair who has helped to fund my writing and website, as well as my supportive family, have all influenced the ideas in this post, which are not mine, but have been born in community (though, I of course, take full responsibility for the limitations and flaws inevitably exhibited in my own writing and teaching).
Writing (and Living!) From Your Body
~A seminar for writers, therapists, and entrepreneurs~
or anyone who wants to explore the value of mind/body connection in the work that they do
We don’t live in our bodies well.
Since at least the time of the Enlightenment, Western science and philosophy has privileged the “rational” mind over the feeling body. “I think therefore I am,” said Descartes, famously locating human existence—and the knowledge we gather of the world around us—solely in abstract mental processes. To Descartes and the ensuing rationalist legacy, trustworthy knowledge was not in a sensing, experiencing body, but rather in the “objective” mind somehow removed from the body. Read more »
I am sitting this morning at 6 a.m. drinking an amazing americano in one of my favorite neighborhoods of Seattle. I am not usually in the city at this hour, but I just dropped my dear friend Nick off at the airport for his trip to Italy, and I have this awkward hour before my 7:00 Bible reading, a group that I go to every Wednesday morning. (And by the way, our little committed group finished the OT a few weeks back. A year-and-a-half of reading straight through and we finally got to Jesus! It’s exciting.)
As I sit here in this fresh morning, I am wondering about something which feels key to my life calling as an activist/teacher for gender justice: how do I teach on grief and how do I teach on hope and what exactly do those two things have to do with one another?
The question has come up because for the past 3 weeks, I have been teaching a class at a local church that has plunged into very heavy subject material: power structures, spiritual abuse, gender inequalities, domestic and sexual violence. Now, I am preparing the last class, which I will teach this Thursday. I had all sorts of plans for new material to present, but one of the students wrote to tell me that she needed help grieving. And that stopped me. Perhaps it is time to put aside my statistics, my philosophy, my data.
I was again reminded of of something I knew but need to stay rooted in as I teach: at a certain point, transformation in our lives and our communities comes not only from more knowledge, but rather from engaging a hope that has the courage to hold deep communion with grief. I do not know how it is possible to arrive at new visions of justice on this earth unless we are willing to enter the sorrow of all that is not well, and yet everything in me wants to resist that sorrow. I am still learning how to grieve; I am still learning that if I have the courage to enter the most broken parts of myself, that new life will be found in the journey.
It is much easier to teach feminist theory and intellectual concepts than to bring all the awkwardness I feel around what it means to grieve living as a woman in such a broken world. For people who know me well, they know that I like to grieve alone. I rarely bring my tears before others anymore. And yet, there is something profound and healing about communities who are willing to sorrow together…as they collectively long and labor for more justice and mercy in this hurting world.
And so this Thursday I will ask the participants in the class (as I will ask myself) what does it look like to bring our bodies, our minds, our personal stories to our study of huge, macro level problems? What are the boundaries to hold when we grieve as a community? What does it mean to acknowledge that hope is perhaps “cheap hope” if it has not courageously entered the depths of grief? And how, in the midst of engaging the sorrow of the world, do we remember to hold onto dancing, poetry, laughter, beauty?
The radio program Women: Body & Soul had a thought-provoking show in April discussing a new book, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, edited by Shira Tarrant, PhD. The program featured not only Dr. Tarrant, but also three of the book’s contributers: Jacob Anderson-Minshal, a disabled, transgender freelance author; Byron Hurt, who is a filmmaker, activist and educator addressing sexual and gender violence prevention, and masculinity; and Jeremy Adam Smith, who is senior editor of Greater Good magazine and author of the book, The Daddy Shift, out on Beacon Press in June.
My friend Elizabeth says I have fairy dust—meaning, that I seem to have a knack for sprinkling some magic in my life and making my dreams come true. Other people have said similar things: “Just how did you get that opportunity?” or, “It seems that one moment I hear about you setting a goal and the next I hear you’ve done it.”
It’s funny. I usually get a little defensive when these comments come my way, especially if the person saying them doesn’t know my daily life. (Elizabeth, of course, has been there every step of the way these past several years. She totally understands the sweat and the tears that go into a fairy-dusted life, so she can say that!)
But, to those who don’t see my daily challenges that come with dreaming my dreams, I often want to explain that I don’t experience my life the way it may seem at a distance. My fairy dust comes at a cost. What looks like fairy dust is actually heaps of unrequited desire, hard work, and long periods with little feedback from the world that my life trajectory makes much sense. I mean, I am a young, unknown writer; for many hours a week, I sit alone at my computer, writing away for me, myself, and I. Meanwhile, the world doesn’t really care. I don’t get a paycheck. At the end of the day, I get a few more steps forward in the direction of my dreams.
And here’s my life dream—it’s fairly simply, really. I want to have my life set up in a way that I get to wake up every morning, have a cup of coffee, and write for 3-4 hours. Then, I want to teach for 3-4 hours. Then, I want evenings filled with good books, people I love, and lingering dinners. And in the midst of the writing, the teaching, the being, and the loving, I want to hope and labor for a more just world (equality between men and women, economic justice, care for our earth). There you have it. In the midst of all my ideals, I really just want a daily life filled with satisfying work, financial stability, community, and creativity.
Achieving all that is not easy…not at all easy. Just to afford to be a writer requires way more risk-taking and personal growth than I could have ever predicted, because it means on one hand I have to become a business woman, and on the other hand I have to be an artist. It is hard to develop my skills in both of those worlds.
Speaking of risk-taking, Elizabeth was beside me last summer when I determined I needed to figure out a way to go on a 3–4 week writing retreat in the fall. I knew that I needed to really enter the psychological space of my book and get about 10,000 words written and figure out what this whole 2-year project was really about. But, my dream felt silly. Who can take three weeks off work—the kind of work that pays one’s bills (and yes, I do that kind of work, too)—to write a book that might never be anything but a manuscript in my drawer? On the one hand, the idea of the retreat felt so luxurious, and on the other hand, I was terrified. Three weeks of just writing? Three weeks of wrestling my inner critic?
But, as it happened, Elizabeth and I went camping on Lopez Island last August, and I decided that Lopez was the place I simply had to be in fall of 2008 for my new imagined writing retreat. I had pictured the details perfectly in my mind: the strawberry scones from Holly B’s Bakery for breakfast, afternoon walks by the water for inspiration, long hours in the village library spent drafting my chapters. During the camping trip, I put up advertisements (“Looking for Walden” was the title on my flyer). I chatted it up with the people at the local market. I even emailed churches and individuals all over the San Juans trying to find a reasonable place to rent anywhere in the islands.
No one ever wrote me back, which is a curious thing in retrospect. Elizabeth says she is pretty sure angels were guarding the door.
While in Boston writing this book on gender and spirituality, I ended up spending one glorious day in a Harvard library doing research and looking at manuscripts of the feminists of the history books. I couldn’t believe the resources available at an institution like that. Eventually, I had a few conversations that led me to look at the programs at Harvard Divinity School. I proceeded to fall head over heels for the classes they offer in gender studies.
But, as things go, I applied to another school, too: Yale Divinity School. Which was a good thing, because I didn’t get into HDS, but YDS has been kind enough to offer me a full scholarship in their gender studies program. So, I am overjoyed for where I get to be this fall, and yet…it’s been an adjustment. There were reasons I wanted Harvard—there were classes there quite unique to my field of study that are really not the same at Yale.
And yet…there is a reception and hospitality at Yale that is striking. And, more and more, I am finding new paths to explore at Yale that I am most excited about, like the focus on environmental issues at YDS that actually pairs brilliantly with gender studies. My path will look different at Yale—I know that—but I am getting more and more thrilled about the unknown that awaits me this fall.
All that to say, it is always a curious thing when what you thought you wanted doesn’t happen…and yet the gift you are being given is pregnant with so much possibility. Perhaps, our deepest desires are meanwhile being lived out, despite the doors that have stayed locked…in the midst of the surprising ones that are opening.
The other day, I was cleaning out my files on my desk, the antique, leather-topped one my dad bought me when I was 13 so that I could write “a great American novel” on it. While sorting through forgotten papers, I found a crumpled up advertisement: “Looking for Walden,” it read. “Young writer looking for a cabin to rent on Lopez Island….”
I gasped. But, I found Walden. The real one.
Thank you to those of you who have been part of this journey of getting me there. I am more and more convinced that dreams are born from supportive communities, for an individual cannot live her dreams alone. Achieving life goals takes hard work and lots and lots of love from family and friends…and I will concede, perhaps some fairy dust to mix with the love and the sweat.
Here is a link to a New York Time’s blog that talks about the “corrective” use of rape in South Africa to “cure” lesbian women. The full article that the blog references is here. (Lisa Fann, thanks for making me aware of this article.)
I recently made a trip to the east coast to look at divinity programs. When I got on the plane flying from Seattle to Boston, my carry-on bag was loaded with feminist theology for the long flight. I had also brought along my favorite tea (which is a plane ritual), and as I was ready to plunge into the world of words and theory, for a moment I checked myself, closed my books, and reveled in my experience.
I slowed down, and I saw something important: I realized that my entire experience in the making was because women of previous generations had paved my way. I looked all around me and saw how feminists (and pioneering women who did not use the word “feminist”) had profoundly shaped this day of my life. Consider that:
Harvard Divinity School (one of the schools to which I was applying) has only allowed women in its doors since 1955. (And I would actually get to stay at the house of the late feminist theologian Letty Russell, one of the first female graduates of that program. Exciting!)
The books on my lap—and, well, this entire study of feminist theology— simply did not exist before the 60s and 70s. We had no formal critique of a theological discourse that did not allow one entire gender into its conversation.
And then other “little” and yet significant details suddenly started popping into my vision:
I had been able to apply for my own credit card, which I had used to book this flight. Up until a few decades past, women needed to have bank accounts and credit cards opened with the signatures of husbands.
I was wearing pants. Yep, without women like Amelia Bloomer, I might not be doing crazy things like wearing pants or voting in my own democracy.
I noticed that the flight attendants who were serving me did not have to be single, female, and under 32 years of age, as they once did.
I could dream of a higher education in the first place because of woman like Mary Wollstonecraft, who first advocated for the education of women in her 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
As I was drinking my tea and pondering these gifts bequeathed to me by women of the past, I had to wonder how my generation would gift future generations of women and girls?
Will my daughters live in a world where domestic violence is no longer a leading cause of death and disability for many of the world’s women? Will my daughters live in a world where Christian churches are finally ready to stop being silent about the realities of domestic violence?
Will late night TV shows in twenty years still revolve so often around the plot of a woman being raped and/or killed? Will our culture finally have addressed why we have become so desensitized when it comes to male violence toward women?
When my daughters are grown, will 83% of the U.S. Congress still be men (a stat that currently puts the U.S. ranking 71st in the world for representation of women in parliamentary bodies)? Will a woman have been president yet?
Will the “look” of ideal feminine beauty in the media still be inhumane, contributing toward a culture of eating disorders and self-contempt among women?
What will change? How will justice advance? How will women and men of this generation use the gifts they have received to bless a future generation?
Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard.
– Helene Cixous (from “The Laugh of the Medusa”)
Readers! I have posted information below on the 5-week writing class I will be teaching starting next Friday. I would love to have you join. Here is a summary of the course and the sign-up details you will need to know:
Title of Class: Writing From the Body
Course Content:
What does it mean to attend to the body when we write? When we read? How does reading one’s body open up the creative process? Most artists are already aware that their bodies are “texts”; however, since Western epistemology so strongly reinforces a mind-body split, one task of the artist is to be intentional about healing the schism. This seminar will delve into questions like:
• In valuing the mind as apart from the body, and in defining reason as abstract and transcendent, how have we lost the concrete, incarnate nature of knowledge?
• How has disconnection from our bodies impacted the manufacturing of inauthentic self-expression?
• How would “writing from the body” gift us with freedom?
• What is the role of caring well for the body in the life of the artist?
The seminar will both explore relevant theory from diverse disciplines (including relational psychology, feminism, literature, and linguistics) and offer practical techniques for creating embodied writing/art. While the seminar can serve as an aid to those specifically practicing creative writing, it is more broadly designed to be a class on the creative process itself and how to unlock artistic expression. People of all skill levels are invited to join.
Dates: Fridays, March 27, April 3, 10, 17, & 24
Time: 9:30-11:00 a.m.
Location: 444 Ravenna Blvd., #309, Seattle, WA 98115
Instructor: Kimberly George
Cost: $125 for the 5-week course ($25 per 1.5 hour session) due the first week of class. $25 deposit will hold your registration.
To register or receive more information, please email:
writeexpressions at gmail dot com (That’s obviously the spam-proofed version of my email, so change it to the real thing when you write!)
1. With the aid of a daily dosage of antihistamines, I am falling in love with two dogs—Cali and Danali, who are roommates of mine in my new home. I have never gotten along with dogs, and not because I am an unkind person, but rather because their dander makes me miserable. But, I seem to have found the right combination: medication that works, and two dogs who are great at keeping me company, but who understand that I can’t cuddle with them. On rare days, I let myself pet them, but that is dangerous territory. Usually, I just talk to them a lot and remind them not too feel rejected even thought I can’t touch them. I really like, though, how Cali just puts her nose on my lap when I write, and Danali just flops beside us looking sagely. Dogs are great company for a writer.
2. Soon, I will know my fate for next fall. If I don’t get into school, then I need to come up with a great plan to travel the world or something. Actually, England keeps popping to mind…perhaps I could live in Bath or London…or work on a farm somewhere in Ireland…or a vineyard in Italy…or…hmmm…just trying to remind myself that the world is vast. (However, just so the Universe doesn’t get confused here…my openness to possibilities doesn’t mean I don’t most desire to be in academia again, amidst great classes and conversation and resources for the topics that most excite me….) I will find out the answer from the Universe, or rather the answer from admissions teams, on March 15.
3. I need Spring to come. In more ways than one. Daily, I check the little patch of crocuses in the front lawn…they are mentoring me. They know when to be still as little seeds. They know when to follow the sunshine. They know when to offer their bold expression to the world. Rest, patience, tenderness, strength, beauty. This is what I am learning under their tutelage.
4. My friends are all preparing to graduate this May from their counseling psychology program, which would have been my degree if I had not decided to pull out of school, delve into my book project, and research a new school. It is always interesting…that road not taken. I am glad life has so many choices. I seem to get to know myself better with each new choice I make. And while I have never regretted not completing that Masters program, it is an odd juxtaposition these days as I wait to hear back from schools.
5. I have fallen for all things lavender. If you want to delight me, you can send me lavender salad dressing or shampoo or lip balm or ice-cream. Yes, lavender ice-cream. It’s delicious. Like anything in life that I get excited about, I tend to over-do it. I am trying to pace myself with my lavender love, but it does often seem that the fun is in not practicing moderation, but simply plunging in.
