… finitude and limitation are rooted in the structure of our lives. There is no permanence in our finite lives, there are no absolutes, there is no one person or thing we can count on to provide meaning in our lives as we move through time and change … I believe that women’s spiritual quest and feminist thealogy are drawing all of us, women and men, to accept finitude and change, to live in and through it, without trying to escape it. Thus the “deformation” of mystical language I … am proposing is that we give up the quest to ally ourselves with a transcendent source or power which is beyond change, which is unaffected by that which comes into being and dies. For me the goal of the “mystical” quest is to understand that we are part of a world which is constantly transforming and changing.
(Carol P. Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest, second edition, Beacon Press: Boston, 1986, p. xiv)
it's funny being a feminist...one has the perpetual impression of running in place.
ReplyDeletei first read carol christ's book "diving deep and surfacing" in the early 1990s. like so much else that i read then, it is being rediscovered by a new generation of people attempting to undo patriarchal structures and thought processes that impact us all negatively. the idea of divinity/holiness not being "out there" but rather imbued in all life, the revelation that immanence is as sacred as transcendence, were new ideas to me philosophically as a young adult. in this, as in so many other areas of social justice and civil rights and political agency, we seem to have lost ground rather than gained it. or so i often think when i am feeling less optimistic, anyway.
but it's so timely to see this coming up now; i do believe that only a transformation of how we think about this world and ourselves can get us to a viable future. we do indeed need to understand that life is about cycles and changes, not stasis or endless "progress" or a transcendent, unchanging ideal/source.
I understand what you mean. I've been heartened by having my own ideas and intuitions confirmed by reading feminist literature, while at the same time being frustrated that I am travelling the same ground that other women travelled decades ago. If I had been taught about feminism at school, it would have saved a lot of time, but I guess that's a little too much to have expected of my Catholic education. And it's so sad that Women's Studies no longer exists in universities, having been replaced by Gender Studies, which dilutes and distorts the reality of women's issues (and confuses a whole new generation, I fear).
ReplyDeleteSo I guess the attempt to undo patriarchal thought processes is ongoing, but without a way to connect women, to educate girls, and to actually create change, I don't see how we won't just be going over the same ground again and again. Though maybe something is shifting. All I can do is play my small part in it.