when women sit together praying

I was a bit reticent about attending a women's Bible study. I don't actually read the Bible, or pray much . . . and it's been years and years since I've thought of myself as a Christian.

Not that it's hard to do the motions. They're familiar and easy enough. But, really, I feel bad pretending participation while secretly making observations and judgments at nice emotional distance. That's what I usually end up doing. So I wondered if maybe I shouldn't go.

But Catherine kept talking about her Wednesday morning group. She does not take for granted the chance to share deeply in the lives of women close to her age. This is one of the things in her life she's most excited about. I wanted to meet these women. I decided to go.

They were amazing! The host was this brilliant and bold mother all dressed in purples and lipstick, and nose ring. She was steady and funny and very much herself, it felt, but also let us know that she was lacking in sleep, and not able to do much more these days than take care of her family.

Another mom with a gravelly voice, hard laughter, and less-polished language gave me the impression that she knew how to party. She and I made faces when Paul warned people of the light should remain awake and sober for Jesus' coming.

The woman who led the study part of the bible study was all business and let's get this started but with a gentle edge, and you could see she loved herself, and quietly loved as well.

An ex-journalist really seemed to empathize with my crises of confidence and transition. She said to me, "you have to learn the art of contentment", which I've always thought I knew. I began to think again. Maybe I could use a bit more peace.

There were others, all strikingly different in personality . . . and they all touched me a bit. I didn't pull back the way I thought I might. I engaged, and enjoyed them.

As I listened to them talk through the big (and little) issues and decisions of their lives, I realized that I could also use a return to prayer in my life. I could use some women like this, who are making space to listen for God/Wisdom/Universe/Our Own Souls to speak.  Who are holding life gently, understanding that it's not really ours, but something we move through. Loving the people we have the chance to love. Encouraging and engaging.

women's day

March 8, 2011

(100th Anniversary of International Women's Day)

Sometimes I know there's song

bursting out of me - not words

but what I feel, I know I can do.

It's spring and the new black skirt

fits well. At lunch my mind pulses

with the day's challenges and fullness.

Why, when I think there's nothing

innocent left in me, do my eyes

still dance? I laugh all the time.

I asked my class of forty-six

females (plus five boys in the back)

“Do you like being a woman?”

They all said yes but not much

about why. Except the clothing

is more colorful. And we can cry.

I told them feminists are just people

who want freedom - for women and

men - to be anything we want to be.

I told them sometimes freedom comes

when you choose the right path

and say, “to hell with being good”

I told them when you start doing that

you also end up with fewer excuses

and a lot more reasons to celebrate.

I told them I have no idea why

we keep trying to be younger,

when each year we have more.

I didn't tell them about the song

bursting out of me. But the way it was

pulsing, I'm sure they saw heard it.

what makes it real

I read during my break at work. My green apron beside me, toasted blueberry bagel, raspberry cream cheese from the expired samples, and this morning, tears. I am hiding back in the wi-fi user's cove, lost in the cruel world where Maryam will not have Ali, no matter how strong her spirit or beautiful her eyes. In a time and place women best marry and then develop their cunning, she suffers the for the dreams her father will not have her pursue, and the man. And he for her.

Then at night Laila and Mariam are brought back to Rasheed. I lay the book face down on the sheet and sob like a child - like a protest against all that is not just in the world - knowing that my emotion does nothing save build awareness in me, and resolve for change. The roller coaster of hope and terror, then we come to terms - both they and I - with the reality of the horror they cannot escape.

There is a third story, this one told, over the dinner table on Sunday. Another woman, another mother, another person who falls on the hard side of power and choices. Law in this country can protect her, but cannot force respect from a son, or the man who has taught him that women don't deserve it. This story, the most real of the three, somehow seems the least; there is no emotion on which we ache our way in. We hear and consider the practicalities - money, housing, where the children will live - and only thinking about it later do I detachedly remember how she must suffer. So unlike the fiction, where the colors and smells and the touch of true love torn apart grabs our hearts by both hands and shakes, saying, "This is her, this is you, this is every woman in every town on every continent. Pay attention." I do.