I'm sorry the blog is so late tonight (again), but I've been on the road since 7 am this morning going from school to school and meeting people. This is the first time I've been settled in one place long enough to write! I started the Oregon leg of my journey today, visiting Portland State, Lewis and Clark, and the University of Oregon. For Portland State and UO, I did the historical presentation on women in the church that focuses on women mystics and women accused of witchcraft. I think they enjoyed it... although people's propensity to fall asleep during the presentation does concern me a bit.

At Lewis and Clark, I met with the school's chaplain for lunch. We talked a lot about students on more secular campuses, and how they view spirituality. I always assumed that the term "spiritual" was a bit less threatening than the word "religious," particularly for people who came from bad church backgrounds. Yet Mark and I ended up talking more about students who were not only suspicious of institutional religion, but also lacked any religious background whatsoever-- people who had no basis upon which to understand spirituality or grow in it. Mark talked about running programs like "Art and Spirituality," which tend to attract even those suspicious of Christianity itself on other campuses, and getting very little response at his college.

So I'm curious-- what is "spirituality" to you? How does that tie into organized religion? For many of you, I would guess the two are closely connected through Christianity. Yet for others reading this, "spirituality" isn't necessarily tied to the church. In fact, some may see the institutional church as a roadblock to a spiritual experience with God. Particularly if you're of the latter persuasion, where do communities of faith play into the spiritual if the church is problematic?

I'm also wondering about people's thoughts on the word itself. Is it just a warm fuzzy word with no theological meaning to it? Does it open us up to something richer and deeper than the labels "Presbyterian," "Methodist," "Catholic," etc. can?

Maybe I'm asking these questions because I'm worried about places where bright, articulate people, people who live out ethical values in their commitments to justice and other causes, are completely missing the boat when it comes to spirituality. And perhaps I'm wondering why, now, even "spiritual" has become a bad word in some social climates.

"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." --Romans 12:11

Kelsey

PS-- Thanks, Kelly, for your comment about yesterday's blog. You are definitely on the mark on this. I think it depends a lot on your context-- if you're very progressive in a less progressive Christian community, you might always feel called upon to "prove" your Christianity. If you're a progressive Christian in a secular environment, you may find yourself having to overcome stereotypes about Christians to be accepted. It points to some of the animosity between the two communities (some of which, personally, I think has been artificially created by the mainstream media), and how many of us end up serving as models of an alternative paradigm.

Hi Kelsey,
I am interested in your lectures on women mystics and the burning times of witches. I wonder if you have read any of the recent books by scholars on the history of witchcraft. Have you read, "The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft," by Ronald Hutton. He is Professor of History at the University of Bristol and a bit of a pagan himself. Anyway new scholarship suggests that the burning of witches was not as great nor quite for the reasons that earlier writers including radical Feminists have insisted. I did a review of this book and it is on my web site at www.naminggrace.org under articles. In the article I quote Hutton and write "Hutton, also points out the later refutation of these misconceptions by some Wiccan scholars as well as the entrenched position of the same theories in more popular works. For instance in his next to last chapter, “Coming of Age,” Hutton writes of the large amount of research done by English historians in the mid-1990s on the subject of the witch trials. He writes that the books and research coming out of this period, refutes “many previous assumptions and models, including that provided by American feminists.” Hutton is emphatic in stating that, “It has established beyond any reasonable doubt that there was no long-lasting or wide-ranging persecution of witches in early modern Europe, trials which involved the charge being neither routine nor common in any district.” Writing of the victims of such accusations, Hutton points out that they were mostly “poor, marginalized, and anti-social, and where accusations spread they mostly reflected tensions between neighbors in lower reaches of society.”
He states:
Accusations of witchcraft were not merely made against women but very often-in some areas mostly-initially made by women, not in the name of male power but because the alleged spells cast by witches most commonly affected those spheres of activity-small children, domestic work and the physical home, the animals of the in-field-which were normally the responsibility of females. (379)

Also wanted to say that St Teresa is my favorite woman mystic.
Blessings of Christ,
Viola Larson