hey all...

i have great news - wait for it, wait...

okay. noelle gave birth to a boy last week (specifically november 22nd)! his name is quinn tennis gulden; he weighs nearly 7 lbs; and he is gorgeous. and let's be clear, not all babies are cute.

so, noelle will be on maternity leave through january, but feel free to pop her an email of congratulations.

as for me, well, i'm not going on maternity leave anytime soon. at least i hope not, but hey, i suppose anything can happen. kidding, i'm just kidding.

anyway, i hope you all returned from the thanksgiving holiday rested and grateful and not too annoyed by your families.

keep in mind that december 10th is national human rights day. more on that to come.

peace,
katie

(Submitted by Hailee Barnes)

I slipped in 45 minutes into my Brain and Behavior class today. I took notes for the remaining 45 minutes, but my mind was racing so fast about other things as it had for the past 28 hours that today’s note taking was not my best let’s say. I had awoke at 5am in Louisville, KY, taken a cab to the airport, boarded my plane, did homework, changed planes in Minneapolis, read some stimulating textbooks, then deplaned, met my chaplain, raced to class and there I was in Portland, OR at 12:15pm West Coast time sitting in my seat trying to absorb the inner workings of the brain. I had spent the weekend with the Leadership Event Planning Team in our face-to-face meeting.

I should be exhausted now at 12 midnight West Coast time, but with the excitement of the weekend, coffee on the plane, and going to the gym a few hours ago my mind will not allow me to sleep. Most of the time I wonder why I am in college studying hour after hour never really seeming to master anything or being able to claim that I really know anything beyond regurgitating what I hear and maybe adding a little flare to it but I can say that the class part of college is not exactly what thrills me to death. My friend Stacy and I often refer to the “Stacy Scale of Life” when we are discussing our classes, stress, or whatever we are doing. It is a little scale she and I discussed and greatly agreed on over our spring break last year while we spent long nights house sitting and long days rowing on the crew team. It is about the relationships you make, nurture and have with people. While we are both dedicated students and do feel that classes are important, it is something we both think about very often and often factor into the decisions we make. It is so easy to get caught up in all that we have to do and forget that opportunities for relationships are often more important. For example, I could not believe that I went all the way to Kentucky this weekend with tests in all my classes two term papers and a major project due between now and next Wednesday. But by going to KY this weekend I was able to grow stronger in my relationships with the three members of the LEPT that I already knew and met and began getting to know the other two members. I greatly value these relationships and it is these relationships and others similar to them in my family, my community, my school, and throughout my life that make life beautiful and meaningful for me.

One of my life goals is to grow in my relationships with people, some will dwindle no doubt, but those that I put time, effort, love, and care into can be some of the most valuable things in life. People are interesting; they all have a story, a history, and their whole life’s worth of experiences. So here is to all our relationships with people we have known, know, and will know. Have a great Thanksgiving, remember to give thanks for all the great relationships that you have!

Hailee Barnes
Lewis and Clark College (Portland, OR)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee (class of 2009)

(Submitted by Rachael Whaley)

Sometimes, reading the paper just makes me angry. Maryville College has implemented a College Newspaper Readership Program, which provides free newspapers (USA Today, the New York Times, and the Knoxville News Sentinel) to the campus community. Usually, on my way to class I pick up a New York Times and treat myself to a mid-morning break to catch up on what's happening in the world. Unfortunately for me, the NY Times is pretty popular around these parts, so if I don't get one early enough I am stuck with that symbol of industrialized and commercialized media: USA Today. In this morning's paper, the front page story was about Division I college football coaches and their outrageous salaries. Noteworthy, perhaps, enough for the front page of the sports section, or maybe just the front page of Meatheads Weekly. Buried as a sidebar, with barely an inch of space on the front page, was a headline about the soldier who finally confessed to gang raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl and murdering her family. This small, obviously unimportant headline was also fortunate enough to include Spc. James P. Barker's reasoning for committing this heinous crime with 3 other model American citizens: "I hated Iraqis, your honor."

Barker pleaded guilty and will testify against his fellow soldiers in exchange for escaping the death penalty- an option not open to his victim, her parents, or her 6-year-old sister.

I want to make it clear that I have nothing but respect for our soldiers who are trying to do their jobs honestly, as I have a sibling who is serving our country in the armed forces and I could not be more proud of her sacrifice. However, there is just something wrong with the state of the world when Americans perform these acts of terrorism (yes, even some Americans are terrorists) while trying to maintain an air of moral superiority. I don't know what makes me more upset- the fact that it happened, the reasoning behind it, or the fact that this story is not as interesting as what the football coach at UT Austin makes in a year.

Rachael Whaley
Maryville College (Maryville, TN)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

(The following is a sermon written by Maren Haynes, NNPCW Coordinating Committee member. The sermon was delievered at Southside Presbyterian Church in Tuscon, AZ on Nov 5, 2006.)

To be of Use

The people I love best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the much to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

(By Marge Piercy, taken from Cries of the Spirit, a collection of poems)

I don't even know where to start in giving a brief overview of the ways women's gifts have been of use in the church. We can start in Biblical times with Jesus and his invitation for women, such as Mary and Martha, to join the circle as leaders spirituality and study for the first time in that culture's history, and as he built relationships with the downtrodden, outcast women of society.

The Apostle Paul, who we often think of as a misogynist, celebrates his sister in Christ, Thecla, who left her fiance, and dressed in men's clothing to become an evangelist in the area. Though persecuted by her neighbors, family and the state, Paul affirms her commission to ministry.

Hildegard of Bingen lived in the 12th century, and provided counsel to many people in the hierarchy of the church. Bishops, Kings and Popes sought her advice, and she was believed to have a supernatural connection to God which she explored through medicine and music. She wrote major works of visionary and theology, and is academically hailed in all these fields to the present day. Though not canonized, she has been called a Saint for centuries.

The 19th-20th century women's movement brings forth women like Quaker Elizabeth Cady Stanton who helped kick off the women's suffrage movement with the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848, and fellow Quaker Sojourner Truth, political activist and former slave who engaged the hard truth of the Social Gospel and seriously aimed to bring that Gospel to fruition. Many of the female leaders of that convention had very recently been leaders in the Underground Railroad movement of the 1800s.

And in the 21st century, I have had the opportunity to hear and meet so many amazing, challenging, engaging women, who take the gospel seriously. Among them have been Esther Byu of Thailand with the Fellowship of the Least Coin, Musimbi Kanyaro of Kenya with the Young Women's Christian Association, Lisa Larges of the United States of the Gay and Lesbian Ordination Activist group That All May Freely Serve, and thousands, thousands of others who have dynamically led the people by faithfully following God's call for their lives.

It is not a question of women's “contributions.” The church simply would not be without women.

Since this is so much the case, approaching a service or a sermon where we celebrate the gifts of women seems rather silly. We, at Southside, are so fortunate to see amazing women standing as partners with the men in nearly every venue, from our social justice outreach, to pulpit ministry, sunday school, to music ministry, women and men share their gifts here. But history has not often told this story.

When the women of Southside came together at the Women's Retreat and on last Wednesday night, we identified many ways women's involvement in the church has been marginalized.

Women in the Christian Church, historically, have been limited to actualize their callings through decidedly subordinate outlets. Although this has ebbed and flowed from Jesus' time until present, several women of Southside remember growing up in denominations where women could teach: Sunday School – but only to girls, or to boys under 12. Women could lead: Other women. Women could Pray: Silently.

History has often been reinterpreted to minimize the contributions of women. By keeping women illiterate, the task of recording history has been nearly completely a male activity, and thus women's accomplishments often went unrecorded, or were misattributed to their husbands or brothers. For example, recent scholarship has revealed that, perhaps, Miss Fanny composed at least half of the music attributed to her brother Felix Mendelssohn. Oftentimes, women were able to reveal their ideas solely by succumbing to this reality, penning under a pseudonym.

At its worst, history has tended to set up false dichotomies between masculine and feminine. The masculine characteristics, according to sociologist Janet Saltzman Chafetz include logical, rational, strong, unemotional, leader, individualistic, and independent. Simply put, these masculine values are considered the cornerstones of western society, and have up until very recently been almost fully integrated into the western understanding of Christianity.

If the characteristics of God are decidedly this archetypal masculine, then the feminine must be the opposite of God. Up until the last 50 years, or so, much of western society has recreated God in this image, and has thus excluded feminine characteristics from the realm of the Holy. Thus, at least my perspective is that the contemporary church has had struggles in adopting a more communitarian, less self-serving, more globally-minded set of ethics, despite the fact that the Bible's true text very clearly backs up these values right along side many masculine ones. Feminist Theologians like Rosemary Radford Reuther go so far as to argue that the feminine side of God was left out of the conversation for so long, we need to reinterpret every facet of our faith to break this cycle and get the whole story.

Certainly, this is not a struggle that is isolated to women's issues – it is a sizable lamentation to be made on behalf of all marginalized groups. I hope we can all unite around the belief that we have a really long way to go, and that for every wonderful woman we celebrate throughout our lifetimes, hundreds of thousands of women have been forgotten.

Many Southside women expressed extreme feelings of abandonment in the church in their 20's and 30's, especially those who grew up during the women's movement when it seemed women were gaining rights in society before gaining those same rights in the church. Some women expressed that such a split between faith and feminism pushed them to replace their faith with feminism. Today, too many young women look to the church in America as one of the most extreme places where even their basic rights aren't valued, to say nothing of full participation. Young women identify a church where we spend way more time focused on whether or not abortion should be legal, than actually addressing the pervasive, barbaric, and all too common issues of domestic partner abuse and rape, for example. It seems we creep along at a historical snail's pace toward what many of us believe, nearly instinctually, is the will of God, but that our church seems to identify as a wishy-washy fringe concern or political issue. Women, and many men, leave the church in droves over the seemingly endless battle we have been forced to fight over inclusion. It seems all too logical to give up on the Church when this realization is reached. If the will of God is that women should be honored, in daily life, in society, and in ministry, shouldn't God at least have the power to set right the agenda of the Church?

I found such solace in the passage from David's song, Psalm 68:7-10. This Psalm recounts the movement of the Jewish people out of the slavery of Egypt and into the Promised Land. The remainder of the Psalm goes on to recount the details of that journey, which was gory, costly, and difficult. Although we all know the ending, and this particular group of people did find solace in the place where it was promised, the realization of that promise came only with an enormous struggle which, I'm sure, often times caused its participants to wonder 'Where is God?'

We are guaranteed struggles in this world, especially where power dynamics are concerned. Most Christian theologians call this struggle “human sin,” and I'm very inclined to agree.

In Psalm 68: 7-10, though, we understand God, too, endures our struggles, going out in front of the people, paving the way through the wasteland to justice and solace. As Christians, we are constantly required to walk closely behind God, to redefine our faith as the time and place requires it, to empower the powerless, to give up power when we have too much, and to stand as a bulwark to fight for power when it is taken away. We must labor in the fields until the voices of all people are valued with equity. As we squelch the gifts of people whom God has called, to ministry or otherwise, we are bereft of those beautiful gifts, and our traditions and faith are deeply affected: they become skewed, fragmented and distorted.

My experience at Southside has been that this church is a haven of visionaries for laboring toward full participation and inclusion of all the people of God. I have no doubt that the people of Southside aim to stand on the cutting edge of these demands that God asks of us, and that we will move forward peaceably and thoughtfully, yet passionately.

I am thrilled to say we are continuing to see the fruits of our labors in the feminist theological movement. Each of us can attest to a huge number of female leaders in the church who have affected us. Women of Southside identified so many – student leaders, deacons, elders. One woman remembered the first female deacon in a neighboring church, who rose to become moderator of her Presbytery. Others recalled growing up with female pastors, others following the calling to become pastors themselves. In the church of the United States, we continue to see new avenues for women in leadership finally realized. This week, we celebrate our Anglican sister, Katharine Jefferts Schori as she assumes her role as the first female bishop in the Anglican church.

We honor the strength of groups of women to move mountains, such as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina who faithfully searched for sons and daughters of families who had lost them due to an estimated 30,000 disappearances by the government in attempts to build an army with the children of their country. We recognize a group of women in Africa who decided to abstain from sex with their husbands until the wars of their countries stopped. We honor the Presbyterian women of our own denomination who have consistently provided a prophetic vision for us, as a church, to engage the social issues of our time more fully.

The fruits are not limited to women as leaders: We are seeing adoption of more democratic decision making processes as Open Space and Consensus Model become much more mainstream (the Presbyterian Women even adopted Consensus Model at their business meeting this past summer! We can only hope the General Assembly will follow suit). We are seeing a quietly rising church engaging social action through an unlikely medium – monasticism – with movements like 'The Simple Way' and other intentional communities which take commitments to communitarian lifestyle, shared resources, living lightly on the earth, and the social gospel very, very seriously.

As more voices are invited to the table, and transformation occurs, we create larger caveats for the Holy Spirit to enter into our dialogue and discussion, and we have the ability to be more creative as the body of Christ in recognizing and affirming all our gifts. We are working toward something worthwhile, which will undoubtedly continue to transform our church and each of our lives, and which will reform our ways of understanding God in ways we cannot foresee.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Let us continue doing the daily work that needs to be done toward celebrating the gifts of all our sisters and brothers in the work God has called each of us to do. Today, we celebrate the amazing women of the church.

Carrie speaking.

I don't like having to scroll to the bottom to see who's writing. Actually I might not even write long enough for scrolling to be necessary. We'll see.

I have to admit, I feel a little disconnected from the network since I no longer am in "college" away from my women's spirituality group and the chapel services I loved so dearly. I'm in graduate school, which I find more informative in a specific sense, yet not nearly as fun as college. I'm studying occupational therapy.

"What is occupational therapy?" you might ask. We'll I can tell you a little about it.

Occupational therapy is using a person's occupations to help improve their independence and better their quality of life. Occupations are defined as the things that occupy a person's time. So the idea is that you can help a patient who has suffered an injury to regain their independence by engaging them in activities of meaning. Thus activity is therapeutic. We do different things in different settings. Sometimes OTs (occupational therapists) use crafts, cooking or just the things a person does in their daily routine to promote engagement in activity. We work in schools,
hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, private clinics, etc. We work with diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia to Cerebral Palsy to Multiple Sclerosis to spinal cord injury. And hopefully we help people to regain or gain as much independence as possible.

That's what I'm doing these days.

Carrie Simpson
Texas Woman's University
School of Occupational Therapy

I wanted to share an article with you that was passed onto me by Shaya Gregory, Young Adult Intern with the Office of Women's Advocacy.

Here are her comments about the article:


1. Isn't it interesting how much technology is created to improve and increase men's sexual activity/performance/enjoyment and technology for women is all about circumscribing/controlling their ability to have children? It really leaves men out of the 'making of the baby' process and says a lot about our Nation's attitude towards paternal accountability and sexuality in general.

2. And the techonolgy for women that is NOT about our reproductive capabilities, is about improving our aesthectic appeal...so we can feel good about making men 'feel good!'

Read the article: "Contraception as an Option for the Man"

Please feel free to share your own thoughts once you've read the article.

Noelle

I am still reeling from the events of this week--from the unexpected shift in political power, from Rumsfeld's resignation--and I am curious how these events have affected your thoughts and your lives.

Therefore, instead of writing my own thoughts, I'd like to solicit yours. What, if anything, has this election season taught you about democracy? Has it changed your opinion(s) about the state of our nation? Has it brought you hope? Left you wanting?

It's your turn to talk...

Noelle

Well, he's engaged, really. My baby, that is.

I went to the doctor yesterday, and she informed me that my baby's head has dropped (or "engaged") into my pelvis. It sounds painful, and to be honest, it kind of is. It also causes me to waddle a bit.

I'm in my 37th week of pregnancy now. 36 down, 4 to go. All in all, I have to say that I have enjoyed being pregnant. It has made me more aware of my body and myself, but it has also made me more aware of other people. I can’t really explain why this is, except perhaps for the fact that during the last 9 months, I have never really been alone: there has always been “an other” with me.

My friend asked me the other day if I felt like I had lost any part of myself to this baby growing inside me. I had to think for a minute about her question, but I concluded that no, I had not lost myself. For some reason he had not allowed me to do so. In contrast, he has instead made me aware of his complete otherness. While he is entirely dependent on me and on my body for his survival, he is neither me nor my body. He is an other. And as such, he demands that I look beyond myself when I feel him, or think of him, or imagine how he looks.

This is a blessing, because I tend to forget to see the people around me as others. Instead of losing myself in them, I tend to lose them in me. I am—like many of us—pretty self-centered most of the time. But what genuine community calls us toward is “to love our neighbor as ourselves,” which means loving ourselves (i.e. not losing ourselves in others), and loving others (i.e. not losing others in us).

For the time being, I have that genuine communion with my child. I am not naïve enough to believe this will always be there, but while it is, I cherish it. This is the type of communion I strive for with my husband. It is the type of communion I strive for with my friends and with my church.

We were not created to be alone. Humankind was created to be in community. This is no small or easy task: we continually fight against losing ourselves or annihilating others. But it is what we are called to do, who we were created to be. And when we get close to doing it right, it is divine.

Noelle

God definitely works in mysterious ways. I have been very lonely lately. I have found myself in a deep lonely, loneliness in my soul. It is a searching lonely- I am desperately looking for something but I don’t exactly know what I am looking for.

And then my friend (who is also one of my roommates) had a great idea: let’s foster a few puppies. And so we went to the Memphis Humane Society and there we found a litter of 5 3-week old puppies that had been thrown in a dumpster. While we couldn’t take all 5 like we wanted to (our apartment isn’t that large), we did take home two little girls, Billie Jean Bonhoeffer and Shai Shalom. These two little puppies are completely dependent on me and my three roommates for all of their nee ds, everything from entertainment to potty breaks to bottle feedings. It is amazing how good it feels to have someone or something that is so reliant on me and I feel a little less lonely.

So maybe God spoke through my friend when she said that we should foster the puppies. Maybe God is watching out for me somewhere up there and knew that this would make me feel a little bit better.

My advice to everyone out there: get a dog. They work wonders for the soul. And remember, dog is God spelled backward.

Jen Ross
Rhodes College (Memphis, TN)
NNPCW Coordinating Committee

Christian. Muslim. Atheist.

Now that you have seen these words, please read them again and think about what images come to mind when you picture each of these types of people.

I would like to have an open discussion about stereotypes of religious and non-religious people in the media and how they limit our daily interactions with one another. There are wars going on right about how and where it is appropriate to express faith, who has the superior faith, and what to do about those who have no faith tradition at all. Read the rest of Beth's article.