Dr. John Young 5/11/08
Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville
Seven Steps of Women’s Spirituality
Many of us consider ourselves spiritual, but not religious. Some of us want to clearly differentiate ourselves from the traditionally religious. Others of us are not comfortable with the concept of spirituality; we simply want to be part of a community of like minds who discuss ethical and philosophical matters, and share a deep sense of community. Others of us are liberally religious, unselfconsciously spiritual and happy to identify with the most liberated members of one or several of the traditional religions. Most Unitarian Universalist congregations struggle to consistently remain warm, mutually supportive and creative for all of this spiritual variety. Usually, there is no other congregation that fits our needs and desires, but many of us are still challenged by UUCJ’s internal variety of spiritual perspectives and practices.
As your minister, I deal with this variety among us by shifting the focus of my sermons back and forth among sermons focused on liberated spirituality, Unitarian Universalist history and identity, ethical and philosophical sermons rooted in largely secular perspectives, and enthusiastic celebrations of elements from the great world religions. We are all human beings depending upon the natural world; so, every sermon addresses elements of our shared human predicaments as nature’s children in the midst of 21st century civilization.
We all have or had a mother. We have all been nurtured and have done our best to become nurturers. This sermon celebrates a wonderful book by religious scholar Maria Harris. She got her Ph.D. at Union Theological Seminary, taught at Andover Newton and Princeton seminaries, is a pioneer in women’s studies and leads women’s spirituality workshops. Dr. Harris grew up in a female household; her mother had been widowed after ten years of marriage. Maria was a student and then a young adult member of the Brentwood Sisters of Saint Joseph before becoming a teacher and writer. This book, Dance of the Spirit: the seven steps of women’s spirituality is her first book for a general audience, published in 1989. Consider making it part of your life!
Whatever else liberated spirituality is, it is certainly what we consider the deepest, most important, most universally connected portions of our lives. So, isn’t it ironic that most of us give spirituality relatively little time and attention day-by-day? We feed and exercise our bodies, brains, and need for rest. We work and play hard and try our best to take care of the people we care about. But, do you also try to nourish and feed your spirituality by giving it a regular died of practices or exercises? Do you take 20 minutes a day in inner stillness whether you call that contemplation, meditation or prayer? Do you keep serious time on one day weekly as a Sabbath? Do you write in a journal, serve others as a volunteer, or make a conscientious change in your weekly schedule, as a weekly spiritual discipline? If not, what are you waiting for? When are you going to get around to what you think is really most important and relevant for yourself and for the world?
Dr. Harris’ 7 steps are shared by all of the world’s spiritualities: awakening, dis-covering, creating, dwelling, nourishing, traditioning, and transforming. In order to become spiritual, we need to wake up, wake up to our deepest inner sacred selves, the awesome in the world around us, and to the presence of sorrow and pity as well joy and delight. Awakening means paying attention, claiming the real in ourselves and the world, and learning to question and to trust. It means becoming comfortable with who and what you really are, going out without our masks or our make up, learning to take our shoes off in front of what is worthy of reverence. It means to stop believing the lies people have told us about ourselves and our kind. Like the presumption that God is a man or that self-denial is the foundation of spirituality or that sin is essentially caused by women, or some other group that others wish to oppress. Awakening means taking the responsibility of growing up. The time is now; the place is here.
Maria’s 2nd step is dis-covering. By this, she means the work of removing barriers, of recognizing what has been partly hidden. She also uncovers four facets of dis-covering: responding, searching, finding and remembering. Responding is responding to an invitation, to an opportunity, going through an open door, taking a chance. Searching is the quests that we all involve ourselves in, sometimes by joining groups, getting involved, other times by writing in a journal or struggling with something in solitude. Finding is the process of revelation, of discovery and disclosure. Re-membering is putting forgotten parts back into yourself, like Browning’s “childhood faith” and “lost saints.” She does not just go back to them, she uncovers or dis-covers them anew and integrates them back in new ways in her adult existence. For instance, Dr. Harris talks about power from a woman’s perspective, dis-covering and re-membering the power of vulnerability, emotion, and caring instead of the male stereotypic power as invulnerability, stoicism, and selfishness.
Creating in spiritual terms is the process of giving our spirituality artistic form. In some profound way, each of us is part of the universal rhythm; we are part of the divine music and dance of existence. She contrasts creating as construction and productivity, where the goal is always to just try harder, and creating as brooding, caring activity, a birth from within, where the goals need to be patience and allowing things to unfold, to germinate. Creativity demands sense-ability, flexibility, and fluidity. We become what we create; it is a continuing process; you do not create alone, and creating is paradoxical, if you presuppose too much that gets in the way of your actual creativity. People may emphasize a physical spirituality of love, a questioning spirituality of skepticism, a resisting spirituality that does justice, an empowering spirituality that fosters others’ growth, or a receptive spirituality that accepts and embraces.
Her fourth step is dwelling, weaving the fabric of our souls, dwelling in what we have found to be worthy. Harris argues that awakening, dis-covering and creating lead to dwelling, and that nourishing, traditioning, and transforming flow from dwelling. Dwelling means cultivating presence, the practice of stopping and spiritually remembering where one is many times during each day. Dwelling means resting, quieting the heart and centering on your heart’s space and time. She uses the oft repeated Biblical images of the garden and the desert, the city, and the home. Sometimes, each of us lives in a garden, and all of us must travel through deserts, sometimes for a long period of our lives. Ask yourselves these two questions. In what ways are you a desert and a garden dwelling place for yourself or others?
Nourishing is the art of actual spiritual practice. It combines the personal, the communal, and the integrating. Much of spirituality needs to be done in solitude, yet most of us depend upon others to get started and to keep going, particularly when things are going badly or too well. Harris focuses on three personal disciplines: prayer, contemplation and fasting [she suggests a day a week without driving and a week without television as good 21st century fasts—perhaps you can think of ones that would be good for you?]. Three communal disciplines: liturgy, service, and prophetic speech [for instance, do you speak up to protect the vulnerable or to counter prejudice where it may have negative consequences for you? Preaching to the choir or the already convinced is not prophetic speech, that’s just going along with your crowd]. Her integrative disciplines are: embodiment, memory and justice. The classical Biblical justice syllogism is Prophet Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with you God.” Justice needs to be done, and we need to do it kindly and humbly, or its power evaporates.
Her sixth step is traditioning, the handing on and handing over what we have discovered, experienced, tested, and found worthy. It is the generativity of the mature and the power of the wise. Traditions are not dogmas, rituals, rules or laws, traditioning is the process of handing on and handing over, it is the process of loving, teaching, mentoring and modeling. Traditions need to be appropriate, renewable, intelligent, and compensatory. They need to make up for what has been lost. She reminds us that families and congregations need to shy away from the bureaucratic virtues [progress, success, teamwork, the bottom line] and instead concentrate upon a sense of rhythm, a tolerance for failure, a respect for solitude, and an enthusiasm for commencement.
Her seventh step is transforming, not just transforming ourselves but transforming the world, creating, nurturing, and integrating a new vision. Transforming is a process of listening, questioning, mourning, bonding and birthing. Dr. Harris refers us to the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, economist and philosopher, who contrasts the death-based religions arising out of the male experience as hunter and warrior, where the pivotal experiences are sacrifice and death, in contrast to the birth-based religions arising out of the female experience as mother and nurturer where the pivotal experiences are birth and growth. Harris argues that we need both together in a seamless whole rather than some false dichotomy again. The emphasis needs to shift toward birth and growth, parent and nurturer, but sacrifice, pain, and death remain realities of existence.
It is a wonderful book, and I believe applicable for both genders and all ages from teenagers to crones and seers. There is much that we can all learn from women’s spirituality. Let me conclude with these words of Judy Chicago from her work of words and art, The Dinner Party:
And then all that has divided us will merge and then compassion will be wedded to power and then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind and then both men and women will be gentle and then both women and men will be strong and then no person will be subject to another’s will and then all will be rich and free and varied and then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many and then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance and then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old and then all will nourish the young and then all will cherish life’s creatures and then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth and then everywhere will
be called Eden once more.”