Eve's Revenge:Women and a Spirituality of the Body by Lilian Calles Barger
Chasing Sophia: Reclaiming the Lost Wisdom of Jesus by Lilian Calles Barger, NEW!If you don’t think the workplace is still a man’s world, think again and read The Price of Motherhood at online Slate. Women pay a higher price in order to stay in the workplace and they pay a price for leaving it. Then again can or should we reduce parenting to economics like this article suggests?
Most of us avoid hospitals with their blank walls and antiseptic smell….. I certainly do. But lately I have found myself going to one everyday. My father is in the hospital. Reduced to a hospital gown you are reminded that: naked you came into the world and naked you will leave.
Big city hospitals are a microcosm of the modern world; vulnerable bodies in communion with technology. As microcosms of the world hospital emergency rooms overflow with rich and poor, red, yellow, black and white, seeking relief. Proof that disease and suffering bring us together and act as great equalizers.
I couldn’t let this day go by without acknowledging that March is women’s history month and today is International Women’s Day. This is a day to focus on the plight of women in the world and their struggle for basic human dignity, education, and safety.
It was social reformer Jane Addams who said ” The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us…”
If you don’t know about the millions of men, women and children that are sold into forced labor and sexual exploitation… find out. If you want to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves consider the breakthetraffic web project out of the UK. Many NGOs have now taken on this global challenge. Nobody is free until everybody is free.
This reminds me of Rene Girards’ point that it’s in Christianity that concern for victims becomes paramount. What is now considered a basic religious and global value has no peer in ancient pagan religions and myths. It’s a Jewish and Christian innovation.
For many who are discouraged and disgusted with institutional Christianity, a house church may be just the right fit. This week’s Time magazine article focuses on this growing trend. Finding a community that is centered on Jesus, scripture and the holy meal no longer means going into an intimidating catheral or a megachurch mall.
Jesus himself seemed to have an affinity for smallness when he promised that where two or three are gathered in his name he would show up. The earliest churches were in houses and millions of Christians worldwide still gather in homes, noteably, the Chinese house churches. As a child in Argentina my first religious experiences were in these less structured gatherings. House churches can be much more inclusive and egalitarian, giving everyone a significant role to play. Like all human endeavors, institutional churches aren’t perfect. Consequently, house churches may be a more accessible alternative for many.
Instead of what kind of church we attend, what matters is that we not remain a solitary spiritual sojourner. To be a follower of Jesus means to be rooted in a historical and present community. House churches can be both.