today was my last day going to the place i volunteer, sarah's circle, before the summer ends. SC is a drop in center for homeless and low income women, and i've met some great ladies:

rosemary, who likes romance novels
sharon, who is a carpenter and an artist, who made me a rosary with a little green on it, for the irish bostonians.
brenda, who came from the south
norma, who told me "the seventh deadly sin is the reluctance to change"
mary, who told me everyone's business ("that one just acts like that so she can get her crazy check")
geraldine, who quieted tempers
jj, who told her real name to people who earned it
bunny, who couldn't leave behind the man she loved, who said she'd show me how to crochet
and lynn, the first one i ever talked to, who called me boston, who gave me a hug today, who fought with me about baseball (white sox vs. red sox), who gave me a list of sights in boston to take pictures of.

these are the few i was lucky enough to talk to -- thanks, ladies.

study break!

i think it's hard to call it a study break when i'm not really studying -- but what can i say, i've always been a rebel. i finished my history paper on thursday, and here's what i found out about how covenant women was affected by feminism:

they weren't.

but there were a few closet rockers hiding out in amongst the rest of them so that was cool to see.

here's something else that's cool to see:

I taught this guy everything he knows

so i'm doing this paper the work of Covenant Women (a women's group in my denomination) during the years of 1966-1976 or so. i found some interesting quotes. here's one in particular:

Many of our conflicts concerning femininity are false conflicts. A woman chooses not between a career and a family, but for being a person. And a man chooses not an aggressive career woman or a meek homemaker, but a full person who seeks after wholeness wherever she is.
Covenant Companion, Jan 14, 1966

i also attended a feminist/womanist/latina gathering of sorts at a professor's house the other night, and we talked a lot about this label of "feminist" and how people perceive it and what the cost of claiming it is. i myself have been struggling with why people find it so threatening -- i mean, i know why people find it threatening, especially men, but it's really not. it's about a pursuit of wholeness, an encouragement by society of that pursuit, an affirmation of life, as Elsa Tamez would say. what's frustrating is that a pursuit of wholeness causes segregation for me as a woman, causes hesitancy in relationships for others, turns on a switch in my brain that shocks me everytime someone talks about their "fellow man" or tells someone else to "grow a pair" or i hear suspicion or uncertainty in my own seminary about a Christian's woman's role as equal partner in the home, or as a leader in the church, or i see young girl's magazine stressing and restressing the importance of appearance.

i am a Christian, i am a woman, i am white, i am a feminist, i am an activist. how do i make these things work together? how do i affirm life (my own and others') the way Christ affirmed life?

crunch time

mystics paper due on monday.
history paper due thursday.
that's just the assignments we're thinking about.
there is no motivation.
whatsoever.
as evidenced by my presence on this blog, and myspace, and random other sites i haven't visited forever but which i won't turn off.

if you can't come and physically remove the internet from my computer (and really, if you did that, i'd kill you, so don't), please offer some words of encouragement. tell me: you can do it! stay on course! stay strong! press on!


(and ok, i wouldn't kill you. i might weep a little though.)