“Injustice is not, finally, the result of too many good people doing nothing, but rather of too many frightened people doing something so thoroughly, systematically, and often thoughtlessly, that even these same people - good people trying to live in right relation to one another - cannot un-do the systemic evil simply by living good lives day to day.”  — Carter Heyward, quoted in Beverly Harrison, Justice in the Making: Feminist Social Ethics (p. 26)

We’ve begun planning for the 2010 Wisdom’s Feast Women’s Spirituality Conference! Mark your calendars for Saturday, November 20, 2010. It will be an amazing day of storytelling, music, workshops, dancing, drumming, laughing and serious, heartfelt conversation. I am nagged by the persistent thought that we need a conversation about the intersections between faith, oppression and empowerment.

Which leads me to ask: How does YOUR spiritual practice keep you ‘awake’ to those around you? What nourishes your compassion? For other white women who may be reading this, what in your spiritual practice challenges your white privilege?

– Elizabeth

p.s. Since it is August, I can’t help but shout out to the fellow members of past years’ 3:15 experiment. I recently came across a stack of old poems written during August 2007. Each day that month, I set my alarm clock for 3:15 AM and woke to scribble, illegibly, in the dark. Here’s one of my favorites:

the heart is a walnut,
green and soft and ripening
its four chambered shell
on the sunleafed tree.
beat slow   don’t harden   stay supple.
when the night wind blows through your branches
your walnut heart will dream of fog
shifting over alpine ridges,
the monkey flower folding
its yellow trumpet.
your walnut heart will wonder
how you are connected,
why it can feel the fog,
the mountain,
the flower

Posted on August 4th, 2010 by Liz
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