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Spiritual Midwives from Christian History: Lilias Trotter and Simone Weil
The Spiritual Midwife Metaphor After experiencing the typical hospital birth that included multiple nurses too busy to be present and a hasty doctor, a midwife assisted birth was a completely different experience for me. Midwife Anita Damsma-Young guided me through the growing of a human being—from an egg and a sperm to a 10-pound 4-oz baby boy who splashed into our Canadian Tire blow-up swimming pool in the comfort of our living room one early April morning. I remember her respect for the female body, her consistent reassurance, and her wise suggestion of various positions that successfully turned him from his late onset breech position. Instead of an anxious pregnancy,…
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Something must be done, my friend: Reflecting on “I’m Still Here” from a Buddhist view
Mas não vou ficar calado No conforto, acomodado Como tantos por aí É preciso dar um jeito, meu amigo É preciso dar um jeito, meu amigo[1] (Erasmo Carlos – É preciso dar um jeito, meu amigo) Flowing through my mind, these are the words of Erasmo Carlos’ 1971 song “É preciso dar um jeito, meu amigo.”[2] This song is also part of the “I’m Still Here” soundtrack—a Brazilian masterpiece that evokes resistance against military coups and authoritarian regimes. MPB (Música popular brasileira, or Brazilian popular music in English) was an incredible driving force not only in denouncing the horrors of the military dictatorship in Brazil, but also in giving hope…
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Can an avatar be created bad?
This is a question I was recently asked following a presentation on metaverse avatars at a digital conference. It is an interesting concept whether an avatar could be intrinsically evil, but it could depend on the understanding of the avatar concept. Definitions include – In the metaverse an avatar is a representation of the person wearing the headset or operating the computer, but how does an avatar become bad when they are just an image of an individual? Is it similar to films, where the actor plays a role? In films like RoboCop, Star Trek or Star Wars, the machines have turned against their creators and become ‘bad.’ However, is…
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Rites of Passage in Pop and Faith: Lady Gaga and the Formation of Identities
‘Our life consists not only in being but also in becoming’: so runs a memorable line from the Marriage Liturgy currently authorised for use in the Scottish Episcopal Church.[1] Such rites of passage provide opportunities for taking stock of who and how we are in the world, and for reflecting on the ways – great and small, obvious and inconspicuous, collective and individual – we emerge and evolve. Behind this lies an understanding of identity as something dynamic: a transformative journey in which we negotiate what is found (being) and what is fashioned (becoming). Rites of passage is a term coined by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in a short…
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Caution in Reformation: Re-examining Article XXII through its Contemporaries
The English Reformation saw mass destruction of religious artwork, including stained glass, images, and icons, which I suggest was in part inspired by Cranmer’s ambiguously negative attitude towards images in Article XXII of the Articles of Religion. Although the Articles were a collaborative project between a wide variety of theological positions, I will refer to Cranmer’s viewpoint throughout this article due to his reformist influence. This essay will view the Articles as confessional, with the phrase ‘requiring all Our loving Subjects to continue in the uniform Profession thereof, and prohibiting the least difference from the said Articles’.[1] However, it is crucial to recognise the breadth within the Church of England,…
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On Matrescence and Birthing myself
Becoming a mother is not the unifying ‘one-size-fits-all’ journey that popular culture would have us believe. Mothers are required to work out their identity as women, who they have been and who they are becoming all in the shadow of the myth of the Perfect Mother. It is therefore refreshing that within the last 18 months conversations about matrescence have begun to move into more mainstream thoughts and conversations (see: Lucy Jones’ book ‘Matrescence: On the metamorphosis of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood’ and Zoe Blaskey ‘Motherkind: a new way to thrive in a world of endless expectations’). Matrescence – a word my spell check does not recognise – is the…
