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:M ' ay I ask what you are doing, Karen (not her real name)?/I "I'm thinking./I She was stretched out on the floor in the middle of the circular prison chapel, her head resting on a big cushion. "May I join you?/I I asked. "Oh, please do!/I she answered without breaking her concentration. I found another pillow and settled quietly beside her. After a minute or so I asked, "What are we thinking about?/I "I'm worried about going back home./I "You want to talk about it?/I I suggested. "I don't know if I will be strong enough to make the right choices. I will need a job, a place to live and people to support me. Sometimes I wish I could just stay here./I "Karen, you know God better now than you did when you first came here. God is not going to stay here in prison when you leave. God is going with you and is willing to help you every step of the way./I "Selma, what will I do if I can't find a job? Do you realize how tempting it will be for me to go back on the street and make in an hour as much as I would earn in a whole month?/I "You need to trust God to provide for you, Karen. Make sure you find a church where you will be nurtured in your faith. Don't go back to your old friends who could tempt you to return to your old habit. Find friends who will support you in your effort to change./I "May I take this Bible with me? And this Bible study book as well? I'm so afraid I won't be strong enough./I "In your own strength you won't make it, Karen. But remember, there is nothing that God cannot do. God loves you and wants to help you./I Karen was one of the women who had been part of my Bible study group. I was going to miss her. Her questions and comments had often forced me to look at Scripture from a very different point of view. Th teach the Bible in a women's prison had been a dream of mine ever since the first time my husband, Gary, and I had visited someone who had broken the law. My heart skipped a beat when I heard those gates fall into their locks behind us. Was it not only by the grace of God that I was not the one on the other side of those doors? Those people needed to hear the good news of hope in Christ. Only he could help them change their hearts and lives. But the possibility of my dream becoming reality was slim. The only prison for women in Ontario was too far away from where we lived. Our three sons were still young, and my husband busy with his teaching career. Now, fifteen years later, I marvel at how God prepared me for the work, even bringing the prison closer! Three years ago a new women's prison was built here in Kitchener - almost in our neighbourhood! I applied and was accepted as a volunteer under the chaplaincy programme of Corrections Canada. 'leaching the Bible to women who claim to have made a commitment to Christ some time ago, or to others who have never heard the Good News, is exciting and challenging. Thking a turn in leading their Sunday church service has given me the opportunity to befriend more of the inmates. The One-on-One volunteer ministry requires a strong commitment. She sits across from me, arrogant and with a loud laugh. This one will be in prison for a long time. I was warned that she could have "bad days./I I now think those bad days outnumber the "good days./I Do I understand her? What caused her to commit that crime? How can I help her deal with the guilt, the anger and the possibility of never being allowed to be totally free again? Those in authority are not willing to trust her. Will I have the opportunity to introduce her to the One who can make everything new? I hear Karen's voice again. "Selma, will you remember to pray for me? I'm afraid to go home!/I .......................................... Selma Enns is the mother of three grown sons and is enjoying being grandmother to her one granddaughter. Besides her involvement in prison ministry, she is also visitation minister at the Glencaim MB Church in Kitchener. She and her husband are spiritual caregivers at local hostels. They are also planning a second trip to the Ukraine with Church Partnership Evangelism. 18 SOPHIA / WISDOM
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian TYadition to the Sacred Feminine ........................... by Sue Monk Kidd (Harper San Fransisco, 1996). Reviewed by Elfrieda Neufeld Schroeder My daughter's voice on the phone sounded excited. "Mom, I just discovered a new book on Christian feminism in the seminary library. You'll never guess who wrote it!" No. I never guessed. Not in my wildest dreams. And I didn't believe her when she told me. "Sue Monk Kidd? Excuse the pun, but you're kidding me right? Sue Monk Kidd, the one who writes articles for Guideposts? She's not a feminist!" "She is now, Mom, and you've got to read her book!" I knew I needed to buy this book, to ingest it, mark it up, live with it. I had never before been intimately acquainted with the works of an author who later became a Christian feminist. Monk Kidd's work had always resonated with me in a very personal way. I was not disappointed. I read the book from cover to cover, marked it up, journeyed with the author in her hunger to discover her feminine self. I was amazed at her courage, her honesty, her drive. Monk Kidd divides her book into four parts. In "Part One: Awakening," she describes her own beginnings in discovering the sacred feminine. She writes: "The last thing I expected was an encounter with feminist spirituality .. .. I was uncomfortable with the word [feminist), uncomfortable with the images it carried .... If there had been a contest for Least Likely to Become a Feminist, I probably could have made the finals on image alone" (p 10). Monk Kidd began her journey with a dream in which she gave birth to a baby that was herself. She writes of the "feminine wound" and how women ignore it by trivializing their own feelings and censoring the truth. Monk Kidd could no longer remain neutral when she caught two men making fun of her daughter who was on her knees in a drugstore rearranging items on a bottom shelf. Their remark, "Now that's how I like to see a woman - on her knees," jolted her into an awareness from which she could no longer hide. More and more, although in stages, she began to live from her own inner guidance, "the divine voice in my own soul" (p 76). "Part Tho: Initiation" speaks of death and rebirth, a sacred disintegration, a transition in which the old values, meanings and concepts no longer fit. It is a time of pain and struggle, but also a sense of moving in the right direction and releasing that "rambunctious girl-child ... conceived and birthed ... during the awakening, the one who really had been there all along" (p 89). Monk Kidd stresses that the journey is different for everyone: "Each woman has her own timing and her own way" (p 98). She speaks of how this journey, if you are married, will affect your mate, and shares openly and honestly how it affected her marriage. Again she stresses listening to your inner wisdom and giving yourself permission to follow it. "Part Three: Grounding" is a reaffirmation of the "deep, formless, indescribable nature of the Divine" (p 137). Monk Kidd acknowledges that the Jewish and Christian God is genderless ("1 am that I am") but that as humans we have no way of relating to the Divine except in forms and images, in a language that the soul understands. Because we have only allowed one image, that of the male, to describe God, this has become an actual description, rather than a symbol, and has become idolatrous. We must recover a Divine Feminine in order to keep from being idolatrous. Monk Kidd stresses that as women we must give ourselves permission to ask the hard questions, and she proceeds to do so as she begins a quest for the "Sacred Feminine" within the Christian tradition. "A woman who dwells in the solid center of herself' (p 197) and carries an inner authority that comes from deep within her being, is the topic of "Part Four: Empowerment." This empowerment, Monk Kidd claims, requires first of all that a woman must find a soul of her own. This is not the dry, parched soul forced to grow on patriarchal ground, but a soul that grows on feminine ground. Following this path of female empowerment means bearing witness to what has been experienced, becoming a force for compassion and justice in the world. It means having the courage to express this experience, drawing on one's own inner authority. It does not mean being overbearing and opinionated, controlling and argumentative, which Monk Kidd calls "recycled patriarchal power" (p 212). Sue Monk Kidd's book is a challenge to women to be true to themselves, to embrace their own spirituality arising from their feminine nature. It is a book for both women and men who are open to change and willing to re-examine their concept of the divine. . . . . . . . .. . ............... . Elfrieda Neufeld Schroeder is working on a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literature at the University of Waterloo. She writes on a regular basis for the inter-Mennonite devotional booklet Rejoicel She and her husband, Hardy, are members of the Kitchener ME Church where they serve as deacon co-chairs. They have three grown daughters, Christine, Anita (see her article in this issue) and Heidi. FALL 1999 19
Page 1 and 2: SOPHIA W I S D 0 M Say to Wisdom, "
Page 3 and 4: ,a, couple of years ago, the editor
Page 5 and 6: although it may occur at any time o
Page 7 and 8: Seasons of Blessings by Olga Enns w
Page 9 and 10: The above image is an adaptation of
Page 11 and 12: ~e b~st part .about ~ ~owmgupm Nort
Page 13 and 14: than I had given. I learned that in
Page 15 and 16: Justina by Esther Regehr Sometimes
Page 17: crushed by fear of the harsh, criti
Page 21 and 22: A Child Again by Lori J. Willms Neu
Page 23 and 24: !\VO Poems by Marianne Jones Pilgri

SOPHIA - Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches

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