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Making Waves

Letters Online

We hope you take the time to read these letters and respond - our goal is to develop an online dialogue about Making Waves and any issues you might like to raise. Please use the response box to the right, then we'll post your letters in this space. Thanks!

How about Equalitarian?

Today is my 87th birthday. I picked up my new copy of Making Waves and read about the fuss around the label "Feminism" [Volume 7:2 - Daughters of Eve: Feminism & Faith].

I have been church-connected all my life - through Sunday School, youth groups, womens' organizations, Presbytery, Conference and even a General Council committee in the '80s. In all those activities I always assumed that if I were given a responsibility or elected to an office I would be treated as an equal partner. And, almost always, I was so treated.

I was surprised once when I attended a celebration for a friend who was going on to other responsibilities, to be ushered to a seat at the front "along with the other red-eyed radicals". I protested, but was assured that I was among the reddest!

So, regarding labels, how about "equalitarian" or "equalitarianism" which could be used for all genders and put us all on an equal footing?

Daphne Craig / Ottawa

"Feminism" has a negative connotation

The issue on Feminism [Volume 7:2 - Daughters of Eve: Feminism & Faith] was a bit of a turn off for me.  I realize that we have fought for our place in society and I admire those who have paved the way, but we need to go beyond that. We need to deal with issues such as women who are abused, and the multicultural society we now live with in the larger areas of Canada.  Feminism will not be the way to change these new Canadians – it has such a negative connotation.

I would like to see “Feminist” taken out of the heading [on Making Waves' front cover] – it does not fit this generation. The word is redundant, even though it was very meaningful in the past.

It does eliminate a number of “would be” readers because I believe Making Waves has some very worthwhile topics. I feel bad that so many evangelical Christians do not access this magazine because of the word “Feminist”.

Ann Copple / Toronto

A Defence of the Light:

A Response to “Embracing Darkness”

Raising the question of racist overtones in light and dark imagery [Volume 6:3 - Embracing Darkness] is very valuable. Certainly, when one thinks of the Song of Roland in which the white peers of France contrast starkly with the black Saracens of Africa, the former escorted to heaven by angels, the latter to hell by a demonic host, one must acknowledge that the cautions articulated in the last issue of Making Waves are justified. Thankfully, that French epic is vintage millennial, having been passed down in oral tradition long before it was recited at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Men of the Renaissance looked back retrospectively upon that preceding time-period as an Age of Darkness, considering themselves to have re-discovered or re-birthed the light of Antiquity. Medievalists, like myself, resent such facile categorizations, when the increasing egocentricity of the Renaissance often overshadows the God-centredness of the Middle Ages. The narcissism of our post-modern age might well discover its roots in the Renaissance. Nevertheless, the light of this time-period definitely emanated from a humanist educational program, a renewed appreciation of language (especially the sacred ones of Greek, Hebrew and Latin) and the spiritual chiaroscuro of Renaissance painters! In the latter, the shadows were as essential for highlighting the light as the yin for the yang of oriental religions.

One could go on examining the dark/light metaphors of history - consider, for example, the Enlightenment as a time period (le Siècle des Lumières) and as a metaphor for the Buddha’s nirvana - but the point here is the association of light with both intellectual and spiritual values. As William S. Kervin wrote in his contribution to the last issue, “Re-wording worship”: “the symbolism of light is primal, archetypal, universal”. To this end, I would like to offer a few words in defense of the light, a light which is far from skin deep.

For brevity, this reflection will select, of the great world religions, only the three major monotheistic traditions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three use light imagery unabashedly. The God who separated the light from the darkness, in the first place, was the God of Judaism, thus introducing the first hint of dualism (soul/body). One Jewish prayer, currently used, reads:

            God is in the hope

            which, like a shaft of light,

            cleaves the dark abyss

            of sin, suffering, and despair.

This light, associated with the hope of salvation from sin and suffering, is found in God. It is this light which birthed the light which “shineth in darkness” (John 1:5, KJV), with or without Gnostic influence; in fact, the Greek word for knowledge (gnÇsis,), hence Gnostic, does not appear in this famous opening to John’s Gospel in the Christian tradition. Turning to Islam, we find the renowned “Light Verse” in the sãrah (chapter) on “The Light” in the Qur’an (Muhammed’s miracle):

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed] in glass, the glass [shining] like a radiant star: [a lamp] lit from a blessed tree - an olive-tree that is neither of the east nor of the west - the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of itself] even though fire had not touched it: light upon light!

The God of God, Light of Light, of the Christian Creed finds an echo here in this “essence of the Qur’anic message”. If Muslims of Africa, the Middle East, India and Pakistan do not hesitate to associate God with the light, then why should the pale skins? None of us worships the sun, after all, or any other material source of light. This light is an inner illumination, both metaphor and experience of the human relationship to God.

Light is a predominant metaphor used by mystics of all three traditions to express the direct experience of God. In some ways, Islam has been more accepting of mysticism than either Christianity, particularly Protestantism, or Judaism. Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE), born in Iran (whose name was Latinized in the West as Algazel), taught theology and law in Baghdad until a spiritual crisis forced him to stop and recognize the “divine light which God casts into the heart of the person of faith”. His conversion bears some resemblance to that of Saul/St. Paul on the road to Damascus. In al-Ghazali’s case, the great respect that he commanded cast Sufism (Islamic mysticism, a “devotional spirituality”) into an honourable light. Towards the end of his life, he composed his famous commentary on the Light Verse called The Niche of Lights, whose leitmotif is the Qur’anic notion, God is light. For him, as for many Christian mystics, the soul is the locus of divine illumination, which yearns for the Divine light in pure existence and knowledge. Likewise for the Christian Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), mystic of the Rhine, the locus of spiritual vision was the soul, which would receive reflections of  “the living Light”. This divine Presence or indwelling, in turn, is likened to the Jewish Shekhinah, a feminine noun in Hebrew, associated with light, which represents - for the Jewish community -  the feminine aspect of God. In all cases, it is the luminous quality which renders the divine accessible to human experience.

Alas! Such a sweeping overview casts a pale reflection of the deeper realities. The mystic’s path to God, different only in degree from that of any true believer, involves many dark nights of the soul, deceptions and veils to be cast off, purged, purified or illumined. These processes often involve more complex attributes of light, like heat, warmth and fires which burn without consuming, or degrees, like the rungs of a ladder or components of a lamp, as the Muslim Light Verse suggests. The Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz), for example, at one point describes the via negativa in his Dark Night of the Soul with reference to the prophecy of Isaiah, which tells us/you to free the oppressed, feed and cloth the poor and “hide not thyself from thine own flesh; Then shall thy light break forth as the morning” (Isaiah 58: 6-8, KJV). Jesus’s admonition against hiding our lights under a bushel is not much different. Upon the same Judaic foundation, the Spanish mystic reiterates the promise: “God will enlighten the soul, giving it knowledge, not only of its lowliness and wretchedness, but likewise of the greatness and excellence of God.” I would argue that Moses, Jacob, Jesus and Muhammed were all mystics! All of this bears further examination, if time and space allowed.

I am grateful to the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada for setting my own thoughts in motion by initiating a re-examination of our light/dark imagery and associated assumptions. Such reflections resemble an examination of conscience, a healthy exercise at all times, in the spirit of the Renaissance. But let us leave binary oppositions to anthropologists and non-believers. There are stronger forces at work today which demand a unified front against War and the degradation of Nature herself. The child of every nation fears the dark because of the evil which lurks within, imaginary or not, and because the hidden horror is obscured, and not because of some intrinsic evil in the darkness itself. Conversely, the light which shines in the darkness casts away fear according to our faith and hope. Since we will never abolish the darkness, whether of daytime shadows or “deepest night” (the liturgically correct version for Christian feminists), let us embrace ALL, beyond dualism of any kind, by forgiving and being forgiven in true humility and compassion.

Finally, let us confront the negative qualities typically assigned to women; i.e. the dark earthy passivity of the yin which, until recently, has been denied the light of reason. Some women, as we all know, are still left in the dark. Now that the male principle of the universe has forfeited its claim to superiority, feminine passivity is no longer an option. We must take responsibility and stake our own claim to a direct relationship with the intellectual and spiritual qualities of God. As intelligent and spiritual people of faith, we must lead, not by masculine principles, but within a shifted paradigm of feminine ones, shared by all. For love of our children and their children and their children’s children, let us leave division, exploitation, ego and aggression behind, the real evils. We may not agree in all the details, but we will never know or appreciate our differences, if we do not air them. Only in the dignity of equality and mutual respect may we move forward as people of faith and possibly - one day in peace - of joy. The surest common ground is this ONE, the Light in the Darkness.

One God, one faith, one family; our family is bigger than we acknowledge! Our God is greater than we imagine! May we unite in that primal, archetypal, universal Light - for the sake of peace and the salvation of our world! Amen.

K. Janet Ritch (a.k.a. jr) / Toronto

Precise: Au-delà de l’iconographie qui veut que la lumière de la connaissance et de la révélation divine et les ténèbres de l’ignorance et de l’incroyance, constituent des métaphores parfaitement opposées – et  au-delà des relents de racisme qu’une telle iconographie implique – je tiens à faire par le présent article une apologie de la lumière en tant que métaphore de valeurs intellectuelles et spirituelles. Les trois grandes religions monothéistes, et en particulier les mystiques qui y sont rattachées, ont cela en commun qu’elles localisent cette «lumière» en Dieu et en l’homme qui reçoit Sa révélation directe. Une analogie trompeuse car de nombreuses nuits sombres d’anxiété attendent le mystique sur le chemin de la révélation. Le Mal est aujourd’hui déguisé et il nous faut unir nos forces pour combattre ses ramifications dans la guerre et la dégradation de la Nature.  Dépassons les préjugés qui nous touchent en tant que femmes et trouvons, au-delà des préjugés, la lueur dans les ténèbres!

For further reading:

• Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayerbook: Weekdays, Sabbaths, and Festivals, Services for Synagogue and Home (New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1975), p.504.

• Bruce M. Metzger & Michael D. Coogan, The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford: OUP, 1993), p.256.

• Muhammed Assad, tr., The Message of the Qur’an (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980), 24:35; this is the translation recommended by people of Toronto’s Noor Cultural Centre, associated with York University.

• Willard G. Oxtoby, World Religions, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2002), pp.400-409.

• David Buchman, tr. The Niche of Lights (Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1998), pp.xxxii - xxxiv.

• Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1994), pp.64-65.

• St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, tr. Allison Peers, 3rd ed. rev. (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1959), Bk.I, ch.xii, p.79.