Marya McNeish

RCWMS is committed to supporting women as they find their voices and make them heard. In addition to our writing classes, workshops, and retreats, we run an essay contest in most years. Our 2021 Essay Contest opened for submissions on June 15 and is open through July 31, 2021. Women 18 years of age and older […]

July is Disability Pride Month. I’ve been interested for some time in creating ways for those with less economic or physical privilege to access the outdoors. Unpeeling my own layers of thoughtless patterns and insensitive jokes seems like a good place to start.  The privilege of spending my teen summers in the mountains of Colorado […]

 “It is human to fear loneliness, but dangerous to confuse loneliness with solitude. In solitude one crosses a threshold. Crossing thresholds always involves risk. There may be something on the other side that one does not wish to confront, one’s own self in this instance.”  – Rosemary Davies from Meinrad Craighead: Crow Mother and the […]

Today’s guest blog post is written by Kimberley Pierce Cartwright. A longtime friend of the Resource Center, Kimberley has recently taught Zoom classes for RCWMS in which she teaches participants how to make quilted fabric postcards. She’ll teach her fabric postcard class again on July 11, 2021. Cartwright is a quilter, folk art painter, and […]

Today’s guest blog post is written by former RCWMS trustee, Solita Denard. Solita is a certified integrative health coach, and she is currently volunteering in support of the RCWMS program Ministry of Black Women’s Self-Care led by Kim Gaubault. My only “memories” from that time are the stories repeated by my family and friends. In […]

I grew up white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a doctor father and a homemaker mother. As a child, I was mostly unaware of social justice issues and thought life in my town was pretty good. Known as the Oil Capital of the World in the 1940s, Tulsa had a booming economy, which drew my father […]

“Trophic cascade…is the biological term for the cascade of change that happens when you introduce or remove a top predator from the food chain.” – Camille Dungy* In the title poem from her 2017 book, Trophic Cascade, Camille Dungy catalogues the changes wrought by the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone.  Dungy is a unique voice […]

RCWMS is committed to learning and teaching about dismantling racism. The events of the past year have reinforced our understanding of how much work we need to do to be more inclusive and equitable as an organization. We are committed to elevating BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and younger voices in our programming and leadership. A key part […]

In late February last year, as the first news of a novel virus arrived, my husband and I had dinner with friends. We joked about stocking up on chocolate, as if this was going to be a snow day. Then, suddenly, what had seemed a distant threat was here. A psychiatrist, I called my patients […]

In late December 2020, I started saying, “Hang on. The light is coming back, the inauguration will happen, and vaccinations are coming.” I felt hopeful and a little lighter. Then the January 6 attack on the Capitol happened and I went back to feeling anxious and unsettled. After that, I said, “Hang on. The light […]

Editor’s note: This review first appeared on the Friends of the Library Southport & Oak Island website on February 18, 2021. The reading is now available on video here! All those “Zooming in” this week to author Judy Dearlove’s reading from her novel Play On! were inspired, educated, and totally entertained. In this online Meet the Author […]

Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Faith and Leadership. Two summers ago, I was on a guided tour with a group of Duke Youth Academy kids at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The museum itself is a historic landmark, housed in the Woolworth building where the 1960 lunch […]

“We are tied in a single garment of destiny, we are caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Wednesday was a frightening day for our country. Our “single garment of destiny” had us acknowledging the news of the first Jewish man and […]

Editor’s Note: Rev. Sarah Swandell is the winner of the RCWMS 2020 Essay contest.  They said the mothers were lullabying, Hands up please don’t shoot me, hands up please don’t shoot me, all of them in shirts the color of caution signs, a line of gold against a line of police. A wall of women, […]

On October 15 and 16, nearly eighty women gathered virtually to “Preach Like Pauli,” during RCWMS’ ninth annual Homegrown: NC Women’s Preaching Festival. Over a day and a half, an intergenerational group of women gathered from across denominations to worship, learn from each other in workshops and lectures, and get inspired by watching phenomenal preaching.  […]

“Friendship is being conceited for one another,” my friend suggested as three of us stretched out on her lawn, enjoying a socially distant picnic and the June heat. Her newly concocted definition was a response to the confidence that the other friend and I professed in her ability to achieve her wildest dreams. Sub-five percent […]

It began with young men, beer, and the Honk ‘n’ Holler in Stillwater, Oklahoma. As I tend my grief around the loss of the inestimable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I find it comforting to learn more about her journey to battle gender discrimination. In her role as an attorney for the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, Ginsburg […]

In 2009, the hour-long documentary Meinrad Craighead: Praying with Images was produced by the Resource Center, and Minnow Media. This documentary film chronicles the life and work of Meinrad Craighead, a remarkable artist, mystic, and teacher whose sometimes startling work spans centuries and continents. Weaving together elements of Catholicism, Native American shamanism, and ancient mythology, her […]

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is best known for his groundbreaking memoir How to Be an Antiracist, one of the books the Resource Center’s “Reading Race” group has tackled in recent years.  In it, as former RCWMS Trustee Marcy Litle notes, Kendi “clearly marks the distinction between racist and antiracist, and among assimilationist, segregationist, and antiracist.” […]

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi It is August in North Carolina, when mosquitoes come around at noon and trees laden with figs offer their abundant sweetness. It is also August, 2020, just a few short months before we are given the chance to exercise our right to VOTE.   […]

Stirring WATERS: Feminist Liturgies for Justice is a balm for these times. I could imagine gathering a few friends, going through a liturgy together, and having a soulful and connecting experience. It surprised me how much reading this book felt like coming home: like I mattered and belonged as a woman, as a feminist, and […]

Thank you to everyone who has donated to our summer fundraising campaign! Your generous gifts surpassed our $5,000 goal, and we are so grateful. Your donations will help us continue building community and offering resources, while many folks are either stuck at home or working on the front lines of health care and racial justice. […]

We have several new workshops this July, and a couple favorites returning by popular demand. Here are a few highlights below. Make sure to head over to our calendar for a complete listing and to register. Mindful Journaling for Transformation with Jen Johnson – 4 Thursdays via Zoom July 9 @ 1:00 pm – 2:30 […]

Every summer we ask you to support the work of this vibrant womanist and feminist community. Although many things are different this summer, I know one thing hasn’t changed: your generosity. This spring, when the stay-at-home orders began, we knew this community would need extra spiritual support and methods for connecting with one another. We’d […]