It’s hard for me to let go of winter. In December, our three-year-old joined her Yankee parents in embracing the snow storm. She mimicked the main character in her favorite book, The Snowy Day, as she marveled at her snowy footprints, tapped the snow off trees with a stick, and inexpertly packed snow together to… Continue reading
Blog
The Courage to Say No
On the morning of January 31, 1969, I was about to give birth to my first child. I was 20 years old. Whether the child was a boy or girl, I knew what the baby’s name would be. I hadn’t thought much beyond that—except that I knew I wanted to raise a child who was… Continue reading
Dispatches From the Front
My heart is moved by all I cannot save so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. Adrienne Rich, “Natural Resources” The past two years have been a daily barrage of news flashes portending the downfall of our… Continue reading
Across the Great Lakes
“Haunting” is a word that comes to mind as I reflect on Lee Zacharias’ new novel. Set largely in the mid-1930’s on Lake Michigan and the harbor town of Frankfort, Across the Great Lake is the narrator’s vivid, jagged, time-bending recollection of her childhood and the trajectory set by one of the central events of… Continue reading
Events for The Last Straw by Bryant Holsenbeck
As I moved through my friend Bryant Holsenbeck’s new book, The Last Straw, I was struck by its accessibility. The book, ostensibly about Bryant’s journey to rid single-use plastic from her life, is really about us. I found it subversive how she asks us to see the world through her eyes, stealthily offering a blueprint… Continue reading
Thank You!
Thank you to everyone who supported the work of RCWMS during our year-end fundraising drive! So many of you gave with such generosity, including supporters who have given for many years, and a number of first-time donors. 2018 saw a number of firsts, including two new anti-racist workshops (Changing the Race Dance and Doing Our… Continue reading
24th Annual Interfaith Celebration of Community, Spirit, & Change
Thank you to everyone who came out on December 16th for our 24th Annual Interfaith Celebration of Community, Spirit, & Change. While our usual host for the event, Beth El Synagogue, undergoes renovation, we were glad to be welcomed in the beautiful space provided by Durham Friends Meeting. As always, Kathleen Hannan, aided by the… Continue reading
Territories of the Soul
Nadia Ellis’ Territories of the Soul: Queered Belonging in the Black Diaspora brilliantly articulates how black diasporic belonging transcends dominant understandings of identity based on locality/time/space. By analyzing the modalities in which “difficulty and loss” (5) become affective spaces of communal negation, Ellis explores the “gap between here and there” where the black diasporic subject’s… Continue reading
Voting
In the past two years, RCWMS has increasingly included citizen engagement as a vital part of fulfilling our mission to empower women’s voices. This fall for the first time, we’ve gotten involved with voter registration and outreach as one way to weave feminism and spirituality into a vision of justice for the world. For many… Continue reading
An evening of storytelling with Nancy Corson Carter
On Wednesday, June 27th, I attended a reading by Nancy Carson Carter on her new book, The Never-Quite Ending War: A WWII GI Daughter’s Stories. Nancy illuminated stories of her family, both those that are her own and others that have passed down to her. Many of the stories she shared with us were typical… Continue reading
Meet the Intern: Melissa Gamble
We’re excited that Duke Divinity student Melissa Gamble is joining us as an intern this summer. She’s helping with various projects around the office, including planning for the Homegrown: NC Women’s Preaching Festival this fall and collaborating on programming around LGBTQ spirituality. Here’s a quick Q&A to get to know her a little better: Where… Continue reading
Swimming Between Worlds
I confess, much as I’m drawn to a bottle of wine with a provocative label, I’m also attracted to a book with high-profile accolades. So, when I was handed a copy of Elaine Neil Orr’s new book, Swimming Between Worlds, I flipped it over as a matter of habit to peruse those high-profile accolades, and found… Continue reading
Art-Party and Fundraiser for Bryant Holsenbeck’s Book, “The Last Straw”
When people are gathered for an art party, one may imagine paint, canvases, and brushes, or at least some paper and scissors. Since Bryant Holsenbeck was involved, something would be repurposed. But, despite official assurances that the artist herself would be there to guide and assist, I never thought all present would have the opportunity… Continue reading
Saving Bobby
On average, 115 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose.[1] That is one American every 12.5 minutes, a staggering statistic. As a public health professional with over a decade experience in injury and violence prevention, which includes poisonings such as drug overdoses, reading Saving Bobby: Heroes and Heroin in One Small Community provided me a rare… Continue reading
Changing the Race Dance
I have learned from my participation in “Changing the Race Dance” that I can keep moving in love and wisdom, working to unravel and loosen the hold racism has on me. This workshop, led by visiting Artist-Scholars Soyinka Rahim and Cynthia Winton-Henry on Apr 20-21, was presented as a part of Interplay’s Body Based Methods… Continue reading
Ursula K. Le Guin
Once upon a time I used Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea in a first-year writing class centered on the theme of what makes a hero. I loved it. The students loved it. Since then, though, she has mostly hovered around the edges of my consciousness, even though she is among the most… Continue reading
Labyrinths
I wasn’t familiar with labyrinths until I started an internship at the Resource Center back in 2009. One of my duties during that year was helping Jeanette Stokes haul our large canvas labyrinth around to different spaces in North Carolina and set it up for people to walk. A few weeks ago, for the first… Continue reading
The Language and Practice of Self-Care
On a rainy Sunday afternoon in March, Mothers, Sisters and Daughters gathered in a circle for an event sponsored by RCWMS: “The Ministry of Black Women’s Self-Care.” Despite the chilly weather conditions and with myriad personal arrangements made to ensure our attendance, we responded to the invitation. Like a call to prayer, the call to… Continue reading
The Story of Now
We gathered in the sanctuary of Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church in the middle of Durham. We were a small group of mostly strangers and mostly women drawn by the topic of “The Story of Now,” a connection to RCWMS, and singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer. I met my 22-year-old daughter in Durham as a respite from her… Continue reading
Thank You!
Thank you so much for supporting RCWMS in 2017 during our 40th anniversary year. We set a goal of raising $40,000 in the last three months of the year, and you helped us exceed that goal! We ended up raising $42,460. Thank you! At our board meeting last week, we had a wonderful conversation about… Continue reading
Circles of Gratitude
On November 29th, forty of Anita McLeod’s dear friends, colleagues, and family members gathered at the King’s Daughters Inn to honor her memory on what would have been her 78th birthday. Randa McNamara and Karen Ziegler sang songs that were special to Anita, and Elizabeth Manley reflected on her time getting to know Anita in… Continue reading
Whiskey & Ribbons: A Novel
Click here to read RCWMS Communications Director Meghan Florian’s review of Whiskey & Ribbons for The Englewood Review of Books. Whiskey & Ribbons, Leesa Cross-Smith’s first novel, is a love story folded inside of a love story. It is a novel about grief, about family, about how we hold one another together when everything falls apart. The character… Continue reading
Roots & Branches: RCWMS 40th Anniversary Celebration
This year we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of RCWMS. Forty years! Amazing. Born of a spark of imagination, inspired by a conversation between RCWMS founder and leader, Jeanette Stokes, and her mentor, Helen Crotwell, the Resource Center has endured for forty years. Founded to support the small and growing community of women clergy in… Continue reading
The Middle of Things: Essays
In the tradition of classic essayists from Virginia Woolf to Annie Dillard, Meghan Florian combines personal narrative with careful analysis, taking the ordinary material of undramatic daily life and distilling it into moments of clarity and revelation. Centering each essay in this collection on a different aspect of coming of age as a feminist woman… Continue reading