rcwms|Resource Center for Women & Ministry in the South, Inc.

Weaving feminism & spirituality into a vision of justice for the world

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Changing the Race Dance

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

Financial Fitness for Young Women

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Money, death, taxes–all topics most people prefer to avoid. However, Lisa Gabriel and LisaMarie Smith, along with a group of under-40 women, confronted these realities head-on in a workshop on Tuesday, September 12, 2017, at the RCWMS office. Ms. Gabriel and Ms. Smith, of Pinafore Wealth Counsel of Durham, provided a hybrid format which gave… Continue reading

Gather the Harvest

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On August eighth, twelve women gathered in the RCWMS office for one of our recurring seasonal writing workshops. A number of those were familiar faces, while a few were there for their first Resource Center program. Rebecca Welper led the group, which included women in their thirties through their sixties. The evening included prompts and… Continue reading

Freedom of assembly and speech at Tillis’ office

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This summer, the RCWMS interns have attended weekly Tuesdays With Tillis protests in Raleigh, NC. You can read Savannah Lynn’s post about a “die-in” staged in June by clicking HERE. Below, Colleen Sharp considers issues related to freedom of assembly and speech at Tillis’ office. You can find out about future protests by liking the… Continue reading

I Await the Devil’s Coming

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When a friend handed me I Await the Devil’s Coming, a slim and red-covered volume, she was fairly reticent about its content. “Looks cool,” I commented. “What’s it about?” She stammered for a bit, and finally settled on her answer: “Just give it a shot. It’s hard to explain.” Intrigued and vaguely mystified, I slipped… Continue reading

The Art of the Condolence Note

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One Thursday evening in July, eighteen women gathered at the RCWMS office to consider the condolence note. When I first signed up for this workshop by Carol Henderson, I think I was hoping for a lecture on the science of writing to the bereaved. But, alas, as Carol demonstrated, writing is an art, and one… Continue reading

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

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One of the most useful terms I’ve learned, passed on to me by Kari Barclay, is “Kingsplaining.” It’s a verb that describes the process by which people in power use misleading representations of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work to claim that contemporary activists’ techniques are illegitimate. For example, during the Charlotte Uprising, some white guy… Continue reading

Young Adult Lit

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I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I used to defend myself when caught on my university campus with a book marketed to teenagers propped in my lap, but honestly, who has the energy? So I’ll just say it straight-out: I love young adult novels. There really is nothing like them. Lovely prosey stories wrapped up… Continue reading

Wild Mountain

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In Wild Mountain, Mona Duval has concocted a tidy life for herself in the rural town of Wild Mountain, Vermont. Escaped (mostly) from a bad marriage, she runs a general store next to an historic covered bridge—a bridge she loves so much, she literally wrote the book on its history. When an ice storm collapses the… Continue reading

Tuesdays With Tillis

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Bodies were scattered across the sidewalk outside of Thom Tillis’s office on New Bern Avenue in downtown Raleigh on Tuesday, June 20th. A news van was parked across the street. Bystanders stood vigilant nearby on the sidewalk, alternately looking over their fallen comrades and up at the dark, glossy windows of the federal building. RCWMS… Continue reading

Welcome Interns!

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We’re thrilled to have two Duke student interns working with us here at RCWMS this summer! Welcome to Colleen Sharp and Savannah Lynn! Colleen is a rising senior from Raleigh studying African & African American Studies and Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies. She spends her after-class time working on sexual violence victim survivor advocacy and… Continue reading

Dolphins

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Every January, May, and September we host a week of quiet and writing for women at the beach. This essay, written by one of the participants at a recent writing week, gives a glimpse into the careful observation and deep reflection that can occur during these workshops. Dolphins Pelicans, in a long, low-flying line, skim… Continue reading

Being Mortal

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Over the course of the past few months, Duke professor Jehanne Gheith and Duke student Katherine Zhou facilitated a workshop on Dr. Atul Gawande’s best-seller, Being Mortal. A group of seventeen members participated in the biweekly discussions, generously hosted at the beautiful residence of Dot Borden. By delving into the book, the discussion group focused… Continue reading