On a daily calendar I used four years ago now, on Thursday, March 24, 2016, the quote attributed to Brene Brown reads, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”  This quote arrived just two months before I launched this blog.

It’s getting a little easier, but in some ways I am still finding that it does indeed take courage to allow myself to be seen.  Creating this blog and including personal stories definitely keeps me on my toes.  I operate so much in my secular life, that showing pieces of my spiritual self in public feels intimidating.  Nevertheless, I continue to be supported by my friends, which actually helps a lot.

Our monthly newsletter at work always includes a short interview of one employee that usually includes a question like, “What would other people be surprised to know about you?”  One answer for me, if I were ever asked, might be that I am interested in feminist theology. Wow, that is definitely something that I don’t normally discuss with my co-workers and that I am confident would be a surprise to them.  It seems kind of edgy and way out there on the lunatic fringe of American culture.  So, showing up and letting myself be seen on this website, in some respects, is still a challenge.

Part of the substance for this blog and for the book I am working on is drawn from my study and understanding of feminism.  In particular, I wanted to explore the roots of feminist spirituality, to read the seminal books and articles from back in the 1970s and 80s, when feminist theology was just coming into being.  And so off I went – reading my way to knowledge and understanding.

I kept reading in numerous books about this feminist process of “hearing into speech” and it caught my attention.  I made a point to go searching for the source of this phrase, so that I could better understand and honor the amazing women who have gone before me.   I am eternally grateful for these feminists who found their voices and cleared the way for women of my generation.

Of course I am aware that part of the early second wave of feminism in the US, during the 1960s and 1970s involved consciousness-raising groups that gathered circles of women to talk about their lives and loves and frustrations and anger.  I believe that the “hearing into speech” phrase speaks directly to how these groups were operating and the process they were observing and participating in.

Eventually, with much reading and scrutinizing of a large number of footnotes in the books I was reading, they finally seemed to point to The Journey Is Home by Nelle Morton.  So here is the text that I believe may be the source of the “hearing into speech” quotation and the acrylic monoprint that I made to go with it.

We begin to experience theologizing as a process – organic, communal and holistic.  Organic because it comes up out of the deepest abyss of our being – at the point of our deepest cleavage from the male.  Organic also, because body, mind, spirit come up as one.  We have not come into this astounding new thing through our minds alone.  We have lived it into our own existence.  Compelled by our pain, our being trapped, our extremity, we did only what we could do.  We were drawn into one another’s presence.  We began hearing one another to speech.  We experienced God as Spirit, hearing human beings into speech – to new creation. 

Nelle Morton (1974)

Voice is so essential to feminist consciousness. “Hearing into speech” describes a way of listening deeply and then speaking out into the future.  It takes hearing (as an active, real-time verb) and projects that true hearing into growth that leads to women speaking up.  How great is that?

However, I have to tell you.  A number of year ago, I had an absolute Peter moment regarding this particular book.  Remember after the crucifixion, as predicted by Jesus, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times?  Well, Andy was having his end of the semester concert one Sunday night at the only jazz club in Houston – Cezanne’s which used to be on Montrose above the Black Lab and is now sadly closed.  I had brought the book with me, in case I was just hanging out waiting for the band to set up.  One of the musicians that Andy was playing with asked me what book I was reading.  And so I said, “oh no – it’s nothing,” hoping that he would just drop the whole question.  But he persisted and asked me again what I was reading.  Ok, I’m not sure how many times he asked, but I’m pretty sure it was at least another time – a third time just like Peter.  Finally, Andy said, “Give him the book.”  And so I passed it over to him and he turned it over to read the back cover.  And then he raised his eyebrows and said, “Oh…..” and passed it back to me.  The lesson I took away from this experience was that I needed to learn a simple way to explain or summarize controversial, edgy ideas or things closely related to my unusual spiritual life in an open, and honest way.  There were any number of things I could have told him – things that could have distilled down the essence of the book without being untrue or causing me to look in any way like a crazy person.  I realize now that this is just part of becoming comfortable with myself and then letting myself be seen.  I must say that I am still working on that.

Reference: Morton, Nelle, The Journey Is Home, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1985.

Image 1: The Journey is Home, jacket art by Joella Mahoney.

Image 2: “The Courage to be Seen,” Julie Henkener, 2020.