I am writing from Washington, DC where I am taking part in a board meeting of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). It is good to be part of this national religious effort to support reproductive health, choice and justice. It is a blessing for me to be a male ally in this way.

My sermon, last Sunday, wrestled with questions of how we navigate these divisive times. I described the current assault on women’s lives, so flagrant in our politics, as not only a moral but also a public health crisis that must be stopped.

I am confident in that judgment. But how do we know, for certain…any of us. This is a central theological and ethical question.

With no divine revelation to assure us and no creed of belief to guide us and help us evaluate, we liberal religious folks are in the enviable but complicated position of claiming our power to create and name what is good.
This puts us in an almost “god-like” position and requires real humility if we are to avoid the pitfalls of pride and mistakes of privilege.

Feminist and womanist theologies speak of desire and risk as central aspects of the human condition. We live in an amoral universe in which we strive to live moral lives. Poetry, rather than the theological treatise, is often the most helpful resource when trying to hold the reality of such tensions.

I offer the following poem that speaks out of the struggle for women’s lives, and speaks to the power that is possible when we conjure “the good” together.

American Herstory

“Tell them it’s always under attack. Tell them there’s no cure
for the disease, or answer to the riddle. Tell them you asked many before you, some who won, some who lost.
You consulted Assata, Roe vs. Wade, Harriet and Jocelyn Elders
to no avail. Her words on contraception twisted into a bitter pretzel. The bits broken off, used to destroy her.

Tell them it’s always under attack, its predators everywhere. They lurk behind Mississippi clinics or around Georgetown blocks dressed in blue uniform. Tell them you have the cure, somewhere at home,
deep in your cabinets, mixed in a mason jar. Don’t tell them
it consists of breast milk, dreams, butterflies, civil rights marches, burned bras, a piece of Madame CJ Walker’s hair, prayers, Amelia Earhart’s drive, hot-water cornbread,
and Sally Ride’s fearlessness.

Lie to them, tell them it’s rosemary oil, then bottle it. Sell it
to every woman in America who will drink it. Then watch all
the piranhas disappear.”

-Celeste Doakes

I will be back in the sanctuary on Sunday to help celebrate Kate Lore’s ministry.

Blessings,

Bill