Over the past few days I have displayed what can only be called blogging fever... I have needed to write in order to hear myself, perhaps the most important piece has been the piece on Mary which reflected my own need to be rescued from the voices of oppression.
My friend Simon commented that he had always viewed Mary as a devout woman, he pictures her at a reading desk deeply engrossed in the Scriptures at the annunciation, whilst my own lingering visualization, is that as pictured in school nativity plays she was sweeping or cleaning in some way! As I ponder this I realise that both of these pictures could have the effect of rendering Mary speechless, and that my own exercise of giving her voice was in effect an exercise of seeking my own voice.
Questions then begin to form in my mind and heart; why do I need to hear my own voice? Has it been silenced, and if so who has silenced it?
In part I must recognise that I have been complicit in the act of silencing myself,in bowing to pressures and systems that not only demand to be heard, but refuse to hear any other perspectives. Even yesterday I found myself engaged in a debate where feminist thinking was decried as unhelpful as it tarred all men with the same brush...
.. that is not my intention, and many people, men and women alike are oppressed by patriarchal power systems. Feminist theology is essentially a theology of liberation, and does itself come under heavy and justified criticism from womanist theology which calls out the feminists as complicit with patriarchy due to their privileged position ( white middle class).
Labels can be helpful and unhelpful, they help us to name a regime and to bring a needed criticism, and they trap us into a particular corner. We will never be fully free of oppression in this life, nut we must strive for it....
God says:
6 "Here is the way I want you to fast.
"Set free those who are held by chains without any reason.
Untie the ropes that hold people as slaves.
Set free those who are crushed.
Break every evil chain.
7 Share your food with hungry people.
Provide homeless people with a place to stay.
Give naked people clothes to wear.
Provide for the needs of your own family.
8 Then the light of my blessing will shine on you like the rising sun.
I will heal you quickly.
I will march out ahead of you.
And my glory will follow behind you and guard you.
That is because I always do what is right. (Isaiah 58)
