RainInanna
July 4th, 2008, 12:33 PM
I love Idiots Guides; I know many don't, but I love the simple, humorous, light introductions to topics. I just borrowed The Complete Idiot's Guide to Women's Spirituality from the library. Within the first pages I realized why Women's Spirituality is so meaningful to me; why it feels so right when other spiritualities do not.
Women's spirituality values insight. It does this by asking questions such as: What are the things you hold sacred? Where do you feel most connected to God? Who or what is God for you? Where do you go for spiritual nourishment? How do you define 'spirituality'? What kind of work do you find meaningful? What feeds your spirit and still puts bread on the table? Again, these questions have been floating around since the beginning of time. The difference is that in women's spirituality, each woman contributes her truth based on how she experiences life, and most important, all answers are valid. This is how spiritual and religious 'truth' expands.
On the next page:
Women's spirituality begins with a feeling. It stems from the understanding that feelings contain good information and that if we 'sit' with them and talk about them with others, we learn something important. Those twinges are spiritual messages. Women's spirituality starts with a twinge, which leads to a question, which is followed by an answer - and something quite creative usually happens. A big difference between women's spirituality and any other form of inquiry is where you go for the answer. In women's spirituality, the answer comes from the same place as the twinge - within.
...Women tend to interpret their feelings as a sign that something is wrong with them. Yet their feelings refuse to away no matter how 'good' they are, no matter how well they perform, no matter how much they accomodate. They still feel 'wrong'.
One day one woman hears another woman talking about feeling that way, too. In that moment a veil lifts. Women's spirituality acts as a sounding board for feelings such as these and as a source of validation. As women begin to discover that the feelings they are having are actually leading them somewhere - and that many other women have the same feelings, too - they begin the process of finding their own spirituality.
Women's spirituality values insight. It does this by asking questions such as: What are the things you hold sacred? Where do you feel most connected to God? Who or what is God for you? Where do you go for spiritual nourishment? How do you define 'spirituality'? What kind of work do you find meaningful? What feeds your spirit and still puts bread on the table? Again, these questions have been floating around since the beginning of time. The difference is that in women's spirituality, each woman contributes her truth based on how she experiences life, and most important, all answers are valid. This is how spiritual and religious 'truth' expands.
On the next page:
Women's spirituality begins with a feeling. It stems from the understanding that feelings contain good information and that if we 'sit' with them and talk about them with others, we learn something important. Those twinges are spiritual messages. Women's spirituality starts with a twinge, which leads to a question, which is followed by an answer - and something quite creative usually happens. A big difference between women's spirituality and any other form of inquiry is where you go for the answer. In women's spirituality, the answer comes from the same place as the twinge - within.
...Women tend to interpret their feelings as a sign that something is wrong with them. Yet their feelings refuse to away no matter how 'good' they are, no matter how well they perform, no matter how much they accomodate. They still feel 'wrong'.
One day one woman hears another woman talking about feeling that way, too. In that moment a veil lifts. Women's spirituality acts as a sounding board for feelings such as these and as a source of validation. As women begin to discover that the feelings they are having are actually leading them somewhere - and that many other women have the same feelings, too - they begin the process of finding their own spirituality.