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    A Longing for Wisdom: One Woman’S Conscience and Her Church
    A Longing for Wisdom: One Woman’S Conscience and Her Church
    A Longing for Wisdom: One Woman’S Conscience and Her Church
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    A Longing for Wisdom: One Woman’S Conscience and Her Church

    By Patricia S. Taylor Edmisten

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    About this ebook

    Patricia S. Taylor Edmisten was raised and educated with the traditions of the Catholic faith. But in later years, she began to question this faith on which she had relied for most of her life. In A Longing for Wisdom, she probes her conscience and presents writings about women, particularly their diminished role in the Catholic Church.

    In this collection of poetry, prose, memoir, and essays, Edmisten addresses a range of issues relating to women:

    The uniqueness of womens talents, burdens, and sorrow The failure of the hierarchy of mainstream churches to recognize the contributions of women in the Churchs history The widely accepted relegation of women to peripheral rather than central roles within churches The unexamined unease the hierarchy and some priests exhibit toward sexualitytheir own and womenscontributing to injustice within the Church and society

    Challenging, thought-provoking, and inspiring self-examination, A Longing for Wisdom calls for Church reform in an era where conventional wisdom has taken precedence over the wisdom of Christ.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateOct 14, 2010
    ISBN9781450259736
    A Longing for Wisdom: One Woman’S Conscience and Her Church
    Author

    Patricia S. Taylor Edmisten

    From 1962-64, Patricia Taylor Edmisten served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru. A former university professor, she has written extensively about the relationship between social conditions and democracy and has been a consultant for the United Nations, working with women’s groups in Peru and Brazil. She is the author of Nicaragua Divided La Prensa and the Chamorro Legacy, about the origins of the Nicaraguan revolution. Her translation of The Autobiography of Maria Elena Moyano the Life and Death of a Peruvian Activist was published in 2000. Although she has published many poems, this is her first novel.

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      Book preview

      A Longing for Wisdom - Patricia S. Taylor Edmisten

      Copyright © 2010 by Patricia S. Taylor Edmisten

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5972-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5974-3 (dj)

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-5973-6 (ebk)

      Printed in the United States of America

      iUniverse rev. date: 10/5/2010

      In loving memory of my mother, Dorothy Eleanore Silke

      The value of a person’s life cannot be measured by a moment of despair.

      Author

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      In Praise of Wisdom

      Preface

      Madonnas

      Hagar’s Voice

      The House of God

      Martha

      Mary of Bethany

      The Woman with a Hemorrhage

      Roadside Samaritans

      The Car Wash Lady

      The Chalice

      Summa cum laude

      The Phone Call (memoir)

      Betty (creative nonfiction)

      Do Rwandan Women Get the Blues?

      Burqa

      The Mourning of Angels

      Women, Base Christian Communities and Liberation Theology*

      Neither Male nor Female

      Mary of Magdala

      Procession

      False God

      Maggie Talks to God

      Maggie and the Bishop

      Impure Places

      Impure Places

      Cheap Penny Girl

      Noche de Paz (Silent Night)

      Lamentations

      Dorothy Eleanore: A Daughter’s Notes on her Mother’s Suicide

      A Note from Mother

      Confession

      At 2:30 in the Morning

      Woman Cries Herself to Death at Mall

      Vigil for Sister Mary Angelus

      After the Earthquake

      Hilary Hugs her Doll

      Why We Weep: On the Desperate Need for Church Reform

      A Letter from Lana

      The Crime of Ordaining a Woman

      The Tragedy of Abortion

      Anticipating Grace

      Altar Girl

      Walking in Boca Palms

      On Heaven and Bad Guys

      Thoughts on Physical and Spiritual Evolution

      The Dream

      The Old Man at the Beach

      Afterword

      About the Author

      Acknowledgments

      No book is the product of the author’s efforts alone. In my case, I’ve enjoyed the loyal support of my husband Joe, always my first reader. I’m especially thankful to the three, faith-filled passionate women friends who afforded me the benefit of their wisdom through their careful reading of, and meticulous commentary on, the draft of this book. I give profound thanks to my sister-in-law, Lana Stoll Silke, who spent countless hours thinking about, and responding to, the premises used in this collection. Heartfelt thanks to my long-time friend, Nancy Merle Trowbridge, whose careful reading of my writing over the years has been an enormous boon. To my third reader, a Catholic sister in real life, and a true disciple who lives the faith she loves, you bless me with your wisdom and friendship. I am grateful to another Catholic sister who also helped me gain insight into the mystery of Mary. For countless years, this sister’s feet have been planted in the poorest soils of Africa, ministering to women and children who live in wretched circumstances.

      In addition to my husband, there is another man to whom I am grateful, a wise man whose love for the Church shines in his ministry and example—the man who wrote the afterword to this book.

      Thanks also to the West Florida Literary Federation, the publisher of The Emerald Coast Review, in which some of the poetry that appears in this collection has previously been published in slightly different form. Lastly, I appreciate the cooperation of the University Press of Florida for permitting me to include a section of the prologue I wrote on liberation theology in my translation of María Elena Moyano en busca de una eperanza (Maria Elena Moyano the Life and Death of a Peruvian Activist).

      Cover art: Adam and Eve by Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri, 1581–1641), Italian Baroque Painter of the Bolognese School. Because of Adam’s shrug, feigned innocence, and outstretched arm indicating Eve as the guilty one, art students have dubbed this painting, She Did It.

      In Praise of Wisdom

      "Wisdom sings her own praises,

      before her own people she proclaims her glory;

      In the assembly of the Most High she opens her mouth,

      in the presence of his hosts she declares her worth:

      From the mouth of the Most High I came forth,

      and mistlike covered the earth.

      In the highest heavens did I dwell,

      my throne on a pillar of cloud.

      The vault of heaven I compassed alone,

      through the deep abyss I wandered.

      Over waves of the sea, over all the land,

      over every people and nation I held sway.

      Among all these I sought a resting place;

      in whose inheritance should I abide?…"

      Sirach: 24:1–7

      The truth we possess is a humble thing; no more, in fact, than the mirroring of the real world about us. When we substitute the product of our minds for the products of God’s mind, we fashion a world of fancy to replace the world of things as they are; by this, we cut ourselves off from the truth, retiring from the real world into one of our own making, isolating ourselves in solitary confinement.

      From the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Dominican priest, philosopher, theologian, Doctor of the Church, 1225–1274.

      Preface

      Although I come from the Roman Catholic faith tradition, women from other denominations will recognize the issues upon which I touch or dwell in this collection of my poems, stories, memoirs, and essays: the uniqueness of women in terms of their talents, burdens, and sorrows; the failure of the hierarchy of mainstream churches to recognize the contributions of women in the history of the Church; the widely accepted relegation of women to peripheral, rather than central, roles within churches and the unexamined disease (unease) the hierarchy and some priests exhibit toward sexuality—their own and women’s—contributing to injustice within the Church and society, such as:

      • the proscription against birth control, despite the prevalence of widespread, birth-related female suffering and death, especially in poor countries;

      • the condemnation of condom use among married couples even as a measure to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS;

      • the pervasively high infant mortality rates in poor countries;

      • the failure of my church to recognize that abortions decline dramatically when birth control is permissible and means are accessible;

      • the vacuum caused by the near total exclusion of women’s voices from the pulpit;

      • the hollow ring of marital and family advice emanating from the pulpit or the confessional by an all male hierarchy and clergy who have not known, or returned, a woman’s love or the joys and pains of fatherhood;

      • and most recently and significantly, the tragic history of pedophilia among certain priests and the cover-up of their crimes by certain bishops.

      For years, I kept many of the poems and narratives in this book in a folder with other unpublished work. I had not realized that there was a unifying theme: my growing discomfort with the church into which I was baptized and confirmed; into which my ancestors were baptized; the church under whose auspices I was educated through university; the church in which I was married; the church in which my son and grandchildren were baptized and confirmed, the church I still love.

      Why write this book now? As a seventy-year-old woman, I’ve had a lifetime of interactions with the clergy and hierarchy who represent my church. The Jesuits at Marquette University, who reminded me that a questioning attitude toward my faith was necessary if I were to be strengthened in it, influenced the examining I do now. They spoke of that mysterious entity called conscience, and that I should act in accordance with it as long as it was informed. I could be wrong, but if I acted in good faith, God would still look kindly on me.

      So, in this book, I probe my conscience and make public its contents, especially about women and their diminished role in the Church. I’ve known

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