On International Women's Day today, I am thinking of women everywhere.
I give thanks for all the women who have loved and nurtured and shaped us.
I give thanks and hold in prayer the amazing women in my life,
the courage of those who went before me into risky daily rebellions, as Jane Dickie says.to create a way for greater well-being for all;
those who used their voices, their hands,
their silent acts of resistance, who risked life for life.
I give thanks for my sister, mother,
and daughters,
and daughters,
for grandmothers and aunts,
youth leaders, camp counselors, colleagues,
wise women mentors, dear friends, gifted authors who have
nudged, pushed, loved, and challenged me.
I pray for those women whose faces I see
in my World Council of Churches photo,
women whose names I no longer remember -
women from Indonesia, India, Sweden, Turkey,
Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Korea,
China, Kenya.... theologians in their own lands
and for their various churches
whose prayers for hope and transformation are the same
as mine though the cadence sounds unfamiliar to me.
These international women of faith
are changing the world.
I think of those high schoolers in youth group photos
wondering and wandering, near by and far away
with whom I've been gifted to share a bit of the journey together.
I pray for life's path to become clear.
I am thinking of those women whose faces I can only imagine;
in joy and in pain, leaders among women and men,
and those who are abused by both women and men,
those women of others faiths and practices
who seek the Spirit of Life,
those of fame and fortune and
those just scraping by,
those who have come to believe that the only way
to choose life is to sell themselves or their children
to further abuse,
those who like Rachael are weeping for her
children that are not.
In prayer I celebrate you,
the sisterhood of all women,
and pray for continued courage for all to live deeply
into grace and peace
so all may live.
