V-Week

I am prouder than ever to be a student at PSR right now.  I find myself profoundly moved by what I witnessed at my seminary's student-run production of the Vagina Monologues.  What a beautiful thing it was to see female seminarians and clergy participate in this production--women I am lucky enough to call my colleagues.  

I remember when I saw the Vagina Monologues at St. Olaf.   I'm sure it was a good production, but what I mostly recall is that it felt daring simply because it used the word "vagina" a lot.  And I acknowledge my complicity in that perception--I have grown a lot since I first saw the production at St. Olaf.  Tonight, because of the incredible artistic direction and passion of the actresses, I saw that the point of this whole show goes far, far deeper than its vocabulary.  In the end, its not about anatomy--it is about acknowledging and healing a history of violence, in all of its many forms.

One of my fellow seminarians whom I deeply, deeply respect and admire said something interesting to me last year.  It was our last day of our Field Ed discussion group and, as seminarians are wont to do, we were ritualizing our final session by sharing the ways we'd been blessed by our peers throughout the semester.  When my friend came to me, she said that it had been a blessing to watch me wrestle with gender-related issues at my Field Ed site and grow through my struggles.  I remember being terribly confused when she said it--in my perception, none of my internship related issues had anything to do with my gender identity.  I thought she was exaggerating one explicitly gender-related issue that occurred at my site. Yet as the dust of last year has settled, I'm beginning to see what she saw in me all year long.  While not true for all of my internship-related concerns, I'm slowly recognizing that many situations reflected my deeply ingrained notions of what I thought my culture/society expected of me as a woman.

The Monologues gave me hope.  It was sobering to hear all the violence named, even in drama But it was downright prophetic to see my friends and colleagues present this work in the name of justice, sisterhood, and healing.