CFWATIVE CRONES: SPIRITUALITY OF OLDER WOMEN

A THESIS

Presented to the

MASTERS DEGEEES THESIS COMMITTEE

of St. Stephen's College

Edmonton. Alberta

in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS IN SPIRITUALITY AND LITURGY

Bernice Joceline Luce

Edmonton, Alberta National Library Bibliothèque nationale m*m of Canada du Canada Aquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliogaphic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaON K1AON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada

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To the memory of two Mothers

who lived courageous and creative lives under difficult and confining circumstances.

They were not even granted the distinction of having been given their own middle names.

Martha Fenske, my mother

Lavrncha Luce, my mother-in-law Abstract

1 set out to And the crone. the wise woman whose identity has been obscured in the mists of tims. I knew when 1 began my exploration that older women lack voice in a patnarchal society that has not yet accorded us consistent respect and nghts. I perceived the need for someone to challenge the double jeopardy of sexism and ageism to which we older women have become too inured. 1 intendeci to find ana to near the voices ofoider women and to have them tell me and the world about their spiritual development. about what in their contexts made them who they are.

What 1 found was that the tive women who grçw into being my CO-researchers were more than eager to tell their stories and to articulate the wisdorn of their life experiences. We shared our thoughts. our feelings. our pains. and our joys. and al1 the while wr lrarned more about who each of us is. Something numinous happas when women tell each other stories of their lives. Through an interpenetrating of each othen'

Selves. both the SION-tellersand the story-hearers are transformed in some measure.

Thus 1 searched for the crone, and 1 found her: we are she! She resides in the women whom 1 interviewed. in myself. and in many other older women. She is wisdom. balance. and freedom. She lives out these attributes with an invincible spirit of courage, resiliency, adaptability. and survivability. She lives with deep respect for connections to

God, to others. and to creation. May we crones live the last quarter of our lives with a sense of freedorn and courage that we could only imagine in our earlier years! Acknowledgments

Whatever accomplishrnents we claim are never achieved without the encouragement. mentoring. and wisdom of other people who travel with us. 1 am indebted to many sojoumrrs who by interacting with me throughout the writing of this work have been part of my coming into spiritual maturity in the autumn years of my life.

The staff and supporters of St. Stephen's College who have the vision and the dedication to make possible learning in permissive and flexible ways.

Jean Waters who guided me through the chaos to clarity stages of my writing in her accepting. accompanying, and inviting manner.

Fran Hare who is an inspiring teacher and who would not allow me to do anything but the best that I could.

Barbara Dobbie. the extemal reader. who caused me to scrutinize my work one more rime to ensure coherence and consistency.

The five wondefil women who gave so much to me fiom the wisdom embodied in the sacred stones of their stniggles. their joys. their hopes. and their spirituality. This dissertation would be ..dry bones" were it not for their eenerosity of spirit. t

And then there are the people with whom 1 share life most intimately: my family.

My life partner of many years who often patiently searched for the "dmdge in the dungeon" who day after day might be found under a pile of books and papers and glued to her cornputer.

My four daughters. their partners. and my gandchildren for their encouragement and never doubting that their Mom and Grandma really is a student and a theologian. Table of Contents

Chapter 1: THE CRONE HOVERS ...... 1

Chapter 2: SEARCHING FOR THE CRONE ...... 15

Chapter 3: MEETING THE WOMEN ...... 29

Chapter 4: FROM WHERE WE HAVE COME ...... 14

Chapter 5: OUR SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES ...... 59

Chapter 6: G O D ...... -73

Chapter 7: CONNECTIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS ...... 89

Chapter 8: THE CRONE EMERGES ...... 105

Chapter9:EPILOGUE ...... 125

WORKS CONSULTED ...... 128

.APPENDIX.4 ...... 137

APPENDIXB ...... 140

vii The Crone Hovers'

In the snow and cold of winter there 's a spring that waits to be . . . . From the past ivill come the fitwe; what it holds a mystev. imrevealed until it 's season. something Cod alone can see.'

'-1 didn't have a voice; I didn't have a voice in my imiiy; i didn't have a voice ar school; 1 didn't even have a voice at university. . . . In church 1 didn't have a voice."

These are the words of sixty-year-old Sophia.' one of the five women whom I interviewed as part of the research into spirituality of women living in the seventh decade of their lives.

1 am viewing life from the vantage point of having lived almost a full seventy years.

Over rny lifetime, and especially during the last decade, 1 have expenenced a growing consciousness of the marginalization of women generally and of older wornen in

particular. The malady, for which the response from the women of my generation

characteristically and for too long has been "this is just the way it is", has always been

present in my lifetime. As 1 continue to deal with the issues of living in a patriarchal

society, I have wondered from where these deeply imbedded attitudes have come and why

they have persisted even into the twenty-first century.

'1 use the word hover to denote a state of waiting close at hand, lingering on the margins? being in an indeterminate or irresolute state.

From the 1986 hyrnn by Natalie Sleeth, "In the Bulb There is a Flower." Voices United, p. 70 1. Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1996.

'Ail of my CO-researchershave chosen pseudonyms to be used in the study. This is done to honour the confidentid nature of some of the material. 2

The voices of women continue to be lost in the din of too much masculinity and too ingrained a patriarchy. In the introduction to an essay titled *'To the Other Side of

Silence" Mary Field Belenky asserts that women have not been the subjects of research. that they have no voices (6). From their work in the field of women's issues and ethics.

Barbara Hilken hdolsen and her colleagues point out that women's voices and insights have rarely been recognized in the field of ethics:

The patriarchal legacy of the West has hidden women's experience from

ethical view. covering rhe likes. voices and insights of women with darkness.

hedging them about with fences. falsifjmg landrnarks, forbidding exploration

al together or. more O ften. simply ignoring reports (xi-xii).

Elizabeth Dodson Gray points out that women have been kept too busy to write and that they have had linle access to publishers. Funher. ". . . (W)e have not been socialized by our own culture to consider rven reflections on our own lives to be important" (2). We mature women have become al1 too inured to not being heard in a serious manner.

"At yoztr age. why are you taking college courses?" was a question asked of me recently by a woman acquaintance. The realization that not only am I a wornan. but that I am perceived by others as becoming an old wornan caused turmoil within me. Lois

Banner writes that a double discrimination exists when one is both woman and ageing

(6). Cynthia Rich in her article. "Aging, Ageism. and Feminist Avoidance?" expresses the cnticism that society breeds ignorance and fear of both zging and death. .'. . .(O)ld women have stniggled and still mggle without a literature. without a politic . . ."

(MacDonald and Rich 12). Barbara MacDonald learned that as she aged she was 3 identified as "the other." Nothing had infomed her that old women existed--not novels nor movies, radio. and television. From this expenence of exclusion. she began to chart her own course into growing old (5).

-4 problem that appears to be inherent in the study of spirituality of older women is that not much research or writing has been done about or From the perspective of senior wornen. Up until the last twenty years. most of the literanire has been based on the experiences of men and has been witten by men. Rrsearchers and writers about human development such as Paul E. Johnson and Daniel Levinson have done a thorough analysis of male stages up to those of men in thrir fifiies. but they have nothing to Say about women. old or young.

James Fowler. who bases his theories on the earlier work of Erik Erikson. deals with the last stages of Me. However. his work is based on an androcentric bias rather than on a feminist perspective: the goal of maturation is individuation instead of development through relationships.

Some recent writinps have included analyses of older women. but they lack depth when compared to long established research areas and are without conviction of the writers "having been there." Erik and Joan Enkson in their later years reflect on the last stages of life. but their work is narrative and anecdotal rather than analytical and interpretive. In an updating of her earlier work. Passages. Gai1 Sheehy probes the subject of old people. and especially of women, from the viewpoint of someone outside the experience of aging people. In the chapter titled "nie Serene Siaies'' she relies on third person accounts rather than speaking fiom her own first-hand knowledge (New Passages).

Voices. stories, and experiences of older women need to be heard from the perspective of those women. Many female persons who are living in the last quarter of their lives have been socialized to feel a iack of self-confidence or a sense of diminished self-wonh that had them believing thar they did not have much to say. This is no longer an acceptable state for an ever increasing proportion of the population.

The purpose of my research is to examine the spiritual development of women from the vantage point of women in their sixties. to discover ways in which our spintuality can grow and change during the senior stages of our lives, and to envisage for our remaining years how we mipht live creatively and vitally. I wonder if the life- experience of having been bom in the 1930's has an impact on the spiritual development of women. 1 want to know if other women from my era perceive themselves as having been stunted or marginalized because of sexism and apism. The question that might be framed to guide my research is "What is the spiriniality of women living in the seventh decade of their lives?" As a woman with perhaps "two score years?'of life remaining, 1 am eager to find ways for al1 of us to live out our lives in the fullest. most creative. and meaningful manner possible. especially in the area of revenng and expressing our Selves as spirituai beings.

My passion for this study has been steadily burgeoning over the past decade.

From my expenence as an aging woman. 1 have been aware of subtle and not so subtte societal discounting of the value of older women. a dismissive attitude about their attempted contributions. and a pervasive dension of their personhood in various media. 5

Barbara MacDonald reports sexism and ageism slights coming not only from men but fiom other wornen as well. "1 was tired of young wornen who could not look me in the eye" (3 1). In response to rhe relegating of non-personhood upon her. she says that she may be older and slower. but who should know more about what six.-five cm do han the woman who is living it (33 )'!

.h uneasy feeling rests on me that 1 have been or soon will be in the line of slur- hurles. too. 1 have been the recipient of comrnenrs such as "What you are doing would make more sense if -ou were ten or twenty years younger" (in regard to being a candidate for election in a 1993 provincial campaign). or "You have only noiv at this late stage of life begun to question the male image of God?" There seems to be an underlying assumption. someiimes from surprising sources. that rspecially women in their senior years have little capacity to be thinking. functioning. whole individuals. In spite of such perceptions. encased in aging bodies there are spirits and minds that are replete with life- experience and wisdom.

Wornen of my generation have becorne accustomed throughout their adult lives to being maneuvered to the sidelines in arenas of work, leisure. and volunteer activities.

Nowadays the shuffling happens because we are old wornen: earlier in Our lives it was so just because we were ivonien. Even when I was a younger woman 1 encountered prejudicial incidents. 1 cite three examples from my earlier experiences that to me illustrate limitations imposed on me because 1 am a woman living in a patriarchd society.

When 1 was in my early forties 1 worked as a teacher-administrator in a ruraI centraiized school. Via the informai community intelligence network, word came to the 6 school that there was a parent movement afoot to get rid of the "old" teachers. To my amazement. 1 had been named ûs one of the "old ones." It is noteworthy that the names of the men. some of whom were older than 1. had not been included on this purging list. 1 wondered why Our culture would regard wornen who are perceived to be older as being inept wniie men escape riai siereorypiny. "Ka man is oid. uyiy and \vise. he is considered a sage. If a woman is old. ugly. and wise. she is a witch" (Walker 122).

A second series of incidents happened to me when 1 was a volunteer executive member of an international exchange prograrn for rural young people. No woman. and particularly no older woman. had up to that time held any of the senior positions on the executive. 1 was asked to let my name stand as a vice-chairperson and was informed that no othrr names had becn brought fonvard. The man who was the "top" person in the organization undenook a secret campaign to have my election blocked. In spite of the directives of the organization that there would be no differences tolerated in how young women exchange students were to be regarded and veated vis-à-vis men in the prograrn, at the executive level these rules seemed not to apply. 1 regarded this action as gross gender discrimination.

A third incident occurred when 1 appeared before a selection cornmittee made up of men who were delegated to hire someone to be a vice-principal of a consolidated hi@ school. Although 1 had more experience and seniority in the jurisdiction than other candidates. the job went to a young. male. physicd education teacher who had virtually no education for or experience in administration. It was implied, but not stated. that a senior woman was not a suitable candidate for the job. It was at that point that 1 ended my career in the education field.

As 1 search for ways to imbue in older women a sense of dignity and respect. the historic concept of the "crone" @ps my attention as a mode1 for females of my

tgeneration. The thesis of Merlin Stone's book. Pnen God vas a PVornan, is that somewhere in the mists of pre-patriarchal history. otd women were respecred and honoreci

for their wisdom and for their contributions to the communities in which they lived.

Kathleen Fischer reters to the crone as the Wise Woman who as midwife. herbalist,

healer. teacher. advisor. judge. and arbiter is holy fury and knowledge. active wisdom

(.-lzctrrmn20).

1 am fascinated by the possibility of mature women embracing the idea of being crones. The word crone has bren cnveloped in a cloud of dension since medieval times

when a metamorphosis occurred through which the wise woman becarne the witch

(Walker 127). But it is a tem that in my view ought to be recaptured and elevated to a

level of respectability. Barbara Walker writes that "The Crone can represent precisely the

kind of power women so desperately need today" (1 75).

One $miter who assists in the restoration of the crone as wise woman is Marjone

Procter-Smith. She portrays one of the three archetypal aspects of the Goddess as the

crcne, or old woman. representing wisdom and death as part of life:'

The devaluation of old womçn in Our culture as well as Our denial of the reality

and finality of death makes the image of God as Old Woman a particularly

powerfùl and significant one which deserves Merexploration (1 13).

'The three archetypal Goddess' aspects are virgin, mother and crone (Waiker 2 1). 8

In the context of the woman as crone. Walker argues that archetypes cannot be destroyed and that when they are suppressed. socially catastrophic results follow (19).

Wnting for The Globe and Muil. Lila Sarick reports on "Women embracing cronehood":

In a society obsessed with youth. older women are challenging perceptions about

age and femininity. Across Canada in small Croups and at large gathenngs. they

are celebrating their accumulated yars and grey hairs. To mark the rite of

passage. they have appropriated the Old English word "crone" and reinvested it

with a positive rnraning.

1 want to be counted among those who endeavor to return the word crone to respectable functionality.

The one descriptive word that is used by al1 writen recounting amibutes of the crone is wisriom. HalIie Iglehart. a pioneer in the feminist spirituality movement. speaks of bringing back the power of women's wisdom:

This strength is not a power over anything else. but a force emanating frorn

deep within each of us. radiating out into the world and co~ectingand interacting

with others. creating a new definition of svength (xii).

Wisdom is the culmination of much living, of age. of having been through the crucibles of life. However. Dorothy Momson5 says. "(R)eal wisdom has nothing to do with how old we are. It's a matter of how much we've lived. what we've expenenced. and how

'~lthoughMomson writes from the perspective of a Wiccan High Priestess, some of the ideas that she expresses are compatible with biblical and Christian literature. we've dealt with the consequences" (36). Persons who have been aware of their spirituality throuehout their lives ostensibly will be further along the wisdorn j oumey than are people who have lived fewer years. "(W)isdom is a ripening and ongoing process.

Wisdom itself is a process. not a product" (Schaef 1 58).

The Bible has some things to Say about wisdom as well. The book of Proverbs portrays Wisdom as a woman-- .-she raises her voice (1 :20).'06 The -ter States that the

Lord gives wisdom (26).and wisdom will corne into your heart (2:10). It is better than jewels (8: 1 1) and is like a gushing Stream (1 8:1). Wisdorn has the teaching of kindness on her tongue (3 126) and makes the face to shine (Ecclesiastes 8: 1). Wisdorn. like spirituality. cmbest be spoken in metaphor.

In order to establish a bais for clarity. 1 needed to settle on a definition or at least an understanding of the term spiriiualip. As 1 searched the work of writers about spirituality. 1 found that few of them articulated or defined what spirituality is. It is as if the concept is too sacred to be spoken. as was the word Yahweh for the ancient Hebrews.

Perhaps it has to do with the very personal. sacred nature of a phenornenon that is lived out nther than verbalized. Nevertheless. 1 attempt to explicate my intuitive understanding of spintuality.

Spirituality has to do with the functioning of the spirit. that essence of who each person is as a unique individual. Our spirits are a bit of God incarnate at an unfathomably deep level within each of us. Spintuality connects us intimately to each other and to al1 of creation: it is a journey of intebgation. a response to and participation in the Divine; it

'Quotations are taken fiorn the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. is about the ongohg qurst for self-understanding and relatedness. The context of my spirituality is within the Christian faith where 1 have lived al1 of my life.

I find concurrence for my definition from some other writers. Benedict J.

Groeshchel writes of spirituality as a journey toward finding oneself (66). while Marjorie

Suchocki describes a female spirituality that is different fiom that of males and "looks to the wholeness of things. that feels the relationality that binds the whole into unity" (393).

In her book. Winrer Grace: Spiritrinlity and rlging. Kathleen Fischer has this to say:

"Spirituality means not just one cornpartment of life. but the deepest dimension of al1 of life. The spintual is the ultimate ground of al1 our questions. hopes and fears" (13).

1 conclude this beginning of rny dissertation by writing at the end. In summary form 1 reflect on the process. re-visit the participants. and realize that 1 have arrived at a new place. 1 know much more about what is the spirituality of older women than 1 did when 1 started the quest.

As I began the process of research and thesis wvriting. it quickly becarne apparent that my work would be a bricolage (Derizin and Lincoln 2) of methodologies rather than one distinct strategy. It would include the emergence of grounded theory and a phenomenological approach (Strauss 21). but the primary research tool would be narrative inquiiy (Co~ellyand Clandinin). Perhaps this is the nature of the search when women seek meaning for their lives. If this is a dilemma. it is well stated by Rebecca

Luce-Kapler:

1 have corne to see feminist research work as a pastiche of methodology. To be

responsive to the research situation and to be able to question patriarchal noms, it is helpfùl to not fit oneself into any particular research tradition such as

ethnography . Rather. by creating a particular way of working designed to evolve

through and with the research. the boundaries that have divided methodologies

are called into question (As If U'omen 3).

Interviews of women and stories about the lives of women are the centrepiece of the study. In keeping with the spint of feminist methodology (Silvrrman 154). interviews were as much as possible unstmctured and in the nature of a conversation between friends. The words inrervkiv and zrnstrrtcntred rnay constitute an oxyrnoron because, as

Ely States. al1 interviews have structure. some predetermined and others shaped in the process (58). I had in mind the areas that we would pursue. but through a dialogical sharing of life experiences both my CO-researchers7and 1 were full participants in the process. My own sense of direction was followed. but more irnportantly the direction of die women being interviewed was discemed and encouraged to flow. In her doctoral dissertation Jean Waters writes. "1 have a deeply held assumption that if met with respect and acceptance. people are willing to share their inner knowing about their spiritual journey." Her style of gathering data from others is to approach the task from a perspective of invitation. accompanying. and genuine interest (60). It was in that tone that 1 met the women of my study.

1 heard the voices of five women ranging in ages from sixty to sixty-nine. The women were chosen to be my CO-researchersbecause 1 had ascertained that not only are

7The term CO-researcheris used by Clandinin and Comelly to acknowledge the deepening relationship that develops as narrative research progresses, and the subject moves from being an interviewee or a participant to becoming a CO-researcher(1 75). 1s they aware of themselves as spiritual beings. but they engage in the search that is part of spiritual growth. They are able and willing to clearly articulate their thoughts. their

feelings. their pains. thrir joys. Throughout the interviews. their stories poured out with very Iittle bidding and directing from me. My own voice is heard. too. as 1 attempt to

uncover thernes in our understanding of who we are as women. of what influences from society and church have molded us. and of how we cmmost creatively live the rest of our

lives.

The five women played an integral part in my search for the crone as they shared

their life stories with me. Although many of our life experiences are similar. there is not

a common profile for our lives. Some constants which are core and centre of our beings

are Our unwavering trust in God and our sense of connectedness with the Holy. with others, and with the creation.

My CO-researchersand I indicated that beginning our lives in the 1930's set a

pattern for Our living with a sense of respect For circumstances outside ourselves. We

leamed early to trust in the presence and care of God in our lives and that we needed the

love and support of others. The patriarchal culture in which we lived our youthful and

early adult lives had the effect of mostly causing us to live passively as "obedient daughters and good wives" who would rationalize that "that is just the way it is." We

have through Our lifetimes been dealing with the dualism. to which churches and society

subscribed. that the spirit was chaste and the body was carnai.

Our social and economic experiences. because they are quite different frorn those of our mothers and are demonstrably different fiorn those of our daughters. have 13 positioned us as a bridging generation. The women agreed that we have witnessed more change than any other generation in history in regard to technology. information. and gender status. Wr senior women have much wisdom and love to offer not only io C daughters and granddaughters. but indeed to al1 persons in the midst of life in the new mille~iurn.

In Our spiritual development we have ail been on a continuous joumey from very carly in our lives into our crone years. We have changed over the course of time so that now we question and challenge the theology of our churches. our images of God. and the patriarchal attitudes of our sociep. We have assayed a wide variety of spiritual practices as means of getting in tolich with God and with ourselves. Areas that we find lacking in providing nurture are the liturgies. masses. and services offered in our churches. Our most hlfilling sources of spirituai engagement are solitary disciplines and small group interaction.

Through reading, conversing with women. and analyzing my data 1 have met the crone. 1 discovered that we six women. among many others. are truly crones. We are wisdom. balance. and freedom. Our spirits are invincibly courageous. resilient. adaptable. and survivable. We live with passion and compassion and suive to possess self-knowiedge and to exercise self-care. We live with deep respect for God. others. and the creation.

It is Our intention to live the remainder of our lives creatively. We want to continue to learn. to care tenderly for al1 of the relationships in Our lives. and to especially walk with and encourage younger women. We are not as concemed with life derdeath as we are with bringing God's realm into the creation that we inhabit.

As we learn to own who we are and to stand for our hopes and drearns. our voices are much less muted as we corne into full flower of maturity. We will speak out. and advocate. and ensure that our voices are heard in the cause of love and justice. 1 stand

"on holy gound"' and in profound awe of the wisdom. tenacity. and energy for change that emanate from the five women--tnily crones in the best sense of that word. Searching for the Crone

Again the kingdom ofheaven is like a merchant in search of'fine pearls; on Jnding one pearl of greaf value, he wenr and sold al1 that he had and boughf

. . . (T)he price of wisdom is ubove pearls.'"

How can 1 penetrate to the nuclei of the pearls that are woman-stories deeply overlayered within persons who have not known that they have a story? What are appropriate tools to peel off the layers of nacre which constrict the psyches of women who only lately have corne to the reaiization that they have for much of their lives had no voice? Limiting methodology to a choice of one or two approaches may not provide enough scope to penetrate sufficiently deeply to free women's voices and spirits. In feminist enquiry one must be free to respond to the research situation and not to be confined by conventional methodology boundaries. Margot Ely States that the labels on qualitative research methodologies are nurnerous, confusing, and changing. It is not possible to provide a simple definition (4) that encompasses al1 of the nuances one rnight encounter as the research unfolds.

Carol Christ wites emphaticaily about the importance of story-telling and story- listening as a means of revealing women's tnie Selves. Because women's stones have rarely been told by themselves, or seldom related with integrity by others, they have not leamed to articulate their experiences--vaIuing stmggles, celebrating strengths, comprehending pain (1). The sharing of stories has the capacity to be a transfomative expenence that informs. expands. and heals women's understanding of themselves. Alice

Walker has this to say about the topic:

Storytelling. you know. has a real fùnction. The pracess of storytelling is itself a

iieaiing process. parti? because you have sorneone rhçre who is taking the tirne tu

tell you a story that has great meaning to them. They're taking the time to do this

because your life could use some help. but they don3 want to come over and just

give advice. They want to give it to you in a form that becomes inseparable fiom

Fur whole self. That's what stones do. Stones differ from advice in that, once

you get them. they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal

you."

As Walker intimates. rnany stories have a sacred dimension. Mundane stones are the vehicles through which people corne to understand their world (Cites 296). and through the mediating form of consciousness these stories take on a sacredness (297) that creates a sense of Self and world (295). The rnodalities of past. present. and future require narrative forms to express the everyday stoks and to bring intemal cohesion to sacred stories (30 1-302). Because of the holy nature of the stories of my CO-researchers. exposing Iayers of accretion must be a tender, gentle process in which both the seeker and the sought work in harmony and reciprocity.

A gentle and tender attitude toward gathenng data need not preclude "serious and

"The excerpt is taken from an interview of Alice Walker about her work in Commun Boundary, 1990, and is quoted in Crossing to .Avalon: .A Woman 's Midlfe Pilgrirnage by Jean Shinoda Bolen. vii. 17 cntical analysis." In her essay. "Amving Late: Starting Over." Carol Shields contends that mles goveming tradiiional forms of writing are "the throttling sort of theorizing that proclaims and forbids and ultimately places limits on" a writer's creative capacities

(klrtcalf and Struthers 747). In another article titled "The Sarne Ticking Clock" she reflects on the restrictions under which an individuai wrirer works-margins 01time. accident of geography. gender and perspective. and limitation of language to express the nonverbal (87). In endorsing the use of narrative to overcome barrien to unconfined exmination. she says.

We want. need. the stones of others. We need. too. to place our own stories

beside theirs, to compare. weigh. judge. forgive. and to End. by becoming

something other than ourselves. an angle of vision that renews the image of the

world (88).

Stories of women are the hub of my explorations. Because the research design must provide a means of uncovering the nature of spirituality of older women. 1 chose narrative inquiry as the principal meihodology. "The study of narrative . . . is the study of the ways humans expenence the world" and is both phenornenon and method (Connelly and Clandinin 2). This is a collaborative type of research through which the relationship of the researcher with the CO-researchersinterpenetrates each others' orbits of experience.

Such mutuality has value for and impact on both participants when the voice of each is heard (4) and is effective for the subject of the research when she is apprised of the researcherTsthinking (Ely 15 1). Narrative inquiry as a research method is compatible with writing a feminist text in that it emphasizes the importance of voice (Caron 73). 18

In keeping with feminist criteria for research. Ely postulates that "Events cm be understood adequately only if they are seen in context" (30). The term nafuralistic inqui- is used to drscribe qualitative research through which the researcher studies the entire milieu in which the subject resides--physical. social. temporal (Clandinin and

Comelly 129). It is impossible to tell at the outset where the inquiry will lead. and rnough openness must be maintained so that design and problem emerge (Lincoln 214).

If research is done in settings that are natural for the subjects in contexts that are not contrived. questions For funher investigation will likely arise as the work progresses (Ely

30). My expectation was that both answers and questions would be discovered in the social situation being surveyed (55).

Phenomenologv and gromded rheory are two more terms that tit into the proposed research design. According to .4drian Van Kaam. phenornenolog is an experiential and qualitative (295) method aimed at the study of human experience (23 1).

Subjective experience begins consciously or unconsciously with the awareness of feelings such as rejection. thankfulness. sorrow. joy. relief (304). Grounded theory is inductively derived from the study of the phenomenon it represents. It is discovered, developed. and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis of data pertaining to the phenomenon. Data collection. analysis. and theory stand in reciprocal relation to each other. One does not begin with a theory and prove it: one begins with an area of study, and what is relevant to the area will emerge (Strauss 23).

Indeed a pastiche of methodologies needs to be in the repertoire of the researcher who is involved in feminist inquiry into the experiences of women. To scrape one's way 19 beneath the woman's public personality (the mother-of-pearl surface) to fînd the essence of her spirit (the peul nucleus) is surely a delicate process.

Narrative inquiry fits into the -*multimethod"approach of qualitative research

(Demin and Lincoln 4) because it is concerned with experiences and qualities of life (2).

Qualitative research. as described by Strauss and Corbin. is used to produce findings through interviews and observations rather than through collection and analysis of quantifiable data (1 7). Qualitative methods include observations. tertual analysis, interviews. and transcripts (Silveman 8). The data that are the bais for this inquiry inro the spirituality of older women are made up of taped interviews. transcnpts of the interviews. field notes. personal journal entnes and unpublished papers. and theological retlections. Pior to and in addition to gathering the data indicated above. varied and extensive reading was done.

Charlotte Caron argues that women's stories must be told and heard in al1 aspects of life as sources of data for research. The feminist theological/thealogical rnethod that she advocates is an interweaving of telling women's stories. of defining the issues. of analysis. of action. and of reflection and theory formulation (6). The patnarchal structures that oppress al1 women and some men must be challenged (22). Rosemary

Radford Ruether describes the subjugation:

By patriarchy we rnean not only subordination of females to males. but the whole

structure of Father-mled society. . . . Religions that reinforce hierarchical stratifi-

cation use the Divine as the apex of their system of privilege and control(61).

Feminist inquiry is committed io finding ways to improve the well-being of women in the world and to create just structures (Caron 29).

A major source of data for this study were the five women who told me their stories. 1 made the choice of CO-researcherswith defined and intentional criteria rather than by random selection. The women whom 1 chose are my acquaintanceç in their sixties who have had significant life experience. who have a sense of their own spirituality. and who are willing and able to articulate retlections on the growth and nature of their interior lives. 1 determined that there was minimal risk of lack of objectivity in my interviewing peers who are known to me, so 1 drew up a short list of subjects from people whom 1 have observed as being actively involved in a faith community and with whorn 1 would not need to spend a great deal of tirne in becoming acquainted.

The whole maner of voice. or lack thereof. arose again as 1 pondered. sometimes in the Company of other women. who would be good research subjects. As word spread about rny proposed inquiry into "crone-hood". 1 had many more offers to CO-researchwith me than 1 could accommodate. At times it seemed that 1 ought to recruit twenty women io be interviewed. That had been my original unredistic and probably un-achievable goal within the limits of this dissertation. It was a very revealing and touching experience for me io learn how eager older women are to free their voices and to tell their stories.

Along with some evidence of spirituality and being a specific age. 1 tested for two other criteria. The women needed to have lived a life span long enough to have accumulated significant crone wisdom. yet be young enough so that their attentions were not preoccupied with their end days. I perceived the ideai group to be active women in their sixties. Carolyn Heilbrun's choice of age of older women who need to tell of their yet un-narrated lives is from ages sixty to seventy-five (FVririring 28). The method of choosing the subjects rnight be construed as ageism. but 1 defend the choices as opening up opportunities for those whose voices have been mostly ignored.

The second touchstone t'or the choice of subjects was that they represent a variery of theological backgrounds. The final mix was made up of two Roman Catholics. two

United Church women. and one woman whose entire spintual lik has been spent in a traditionally conservative church sening. My own experience was another dimension in that my first twenty years of life were spent in a very traditional denomination. and the rnsuing five decades have been lived as a United Church person. My two-register voice was also part of the choir that tested the hmony of different theological orientations.

In addition to the new data gathered. 1 revisited material from a pilot study in which another group of four women were interviewed about the formulation and fruition of their life dreams.'' 1 deemed that two of the wornen who were interviewed for the paper. "Where Have Al1 the Flowers Gone?". were suitable subjects for the current project. They agreed to work further with me in my ongoing endeavoun.

Audio-taped interviews with five women and stories of the lives of women are at the heart of the study. 1 had considered the possibility of doing case studies (Stakes ch. 1)

''The concept of fomulating life dreams is the work of Dr. Al Evans, Professor of Religious Studies at Waterloo University. He says that a major developrnental task for people in their late teens or eariy twenties is to form the dreams for their mes. The major question at this time is "What are you going to do with your life?" The drearn is a mature life-style plan made ~?pof decisions for the various facets of one's friture life. (Taped lecture #20 for the course "Religious Studies 271 ." Waterloo University, 1996.) 22 to examine the expenences of the subject women over a signifiant period of time rather than to employ a single encounter with each of them. During the first interview in which

I participated. 1 realized that women are more than open to telling their stones in depth and that they have a comprehensive and objective perspective on the sixty or more years that they have iived. The intenriews of about rwo-ana-one-haif hours ciuration each sufficiently provided the field tests needed for this dissertation.

In contrast to a traditional. closely structured interview. my intention was to impose very httk direction on the interviewing process. But blargo Ely writes that every interview has structure: for some the fon is pre-determined as was oRen the case for earlier research rnethods. and for others the parameters are shaped throughout the interview. a more common practice in current qualitative research (58). 1 had imagined that the time spent would be more like a conversation among friends rather than a dialogue adhering to a formal structure. However. being in a state of preparedness. 1 assembled a set of questions and prompts (Appendix A) to use in case the conversations fa1 tered.

Several broad areas were covered through the minimal use of the questionnaire. 1 asked my CO-researchersto reflect on their early lives as having been Iived with the effects of the Great Depression. 1 encouraged the women to reflect on their social. educational. and spirituai experiences as young women: I prompted them to share memories of times when God was very present in their lives. They reiated expenences of being comected to other people and to creation; they spoke of crises that changed the courses of their lives. Each woman was invited to do some dreaming about how the last quarter of her life rnight unfold.

1 chose to intenveave the threads of data derived fiom the reading throughout the dissertation rather than to set aside a separate chapter for a literature review. The aim was

70 create a seamless link between theory and the practice embodied in the inquiry"

(Clandinin and Connelly 4 1). An intenveaving of al1 of the data fiom the beginning to the end of the piece seemed to me to be more in keeping with the nature of narrative inquiry vis-à-vis formats rmployed in traditional quantitative research.

While qualitative study seeks to understand more fully other human beings (Ely

21 9) and is an excellent tool for investigating the world at large. it is aiso a metaphor for

an exploration into the Self (1 08). The -transaction arnong what is done and learned and

felt by the researcher." that is. an interplay between affect and cognition. is forged (1).

The process of interviewing is a lived experience through which two subjectives intersect

(Richardson 14 1). The researcher cornes out of the process a different person fiom who

she was when she entered the story. Rebecca Luce-Kapler has noted this verity about

such li fe experiences:

(l)t is impossible for a person to step into the same river twice. From one moment

to the next. new water arrives. the current changes. a stray ieaf falls fiom a tree

ont0 the surface or a school of fish glide by. . . . From moment to moment,

day to day? nothing cm be exactiy as it was before (Teaching and Writing 1).

Someone entering into an intimate. mutually shared expenence must be prepared to be

intenorly transformed in some measure.

Clandinin and Comelly observe that the process of narrative inquiry is one of 24

-3ntertwined experience of researcher and participant" (Denzin and Lincoln 4 14). When the relationship has deepened to the extent that its mutualiv shapes the nature of the text, then the participants move from being researcher and subject (419) to being researcher and CO-researcher. The process changes from collecting and contributing data to affirrning and confirming the spirituality (Waters 63) of two people collaborating on creating and interpreting a text.

Some cautions need to be raised about the exclusive reliance on narrative enquiry to yield consistently unassailable outcornes. While Silverman advocates for

"authenticity" rather than reliability for the results of qualitative research (10). the possible "nsks. dangers and abuses" lurking on the fnnges of narrative inquiry need to be an ever present concern. according to Clandinin and Connrlly ( 18 1). The two writers detail the possibilities of fiction being substituted for meaning and narrative truth when researchers do not listen closely to their critics or do not subject their matenal to rigorous critical analysis. Writing fiction and constnicting empirical narrative require two discrete

are Ceifis that rarely both found in one individual. The researcher needs to avoid being seduced into the realrn of fiction Miting in which "narrative smoothingWisan acceptable literary device which prefers that plots have happy endings. As well as processing stones that are articulated. a researcher needs to be as alert to the stones not told as she is to those that are verbalized (1 8 1- 182).

What is one to do with the stories once they become part of the field texts? The narratives are interpretations by the women of their lives which in tum are interpreted by the hearer. A wriaen story invites added interpretation by the reader (Clandinin and 25

Comelly 180). If the process goes no funher. the narrative stays at the fiction stage. but in narrative inquiry both the reader and the writer are invited to offer interpretations of the story. A wakefulness must be maintained by the researcher at every stage of inquiry if analysis and theory building are to be reliable. Inattention could result in simplistic plots. scenarios. and unidimensional characters (1 82).

The next task was to organize the copious amount of material gathered so that analysis and writing could commence. Silvennan advises that before hting begins a critical task is to get rid of most of the data that one has accumulated and to retain only the essence of the material (37). 1 transcribed the audio tapes and sorted notes and other

~nnenand printed matter to prepare to code the data (Strauss ch. 5) in order to make carelûl seiections of the strongest findings. As I went through a line-by-line dissection of the mscripts (63). 1 indicated each relevant topic with a "sticky" marker containing a word or phrase from the questionnaire. Sorting. naming. and categonzing aided in distilling main themes: that is. grounded theory. emerged from the women's stories.

As 1 worked at transcribing the words fiom audio-tape to paper. 1 not only thoroughly absorbed the material. but I became intimately acquainted with al1 of the women. In fact. it seemed at times that they had invaded my psyche to the point that they inhabited rny night dreams. At the end of the process 1 gave each woman a copy of the transcript of her interview for her comments and corrections. In essence she became a CO- author of sections pertaining to her stop (Clandinin and Comelly 175).

Two processes were concomitant with the interviews taking place. The fint was to carefully observe nonverbal elements expressed by the interviewees and evidenced in 36 their milieu. These observations were recorded as field notes as soon afier the interview as possible to supplernent the audio-recording of the speaking that ~anspired(Silveman

36-10). 1 watched for body language that might indicate such reactions as discornfort. excitement. or tiredness. The physical spaces in which the women live would in some cases be informative as well. Ihe organization anci the decor oîfheir homes and signs of artistic and literary interests would help to round out my impressions of the natures and occupations of the women.

The second activity had to do with theological reflection on the womrn's stones.

The question that needed to be asked constantly was "Where is God in al1 of this?" As a lay woman who is adjunct to the professional field of theology. 1 needed to gain a better understanding of how theological retlection cmbe done in depth. 1 read the book. HOM: io Think Theologically by Howard Stone and James Duke. I found that the authon recommend a course with which 1. as a United Church member. am fmiliar-the

Wcsleyan (Methodist) quadrangle. The four corners represent the aspects from which one reflects on life experiences--scripture. tradition. reason. and expenence (43). For me these are familiar lenses through which 1 see God in my iife and in the lives of others. To sharpen theological reflection into a feminist focus. the writings of women such as

Valene Saiving were helpful. In her essay. 'The Human Situation: A Feminine View." she States, "It is my contention that there are significant differences between masculine and feminine experience and rhat the feminine experience reveals in a more emphatic fashion certain aspects of the hurnan situation . . ." (Christ and Plaskow 27).

To Meravoid the "risks. dangers and abuses" of narrative w-riting flagged by Clandinin and Comelly (1 8 1 ). 1 remained intellectually aware of tnangulation as a validation strategy. When data. field notes. and participants are interactive. Ely posits that if convergence occurs of at least two pieces of data. for example, data gathered by dit-erent methods. the authenticity of the information is verified. Or the results could indicate inconsistency and contradiction. Ely implies that if an issue appears in only one interview or if information is found in only one source. the likelihood of the data being useful is negligible (97-98).

In the context of qualitative research. 1 felt some discornfort at an intuitive level with the restrictive nature of Ely's directives. Validation by triangulation seemed to be a vestige of quantitative method that is incompatible with the process of narrative inquiry.

Laurel Richardson advances crystallization as an appropriate poststnicturalist methodology. She says that "Crystals reflect. refract. change. and grow." Crystallization de-constructs traditional definitions of validity (1X) by acknowledging that there are more than "three sides" by which to approach the world (92). Each of our life stories has multiple facets that need to be viewed from different angles to gain the full effect of various refractions of light passing through them. Richardson's approach to evaluating the significance of data seemed to me to be a better method than the use of traditional

validation strategies.

Another consideration was that of ethics being foundational to the collecting and handling of data. This is especidly imperative in areas of confidentiality of interview matenal and in use of the works of other people. Vigilance must be exercised in obtaining permission fiom the participants in regard to audio tapine interviews, in using the information that subjects have proffered. and in employing pseudonyms of their choice in reponing of the material. These understandings were formalized by use of consent foms (Appendix B) signed by both the women interviewed and by mysrlf. As well. 1 provided each participant with a transcript of her interview to so that she could validate the authenticity of the material recorded (Ely 93).

My own involvement. reactions. and well-being were docurnented. 1 kept a record of field notes of the experiences of intervie~ving.notes on reading and information

~athering.and journal envies detailing my penonal wrll-being as work progressed. The C

latter exercise consisted of ~itingon a daily basis reflections that were introspections on how 1 was feeling. In addition to the writing tasks. 1 worked with a spiritual director for most of a year on a monthly basis. an activity which helped me to reflect on my own spirituality.

As I write this dissertation. my vision is to exercise "ski11 in weaving descriptions. speakers' words. field notes. quotations, penonal interpretations" (Strauss

22) and threads from the reading into a nch. textured narrative. Entwined with the warp and woof of the tapestry of the piece is theological and spintual reflection. I believe that such a format enhances the readability of my thesis without compromising a systematic

way of building. synthesizing. and integrating knowledge (22). My goal is that 1 will add

in some small degree to the knowledge. joy. and sense of well-being of the crones that we

are or will be. 3.

Meeting the Women

Birr thrre 's wisdorn in ivomen, of more trhan they have known, And tholighis go bloiving rhrough (hem, are wiser thon their own. "

We are six women who are living in the seventh decade of our life journeys. We

are different from each other in some ways; yet in many respects we share a common

context, and we live with similar values. Our lives began in both urban and rural

environments; educational levels vary from having completed high school to having done

post graduate work. The life works of us crones include three nurses, two educators

(including myself) and one department store employee. Of course alongside those

vocations there has been the ubiquitous homemaking and child rearing, work that was a given for women of our generation. Current forma1 church affiliations are two Roman

Catholics. three United Church rnembers. and one woman who has belonged to two

different consemative churches. Three of us have been manied to our first and only

spouses for many years- and three have gone through divorces.

As well as our differences, we have a number of characteristics in cornrnon. We

were a11 born in the 1 930fs,ranging in ages from sixty to sixty-nine. All, or a good

portion, of each of Our lives has been lived in the Prairie provinces of Canada, especially in

Alberta. We are al1 mothers of daughters, (three of us have no sons), and of course we

are grandmothers. Our ancestors are of Anglo-saxon or continental European hentage,

so we represent a specific spectrum of Canadian dernographics. Our spiritual expressions

i3RupertBrooke. 1914 and Other Poems (1 9 15). "There's Wisdom in Women."

29 singularly emanate from the Christian context.

Kirsten

Kirsten and 1 sit ar the kitcheddining room table of her manse home which is situated in a medium-sized toun in the northwestern United States. This is the eighteznth domicile. only two ot'which houses she and her pasror spouse have owned. and one of four countnes in which she has lived during her sixty-seven years of life.

Outside is a wm.haq-sunny June moming, but we are oblivious to the elements. so intent are we on the task of telling, hearing. and audio taping the stories that well up from Kirsten's "memory bank." as she names it.

She recalls her early childhood living on a small farm in a mostly German- speaking community in central Alberta. Kirsten says that theirs was -*asimple agarian style of life" arnid a cluster of relatives and centered on a traditional. conservative

German-language church.

Her parents' resolute determination to provide secondary education for the four daughters in the family was fulfilled against great odds. The neighbors could see little rationale for second. education generaily and even less for girls' educations. "Why are you sending girls to school? Because al1 they will do is grow up and get mamed." The financial strains of having to send teenagers away to receive a hi& school education were great: the parents raised chickens for eggs and meat and milked a few cows to supplement the meager Depression farm income. Her mother and father were ahead of their tirne in raising their daughters to believe that girls are not inferior just because they are girls.

At fifieen years of age Kirsten. following in the path of her two older sisters, was sent to a Lutheran residential hi& school. These three years were followed by nurses' training in a hospita1 sening which in the 1950's was the usual pattern for nurses'

&cation. In return for three years of working long hours on wards. student nurses received a pittance of an allowance and their nuning educations.

Before Kirsten began steady work in nursing. she manieci a newiy ordaineci minister tiom the same Protestant denomination in which she was raised. After eighteen years of being the pastor 's ivifr. a change in denominational affiliation, and the rearing of four children. she was able to renew her nursing credrntials and spent ten years in administrative roles in psychiatnc nursing in Calgary and California. That decade was a very hlfilling time for Kirsten.

When her husband accepted a cal1 to be a chaplain to residents in a seniors' cornplex in Wisconsin. her life slipped back into the adjunct role of being a pastor3 wife in the denomination in which they had lived their early lives. However. she more intentionally set aside time for contemplation and expanded her ministry of intercessory prayer and spiritual companioning.

At the present time. Kirsten and her husband are semi-retired. living in the state of

Washington. and doing part-time team ministry to retired clergy persons.

Elizabeth

We are meeting in a Spartan third-floor dormitory residence room overlooking

English Bay in Vancouver. The time is midJune and Elizabeth and 1 are enrolled in an eight-day course, but today we are purloining tirne between sessions to tell and hear each otherosstories. The rain outside makes us feel safe and dry within the fortress walls of the old limestone building. and we agree that there is no better way to spend this rainy

Sunday in Vancouver.

Elizabeth has lived al1 of her sixty-one years in urban settings--at first in a large

Albena city and later in Caribbean communities. She recalls the first ten years of her life as being sheltered and financially secure. Then suddenly her father died, leaving her mother. who had no work training or skills. to provide for her younger sister and herself.

Had it not been for the largesse of a citizen who left his estate to provide homes for widows with children. they would have experienced great duress to merely survive. At the time there was almost no social safety net other than a srna11 widow's allowance and even smaller children's allowances.

A small minority of girls of Elizabeth's age group were encouraged to pursue education beyond high school. As was common for young women in a position to further their rducations. shr chose to go into nursing. This route was one means of obtaining a post secondary education with limited financial resources. She reminisced that there were not many career choices for wornen in the era in which she grew up, and generally

"women weren't particularly encouraged either."

She manied afier graduating as a nurse. but continued to use her nursing skills in part time work for five years while her spouse completed articling for his chartered accountant's certification. During those yean their only child. a daughter. was born. She remembers being *-as poor as church mice" in that time. but that they managed with the support of her mother for child care.

The couple had always wanted to live in another part of the world. When an 33 opportunity appeared in the form of a newspaper advertisement seeking an accountant in the Bahamas. her husband applied. and they moved. What they thought would be a three- year stint. turned into twenty-five years before she returned to Alberta.

Underneath what appeared to be the idyllic life of the wife of a successful business man. Elizabeth began to experience an existential restlessness. What followed was a period in her life that she says !vas "physically hard . . . and al1 so confusing in many ways." She le% the marriage and rventually returned to Alberta where she began to build an independent. self-sufficient life for herself. Early in her new status she sought out AL-ANON. an organization that supports family members of alcoholics: her husband's addiction. she feels. was integral to their mamage break-up. She also re- co~ectedwith the United Church in an intentional and active mariner.

At the present time she feels an urgency to Fulfill her life goals. She doesn't want to "dilly dally" about quenching her insatiable thirst for Iearning, growing. and becoming a whole person.

Carmen

It is shortly afier nine o'clock on an early-October morning when 1 arrive at

Carmen's condominium home. There is a chill in the air because ive have had an early snowfall fmom which the effects linger. Carmen has recently moved out of the family house to her *'condom'and still has too many packing boxes and possessions to fit comfortably into the avaiiable space. She offers coffee. and we seale into our conversation. Cannen expresses some nervousness about speaking to a microphone, but her tension eases as we begin to visit. 34

Carmen was born sixty-nine years ago. the youngest of four children of a devout

Roman Catholic man and woman. She remembers being very poor after the loss of the srna11 farm, possibly due to the gambling habits of her father. The family lived in a small east central Alberta town where her mother was worn down by too much physical work- cooking for threshing crews during the harvest. washing floors and walls for other families. washing clothes for the bachelon in tom.

In spite of little attention being paid to her at home. Carmen remembers childhood as being "kind of a nice life as 1 remember it." She was free to habituate other homes in the community where she found companionship of other children. warmth from carhg adults. and food such as oranges. milk and cookies that she did not ofien get at home.

There was vinually no communication or evidence of emotional expression in her home. so she was not aware of how her parents felt about their lives or about each other. But she does Say. "1 thought we weren't wanted . . . but how many kids were wanted in those days?"

Although she was a good student. she lefi school after grade twelve to marry a young man who had corne to town to work. Beginning a married life at barely eighteen ycars of age seemed like a path to security since she was not &en the opportunity to get hrther education. She soon found out that her spouse was not a well man and that her life would be one of bending to his controlling and manipulative penonality.

Shortly after she becarne a married woman. she leamed that her mother had left her father. It was a shock to Carmen when she learned that her mother had been setting aside srnail amounts of rnoney over a long period of time so that she could Ieave the small 35 town in which they lived and go to Edmonton to find work as a domestic servant. In spite of the paucity of affection that characterized her childhood home. Carmen felt and still

feels the pain of being without a nuclear family at a time when she needed emotional

mooring in her life.

Afier having borne five children and having stayed wth the marnage for twenty-

five years. she sought a separation. The courts were not sympathetic to a woman leaving

a sick husband. so there would be no support for herself or the children. "Where does

that leave you? You have to stay." However. she defied her husband's directives and

found a job at a large department store where she eamed her own money for almost the

first time in her life.

The marriage relationship continued to deteriorate as her spouse became

increasingly controlling. Carmen emotionally recalled a conversation in which she told

her husband that the only tliings that she could control in her life anymore were her

basement and her weight. He had not been able to walk down the stairs for quite a few

years. so she could leave that area of the house as cluttered as she wanted to. When he

would Say to her. "If you didn't eat that. you wouldn't be fat." she continued to eat. It

was another twenty-three years of life-sapping existence before she made the final break

and left the maniage arnid a maelstrom of spousal tantrums.

Carmen is beginning to enjoy life on her own and is working with improving her

health deryean of' stress and suppression. She feels that she is finally beginning to Free

her spirit. Hilda

"Mv early years I remember as happy years, rven though it was the end of the

Depression" is how Hilda began her life story. We are sitting in her living room with a view to the crystal-clear early October day outside. Her husband is away for the day. so we have the house and the time to ourselves. She settles in comfortably in the corner of the chesterfield and we continue our visit.

As a child growing up in a small community in Manitoba sixty-one years ago and onward. she says that they were a reasonably well-off farnily compared to people who were dependent on fming for a livelihood. Her father was a well driller who was away from home a lot. but whose homecoming wouid always result in a celebration. She remembers ~varmth.security. and love in her early Me.

When Hilda was nine years old. her father died of a heart attack. This created a drastic shifi in economic and social circurnstances for her mother who was left with two daughten. nine and six. and a son. four. to provide for. Hilda says that her rnother's situation was akin to the biblical widows who "were cast aside?' hmsociety.'" To compound Hilda's anger at God for having caused her father's death. three years later her grandfather died. Two people who were very important to her had been unexplainably taken away.

The two primary women in Hilda's life. her mother and her gandmother. are credited with lûying the character foundations for the woman that she would become.

'"Widows described in the biblical accounts were among the poorest and most powerless memben of society. Examples are Naomi, whose story is found in the book of Ruth, and the widows referred to in Mark 12:40 and Luke 185. 37

Her mother heiped her to undersrand that it was not God who caused the deaths of her father and her grandfather. The older women taught her to be independent. to look out for herself. and to make her own decisions.

Her mother did not work out of the home. so finances were always a concern.

Hilda assumed responsibilip almost as a surrogare parent to support her mother and her siblings psychologically. She says that her mother never complained. but had it not been

for farnily help. rheir situation could have bren dire. In spite of limitations, Hilda's mother placed a high value on education so that her children would never find themselves in the dependent situation in which she found herself.

Hilda chose nursing as a career because it was one occupation open to women with lirnited money. She finished three years of training and then eamed enough money to go to the University of Toronto to eam a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing.

Afier graduating. she rnamed a second year veterinary medicine student. For the next five years they lived in a university city where he completed his degree and she worked as a nursing instructor in a Roman Catholic school of nursing.

After those years she only briefly used her nursing skills in a paid capacity, but she became what she calls "being a professional volunteer for thirty years." Their daughter and son were bom while they lived in a small community in Manitoba where her husband had a veterinaq practice.

Hilda has been involved in various community activities as a volunteer. Her most consistent and most satis-ng underrakings have been the work that she has done and is doing in the United Church. In addition to satisfaction in her work, she rates her 38 relationship with her husband as being very good. He is supportive in what she does. but he also is his own person. She predicts that they will grow old together supporting each other.

Hilda concluded Our conversation by saying, "1 think I'm still leaming . . .when

I'm just reaaing or tninking. rnere's some new insighrs and i gucss thal For me is good and it's healthy . . . . 1 just hope that I never stagnate."

Sophia

It is early December now. and 1 have dnven over icy roads to anive at Sophia's town house near Calgary. This is the last interview. and although we have had to delay

Our connecting a couple of times. 1 believe that Sophia has an important story to tell. and we have persistrd in trying ro meet with each other.

1 notice the variety and quality of the art pieces that adom her home. The decor seems to be an expression of a person who loves sensory things-color. texture. tactility.

We are not very long into Our conversation when the word fear appears. She was bom sixty years ago as the oldest child of a very strict Roman Catholic mother. "You went to church . . . you said your prayers because you had to . . . you did not ask questions." Religious life was controlled by a fear of God. and education in a convent sening was controlled by fear of the nuns.

Sophia's father died of causes that she did not explain when she was five-and- one-half years old. Her mother at the time was pregnant with her second child, a boy.

The family returned to the bmdparents' home in Alberta from New York where they had no family or other support systems around them. After the baby was born they moved into their oun place.

Sophia describes her family as ". . . very. very dyshnctional. We had a lot of elephants in Our living room." Her mother was an exceedingly lonely, angty, sad woman whose daughter could never do anything right or good enough. The extended farnily was parriarcnai and maic-orieii~ed.su itiucii su tiiüt Supiiiii àibi.i?s Mt iiiargiiidized.

hother word that she uses to describe her life is lanely. She could rarely bring fnends home because her mother approved of so few of them. Consequently she became a person who "spent a lot of tirne in my head--fantasizing,.' and she developed a voracious appetite for reading.

After she completed hi& school. she took university education in the field of home economics upon the directive of her mother. She wanted to be in science snidies. but as she went further into her education. she learned that what she would have wanted to study above al1 elsc was psycho log^ and counseling. Her mother objected to this direction. so Sophia never became involved in her preferred courses of study. She did not use her home economics degree excepr in the teaching work that she did for four years in nonhern British Columbia.

While she was teaching there, she met her ex-husband who worked in the lurnber industry. She says that she married for the wrong reasons and lived in an abusive relationship for many years. However. one life-giving comection did corne out of the mmiage. In contrast to her own mother with whom she could never have conversation? she bonded with her mother-in-law who was sornething of a role mode1 for her and who set Sophia on the path of questioning and searching in matters of church, God, and spirituality.

She lived a very suppressed life until she was asked to do catechetical teaching for her three daughters and for others in the parish in which they lived. "It just opened up a whole new world for me." She went on from there to become a part-time catechetical instructor. then the catrcheticai CO-ordinator.and tinaiiy the parish pastorai associate.

When her youngest daughter was in grade twelve. Sophia was asked to take a job to form a tearn ministry in a retreat centre in southem Alberta. She had known for some time that her rnarriage was falling apart. so this move gave her a change of venue. She loved the counseling. spiritual directing. and twelve-step program work that she did. Her creative energies blossomed.

After seven years of trail blazing work as a lay woman in a retreat centre. she was relieved of her job. The politics in the church had retumed to more conservative practices. and she was released without ceremony and closure. This was a major blow to her psychological health. In retrospect she knows that she ought to have taken more time to recoup. but since her marriage had ended and she had no means of support. she immediately took a job at an addiction treatment centre.

In the four-and-one-half years that she worked there. she felt henelf being suffocated and dying spiritually. She lefi that work and is now doing contract work on several fronts. and more imponantly she is studying toward a master's degree.

Sophia does not know where the next few years will lead her, but she feels an urgency to iive life to the fullest in the "ten or so years" that she has left. She knows that she is through running away fkom pain and that God will be with her whatever happens. The Sixth Woman

My voice forms part of the texture of the story of older women. 1. too, am of the generation of women who began life when the Great Depression was wreaking havoc with the souls of people in western Canada. 1 know the story fiom the point of view of a girl bom at the end of 1930 to a man and woman who were eking out a iiving on a smaii fmin centrai Alberta.

In spite of the excmciating economic pain with which my parents lived, 1 can remember childhood as being as happy and as secure as was that of any child in our comrnunity. We were clothed. sheltered. fed simply but nutritiously, and went about the business of being part of a family of four girls.

We grew up on the farm that was next to a family of four male cousins. Although

Our parents did not make us feel unworthy for being bom female. these boys let it be known to us that males are the superior gender. Even then. although it was not so narned, the seeds of feminism began to sprout in rny psyche. Those boy cousins were not going to pt away with rirnning us off the road into muddy ditches as we walked to school.

Neither were they going to do better than 1 did in school. which point t proved by winning a Govemor General's medal for academic excellence in grade nine? Even burrs mder saddles serve a Function to spur us on to be the best that we can be.

Our parents were dedicated to seeing that each of us received post secondq

"1 feel a sense of arrogance as I write about myself being an excellent student. Carolyn Heilbruil speaks of the self-effacing nature of women's autobiographies as compared to those of men. ". . . (S)uccesses are muted as though women were certain of nothing but the necessity of denying both accomplishments and suffering" ( Writing 23). It is revealing to me that 1 carry such deeply ingrained inhibitions. education. The phrase to justi- their sacrifice was. '-. . . so that you will be able to look aber yourself whatever happens." That to me translated into not having to be dependent on a man for my well-being.

My dream for life's work was to be a medical doctor. The route 1 would go would be to take teacher training for one year. earn rnoney to go back to univenity. and enter the faculty of medicine. However. mine is the classic story of a young woman being sent to a rural one-roomed school. marrying a farmer. and fi@ years later still living in the same community.

Most days 1 do not resent the life 1 have had. In the cloudy times when 1 want to feel depressed 1 recount a11 of the things that 1 gave up to be the wife of this man--my maiden narne. my community. my church affiliation. my chosen career. But for wornen of my time. "That is just the way it was?

1 rrmember clearly the day that I felt that I had become part of the community.

About ten years afier 1 arrived as a nineteen year-old teacher. 1 was dnving by the cemetery. and a thought clearly came to me. "1 wouldn't mind being buried there with that 'community of saints."' The ironic part of that incident is that 1 do not want to be interred at all; I want my end to be cremation.

And then on my sunnier days 1 acknowledge al1 that has been good in my life. 1

l6 'mat is just the way it was?' is a comment that has been said in one way or another by most of the women whom 1 have interviewed. The most poignant expression of this si& occurred when 1 was interviewing Betty for a pilot project that 1 titled "Where Have Al1 the Flowers Gone?" The thesis was to investigate what had happened to the life dreams of women formulated in their late teens or early twenties. Betty, now in her Iate sixties, observed that many of her dreams could never corne to hition because her yem were spent simply accommodating to life as she found it. have over the years been able to do university studies: my sporadic teaching and administration career totaled twenty years; for the past two decades I have been free to do

challenging. interesting volunteer work; we are the parents of four daughters al1 of whom are strong, independent professional wornen and who are also the CO-parentsof our eight

prandchildren. Although there have been bumps in our marriage relationship, it has C

rnatured through fony-seven years to a place where we say to each other. "1 donTtknow

what 1 would do without you."

So here 1 am--finally fulfilling a life-long dream of completing a post graduate

college degree. From Where We Have Corne

A neiv psychological theory in ivhich girls and women are seen and heard is an inevitable challenge to the potriarchal order that can remain in place only rhrough the continued eclipse of ivomen 's e.rperience.I7

Presently in the crone-stage oiOur lives, we are women who are the sum of rie many life experiences that each of us has had. Our lives began in the historical-economic context of the Great Depression. colloquially know as rhe Dirfy Thirties. Socially and culturally ours was a strongly patriarchal society in which political changes were beginning to be barely perceptible in regard to issues of women's statuses. Churches were for the rnost part male dominated in govemance and in ecclesial leadership.

Stephen Bevans w&es of the importance of context. He argues for a recognition of the vaiidity of human expenence as being the source of reality, a reality that is mediated into meaning within the context of our cultural or Our historical period (2). The extemal factors of historical events, intellectual currents, cultural shifts, and political forces are constituents that shape our uniqueness (5). According to Bevans, more important than forces outside us are the contextual influences that are intemal and incarnational (spintual)

(7) that help to make sense of our reality at a certain place and in a certain time (2).

For our mothers life was lived in the context of hard work and little money. For the first half of the twentieth century Alberta was still very much in a pioneenng mode of

"Carol Gilligan. In a Dzfferent Voice: Psychological Theory and Women 's Development. From the foreword, "A Letter to Readen," 1993, xxiv. development (Berton 39). and physical survival was for most people a daily preoccupation. Carmen comments rhat "We have seen the work that our parents had to do to swive . . . but everybody in tom. practicaily. was poor." Life was lived without electricity and one small luxury was a little banery-operated rnantle radio that %e just ioveà. . . . Like so many others we haci a coai and wooà stove and outdoor toiiers." Siie remembers her mother making soap. hauling slop out in a bucket. hauling in wood and coal. and hauling out ashes. Thcir mode of transportation was hones and a wagon or walking.

By 1936 the depths of depression in al1 meanings of the word had hit the prairies.

In Alberta Premier Aberhart increased minimum wages and bolstered crop insurance. but he could not make il min (Berton 355). Droughi and wind becarne enemies compounding the dire economic crash that saw fmcomrnodities sink out of sight. In fact. money was almost unknown and pa)ments were made in kind when there was some kind with which to make payments (357). Other segments of the economy followed the agicultural industry into steep decline. and it was not until World War II began that there was any revival of economic circumstances.

In perusing the book. The Lasr Besr West. 1 could identi& with the conditions portrayed. especially for farm women. The texts and photographs of what life was like in the early 1900's revealed scenes of the same hardships and traumas that my mother had to endure. Sirnilar to the picture of a family starting out for the homestead in an ox-driven cart (Bruce 7), my mother as a young bride in the early winter of 1924 set out with my father for a two-day wagon trip from near Edmonton to the virgin, treed quarter section of 46 land that would be their home for the next thirty years. There were no arnenities to start with and very few when they moved away from the farm in the early 1950's.

Socially and culturally life was not easy. For the video, *'Prairie Women", one woman recalls that fi@ years ago farm women especially sought ways to overcome isolation. Another contributor to the conversation described the plight of rural women as being -gprisonersin farm house prisons'' where monotony. isolation. and loneliness were a way of life. She might not see other women for months or even yean.

Seeing beyond their lives of hardship and deprivation. the women dreamed of a better life 'and made great sacrifices to that end. One woman recounts her early experiences by sayinp that there were no graveled roads. let alone paved roads. yet women would meet. organize. and lobby for necessities such as hospitals. ambulances. and a national health scheme. They joined together in organizations such as the United

FmWomen of Alberta to work for social justice. peace. and co-operation. Sometimes the effort required to get to meetings involved arising at four in the moming to get the fmand household chores done so that they could spend a day at a meeting.

When asked. "Did you work?" the reply of one woman was. "1 fed cattle. 1 milked cows. 1 helped with the harvestingo'-- al1 of this in addition to the rearing of children and doing household work with no labour-saving appliances.

Another wornen recalls that she was billed as a "woman speaker" at a grain growerso meeting and discovered that she was the only female in a room filled with men.

She made some pointed remarks to the gathered assembly about the absence of fami wives at such a gathering. It had never occurred to the men that women might be interested in agicultural meetings or to invite their wives to corne along.

Violet McNaughton. the women's editor for the Kesrern Producer, provided a medium through the newspaper for women to share ideas. experiences. and dreams.

Major themes were anti-war sentiments. need for access to birth control information. and challenging an èconomic system thar put profits before humanity. There was a new voice of protest in the West.

One wornan contnbuting to the video spoke out about husbands being opposed to any activism that their wives initiated. "Women were not listened to senousiy. . . . It makes me very an-gy looking back." Another wornan shared this anger and said that she wished she had had more courage to challenge mer. in those days. Attitudes such as pacifiing the "little woman by humouring her" and chastising females for not "acting like women" caused this commentator to wonder why she had stood for it for so long ("Prairie

Women").

Monica Hopkins reminisces in her essay entitled "W~men"'~about life on a ranch near Pnddis. Alberta. "By now 1 realize that this is essentially a man's country and that a woman was practically to sink her own identity and take on her husband's interests."

With a simple domestic lifestyle. housework could be done in a few hours. Books and sewing helped to fil1 the social and mental void. but more was needed. It was not practical to go out riding and visiting every day. so interest in her husband's pursuits was absolutely necessary. "Another thing I have found is that it is useless grousing over the inevitable." Men would take for grmted that the woman would drop everything to accede

I8The essay is an excerpt fiom Log Cabin und We Two by Monica Hopkins. 48 to his unannounced agenda--housing an unexpected visitor or providing extra rneals from meager grocery supplies ( Robertson 44).

Pierre Berton has chronicled the years of 1929-1939 in his book. The Great

Depression He tells of the terror and helplessness that people felt in the face of disease epidemics. There wre no antibiotics and tèw vaccines. While tuberculosis was a scourg. the real horror was poliomyelitis (39). A Red Cross worker called the results of

illness and suffering -'the apathy of despair?' (359). 1 have vivid mernories of the winter of 1 942- 1 943 when three of us children contracted rheumatic fever. Our parents lived in

a state of psychological paralysis because there was nothing that they could do except pray and administer aspirîns.

The birthing of children was ofien a huge trauma for women. Carmen concedes

that her "own knowledge of life was pretty vague and it was al1 from books and stories

where everybody lives happily ever aller." In an essay."Childbirth". Edith Lazonby says

that she asked herseif as a young pregnant woman. "How were babies bom anyway? 1

would buq myself in the drep prairie gass and weep for my mother." The nearest doctor

lived fi@ miles away, so having access to medical care meant going to Humboldt in a

sleigh through a cold prairie blizzard. Those conditions necessitated that her husband,

with a copy of .Advice io n WVe in hand. would deliver the baby (Robertson 56).

Societal attitudes were narrow and more rigid than most that we see today.

Breast-feeding and raising of children were to be strictly controlled with little regard for the babies' tactile and emotional needs. and even the natural physical rhythm of children's bodies were accorded liale credence. Male chauvinism was dive and well; women weren't supposed to like sex. which subject was publicly taboo as were references to abortion. pregnancy. menstruation. and masturbation. Contraception was illegal; divorce was almost impossible to obtain (Berton 39-30).

The irnpediments to women's development did not suddenly begin in the 1930's.

Virginia Woolf wrote of the English patriarchal society. which intluence certamly was transported to North Amerka. In her 1929 book. d Room of'One 's Own. she speaks of women always having been poor (1 88) because few people wished women to be educated. Women were not given the physical or psychological room to exercise and develop thrir gifts (34). This atmosphere was also visible in Canada which was still very much a British nation in the early part of the century (Berton 41). Nellie McClung made it clear that a nation. England. that denies women the rights of citizens did not draw its policy from the Bible (McClung 18).

Neither did the suppression end with the 1930's. Elaine Chalus observes that societal myths persisting into the 1950's affected women by reinforcing traditional. sexually determined gender beliefs (Cavanaugh and Warne 124). Women were advised that they would be able to find true happiness and fulfilment only if they stopped envying and emulating men and accepted the fact that their destiny Iay in "sexual passivity, male domination. and nurturing matemal love" (1X).I9

Berton notes that Canada in the twenties was a racist nation (41). My co- researchers bear out the fact that oppressive societal attitudes about the other existed as

I9Quoted fiom ïhe Feminine klystique by Betty Friedan. New York: W.W. Norton and & Co., 1963, p. 43. 50 part of their early lives and persisted as they passed through the young-woman and mid- life stages of their being. Sophia spoke of growing up in a social environrnent that tolerated ami-Negro prejudice in her father who grew up in South Afnca and condoned overt avoidance of Ukrainians and Jews fiom her mother who had corne fkom a biased culture. Carmen remrmbers as a child feeling sony for those who were not Catholic because a suspicion of Protestants had been instilled in them.

That women marry at a young age and stay in the marriage whatever tmspired was an expecration of socirty. Carmen recalls entering mamiage at a young age with the impression that ". . . (E)verybody believed in marriage. If we had it rough. somebody else had it rougher. and you were just expected to straighten your shoulders and cary on." A similar perception is expressed by Sophia: "1 was supposed to get manied. right? 1 feil into it. Of our genrration. a lot if us were chameleons. We adapted to wherever we were, eood or bad. We got lost." Spinsterhood was the worst fate that could befall a woman. C

Another issue was that neighbors made it their business to comment on the timing of the amival of children. Hilda says that she knows that people wondered about her and her spouse because they were married for over five years brfore "we had our kids."

From Carmen's mernories. "People in those days they kind of watched to see when you were going to have your first baby." It seemed quite socially acceptable for people to publicly speculate on a women's reproductive cycles and choices in family planning.

in many families girls and wornen existed on a plane subordinate to the males.

There wasn't the sarne cntena of "success" for boys as for girls. Sophia recalls that her brother could get away with behaviour that she could not just because boys "do those 5 1 things." She also says that her uncles were patriarchs and that women didn't have a role.

Consequently "not many women of our generation went to university." The limitations in

Carmen3 life are expressed this way: "1 don? know if it is this old European thing that women don't work, but he didn't want me to work or anything. . . . He just wanted control-to be in charge of the situation."

In the political-legal context the stniggle by women to anain equal rights was ongoing. Until 1929 women had no right to ownership of property and in the case of widowed farm-women they were permitted to continue living on the land on which the home was situated without owning it: that is. they uere squatters. Women's work on the

farm was simply counted as "a labour of love" ("Prairie Women").

A major hurdle was attempted in 1926 when a bill was introduced into the Alberta legislature to establish common property rights between husbands and wives. The bill

was not passed (Rasmussenl ïO), and things went on as ususal. It was not until after the

Supreme Court of Canada in 1975 ruled against Irene Murdoch in her claim for a share of a farm on which she had shared the work with her comrnon-law husband that women had any hope of sharing conjugal property. The outcry from women's groups about the anti- woman decision resulted in reforms being enacted in provincial matrimonial property

iaws across Canada."

In 1929 because of the efforts of the Famous Five" headed by Emily Murphy? the

'O The Canadian Encyclopedia. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers' 198 5.

"The names of the five women are He~ettaMuir Edwards, Emily Murphy, Nelly McClung, Mary Irene Parlby. and Louise McKimey. 52 interpretation of the Conadian Constitution was changed to designate wornen as persons.

Until that tirne "women were pesons in matters of pains and penalties. but not persons in matters of nght and pnvileges" (Rasmussen 108). Althou& each of us women in the study were born persons. the effects of the suppressive pauiarchal attitude prevailed for

Our rnothers and lingered long aiter we ceased to be chiidren. it is iinle wonder that rnany wornen had little sense of Self--psychologically. rducationally. socially. and spiritually.

Canada was very much a male-oriented nation (Berton 373) in which women were caught in the morass of rigid. patriarchal moralism. Mothers in western Canada were not legally parents until after World Wu1 when the law was changed. The father had full power to manage al1 aspects of his children's lives without defemng to their mother

(Rasmussen 148). Reference to binh control was taboo: deaths from illegal abortions. many self-induced. were on the rise (Berton 368).

Dorthea Palmer was indignant when she was arrested for distributing information about contraceptive methods. "A wornan should be master of her own body." she told the arresting officen. "She should be the one to say if she should become a mother." Her words could be echoed in the great abortion controversy of the 1980's (370). The rationale for al1 of this was that contraception threatened the traditional authority of the husband. In the final judgment. however. a Depression argument won the case. How couId the nation sustain the financial burden of supponing large numbers of children that would be bom to dependent classes of low or no wage earners (374)?

Aninidinal changes are not quickly or easily won. As late as the 1970's Jacquie

Jerne, who was a well known activist in farm wornen's circles, is quoted as saying, "If 53 we want change we have to make it happen." Birth control taboos and sex prejudices that

had been ingrained for centuries had to be talked about if there was to be any freedom for

women ("Prairie Women").

Women gaining equality and recognition in religious institutions in North

America was also a slow and halting battle. Elizabeth Cady Stanton had crusaded in the

United States for women's rights and women's voices to be heard in the latter part of the

1800's. In 1895 she began ~vritingThe Woman 5 Bible. a senes of commentaries on

biblical passages involving women. Her premise was that women would continue to

suffer subordination economicaily and politically because the roots of oppression are

deeply ideological and religious. However. her work was officiaily repudiated and things

went on as they had for centuries (Christ and Plaskow 20).

With a few rare exceptions our mothers were pretty much voiceless in their

churches. Although Lydia Gruchy was ordained as a minister in the United Church of

Canada in 1936 (Taylor 1 19). many decades passed before there was a sense of equal

opportunity for women. An item about men in the church in The United Church

Observer States. "Not so long ago. men ran the United Church. They were the ordained

ministry. They filled the boards and courts of the church at al1 levels"(28). A photograph

on the cover of the issue shows a church board fiom 1959 in which there are sixty men

and two women."

Jean Stairs speaks of the historical place of women in the Baptist Church:

As women. our stories have cornrnon threads that weave a pattern expressing

"The United Church Observer, May 1997. women's creativity. courage and resilience as well as hstntions. perceived

obstacles and sources of discouragement. When recounting our expenences with

the denomination over the past two decades. women used terms ranging from

"mistrating and discriminating" to gwoppressive.unjust and wicked" (Lebans 19).

On behalf ot' Koman Catholic women Mary Oaly expresses impatience and disillusionment. "Catholicism had offered women compensatory and reflected glory through identification wîth Mary." She says that this is a means of deflecting fernale outrage and invalidating insight and hope (8 1-82). There was past acceptance of exclusion of half the hurnan race from a pnesthood where a boy is allowed to serve mass and a wornan holding a doctorai degree is excluded as if this was narrtral(133).

The voices of Carmen and Sophia personalize the opinions of Mary Daly.

Carmen recounts the campaign in her parish church to install a lavatory for the use of women. "1 think rny name is in the recorded history of our church as going to have a women's washroom (built) in the basement. I don? know what we did when we didn't have one." The suggestion was that the women developed a great capacity for continence and that they didn't drink very much. Sophia comments on the role of women in the

Roman Catholic Church: "Women weren't part of it. They just cleaned and cooked.

There was not a role for women. but remember there was not a role for laity either."

Donna Sinclair notes that in spite of male domination of religious institutions, women managed to find some ways to be subversive. One of the outstanding examples is the work of the Women's Missionary Society (W.M.S.) of the United Church of Canada.

Their organization consisted of a structure parallel to the main church structure ir, which women ran their own meetings. did fund raising. and had their own national executive secretary.

As was the case for women's farm organizations, the story is told of W.M.S. members living in isolated rural areas gening up at four in the moming to enable them to attend meetings (1 ). Even the most chauvinistic. paternalistic man could not deny women the right to do missionary work (3). The women developed self-esteem. self-confidence. leamed to prap in public. chaired meetings. led intensive studies. and stayed together (13).

This was happening in a society that encouraged them to believe that they were limited to marriage and motherhood (33). Although W.M.S. women would not have called themselves feminists. their method of operation and ethos would surely fit well into the activism that was namrd féminisrn some years afer their organization was absorbed into other United Church structures in 1962.

This is our context. Our history. our world. We are a bridging generation in that the world in ahich Our mothers lived and the world in which Our daughters and granddaughters live are eons apart. In speaking of her mother. Elizabeth says it was a wasted life--a very creative. "right-brained'?3 person with wonderhl intuition who never developed those talents at ail. 1 am reminded of my mother who never had the opportunity for education or to develop her artistic and musical talents to the full.

The generation of women of which 1 am representative have been the changing.

"Recent psychological research indicates that the functioning of the brain is much more complex and interrelated than what is implied by the right-bruin left-bain model. Researchen are more apt to describe thinking in ternis of modalities rather than polarities. Jerome Bruner speaks of cognition being meaning-centered and culturally- oriented ( 15). 56 adapting. testing-the-new-terrains kinds of women. Carmen notes that we have probably seen more changes in Our generation than any before us or any that will corne after us.

She observes. "It's a special thing being in Our generation." We glimpsed possibilities that Our mothers never dreamed of in the areas of careers and reproductive choices. Yet none of us couid live as hedy and assertiveiy as our daughrers are a'aie ro do.

"Our kids generation have much more choice" is the manner in which Sophia expressed the generational difference. "They can say 'no' better for which I'm glad because we didn't say 'no."' Several of the women noted that their daughters are much frerr in how they deal with their children than we were. They spoke of the wide choices of educational and career options and how their expectations of spouses being involved in domestic work and child care are quire different from what ours were as young women.

Whereas our mothen were designated as Mrs. Robert Jones. many of our daughters are keeping their maiden names.

Sorne of our early life experiences prevented us from coming into the "full flowef*that Lois Banner describes. The limited. confined lives of our mothers certainly had some effect on us as we were growing up. Hilda in speaking of the effect of her early life said. "1 always knew afier my dad died that financial security was not there. And probably that's one of the reasons 1 have a great deal of--1'm not a penny pincher but 1 realize that . . . today is one thing: tomorrow we could be on the Street . . . . And now we do have social safety nets which weren't there when my dad died."

AI1 of the women comrnented on the difficult economic times of the 1930's and early 1940's as having been a crushing experience for their parents. As children they did 57 not feel physical deprivation. but in many ways the parents' reactions and attitudes had an impact on the psychological and thus spiritual drvelopment of their daughters. Kirsten remembers her mother as not being strong or well because she had to work far beyond her physical capacity. Her mother's struggles with depression were characterized by periods of withdrawai anci siience. hirsren has woriird hard tu avoid bucii types ùf ri-sponses tù stresses throughout her adult years.

The women speak of the agents of change that make our lives different fiom those of our mothers. Development in medical and psychiatrie fields "has to have an effect even just on the self-help. psychological aspect." says Sophia. She further observes that we connect with ourselves and Our feelings. "We do have feelings. you know. We do have a brain and we have our purposr and it doesn't have to br just motherhood."

During World War II women had to be self-sufficient and found out they that could do things. Educational opportunities for us were opening up although we carried with us the perception that career choices were limited to traditional female occupations."l

Sophia remembers that ".4 woman going to university was unusual. really. Now it's a matter of course--more subjects. more areas of Ieaming. We have daughters in engineering."

In one way or another several wornen spoke of feminism as an agent of change.

"%esidesmanying? maintainine a home, and raising children, young women thought that they were limited in what work they could do. Those who had some hi& school education could go into nuning? secretarial work. or teaching. For others who did not have opponunities for secondary education, the choices were pretty much limited to being domestic workers, hair dressers, or waitresses. A few women broke through the stereoiyical barriers, but they were surely the exceptions. Hilda reflects:

1 see myself as a feminist--nor a radical feminist. Frminism means a great deal to

me . . . it means that I am able to do the things 1 wish to do. But 1 do think that we

have to keep pushing because 1 cm see us going backwards and 1 see the

eenerarion of my daugiiter (beiievingj

they have al1 the benefits and they have kind of jusî sat bac k. There is still

resistance to women doing things. Our generation have been the ones who have

pushed for wornen's rights: mind you. some of it started before us. but 1 think we

have continued.

We have continued indeed. We are the generation of women who are the bridge

builders between Our mothers' and Our daughters' generations. S.

Our Spirituai Experiences

To Jnd rhe present period in oiir spiritual lfi ive go bock over ozir inner lives ihat have led us ro ivhere rve are now. Ira Progoff

The propensity for spintual experience resides deep within the psyches of human beings. rhis phenornenon takes piace ar the ievei ofour imer Seives which Cari Jung has narned the unconscioils (Campbell 52). Religious expenence (spirîtuality) has its ongins in the unconscious and becomes part of the normal psychic functioning when it is brought into the conscious levei of our being. William James writes that religious experiences are psychological, and that spiritual srrength increases in the subject, prompting new life to open at the conflux of where two universes meet (James 553). Although James' witings predated much of Jung's work. his ideas fit well inro the theories of the latter with his reference to rwo universes, concepts that Jung labeled the conscious and uncomcious parts of the human psyche.

James funher States that religious experience involves direct personal communication with the Divine. Whatever people may consider that Divine to be, it is the basis of their spiritual power (35,36). The tasks of persons on spiritual journeys are to access the resources in the unconscious and to work with the symbols that arise so that what is unverbalized becomes part of their conscious understanding (556).

The writings of Anne Breman and Janice Brewi are based on the works of Cari

Jung. In concming with the importance that Jung placed on the second half of life, they emphasize developrnental tasks that people past the chronological midpoint of their lives 60 ought to undertake. -*Individuationis the task of the second half of life . . . the process of self-knowledge. self-acceptance. ego-transcendence. interionzation, and integration" (5).

Maturing is marked by continually naming ourselves in relation to Our imer environment and by discovering the unconscious depths within us (6. 7). God loves us and is always caiiing us to go beyonci wnere we are. so we may neea to emàrace Our snadow. or da.& side. as well as our good side (7) in order to foster growth toward wholene~s.'~Spiritual work that prrsons. particularly older women. undertake in the latter part of life needs to inciude coming to know the shadow side of themselves (82).

Knowledge from the unconscious breiiking into the conscious can happen in several ways. Unsolicited reactions may occur in response to sensory stimuli acting as symbols that become rvident through sights. scents. sounds. bodily Feelings. and intuitions (Progoff 60). Touching and tasting are two more senses that are utilized by the unconscious to do its work. Dreams that manage to rise to the conscious level are filled with symbolic language that has meaning for the drearner. These sleep-visions express the varying aspects of unconscious psychic reality revealing a kind of "purposiveness at work which can only be descnbed as religious" (Sanford 153).

Ira Progoff speaks of "twilight irnaging". or reverie. as the state amived at ihrough meditation. The subliminal state somcwhere between sleep and wakefulness is the dwelling place for sym bolic perceptions that cmbe called into consciousness (60).

William James describes the same phenornenon through which certain kinds of incursions

"The words wholeness, healih, hale, holiness al1 corne fiom the same root word, ho[, hal, fiom Middle English. I intend a broad connotation of the word wholeness to include dl of those nuances. 61 occur from the subconscious region into the conscious level as the result of "prayerful communion" (James 568). He further states that such irruptions play a strîking part in religious engagements that involve conversion and mysrical phenomena (556), or ecstatic cxperiences as described by Sophy Buniham. Communication with God. whether it be through symbols. drearns. or other incursions. utilizes the whole Self including evolution- ary roots." conscious and unconscious. ego. and shadow (Breman and Brewi 90).

In order to circumvent denial or ignorance of who we are as whole human beings. we need some understanding of and working with the shadow side of our natures. Jung has said that the nature of the shadow cm in large measure be inferred from the contents of the persona1 unconscious. the elements of which are acquired during an individual's

Iifetime, The constitution of the third Ievel of our inner Selves is the collective unconscious which is made up of archetypes. including the shadow. that are present from the beginning (Campbell 144- 145). We are influenced by archetypes which exist a priori. but according to Jung we cmdo linle to alter their nature or existence (155).

Because discussion of the collective unconscious is beyond the scope of this study, for present purposes 1 will consider only the shadow of the personal unconscious.

To describe the shadow. Jung has identified sets of polarities that are part of the rnakeup of each of oui- psyches. One of the elements of each pair tends to be dominant and well developed while the other is recessive and underdeveloped by cornparison. This categorization does not impute qualities of "goodness?' or "badness" on the elements, but

'me term evolutiona~roofs alludes to what Car1 Jung speaks of as the third level of the psyche. the collecfive unconsciousness which transcends the personal nature of the conscious and the unconscious. simply describes their relation to each other within the Self. The polarities of attitude

Jung named ewraversiun and introversion (relating to other people), and polarities of functions are sensing and intuition (perception). and thinking and feeling Cjudgment)

(Campbell 178 CE).

A different explanation of the constitution and development of the human psyche is posited by Jerome Bruner. He questions Jung's proposa1 that we store specific archetypal stories or myths in Our imer beings, and he argues that human experience is much more a continuum than it is actions emanating from static innate pain of characteristics existing in polarity to each other (45). Bruner sees human nature as more complex and unpredictable than is suggested by Jung's categories. He proposes that we have an innate. primitive predisposition to narrative organization that is impacted by cultural influences (80) and that creates a complex intenveaving of conscious and unconscious experiences. The inborn consti tuents of the psyche described by Jung are constraints rather than causes of human action. according to Bruner (2 1). The phenomenon that Bruner termsfolkpsychology seems to more closely describe, compared to Jung's theories. the feminist undentanding of experiences encountered by me and by the women with whom I conversed.

In the study of the spintuality of older women. it is necessary to hear the voices of those women as they reflect on their imer expenences and create their own narratives. In conversation with them. they tell me of where and how they have perceived the Holy through their physicd senses. dreams. and psychological incursions or irruptions; they relive the emotional experiences of ecstatic. numinous. and traumatic happenings; they 63 idrntify turning points or crises in their lives. and they demonstrate an awareness of the sh2dow side of themselves.

The five physical senses act as transmitten of stimuli that work to draw together

our two irniversrs. An example of sight symbols is evident in Kirsten's "closet altar",

literally a convened cupboard in her study. Among the candles. fabrics. and books are

two prominentlp displayed statuenes. The child-in-the-hand-of-God image represents the

place where she has been in the inward-looking nature of her spiritual activity. A small

replica of a lighthouse will replace the hand-of-God mode1 because her spiritual energy is

moving to be outward-reaching as she becornes more focused on a rninistry of "walking

with" people in their spiritual journeys.

Another instance of a visual catalyst is cited by Carmen as she recalls from her

younger years really enjoying the service of Benedi~tion.'~She explains that she always

felt the Lord's presence when the priest would hold up the rnonstrance'8containing the

Host to show the people the body of Christ. "It was almost like a sunburst . . . with the

open centre and the glass door. . . . 1 loved the Benediction."

Sophia sees herself as being a very visual. tactile person. "There is beauty in al1

of those symbols--andles. statues. incenses. high masses. low masses. processionals, and

garments." The aura created by the symbols made her feel safe-not the building nor the

people. but the ambience accepted her. In spite of her sometimes conflicted relationship

"~enedictionis chiefly a Roman Catholic service in which the congregation is blessed with the Host (bread for the Eucharist) which is ofien displayed in a monstrance.

"The monstrance is a receptacle usually made of goId or silver with an open or transparent cornpartment in which the consecrated Host is exposed for veneration. 64 with her church. she continues to be emotionally and intellectually drawn to the pomp and ceremony of rituals employing physical symbols.

Language and music act as aura1 symbols that stimulate our spiritual Selves. Both

Carmen and Sophia have memones of the sounds of Latin used in the mass as appealing to their aesthrtic senses. "lt was bizarre." says Sophia. "You didn't understand it; yet it was a mystery" that touchcd her very deeply. Music. too. may reach depths that prosaic words can not. During the last several mondis of my mother's life. her memory was sinking into oblivion except for one small part. likely resident in the limbic system of her brain. She could recall with accuracy German hyrnns that she had leamed as a child. My sister managed to salvage a copy of Das Grsangbuch. and from this relic we sang songs that were the medium through which we could reach her.

Although touching and tasting are two senses that were not apparent spiritual mediums to the women I interviewed. 1 have experienced connecting with the Divine through those two stimuli. When 1 presided with others at the Service of Celebration of

Ministry for our United Church Conference. part of the ritual was the iaying on of hands for candidates for ordination and cornmissioning. I experienced from the physical contact something like supematural energy flowing through me to the newly designated ministers. As for taste. when i am at a celebration of communion where ferrnented wine is served. 1 feel a heightened sense of presence as the wine rouses my taste buds and stimulates my nostrils. I believe that we are the poorer in most of our United Churches for not offering the choice of communion wine in addition to pipe juice.

Enacting ntuals is a spiritual practice that incorporates the sensual, the symbolic. 65 and the bodily. Victor Turner descnbes rizcial as a form of religious behaviour that is associated with social transitions and that is transfomative in nature (5-6). Of the six of us women. Sophia is most anuned to understanding and using rituals in her spintual life.

She says that she likes ritual and symbols because through their use she cm fulfil her need to be creative. Particulariy at times when she needs closure for issues in her life she calls on rituals and symbols to aid her heaiing process. She points out that effectively dealing with endings in our lives is a ski11 for which most of us are woefully inadequately

prepared.

She poignantly describes an incident in which she found closure through the use of a ritual. About five or six years afier her marriage had ended, she knew that she had to do something to bring closure to ihat part of her life. She had gone through the writing and other spiritual practices that are recommended to bnng closure. but she knew that it

wasn't finished yet. By some fonuitous circumstance she acquired the wedding ring of

her ex-husband. She devised a ritual in which she placed both his ring and hers into a

solution of silver nitrate which melted the gold so that a new shape could be created. She manipulated the molten metal until a shape ernerged that had symbolic significance for

her. She describes the results: "1 got a circle which was very nice with a greaeat big blob which is what the marriage was like. . . . There is a very, very fine strand comecting us

because we still are connected. We don't talk. but through my chilcken there is that connection. We have kids and grandchildren" in common. Sophia concludes by saying

that this symbol. which she ofien wears as a pendant. is what brought closure to years of unhappy marriage. 66

Another aspect of women getting in touch with their inner Selves is what Progoff calls bodilyfrelings. Sophia reHects: "1 think a lot of tirnes 1 never really listened to my body. The body was separate from the rest of us. That was a religious teaching; that was a society teaching." She continues by saying that the only tirne that she has been really

sick is when she has not listened to her body. She ottérs as an example the times when

she broke her wrisr twice while she was working at a job in a treatment centre where she

felt herself spiritually dying.

Kirsten speaks of her bodily reactions acting as cornpensatory responses to

stresses in her life. She describes what she sometimes experiences as an overload or an

ovenvhelming circumstance in her life being followed by "sorne physical kinds of

problems." Gall bladder surgeery is one example among several medical interventions that

she has had that she cites as having been brought about by stress. Because of what

Kirsten refers to as her passive. cornpliant nature. she has had to leam to resist allowing

othen assiping inappropriate tasks to her. such jobs as conducting a junior choir. She

observes that activities that are not compatible with her gifis cause for her distress that at

times leads to illness.

In regard to the nature of dreams. Sanford States that *'. . . (0)ur unconscious leads

attention not only to the past but also to the future. The Self within us guides us into our

impending imer development" (90). A symbol that recurred over a period of hventy

years in my dreams had significance for me when those dreams ceased. 1 began my work

as a teacher at a time when only one year of university education was required to be

certified to practice. it was always my intention to the point of being a calling that 1must 67 complete a degree in some field of academic endeavour. Because of family. farrn, and professional responsibilities. retuming to bring a student was not possible until 1967. when as a project for Canada's Centennial year and in response to a strong i~er propulsion, 1 began the work of completing the third and fourth years of a Bachelor of

Education degree.

The dreams would play themselves out several times a year. 1 was always trying to get to the top of a mountain or up a very steep hill. sometimes in a vehicle. sometimes on foot. 1 could never reach the top and would wake up with a deep sense of frustration and weariness. When the work for my degree was completed in 1974. those dreams ceased entirely. 1 then understood the meaning of the symbols in the dreams as God through my unconscious urging me to "get on with it!"

Psychological incursions from the unconscious into the conscious can also occur while we are in a state of wakefulness. These irruptions may come in the foms of intuition or imer voice. Elizabeth describes her mother and father as being a non- practicing blethodist and an atheist respectively. A few years after her father died, as an rleven-yar-old she decided entirely on her own that she needed to go to church. She asked to be baptized and to join the United Church. She remarks? "1 don? know where it came From. It was just me--it was not my mother--it was not anybody. God must have given me a gifi of grace al that point."

Kirsten and Sophia speak of their senses of intuition leading them. Kirsten reflects that "Each time the Lord was ready to lead me into a new concept 1would come across an appropnate book or a lecture.'' In spite of Sophia's differences with her church? 68 she senses that there is a presence that she could not narne that keeps calling her back. especially when she is hurting.

1 recall a time when my unconscious burst into my conscious self with a clear message. The incident occurred when 1 was chairing the Ministry and Personnel

Cornmittee for Our Church. We were in the mrdst of an intense conr'iicr berween tne ~wo ministers working as a tearn. One moming 1 woke suddenly zbout three o'clock. and the message came to me very clearly that I must go to the Church in the morning to meet individually with each of the principals. 1 did that. and 1 was not long into my meeting with the first minister when the wife of the second clergy person roared into the office in a srate of frenzied animosity. The roots of the problem were dramatically exposed. and the necessary recommrndation to make to the congregation became patently clear. The two paid and accountable ministers would never effect a healthy relationship 3s long as the itnoflcial third member continurd to intrude.

Incursions of a more dramatic nature are the nurninous experiences that James refen to as mysticniphenornena. Carmen tells of driving home by herself one night after a payer meeting of the charismatic group to which she briefly belonged. They had talked about giving each other deep hugs. something that she felt she desperately needed. "I was coming home and 1 was thinking about God and love. and on the road 1 realized that God loves me! That was a tremendous thing. It was like the sunburst. the starburst." She was

sure that she wasn't worthy of God's love, " kind of like dust: 1 was nothing." The nurninous feeling that she clearly remembers was a "tremendous tuming point'' in her life.

For Elizabeth an incident involving the Lord's Prayer has stuck in her mind. She cannot position the experience exactly as to time or to place. but she describes the

incursion as having been a "uni tive experience." She remembers that she "was alone in a room. There were other people there. but 1 was alone: and it was like 1 was surrounded by something. . . . The prayer was very clear to me. every single word was very. very clear. .And it was good: it was a warrn. cornforthg feeling. and then it passed." She says that it was a unique experience. a very real experience the nature of which she has not had again. "1 didn't know what had happened and 1 wasn't frightened. . . . I often thought it

would be nice to have it again" is how Elizabeth recalls that spiritual incident in her life.

Sophia chooses to drscribe a particular spiritual experience that happened when

she was at a retreat workshop. She remernbers getring up early in the moming and going to a prayer room that was available for retreat participants. She had recently been

divorced. and the healing process had started. She tells of the incident this way:

1 had felt draun to gc, into this room. and I went in there and I was just sining

there and I had this. this momentous thing of God. of Christ saying to me, Tou

are never going to be alone." And I've never forgotten the feeling. . . . I've never

forgonen that. And since that day when things get rough. and they do, I still cm

remember that feeling. 1 cmstill hear it.

"Often traumatic or hard experiences . . . have been the precursor to re-direction

and groowth." says Kirsten as she speaks of crises or events that change the direction of

people's Iives. She tells of having been involved as a special nurse to her sister. The patient's vital life signs were in crisis because a pulmonary embolisrn had occurred afier the birth of a daughter. "It was an incredible thing that through the whole time she really 70 was not aware but was able to respond to commands." The medical staff were able to get the baby to nurse at the mother's breast throuehout the three weeks of her being in a coma. and they were able to nourish the mother to keep her going. Kirsten's assessrnent is that technically. rnedically. rationally. and in every other way her sister should not have survived the cnsis considenng the level of the nature oimedicai practices of that time.

The intensity of God's Pace during that incident still arouses deep cmotions for

Iursten. The near-death. out-of-body phenornenon that her sister told her about later was

something that Kirsten couldn't talk about for years. At the time such happenings were

not spoken of or rven named. and '-it was a long time before we heard about anything like

that." Kirsten asks herself if this was a crisis or a growth experience. 1 believe that for

hrr it is profoundly both crisis and growth.

In the lives of many women. the breakup of a marriage constitutes a crisis of

major proportions. Elizabeth tells of the strong awareness of the nature of her spiritual journey that came to her during the time when she and her spouse were going through

divorce proceedings. About the sarne time that she was preparing to move back to

Canada from the Bahamas. she was diagnosed as having lung cancer. "It was one thing

nght on top of the other. 1 was in a lot of pain over the whole situation." Through

contact with AL-ANON al1 of a sudden it became clear to her that the disintegration of

the marriage was connected with the alcohol abuse of her husband. She says, "The

spirituality of those (AL-ANON) meetings was what 1 needed. It was su necessary for me

. . . and it was so amazing! I re-connected with God.?'

Not al1 spiritual expenences are life-giving or result in creating whoieness. At times in each of our lives the shadow side of our personalities cornes into play. For

Sophia. who by her own description is a feeling-affective person. the thinking-cognitive style of rote learning of catechism lessons she had as a child were for her stifling.

Carmen. a gregarious extravert by nature. felt herself spiritually dying through the years that her spouse through his controlling personality suppressed her social activity. in my own spiritual life. I often choose what for me is the easier cognitive lefr-brain type of learning. I find my life impoverished at times because I do not savor the aesthetics and kinaesthetics of sensory right-brain lessons. whether that learning be ritual based on tangible symbols or Gurdjieff rno~ernents.~~

Both Sophia and Carmen speak of fear that suppressed their developrnent when they were children. The strong antipathy felt toward coercive priests and dreaded penances darnpened the spark of spirituality and spontaneity in them. Sophia recalls that

"Fear affected my whole life. . . . . That really harnpered rny spiritual journey because it stopped me from searching and going out and trying different things.?' Carmen says. Y can still remember the thunderous voice (of the prirst). 'Be good!' But I was scared because 1 was srnall."

From work that 1 have done in the area of spirituality of children. the environments that Sophia and Cmenremember are the opposite of what children Say attracts them to a spiritual cornrnunity. In a project that 1 carried out as a visioning and

"Gurdjieff movements are sacred physical exercises used as vehicles leading to self-awareness and centered presence. renewal process for my home congregation.jOchildren sweyed said that the arnbience must be inviting and relevant to their computer-television world if they are to look fonvard to coming to Sunday School. "The Spirituality of Children" is a paper that 1 wrote for which children identified three characteristics of a Sunday School in which they

that children will find the fourthj: faith. would be well advised to be sure that the first rhreejs are in place.

In summing up thcir spiritual development. the women consistently used the metaphor of *joumey" as an image. Kinten's spirituality "kind of grew'? with no drmatic experience of conversion. "It was more like climbing an incline going up a hiIl

. . . rven more than climbing steps." For Hilda it's been a "growth experience" that has been gradua1 and that has happened within communities. There have been no sudden conversion "zaps" that have changed her life-direction. While Carmen sees her ''pirit working in making as good a path as 1 cm." Sophia says. "The journey's been a struggle:

1 think it's been exciting; I like it better than 1 used to."

And so we continue our joumeys toward wholeness. Each of us at this crone- stage of our lives has accumulated wisdorn and has developed self-understanding to sustain us on the way. Al1 of our odysseys have had times of going slowly or detouring briefly. but as we journey fomd. we will assuredly be in the Company of the Holy.

''The sub-title of the project is "Remembering, Rejoicing, Renewing." The three main components are a survey of the hiaory of the congreegation. a congregationd workshop of the same title as the sub-title of the project, and surveys of cornrnunity. and groups within the church, inciuding the children. 6.

GOD

Teach ILS tu seek Ym,and reveal Yourseifro us as ive seek Prayer of Anselm of Canterbury

Because part ofour spirituality is a response to and participation in the Divine, a historical and personal understanding of that Divine. God. is intrgral to our quest and necessary for our journey. How have people over time and how do we today find answen as we struggle with the ontological questions, "How do we corne to know God? Who is

God?" The dilemma of working through such a theological maze is not an easy task.

Langdon Gilkey expresses the enipma in these words: "The idea of God remains the most elusive, the most frequently challenged. the most persistently criticized and negated of al1 important convictions" (Hodgson and King 88).

To hirther compticate our search for answen, God is not static, according to

Gerard Hughes. He writes that "The God of the philosophers and the God of the Old

Testament are very different Gods." The former is remote and impersonal, a deity that can be intellectually understood and rationally proven. The God of the prophets is mystenous but is hl1 of feeling, a God of great compassion, tendemess and love, but a deity who can also be the One of angr. wrath, and fury when those God loves treat one another unjustly (30-32). Over the centuries the different versions of God that have been espoused have been supported through philosophical, revelational, or experiential arguments. The same bases for knowing God that are postulated through historical time are also witnessed within the life spans of persons in the present. Knowledge of the God 74 of individuals forms and changes with experiences. through revelations. and perhaps by philosophical retlection.

There is little unity among traditional schools of theology in explicating how God cm be houm. Proponents of natural theology have contended that we can arrive at a knowledge of the essence of God through rational inquiry: that is. the existence and nature of God can be rstablished by philosophical arguments alone. On the other side of the chasm are those who distrusr philosophical reason as Pagan. or at least as misguided, and have argued that the true and living God can be known only by direct revelation through scripture or tradition. Still others fimly testifi that God can be known through religious experience (Hodgson and King 98-1 00). whether that experience be historical or personal.

Within the school of process theologians fiom Hegel (1770-1 83 1) onward almost every conception of the Holy is dynamic. changing. and in some manner intrinsically related to the world of change. Alfred North Whitehead writes that God is an example of process rather rhan its negation. "God thus shares in the metaphysical categories of process: temporality. potentiality. change. relatedness. development, and dependence or passivity" (1 05).

Neo-orthodox or biblical theologians have retained the image of the transcendent creator dealing with humans who are essentially dependent. Thein is a God who acts in

history. who cornes or is coming, who effects mighty deeds of revelation and redemption.

However. one point of doctrine that they share with their rivals in the process school is

that they oppose "the Greek concept of God" as changless, unrelated, and doof (1 05). 75

New theologies that challenge the status quo of previous schools of thought have appeared during the last quarter of the twentieth century. These include black, feminist.

and Third World theologies al1 of which deny tenets of earlier religious thinking that

purport that social history and "God's history'' bear linle relationship to each other.

These newer trains of reasoning identie with oppressed comrnunities. cal1 for

revolutionary action. and recognize theological reflection more frequently than was done

in the past (104).

One constant in the lives of modem people is the reality of change. However.

while we frenetically seek what is new. the acknowledgment of the reality and value of

ongoing relatedness has vastly increased in our time. .4 changeless and umelated God,

unknown and unexperienced. would seem to most of us an unacceptable figrnent of

understanding. Yrt there would be no content or value in such a deity because there

would be no relatedness to the changing world where initially al1 reality and value reside

(105).

While we may long for a consistent relationship with God. we recognize that

contemporary doctrine of God in Christian theology appears in configurations not found

in traditional forrns. We see new interpretations of concepts that quaii@ the absolute

sovereignty of God in such areas as evil in which humans become who they are through

their OWI comrnitments. decisions. and actions. Doctrines of providence and

predestination no longer assume that creatures are necessarily helpless pawns in the

Divine chess game of life. Freedom and autonomy of the individual play a much larger

role than in earlier theologicd thinking (1 04). 76

Formal theological concepts of God are reformulated over periods of time to bring meaning and relevance to the modem world (Hodgson and King 89) while at a persona1 level images of God also vansrnute but mostly through revelation and experience. By far and large the image of God that we hold during Our childhoods is not the same image that sustains us as senior women who have a weaith of iife experience from wiiicii ro ciraw.

Our notion of God is mediated to us through parents. teachers. and clergy (Hughes

35). especially when we are young. The images that we have formulated may be of an immanent. loving friend or of a remote. stem authoritarian. The book. The Ferninine

Face of God. contains the summation of stories from women. who in defining their sacred. affinn the importance of rarly spiritual experiences. Most of the women acknowledge that the first connection with a loving. caring Divine when they were very young is the *-seedbed"for the unfolding of the sacred in their lives and leads them to an abundant life (Anderson and Hopkins 25). Images of fearfulness and repression that imprint at an early age form a "weedbed" with which women must stmggle in order to find wholeness and health. These innate God-images sketched for us by adults and formed in our earliest years inhere in each of us with a persistent longevity.

Kathleen Fischer writes that we know God through many images. images that are metaphors. In her words "We find and create these images during the entire period from birth to death." The shaping of metaphon for the Divine begins very early in life, which metaphors are formed through religious. cultural. social, family? and biological expenences. Not only do these images affect our relationship with God, but they help to determine our sense of self (Auturnn 73-74). Naomi Goidenberg defines images as 77 pictonal patterns that abide in more places than in our mental structures. Working with visualizations through our conscious and unconscious agendas effrcts change in us and in the images that we hold (62).

The stories From the women in my study bear out conclusions that early imprin~ingis a powerîui eiemrnt in our spirituai deveiopment. Kirsien anaiy~esthat the image of God as a judgmental and legalistic being that she had as a child was close to the

God of the conservative denomination to which she now belongs. Carmen and Sophia recall images of God that were formulated in them as young children. but theirs was a

God of the thundering voice and of recriminating fear. The three of them have worked to change those images to ones that are kinder and gentler. Hilda and Elizabeth have mernories from their childhoods of a much more benign God. but one in Hilda's case who would take away a beloved parent and a grandparent. As agents in our undentanding of

God. our rnothers especially were instruments. but Sunday School teachen. priests, and ministers exerted influences as well.

.4s we gained life expenence. images of God changed for al1 of us. Sophia in spite of the fear that haunted her as a child. always had a co~ectionto God and a belief in a higher power. She knew that if she obeyed God. God would take care of her.

Carmen realized early that if not a loving God. "He" was at least creative. Kirsten's experience of a changing image has been from that of an austere patriarch to a God of erace. kindness. understanding. and correction-a loving, caring, supportive God. C

My experience during the past four years has been characterized by a great amount of synchronicity that has been operative in propelling, coaxing, dragging me to a new 78 understanding of the Holy. 1 have never doubted that God is. but to seek for an answer to the question. "Who is God realiy?" has been sometimes unsrttling and at other times freeing.

neelements that came together emerged fiorn a number of involvements. A course that 1 completed called "Hebrew Scriptures" entailed reading and viewing videos in the areas of feminism. psychology. archeoloa. and theology. As I absorbed. stmggled with. and reacted to the material. 1 experienced a greatly heightened consciousness of the histonc and rcclrsial nonnalization of the marginalizing. the rendering invisible, and the abusing of women. Interviews that 1 conducted with senior women as bases for papers have given me a further insight into the cornpliance that women have allowed with a patriarchal system called "church"and with an androcentric image of a dei. called

"God."

Intensive reading of Hebrew Scnptures raised my anger level to hot if not boiling.

Who decreed that women were not wonhy to be named or to have their stories told in the sacred writings (Wilson Ming Her 7)? Mat oppressive society and which remote. transcendent God lefi women defenseless against and wlnerable to rape. abuse, and invisibility (Trible 65)? Why did a paradigrnatic shifl from deity pairs to one male true god expunge the roles and records of women as equals (Bellis 23)? There must be another side of God to which 1 had been blinded through being conditioned by a patriarchal church and a male-dominated society. How could 1 find the ferninine face of

God?

The search for the answers to my questions became a brief but obsessive mission. 79

Merlin Stone's When God Wcls o Cl'ornon and the video. "The Power of Myths". opened the possibility of rn): understanding women's relationship to the culture and to God in a ncw way. These sources presented archeological evidence of deity pairs, female and male. as being the nom into the time of Yahweh emerging as the God of the Hebrews.

Even the tniths in fictional renderings becarne epiphanies for me. Arthurian legend fiom the point of view of women. particularly of Morgaine. in Marion Bradley ZimmerosThe

.Llisrs of .4valon connected with me at an archetypal level. There was a time when women were tmly honored as crones! Tom Robbins' seemingly whimsical novel. Skinny Legs and.-fll.unveiled how Homo scipiens intrinsic longing for the Divine can be effected "by rnlarging Our souls and lighting up our brains" (168) to find a bona fide image of God.

In the wwitings of Sue Monk Kidd and Jean Shinoda Bolen 1 found encouragement and permission to challenge hoow 1 imaged God. Kidd in The Dance ofrhe Dissident

Durrghïer describes well the ferment that was happening in me. Similar to her experience

1 began my spiritual Iife within a traditional. conservative denomination. and had carried within me a male image of God that 1 had outgown. The wntings of Bolen resonate with my imer Self as she describes the nature of the psycholo~of women's spirituality. In

Crossing ro rlvalon she tells of her mid-life awakening to the archetypal ferninine and the

persona1 transformation that happened within her. Her thesis in Goddesses in Every-

woman is that women need to make conscious choices of what their imer patterns.

archetypes? will be (1). A major insight for me was that 1 am not alone as a woman in my

quest for a personally authentic image of the Holy.

I discovered that the archetype of the goddess is expressed in many cultures fiom 80 ancient times onward. An example of the feminine face of God is the Shekinah which was conceived in the mystical traditions of Judaism and was transmitted orally for thousands of years until it was wntten down by Jewish Kabbalists. The Shekinah

reveals the missing imagery of God-as-Mother that has been lost or obscured in both

Judaism and Christianity." Rrclaiming the feminine image of the godhead has the

potential to give women what they have lacked through the pst two-and-one-ha1 f

thousand years in the Judeo-Christian culture (Harvey and Baring 87-88).

These newly rcvealed ideas helped to move me on to another stage in my search

for the goddess. Working through a senes of sketches that led to an oil painting was the

chosen medium for this part of my search. The five sketches started with a dominant

male god--old. gray. austere. well-coifed--on the right-hand looking out from the sketch.

and a diminished pddess--young. flowing hair. soft countenance. subordkate-on the

Icft-hand. In rach succeeding sketch the male personage became smaller and moved to

the left side of the female. The ultimate painting was based on the second-last sketch

with the goddess on the right. much larger than the god. but not as dominant as in the

final sketch in the series.

Some balance was beginning to emerge in my psyche. 1 had begun the struggle

with an image somewhat Iike that of my childhood wherein everyone knew that God was

a male resembling the deity in my painting, and that "He" was German-speaking.

Through my adult years 1 had tended to ignore imagery and just went about living a very

busy life. Now because 1 could no longer condone the stanis quo. 1needed to work

through the anger. bewilderment, and hstration. 8 1

1 no longer need an extreme goddess presence. 1 have corne to the awareness that a fernale image that simply replaces patriarchal religion wirh the matriarchal does not necessarily effect spiritual wholrness. We may need God Our Father and God/dess our

Mother in the same Being (Hare 225). but for me. anthropomorphic characteristics have receded with time. My image oi bod is graduaiiy becoming one oftmiy pure spirk-

light and energy-which I find a freeing. radiant way of understanding who God is.

Insights into some wornen's relationships with God and church were gleaned through interviewing four women for the pilot project. "Where Have Al1 the Flowers

Gone?"" The image of the male god was formulated in their psyches early in their lives

and persisted in an entrenched marner into their senior years. Sunday School pictures

portraying God as an aged man. and androcentric liturgical and biblical language

imprinted an image of a remote dei- devoid of female attnbutes. Particularly two of the

four women had for the most part not questioned the concepts of God the Father or of the

hierarchy of superior positions that men held in the churches to which they belong.

In contrat to the absence of change in the two women or the more deliberate Pace

of my experience. Sophia Iiterally skipped over the female image stage in the process of

re-imaging God. She says that the male image of God was so entrenched in her. that

when she got to the point of working with a fernale visualization. she did not spend a lot

of time there. "1 think it took so long to get past the father image that 1 just went fast.'?

She felt that if she stayed with the female image. she would be repeatinp the non-

"The area examined in the project was the life dreams that women fomulated in their late teens or early twenties and what had happened to those dreams in the ensuing forty or more years of living. 82 iconoclastic behaviour that had caused her distress. Sophia says that now "God is God" with no anthropomorphic attributes attached. She reports that she sees God differently depending upon what is happening in her life. for example. God as counsclor or questioner. '?mage is not a big issue For me. . . . That's part of being a crone. isn't it?"

Neither Hilda nor Elizabeth are stuck on an image that is male or female. Hilda says. "God is not finished with me yet. I'rn continually rnoving and changing rny ideas of who God is and who 1 am and what my place is in relation to God." She says that God is a presence within her being that might well be called the Holy. Elizabeth is cornfortable with imaging God as the higher power concept that is used in the AL-ANON process.

Although she on two occasions used masculine pronouns to refer to God. she fairly consistently referred to God in a non-gendered manner.

Carmen does no1 like the thought of a ferninine God. "1 like the idea of strength

. . . but 1 never thought about it brfore." She thinks about God as an elderly. chubby man who is loving and caring. but she also says that God is spirit and that there could be neutral parts. Thinking of God in other than masculine imagery is unfamilia temtory for

Carmen.

In response to a question that 1 posed to Kirsten about gendered images of God, she replied. "It's never been asked (of me) before by anyone." She holds to a male image of God that she suspects was formed deep within her Self at a young age through use of the King James Version of the Bible. She cited associations with female pastors as having been positive role models for her in that they fùrthered "the Kingdom of God" without gender reference. In summing up her thoughts about God and gendered image, 83 she seemed to be somewhat unsenled by the whole idea of a non-male God. "it's not an

issue that 1 would have a need to get into at this tirne. . . . 1 would refer to God as He. . . .

I'm not really defined on that. I've never touched it."

As has been the experience of some of my CO-researchers.at some point in their spintuai joumeys. many women wesrie witn an incongruous image oiGod. Y a woman does not see a continuity between her developing identity and the nature of God. she will

either abandon hrr own deepest identity or abandon (or revise) her belief in God (Lim

8 1 ). Actualizing psycho-sexual and spiritual matunty is di fficult for some women who

cary an image of an all-male God (8 1 ). Realizing that we become like the God we adore

is a key in healing our image of God. (7). It rnay be difficult for older women to work at

hralin their image of the Divine. but in order to free their spirits for the last quaner of

their joumeys. it is important that they embracr with self-permission the need to do so.

WhiIe the images of God that we employ are not static. attributes of transcendence

and immanence are not idiesfies either. Frances Hare observes that there is a detectable

shifi in the way people perceive God. We may be in a transition that is removing us from

a long history of understanding God as the transcendent Saviour who rescues mankind

(220). Modem writers such as Manhew Fos envisage God as immanent and One who

inheres in al1 of life. all of matter. al1 of energy. and al1 of the cosmos (221).

The findings in Hare's dissertation caused her to be somewhat uneasy about the

extent to which a sense of God as immanent has crowded out an awareness of God as

transcendent. The responses of participants in her study indicated that the majority of the

images held were of an immanent God (222). "(ut would be -much more helpful if 84 tnnscendence and immanence could be seen as mutually enriching concepts rather than mutually destnictive"'(273)."

The observations made by Hare seem to be borne out in conversations with my

CO-researchers. Kirsten in a witten addendum to our conversation expressed in more classical terms her understanding of her spintuality in a context of a transcendent Triune

God--God as sovereign being. Yet in speaking of her relationship with God. she very much talked in terms of an immanent dei.--being near to the palm of the hand of God.

feeling the intensity of God's Pace. and being personally directed by God. Elizabeth saw

God being in charge of things over which shc knew she had no control. She says that

God was trying to get her attention while she was busy ignoring "him." Carmen describes frequent and persona1 prayer conversations with God when she cm no longer handle the problems in ber life. "At lest God had supponed me. God knows that 1 deserve a better life . . . and that I am important."

An incident described by Hilda epitomizes her immanent relationship with the

Holy. About two years before Our conversation she and her spouse were in a car accident.

Five weeks after the accident he developed a sub dura1 hematoma which resulted in symptoms such as falling asleep while driving a vrhicie. She knew that there was something wrong, but couldn't put her "finger on it" at first. Because they were not in their home province at the tirne. she iiad to work through a maze of stonewailing and extra procedures to get medical attention for her husband.

"~uotedfiom Jantzen, Grace. God 's World, God 's Body. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984. p. 10 1. s5

Finally her daughter's family physician would provide the medical help needed.

Hiida stayed with her husband in the doctor's office because "1 just didn't feel that he was capable of answering questions." Afier the doctor had put him through al1 sorts of neurological tests. they knew that there was something very wrong. The attending physician reiephoneo' a coiieague wno was working in tir intensive care unit. and they aii met at the emergency station.

She sat in the waiting room for three hours tvith al1 kinds of thoughts going through her head. "1 did lot of praying that afiernoon. asking for help. and asking for the doctors to be able to tlnd out what was the matter. and asking for God to be with us through this."

bfedical staff drtenninrd that as a result of the accident fivr werks previously. a bump on his head had caused a large blood clot to form which was actually pushing on his brain. "So 1 went through some very soul-srarching hours with him. . . . 1 really felt that God was with me thrn. 1 felt that rnveloping presence." Hilda concluded her story by saying, "1 see even more the importance of talking with God and praying al1 the time."

Another anribute of God that was identified through our conversations was that of providence. Julian Ham observes that the doctrine of providence does not "have a vivid and compelling life in churches" today. Traditionally events "great and small. cosrnic and historical" were deemed to operate faultlessly to serve a Divine ordination (Hodgson and

King 14 1). In spite of what may officially be happening in upper level ecclesiastical bodies. the women wvith whom 1 spoke al1 had a deep conviction of God's providence operating at a persona1 level in their lives. 86

Sophia tells of meeting with someone who had betrayed her at the time that she was being dismissed from a job at a retreat centre. She says that the meeting was

prescribed by God in God's good time. She also speaks of resistance to going back into

work within the church. but she rationaIizes that God wants her there. so there must be a

good reason Cor her doiny ii.

Kirsten recalls sevenl instances in which she detected providence operating in her

life. Her rntry into the nurses' training school was postponed because she was below the

prescribed entry age. This drlay allowed her tirne to work in a mental hospital which

clarîfied for her that the field she ought to be entering was psychiatnc nursing. She

speaks of God's direction causing her and her husband to go to rninistry work in an

overseas mission field. IO movr to California to work because previous happenings in

their lives had opened rhe way. and to situate them in affordable housing and meaningfùl

activities in their semi-retired life.

In answer to the question. "How do we corne to know God?" we six women have

fairly similar answers. Each of us had a realization of God early in life that established

the map for how our joumeys would continue. Sometimes there were roadblocks,

detours. and altemate routes. but none of us has abandoned the quest. We recognize

times in our lives when God revealed herhis presence to us. 4t other times Our

knowledge of God came through deep imer expenences thar spoke to us. We have not

for the most part w~estiedwith philosophical arguments or proofs for the existence and

nature of God. "We find the true. living, and loving God first with our hearts and then

with our minds. The knowledge of God is often hidden fiom our conscious minds which can only catch up with the reasons later" (Hughes 3 1).

Who is God? .Al1 of us indicated that Our images of God have changed as we have engaged in six. or more years of living. Our understandings of the Holy range through anthropomorphic male likenesses. to male and female attributes in one Being, to pure spirit ot' light and energy. Opemess to westling wth a vanety of images has not dways been the case. In a study done in the mid 1980's. both male and female "participants usually thought of God in male terms. and used male pronouns with very few exceptions?'

(Hare 2 17).

In the matter of transcendence or immanence. we al1 expressed our afinity to be one of immanence. God is within us and near us: God hem Our pleas for help and receives our thanksgivings in an intimate fashion. There is sorne acknowledgment of

God being out there and in charge of al1 of the universe. but there was no indication that we regard God as remote. as the One who set the world in motion and allows it to mn its course untrammelled.

Following from the attitude of immanence. we see God's providence active in our spintual lives. God has plans for us: God directs Our lives: God calls us to fulfill Our potential. There is no indication from the women of belief in predestination in which each life is mapped out ahead of time and through which we are destined to fulfil a foreordained plan. There was some sense of westling with God and petitioning to effect the way that Our lives would go because we live in the knowledge that "God calls us out of ourselves and beyond ourselves, a God of surprises. always creating anew" (Hughes

3 1). 88

For dl the engagement that we have with God/dess. the Holy remains a mystery.

We accede to the wisdom of the ~vriterof I John 4: 12 that "Noone has ever seen God."

"We can corne to know a mystery and grow in knowledge of it . . . but the more we enter into (it) . . . the more the rnystery of God takes hold on us" (Hughes 3 1). We will likely never in this life arrive at a point in Our searching where we can Say that we have seen the complete light of God's countenance. but we do follow a wonderfully numinous Iodestar. Connections and Relationships

For al/ rhar is gracious in ~helives of al2 yoitr people, revealing the image of Christ. . . For the beauty and ivonder of creation, we thankyou. God."

Connections and relationships constitute the essence of our spirituality as crone- aged women. Participation in the Divine and quest for self-understanding are processes that occupy us as seekers while at the same time, as spintual beings, we become co~ected intimately with each other and to all of creation. Although numinous expenences and incursions cm corne to us apparently unbidden and unexpectedly, people of faith have always engaged in spiritual practices. or disciplines, to provide the Spirit access to their inner Selves. The capacity to see God in other people and in al1 of creation is the fruition of our longing for, our searching of, and our connecting with the Holy, whatever image we hoid of that Holy.

The many-splendoured variety of spiritual practices frorn which we may choose al1 lead to the sarne end. Kathleen Fischer de fines these spiritual techniques as ways of bringing ourselves to that point of stillness where we hear the voice of God. In regard to the importance of older women establishing disciplines, she quotes SarabPatton Boyle3' as saying, ". . . (1)f 1 had established spintual routines, my present life would not be devoid of farniliar grooves. 1 would have a comfortabIe, supporting structure fiom which

"~rorn"Prayers of nianksgiving," Voices United, p. 929.

'"Quoted from The Desert Blooms: A Personal Advent ure in Growing Old Creatively. 90 to . . . ensure an enduring nucleus to sustain (me) under al\ conditions'' (Whrer 33). If we women in our sixties fear that Our "grooves" seem shallow and uncultivated. we likely still have two decades in which to learn the ways of the Spirit.

Fischer suggests that our explorations of what it means to be spiritual beings ought to include practices involving solitude. meditative reading. writing, and group support (;ltirtimn 46). She suggests balancing our inner lives by "altemating moments of solitude and community to be %lly present to othen and yet not alienating (ourselves)

from Our own thoughts and feelings." She clarifies that solitude is not so much being physically separated from other people as it is creating a boundary that enables us to disconnect from our immediate surroundings to explore what we know. believe. and value (47).

Praying is the spiritual practice leading into solitude that al1 of the women of my study cited as one in which the? engage. They speak of praying to become centered. to

intercede. to petition. and to give thanks.

Centering prayer is a resting in the presence of God in an attitude of attentive

listening of the heart and of waiting (Fischer Winter 37). In order to allow an emptying to happen so that we cm be opened to God's love. we cm make preparations to cany us into a quieting time. Maintaining a posture of straight spine and cornfortable relaxed body allows us to breathe deeply--breathe away our fears and womes and breathe in the love and life of God (34). Elizabeth recommends the positioning of the body as learned in yoga to be a usehl centering exercise. Carmen uses her rosary to keep herself focused on 91 her prayers. while 1 have found the use of mantras or breath prayers35useful in blocking out interfering mind charrer.

Kirsten elaborates on the manner in which she enters into intercessory prayer. She centres herself into an attitude of meditation and contemplation before she places her concems bet'ore God. S he has detinite prayer goals and specific names of farnily members and acquaintances. rnissionaries. and other penons who know that she is praying for them and who can depend on her to pray and to provide support and encouragement for their joumeys. Kathleen Fischer adds that prayers for others keeps us aware of Our bonds with God (.41rritmn18).

As a means to arriving at self-understanding in Our rdationships to God and to others. we use prayers of petition. Sophia usually uses the formal prayers of the church in her daily time of solitude. but she rnakes use of an inclusive laquage version ". . .just because 1 can't use the old one" in which al1 references are to a masculine God. Men she prays extemporaneously. she at times cries out from her loneliness and pain and asks,

"Where are you in al1 of this. God?" The need to ask for God's forgiveness so that heaiing can take place has been the subject of prayers by Kirsten. She speaks of a time in her life when she felt confused. disappointed. and betrayed because of the actions of another peson. She explains: "I've only been faced once or twice with that depth of need of Godesforgiveness in my hed' so that she could forgive the other person.

Maria Harris recommends that we speak prayers of adoration and thanksgiving to

35 Mantras or breath prayers are short forms of prayee that are repeated over and over as one breathes deeply in and out. They may be a single word such as "Jesus", a short part of a Psalm, or sentences such as "Corne, Jesus, corne" (Fischer Winter 34). 92 provide nour-ishment for Our spirits. We adore God for always having been a presence in

Our lives: we offer thanksgiving for spiritual and temporal gifts kat we have been given

(138). Hilda poured out her thanksgiving to God as she felt the presence of the Holy being with her through her husband's medical crisis. Elizabeth is awed by the grace of

God that surrounds her as she makrs a new iife for herseif. whiie Carmen expresses gratitude for God loving her enough to give her an opportunity to become a freer. healthier woman.

Do vie pray to God or to Jcsus? Through answers to that question From the respondents queried by Frances Hare. she has concluded that praying to Jesus was quite rare among people in her focus groups (222). Similarly none of the CO-researchersin this study spoke of praying to Jesus. although some of us end our prayers "in Jesus' narne."

Sophia expresses strong ambivalence about praying to Christ. She recalls a spiritual director instructing her. "You've got to pray to Christ." Her reply was. "1 canotpray to

Christ--1 can pray to Godo but 1 don? need Christ."

Among other practices that can help us to achieve solitude are labyrinth-walking ,

Gurdjieff s sacred movements. and silent retreats. Each of these disciplines has been attempted by at least one of us on several occasions. and we acknowledge the value that they have been for connecting us with God. However. Kinten's response to these matters is representative of the group when she says. "1 haven't had much expenence in retreat . .

- and no silent retreat experience. . . . (As) 1 am projecting my direction for next year, 1 have jotted domretrearing rime." Sophia acknowledges that she has not done a retreat for a while and that omission leaves a gap in her life. We al1 have some gaps in these areas. but there is still time in al1 of our lives to expand our repertoires of ways of entering into solitude.

Kathleen Fischer notes that reading has been a traditional part of Christian spirituality for centuries. "(lt) nounshes Our cornmitment to the gospel. grounds our attachment to prayer. and fills our spiritual wells when they run dry" (Aufumn48-49).

Elizabeth has developed an intirnate if vicarious relationship with mystics both medieval and more modem through her reading. She gains great inspiration fiom the stories of their lives. and for their capacity to express spirituality through non-verbal language.

She theonzes that "We have this whole part of our brain that is non-verbal and we can't access it because we don't have the words for it." She concludes that we need poets to lead us and artists to spçak for the perhaps nine. percent of us who are deficient in using creativity and intuition. that is. righf-brain thinking.

Al1 of us spend time almost daily in reading to stimulate and to accornpany meditational exercises. Sophia is currently working with material by authors such as Joan

Chittister who leads her rcaders into memorizing lines of Psalms and writing reflections based on them? a practice recommended by Fischer (49). Kinten cm trace her spiritual growth by following through the line of books on her library shelves. She has read authors from the Episcopal and Roman Cathoiic traditions as well as those who have written for theolopicall y conservative and moderately liberal churches.

The ancient practice of lectio divina. or praying the scriptures. seems to be gaining in use in the Protestant churches to which I have some attachment. This discipline which was popuiarized in the Middle Ages by St. Benedict consists of four movements which lead one through reading a scnpture passage. meditating on its meaning. praying spontaneously. and contemplating the presence of God in silence (5 1). I have leamed through this discipline the importance of dlowing the scriptures to speak to me rather than imposing my interpretive analysis on the reading. At the crone-stage of our lives. we women are bener aiie to finci rime in our iess ciemanciing schrkiiries io spenu Fony

minutes from tirne to rime engaging the Bible in this manner.

In RTiiing a IVomon's Li/e Carolyn Heilbrun advocates for women writing their

ointruths about their own Iives. In a simila. vein. the thesis of Rebecca Luce-Kapler's

work. -4s lfbC'onien IVriring, is that women writing from the depths of their beings rather

than being constrainrd by fonnulaic witing methods will result in their learning to know

themsrlves and to heal their psyches. Writing from Our life rxperirncrs and from our

spiritual work is surely a discipline that Ieads to a more abundant life through what is

revealed to us about our Selves.

Kathleen Fischer describes joumaling as one type of writing that women might

use to record and to work with their life experiences. The practice of writing may be

difficult for some people to begin. but once they choose one of the many forms that are

available. or they devise their own approach and a start is made. women will find that joumaling will disclose both short- and long-term revelations. With some discipline

applied to the task. tvriting one's life is satisfjring and spiritually hitful (Fischer Alitlrmn

5 1-53).

For me an exercise that may seem to be an unlikely spinhial discipline is the

writing of papers for courses of snidy that 1 take. The data gathered from reading, life experiences. and other sources are stirred and blended with a dash of intuition and a pinch of cerebration added. The resulting batter bakes in the conscious/unconscious oven of my psyche. and on completion of processing exudes aromas of catharsis. insights. and new tniths. 1 offer as an example of this process a paper that 1 wrote on "My Spiritual

Odyssey ." A sy n~iicsisul'iifc ehperiences iuuL piiicr iiiai rçddiii rny sceiny Gud in a new light and in unexpected places in my lifr story. I felt as though I was standing in the presence of the Holy as 1 surveyed my written piece.

To mediate balance in our lives between solitary practices and cornmunity involvement. we tum outward to be in relationship with others. The associations that we form may reside in the organized church. they rnay be formed on an informal basis with or without a church connèction. or thry may involve our families. Whatrver Our affiliations. we are innatel- social creatures who need to relate to one another in what

Fischer has termed groiip sirpporr 1.4 iiiiimn 60).

One spiritual practice that is predicated on the gathenng of people is the observance and celebration of liturgies. Marjorie Procter-Smith comments on liturgy as being a humanly created form that is both powerfkl and pure and that it "daims that when its work is done. participants are engaging in dialogue with God." For many centuries what people have done in communities gathered together again and again to invoke the presence of God into their midst has been noted. collected. and written to constitute the liturgies of the churches. There has been a process of development of worship foms that has happened at particular times but which has changed within varying historical contexts in general(13). Prayers. scripture reading, expositions such as sermons or homilies, 96 music. and celebration of the sacrarnents are among elements that go into making up the

liturgies of the people.

Smith asks the question. "(T)o what extent does (liturgy) reflect the full

participation of women in the dialogue and relationship?" She daims that women are

challenging the traditional content and format ot'liturgies that have been shaped by a

patriarchal society and church. Womrn feel that they have been excluded from the

dialogue part of the process. which ostracism has placed them in a category of being

victims (1 4). A number of comrnents made by my CO-researchersindicate that regular

anendance at services or mass is not an inviolable priority for them and that observance

of olficid liturgies is not germane to their spiritual development.

Kirsten oflers the information that church attendance is not a requirement for her

faith joumey. She does not need to be physically present in a wonhiping community

"twice on Sunday" to confirm her co~ectionto God. My expenence of being engaged in

the liturgical process is that it rarely results in a sense of numinosity or epiphany for me.

The reason in iny case may be that as an amnlezrr church organist. 1 need to maintain a

conscious level of functioning lest 1 min the effect of a well modulated benediction by a

misplaced organ chord. or 1 proceed to confuse congregational hymn singing by losing my

place in the musical accompaniment. 1 need to find another place or another time From

our usual Sunday wonhip services to allow the unconscious of my Self to effect a

co~ectionwith the Holy.

Sophia and Carmen review their ongoing involvements with the sacrarnent of

confession. Sophia says that at this stage in her spiritual life, she does not need a priest to 97 administer the rite. For her the best moments of confession are realized through face-to- face contact with a prrson whom she has offended or with someone who has offended her. Carmen remembers that as a younger person she found religion *'troublesome" in the context of the liturgy of the mass. She later developed some appreciation for the service

"because it brought forward my feeling of the love ot'üod." However. in the present wisdom-stage of her life. she does not attend church as much as she did before, but she substitutes watching the mass presented on television for attendance in person.

Has participation in iiturgy becorne irrelevant as a spiritual practice of older women? Frank Henderson has recognized the disaffection of women generally and has made an anempt to bring meaning for women into the worship services of churches. In

Rernembering the Wmen he has brought together a collection of more than 250 women's scriprure passages thar mesh with recognized lectionariesj6 and that cm be used as alternate or additional readings (xi). If the work of people such as Smith and Henderson are taken seriously by the churches. women may corne to accept the liturgies of the churches as speaking their tniths and as being vehicles through which they connect with

God.

Another practice with which three of the six of us have had experience is the offering and receiving of spiritual direction. These relationships happen sometimes within the church contem and sornetimes outside of the cathedra1 walls, sometimes one- on-one' sometimes in groups. Spintuai direction is an intimate relationship with other

j6The lectionaries that are complemented by Dr. Henderson's compilation are the Roman lectionary or the Revised Cornrnon Lectionary (xi). people. a role that Margaret Guenther compares to that of a midwife. She says. "The midwife is present to another in a time of vulnerability. working in areas that are deep and intimate. It is a relationship of trust and mutual respect" (87). Kathleen Fischer adds that a spiritual director is more like a cornpanion. a mode! that is based on the discipleship of equais. ir is aiways the Spirir who is present in ihe reiatiunsiiip wiih us and whu guides us (Ct'omen 18- 19).

Women continue as they have always done to find ways to come together around issues of mutual concem. Thrre serms to be an archetpal energy that draws women into relationship with each othrr. Carol Gilligan in her 1982 work. In a Diflenr Voice, and

Judith Jordan and colleagues in Wornen S Growrh in Connecrio>zpostulate that women develop and mature in relurionship-tlifferer~tiationrather than separaiion-individua~iot~ dynarnics that is the basis of earlier psyhological theory of Erik Erikson and others. The wornen of this study substantiate the conclusions of the research that bas been done by women and about wornen that indicates that womrn grow to maturity by being with and interacting with other people. especially with other wornen.

In corroborating the findings of Gilligan. and Jordan et al, Kirsten speaks of being part of a support group of women who made a significant impact on her life. Most of the group of six or eight women had come to the United States Midwest because of their husbands. work. She says. "It was a great time. We studied, we prayed. we Iaughed, we cned. We did everything together and we bonded veq. very closely. . . . We were in awe of what God did in our lives at that time."

Memones of the greatest spirituai growth times for Hilda stem fiom the penods in her life when she was in relationship wirh other people. She speaks of being a young non-catholic woman working as a nursing instructor in a Catholic Hospital. The loving and tare that she and her husband received from the sisters and the female administrators made a lasting impression on both of them. In her present voluntary role in the upper juciicatory woii ha^ sne does in tne cnurch. sht: crsdiis hrr coiieagurs in chose bodies as heing her nunuring community.

Of al1 of the family relationships with which we stniggle or in which we rejoice as senior women. wr unanimously agree that the grandrnother-gnndchild relationship is the most enriching of all. Kathleen Woodward attempts to explain this supra-penerat- ional bond as she recalls spending an afiernoon on the beach in the hot sun with her mandmorher who was sixty-two when Kathleen was ten. Their skins became desperately C bumed in the deceptive coolness of the Sun. so al1 that they could do when they returned to the hotel was to lie still and naked on the twin beds and cornplain. and laugh. and talk.

From incidents such as this one. she analpes that the two of them were not divided by generations but were somehow connected by them (91). She says that the complex emotions that she associates with her childhood memory is an expression of reassurance

(93) of being part of a genealogy of women.

Hilda's eyes brim with emotion as she speaks of her only gmdchild. a five-year- old girl. She says that she wants her granddaughter to see her as someone '%ho does things with her and not just sits around and knits." Hilda would like to have more influence on the spiritual development of the little girl. but she is always carefd not to usurp the prerogative of the parental role. Kirsten reco_~zesthat her pmdchildren who live at a distance from her do not have the opportunity to hear family stories fiom her.

She is working on writing the story of her fmily in order to pass on the heritage to her grandchildren. In the process she hopes that she can also comrnunicate a spiritual legacy to them.

Mentoring relationships between those of us in Our sixties and younger women ought to extend beyond Our daughters and granddaughters. Robert Raines says that

"(P)assing on the wisdom of the tnbe is a vital task of creative aging" (177). In rxpounding on his theme of .-lging as Counrerculizrre. David Maitland encourages that not only can we make a contribution to younger generations throuph sharing Our wisdom about the transience of present social arrangements. but we cm become bener acquainted with ourselves through the process (34). Carol. Heilbmn has observed that the young want us to be there for more than just listening to them, but through the sharing of our lives to reassure them that life continues (The Lasr 162-163). A particularly crucial area in which we cm make use of our experience and wisdom is that of loss of female voice.

Lyn Mikel and Carol Gilligan adjure adult women to be role models for al1 young women who even in this time tend to [ose their voices about the age of puberty. We al1 need to cive up the "good little girl syndrome" and empower each other to act on our feelings and C knowledge (22 1).

hother major issue for women today is dealing with societal pressure to conform to body images that are imposed on girls and women at an early age. Maitland cautions that extemal appearance may never become a matter of complete indifference, but those concerns should not "wield the imperiousness" that they do during adolescence (69). The work of the Gernian social feminist. Frigga Haug. and her colleagues working in

Frauenjornren in the area of the sexualization of women as subjects within a culture challenged theories of socialization previously developed in psychology and sociology

(74). '-lt is not until women have leamed to grasp life and its opportunities with greater passion that they ~willem to trust in their capabiiiries to iive iife hiiy, . . . ana oniy &en will extemal appearances take on new meaning" (26-27). Haug says that ". . . to make lives meaningfùl . . . (women) must resist encumbrances of the dominant culture " (44).

Functioning as older fnends. mothers, and grandmothers. we can certainly aid in encouraging younger women to join us in being "counterculturists."

A spiritually heaithy woman who is in a tlounshing relationship with herself mani fests characteristics of sel f-understanding and sel f-care. Kathleen Fischer prescnbes listening to our bodies as a means to becoming good caretaken of our own heaith

(.-lzitz»nn 91). For too long Christian religions have imposed a concept of dualism of flesh and spirit. and body and mind that has been especially detrimental to women (89-

90).

In advocating embodiment as a spiritual discipline that strengthens us. Maria

Harris recounts an experience that she shared with three other women as they sat around a table in Venice. Each of them narned an activity that made her feel whole and nourished.

Maria named music. both which she performed and listened to: the second woman spoke of walking for an hour each evening. while the third woman spoke of writing; the fourth said that she felt complete and refkeshed when she created and cooked meals for others. It occurred to Maria later that each activity named involved physicality, a bodily practice that made their spirits whole (129).

An aspect of bodily awareness of older women thar remains obscured is that of sexuality. Why in our culture are we perceived to be dead to a life of passion, sensuality, and intirnacy in Our later years even if that is part of who we have always been? Kathleen

Fischer suggests that rnany women grew up with a sense of sex as somehow being sinhl and that theology and church continue to propagate an image of older women as being asexual. "Whether single. divorced. widowed. lesbian. or rnarried. women continue to care deeply about the expressions and inteeration of their sexuality" (Autlrmn 94-95). In the mature years of our lives. a sense of well-being cornes about whrn we embrace our sexuality as a God-given gifi that cmenhance pleasure in and intimacy with another human being. The expression of al1 aspects of our sexual Selves takes on a seasoned. patient demeanor as compared to the ardour of our youth. Carolyn Heilbrun says. "(A)s we women reach Our later years. sex. if it is part of our lives. is a by-product. not the dominant element" (The Lasr 1 13). Whatever our choices in regard to expressing our sexuality. we can to the end of our lives use the erotic side of our natures to enhance our

fhelings in al1 areas of relationships. There are myriad ways to express our sexuality otiier than through genital contact (Jones vii):j7 for example. touch is a sensuous and erotic means of sexual communication ( 1 1) that takes on enhanced si pi ficance in the relational activities of older people. Fischer urges women to talk more fieely about this

"Rhona Jones is an author of one of the four sIim volumes that have been commissioned by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as part of their Older Adult Ministries. The other three authors inchded in the "Works Consulted?' section of this thesis are Juliana Cooper-Goldenberg, Richard L. Morgan, and S. Miriam Dunston. 1O3 aspect of our \ives in order to expiore fùlly the "riches and challenges. the diversity and complexi~''(Arrrwnn 9 j) of what it means to be women living creatively in the last quarter of our lives.

The final spiritual relationship that 1 raise from the conversations with the women is that of being connected to al1 of creation. Matthew Fox defines creation as "al1 things and us" (7). "Creation is the subject of the scientist's search and mystical cornmitment. and it is the source of al1 wonhip and the goal of al1 morality" (10). When the women spoke of their relationships with creation. they spoke more in terms of the natural world around us rather han emulating Fox's grand explanatory sweep.

My CO-researchers'descriptions of their relationships with creation would be closer to the one that is described by Kathleen Fischer. She wites. "A spirituality that celebrates the great web of co~ectednessamong dl created things shows us how to honor both the earth and Our own bodiliness" (-4 ~irztrnn87). In her autobiographical account. Pilgrim ar Tinker Creek, Amie Dillard describes herself leaving city life so that she can live out a spirituality of nature by absorbing al1 of the elements around her. "A

New Creed" of the United Church of Canada includes the directive '70 live with respect in Creation." This respect emanates from the knowlrdge that the earth forms a living system of which humans are an intrinsic part.

The Benedictine approach to spintuality appeals to Sophia because it is very much

'Tm think Cerounded in the world. She says that co~ectedto the world. . . . 1 spintuality is about our relationship with God and also about our relationship with the environment. .

. . That's part of being a crone." Kirsten derives spirituai strength from being near the sea 1O4 and contemplating her connection with al1 of nature. For Hilda. watching the marvel of the birds feeding outside her kitchen window and tending to the Bowers grouing in her garden remind her that Our connections to creation are important. She says. "The older 1 C eet the more in touch with creation I think 1 am. When you're younger you sometimes C take it for granted. . . . As we get older we realize that lite 1s pretty fragile. We need to be in touch with our inner Selves and with the . . . whole creation."

We six crones meet God in many ways. Our times of solitude are enriched through a variety of spiritual pnctices. Studying. reading. and writing are al1 engagements that in Our individual ways are sources of comecting with the Holy. We cxpenence God in and through the people to whom we relate. whether those people are found in churches. support groups. individual rncounters. or in Our families. The awareness of our bodiliness and the connections between our physical and spiritual selves honours God's intention for us so that we "may have life and have it more ab~ndantl~."'~

We see God in al1 of creation-in the woods, near the sea. on the land. in the heavens. As crones. we bring wisdom and Our affinity for connections and relationships to meeting

God in al1 of the facets of our vaiied. richly textured lives. The Crone Emerges

I arnji-esh und neiv-I nrn wild andfree I can be anyrhing I ivant IO be, because I know what the young do no( I have the experience to create my plot Dorothy MO~SO~

Time and trouble ivill tame an advanced young womarz, but an advanced old ivoman is irncontrollable by any earthlyforce. Dorothy L. sayersJ9

A long, long time ago I began my search for the crone. 1 have done much reading, deep pondenng. and lengthy conversing not only to find that crones are alive and well but that 1 am a different person from the one who started on this quest. 1 knew when 1 began my explorations that older women lacked voice in a patriarchal society that has not yet accorded them consistent respect and rights. 1 set out to find and to hear the voices of older women. 1 wanted the women to tell me about their spiritual development; 1 would ask them to reflect on how they have changed and grown spintuaily and in other ways; 1 would invite them to envisage how they would live the portion of their Iives that is still ahead of them.

I began my search for gaining an understanding of the nature of the spirituality of older women by stating the problem as being a dearth of witing and research done in the area, especially by and from the wornen themselves. After having searched through library stacks, book stores, and fnends' bookshelves, 1 maintain that my initial description of the situation is relatively accurate.

'9Quoted fiorn The United Church Observer, Decernber 1999,55.

105 1O6

However. there have been some researcher-witers who over the past half-century have tackled the dual subjects of women and aging. Arnong those is Simone de Beauvoir who paid slight attention to older women in her iconoclastic work. The Second Sex

(1 949). but by the time she wote The Coming ofAge (1970)she had experienced what it was like to be an aging woman and ciid comparative stuciies of the staruses oioider women in various cultures. The cultural historian. Lois Banner. noted that writings on aging women were "few and far between" (332) and attempted to rectie the omission by tuming her research to the maner of growing old. Gloria Steinem has taken a new look at the feminist movement from the vantape point of having observed. influenced. and lived through the sexual revolution of the 1960's and '70's. S he devotes a section of her book,

Rerolutionfkom IWhin, to 'Age and Blessing." her reflections on being an aging woman.

Frorn the perspective of being a counselor and spintual director, Kathleen Fischer has concentrated on the spiritual aspects of women and aging. Carolyn Heilbrun offers an

un-sanitized version of what it is like to be an older woman from the point of view of a

writer-teacher. while through the directive title of their book Look Me irt the Eye, Barbara

Macdonald and Cynthia Rich challenge al1 persons to deal with aging women in non- condescending ways. Kathleen Woodward pays a tribute to older women as she unravels

the matters of gender and emotions that she encounters in her practice as a psychoanalyst.

These writers confirm that older women are subject to a double jeopardy-ageism and

sexism in both the mundane and spiritual aspects of their lives.

To relate to women who are fi@ or younger. a significant number of mostly

women researcher-writen are generating an increasing volume of work fiom a feminist 1O7 point of view. -4s w-riters such as those cited earlier in this dissertation move into the last decades of their lives. the arnount of titerature "by and from" oider women will undoubtedly increase. But for now the onus is on women like the six of us in this study who can play a part in making our voices heard through the telling of our stories in the cause of older women. Sophia expresses on our behaif that ". . . (W)omen have lost their voice. There needs to be women like myself and yourself that speak up. . . . People may not remember our names. but we need a whole bunch of bridge builders-our generation."

A major source of data for this project was the women who shared their stories

wvith me and who reflected on who they are as older women. The prima.methodology

that 1 chose to use in search of the crone identity is that of narrative inquiry which

provides the space for life stories to be told and heard. If the capacity for older women to

gain or regain their voices is to be encouraged and enhanced. this seemed to be an

appropriate way to makr a beginning in those endeavours.

As dialogue with my five CO-researchersproceeded. each woman at some point

made an overture to interview me. 1 realized that if this would be a two-way sharing, 1

would need to describe to them segments of my life story that relate to the areas covered

in Our conversations. 1 was reluctant to disnipt the 80w of the women's stones, so we

used the times when we shared lunch about midway through the interviews and after the

tape recorder had been turned off at the end for them to ask me questions and for me to

complement and affirm their expex-iences with my own story. It was thmugh these points

of intersection that we tnily developed a CO-researcherrelationship.

Something nurninous happens when women tell each other stones of their lives. 1O8

There is a sense of the Holy Spirit. that is. the third voice. being present as an integral part of our communication As 1 conversed with the women there were moments of tean. times of laughter. and feelings of being transformed for al1 of us. Beth Benatovich reports a sirnilar bonding with the women who shared their wkdom with her in an informal exchange where --intimacy was more important rhat confidentiaiity." Tney toid rach other what it was to be woman. to be orher. to be on the periphery. to be a caretaker but never to be taken care of quite çnough. especially when their careraking function was over (xiv).

Very often transformation results when sacred stories are shared. Whiie reflecting on the cxperience of being interviewed Elizabeth said. "It's been very helpfùl for me. I feel as though 1 need to wite my spiritual story and this process is a begiming." Carmrn also commented that our time together was helphl and that some of the sad memories that were recalled are now behind her. She "can't do a dam thing" about the past. but she knows that God dors heal our memories. Since our conversation Hilda has gamered the courage to tell her women's discussion group of her expenences of an immanent God.

Sophia said "thanks?' for allowing her to be part of my explorations and for the oppominity for healiiig to take place because of our CO-researching.

As my sto~commingled with that of my CO-researchers.1 realized a strong sense of my spintual stature growing and affirmation of my conviction that story-sharing is a powerful means of spiritual nwreand growth. 1 agree with Winnie Tornm when she writes that her consciousness changed and continues to evolve (10) through acts of wornen telling each other their stories. Through engaging in an exercise such as this, one 1O9 that Juliana Cooper-Goldenberg refers to as a [ife revieiv. 1 have given myself permission to live with abandon in the unrestrained. zestful manner descnbed by Dorothy Momson and Dorothy Sayers in the epigraph for this chapter.

As captivating as stones are. Clandinin and Connelly counsel researchers to be as aien to stories nor shared as tu thethai are artictiliiicd (1ô 1- 162;. An esmiple of such an omission occurred during Sophia's and my conversation. She made reference to the death of her father at a relatively early age. but she did not explain how his death happened and how it affected hrr other than to hint that he may have been something of a rogue and a philanderer. It appeared to me that the pain associated with this part of her life prevented her at the time of our conversation from articulating explicit details of her mernories. But 1 cannot validly speculate on or interpret such intimations.

As women share stones. common threads and colors emerge. Out of our individual experiences from different places and from different perspectives. recumng themes become part of a larger picture of reality. Spiritual expenences enter our consciousness and becorne intcgrated with cveryday occurrences through dialogue.

Reporting personal experiences opens up space for others to speak about their own spintuality (Tomm 9) and life experiences and to see themselves as part of the large tapestry of women's lives.

There are indications fiom my research that general themes do emerge. Because of the time and the context in which we dl have lived. the sense of who we are as spiritual beings has some unique. universal shadings. Having begun our lives during the

Great Depression. we a11 experienced times when our wants would not be supplied and Our dreams could not be fully realized. Our parents' struggles to provide for their families certainly were reflected to us and instilled in us a sense of conservation and deep respect for the source of ouphysical and spiritual nurture. None of us expressed having felt depnved regarding the physical needs of Our existence. but we certainly leamed early in Our iives the iessons of iiving simpiy anà 'Dasicaiiy. Reiationsiiips are vaiueà more highly than possessions. and we seem to iive with a greater dependence on God than do women of the generations following us.

The cultural noms of the time in which we grew up decreed certain expectations for women. We would rnmy relatively young and stay in the relationship '.till death do us part": we were expected by some to be passive in heterosexual relationships: we were generally not encouraged to or aided in receiving education above the minimum C requirernents. Women were prrceived as being nurturers who were reputed to be deficient in cognitive and leadership skills: thus labor of women was undervalurd and was ofien designated as non-paid or underpaid "labors of love." In the lives of many women of our generation such societal attitudes conspired to prevent us From achieving

Our full potential.

Lack of recognition of the importance of and knowledge about our bodies and physical beings hindered our growth toward wholeness. Both churches and society fostered an attitude of dualism of the sacred and profane through which things spiritual were exalted and things physical were abased. Consequently many of us were conditioned to not listening to our bodies and to eschew rejoicing in the womanly rhythm of our lives. Not al1 of us when we were young women understood the details of Ill pregnancy and childbirth. that sex could be pleasurable. or that we ought to have the nght to control our own bodies. Contraception was illegal and not spoken of clearly enough to allow some of us the access to free ourselves of constraints of being tied to child-bearing and to allow us some choice in how we wanted to live our I~VPS-

It has taken some of us years to mature and to reorganize Our psyches ro subvert patnarchal expectations that were moderately or severely ingrained in us. Luce Irigaray describes the traditional positioning of women in the culture as part of the Symbolic

Order from which women resent being excluded. The role of women is relegated to that of passivity and of being objects within the male ordering of society (1 84-185). For some of us the interior work that is needed to be done to rid ourselves of societal encumbrances and to free our spirits is happening in our later years.

In the area of spintual dwelopment. the women describe their lives as journeys.

Although my explorations with older women apply only to the six of us named in this study. characteristics of our spirituality and perhaps that of our cohorts emerge. For the cffecting of our early spiritual awareness. al1 of us attribute engagement with or role models in the persons of mothers or grandmothers. For Sophia and Carrnen their relationships with their mothers was a negative experience which affected their striving for wholeness. Nevertheless. for better or for worse each of us reports that intenor growth has been steadily gradual. experienced in cornmunities, and has always been operative in us to some degree. An ever present awareness of and reliance on the Holy in our Iives has sustained us through al1 phases of our becoming who we are.

The omissions hmour conversations are also worthy of note. The words 112 heaven. hell. and sin were virtually not raised in the times that we spent with each other.

In speaking of their hures no one placed going to heaven afier death as part of the spintual goal in her life. Concepts of hell or sin did not enter the data base as we talked.

It may be that 1 would have needed to ask specific questions to raise those issues. but eenerally women seemed rnuch more concemed about living iives that wouid bring aod's t reign to earth in the here and now rather than aiming for a narcissistic pal of personal salvation.

As crones. we either have challenged or are open to examining androcentric images of God that persist in our consciousness. Re-imaging and re-thinking the basis of

Our faith is certainly as much within the purvicw of older women as it is for other genders and age-groups. Now that we have amved at the wisdom-stage in life where we feei few constraints and know without artifice who we are. we cmmove away from sterile. inappropriate images to those that are life-giving and authentic.

In the matter of spiritual practices that nurtgre us. we variously engage a wide range of techniques to connect with the Holy. Although al1 of us have formal and dedicated with Our churches. our reasons for belonging seem to be more motivated by habit. tradition. need for community. and love of syrnbol and ritual than they are for connecting with God through the liturgies and rites of the church. If our analysis of the süength of attraction to forma1 worshiping communities is typical for our age-group of women. churches need to examine the role they are playing in numving and fostering spiritual growth through services md the mass. As well, older women need to advocate for church services that will provide for them fertile gound for spirinial growth. Under present circumstances vie are more likely to expenence the presence of God in solitary exercises or with small relational groups. especially gatherings with other women. than we are in the context of congregational worship.

Thus I searched for the crone. and I found her: we are she! She resides in the women whom 1 interviewed. in myseif. and in many other oider women. She is wisaom, balance. and freedom. She lives out these attributes with an invincible spirit of courage. resilience. adaptability. and survivability. She lives passionately and cornpassionately with a sense of self-knowledge and self-care. and with deep respect for connections to

God. to others, and to creation.

She is wisdom--strength rmanating from deep within. radiating out into the world, and connecting and interacting with others (Iglehart xii). Barbara Walker speaks of the wisdorn of the cronr as revealing the psychological, subjective "tmth (1 77) of who we are as spiritual beinps. In commending the twenty-five older women who refiect on their lives. Beth Benatovich says that the subjects of her book possess "wisdom to neutralize victimhood and fear. to release authenticity and freedom. the freedom to Say?with an earned. fierce conviction: This is who I've become" (xv).

Hear the words of the poet:

Word to the Wise

A Pearl, ascendingfrom deeps ivhere the incomparable Word develops and sustains riji. slips from lips (often startling the speaker), jreejdling on enrs, rolling arozml hearts: birthing new lijè in sorne. others choosing rheir oivn deafness?

Katherine Sherin Zauner

Achieving balance is a life task for crones that my CO-researchersidentified. We work at finding a baianced image of God and balance between the ferninine and masculine sides of our psyches. 1 need constantly to strive for balance in my life among the elements of work. worship. recreation. and farnily time. Kirsten speaks for us when she descnbes the need for balance between our personal lives and Our public support groups and ministry activities. Sometimes achieving balance will happen only when we quit the habit of being the "obedient daughter" or "the good wife" by saying "no" to incursions that we deem to have low priority for us.

At the juncture of life where we find ourselves. it behooves us to rehearse holding a balanced perspective betwren integrity and despair (Fowler 1O8)." Robert Raines observes that in an attempt to balance many negative attitudes toward aging there is a tendency to oversell the positive (8). We need to honestly recognize along side our joie de vivre that there is a dowm side to growing older--possibility of illnesses, loneliness, and death (Maitland 17). 1 believe that in large measure we have a choice of living with

''O "Word to the Wise" appeared in "These Days". Jan. - Mar. 2000. The poet has kindly ganted permission to use her work in this dissertation.

"lames Fowler bases his work on that of Erik Enkson who named the eight stages of spiritual developrnent by a nomenclature of psychological polarities. The three adult stages of our lives are Intimacy vs. Isolation, ages 2 1-34. Generativity vs. Stagnation, ages 35-59, and Integrity vs. Despair, age 60 to death. integrity or languishing in despair.

Another tension in our lives is to balance memory with hope. Human life is composed of three inseparable components: memoq of things past, hope of the future, and reality of the present. An excess of either rnemory or hope will create risk of neglect in oudealing with the present (1 56). Carolyn Heilbrun describes this liminal state as looking ahead in the context of the past:

The greatest oddity of the sixties is that. if one dances for joy. one always

supposes that it is for the last time. Yet this supposition provides the rarest and

rnost exquisite flavor to one's later years. The pirrcing sense of "last tirne" adds

intensity. whilr the possibility of "again" is never quite effaced" ( The Lasr 55).

Maintaining balance in al1 of the aspects of our lives is crucial to wholeness and spiritual matwity. Maitland makes the assumption that most of what is labeled as sin stems from aspects of human nature that ought to be complemrritary but which are in conflict when they try to dominate each other. He uses as his exarnples the conflict between the desire to simpli@ life and the acquisition of possessions (140) and cornpetition between faith and experience both trying to exercise decisive influence over our lives. The later yars especially ought to be times when balance is brought to these and other polarities in our psyches (132).

Freedom of spirit is an attribute that we crones have claimed as our own.

Elizabeth says that liberation is something that we have to take; it will not be handed to us by someone else. She adds that we need to fiee ourseIves to be empowered to be critics and to ask questions about who we are and where we are going. Carmen is leming to be free to espress herself and not to be intimidated by people who might criticize her decisions or actions. When her church community makes demands on her time now. she has the courage to say that she can't or won't comply if it is something for which she has no passion. Hilda reminisces about her changed attitude in later years from that of trying to please everyone else to not caring what anyone thinks. Tmgoing to do whatever 1 want to do: I'm going to be me: 1-m not going to be anyrhing else." Sophia says she still stniggles with finding her voice but that there's a freedom that has corne with owning her own knowledge.

Carolyn Heilbrun corroborares the anitudes of the women when she reflects. '-1 entered upon . . . a period of freedom and only past sixty leamed in what freedom consists" (Heilbrun Last Gi/r 39). She counsels that we re-examine old habits and loyalties and move into a different world. an unscripted life (Heilbrun CVornen f 66).

David Maitland writes in the same vein as he encourages our disengaging ourselves from burdensome social attitudes inculcated in us early in life (1 6). "Our later years are a good and necessary stage . . . to let go of earlier illusions in favor of greater fniitfulness?'

1 1 1) Gloria Steinem has learned to see age as freedom. starting with the body and al1 its senses (247). Indeed. frecing ourselves is a life task for us to undertake in our older years.

As wornen living in the seventh decade of our lives. we exist in a state of liminality which Victor Turner has dubbed "betwixt and between" (3). Heilbrun describes us as being poised upon uncertain ground. to be leaving one condition for another in a state of unsteadiness and lack of clarity (Women 's 3,35), while Kathleen 117

Fischer characterizes this transition as one that leads us to move on or invites us to stay fimly in place (Aufiimn39). We are at the brink of a major opponunity for changing faulted social views about aging as an ever larger group of cohorts live to ever advanced ages (Maitland 13. 77). We cmbring to bear Our crone-wisdom to incorporate ail our fomer life-stages into who we are now (1 10) to make changes both in ourselves and in the society in which we live. We need to approach this stage of life as one of opemess and opponunity rather than one of rnourning for what is past and withdrawal fiom its challenges. Elizabeth indicates that she is in a state of liminality when she says, "1 have a sense of change. . . . I'm not rxactly clear what direction that's going to be (but) 1 want to continue learning." Sophia knows that change is coming when she moves around the fumiture in her house. The restlessness that she is now experiencing seems to be leading her to living life to the fullest. which for her means working with other people.

To fulfil Our intentions to live creatively. we have set for ourselves a number of life-tasks for the next decade or two. Robertson Davies in an address to a conference on aging said that continuing to foster the stimuli that have given us energy through our lifetime (302). to bnng something new into existence through the ability to conceive, or descnbe. or reveal (304). and to listen to the imer voices (3 13) are the marks of a creative penon. Dorothy Momson cautions that creation is born of chaos (64-65) but that crone- hood is the place where we can put everything weoveleamed to use (95). Robert Raines encourages us to make up a menu for the rest of our lives through considering answers to questions about what really irnpassions us, what we would like to continue doing, and what we ou@ to cancel(159) while Kathleen Fischer advocates retaining values that we 118 have held for a lifetime-service to others. spiritual seeking. art and creativity. and the tics of friendship (.-!zmrmn40). We who are in our sixties still have time to live Our creativity into action.

We will continue to deepen and to expand the spiritual practices that have

sustained us to rhis point in iife. Maitiana's Uiesis is riai he extrnt to whiçh a person's

experience is claimable is directly proportional to the spiritual depth at which that life is

carounded (108). Robert Wicks urges that we live our spiritual wisdom years with a spirit

of prayer and recollection so that what we share with others comes fiom a peaceful.

hopeful. loving hrart (8 1). Gratitude is the core of a healthy spiritual life (Rupp The Star

5 1). and the journey inside has an aura of mystery that leads us into transitions (Rupp

Saying 64.68).

In Our relationships w-ith other people we will refurbish those that because of

neglect or conflict have fallen into uncertain temtory. and we will continue to numire and

treasure those that are mutually e~ching.Robert Raines writes that "wounded histories

may abide." but that family relationships are capable of recovery and healing (17).

Sophia will work and pray to re-connect with her estranged oldest daughter. Elizabeth,

Hilda and 1 shared Our feelings of gratitude for being mothers of daughters who are also

our best fnends. relationships that we cannot take for gnnted. Elizabeth and Sophia

speak of compassion and empathy as requisites in relationships with al1 of those who

need to be loved.

As we do a "life review'? of where we have been. we may notice threads that we

have not woven into the fabnc of our lives. We might revisit drearns that we have been 119 unable to bnng to fmirion and ascertain if these are appropnate and possible to pursue at this stage of our lives. Carmen expresses her love of teaching, a life dream unfulfilled, that she especially shares with her grandchildren. Such a pro- active role is quite diRerent

From the stereotypicd grandmother that she in earlier years imagined she would be: ". . . retiring and sitting in a rocking chair eating chocolate and crocheting." For me, a passion of ten years ago was to paint in oils. That has fallen by the way recently, but 1 feel the need to work in a modality that makes use of sensory impressions rather than the verbal stimuli that have been the basis for the work that 1 have done for the past decade. Raines says that sou1 work involves gathering in the meanings of lifc. remembenng important events and people. and reweaving the threads into a fresh tapestry of meaning (97).

Although the work is not easy. the well-integrated life. like the well-made tapestry. is a precious rarity ( 1 1 6).

We have each expressed the wisdom of being mentors or teachers without meddling in the lives of others. This might be done through otTering spiritual direction, or companioning. and being role models and fiends to younger women. Kirsten says that she has time and is available to deepen her ministry of walking alongside younger wives of pastors and encouraging them in their rninistry. We can draw on experience and training and offer professional or life skills as volunteen in a more formal teaching setting. Hilda feels that she and her spouse ought tr, go to another country because they have gifts in nuning and veterinary medicine that they could offer. "There is in us a deep yeaniing for later years to be significant. filled with . . . continuing contribution to family and society" (Raines 59). Mary Morrison observes that if we have done the harvesting well from Our previous stages in life' we cm look at generations succeeding us with new eyes and love them through their passage of the stages that we remember well(3 1).

Each of us in her own way has expressed the need to become '6counterculture."

Carolyn Heilbrun encourages us ". . . to make use of Our secunty. our seniority, to take nsks. to make noise. to be courageous. to become unpopular" (Wriring 13 1). and Robert

Raines says that old has ramed a certain right to be outrageous and outraged (1 82).

Sophia expresses her intention for activism by saying that she wants to stand up for justice for women goinp through divorces. In my own life I have becorne much more vocal in challenging sexist and homophobic cornments and attitudes. 1 ask rnyself, "What is the worst that can happen to me?" 1 have nothing to lose-not face. reputation. nor cmployment. Even our physical appearance can announce that we are "counterculture."

Dorothy Morrison says that "dressing crone-style is fun. hip, and fashionable." For the most part crone colors are "bright. vibrant. and flashy. . . . shades closely resembling the flash of fire found in well-cut gems" (1 02. 103). The wivrinkles between our eyebrows Say to the world that we are able to focus. concentrate. and think (1 10).

In her poem-book. In fraise of Old Women. Marya Fiamengo observes through the eyes of an immigrant woman the countercultural stance encouraged by Morrison:

.S.. Eveîyone. Tadezcsz, is yoiing in America. Especially the women wirh coifeed bhe hair which gleams like the steel Ofjets in the daytime &y. Smooth-skinned ut sixty, second debiits atffp renascent rhey never grow old in Arnerica. S... I rd1put salr in the sozrp and I iidl Ofer bread and ivine ro myfiiends, and I rvill srrrbbornly praise old irornen uniil their laut skins gloiv like lcons ascending on escalators like Biiddhas descendin? in szrbivuvs. and I ivill liberate ail wornen ro be old in f merica beccruse the highest manifestation of rvisdom. Hagia Sophia. is old and ct woman.

We need to laugh more and play more. Robert Raines bids us to revel in "the deep seasoned laughter that rolls out at our age. erupting from the belly uncensored and wild." We need to rxercise the gift of laughter rspecially at ourselves if we are to be emancipated from a sense of self-importance ( 18 1 ). David Maitland goes against some spokespersons for religion by suggesting that the recovery of the capacity to play may be intrinsic to God's intent for the long-lived (3 1).

As older wornen we al1 need to make room in Our lives for celebration. Dorothy

Momson says that no rnatter what the circurnstances. reasons to celebrate are always there. The best reasons of al1 are that we are women and that we are crones (1 99-200).

According to Victor Turner. ceremonies of celebration are relevant to religious behaviours that confirm the social state of an individual (5-6).

1 had a remarkable telephone conversation with a woman whose name had been referred to me as one who celebrated a special tuming point in her life. She told me that she had become conscious of a major change occming in her spint and that she needed a ritual to celebrate her rite of passage. She had lefl her order of Roman Catholic sisten 132 about age fi@-five and realized that she had few if any life annivenaries to celebrate. "In the church so much habeen nmed for us. We must name reality for ourselves." She wanted to choose to live what life she has lefi with quality.

At age sixyfive. she invited fifteen women fiiends to celebrate her naming of herself as a crone. A weaver friend had made a shawl with spaces lefi in it t'or the women present to weave in threads of different colors. Each woman told of her association with her friend and the significance of the color that she added to the shawl. VJhen the evening came to a close. the host felt a newness that she could not fathom. As the colourful shawl was draped around her. she felt her new life being honoured. supported. and celebrated. A life without crlebration is indeed a gray life.

All of us have said that we need to continue to lem and grow. Some of us will do this through formal courses and some will engage in reading and workshop-type

learning to ensure that we -%sr it and not [ose it." Dorothy Mom'son points out that

growth is a difficult aspect to accept because it involves change (39). She adds that we

must allow ourselves the freedom of growth and transformation . . . to becorne the best

persons that we cm possibly be (44). While a11 six of us are comrnitted to Iife-long

learning in some measure. Elizabeth. Sophia and 1 intend to continue studies in a formal

way--perhaps pursuing work at a doctoral level.

We have talked of other ways, too. to ensure that we will live creatively and

vitaliy. Our goals for self-care are around self-awareness in the physical, mental,

spirituai. psychological areas of our lives. We need to simplify our lives so that for the

remainder of our years we travel lighter. smarter, and livelier. We will just be rather than 123 always do. Joy cornes from having a sense of wholeness and integration when what we do is consistent with who we are (Bolen Gods in ix). The witer of Psalm 92 offers a summation for attaining physical and spiritual vitality with which to live Our senior years:

They are planted in the house of the Lord: they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit: they are always green and full of sap" (verses 13- Ma).

My hope is that we continue to live as invincibly as the Tivo Old CVomen depicted

in Velma Wallis's telling of an Athabascan Indian legend passed on from mothers to

daughters of the upper Yukon area in Alaska. The two old women are discarded by their

comrnunity to be lefi to die in the tundra wintrr because they are a liability to their

nomadic tribe as they follow food sources. The two summon up al1 of their imer

resources to go From being petulant cornplainers to mature survivors. In the end they

synchronistically re-unite with their tnbe to spare them al1 from starvation.

There is so much more that could be said and witten about being crones in Our

culture. 1 am encouraged that older women are begiming to be accorded some

recognition in the "halls of power." In 1999 three women who would be regarded as

being "older" were appointed to prestigious. significant posts: Adrienne Clarkson as

Governor-General of Canada: Beverly McLaughlin as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

of Canada: and Lois Hole as the Lieutenant Govemor of Alberta. 1 observed these

appointments with pnde and satisfaction. but I also noted that older women being narned

tc; such posts has an aura of novelty about it. It is only when women's places as leaders

are regarded as hlly equalitarian and not treated like exceptions that we will know that

our work as older women is done. 1 would like to have canied my investigations further to compare how we understand ourselves spirituality vis-à-vis groups of younger women and to examine ditlierences in perception of spirituality among varying socio-economic and ethnic subjects. .411 that 1 can say at this time is that perhaps some of the conclusions that 1 have drawn are valid for women of other ages and other backgrounds.

An issue that arose frequently and strongly several times in my reading and conversations is that of the genralogy of women. especially of the three generations of daughter. mother. and grandmother. 1 acknowledge that 1 have given only cursory attention to the topic in this work. but 1 also reaiize that a respectful research of those

relationships could well be the basis for my next dissertation. 1 see a need to tell the story of generations of women who are related to each other from the point of view of the

grandmother. Indeed there is much more to be done. but for now this is as far as 1 cm go.

The first words of this thesis corne from Sophia and it seems fitting that she

speak the last words as well. During Our conversation she asked. "So there's a pattern in

these stones that you're doing? right?" 1 hadn't thought of an imposed pattern. so 1 asked

her what she thought the pattern might be. '-1 think it's about gaining Freedom-about

people becoming their own person--like a caged bird ali of a sudden finding freedom."

And so the six of us. and hopefully multitudes of other women living in the

seventh decade of their lives. will soar to Freedorns ody imagined in our earlier years. As

the prophet says. "Even youths will faint and be weary. and the young will fa11 exhausted;

but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. they shall mount up with

wings like eagles . . . (Isaiah 40:304la). Epilogue

1 am WOMAN. 1 am WOMAN living in the seventh decade of life. 1 was CHILD. Body straight. erect; eyes dancing with expectant glow. Life vas very different then. Only men could be priests, pastors, ministers; members of Church boards or synods?heads of families. It was so ordained by Holy Writ. Everyone knew that God was male-- old, bearded, stem, demanding, umelenting, and oh yes, German-speaking. 1 did not question or rail against the injustice because it was so ordained by Holy Writ. 1 was JUNGFRAU. There were some glimmerings of the goddess. I am worthy. 1 am unique. 1 have special gifts and talents. But women were to keep silent in the assembly. They were permitted to be missionaies or deaconesses, provided they assumed no authonty or power. Women were expected to be subject to Church and husband- lesser beings, bent in body, frai1 in spirit. It was so ordained by Holy Writ. "Sons are indeed a heritage fkom the Lord," so says the Psalmist. Where are the daughters? Sisters were a11 the family 1 knew. The woman bent over--was she also disheartened. e~cluded?~' 1 am MOTHER. Motherhood is woman's destiny. The Holy Authorities revere Motherhood. Then why do they depreciate mothers and children?

Hor~cvdd WOMAN he SC dekci-nr. yet have rhe smngth to bear children. fortitude to do enslaving work. tenacity to survive? To survive near-death expenence birthing a daughter. then three more daughters. The Psalmist speaks again. "Happy is the man who has his quiver full of sons." Mother. spouse. career woman. home maker. I am bent. face parallel to the Eh.eyes glazed. not seeing. It is too much. Where is the promise of the goddess? I am CRONE. 1 age. Have 1 been the woman bent over for too long? Whose eyes were open but not seeing? 1 read the Hebrew Scriptures. I read the Epistles of Paul. Anger wells up in me. Where are the stories of women? What are their names? Who has decreed that wornen be left out of the story? The goddess cornes to me. "Be alive." she whispers. I am worthy. I am unique. 1 have special gifis and talents.

?'he bent-over woman is the subject of an encounter with Jesus that is recorded in Luke 13: 10-17. 1 am no longer vulnerable nor subject. Men. too. struggle with how to be. Cmwe together break ancient shackles too long sustained? I will raise my voice. I will tell my story. 1 finally know I have nothing to lose. But why has it taken so long? Body straight. rrect: eyes dancing with expectant glow. 1 am CHILD JUNGFRAU MOTHER CRONE. 1 am WOMAN. Works Consulted

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Woodward. Kathleen. Tribute to the Older Woman: Psychoanalytic Geometry, Gender, and Emotions." Psychoanalysis, Feminism. and rhe Future of Gender. Ed. John H. Smith. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press. 1994.

Woolf, Virginia. il Room qf One's Olvn. New York: Harcourt. Brace and World. 1929.

Woolger. Jemifer Barker and Roger J.Woolger. The Goddess Wi~hin:A Guide IO rhe E~ernalMyrhs that Shape Women's Lives. New York: Fawcen Columbine, 1989. APPENDIX A

Questions and Prompts for Interviewing Senior Women

1. Tell me something about your early life and your farnily situation. If you feel free to do so. give the date of your birth, your position in the farnily--just general information.

7. Describe your relationship with your parentsjguardians and how that relationship had an impact on your development.

3. How did your position in the famiiy and interaction wiùi your sibiings aKecr wno you were/are ?

4. What physical and sense related mernories do you have from the first ten years of your life?

5. How did you feel about the security, the safety, the love that surrounded you as a child?

6. Was there anything in your early life that caused you to feel marginalized, an outsider?

7. Do you have any awareness of spiritual experience? Was there a sense of God or of a spiritual presence in your life when you were a child?

8. What or who were the major spintual influences for you as a child?

9. What are your mernories of early church experience? Did you study a catechism? Were you confirmed? Did you feel a direct cal1 from God because of church activities?

10. In reflecting back. did you ever feel that you were socialized to being the "good and obedient" daughter. to react passively to Iife's situations?

1 1. For the era in which we were young women, it is generally acknowledged that society was quite patriarchal in its construction. Did you experience limitation in your development because of this socio-cultural milieu? Please explain.

12. As you reached adulthood, how did you feel about living in a male-dominated society?

13. Did elements such as health or moving to different domiciles affect your life?

14. Describe your relationship with the church during young adulthood. Did you ever feel the need to not conform? Was there a sense of rebellion toward the expectations, the interpretation of Scnpture as to how you were to live as a "Christian young person"? 15. Have you esperienced what some might cal1 a classical conversion? Could you descnbe that?

16. From your recollection of the years of your secondary (and post-secondary) education, what are some of the incidents that either fonvarded (deepened) or impeded your spiritual development? Were there any pivotal experiences?

17.1 wouid like to have you reflect on the years between seventeen and twenty-one, somrwhere in that era. I'his is the tirne that some human deveiopment experts Say that our life dreams are formrd. What were your life drearns--for who you would be in the future. for what your career would be. for expectation of rnarriage and family?

18. Have you at different stages in your life re-dreamed or re-set your life dreams?

19. Descnbe how your spouse/partner (if you have one) has been a suppon or a block to your development as a woman and as a spiritual being.

20. What was your role in relationship to your spouse in his vocation/career/profession?

7 1. If you have çiven birth to children. was there any spiritual dimension to that expenence?

22. It has been said that Our age-group of women is a bridging generation. We have for the most part lived very different Iives from our mothen. yet we have been very much influenced by having been raised in a patriarchal culture, quite different from Our daughters. What is your reaction to the idea of our being a bridging generation?

23. In your adult years how did you respond to what you perceived as societaVfarnily expectations of you? Were these responses different from when yuwere a girl?

24. The writer Carol Gilligan expounds the thesis that about puberty girls lose their voices in rems of having self-confidence and assuredness of themselves as persons. How is your voice? Do you speak out? Are you heard?

25. From the vantage point of being in your 60's. what limitations in your life have prevented you from fulfilling your dreams or your re-drearns? Has being a wornan been an advantage or a disadvantage to realizing your goals?

26. Matare your dreams for younelf for the next ren or fifieen years?

27. What relationships do you see with your family and particularly with your erandchildren for the next fifieen years? C 28. What persona1 legacy would you like to leave for your grandchildren?

29. Crises in one's life are incidents or a senes of incidents that cause one to change direction. These may be positive or negative experiences. Could you identiS crises or turning points that have occurred in your adult life? What effect did these crises have on your spiritual growth?

30. What have you done or are you doing now to express the artistic side of your life. i.e. right-bruin activity?

3 1. Please descnbe what spiriniality idmeans for you.

32. What do you perceive is your growing edge in your spiritual life?

33. What spiritual disciplines or practices do you engage in? (prayer. Bible reading, praying the Scnptures. rneditation. silent retreats. yoga etc.) Do you engage in these occasionally or regularly?

34. What is your image of God now? 1s this different from what it was when you were a child?

35. Are there any other comments that you would like to make about your spiritual joumey or the character of your spirituality at this time?

36. How was this process of interviewing for you? APPENDIX B

INFORMED CONSENT

PROJECT TITLE: Creative Crones: Spintuality of Older Women

1. 1 voluntarily consent to participate in the research being conducted by Bernice Luce, a student in the Master of Arts: Spintuality and Liturgy program at St. Stephen's College, Edmonton.

2. 1 undersrand that this study is of a research nature. It may ol'ier no direct benefit to me other than experiencing persona1 satisfaction in having participated in a research project and having gained persona1 insight into my own growth and awareness.

3. 1 understand that 1 will be asked to reflect on my own spiritual development and experiences from the point of view of my being a senior woman.

4. I Merunderstand that our conversation will be audiotaped and later transcribed, a copy of which transcription will be sent to me for perusal to ensure that the essence of my responses reflect accurately my thoughts and life experiences. I may choose to have any of my words stncken from the transcript.

5. I further understand that the taped conversation will be confidential with access granted only to Bemice Luce (the researcher), to myself, and to the research advisor if assistance is required for analysis of the data.

6. The data used and reported in the dissertation will be anonymous through the use of a pseudonyrn chosen by me if 1 so wish.

7. I rnay withdraw from the research at any time without incuning negative consequences to myself. 1 understand also that the researcher may at any time drop me from the study.

8. If I at any time have questions about the study, I rnay cal1 the researcher, Bemice Luce, at telephone number 403 783 2085 at any tirne.

Date Signed

Witness

Researcher Bernice Luce