All You Need Is Love You All The Women in Leadership Project has worked to raise awareness about sexism in both local and institutional contexts and to provide safe spaces for women to connect, share stories, and inspire one another across Mennonite Church USA. “When hands and bodies are degraded by work that is not made possible by love, the heart learns to internalize anger, oppression, and exploitation. When hands are part of work that nurtures their own communities and their very selves, the heart learns the power of love.” —Katerina Friesen “The challenge … now is to read scripture in light of the experiences All You of the marginalized and to weigh all sources of authority with the norm of liberation from oppression for all.” Honoring the Diversity of —Kimberly Penner Need Is Lo e “There is power within voluntary powerlessness. There is freedom in letting go. Suffering and emptiness are part of the Jesus way. Honoring the Diversity Love is so much stronger than all other energies in this cosmos.” of Women’s Voices in Theology —Jane Hoober Peifer Jennifer Castro, editor Women’s Voices in Theology inVoices Women’s Jennifer Castro is coordinator of the Women in Leadership Project of Mennonite Church USA. She’s an Presentations from the educator by training and has worked in community and women’s health, public education, and development. Women Doing Theology Conference She is inspired by the energy and power that the Spirit ignites within us as we unite in love. She lives in San Women in Leadership Project Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Jake, and their three children. Mennonite Church USA February 20–22, 2014 Leesburg, Virginia MennoniteUSA.org All You Need Is Lo e Honoring the Diversity of Women’s Voices in Theology Jennifer Castro, editor Presentations from the Women Doing Theology Conference Women in Leadership Project Mennonite Church USA February 20–22, 2014 Leesburg, Virginia ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE: HONORING THE DIVERSITY OF WOMEN’s VOICES IN THEOLOGY © 2016, Women in Leadership Project, Mennonite Church USA, Elkhart, Indiana, 46517 Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN-13: 978-1523729135 International Standard Book Number: ISBN-10: 1523729139 Printed in the United States of America. Copy-editing: June Galle Krehbiel, Annette Brill Bergstresser Cover and book design: Ken Gingerich All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owners. Unless otherwise noted, scripture text is quoted, with permission, from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. To order a copy or request information, please call 574-523-3051, or see: mennoniteusa.org/what-we-do/peacebuilding/women-in-leadership-project Printed by CreateSpace, an Amazon.com company. For the presenters and others who attended this wonderful conference. Thank you for your gifts of words. For women across the world who do theology daily while speaking and teaching, practicing medicine, cooking meals, creating art, writing poetry, cultivating the land, solving problems, designing buildings, writing software, and so much more. Thank you for the ways you embody the Spirit of Life and reveal God’s light in our world. Contents Introduction ......................................................................................vii Jennifer Castro 1. Leading from a Healing Place: The Holding Environment as a Place of Safety and Challenge ......................................................1 Laura L. Brenneman 2. Finding Identity in Business, Anabaptism, and Diversity: A Narrative ........................................................................................7 Tracy Neufeld 3. From Cure to Community: Biblical Theology Informed by Disability ......................................................................................15 Christine J. Guth 4. Love Breaks Oppressive Structures and Transforms Lives ................21 Blanca R. Vargas 5. Learning to Love Our Bodies: Yoga as an Incarnational Practice ......27 Suella Gerber 6. For the Love of Motherhood: Theological Reflections on Birth, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss ..............................................33 Sarah Ann Bixler 7. Blood, Trees, and Desire: A Poetic Feminist Perspective on the Crucifixion .............................................................................41 Anita Hooley Yoder 8. Choosing Love: Adultery, Adoption, Abundance ..............................55 Claire DeBerg 9. Technology, Creation, and the Sacredness of Life ..............................65 Meg Lumsdaine 10. Growing at the Margins: Women Doing Farming as Theology .........73 Katerina Friesen 11. For Such a Time as This?: Love, Power, and the Relief and Deliverance of God in the Book of Esther ..................................85 Catherine Thiel Lee 12. On Claiming Sophia: Within and Beyond Our Jewish Heritage ........95 Dorothy Yoder Nyce 13. Negotiating Christian and Indigenous Identities: The Story of Laughing Warrior Girl ................................................105 Sarah Augustine 14. Christian Ecofeminist Images, Language, and Actions: A Conversation with Feminist Theologians ....................................117 Erica Lea 15. Tennis and the ’hood .......................................................................125 Cathy Stoner 16. Our Words Matter: Julian of Norwich and Diverse Images of God ....................................................................141 Maria C. Hosler Byler and Lindsay Mustafa Davis 17. Letting Go .......................................................................................153 Jane Hoober Peifer 18. The Sacrament of Genuine Meeting Between the Generations ........163 Janet Stauffer 19. Sacred Yet Insufficient:T he Use of Scripture as a Source in a Mennonite-Feminist Approach to Sexual Ethics ......................173 Kimberly Penner 20. Christian Love as Love of Self and Love of One’s Sisters: Lessons from Teresa of Avila ...........................................................185 Julia Feder Endnotes ................................................................................................191 Introduction In the Beatles’ song, John Lennon wrote the now-famous phrase that was also the title of this conference, “All You Need Is Love.” At first glance it might be tempting to dismiss this perspective; it can be perceived as an ex- tremely oversimplified view of the world. But if we consider it further, we might hear echoes of the words of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). All You Need Is Love: Honoring the Diversity of Women’s Voices in Theology was the first Women Doing Theology Conference organized by the Women in Leadership Project of Mennonite Church USA. The papers included in this collection were selected from those presented at the con- ference. They reflect a diversity of voices of women doing theology across Mennonite Church USA. These presentations created space for discussion and reflection on what it means to love in the midst of a world rife with struggle and oppression. Presenters and conference participants faced these realities head on—tensions between women of greater and lesser privilege, the need to listen deeply to a wide variety of women’s voices in matters of faith and theology, the difficulty of putting love into action and standing in solidarity with struggling sisters in our local communities and around the world. And through this collection, we hope to bring some of these realities, these challenges, these encounters to a wider audience. Thank you to Joanna Shenk and Hilary J. Scarsella, then co-coordinators of the Women in Leadership Project, who planned and organized the con- ference. Your work, passion, and energy are an inspiration. Thank you to the Steering Committee of the Women in Leadership Project: Moniqua Acosta, Linda Gehman Peachey, Erica Littlewolf, Aveani Moeljono, Sandra Pérez, Regina Shands Stoltzfus. Thank you to the Conference Planning Committee—Moniqua Acosta, Michelle Armster, Sarah Augustine, Gayle Gerber Koontz, Hannah Heinzekehr, Chantelle Todman Moore—and to Mennonite Church USA staff members Iris de León-Hartshorn and Brenda Zook Friesen for their work in coordinating the event. —Jennifer Castro, editor vii 1. Leading from a Healing Place The Holding Environment as a Place of Safety and Challenge Laura L. Brenneman Tonight I wish to challenge you in a safe space. I will present the Good/“Good Enough” Samaritan as a leadership model.1 I invite you to receive stories from me of people in pain, who are crying out for healing balm, and challenge you to think about your own healing, the environ- ment you need for healing, and how to create it, so that you can lead from a healing place and invite others to do similarly. Introduction Last week I read this from Krista Dutt about the conference: As women in leadership, can we create safe spaces that identify power, share stories and then challenge the powerful? … What are … ways that powerful women in the Church could work to discover the power dynamics and sources in other issues and then be able to challenge that power through the process of discovery? My hope is that the