Listening to the Experiences of Women
The issue of Liturgy entitled “Renewals in Retrospect: Fifty Years of Worship Scholarship amidst the Changing Worlds of Worship,” was co-edited by Andrew Wymer, vice-president of the Liturgical Conference board and professor of worship at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and me.
We solicited essays from a range of members of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL) looking at what has changed in liturgical scholarship and liturgical practice in the years since NAAL was founded in response to the Second Vatican Council.
Here is an excerpt from an essay by Janet Walton who taught liturgy at Union Theological Seminary in New York for many years and was a founding member of NAAL’s seminar on feminist studies. She is describing the work of that seminar.–– Melinda Quivik
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Many institutional religions are reluctant to make changes that respond to the day-to-day lives of women. Women in small groups in many places have addressed women’s needs when synagogues, mosques, and churches and other institutions have not. A women’s liturgy group in New York City is one such resource. The WLG, as it is called, has met every month for forty-two years. The heart of the liturgies is a reversal of responsibility, that is, the members are not looking to a religious institution to decide what is true for us but rather we look to one another. One of the founders of the group, Ann Pat Ware, describes it with these words: “We take responsibility for our spiritual life into our own hands rather than entrust it to someone else.” From its beginnings the members of the group expected to bring what we were learning back to congregations and to rejoin them. Only a few wanted to know.
The essence of this feminist worship is the participation of every person. There is no hierarchy. Every member takes a turn in planning and leading. We are all creators. There is no common text except our lives. The members draw materials from many kinds of texts, photos, sounds, and actions. We design moments from what is seasonal, from what is happening in our world, and from particular human needs. We search for materials that evoke women’s wisdom, that reflect women’s suffering, and that model women’s leadership. Authority is shared. We are not afraid of making mistakes. We practice trust across our differences.
At every liturgy there is time for each person to dig down into themselves and respond to what this particular liturgy is inviting. Maybe it unearths a longing, a hope, a dream that she has not even thought about before. We support each other to find ways to live with attention to what is sacred within us, among us and beyond us. . . .
In the NAAL Feminist Studies seminar, we have a broom on the seminar door of the room assigned to us for our work. A broom reminds us what we have to sweep away in order to make a way for what is new. We name what is good for us. Knowing it evolves. We say what is true and what is not. We sweep away many layers of habits of accepting what is hurtful. We break through the silence of neglect and disrespect. As with witches associated with brooms, we support one another to claim our wisdom, our courage, our need to move into unknown places.
What is not true for feminist worship is anything that demeans or disregards women, our bodies, our minds, our abilities. What is true are expressions of relationships, human beings who care about one another and the realities of our world, who commit ourselves to draw out what is holy, what is good, and to urge each other to respond in light of it. Perfection is not our goal. Claiming what is true for us is foremost.
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The rest of this essay is available in the full digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 37, no. 4 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.
Janet Walton is a professor emerita at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, liturgical consultant for synagogues, and founder of the Women’s Liturgy Group in New York.
Janet Walton, “What Is True for Us: Feminist Contributions to Liturgical Experiences,” Liturgy 37, no. 4 (2022): 52–56.