My Class at CRCS
Teaching the
course on “Religion, Women, and the Literatures of Religion” was one of the
highlights of my teaching career.
From the first day, when I stepped into the classroom and was greeted
with smiles and welcomes, I knew I could feel comfortable bringing what I knew
and wanted to teach to these students.
This class of students had already been seasoned and prepared to be a
community of learners by having studied the better part of the year in this
unique program. I did not detect
the kind of competitive edge that is so much a feature of classroom interaction
in the United States, and I feel that has something to do with the culture here
of long-standing collaboration and sharing. It was certainly evident in the way these students worked
together, laughed together, and enjoyed time after class, such as in “buka
puasa,” the opening of the fast that comes during Ramadan. Coming from various parts of this vast
country, from Medan on the island of Sumatra, from Aceh, from the small island
of Lombok, as well as many cities around Java, they also represented diverse
religious backgrounds, the majority Muslim, but also Protestant Christian and
Catholic Christian (the one Catholic being a Sister of Notre Dame whom the
students had come to see as “ibu,” Mother). About three-fourths of the students were male, and although
that might have seemed an impediment to learning almost the entire semester
only about women, these young men showed no signs of resistance, and in fact
demonstrated an amazing openness and willingness to engage the issues
confronting women in the Middle Ages as well as today.
What was just as
impressive to me was that they were reading and writing academic studies in
English, a discourse that can be difficult even for native speakers! They stretched themselves in so many
ways that it was truly admirable, and I know many of them struggled. Despite that, they produced response
papers that were for the most part readable and intelligent, some
brilliant. I heard so many new
insights from their unique perspectives, and they helped me to look at these
works by medieval and modern women with new eyes.
The content of the
course consisted primarily of writings from Christian mystics and visionaries
of the Middle Ages, as well as a thesis written on Sufi women mystics. We encountered the remarkable prison
diary of St. Perpetua, martyred in 203 C.E., and marveled over the
multi-talented abbess, musician, poet, prophet, mystic, Hildegard of Bingen,
discussed food in the writings of the unique medieval women’s group, the
Beguines, and then focused on the book, Showings,
written by Julian of Norwich.
I would like to include here some of the comments students made when
reading her beautiful treatise, to give some idea of how open they were to
learning across boundaries of time, gender, and theology:
“Her style of contemplating God is set in the fourteenth
century, but the meaning is still alive and meaningful today and invites us to
share in that same trustworthy love. “
“Showings reveals
a woman who experienced God directly and as “our mother.”
“Her revelations of the feminine side of God are a very
significant contribution to all of us now.”
“God’s grace and divine love through a feminine figure is
such an empowerment and encouragement for all beings, not only women. Also men, because the feminine
qualities show how simply love can comfort and heal, just like a mother’s
love.”
“The dualism of feminine/ masculine no longer exists in
Julian’s understanding of God. God
is feminine, and at the same time also masculine. The human/body and the divine, the feminine and masculine,
each of both is actually a union.”
I was very happy
to have Najiah Jim’s Master’s Thesis on Sufi women, based on her interviews
with three women connected to pesantrens, in order to balance what
could have been an over-emphasis on the Christian tradition, the one I know
best. We also had a chance to
invite Yuli Yulianti, a Buddhist scholar who happens to be a friend of mine. Yuli helped explain how the female
lineage in Theravada Buddhism died out, and has not been restored because the
line was broken.
Two of the most
exciting, energizing classes were led by Bu Dewi Chandraningrum, who brought us
readings from her edited volume, Body
Memories. I was very happy to have Bu Dewi’s presence in the
classroom, and to see the student’s immediate warm responses to her as she
sometimes spoke in Bahasa Indonesia, the language most accessible for them. In her first class, she divided the
students into three groups, in discussion of three topics relating to the
female body: menstruation, sexual
intercourse, and childbirth. What
could have been a class of silence, embarrassment, or even giggles, became a
serious, mature conversation among the students. I was awed by their willingness to discuss such sensitive
topics together, with mixed genders.
Bu Dewi’s second class introduced us to the women activists of Kartini
Kending, and the opposition to the proposed cement factory that has already
decimated villages and their way of life in northern Java.
I would like to
say in conclusion, that based on the readings from the women mystics like
Julian of Norwich, whose theology of the body is holistic, non-dualist, and
healthy, and intensified in the sessions led by Bu Dewi, this class became
almost a spirituality of the body.
Sacred sexuality and the sacredness of the female body became an
underlying theme. I will let one
of the students have the last w “Women’s bodies can be very good when
interpreted as fertility, mercy, and wisdom, but they can also be interpreted
as objects attracting sexual desire or even worse as spiritually less than men. . . . The narration of Hawa (Eve) and Sri (Javanese goddess
figure) could be seen from any point of view, depending on our intention. Yet, perceiving that male is more
spiritual than woman by nature is not only male centrist, but also
discriminating over the other and shows how arrogant it is.” This student and others showed me at
what depth of understanding they were interpreting what they read and
heard. They were a gift and joy to
teach!
