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Musings of Former Interns Sister Sabbaticals at WATER I chose to come to WATER for an internship as a part of my post-leadership sabbatical to utilize their extensive feminist theology library, to reflect with Mary and Diann, and to be in touch with the women with whom they collaborate. Being at WATER is one piece of a sabbatical that for me is focused on exploring the stories and rituals of women as they bring their faith to the concerns of their everyday lives. The experience at WATER was mind expanding and life changing. My daily tasks involved being a support staff to Diann and Mary, learning new computer programs, and aiding Diann to secure copyright permissions for her book, Return Blessings. In addition to that, I was able to sit in on planning meetings for two national conferences, visit other social justice agencies, attend a local forum, a book reading, a symposium, and engage in prayer and protest for women’s ordination. And besides all of this, I had the opportunity to play each day with Catherine Fei Min, Mary and Diann’s newly adopted daughter. I met women from Peru, Brazil, the UK, and the Netherlands. I heard speakers from Bolivia, Japan, Kenya and Nigeria. I read womanist theology, Asian feminist theology, Celtic spirituality and Jewish women’s rituals. The pedophilia scandal dominated the news during my January through April stay at WATER. The breaking of this news happened at the same time I was reading about feminist sexual ethics. The vision these women presented gave me hope for the future as I watched the moral authority of patriarchy collapse under pressure. As a result of my time at WATER, I feel an urgency to work for the affirmation of women as responsible moral agents, the promotion of feminist moral values, and an end to the sexual oppression of women. Being at WATER has given me the time and space to inform my mind and become recommitted to the cause for justice in an environment of collaboration and support. I am grateful for the opportunity to be church and to build church with Mary, Diann and all the women who make up this discipleship of equals. I know that as we continue our faith journeys, the benefits from this mutual exchange will unfold more fully in our lives. Contact WATER for internship information. From WATER to Wilderness Northern Manitoba, where I am currently working with Mennonite Central Committee, is in many ways another world than the one I experienced during my WATER summer internship. However, the lessons I learned and the skills that I take from my internship at WATER are relevant. I am told it was an unusual summer at WATER, quieter than most with Diann Neu away on study leave and Cindy Lapp working as a pastor. As far as I was concerned, all was normal in the WATER office. The flow of people through the door may have been slower, but the flow of things to be done in the WATER office did not dwindle. The water kept running. Among other projects, WATER was involved in efforts to expose and eradicate sexual abuse of nuns. So I received my "Catholic education," as Mary Hunt affectionately called it. Before stepping into the WATER office I had never met a nun, I did not know who or what the Holy See was, and I had never heard of Catholics for a Free Choice. I soon became acquainted with these, and the titles for various people in the Catholic hierarchy. I even spoke on behalf of Sisters Against Sexism (SAS) at a protest at the Vatican Embassy in New York City. Because the summer was so "unusual," I got to spend time alone in the office with Mary or Diann (while the other was gallivanting to some other part of the country). With each I had many opportunities for conversations over tea, lunch, and just in casual passing. Diann and I even did a feminist critique of the movie Shrek. In organizing Mary’s copious writings I had the chance to read her articles. We talked about her work and the changes in it over the years. I discovered abundant resources, community within communities at WATER, people longing for connections, people making connections. I discovered again what a privileged life I have led to have the opportunity to spend my summer learning, exploring and doing a lot of reading. Currently, I am living and working in a small town in northern Manitoba (population 500). Here some days it seems as if life is about survival more than it is about reflective action or politics. But working with aboriginal high school students, I realize that, like any marginalized group, people here face issues that are very political. They struggle to recover from a system of political oppression that denied them culture, language, and the ability to function as a community, and thus as individuals within a community. Here in the relative wilderness, with a small rural library, I continue attempting to grasp the privilege, love and support that fills my life. I try to work here with the same passion and revolutionary excitement that is so apparent at WATER even during a relatively quiet summer. Lora Nafziger is currently completing a two-year voluntary service term with Mennonite Central Committee in Cranberry Portage, Manitoba. She is a student support worker in the residence of a high school that serves over twenty-five remote northern communities. Contact WATER for internship information. Experiencing WATER "It was a felt thing, that I was traveling toward myself …returning to people I’d never met…Water going back to itself. I was water falling into a lake and these women were the lake..." - Linda Hogan, Solar Storm Coming to WATER this past summer was for me like rain falling into a lake. It was a time of traveling toward myself, moving toward a home for which every cell in my body had been waiting. I became part of many bodies of WATER, part of a lake, a community of strong, justice seeking, creative women who have a passion for people, the divine, life and change; part of rivers of activists across the country, around the world, who are calling their religious traditions and governments to accountability and change through compassion and love. I became part of the life-giving network that WATER has created over sixteen years, that has given me a stronger understanding of being both rooted and having wings to fly in the herstory of women and religion. Some time has passed since my internship, and I still find it difficult to articulate how meaningful my experience was, how much I learned and will continue to grow because of my time at WATER. Some of my feelings cannot be expressed with words; perhaps someday I can convey them with movements or with paints. For me, being at WATER meant being in an affirming, loving, empowering community of wise women who journeyed with me, a college student passionate about women, religion, spirituality, social justice and art. The openness and inclusiveness of WATER embodied in both work and play allowed me to be who I am, in a safe space. Involvement in the day to day work, from liturgies to research to office work, reinforced for me the importance, uniqueness and need for WATER. Kate Holbrook interned at WATER after her junior year at Bates College in Maine. Contact WATER for internship information. Realizing
the Next Generation: WATER's Impact I feel very privileged to have kept company with such wonderful women as those I encountered during my all too short 9 month internship at WATER. I feel very privileged to be part of the next generation of women working toward justice and equality, realizing that much of my way has been paved by the strength, solidarity and action of women of previous generations. In my view, WATER can be summed up in two words: solidarity and action. WATER is a place, both physical and abstract, where women can find community, a "safe place" if you will. A place where women can find their voices, speak, be heard and understood. A place where women can eat, drink, sing, dance and cry uninhibited and unrestrained. WATER is a place where women and men are taking action, working to merge this "safe place" with the larger world: to make our churches, synagogues, places of worship this safe place, to make our communities this safe place, to make our world this safe place. So come to the WATER in solidarity, come prepared to hear and be heard, to dance, to sing, to bridge the gap, to work toward justice, to work toward equality, to work toward integrity. Grace Duerksen interned with WATER during the 1997-98 academic year. Contact WATER for internship information. Cooking
with WATER
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