In her essay in The Postcolonial Studies Reader, “First
Things First,” Kirsten Holst Petersen writes about her experience
attending a conference in Mainz on “The Role of Women in Africa.” She
recalls the young German feminists discussing the “radical feminist
solution” and debating their relationships with their mothers.
I’m not ashamed to say
that I woke up at 5:15 am on Friday to watch the royal wedding. For
anyone interested in plumbing the socio-political imagination of the
British this was a must see event.
I spent last night curled around my toddler, bowl in hand, waiting
for her to wake and vomit again. She had a miserable case of food
poisoning that kept us both in and out of sleep until the morning.
I was thinking about relaying this episode to a seminary friend who
recently asked me to “sell” him on the idea of children.
Yesterday I traveled to Elizabeth, NJ to celebrate Ash Wednesday.
This vigil was unique in that it took place outside the Correction
Corporation of America detention center. This purposefully inconspicuous
building is tucked in an industrial zone outside the city. It houses
300 undocumented persons.
I just spent the last three hours trying not to cry my eyes out in
pastoral care class. The topic this week was funerals. I rightfully
anticipated a swell of emotions and prepared my heart accordingly. But
in class the conversation the stories drifted towards the death of
children, the most precarious moment of pastoral engagement.
I’m going to
try to devote some of my limited blogging time to the experience of
being a woman with young children in seminary. When we were discerning
coming to Princeton I had a very difficult time finding resources to
aid me in the part of the discernment involving my daughter.
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