From Your Associate Executive for Racial Justice

March has been designated as Women’s History Month, where women’s contributions and embodied trailblazing are celebrated, highlighted, and explored. During this month, the lives of women, their struggles, joys, inventions, and contributions in all facets of society are lifted in multiple educational formats. In 1996, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “instituted Celebrate the Gifts of Women Sunday after a resolution by the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns was approved by the 205th General Assembly (1993)” (Strange, 2017). Presbyterian Women, over the years, have developed liturgy and worship resources for congregations to celebrate the gifts of women across the church during March.

This year’s resource, written by Rev. Ruth Santana-Grace, titled “Creating Home and Places of Possibilities: Women of Determination and Faith,” invites us on a journey through the book of Ruth. In a three-act play framework, Santan-Grace invites us to reflect on the multiple labels, identities, circumstances, environmental, and ecosystemic factors that define, describe, and shape women’s lives. Most of these, if not all, have been imposed, and several are still imposed. She ends the liturgical resource with the themes of hope and power.

A couple of weeks ago, I was blessed to reconnect with my sisters from REYWT (Racial Ethnic Young Women Together). REYWT was an initiative sponsored and supported by the PCUSA to connect, empower, and support young women of color. It provided a space for young women of color to share their common history, rich heritage, diverse languages, and grow together. More than twenty years later (long after the denomination made decisions regarding its apparent value), the women who were involved in REYWT are serving the Church and the PCUSA at all levels of the institution. All of us in that call recognize and celebrate that we are women, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, pastors, ruling elders, deacons, spouses of pastors, bankers, HR professionals, communications specialists, mid-council leaders, executives, non-profit leaders, coaches, counselors, professors, and one is the current president of our denomination’s agencies. It is undeniable, and it has been proven that the fruits of the labor of all involved in the ecosystem and life span of REYWT have multiplied and blessed the Church and the PCUSA more than tenfold.

The Advocacy Committee on Women’s Concerns, the office of Racial Equity & Women's Intercultural Ministries, Presbyterian Women, and REYWT have created spaces for women to be, to explore who they are as created beings in the image of God. Betty Friedan, an author, wrote, “Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to be themselves?" As a world still steeped in the construction of patriarchy, we are still asking Friedan’s question. In reading and re-reading her question, I could not help but think and remember all the women (all ages) who have been victims of sexual assault, violence, and domestic abuse, and the fact that there is a critical mass within our society that justifies violence against human beings for the benefit and profit of a construct and the feeding of a system.

Many of us have been exposed to the horrors that the Epstein files have revealed to us. Its content has prompted many reactions and responses. From physical sickness, utter disgust, surprise, shock, denial, rage, and sudden impetus to do something about it. For too long, we as a society have remained silent to the pain and suffering of more than a billion women who have experienced abuse and violence. Throughout centuries, the church and Christians have justified the abuse and violence against women. Yet, it is women, their work, efforts, bodies, hands, feet, intelligence, and imagination that have kept the operations of congregational work going and alive for centuries.

Malala Yousafzai, Education Activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, said, "When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful." We have witnessed and heard more than one voice speak loudly, crying out to the atrocities inflicted on women, and these voices are becoming more powerful. Hope builds, power is harnessed, and co-creating and co-inspiring a new reality sinks in our imaginations as a potential possibility. To do so, spaces need to be created for voices to continue to speak up. Churches need to continue to unite, stop, and truly listen to the least of these in our societies. Women are still suffering the worst of the punishments of society and all its constructs—poverty, marriage, housing, workplace, and health.

As I hear, read, and experience people’s responses and reactions about what we are witnessing in the world, particularly in the United States, I think about Santana-Grace’s reflection on the importance of creating “home and places of possibilities.” For me, REYWT created a home and a place of possibilities. Because of that and the trailblazing of several other women, including my ancestors, I can find hope and power. Because of the churches and Christians whose paths have crossed, I can write relatively freely and invite us all into deep reflection, self-assessment, and collective action. Because of the good news that we all share and proclaim, I can say this world is not my last stop. Because of the testimony and embodied love, courage, compassion, mercy, and kindness of Jesus as narrated in the gospels, we can all imagine and bring about a healthier reality in our midst.

At the home of one of my many sisters from another mother’s living room wall hangs a frame with the following words, “Allí donde te comprenden está tu hogar—Your home is wherever you are understood.” As the church, the body of Christ, we are called to create hospitable spaces where members of the body feel understood, especially the least of these. Those most vulnerable on our midst, sitting on our buildings pews, sleeping on our church walls, crying for bread to feed their hunger, water to satiate their thirst, money to have a chance to basic living, belief instead of questioned when they shared their most horrific stories of violence and abuse, the least of these are speaking out, they are calling us, the church, to remember our baptism vows, to expand the practice of communion out into their world, and share with them the transforming act of sacramental interaction.

Santana-Grace asks us, “In what ways are we, the church of Jesus Christ, called to be a voice for the stranger in our midst, creating conditions for a dwelling place—a place to call home?” I ask, what kind of home are we creating for the least of these? What do our own homes look like? Are we being understood? Do we lead with listening instead of judging? Let’s reflect on the many ways we have failed our baptismal vows and vocation to embody love, kindness, mercy, courage, compassion, and justice in this world. May we be truthful and authentic in our reflection. I hope and pray that in doing so, the Holy Spirit ignites us to co-create, co-intrude, and co-inspire a new and healthy reality for all members of the body of Christ.

Let us pray:

Lord, in this season of Lent, help us to listen to you, listen to one another, and embody who you are to the least of these. Lord, help us. Lord give us courage. Lord here we are. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers. Amen.

¡Paz y bendiciones (peace and blessings)! 

Ruth-Aimée (Root-Eh-méh)

Ruth-Aimée Belonni-Rosario

Associate Executive for Racial Justice

248-752-3697 (cell)

ruthaimee@synodofthecovenant.org