Living It Out

In reading this week for my Foundations of Social Justice class, I was deeply moved by Beverley Haddad’s 2006 essay from the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, “Living It Out: Faith Resources and Sites as Critical to Participatory Learning With Rural South African Women.” As a result of the extreme patriarchal culture of rural South Africa, Haddad explains, women rarely have access safe sites in which they are able to share their stories openly. The need for such sacred spaces has never been more urgent; the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its surrounding issues like poverty and other cultural norms trap women in a web of crises. For African Christian women, the Bible is central. Haddad asserts, therefore, that Scripture can be used as a starting point to evoke conversations about gender violence, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. Topics like these tend to scare women silent, even when men are not in the vicinity. In her work with a contextual Bible study group of marginalized Christian women in the poor, rural community of Vulindlela, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Haddad facilitated the building of a community of care that enabled women to begin articulating their own narratives and to identify creative possibilities for future action (136-138).

With the women of Vulindlela, Haddad used the contextual Bible study method. This methodology is rooted in the understanding that all people, academically trained or not, have resources to offer with regard to Biblical reading and understanding (145). In her essay, she compares and contrasts two case studies about the group’s reading of Bible passages. Considering my own background and interests, I especially was taken by Haddad's approach in breaking open the story of the rape of Tamar (2 Sam. 13:1-22) with the women. The group spent three weeks critically reading the text from Samuel and engaging Haddad’s questions about the characters and events in the text. Moreover, the women unpacked the story’s connections to their own experiences of rape, gender violence, and oppression. They became increasingly freer in the sharing of their feelings, and by the fourth week, the women were invited to role-play Tamar’s story within their own context (147-148):

"The play opened with one woman screaming loudly that her daughter had been raped. Other women then ran to her assistance and called a community meeting. The play ended with all the women marching to the police station with a memorandum demanding that the rapist be brought to trial...The opportunity to role-play rape in the group was an articulation and enactment of what was normally hidden" (Ibid.). 

By publicly articulating the previously hidden issue of rape for the first time through drama, the women were empowered to name for themselves potential future action steps, including organizing and protesting. The protagonist Tamar became a mirror for the women. Her ability to own her sexual oppression and speak out against it liberated the women in the group to begin to imagine and prepare for the day when they might do the same within their public sphere (149-150). Just one woman’s willingness to share her hidden story could provide another mirror in which the other women in the group could identify their own secret truths and eventually share them too. The collective storytelling and cooperative creation of shared narrative was contagious; it could very well lead to social transformation if sacred space is maintained (152-153).

As a singer-actor-minister-activist-intellectual (wannabe)-in-training (or some combination of those – take your pick!), I have been and continue to be seeking ways to integrate my passion for the arts into my ministry, particularly with youth and with people on the margins of society. In my previous two ministry positions, I have witnessed the power of the arts and storytelling in various ways. At Cristo Rey Houston, I had the privilege of creating and teaching a drama elective that culminated in sixteen students’ first full-scale play, Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Though the students were communicating a script, not their own stories, they undoubtedly grew by leaps and bounds. It was truly incredible working with them over the course of the year, throughout which they became increasingly confident in their own voices and comfortable in their own bodies. They took imaginative risks to embrace the realities of their characters, and they took ownership of conveying the heart of Fulghum’s message by working together, trusting each other, and being accountable for their roles within the communal effort.

DRAMA STUDENTS from CRISTO REY JESUIT after their successful performance of 
ROBERT FULGHUM'S ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN, 05.24.10

In Youth Ministry in Cicero, our Monday evening meetings were central in the building of our new community of teens and young adults. Every week, we came together for fellowship (during which we would share our stories from the past week), followed by prayer, the reading of Scripture, and a contemporary article or video around a particular theme/issue, culminating in our “so what?” discussion: how were we being called to live out the Gospel in our real lives? Over the course of two years, the safe space we created allowed for vulnerable, authentic sharing and genuine care for one another. The foundation we built within that space also propelled the group out into the world for service and Spirit-filled engagement in the larger community.

FUERZA Youth Ministry in LOS NEGRALES, ESPANA during their 
WORLD YOUTH DAY pilgrimage, August 2011 

I am inspired by the South African women about whom Haddad writes and by her amazing work as well. I hope to follow her example and contribute in my own small way to the creation of safe communities of self-expression that compel others and myself toward social transformation.

Work Cited

Haddad, Beverley. "Living It Out: Faith Resources and Sites as Critical to Participatory Learning With Rural
          South African Women." Journal of Feminist Studies for Religion 22.1 (2006): 135-54. PDF.

© 2012 Katie Davis