Transforming Vision: Explorations in Feminist Theology

12: Toward a Feminist Wisdom Spirituality of Justice and Well-Being

229 12 Toward a Feminist Wisdom Spirituality of Justice and Well-Being1 In the last decades spirituality has become a key topic not only in the*logy but also in commercialized forms of self-help groups and the New Age movements. Spirituality has become a big business. Leading companies everywhere are tuning into the power of spirituality as they look for conveying company goals and for inspiring their people to do their best in the global market place. In the process, spirituality has become a popular but also an enigmatic and vacillating term that means different things to different people. By focusing on wisdom/ Wisdom, human or divine, as the horizon of a feminist spirituality of struggle, I want to probe the possibilities for articulating a political Wisdom spirituality that sustains rather than mutes struggles for survival and liberation. Such a spirituality has to focus on wo/men’s struggles to survive and transform relations of domination. At its heart is the discernment of Wisdom-Spirit working in different global contexts. Wisdom In the past two decades feminists have rediscovered and recreated the submerged traditions of divine Wisdom in all their splendor and possibilities. Feminist the*logians have discovered anew the creativity of Wisdom and have searched for Her presence in the blank spaces “in-between” the discernible letters. They have sought “to hear Wisdom into speech,” to use an expression coined by Nelle 1. First published in Portuguese as “Rumo a uma Espiritualidade Sapiencial Feminista de Justica e Bem-estar,” in Teologias come sabor de Mangostao: Ensaios em homenagem a Lieve Troch, ed. Isabel Aparecida Felix (Sao Bernardo do Campo: Nhanduti, 2009), 191-208. 230 | Transforming Vision Morton, one of the first feminist the*logians and teachers of wisdom/Wisdom, who recognized that “Wisdom is feminist and suggests an existence earlier than Word.”2 In the Bible, “spirit” (ruach), “presence” (shekhinah), and “wisdom” (chokmah ) are all three grammatically feminine terms. They refer to very similar female figurations in the Hebrew Bible3 which express G*d’s saving presence in the world. They signify that aspect of the divine that is involved in the affairs of humanity and creation: For within Her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, Active, incisive, unsullied, lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, sharp, Irresistible, beneficent, loving humans, steadfast, dependable, unperturbed Almighty, all-surveying, penetrating all intelligent, pure and most subtle spirit. For Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; She is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things. She is a breath of the power of G*d, pure emanation of divine glory Hence nothing impure can find a way into her. . . . Although alone, she can do all; herself unchanging, she makes all things new. In each generation she passes into holy souls, She makes them friends of G*d and prophets; For G*d loves only the one who lives with Wisdom. She is indeed more splendid than the sun, she outshines all the constellations; Compared with light, she takes first place, for light must yield to night, But over Wisdom evil can never triumph (Wisdom 7:22-25. 27-30).4 Traditional the*logy has focused on the Spirit, who is in Latin grammatically masculine (spiritus) and in Greek grammatically neuter (to pneuma), whereas feminist the*logy has rediscovered the divine in female Gestalt or form. Jewish feminists have rediscovered a spirituality of Shekhinah who plays a significant part in some Jewish traditions, and Christian, especially Catholic feminists have elaborated the female figure of divine Wisdom (which in Greek is called Sophia and in Latin Sapientia). Several books of the Bible speak about Her, some of which, however, are not found at all or only in an appendix in Protestant versions 2. Nelle Morton, The Journey Is Home (Boston: Beacon, 1985), 175. See also my book Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2001). 3. I use Hebrew Bible instead of Old Testament and Christian Testament instead of New Testament because Old and New Testament are Christian expressions that announce the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. 4. I am quoting from the text of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible but have changed masculine language for G*d and humans. Toward a Feminist Wisdom Spirituality of Justice and Well-Being | 231 of the Bible.5 Divine Wisdom-Sophia-Sapientia plays a significant role in Orthodox the*logy but less so in modern western the*logy. In biblical...