Some of my favorite women...

In a fairly recent survey of clergy, woman authors do not fare well. In fact, that's an understatement. In the research project commissioned by the Duke Divinity School's Pulpit and Pew, clergy in three traditions (Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Conservative Protestant) were surveyed regarding reading habits. There is only one woman, Barbara Brown Taylor, in any the "top twelve" lists. Taylor shows up as #12 on the Mainline list. For Conservative Protestants and Catholics no women -- not a one -- made it into the top 12. Going even beyond the top 12, there are women read by Catholics and Mainline Protestants. But not a single woman made the author list of conservative clergy. Not a single one!

In my humble opinion, that is totally outrageous, scandalous, and very sad.

Is it any wonder the people in the pews are hungry?

So here is a list of "some of my favorite women" for pastors and spiritual leaders and others looking for breadth and depth of spirituality. These are spiritual (and some not-so-spiritual) writings by women: a brief and subjective list of good stuff from my own library......


From my Church History class in seminary: In Her Words: Women's Writings in the History of Christian Thought. Edited by Amy Oden. Abingdon Press, 1994.

Oneness in the Eucharist: On a certain Pentecost.... My heart and my veins and all my limbs trembled and quivered with eager desire... so that dying I must go mad, and going mad I must die. On that day my mind was beset so fearfully and so painfully by desirous love that all my separate limbs threatened to break, and all my separate veins were in travail.... (Hadewijch of Brabant, c. 1200s)

From my pastoral care professor: The Spirit of Adoption: At Home in God's Family. Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner. Westminster John Knox Prsss, 2003.

We need a new image of God as Adopting Parent. If the church can develop the Christian anthropological view of human being as "adopted child of God," then God can be viewed more centrally in our liturgy, preaching, and teaching as Adopting Parent as well as Birth Parent.... God's merciful compassion is God's womb-love.

From a shelf of books which could be labeled, "Books I could never write but I'm glad I could read": Great with Child: reflections on faith, fullness, and becoming a mother. Debra Rienstra. Putnam, 2002.

The world is different, for a new person has arrived in it. He is here, he is real, he has a name and a birth date. Each of us is different, too. I, the mother, given over completely from dark clouds to light and joy. Ron, a buoyant father now of two sons. Miriam and Jacob, feeling their bigger-than-ever status as sister and brother. This tiny infant will go on changing us, God willing, for the better. Philip Aaron, born July 10, 1999.

From my poetry shelves: Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women. Edited by Jane Hirschfield. HarperPerennial, 1995.

At last free,
at last I am a woman free!
No more tied to the kitchen,
stained amid the stained pots,
no more bound to the husband
who thought me less
than the shade he wove with his hands.
No more anger, no more hunger,
I sit now in the shade of my own tree.
Meditating thus, I am happy, I am serene.
(Sumangalamata, 6th c. B.C.E.)

From a shelf reserved for edgier memoirs: The Horizontal World: growing up wild in the middle of nowhere. Debra Marquart. Counterpoint, 2006.

And no matter how far from that uncompromising land we drift, a long, sinewy taproot summons us, always, home.

And, add to the list, these more well-known contemporary writers...

Barbara Brown Taylor - (it's all good)
Kathleen Norris - A Cloister Walk & The Quotidian Mysteries
Annie Dillard - Teaching a Stone to Talk & Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Mary Oliver (her poems are all good!)
Alice Walker - Her Blue Body Everything We Know
Anne Lamott - Operating Instructions
Naomi Shihab Nye - 19 Varieties of Gazelle (poetry)
Lucille Clifton - Blessing the Boats (poetry)

And three more...

Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. Danielle Ofri. Beacon Press, 2003.

Not Counting Women and Children: Neglected Stories from the Bible. Megan McKenna. Orbis, 2001.

Coven. Susan Deborah King. Folio Bookworks, 2006. (poetry)


My challenge to men: In 2010, read at least book by a woman each month. Of course, for some this will be more of a challenge than others. The survey reported just over 10% of clergy read less than one hour per week. Unbelievable!

Peace Love & Coffee,
Randy