{"id":206,"date":"2011-11-12T13:31:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T18:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/?p=206"},"modified":"2011-11-12T13:31:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-12T18:31:32","slug":"women-spirituality-and-transformative-leadership-where-grace-meets-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/11\/women-spirituality-and-transformative-leadership-where-grace-meets-power.html","title":{"rendered":"Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn sweet company, we are home at last.\u201d<\/em>— Margaret Wolff, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n

Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power,<\/em> the new book edited by Kathe Schaaf, Kay Lindahl, Kathleen Hurty, and Reverend Guo Chin, is brimming with essays and poems about our other selves, by our other selves. Conceived, in part, as a vehicle to help women awaken to the Divine Feminine, the book also beckons readers to discover how inherently brave and capable and beautiful we all are.<\/p>\n

I have felt this awakening in my own life, observed it in myself, in other women, and in the world. It is as if the Universal Mother is saying to us, \u201cPay attention, ladies! Pull it together! I have work for you to do!\u201d Not that we have to be perfect in order to serve Her; not that what we do<\/em> is more important to Her than who we are<\/em>. She is more in evidence, I believe, to let us know that we are on to something, to help us rewire our thinking and grow more stouthearted. She is here to help us understand we are not alone.<\/p>\n

Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power<\/em> is, thus, very timely, a good read for any woman who has begun to feel this awakening, to feel the pull to engage in a cosmic do-over. To facilitate this process, the authors organized their book according to four \u201cexplorations,\u201d questions they feel women are currently asking themselves: How do I express being an empowered woman of Spirit and faith? How do my spiritual values inform me about living with the challenges and blessings of diversity? How do we stand for greatness in each other? How do we catalyze our collective transformational power as women of Spirit and faith? These questions are viewed through the interfaith, multigenerational, ethnically diverse lens of the book\u2019s contributors. Guides for self-reflection and a comprehensive list of resources and networks provide readers with additional tools to deepen their own knowing.<\/p>\n

Finding our own answers is key, as all of the contributors to this book will attest. Sister Joan Chittister counsels us in her essay to use our \u201cspiritual imagination\u201d and develop images that allow us to create a working partnership with the Divine Feminine, images that are compassionate and<\/em> powerful, images that are personal yet inclusive. \u201cWhat we think of the Divine Feminine will determine what we think about everything else in life … personally and spiritually,\u201d she says. When we understand our connection to Her — in whatever form we hold dear — we come to understand ourselves more deeply; we also understand how and why we are connected to others and to the world at large.<\/p>\n

In her thoughtful essay, author and teacher Carol Lee Flinders, Ph.D., extols the power of \u201cthe mother line.\u201d In the lives of every woman of every faith she has studied, Flinders has found that \u201cthe timely intervention of an astute and caring mother or \u2018allo-mother\u2019 made a critical difference.\u201d This idea of the \u201cmother line\u201d resonated with me on many levels: the mothering that goes on in families from generation to generation; the importance of good \u201cmothering\u201d — an artery of kindness and support — among women and in the world; and the need for women and men to affirm our spiritual lineage, a direct and personal link to the Divine Mother. As I did, readers will find something in this book that opens them to new ways of seeing.<\/p>\n

Given my personal and professional commitment to the tenets of feminine spirituality, and the fact that one of my poems is included in this book, this review may be more subjective than literary. Read Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power<\/em> for yourself. Explore where you stand on the issues. Look inside yourself. Look to Her. That\u2019s the point! If you discover your past or future self in these pages, open your heart. Use your spiritual imagination. Let \u201cgrace meet power.\u201d It will transform and deepen your life as nothing else could.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power,<\/em> visit http:\/\/womenofspiritandfaith.org\/index.cfm?preset=wheregracemeetspower .<\/p>\n

Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn sweet company, we are home at last.\u201d— Margaret Wolff, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power, the new book edited by Kathe Schaaf, Kay Lindahl, Kathleen Hurty, and Reverend Guo Chin, is brimming with essays and poems about our other…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,6],"tags":[89,91,90,88,19],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collective-wisdom","category-the-divine-feminine","category-womens-stories","tag-carol-lee-flinders","tag-mother-line","tag-sister-joan-chittister","tag-womens-leadership","tag-womens-spirituality-2"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/11\/women-spirituality-and-transformative-leadership-where-grace-meets-power.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women, Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership: Where Grace Meets Power - 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