Rain Rain Go Away

Monday, 12th day in Brazil

Not much has been going on the past couple of days. Sunday I sat around all day and studied Portuguese. After just a little while, it really doesn't do much good to study. The only way to really KNOW the stuff (and those of you who teach languages know this) is to HAVE TO use it in a conversation. I think the combination of need plus frustration plus grasping at whisps of memory help me remember vocabulary and syntax better than any solitary studying. Sorry, Rosetta Stone!

Today, I had planned to go out to Pirajá to work at QZ cleaning up for a bit, and to have a conversation with the Five Women (hereafter known as FW and includes Jocelita, Isabela, Casilda, Daniela, and Nilzete) about planning for the youth group trip in July. But it rained in torrents all day, and was not conducive to work, nor to travel on a bus. I'll try to go tomorrow instead.

Tonight, I joined the Yale group for a presentation at ITEBA in the evening. Marlene and Dr. Emily Townes both spoke about their respective institutions (ITEBA and Yale Theological Seminary). Marlene spoke about the 22 year history of ITEBA, of its gradual shift away from its IPU roots towards womanist theology and leadership, and especially of her passion for YAMI. There is a new course they are trying to get off the ground which I won't comment on until I can get a brochure about it and describe it accurately. She spoke quite directly and bluntly about the circumstances last year when Djalma was elected President and tried to "change the face of ITEBA." In this telling, the students, faculty, and staff rebelled against his efforts because he was trying to move ITEBA away from what has become the heart of the institution: a place for poor, Black women to write their own theology through their own stories.

Dr. Emily Townes gave a brief history of Yale, and told us about the current seminary, which offers a Masters of Divinity, Masters of Arts in Religion, or a Masters of Religious Art (Fine Arts). They also have students from the African American Studies Department. I didn't take notes, but their program sounds challenging and tumultuous. Yale likes to tout Dr. Townes as the first African-American, woman Dean of the Theology School, but, as she said, they don't want to "go too far" in advertising their diversity by mentioning that she is also a lesbian. A traditional place like Yale has its conservative faction, as well. Dr. Townes politely implied that it was sometimes difficult to get along with her colleagues.

Dr. Townes had some very interesting things to say about Womanist Theology. First, she said, it is more of a methodology than a discipline. This seems obvious to me, because it is first and foremost about questioning old assumptions. As soon as new answers are found, they must necessarily be questioned themselves. It never has the chance to become a "discpline," as such, because it never has time to coalesce. That would mean stagnation in the methodology. Some of the ITEBA students asked very pertinent questions. But the most interesting question to me came from one of her own students. He asked if it were possible for a white male to be a Womanist. She replied it is was perhaps possible, but only if that white male "figuratively and literally" became a black woman. (I think she only meant figuratively, because she never mentioned anything about plastic surgery!) She said if a white man actually lived with and walked beside black women and allowed himself to learn from the inside what their spirituality was about, then PERHAPS he could call himself a womanist. But Dr. Townes immediately disagreed with herself, suggesting that it might just have to be enough for white men to "get out of the way" and let womanists be self-determining and self-actualizing.

My own feelings on this go back to my days in Baltimore when I was part of the Baltimore Men's Anti-Sexist Collective. We had a habit of calling ourselves PRO-feminists, not Feminists, because (although mostly a matter of semantics) we were NOT women and therefore were incapable of truly understanding their perspective. All we could do was allow ourselves to follow their lead and support their cause. In the same way, I think it is possible to be PRO-Womanist, and lead (other men) by being a follower and a listener, by acknowleding that even if I "walk beside" women of color for a day or a week or a month, I still will not have EXPERIENCED their history, nor their future. I can, and will, leave their world behind when it suits me. I, therefore, cannot presume to be an insider among Womanists, no matter how much I WANT to believe I know where they've been.

This does not negate the efforts I, and others, make with our friends at ITEBA or in Pirajá. It just makes it ever more clear that the definition of leadership, in this situation, must be turned on its head. As some people (who I usually make fun of) like to call themselves "Christ-Followers" instead of Christians, we must, if we are to to do mission as Christ would have us do it, substitute them for Him. In other words, allow the poor, Black women to show us a Way; allow them to "be" the Christ that we are proud to follow.

I doubt any of this makes much sense. Anyway, after the talk, Sydney and 3 of the 12 menbers of his Reggae band played a few songs for us with just a guitar, calabash, and singer. Here's a clip.