We Are Women...

The following is a poem that my friend Rachel Schneider wrote about us women who pilgrimaged together to Iona. She shared it with us our last night together, while we celebrated Communion together on the beach. Enjoy.



We are women on pilgrimage.

We are women who have suffered greatly but have somehow in someway in varying capacities fought to remain open or at least have the desire to be opened. We came to this place to be opened – longing for safety, longing for freedom, longing to leave false expectations and perceptions.

We are women who have been violated, broken and abandoned. We are women who have been discriminated against. We are women who have been oppressed.

We are women who have a need to know truth and to speak truth. Some of us are hard. Some of us are angry. Many of us know what it is like to wake up in the morning and have the world turned gray.

We are women who have heard a call – a call to seek peace and pursue it, a call of justice and liberation. We are women who live with our backs up against the wall. We are women who weep over injustice.

Teachers, ministers, actors, painters, thinkers, dreamers, musicians – we all strive for wholeness otherwise we would not be here at this time, at this place.

If we are silent the rocks will cry out.

We are women who have been silenced, kicked, raped, and abandoned. We are women who have fought and struggled to move through and move on.

We are women who cry in the darkness. We are women who have entered the darkness. We are women who are groaning and waiting for the dawn.

We are women of the moon and stars. We are women birthed in the womb of God. We are women created to be free, created to be whole, created to shine gloriously in the heavens. We are women of the Spirit.

We are women who emerge a little brighter, a little lighter – strengthened and rested within. We are women who have learned to laugh again and dance again in safety. We are women being reborn and transformed to color, light, and flame. Amen.