They struggled to clear a new path for
women;
these are the stories of modern spiritual pioneers.
"I imagine this book as a dinner
party where women have eagerly gathered for a conversation
about being a woman, a person of faith, and a leader. While
some know each other, many do not, but it doesn’t matter.
Listening to them in ensemble reveals that all their
differences are less important than how much they share as
women of faith. Since community and interconnection tend to be
feminine traits, sisterhood is important, and I hope that upon
finishing the book, the reader may feel that she or he has
found a teacher that offers a new way to see women and the
Divine."
—from the Introduction
There is an ancient mystical legend that
the Bible was written with black fire on white fire. Now, we
can only read the black fire (the letters), but someday we
might be able to see the white fire. Today, with their voices
and their presence growing ever stronger, women spiritual
leaders in America are like white fire, and we can see the
previously untapped power of female leadership.
This remarkable book gives voice and image
to the too often invisible, ignored, or overlooked narrative of
women’s spiritual leadership in America today. Revealed
through insightful interviews and compelling photographic
portraits, the women represent both diversity and sisterhood.
They offer us new ways of relating to each other, and the
Divine.
Featured in White Fire:
Mother Ammachi • Dr. Nahid Angha
• The Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress • Ma Jaya Sati
Bhagavati Sylvia Boorstein • Dr. Beatrice Bruteau •
The Reverend Catherine Campbell The Reverend Helen Cohen •
The Reverend Rebecca Cohen • The Reverend Dr. Suzan
Johnson Cook Debbie Friedman • Rabbi Laura Geller •
The Reverend Sandy Gess • Joan Halifax Roshi Sister Jose
Hobday • Jean Houston • Reynalda James •
Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis The Right Reverend Leontine Kelly
• The Reverend Dr. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan • Maryanne Lacy
Janice Mirikitani • Dr. Elaine Pagels • The Reverend
Della Reese • Deacon Bettye Reynolds Starhawk •
Luisah Teish • Iyanla Vanzant • Marianne Williamson
The Reverend Diane Winley • Connie Biwer Yaqub
"Women have more room for failure
than men; nothing is expected of us. We’re forgotten, so
we can do deep, dark, strange things. The social expectation is
to marry and have children, but if you don’t conform to
that expectation, you can have a hell of a lot of fun as an
outsider. That’s why women are agents of
change."
—Joan Halifax Roshi
"When I see that everything we do has
an effect, it makes me careful when I teach—not like
tight, tense careful, but careful in the sense of impeccable.
When we see clearly, we behave carefully. Nothing is wasted,
not even wasting time! If I’ve wasted today, it
doesn’t need to upset me. I’ve learned that I
won’t do that tomorrow."
—Sylvia
Boorstein
"We are all afraid to say that we
know the truth, and we don’t support one another in that
truth. When we begin to speak the truth of God, life, and love,
all things are possible. That’s when things are going to
start happening."
—Iyanla
Vanzant
"Women have to bite the
bullet—if we don’t know what we’re doing, we
don’t do it. So that’s the bullet to bite. Do it no
matter what. If you don’t know where you’re going,
that’s fine…. My colleagues describe me as somebody
who’s willing to jump off the high diving board, and when
I’m in midair, I’ll check whether there’s
water in the pool. I see a lot of women crippled by low
self-esteem and perfectionism."
—Rev. Dr.
Lauren Artress
"My hope is not just for women.
It’s across the board. I want men to develop the feminine
in themselves and to move out of imprisonment….
Women’s voices are very strong now, and they are singing
more loudly in the metaphoric sense. Men don’t have
permission to sing; they have permission to scream and yell. No
one has helped them to cultivate their sensitivity and their
feeling selves."
—Debbie
Friedman
"Women aping men in power will just
lead us to be wicked and coarse. That will just double the
world’s trouble! The other mistake is to see the feminine
as irrational, and therefore encourage everyone to hone the
irrational in themselves…. So I’ve invented
neo-feminism, which is holistic, unified, synthetic,
cooperative, and circular. It brings a feeling for wholeness
against being only analytical. The masculine period takes
things apart to see how they work; the feminine period puts
them back together again."
—Dr.
Beatrice Bruteau
Malka Drucker
is an award-winning author of nearly twenty books, including
Jacob’s Rescue; The Family
Treasury of Jewish Holidays; and Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the
Holocaust, another joint project
with photographer Gay Block; the Rescuers photo exhibition has
traveled to more than seventy venues and was the basis for a
Showtime television series. Block’s photographs are shown
widely in the United States and are held in numerous
collections. Visit Malka Drucker's personal webpage
