Lifting Women's Voices: Prayers to Change the World

By Margaret Rose

A collection of prayers from around the worldwide Anglican Communion that makes connections between women's personal lives and global concerns of women around the globe. It shows the connection, for example, between a woman's prayers for her child in the West and the plight of child labour in the third world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781848253889

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© the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society 2009

This edition published in 2009 by the Canterbury Press Norwich

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London, EC1A 9PN, UK

Canterbury Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

(a registered charity)

St Mary’s Works, St Mary’s Plain,

Norwich, NR3 3BH, UK

Published in the United States in 2009 by Morehouse Publishing

www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

All rights reserved.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

978 1 85311 968 2

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

CPI William Clowes, Beccles NR34 7TL

To the women whose voices are lifted here and to the women, men and children whose voices are silent or unheard, yet whose words are surely spoken in the heart of God.

I Gaze

I gaze and ponder awhile

At the base of the mangrove I ponder

Rumors of war and death all over the land

Blood spills crying on the ground

Babies shouting in disarray

As parents are snatched by the enemy

A vision to vanquish these wars

A dream desired.

I gaze and ponder awhile

The pride of women highly relegated

Hawking, toiling, and mourning

Tears rolling by as all hope lost

Suffering and poverty hovering over the land

Girl children discouraged, future vanished

A desire to grow up and make a difference

A dream awaited.

I gaze and pray for the world,

Cultism in the world, Blood shed on our land

Bullets and daggers flying fast

Chopping children, youths, adults down

Coffins laid down as hot tears roll by

In anger I declared in illusion

A total abolishment and destruction

Of these evil gatherings and massacres

A dream so desired.

I gaze and have a vision

That will lead me to the future

A vision to make my poor parents smile again

An achiever that is looked up to

Having accomplished my educational career

A minister of the word of God I see in me

To preach peace to the multitude of humans

Now, the joy, the faith, the laughter

The assurance, the grace of God

My awaited dreams for the world are coming alive.

ANN WOKE, AGE 9

WOJI, PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

The author wrote this prayer as part of an exhibition of Anglican girls’ art and prayers commissioned by Anglican Women’s Empowerment for the 2007 gathering of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The theme of this UNCSW gathering was the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child.

CONTENTS

PREFACE BY JANE WILLIAMS

FOREWORD BY KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE EDITORS

INTRODUCTION

A Precious Gift and Very Necessary Book

For the Millennium Development Goals

THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Aue, We Cannot Rest

For All the Millennium Development Goals

INTERLUDE

I Have a Spoon

A Meditation on Poverty

Please Spread Your Bounty Near and Far

For An End to Hunger and Poverty

Hold Me the Hands of a Writing Child

For An Education for Everyone

INTERLUDE

It Begins with Me

A Meditation on Women’s Empowerment

Bent Women, Healers Made Strong, We Dare to Dream

For Equality for Women

Gift Them All a Good Start

For Healthy Children

A Million Mothers Know This Darkness

For Healthy Mothers

O Christ, You Have Taken Charge of Our Illnesses

For An End to Life-Threatening Disease

Mother Earth, Forgive Us

For a Healthy Environment

Let Kindness and Cooperation Flourish

For Partnerships Across the Globe

To Change The World

Love of Peace, Commitment to Justice, Deep Compassion

For Peace and Social Justice

We Called Ourselves Voices

A Meditation on Lifting Women’s Voices

Grant to All Women Vision and Voice

For Claiming Our Voices

Leap, My Heart

On Our Relationship with God

Break into Our Parched Lives

In Times of Trouble or Sorrow

Our Rock and Our Guide

For God’s Guidance

Let Us Be Still

Entering the Stillness of God

Prayer Helps Love Work

The Art of Prayer

One Single Yes

Our Commitment to Discipleship

The Household of God

On the Mission of the Church

Playing, Praising, Singing

On the Church’s Worship

In Their Many Possible Incarnations

Transforming Personal Prayers for Liturgical Use

INTERLUDE

Good News for Everyone

A Meditation on Jesus’ Invitation in These Prayers

PREFACE

When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he responded not with a lecture on the history and theology of prayer, but with an actual prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer to change the world, as is all authentic prayer. We pray that God’s will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And as we do that, we acknowledge the stark truth that God’s will is not yet done on earth. But prayer is not a passive activity, in which we hand all responsibility to God. It is an active pledging of ourselves for God to use in the transformation for which we pray. It is in that spirit that this collection of prayers is offered.

One of the great things about prayer is that anyone, anywhere, can do it. Rich and poor, old and young, women and men, all have equal access to this resource, and are equally heard by God. But that might not be obvious in the prayer books and liturgies of the Christian Churches. So here are some prayers that women have prayed, as they pledge themselves to work for the establishment of God’s heaven here on earth.

The best possible response to this collection is not to theorize about them, but to add your hearts and voices, and pray with us.

JANE WILLIAMS

Lambeth Palace

LONDON

FOREWORD

One of the typical questions asked of theology students is, Why do you pray? It’s also a question all people of faith must ask at some point on their journeys. This collection of women’s prayers offers several kinds of responses, among them prayer as a challenge to the one who prays and those who hear her—a challenge to change the world.

Other prayers stand in solidarity with women who are often the least in their societies. We know that women do two-thirds of the physical labour in the world, produce half the food, earn about ten percent of the cash income, and own one percent of the property. Their struggles to feed, clothe, heal, and educate their children and extended families are the stuff of many of these prayers.

These prayers reflect women’s yearning to find a listening ear and responsive arm. Too many women in this world live in conditions that seem hopeless—the prayers here both seek hope and respond with hope.

Like all prayers, these give abundant evidence of connecting with the divine source of all that is, the One who is in solidarity with the living and dead, joyous and grieving, angry and content. Some of these prayers try out new names and images for God, seeking to understand the Who beyond understanding.

Songs of gratitude, as well as frustration; pleas for courage and patience and peace; cries for justice and for bread; lullabies and laments. Confession for the ways we have destroyed creation or feared and failed to stand up to the greed that would own God’s gift to us all.

Quiet searches for God’s presence, and thanksgiving for recognition. Lament for the particular pain of a child lost, a vocation spurned, a marriage failed, an elder nursed, a loved one buried. The shared pain of modern Marys unable to find shelter in any inn, and the crime of children abandoned and ignored—children of America’s streets and Africa’s wars, children orphaned by AIDS or rejected by family.

These prayers claim the special gift it is to be a woman, the holiness God gave us in being born of woman, the apostolic vocation of another Mary, first to witness resurrection. These prayers claim assurance that in Christ all are one, neither male nor female to be elevated above the other. These prayers remind us that we most often meet God in the daily work of feeding, healing, nurturing, cleaning, listening, encouraging—blessings all!

Prayers for hope, particularly the hope that becomes fruitful when a woman claims the gift of her own creation in the image of God, created to be source of light and love to others: dignity reborn, ability claimed, strength and power for love.

We pray for ourselves, our sisters and brothers, to change our hearts and theirs, to give thanks for creation, for God’s continued presence, and to remember that we wait and work in hope for the restored creation God intended from the beginning. We pray because we live in hope.

KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI

Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church

NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lifting Women’s Voices is a collection of prayers by Anglican women and girls who are making their voices heard on global issues, expressing the power and depth of their faith, and revealing their connections across cultural and economic differences. Such a rich and complex book could not have happened without the careful, joyful work of many people.

The idea for Lifting Women’s Voices first arose from the popularity of an earlier volume entitled Women’s Uncommon Prayers, published by Morehouse at the beginning of the new millennium. Women’s Uncommon Prayers, which included extraordinary prayers by women in the United States about women’s life experiences, was the first of its kind to gather prayers by hundreds of Episcopal women through a grassroots invitation for submissions. For the vision and example of the editors of Women’s Uncommon Prayers, we are deeply grateful. We especially wish to thank Marjorie A. Burke and Elizabeth Rankin Geitz, who served on the Editorial Board for Lifting Women’s Voices and who provided invaluable guidance.

Lifting Women’s Voices broadened the work of Women’s Uncommon Prayers by intentionally seeking the voices of Anglican women and girls worldwide as they pray their experiences of global concerns and envision a way forward for the welfare of God’s creation. Extending the invitation for submissions beyond the United States was a major endeavour. We owe tremendous gratitude to countless people who spread the good news of Lifting Women’s Voices, encouraged submissions and collected prayers. We especially thank for this work Rebecca Hills of Canterbury Press in the United Kingdom; Kim E. Robey, Programme Officer for Women’s Ministry and Leadership Development in The Episcopal Church; Anglican Women’s Empowerment, which invited us to offer a prayer-writing workshop for Anglican women delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 2008; and all of the extraordinarily gifted and dedicated women who served on the Editorial Board with significant energy. We also thank all those who offered translations of prayers into English.

The Editorial Board members for Lifting Women’s Voices represent an astounding breadth of national and cultural heritage and manifest the strengths of women’s leadership within the Anglican Communion. Not only for their enthusiasm in gathering prayers, but also for their editorial work and suggestions, and for their own prayer submissions, we offer our sincerest gratitude.

Because of the tremendous amount of effort involved, not every publisher would be willing to commit to a project such as Lifting Women’s Voices. Morehouse Publishing dedicated major resources to creating this book. We humbly wish to thank Joanna Bock, who worked with individual authors; and, from the depths of our hearts, Nancy Fitzgerald for her editorial leadership, patience and thoughtful editing.

Royalties from Lifting Women’s Voices will help to strengthen global partnerships within the Anglican Communion. All proceeds will be given equally to the International Anglican Women’s Network, the organization through which the voices of Anglican women and girls are reported to the Anglican Consultative Council (IAWN), and Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), in support of programmes that benefit women and girls. Throughout the creation of Lifting Women’s Voices, we held the mission of IAWN and ERD always before us. For their work of empowering women, alleviating global suffering, and ushering in the reign of God, we constantly give thanks to God in our prayer.

MARGARET ROSE

JENNY TE PAA

JEANNE PERSON

ABAGAIL NELSON

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Senior Editors

Margaret Rose, an Episcopal priest, is director of the Mission Leadership Center of the Episcopal Church, following five years as director of Women’s Ministries. Ordained in 1981, she has served parishes and community and advocacy organizations in Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia. Her passion for the MDGs comes from a conviction that our faith impels us to action and civic engagement. Her upbringing in the rural South of the United States, combined with her work in global contexts, give particular relevance to the prayers and women here represented. She lives in New York City, USA.

Jenny Te Paa, a theologian, is a principal of St Johns College in Auckland, New Zealand. She has written extensively on Anglican Communion matters and advocates nationally and internationally for women’s interests to be recognized by the Church. She has served the worldwide Anglican Communion on numerous commissions.

Jeanne Person is an Episcopal priest, writer, and spiritual director. Devoted to nurturing women’s prayer and ministry, she is a co-author of Where You Go, I Shall: Gleanings from the Stories of Biblical Widows, chaplain to the New York chapter of the Society of Companions of the Holy Cross, and a sister member of Anglican Women’s Empowerment. She serves as associate rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in New York City, and lives with her husband in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

Abagail Nelson is senior vice president of Episcopal Relief & Development, where she works with the worldwide church to respond to disasters, alleviate hunger, fight disease, and reduce exposure to risk. The daughter of an Episcopal priest, Abagail lives with her husband in New York City, USA.

Editorial Advisory Board

Christina Batore-Hing, who comes from an indigenous tribe in the Philippines, is a retired professional nurse, a mother, and a grandmother who lives in New York City, USA. She chairs the Episcopal Asian American Ministry Committee of the Diocese of New York and is a founding member of Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE).

Paige Blair, an Episcopal priest, is rector of St. Peter’s Church in Del Mar, California, USA; she previously lived in seacoast Maine. She travels widely preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ incarnate in the Millennium Development Goals. She is an iconographer who teaches and preaches all over the United States.

Marjorie A. Burke is president of Province 1 of the Episcopal Church and co-editor of Women’s Uncommon Prayers. She has served on the Committee on the Status of Women for the Episcopal Church and is a former national president of the Episcopal Church Women. She lives with her husband in Weare, New Hampshire, USA.

Leila Victor Diab, who lives in Amman, Jordan, is general secretary for the Young Women’s Christian Association of Jordan. She also serves as her country’s Episcopal Women’s Coordinator, and has worked on issues of refugees, peace, education, and women’s empowerment. She is married with two grown children and three grandchildren.

Susanne Watson Epting is a deacon and directs the North American Association for the Diaconate. She also edited the Beijing Circles resource booklet, addressing the Beijing Platform through education and theological reflection. She lives in Iowa, USA, where the tall corn grows.

Elizabeth Geitz, an Episcopal priest, is the author of many books, including Gender and the Nicene Creed, and co-editor of Women’s Uncommon Prayers. She has served at both the parish and diocesan levels in the Diocese of New Jersey and is a member of the board of trustees of General Theological Seminary in New York. She writes and speaks on issues of justice for African women and children. Married with two grown children, Elizabeth and her husband live in Shohola, Pennsylvania, USA.

Phoebe Griswold is a laywoman in the Episcopal Church whose vocation is building bridges of information and relationship among women throughout the Anglican Communion. She was one of the founders of Anglican Women’s Empowerment and the first International Anglican Women’s Network Link to our Episcopal Church. She is the President Elect of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Vickie Ling is a member of the Anglican Province of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, China. She has been a practising lawyer for a decade and served as an Anglican delegate from Hong Kong to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Faith Nenkai Meitaki, 21, who comes from a family of seven, was born in Massai, one of the marginalized communities of Kenya. Her experiences of poverty and struggles against harmful culture, such as genital mutilation and early forced marriage, has inspired her to advocate for the rights of women and girls. She has attended the Girls International Forum as well as several sessions of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She lives in Kenya.

Karen B. Montagno is dean of students and community life at Episcopal Divinity School, where she teaches pastoral theology. She has written about spirituality, worship, and women in the Bible and is co-editor of Injustice and the Care of Souls. An Episcopal priest, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, with her son Solomon.

Kim Robey is programme officer for Women’s Ministries and Leadership Development at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, where she works to enhance women’s leadership in the church and the world. Kim serves with the International Anglican Women’s Network and the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Married and the mother of a son, she lives on Long Island, New York, USA.

Ann Skamp lives in Lismore, in northeastern New South Wales, Australia. As a member of the Anglican Communion’s International Anglican Women’s Network, she seeks to advocate for the equal participation of women and men in decision-making at all levels within the Anglican Church of Australia.

Jane Williams is one of five sisters born to a missionary family in India. A theologian, she has published many books, and is a lecturer in theology at Kings College, London, and at St Paul’s Theological Centre. Married with two children, she lives in London and Canterbury, England.

INTRODUCTION

A Precious Gift and Very Necessary Book

Over the past decade or so I have been blessed beyond measure to have experienced at first hand the doings—including the unspeakable sufferings, the stunning achievements, the ongoing struggles, the incredible successes, the delicious good humour; the staunch determinations to overcome, the gentle inspirational witness, the wise, clear Gospel urgings—of countless global Anglican women, young and old, lay and ordained, women of every difference ever invented, women of every one of God’s myriad images, women therefore of every human perfection ever created.

In spite of the evidence of very real progress in some contexts, too many women remain disproportionately vulnerable on so many fronts.

As one privileged with leadership responsibility in theological education and in numerous peace and justice projects and in global Anglican affairs, I am profoundly aware of still how few women there are, for example, in significant places of leadership and/or authority (the two are not necessarily always synonymous!) throughout the Anglican Communion. This means our leadership voices are not heard often enough, if at all, at the top tables of ecclesial decision-making and power-brokering, our prophetic voices are thus stymied from reaching and transforming the public square, and our sacramental voices are certainly not yet heard often enough in liturgical leadership.

The still very patriarchally weighted nature of Anglican church structures, favouring as they do the interests of men, also act in so many ways not only to silence women but to render our speaking avoidable.

However, in spite of all this systemic institutional and attitudinal disadvantage, there is one primary and utterly sacred site of conversational encounter within which no woman’s voice can or would ever be silenced, muted, ignored, or not understood. This is the site of conversational encounter with God. This is the domain within which women’s voices, emboldened by heart, touched and informed by mind, is the medium for speaking with God. This is the place and the practise of lifting our women’s voices in prayer.

Since the dawning of the Christian era, we women have used our voices to speak with, to cry out, to weep with, to lament, to sing with, to remonstrate with, to praise, to adore, to give thanks to God.

And so it is with immeasurable joy that here and now in the early years of the twenty-first century, we salute the efforts of all those who have laboured and groaned and travailed to bring to fruition this magnificent new collection of contemporary women’s voices, lifted in prayer.

Here then are the voices of women of all ages and a number of young girls drawn from across every homeland, which is today part of the global Anglican Communion. Here in this volume we are so generously gifted with prayer-filled words—words woven as prayers, words therefore imbued with spiritual and intellectual wisdom, words woven in adoration, in anguish, in angst and in aroha; words of passion, principle and poignancy; words of urgency and words of solemnity; words as poetry, lament and praise.

Here are so many tenderly crafted, thoughtful prayers, which have at their heart an abundant and deeply heartfelt compassion for those who suffer the devastatingly cruel end result of human created and human sustained poverty, war, and all forms of violence.

With substantial encouragement from the Office of the Anglican Observer to the United Nations, global Anglican women have for many years now been at the forefront of a push for the Church to take seriously its responsibility for addressing the Millennium Development Goals. We have long recognized that our call to radical discipleship in favour of ‘those who are the least among us’ requires us to transcend those arbitrary dividers of religion, culture, politics and gender in favour of first enjoining ourselves one with another as the body of Christ. This we can do so readily, so freely, and so passionately through the daily practice of common prayer.

Here, then, in this book are the words of prayers, prayers which do indeed reflect commonly held and boundless compassion, prayers which articulate with dignified certainty, with feisty advocacy, and with tender sorrow the often inexpressible hope that some glorious day God’s justice will prevail for all—not just for some—global Anglican women.

To the women who wrote their prayers, to all the editors who received these prayers and then oh-so-gently crafted their best final shape and the overall design of the book, and to the publishers whose devotion to this book has been truly magnanimous must go the highest accolades!

Lifting Women’s Voices: Prayers to Change the World is here offered as precious gift to those who also believe unquestioningly in the rightness and in the power of prayer to bring about healing and wholeness especially for those who suffer needlessly, innocently and too often, so terribly unjustly. In this sense it is a very necessary book for all time.

JENNY TE PAA

AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND

FEBRUARY 26, 2009

THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Agreed to by the member states of the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are intended to improve radically the lives of the world’s most poor. The goals, to be achieved by 2015, recognize explicitly the interdependence of poverty reduction and sustainable development; acknowledge that development rests on a foundation of respect for human rights and peace; and affirm the necessary partnership between developed and developing countries in order to reduce poverty.

The Anglican Communion has embraced the Millennium Development Goals as a theological expression of the reign of God on earth.

The goals are:

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Achieve universal primary education

Promote gender equality and empower women

Reduce child mortality

Improve maternal health

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Ensure environmental sustainability

Develop a global partnership for development

Aue, We Cannot Rest

For All the Millennium Development Goals

An Orphan’s Prayer

To you, O Lord, I offer my prayers.

Give strength to all the lawyers.

Let them be able to defend my rights.

Let it be possible for me to see light.

Give more wisdom to our leaders.

Save me from this situation, O Lord.

In your constant love and forgiveness remember me, O Lord.

Let my troubles be taken away by these leaders.

Let actions be taken by these leaders.

I depend on you at all times.

So, Lord take