Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men

Anglican Theological Review, Winter 2000 by Evans, Diana

Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men. By Joan D. Chittister. Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans; Ottawa: Novalis Saint Paid University, 1998. x 187 pp. col. illus. $20.00 (paper).

If ever there were a case of "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen" this must be it. in other words, if the title and subtitle make you nervous the chances are that the book itself will render you hysterical. This, it has to be said, is more a reflection on you than the author, but nevertheless as one who is still twitching and writhing a week after finishing the text I think you should be warned!

if, on the other hand, you warm to the concepts Chittister explores with passion and personality you will find this a cogent, powerful and iterative exploration of a positive anti-paternalistic spirituality. To see which camp you fall into, try reading the following extracts:

Religion itself, the great value agent of culture, is being reevaluated for patriarchal distortion of its liberating roots (p. 32).

Feminism is asking men to wake up and see what's missing in the picture-in themselves-and to devote themselves for the first time in history to the wholesale countenance of brain over brawn, of love over hate-the only weapons women have ever had (p. 87).

Feminist spirituality bridges the isolation of both women and men and gives both of them a chance, finally, finally, to be whole (p. 157).

Put crudely, if sentences like this fire you tip and fill you with hope for the Body of Christ then this book will inspire, encourage and embolden you. You will read the text with eyes open to some of the pictures created by the artist-illustrator Nancy Earle, and Chittister's own images, such as, "the carnival of goodness everywhere" (p. 146). It is likely that you will join in the author's song with joy and wholeheartedly endorse the great hymn to eco-feminism with which chapter fifteen concludes.

If you find Chittister's approach irritating you will doubtless be repelled by her "package." Style alone may make you retch, or at least trip you up, e.g.: "It is the feminization of human consciousness bringing the sensibilities of a feminist spirituality to a grievously patriarchal world and a church seriously suspect in its patriarchal form" (p. 34). The concepts being explored might make you fall flat; ideas of feminism being the circular form of spirituality, as opposed to the pyramid structures men have imposed (p. 161) and the implication that the Fall was very much to do with maleness (p. 164).

There are positive things in this book of which we all need to be reminded-the risk of the oppressed becoming the oppressors, the importance of emotion to an healthy social and spiritual life, the positive aspects of vulnerability and crucial need for intimacy with creation and Creator. There is also a very constructive chapter on humility in the light of Benedict's Rule.

If gender is a big issue for you then this may well be an important milestone in your personal journey. Otherwise, may I take the liberty of recommending another book published in Canada in 1998? It is Ronald Rolheiser's Seeking Spirituality: Guidelines for a Christian Spirituality for the TwentyFirst Century. Rolheiser's is the kitchen where I feel most inspired to cook, but if you want a feminist diet, Chittister has plenty of hot stuff to offer!

DIANA EVANS

Ecton House, Peterborough Diocese, UK