Lenten Writing
STILLPOINT PRESENTS Lenten Writing: Befriending Spiritual Fitness with Rev. Judith Favor “The spiritually fit person knits back together the separateness of work and play, reunites being and doing, has a spirit place in nature, never eats without thanking somebody and refuses to let all time be the same.” — Donna Schaper, Sabbath Sense Saturday, March…
The Beacons
There’s a lot to love about the women of Saint Lydia’s in San Francisco. Head Beacon Beka and her sidekick Dot turned out to be very good at getting rid of a predatory male pastor. Female church leaders were rare in 1976, but they found an ordained woman to shepherd their flock. The five Beacons, their prickly minister and a young Mexican prostitute all took risks, made mistakes and followed their hearts to set a wild new course for their historic interracial, interdenominational congregation in “The City.” The Beacons reveals the souls of lay leaders, how they sought spiritual guidance, earned the respect… READ MORE…
ASKING WRITERS about The Beacons of Larkin Street
Reading connects people; so does writing. Writing helps clarify ideas, keep track of details and discover hidden meanings. Expressing our truths with love connects us—physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually—to our readers and to our deepest selves. The Beacons of Larkin Street is a Nineteen-Seventies historical novel written by a contemplative feminist great-grandmother, an ordained minister who once pastored a church in San Francisco. READ MORE …
Spiritual Direction
is rooted in trust that Sacred Presence infuses every aspect of life. God is present in doubt and despair, fear and frustration: God is present in joy and peace, certainty and gratitude. Holy guidance arises in times of love and loss, work and rest, praying and playing. Sometimes it is difficult to discern the movement of the Spirit: sometimes it is challenging to follow the call. Holy Source is the true Director but an experienced companion can assist in hearing and heeding “the still, small voice.” Spiritual direction is an ancient ministry,
a unique one-to-one relationship in which
a trained person assists another person
in the search for an ever-closer union
of love with God. READ MORE . . .
Review of Wolf Hollow By Lauren Wolk
Reviewed by Judith Favor December 1, 2016, in Friends Journal “The year I turned twelve, I learned how to lie. I don’t mean the small fibs that children tell. I mean real lies fed by real fears––things I said and did that took me out of the life I’d always known and put me down…
About My Writing
What would you call this category of writing? The Edgefielders is my great-grandmother’s hidden story. Public records show only birth, marriage and death dates so I composed a biographical novel to knit imagination into these bare facts. I invented scenes and dialogues to illustrate what happened before and during her four years at Edgefield. How does imagination work with facts? Margaret Mary was born in 1869 in rural Ontario and erased from family lore after she died in 1938 at the Multnomah County Poor Farm. I’d not heard of her until Aunt Margo handed me a stack of genealogy documents including a death certificate. Place of Death: Multnomah County Poor Farm. What? How could this be? Who sent my elderly ancestor to an institution for paupers? Stories hold us together but hers had been deleted. I had to find out, even though it felt risky to probe into family shadows and secrets. READ MORE…
Silent Voices
From the start, the stories of Leo James Wright and Cordelia Davis Wright were never solely their own, but continuations of lives that began long before they were born. And how did I come to discover what happened to my grandparents in events preceding my birth? Where does such information come from? A curious child, I learned to listen between the lines when the Grans spoke, guessing at what they were trying to hide. I watched the way they looked at each other, held my breath during false starts and sudden silences… READ MORE…
The Edgefielders
tells of a vibrant community of individuals from different cultures and faiths who were forced to live at Oregon’s state-run poor farm during the Great Depression. Judith Wright Favor, a retired pastor and Portland native, was in mid-life before she came upon a document that shed light upon the dark secret: in 1935 her great grandmother, Margaret Mary Wright, was sent to the poor farm and erased from the family lore. Judith was outraged to learn that her great grandmother died among paupers at Edgefield. She felt compelled to unravel the mystery. READ MORE…