Judith Favor

Author

Friending Rosie: Page Publishing

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Bookcover Image for Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row by Judith Favor

In alternating voices, Judith Wright Favor and Rosie Alfaro take the reader on a frank, frustrating, and unforgettable journey. Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row bridges the chasm between souls consigned to life behind bars, and souls enjoying the privileges of freedom.
Rosie’s letters from Central California Women’s Facility, interwoven with Judith’s reflections and questions, highlight perspectives from authors of different races, religions, and languages. Marginalized people stifle their stories when there is no one to hear, but mutual listening brings forth accounts of regret, doubt, humiliation, and grace. Some stories describe difficult encounters in prison. Family members with intimate knowledge of Rosie tell their stories. Other tales illustrate surprising parallels in the inner lives of both authors.
Judith follows the friendly path of Quakers who began in the 1650s to value women’s leadership and befriend prisoners. Rosie grew up Catholic, in a faith tradition that shaped her art and values. Both write stories interwoven with social challenges and spiritual practices intended to support readers in reaching out to persons behind bars.
8-12-20: “It’s yours, mine, and God’s book. I’ve been lettin people know about our book and about you. People are very interested in our story, and I know this is a start of a great journey. I’m very proud of us, friend… I wanted to tell you that to me this means nothing, but to lots of people who like crime stuff, me being the youngest and the first Latina to get the d. penalty in Calif. is a big deal. I’m personally ashamed of it, but there’s people who think it’s cool. I love you and you stay safe. Tu Amiga, Rosie”
Incarcerating our way to safety does not work. Friendships do work. These stories, rooted in caring and respect, offer a warmly satisfying testimony to the power of friending.

Click on One of these Logos to Buy Online:

      
      

Page Publishing’s Devoted Page

52 Weeks of Love & Money: The Companion Journal for Sabbath Economics — PUBLISHED!

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52 Weeks of Love & Money: The Companion Journal for Sabbath Economics

Got enough money? Enough love?
Facing an uncertain future?
Sabbath Economics is the spiritual guide for you.

Loving and being loved makes everyone happier. Looking at money matters from a spiritual perspective makes everything better.
Author Judith Favor helps each of us explore how much is enough as we move forward, individually and collectively, into an uncertain future. Inland Empire member and author Judith Favor will be the…

Guest Speaker
for the High Desert Branch’s
Act 2 Zoom Meeting

to be aired on

Tuesday, October 19th at 6 pm

The public is invited to attend this free presentation.

Invitation and link may be found
by visiting www.hdcwc.com

Judith Wright Favor loves conversing with people who are interested in finding sacred possibilities in the very human tangle of personal finances and relational challenges.
She just published The Companion Journal: 52 Weeks with Love and Money for Sabbath Economics. This book is loaded with insightful questions for every day of the year, plus lively quotes to get you thinking about money and love in fresh ways. Each page has space to record your own desires, curiosities and imaginative ideas.
The Companion Journal will be there for you day and night, but money troubles can be hard to talk about. Because we are social beings and spiritual beings, it is better to explore the complexities of money and love in the company of a few good people. Who else do you want in this conversation?
Don’t miss this provocative and unusual presentation.
Judith Favor, Author

Judith Favor, Author

Contact Judith to arrange discounts so everyone in your book group, church group, or family circle can have a copy.
Buy at Powells, Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Readers Magnet.
Judith Wright Favor is the author of six nonfiction books and one novel:

Spirit Awakening (1988, out of print)
The Edgefielders:
Poor Farm Tales of a Great-Grandmother (2013)
Silent Voices (2014)
The Beacons of Larkin Street (2017)
First in a trilogy honoring female church leaders
in 1970s San Francisco.
Sabbath Economics:
A Spiritual Guide to Linking Love with Money (2020)
52 Weeks with Love and Money, A Companion Journal (2021)
Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row (2021)

Judith likes to quote poet Mary Oliver, who wrote:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell someone.

 

 

Judith is a member of the
High Desert CWC’s
“On Topic Speakers for You”
presentation project

 

 

Epiphany Writing Retreat

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A One-Day Retreat
on
Epiphany Writing

In-Person in Los Angeles (map)
and Livestream
Google Calendar ICS

What to expect in a One-Day Retreat

9:00am – 12:00pm PT – Session One

12:00pm – 1:00pm PT – Lunch

1:00pm – 4:00pm PT – Session Two

This one-day retreat
will be held in-person
and also accessible
through livestream.

 

About the Presenter:

Rev. Judith Favor is an active Quaker,
retired UCC pastor and teacher
at the Claremont School of Theology.
A seasoned spiritual guide and author,
she has been a contemplative companion to others
for many decades.

 

Cost:

$60 per person (livestream registration)
$68 per person (in-person registration)
$78 per person (in-person registration + lunch)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 

 

WRITING FOR CHANGE IN CHALLENGING TIMES

By

Presence and Practices of
JERRY MAY, ROSE MARY DOUGHERTY
and TILDEN EDWARDS-Infused
Writing for Change
in Challenging Times

An Online Day-Retreat

sponsored by:

Spirituality & Practice
July 25, 2020

 

Although Shalem’s founders could not have envisioned 104 seekers gathered in one virtual Zoom room, they would have recognized the underlying spirit of unity, love and group spiritual direction that anchored the event. Some folks signed in early: I asked them to post hopes and expectations in the Chat section. I followed Jerry’s example by inviting participants to dedicate their retreat to someone they hold dear. I lit a candle and dedicated the day to IRA PROGOFF, whose journal workshops provided the chalice where my contemplative – activist soul came to awareness. Progoff was my first spiritual director, though neither of us called it that in the early 1970s.

I sensed Tilden’s spirit when I designed our Sabbath-rhythm sessions to include short teaching stories, queries and shared stillness. Rose Mary’s wisdom shaped guidelines for triads to listen contemplatively, not conversationally. S&P’s MARY ANN BRUSSAT suggested the pattern of two hours for guided writing and reflection, two hours of unstructured time to ease Zoom fatigue, followed by two more hours of writing and reflection. KEZIAH GRINDELAND posted photos to support participants’ interactions with nature during the break. Twice during the day, S&P used the Zoom feature to divide people into breakout groups. I asked the person with the longest hair to speak first, a quick visual way for polite strangers to establish speaking order when sharing delights, difficulties and discoveries, or reading short excerpts from their journals. 18 folks chose to keep silence during the triads, and I held all participants in tender care.

I also prayed for 99 women and 5 men while they responded to writing prompts on themes including Cracked & Broken, Faith & Doubt, Not Listening, Injustices, Reaching, and Endings. On-screen Zoom images permitted me to peek into participants’ faces and homes while they journaled. I adapted Tilden’s icon-gazing practice to rest my eyes on folks hunched over desks, stretched on couches or gazing skyward. Tenderness washed over me. The sweetest surprise was how natural it felt to prayerfully embrace people in separate physical spaces. The Beloved infused each and every one of us.

I owe great gratitude to MARY ANN and FREDERIC BRUSSAT, who co-founded Spirituality & Practice, following decades of work providing resources for spiritual journeys through their newsletters. Their prophetic work has offered spiritual literacy and interfaith wisdom to seekers around the globe through online interaction. Following their path, Spiritual Directors International and Stillpoint have instituted similar programs. I can hear Jerry May’s hearty laughter rocking the room as spiritual leaders collaborate across traditions, enriched by expansive new technologies. I celebrate the inclusive, low-cost spiritual outreach that is emerging from Covid-19 restrictions.

Online retreats offer unexpected depth
and intimacy for soul companioning,
especially among contemplative writers.

To join the circle of
AS IT IS: Spiritual Journaling 2020
click on this link:

https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/ecourses/course/view/10176/as-it-is-spiritual-journaling/key/jf

JUDITH FAVOR completed Shalem’s Spiritual Guidance program in 1986.
She is retired from UCC ministry (San Francisco),
teaching at the Claremont School of Theology,
and guiding Stillpoint Ghost Ranch programs.

Judith remains active in soul companioning, retreat guidance,
Quaker service and her personal ministry of writing for publication.

A recently widowed great-grandmother,
she resides at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, CA.

In September 2020,
Readers Magnet will release her
Sabbath Economics: A Spiritual Guide Linking Love and Money.

Learn more at www.JudithFavor.com and Facebook.

Big-Hearted Democracy

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(Original Post on Spirituality & Practice Website)

This post has been contributed by Judith L. Favor, who is rooted and grounded in Quaker tradition and contemplative practice. She is retired from pastoral UCC ministry in San Francisco and teaching at the Claremont School of Theology. She created the “As It Is: Spiritual Journaling” e-course for S&P.

This year I’ve found myself reflecting in my journal about the meaning of democracy to me. I have turned to some traditional Quaker queries and crafted some of my own as I have explored my feelings about and experiences with my country and its leadership. One query that I suggested in my last blog post is: Which persons or events helped to shape your democratic values? How? It led me to both memories and reflections about what I call “Big-Hearted Democracy.”

Big-Hearted Democracy became real for me on the day We, The People elected Dwight D. Eisenhower as 34th President of the United States. On November 4, 1952 — through the miracle of television — democracy became visible and audible to me for the first time. My school principal placed a small, boxy television at the edge of the stage in the auditorium. It was the size of a Shredded Wheat box and had a tiny twelve-inch screen. Each class had thirty minutes to crowd in and watch. We, the sixth graders of Richmond Elementary in Portland, Oregon, got to see Democracy at work across the nation, in living black and white. Rowdy boys stopped their fart contests and spitball wars to stare at crowds cheering for political candidates in the streets of the United States. Gawky girls stopped whispering secrets to each other and fussing with their hair to watch voters emerging from polling places with big grins and expansive gestures.

At home, Big-Hearted Democracy played triumphantly on a brand-new television console, purchased by parents who usually had to work on Tuesdays. Mom was a file clerk and Dad was a milkman, but their bosses gave them paid time off on Election Day. (In the Fifties, Oregon employers supported workers’ voting rights.) After casting ballots, my folks celebrated by buying a TV set, and installing it while we were at school. The new television was a total surprise to my brothers and me. We were so proud to be the first on the block to own a TV that we quickly spread the news to our neighbors. Chinese, Cuban and Irish families on our dead-end street arrived bearing snacks, and we invited everyone in to watch the returns.

In my 12-year-old memory, Big-Hearted Democracy became permanently imprinted with Attention, Connection, Enthusiasm, Hospitality and Zeal on Election Day 1952, sixty-plus years before I met the authors of Spiritual Literacy!

In college, I was startled to learn The Constitution of the United States — as originally written and ratified — does not grant American citizens the right to vote! Individual state laws determine voter eligibility. Did Mr. Hill, my sixth-grade teacher, emphasize this fact? If so, it didn’t stick. I am uneasy knowing that for more than 100 years (!) there was no federal ruling to eliminate race or gender voting barriers in the United States of America. Systemic disenfranchisements were later eased by passage of the Fifteenth Amendment (in 1870) and the Nineteenth Amendment (in 1920.)

I recorded these Practicing Democracy memories and reflections on August 6, 2020, the centennial of the passage of the constitutional amendment ensuring women’s right to vote. In California, however, women won the vote in 1911, (four years before my parents were born) and nine years before American women gained universal suffrage. California efforts began in 1908 (the year my Dad’s parents were married), when bold determined women in San Francisco linked arms for what is believed to be the first equal-vote demonstration in America.

On August 27 at 6 p.m. Pacific Time, we can watch history unfold at the San Francisco Public Library website:
Undocumented History: America’s First Suffrage March and the San Francisco Women Who Led It

Register here:
https://bit.ly/Suffrage8-27-20

 

A Mother’s Heartlines

By

Early-morning pages, written before my responsible self comes on duty,
take me into deep, dark places and a few bright, clear ones.
My fifty-four-year-old son is dying of cancer,
complicated by meth addiction.
Mary’s question to the angel echoes within me: How can this be?
The answer, according to the Beatles:
Mother Mary said to me, Let it be. Let it be.

“What are you seeing?”
Ray’s last words were raspy,
yet powered by the curiosity that propelled his entire life.

“I see you filled with light,” I said, “and surrounded by light.
I see you loved and loving, forgiven and forgiving.”

With that, he slipped into stillness. No sign of pain.
No sign he knew I was there, yet I knew it was the
absolutely right place to be. I just knew.
How long can a mother gaze upon her comatose son,
seeing that of God in his wasted body and paralyzed limbs?
One can live infinitely into a single moment, says Philip C.
When my oldest son phoned to take me to lunch,
I said, “No thanks. I’m right where I need to be.”
I declined Michael’s invitation to dinner, too, because I was beginning
to feel something so unexpected, so far off the deathbed emotional charts,
that I could barely name it to myself,
let alone speak it aloud. It felt strangely like joy.

Joy? How could this be? I was losing my youngest son
to cancer after decades of shared adventures, epic struggles
and occasional unitive experiences in nature. Why joy?
Later it came to me: Holy obedience. Surrender to Love.
All through Ray’s final day, I sat where Christ guided me to
sit. Kept silent until prompted. Spoke what Spirit directed
me to say. Personal needs, even hunger, evaporated into
the mystery of grace.

How can a son’s tragedy become a mother’s grace?
How could Ray’s passing engender a joy huge enough to encompass
all of his pain, all of my pain, and perhaps your pain, too?
Holding a loving, prayerful vigil with my dying boy lifted
me through sorrow and beyond it to an astonishing fullness
of joy. But even robust joy is fragile and fleeting.
Ten days later, grief yanked me down, pulled me deep
beneath the strong dam of capability I had constructed to
care for my husband as he weakens with Parkinson’s Disease.
Triple sorrows smashed my carefully constructed dam.
Loss of son. Loss of Partnering Pete. Loss of mobility and freedom.
The combination brought me to my knees.
I cried and cried and cried and cried.
How is it even possible to sob for so many hours?
Pete, helpless to comfort me, called the grief midwives.
Friends Connie and Charleen came and knelt beside me on the floor.
Time collapsed beneath floods of tears.
Losing a child is unspeakably difficult.
I can manage only silence.
Lifting Heart Lines from my messy morning pages buoys
me through the grief-bursts.
I swim infinity loops in the community pool,
and dive deeper into stillness.

Sometimes I find a Heart Line in another’s words.
Sacred Veil lyricist Tony Silvestri: “Giving myself permission to write
these texts allowed me to revisit my grief in a very powerful way.
I understood I hadn’t fully grieved, because I hadn’t processed it in art.”
Eric Whitacre’s music and Los Angeles Master Chorale lyrics convey Silvestri’s
intimate expression of his young wife’s death.
Primagravida. Retroperitoneal cystic. Adenocarcinoma. Adnexal cysts…

How do they manage to sing complex medical terms so tenderly,
without choking up?

I sat at the threshold with my son, at the open door of Mystery,
until Ray was ready to pass through it.
He crossed a horizon as wondrous as the one we crossed together
when I gave birth to him 54 years earlier in this same hospital.
In his end is my beginning.

Those words came in meditation. I wonder what they mean…
I travel to Quaker Center to renew body and spirit in the redwoods,
to commune with Friends and place rocks of personal heartbreak
in a communal griefbowl of clear water.
I seek a weekend of contemplation for strength to tend Pete
as his health and memory fail.

I awaken at 1:40am to a delicious melting-chocolate sensation,
as if I had melted into God. If I had stayed in bed to savor it,
I’d still be ambulatory today…
but I rose to go to the bathroom. Fainted. Fell.
Heard my rifle-shot tibia fracture,
saw ragged bone protruding through flesh and foot twisted at right angles.

“Uh-oh, compound,” said the first EMT.
“Not prepared for that,” said the
second.

In Trauma ICU,
a nurse drew red balloons and wrote Happy Birthday on the whiteboard.
My decidedly unhappy 79th birthday was brightened by my daughter’s visit
followed by assurance from two female orthopedic surgeons
that their repair efforts were successful.

Steady & Clear

By

 

Trouble called me by name one Sunday afternoon at California Central
Women’s Facility. I had just finished co-leading a weekend Alternatives
to Violence Project workshop with three Quaker volunteers and had
walked with them from the cellblock to the exit gate. The moment I
passed through the Xray detector into the visitor’s room, the watch
sergeant called my name. His tone was stern. When I turned, an even
sterner voice added, “Miz Favor, I need to talk to you. In my office.” He
jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Lieutenant and sergeant gave me hard looks as I stepped around the
end of the counter and followed them. Why did each man keep a hand
on the holstered pistols at his hip? Why address me with harsh eyes and
clipped voices? What was so threatening about a sixty-year-old
grandmother?

“What’s the problem, officer?”
“You broke the rules.”
“What rules?”
“Department of Corrections rules. You are prohibited from doing
volunteer work in the same prison where you visit an inmate.”
“I didn’t know there was a rule against that.”
“There is. We’re telling you. You cannot volunteer and also visit a Death
Row prisoner, or write to her. That is against the rules.”

“I’m trying see your point of view,” I began, thinking it wise to start off
diplomatically, “but I’ve been leading AVP workshops with the general
population for two years with no fuss. I know about the rule prohibiting
women on Death Row from participating in programs. Rosie is not
involved in the AVP program, so I don’t see the problem. Why can’t I
do both?”

The men shook their heads in unison. They folded arms across chests.
I tried another tack. “Getting to know Rosie was what inspired me to
train for AVP leadership. I want to show inmates how to solve
interpersonal problems nonviolently, because violence is what landed
Rosie behind bars.” More hard looks. I could tell they were not
persuaded.

“It is against department policy,” said the lieutenant.
“You can’t do both.”

I sensed it was fruitless to ask for an exception, but did it anyway.
“Could you grant me an exception to the rule? Everyone comes out
ahead when you give me permission to do both. Can you do that?”
Denied, of course. This conversation was not endearing me to the
lieutenant. I knew better than to insist on speaking to his supervisor, but
did it anyway. The sergeant punched a phone and summoned the watch
captain. Both guards kept arms crossed over their hearts. A stony
silence prevailed until the captain arrived. His furrowed brow showed
he was not happy to be here. I repeated my plea. He insistently repeated
the rule.

“No, you cannot do both.”
“But that’s not logical,” I protested. “Your policy doesn’t make sense in this situation.”
“NO,” repeated the captain. “Absolutely not!”
He gestured toward black binders labeled DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS.
“Prohibited. Period.”
“Well, you’re giving me a tough choice,” I said. “I’ll need some time to think about it.”
“No.” He gave me another hard look. “You can’t leave until you decide.”

I pictured my friends waiting in the parking lot. I met the captain’s stare. His jaw was set.

“Which is it? Decide now.” His eyes drilled into mine.
The pulse in my throat pounded so hard I thought my voice would shake,
but it came out steady and clear. ““Rosie. If I must choose now, I choose my friend Rosie.”
“Why?” The lieutenant sounded genuinely puzzled.

The other two exhaled noisily and shook their heads. One muttered something.
“Because she comes first for me. If you won’t let me facilitate workshops
here, other Quakers will do it. I can contribute at other California
prisons. Rosie is my friend. I will not abandon her.”
“Murderer.” The sergeant’s face twisted into a mocking sneer.
“You can all go.” The captain dismissed us and quickly left the room.

I felt discouraged as I drove away from Central California Women’s
Facility, where prison administrators and guards acted as if murderers
were monsters. They acted as if women on The Row could not be
redeemed. Their frozen faces seemed oblivious to my reasonable
questions, hardened against inquiry. Their scowling brows seemed
allergic to reflection. Their hard voices refused to consider any point of
view but Departmental Policy. Their hands on pistol butts conveyed
power and domination. The combination made mutual understanding
impossible. Compromise was totally off the table.

Soon after three armed men forced me to choose, I discovered “The
Abnormal Is Not Courage,” a poem by Jack Gilbert. His words about
World War II reminded me that Quaker volunteer service is not
accomplished with tanks or horses. Work for justice does not take place
on stallions, with sabers in hand. Witnessing to ‘the spark of God’ in
people occurs through everyday interactions. Sometimes it happens in
prisons, sometimes in homes, schools, retreat centers and cafes.
Sometimes it takes place in sunlight, usually in conversations that most
folks will never hear. Witnessing to “the spark of God” in myself, friends
behind bars (and you) comes through small moments of faithfulness and
simple actions that few will ever see. These days, for me, many faithful
actions take place on the pages of my forthcoming book titled
FRIENDING ROSIE: LIFE ON DEATH ROW.

At age seventy-nine, I lack the strength and energy to visit CCWF as
often as I once did, or as often as I would like, but my commitment to
Rosie remains steady and clear. My invitation to readers, to you, to hear,
see, correspond with and visit incarcerated persons is grounded in the
“normal excellence, of long accomplishment.” Twenty years after I first
ventured behind bars to meet Rosie, Gilbert’s poem reminds me that the
work of advocating for free people to befriend imprisoned ones is made
up of the “beauty of many days.”

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