Judith Favor

Author

Touchstones: “Generational Pain”

By

photo of a Flagstone pathway in a graphic frame

Dear Readers Who Write,
Generational pain prompted my first two books, The Edgefielders: Poor Farm Tales of a Great-Grandmother and Silent Voices. The discipline of discovery writing gave me tools to explore the mysterious forces that tear families apart and the ties that bind families together.
Novels by contemporary authors are reminders that you and I do need not bear generational pain alone. Current fictional favorites include:

  • The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
  • World Light by Halldor Laxness
  • Love by Toni Morrison
  • Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co. by Maria Amparo Escandon
  • Mink River by Brian Doyle
  • Take One Candle, Light a Room by Susan Straight

The colorful characters in my four Beacons novels also support readers who may feel alone in bearing generational pain. Love stories & family sagas forge strong connections with readers, despite diversities of race, religion, class and gender identity. Inspiring memoirists include:

  • Living With a Wild God by Barbara Ehrenreich
  • The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation by Richard Rohr
  • Joy Unspeakable by Barbara Holmes
  • I Could Tell You Stories by Patricia Hampl
  • Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing in Community by Joy Harden Bradford

“We are nervous beings, in nervous nations, at an increasingly nervous time,” writes Jen Soriano in Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing. In the September-October issue of Poets & Writers journal, Soriano’s words shimmer with meaning. “I wrote this” she says, “ … for pearls in their shells seeking conditions to shine. My story is just one ripple in an emerging ecosystem of interdependence, where we don’t have to bear generational pain alone.”

Whose writing helps you bear generational pain?

by Judith Wright Favor

Touchstones: “Hush”

By

photo of a Flagstone pathway in a graphic frame

Dear Friends Who Read,
Hush and I have a long relationship. When I was very young, we met in Grandma’s lap. “Hush now, hush” she would whisper, warm breath tickling my tiny ear. “Hush, little one, hush.” Eventually I learned to hush myself into a receptive state of stillness. Over time, meditation and prayerfulness deepened my practice. Be still and know. When Hush is good, it is very good. And we want it to be good for others.
I heard too much creative clamor when I started working on The Beacons of Larkin Street, my first novel. My mind was cluttered with ideas and desires, opinions and emotional reactions. Soon the fictional characters began to introduce themselves

  • Lesbian Beka and married Dot arrive fully embodied as a white researcher and a black social worker.
  • Transgender Paige communes with angels, saints and mystics.
  • Widows Hope and Rev Ruth long for connection, seeking to open the author’s heart to their sorrows.
  • Haitian immigrant Millienne prays with her bare feet on Mother Earth.
  • Undocumented Luz suffers in silent misery, unable to bear telling God what is happening to her on streets of San Francisco.
  • Caro from Cleveland brings charisma, addictions and lust to the Haight Ashbury.
  • Arsonist Red aches from maternal neglect and yearns to belong at Saint Lydia’s.
  • They all seemed to know something I did not yet know.
  • All these females need safety to express their truths. How could I protect their vulnerable voices from my authorly intrusion?

The Hush helps me figure it out. Someone said people make the path by walking. Authors say writers make the path by writing. My inner voice says hushing is the path to the heart of my novels. The Beacons and the Rev help me figure out what is useful and what isn’t. First, they say, write up a storm. Set aside the messy first draft, Let the screen of your mind’s eye go blank. Wait receptively. In my busy mind, the Hush creates space for fictional women to articulate hidden traumas, longings and fears.

  • In the Hush, Rev Ruth wrestles with inherited doctrines, gradually discovering which beliefs are false and which ring true.
  • In the Hush, Beka and Dot design an ingenious way to trap and expose their predatory pastor.
  • In the Hush, dialogues between Hope and Rev Ruth, Dot and Beka, Millienne and Paige raise central questions about loss & leadership, faith and practice.
  • In the Hush, Luz heals from sexual abuse by letting the women of Saint Lydia’s care for her traumatized body-mind-heart-soul.
  • In the Hush, Beka and Caro struggle through attraction, betrayal and recovery.
  • In the Hush, Paige befriends firebug Red and assists the congregation in forgiving the girl who torched their sanctuary.

The Hush brings third-person objectivity to a struggling author. Once freed from the weight of my authorly opinions, The Beacons and the Rev showed me a wideness in their path of congregational leadership. These church ladies made the path wide enough to liberate themselves, each other, and females who suffer unjust treatment. In order to hear their truths I had to quiet my own opinions. The Hush gives space for fictional women to reveal when they are fooling themselves and when they are being true to core values as they reckon with the complications of past, present and future.

My four interlocked Beacons novels mirror the racial and gender diversity of church ladies in San Francisco during the 1970s. Earnestly searching for transcendence, the Beacons and the Rev create a sacred chalice for readers, too. Enfolded in the Hush between tensions and conflicts, readers can also grow spiritually alongside the women of Saint Lydia’s. Readers like you can uncover your own interior truths through inward reflection. Some of you already express your faith-based witness through community-based social action. Others are finding your way. Welcome to the Beacons series.

Tenderly,
Judith

by Judith Wright Favor

Touchstones: “Discovery Writing”

By

photo of a Flagstone pathway in a graphic frameDear Friends Who Read,
“Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift. It is a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone,” wrote Amy Tan. In her new film, Unintended Memoirs, the author ‘speaks with remarkable frankness about traumas she has faced in her life and how writing has helped her heal.” In Where the Past Begins (2017) she wrote, “As long as I kept searching and asking, I would never lose myself. I was the narrator of my life. I could write without loneliness but with purpose: to find meaning in both the past and in the moments unfolding.”

Searching & Asking on the Page

Like young Amy Tan, I liked to write alone in my bedroom. Feelings were routinely stifled in my family, but reading and writing awakened my emotions. I disappeared for hours with pen in hand or a book in my lap, safe from scrutiny and discord. I liked solitude and I also wanted a twin to steady me in times of paralyzing self-doubt, a trusted companion with whom to share laughter and tears in stories of love and pain and wonder. I adored the Bobbsey Twins and longed for a trusted twin brother to share the mess and metaphors of life. My mother laughed and laughed when I told her I wanted a twin brother for my birthday. After that, I confided only in my diary, but developed the lifelong practice of writing to discover Something More.

Discovery Writing

Searching and asking needs to do two things: make me struggle and affirm my insights. Discovery writing stretches me beyond what I do know so I can notice and record what I don’t yet know. Writing is spiritual when it sharpens the inner eye of awareness. And discovery writing is good when it blesses the writer’s soul; then it will be good for the reader’s soul

What happens when you search and ask on the page?

by Judith Wright Favor

Epiphany Writing Retreat

By

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.

“As It Is: Spiritual Journaling”
(class starting soon!)

By

As It Is: Spiritual Journaling with Judith Favor (banner)

Monday, August 8th – Friday, September 2nd, 2106

www.spiritualityandpractice.com (Sign-up Webpage)

“As it is.”

These three little words embedded in the lines of a prayer taught by Jesus remind us to seek the workings of the divine “on earth as it is in heaven” — that is, to approach our many challenges in union with Sacred Presence. But how? One profound and reassuringly helpful tool to foster this sense of unity is spiritual journaling. Through contemplative writing, we get practice in recognizing and responding to our relationship with God, self, others, nature, work, and society just “as it is.”

Spiritual Journaling opens space to relate to deep questions:

  • What does this event or this emotion have to say to me?
  • What can this disappointment teach me about healing?
  • What does this discovery reveal to me about the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit?
  • How can my anguish over the suffering of this person or that group stir my love into action?
  • How can my felt sense of yearning guide me in taking the next best step in this situation?

Whatever spiritual path you are on, this e-course will equip you to explore interior, interpersonal, social, and sacred realities. Holy questions gleaned from scripture, poetry, and literature will offer a variety of perspectives on faith and doubt, action and reflection. In each email sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for four weeks, you will receive:

  • An introductory reflection on the day’s topic
  • A tip for getting started with your writing
  • A special query to spark your thoughts and journal writing
  • A suggested action and resources for going deeper if you wish
  • A link to the “Practice Circle” (a community forum open 24/7 to share with others in this e-course and to receive guidance from Judith)

Judith began journaling when she was ten, in a small blue diary with a gold lock and miniature key. She chose a ballpoint pen, because she knew that writing in pencil would let her fudge the truth. In 1974, she began a lifelong love affair with keeping a journal, studying journaling as an art form and not only writing but also inserting soul collages, tree photos, and icons in her journals.

In 1981 she enrolled at Pacific School of Religion and then went on to be pastor of United Church of Christ congregations in San Francisco until the ministries of spiritual formation and writing laid claim to her soul. She now lives with her husband Pete at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, California. Her heart is enriched by her work in spiritual accompaniment, teaching, and contemplative writing.

Judith invites you to freely express your full range of written reactions in this e-course — confused or certain thoughts, positive or negative emotions — because each aspect of the truth of yourself will reveal valuable insights. You may want to follow her journaling prompts exactly; you may also view them as a trampoline and record the bouncing associations that follow. This e-course gives you lots of freedom, most of all the freedom to follow your heart and the arc of your own life’s story.

(4 CEHs for chaplains available.)

Monday, August 8 – Friday, September 2

[The above text content courtesy of www.spiritualityandpractice.com]

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