Judith Favor

Author

My Last Great Adventure

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Jeannette Piccard pokes her head out of her Stratospheric Gondola after her record-breaking ascent.

Jeannette Piccard pokes her head out of her Stratospheric Gondola after her record-breaking ascent.

“Dying is the last Great Adventure,” the Rev Dr Jeannette Ridlon Piccard told me as she lay dying with Congestive Heart Failure. The courageous high-altitude balloonist and first woman ordained to the Episcopal priesthood has inspired me for 50 years. Now her mighty soul accompanies mine on the Journey to Infinity.

At her ordination as a deacon in 1971, Jeannette was presented by her granddaughter, Jane, left, then a U student in social work. On the right is Rev. Denzil Carty, first to affirm her calling as a priest. Minneapolis Star.

At her ordination as a deacon in 1971, Jeannette was presented by her granddaughter, Jane, left, then a U student in social work. On the right is Rev. Denzil Carty, first to affirm her calling as a priest. Minneapolis Star.

My Congestive Heart Failure was diagnosed in May and has progressed rapidly from acute to fatal. Blessedly, I am mostly free of pain. Numbness and increased daily as congestion rises from feet and legs toward gut. Breathing is greatly aided by oxygen 24/7.

Even more blessedly, I am physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally upheld by the most unconditionally loving people on the planet. Plus the caring, compassionate comfort-care from VNA Hospice Team and my wise, kind and seasoned Doctor of Osteopathy. They come into my home daily with healing hands and hearts, so I am richly blessed with unconditionally loving TLC.

I welcome your prayers on this last Great Adventure. It feels great to sense your presence as I navigate the Great Sea of Unknowing into the Heart of God.

Jeannette Piccard tells her ballooning stories to her grandaughter Betsy in 1963

Jeannette Piccard tells her ballooning stories to her grandaughter Betsy in 1963

For More Information on the life of Jeanette Piccard,
follow this link:  https://connect.cehd.umn.edu/heaven-and-earth/

Touchstones: “Generational Pain”

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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”

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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”

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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

Meet the Author: Jan 14th/4pm at The Claremont Forum

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CLAREMONT FORUM BOOKSHOP | PRISON LIBRARY PROJECT

MEET THE AUTHOR

Judith Wright Favor portrait photo
Who are the people in prison or on death row? Those of us who are “free” don’t often think of those who are incarcerated but friendship and communication have the power to heal and enrich lives on both sides of the prison bars.
Friending Rosie by Judith Favor (book mockup cover image)This special event sheds insight on those who are incarcerated and on death row – exploring themes of friendship, compassion, and understanding the realities of a life behind bars. Proceeds from book sales and donations will support the Prison Library Project.

January 14 at 4pm
586 W. 1st St., Claremont
Claremont Packing House

C L A R E M O N T F O R U M . O R G

Walk With Me — Book Review

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Composite Image of Friends Journal August 22 Cover and Page 35 "Walk With Me Book Review" by Judith Favor
Judith Wright Favor portrait photoReviewer Judith Wright Favor is an elder member of Claremont Monthly, Southern California Quarterly, and Pacific Yearly Meetings. Her latest publication is the Pendle Hill pamphlet: Friending Rosie on Death Row.

You can read this Book Review online by following this link:

Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer

Review of Friending Rosie Pamphlet in Friends Journal

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Image of the Book Review title and text in Friends Journal for the book review of the Friending Rosie Pamphlet
Judith Wright Favor portrait photo
READ MORE:

Friending Rosie on Death Row

FULL TEXT:

The Pendle Hill pamphlet Friending Rosie on Death Row documents a 20-year friendship between a non-incarcerated Quaker and a formerly Catholic woman who was condemned to die for murder. (There is also a longer book with a similar name, Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row, available from Page Publishing. It includes more of Rosie’s first-person views and is targeted to a general audience.) Author Judith Favor draws on her own memories as well as letters Maria del Rosio Alfaro (Rosie) wrote to her from death row in Central California Women’s Facility. Alfaro permitted Favor to publish certain pieces of correspondence while requesting others be kept private.

Favor explains that she and Alfaro want to encourage others to commit to friendships that transcend barriers of privilege, race, class, and criminal justice system involvement.

Stories like ours help us answer some of life’s big hows and whys: What makes people commit impulsive acts of violence? How can one awful choice disrupt so many lives? How can we mend past mistakes? Where is love in all this?

Favor recounts a conversation in which Alfaro, convicted of fatally stabbing nine-year-old Autumn Wallace while drug impaired and sentenced to die in a gas chamber, weeps as she recalls the day of the crime. Favor explains that discussing the details of the murder is not the purpose of her writing. Rather she intends to demonstrate how loving connections can transcend any issues resulting from a dark past.

Reading about Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker prisoner advocate in nineteenth-century Britain, inspired Favor to correspond with an incarcerated woman. Raised Protestant, Favor discovered Quaker advices and queries while unemployed and avoiding homelessness by staying with a Friend who worshiped at Palo Alto Meeting in California. Quaker testimonies inspired her to affirm the spiritual worth of every person by befriending someone behind bars. Favor re-envisioned the prophet Micah’s age-old question “What does the Lord require of you?” to read “What does Love require of you?” The answer given in the book of Micah is “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8 NASB). Cultivating a friendship with Alfaro enabled Favor to practice justice, kindness, and humility.

The women confide in each other in letters and during visits. Alfaro tells Favor about a fight she engaged in as well as the prevalence of drug abuse in the prison. She describes her daily activities and remarks on the ceaseless, deafening noise. Favor tells Alfaro about her divorce, and Alfaro responds with compassion:

I’m very sorry to hear about your divorce. I don’t even know what to say, my heart goes out to you and him. Tell me, friend, how are you handling this? I don’t know what made you both do what you’re doing, but all I can say is that I’m here for you. I know that at times it feels good to talk to someone about our problems, and vent to let it out. So if ever you feel that, please know I’m here for you.

The pamphlet challenges readers to ask what we can do to step outside of comfortable social circles and engage with incarcerated people who we might not initially think of as potential friends. It invites us to explore how we can acknowledge that of God in everyone.

Writing Your Ethical Will

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Judith Wright Favor portrait photo

Thursday, August 04
– Friday, August 26

Link to Spirituality & Practice page

  • What do you want your legacy to be?
  • What are the foundations of your life choices?
  • What do you need to produce an effective set of documents?

 

This new program, designed by Judith Favor, a Discovery Writing guide for more than 50 years — will consist of Zoom meetings bookending every emailed session, before and after. You will discover how to pass your values, principles, practices, and stories on to your loved ones and future generations. Thus far, Judith has led three other writing programs for Spirituality & Practice: “As It Is: Spiritual Journaling”; “Contemplative Writing and Listening”; and “Composing Your Spiritual Memoir.”

“I love to help people find and express their true voice through contemplative writing. I love guiding people ‘in and down’ to uncover fresh new truths and form surprising new connections. I offer inventive exercises and prompts to bring out surprises percolating beneath the surface. Skilled writers and shy writers are equally welcome because I emphasize process more than product.”

The Discovery Writing approach is well suited to writing an ethical will. Usually written in a letter form, an ethical will consists of:

  • meaningful personal & family stories
  • qualities & attributes you try to exhibit
  • lessons you have learned over the years
  • beliefs & spiritual practices
  • expressions of love & gratitude
  • apologies & amends
  • hopes & dreams for current & future generations
  • questions & guidance for others to consider
  • blessings for present & future loved ones
  • and anything else you would like to share

In this one-month program under Judith’s guidance, you will learn basic tools for Writing Your Ethical Will (also known as a “Legacy Letter to Loved Ones”).

Your writing will be sparked by prompts and poems, carefully curated quotations and questions, and examples from ethical wills and legacy letters penned by ordinary people throughout the ages. You’ll be encouraged to write messy rough drafts on themes from past memories, present practices, and future hopes and blessings. Weekly writing will help you will find your voice. You’ll be encouraged to express what you cherish in everyday words, not fancy language or legalese.

You will also have access to an online Practice Circle. This for posting excerpts from your writing, which Judith and other participants can read and offer supportive comments.

During Zoom meetings, at the beginning and end of the month, you will have more opportunities to share your legacy writing and be inspired by the writing of others.

Schedule:

  • August 4, 2022: introductory email
  • August 5, from 12 – 3 pm PDT, we will meet on Zoom for talks about key themes, do some short writing, and meet in triads to hear emerging thoughts from each other. Zoom gatherings will be recorded, so if you have to miss any or some, you can catch up later.
  • On Thursdays, August 11, 18, and 25, you will receive emails with a range of examples of ethical wills and legacy letters penned by ordinary people throughout the ages. Past, present, and future themes will be highlighted in these excerpts to help you articulate what matters most to you, what loved ones mean to you, and how you want to be remembered.
  • On Friday, August 26, we will meet again on Zoom and you will practice how to organize what you’ve composed over the month, and break again into triads. You will learn how to review and renew your ethical will in years to come. This Zoom gathering will also be recorded.

A Personal Word from Judith Favor:

I am an octogenarian who has been guiding contemplative writing classes and retreats since the 1970s. Dr. Ira Progoff, Intensive Journal founder, was my first — and most influential — spiritual guide and mentor in this work. During the 1980s, Gerald May and Tilden Edwards accompanied me in learning the art of spiritual guidance. I spent hundreds of hours with these great teachers, infusing my bones with the practices and principles of contemplative listening and writing.

I was ordained in the United Church of Christ and pastored churches in San Francisco during the Nineties. For the next decade, I taught at Claremont School of Theology, and led spiritual formation programs with Stillpoint at Ghost Ranch.

After becoming a convinced Friend in 1998, I took up the ministry of writing for publication. Six of my books are out in the world, and more are in the works. All this while teaching Discovery Writing consistently brings me great joy. I love serving as mentor and midwife, bringing forth living words from writers of all ages, states and conditions.

In this course, I offer a trusting (occasionally intimate) atmosphere in which writers can feel safe and supported. I also set high standards for undivided attention, courtesy, respect and kindness.

I have found that feeling pressured often reduces honesty in writing — and honesty is essential in composing an ethical will, so I never want writers to feel stressed. Verbal sharing will be encouraged, but not expected. You may always pass if you’d rather keep something to yourself. Baring your soul does come with the territory, however. It happens naturally. I will bare my soul along the way and encourage you to risk the same when you feel ready and willing. Writing Your Ethical Will is, after all, based upon diving deep and authentically expressing your truest, most cherished values, principles, practices, and stories.

To join me and other open-hearted souls in August,
click on the Subscribe button below.

Thursday, August 4 – Friday, August 26

$80.00

SUBSCRIBE — GIVE AS GIFT

Composing Your Spiritual Memoir

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Judith Favor - Author - Portrait

E-Course
with Judith Favor
January 14 – June 11, 2022

Are you ready to write a spiritual memoir?

How can you sincerely convey
your deepest faith, values, and practices?

What sort of remembrances to you want to give
to the people who matter most to you?

Are you ready to see your life through a new lens
and reveal to yourself and a caring community
the hidden parts of your wholeness?

After last year’s popular program on Contemplative Writing and Listening,
Judith Favor is back to guide you through the process of converting
the stories of your life into a spiritual memoir.

Online Writing Student Example Image

This five-month program will consist of 22 weekly emails with writing prompts and 6 monthly Zoom gatherings with teachings, guided writing practices, and listening sessions with peers.

You’ll be encouraged to choose from a palette of themes to craft your own memoir, read excerpts from published memoirs, and do meditations to support your writing.

This program is a rare opportunity to receive sturdy listening support
from peers combined with guidance from an author who has published
five memoirs in 12 years. Read more and register here:

Spirituality & Practice logotype image

SpiritualityandPractice.com/Spiritual Memoir

 

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

 

 

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