Judith Favor

Author

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

 

 

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

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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.

A Mother’s Heartlines

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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.

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