Product Description

"I was amazed to find that I had no idea how to unfold my spiritual life in a feminine way. I was surprised, and, in fact, a little terrified, when I found myself in the middle of a feminist spiritual reawakening." ––Sue Monk Kidd

For years, Sue Monk Kidd was a conventionally religious woman. Then, in the late 1980s, Kidd experienced an unexpected awakening, and began a journey toward a feminine spirituality. With the exceptional storytelling skills that have helped make her name, author of When the Heart Waits tells her very personal story of the fear, anger, healing, and freedom she experienced on the path toward the wholeness that many women have lost in the church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore, to monastery retreats and to rituals in the caves of Crete, she reveals a new level of feminine spiritual consciousness for all women– one that retains a meaningful connection with the "deep song of Christianity," embraces the sacredness of ordinary women's experience, and has the power to transform in the most positive ways every fundamental relationship in a woman's life– her marriage, her career, and her religion.

This Plus edition paperback includes a recent interview with the author conducted by the book's editor Michael Maudlin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5440 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Released on: 2006-12-26
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The author's journey to capture her feminine soul and to live authentically from that soul makes a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story. Kidd's successful pilgrimage from her Southern Baptist roots and away from the patriarchal and fundamentalist Christian religious systems surrounding her is an account of anger turned to courage, creativity and love. A mid-career realization that she had lived without "real inner authority" and with "a fear of dissension, confrontation, backlash, a fear of not pleasing, not living up to sanctioned models of femininity" produced in Kidd the new mindset that made her journey possible. Additionally, her extensive knowledge of many subjects, including theology, mythology and the arts, made possible the copious references and cross-references that will prove invaluable for readers who wish to follow her in this same search. While Kidd cautions that each woman's path will be unique, there is no question but that many women will find in her book a mirror of their own present conditions and a hopeful call to self-discovery.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
What happens when the wife of a Southern Baptist minister, a loyal adherent to his religious tradition, suddenly discovers an alternative religious tradition that speaks more strongly to her spiritual longings? Kidd (When the Heart Waits, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) recounts her own journey of anger, fear, and joy from her traditional Baptist upbringing to her new discovery of the power of nontraditional feminine religious experiences. Along her journey, Kidd encounters some of the most powerful feminist religious voices of her times, from Phyllis Trible to Carol Christ, and records these voices as guideposts on her journey. A graceful account of awakening and transformation. Recommend for most libraries.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“A graceful account of awakening and transformation.” -- Library Journal

“The journey to capture her feminine soul and live authentically...makes a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story.” -- Publishers Weekly

Customer Reviews

A profound read for spiritual seekers
Sue Monk Kidd has created a masterpiece... a highly personal and yet relevant journey of one woman who suddenly realized the historically patriarchal nature of the Christian church. As a woman and a mainline protestant minister myself, there is no doubt that she has named the pain of generations of women who suddenly woke up and realized they were not fully included.

Her journey is beautiful, deep, and heartfelt. Another Christian reviewer wrote, "not my Journey". Well, Kidd's experience is not mine either... I have chosen to work within the church rather than leave the value I find there. Yet her journey is both understandable, and fully her own. When I was in seminary in the early to mid 90s, this book was definately required reading for all the female pastors-to-be. I have recommended it to women in my church who are struggling with their desire for a more feminine spirituality, who question the status quo and their own assumptions about the nature of the divine.

I love this book not so much as a guidebook to a post-
Christian place, or even a feminist manifesto, but as a how-to for spiritual searching. Highly recommended for both male and female seekers!

One woman's journey into feminist spirituality
Sue Monk Kidd spent approximately her first forty years in the Baptist church, where women are exhorted to submit to their husbands and where she heard the phrase "second in creation, first to sin" countless times. She was disgruntled with the church's stance on women, but never felt moved to rock the boat much, until one day she walked into her daughter's work and found two customers sexually harassing the girl. Something snapped inside her, and she began to question her religion's assumptions about gender and to seek a more feminist spirituality. Her journey took her to ancient mythology, the Gnostic gospels, and to dark places in her own life as her quest caused trouble in her marriage and her religious life. She tells us how she got through her troubles, and her story seems very human and touching. She would feel uneasy, drop the whole subject for months, but her longing always resurfaced. And in the end, she seems to have found peace, and some interesting insights. This book will be interesting to Christian women trying to figure out how to reconcile religion with self-respect. It was also interesting to me, as a pagan of several years and an agnostic before that--it helped me see value in Christianity that I had not seen before.

My only gripe about it is that sometimes Kidd generalizes too much. The book is at its best when she tells her own story, but sometimes she slips into saying things like "A woman feels X when Y happens". Everybody's journey is slightly different.

A Father Cries For A Daughter
As a retired male mainline protestant pastor, who has long been uncomfortable with the obvious (to anyone who really looks) male orientation of just about everything in the church, this book has brought tears to my eyes on many pages. Through it I have pictured my own daughters' disenchantment with, seemingly, the only alternative for a living faith available to them without divorcing themselves from the shelter and nurture of those they have loved and been loved by. Sue has articulated for me what I wished I could have found the words to say to them over the course of our lifetimes. She speaks from the pain of her experience without lashing out; always in dialog, as opposed to reaction. She discovers and shares viable alternative experiences of heart-centered faith, and seems to wait for you to respond with discoveries of your own, which she acknowledges may be different from her own. My one disappointment in this book is that it seems to have been marketed so excusively for women. Sometimes I think the only hope for men to rediscover the joy of really intimate relationships with women, is for the women to draw us into the kinds of discoveries which they are making for themselves. And it seems to me that this will happen so much more quickly if we can be sensitive to the pilgrimage they are on. And Sue says it so openly, non-abrasively, and so well. J. Kent Borgaard, [...]
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