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| -rw-r--r-- | Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst | 49 |
1 files changed, 30 insertions, 19 deletions
diff --git a/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst b/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst index f8fff59..cc4d9db 100644 --- a/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst +++ b/Hannah-More-Prace-article.rst @@ -6,25 +6,27 @@ of awesome sermons about remarkable people of faith. I first thought that my task is the hardest one, to find one exceptional woman among millions of those who followed Jesus Christ in the post-Biblical times, but when listening to those sermons, it -feels like not alone. Each one of us had a different task to pick -one person from large set of candidates. However, I still believe -that my task might be the most difficult one. Not only I am one -of two preachers with the longest time period to pick from, but -also the position of women was quite different during the ages -than the one of men. +feels like I am not alone. Each one of us had a different task to +pick one person from large set of candidates. However, I still +believe that my task might be the most difficult one. Not only +I am one of two preachers with the longest time period to pick +from, but also the position of women was quite different during +the ages than the one of men. There are number of interesting and famous women of faith during the centuries I could mention: Saint Macrina, Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Clare, if I wanted to be a Czech patriot, Saint -Agnes of Bohemia, or Catherine of Siena, Hadewijch and Mechthild -of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, who willing put down her life -for her persuasion, and that’s just me getting into the Middle -Ages, there were of course many many others, and I should not -ignore the modern female saints like Mother Teresa of Calcutta -or Sophie Scholl. I could also stop and talk about Katharina -von Bora, a Protestant patron saint of pastors’ wives., or -Idelette de Bure, a poor wife of the Swiss reformer, Jean Calvin, -forgotten in life and mostly forgotten afterwards as well. +Agnes of Bohemia, I was thinking for some time I would be talking +about Saint Zdislava of Lemberk, or Catherine of Siena, Hadewijch +and Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, who willingly put +down her life for her persuasion, and that’s just me getting +into the Middle Ages, there were of course many many others, +and I should not ignore the modern female saints like Mother +Teresa of Calcutta or Sophie Scholl. I could also stop and talk +about Katharina von Bora, a Protestant patron saint of pastors’ +wives., or Idelette de Bure, a poor wife of the Swiss reformer, +Jean Calvin, forgotten in life and mostly forgotten afterwards as +well. In the end, I have not chosen either of them. While thinking about them and all other women throughout the ages, it occurred @@ -32,10 +34,10 @@ to me how different is the male and female style of service, and how these famous women were different from most other women in their time. Most (not all) of them were quite extraordinary themselves: daughters of kings, highest nobility, or otherwise -extraordinary women, not sharing their fate with their less -fortunate sisters. However, I believe, that those other women, -who were completely forgotten, have a huge lesson to teach -everyone of us these days, both men and women. +women in very special positions in life, not sharing their fate +with their less fortunate sisters. However, I believe, that those +other women, who were completely forgotten, have a huge lesson to +teach everyone of us these days, both men and women. I was thinking how for a man, it is typical when seeing a problem to be resolved, our first instinct is to get power so we can @@ -50,6 +52,15 @@ acquire the power and then use it for good. And too often it ended up with that acquisition of power, and good ends were forgotten. +There is even a strange phenomenon of what people seem to do +when feeling powerless facing significant challenge. It seems +that for many people this feeling of being powerless is one of +the strongest motivators, much stronger than the interest in +the thing itself. I read a couple of articles by psychologists +warning in the beginning of the current war in Ukraine, that this +feeling of powerlessness may lead to widespread support of weird +extremist solutions. + For centuries, for millennia, women never had even an opportunity to behave in such way, and they had to develop their own strategy how to deal with the pain of the world as they see it (and many |