Feminist Theology

http://fth.sagepub.com Moving into the Be-Dazzling Future: Drawing Threads Together

Mary Grey Feminist Theology 2001; 9; 89 DOI: 10.1177/096673500100002708 The online version of this article can be found at: http://fth.sagepub.com

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[FT 27 (2001) 89-101]

Moving into the Be-Dazzling Future: Drawing Threads Together

Mary Grey

Introduction

have been weaving in our global conversation. The joy of this has reached beyond what I could have dreamt of. Yet, no way can these strands we have been weaving be ordered into a tidy whole, a linear pattern, a new universality; no way should they be used to build false optimism or conceal either the grimness of the past and the complicity of many of us in Europe in what Tissa Balasuriya calls the killing systems; nor, in what Kwok Pui-lan called the density of the present, is it easy to discover a simple way through the new monsters and dragons which threaten us. We have been prophetic in these days: witness the way Mukti Barton in her essay has brought the Cushite woman out of the shadows to the forefront of the struggle against racism today; daring and iconoclastic in the way Marcella Althaus Reid moved the erotic histories of women from being the despised, unspoken underside to the forefront of named experience. We have been poignantly moving in our graphic pictures of our contexts - African, Asian, Pacific, Latin American as well as European and North American. We have also been playful as well as celebratory. The strand of beauty has been woven into our experience - especially through June Boyce Tillmans evocative re-creation of Hild of Whitby, the first performance of her musical drama which was seen at the Summer School. Even amidst the most despairing of analyses we have not lost sight of hope. Rather, the discourse of hope has kept surfacing in the oceans of despair. As Sister Pauline Chakkalakal has said: Not in our lifetime, but we keep dreaming... All this stresses the special moment, the kairos at this point of history. Be-Dazzll11g the new 111111enmum. Where do we now stand and
A rich
weave we

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connew

what new directions beckon? What will we take away from our versations to our homes, contexts and countries to inspire these directions?

Acknowledge our Roots (Traces)

Let us water them, put rich compost on them and acknowledge that their memory will always empower us. The density of the present owes much to the struggles of the past, the famous names but also to the unnamed persons, the oral traditions Musimbi Kanyoro mentioned, to what Adrienne Rich called the raging of the Stoic grandmothers. So, let us bring alive not only the memory of the women who fought to get the vote for British women, remembering Emily Pankhurst and her companions, but also Mary Seacole, the black unsung heroine of the Crimean War. Lets remember Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the United States who created the first Womens Bible... but also, in the context of black slavery in the United States let us remember Sojourner Truth, her courage and her fiery speech, Aint I a woman? Let us also not forget the women and men of this city of

Liverpool brought from Africa as slaves.

In India let us name Pandita Ramabai, the nineteenth-century scholar and great reformer for the lives of women. In Africa let us remember not only Mercy Amba Oduyoye who is a pioneer in our lifetime, but the hundreds of women who kept pride in culture and community alive. And not forgetting the foremothers from China, Taiwan and the Pacific Rim. Let us go further back to the women in this country who struggled in the birth of the evangelical Churches and then were pushed from leadership positions and from historical memory, until reclaimed by the work of feminist theologians and historians since the 1960s. Back into time, when the early Church, the discipleship of equals encouraged women to play a full part in ministry. A blessed moment. Further into history, to the prophet Miriam: It all began with Mirzam was the title of Catherina Halkes of The Netherlands first book, Met Miriam was alles begonnen...1And of course, to Zipporah, pushed from official memory into the shadows. And let us remember, too, the revered wife of Mohammed, Ayesha. And if we go yet further, we encounter the ancient Goddesses, Saraswati, Durga of India, Isis of Egypt, Babylonian Astarte, Demeter of Greece, Ceridwen of Wales,

Catherma Halkes, Met Miriam

was

alles

Begonnen (Kampen. Kok, 1980).

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and the Earth Mother traditions of numerous cultures. A rich heritage indeed. Looking to our more immediate heritage, namely, the 1960s and the second wave feminist movement, let us acknowledge the trail blazed by such American women as Mary Daly, Rosemary Ruether and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza. (I realize that this has a totalizing EuroAmerican ring, but it is a fact that these three can be regarded as catalysts for many crucial developments.) Without the rage of Daly, the process of new naming, the reclaiming of creative elemental energy, not to mention the creation of a gynocentric world and a whole new language, our process might not have sustained itself. Without the idea of the discipleship of equals, the ecclesia of women, the analysis of kyriarchy, hetero-patriarchy, the struggle within the churches, and in particular the struggle for the ordination of women would equally not have been able to sustain its energy. And without Ruethers long, determined protest against numerous oppressions, the very diverse disciplines of Feminist and Womanist Liberation Theology might not have got off the ground. (Clearly my list is incomplete - but I hope to have made a start in stimulating the formulations of personal and communal pre-history of inspiration from many diverse contexts.)

What Have We Learnt?

We have learnt that there will be backlash. We know with painful certainty, in the daily wear and tear of our lives, there is a cost to every gain. The dismantling of patro-kyriarchy, of the masters house, has brought backlash and terrible suffering to women in many parts of the world. Backlash has not only come from the expected sources but even from those we thought were our friends. Wherever there is a shift of power, wherever the status quo is threatened, the lives of women - and vulnerable groups of people - become the cultural targets. In how many countries do men beat their wives when they begin to participate in local government and schemes for social change? Look at Afghanistan, look at what the right-wing BJP government is doing in India. Look at the way the Vatican targets feminists for the disruption of family life. Even very liberal, well-meaning men did not understand that our agenda was not simply Add women and stir, but that we are attempting to throw out the entire patro-kyriarchal pudding and bake a totally new one! We dont even want patriarchy
as

compost!
This backlash
occurs on a

personal

and

family level,

in Church

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communities when women acquire leadership roles, and across a huge spectrum of work places. It is not only mens self-esteem that is threatened but the complex issues arising when the balance of power shifts, especially where there have been no role models for female

authority and leadership. On a more positive note, what have we learnt about our own process? In the struggle against injustice, what we have learnt is that there is an ongoing, unfinished symphony of oppression-although I would prefer to use the word cacophony, as symphony implies something harmonious. Nearly all the contributors to this issue have been expressing this. Theologically, our understanding of God has moved out from restricting notions of the patriarchal Father to richer notions, where we encounter God/the Divine/the fullness of Life itself-as the sacred dimension at the heart of lived realities, inspiring our courage, our gritty determination to survive and to flourish, and energizing
our

quest.

I would now like to focus on quest. The first theme that springs out is the sheer diversity of journeys that we all have made as part of the feminist/womanist quest. Mary Dalys journey to the other side of the moon, far into the future in her latest book Quintessence2 is well known (and certainly, to readers of Feminist Theology). Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ in their second edited book, Weaving the Visions, had both moved on from the positions they took in their earlier work, Womanspirit Rising.3 Carol Christ, as is well known, moved from Christianity to following the goddessliterally, as she moved to Greece, to seek Aphrodite. Judith Plaskow4 returned to Judaism to put women at the heart of the Sinai Covenant.4 Rosemary Ruether moved from documenting anti-Judaism in Christian theology in her first book, Faith and Fratricide, to her current struggle against the Zionist government and fighting for the Palestinian caused Nearer at home here in Britain we are familiar with the journey Daphne Hampson has made, from working for womens ordination to post-Christianity.6 This is a journey many have shared.
2 : A Radical Elemental Mary Daly, Quintessence: Realising the Archaic Futures Feminist Mamfesto (Boston Beacon Press, 1999) 3 Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ (eds), Womanspirit Rising (San Francisco. Harper & Row, 1979), Weaving the Visions (San Francisco Harper & Row, 1989). 4 Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Smai (New York Harper & Row, 1990) 5 Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide (New York Crossroads, 1974) 6 Daphne Hampson, After Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1997)

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But, the crucial point here is not that famous feminist theologians have made well-publicized moves, but that feminist theology of its very nature has involved all of us in movement. I know it in my own life. You know it in yours. We have not stood still... This is a more significant kind of movement than in traditional theology. People - that is, traditional theologians, speak loftily of philosophers in such terms as the early Wittgenstein, the later Wittgenstein: but would the great philosopher himself have understood the journey made by the Philippine Benedictine sister, Mary John Mananzan, who returned from the University of Cambridge with a PhD thesis on Wittgenstein, and then immediately plunged her congregation into committed activism against the Marcos regime? Women who thought of themselves as timid, lacking confidence, educated to obedience and conformity have found their voices and told their stories. Other negative examples of movement/journeying are the forced movements of asylum-seekers, refugees, exiles. (Pause - examme one movement you have made in your own life as a result of feminist theology...what did it cost

you ?) Why

happened? Clearly, there are a diversity of elements contributing to this dynamic movement. First, - perhaps originally stemming from Process Philosophy and theology, but, as Daly proclaimed, Our process is our process! Not only that our comings-together are for the very purpose of furthering the process, but our notion of process itself is openended, allows for different rhythms, for dissonance, diversity and increasing radicality.
in feminist theology all the notion of process

has this

The second feature that exerted enormous influence is the tension between relationality, right relationships of justice, connectedness, and diversity, difference, distinction, differentiation. Not without pain have we - and here, I mean feminist theologians here in Europe - had to learn to live with this tension: to acquire the humility to realize that a solidarity of global sisterhood is not to be assumed but to be worked and struggled for; that the focus of some women must be resistance to prejudice and institutional racism; for others the many faces of poverty and degradation including ever new forms of colonization and the memory of a past that cannot be erased (Kwok Pui-lan). Marcella Althaus Reid in her essay not only challenged as to the oppression of hetero-reality and the discrimination of being gay and lesbian but used queermg as a controlling metaphor for the oppressive force of key concepts of systematic theology.Many
7

See Marcella Althaus Reids paper

in

this

issue

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women

Feminist

Theology

experience a range of these oppressions all at once contextualized in different forms. So the notions of contextuality and boundaries have taken central focus. Women have exercised suspicion with regard to postmodernism (in my view quite rightly). This has told us that the great, overarching narratives are dead. That is all right with us, we can retort, for we were never allowed a proper place within them anyway! But what are we left with? The local, partial, contextual story? But that is exactly womens strength: to tell our stories from our own contexts making this the basis of our theologizing-and to practise a deep quality of listening with each other. But always to make the connections... politically, economically, theologically. This has always been part of the BISFT story, and we have listened to the stories with the commitment never again to allow patro-kyriarchal structures to isolate women or men-in contexts of violence or in victim situations. So, context is crucial but it must never be allowed to be used as a tool to block connection. We have to make a move beyond narrowlydefined contexts. Here the notion of boundaries is used both positively and negatively. Selves are connected selves, relational selves, ecological selves, but not in such a way as to block the selfs own integrity and autonomy. Autonomy and connectedness are held in creative tension. Rosi Braidotti (Italian, and Professor of Womens studies in Utrecht), uses the idea of the nomadic self, crossing boundaries as the core of has struck a chord with many of us. Women are always crossing boundaries - in challenging accepted gender roles for example. It is proving a helpful concept in the contemporary gender discussion. Judith Butler has challenged the usual distinctions between sex and gender by showing that we make these distinctions from within the same discourse and that these categories are much more fluid than we have ever realized. Sue Walrond-Skinner, in her book examining what women priests would mean for the church, called it Crossing the Boundary.9 Carter Heyward challenged the whole notion of boundaries between therapist and client in her controversial book, When Boundaries Betray Us.10

identity.Boundary-crossing

8. Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York Colombia University Press, 1994). 9 Sue Walrond-Skinner, Crossing the Boundary: What Will Women Priests Mean? (London Mowbray, 1994) 10 Carter Hevward, When Boundaries Betray Us (San Francisco: Harper & Row,

1993)

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challenging theoretical categories. Boundary-dwelling marginality, either forced to the marthe as or gins choosing margins a place of integrity and deconstructthe of the centre; it means working in an interdisciplinary power ing in situations and cultures working in an inter-cultural, way, many inter-linguistic and inter-religious way. For asylum seekers and refugees the boundaries are the barriers they confront, the blockages
can mean

than

to another land. Boundaries can mean confusion, fear, shame and humiliation and exclusion. Seen optimistically by some, as the nomadic self in search of new freedoms, a new openness to the other in love and justice; but negatively experienced by others-for example, the young girls from West Africa forcibly trafficked through Britain to a life of prostitution in the cities of Northern Italyhere the nomadic self means loss of identity, home and culture. And this last point emphasizes that feminist theology always will be a theology of women in struggles Context, time and place may change, but the struggle for right relation takes on an ever stronger

momentum.

So, Where Do We Now Stand?

Feminist

theology is now a hybrid - we are now a family of global theologies of liberation. Each has distinctiveness, its own focus and its own struggle. But there are overlappings. For some, the struggle will
be to survive, to sustain life for themselves and families in socioeconomic conditions of harshness and environmental disasters. For others it will be primarily within the faith community-for womens participation in the leadership, whether this be episcopacy, ordination
or

decision-making procedures.

But the global context we all face calls for the building of new coalitions and new solidarity. And the global context is of course the globalization of unregulated global capitalism approached in different ways by many contributors to this issue. There are many different ways of approaching the way we are, the state we are in. Simply the cultural fact that one global culture envelopes our whole lives, the economic structures held in place by the World Bank, IMF and the global corporations emerging from North America, Europe and Japan, which bypass governments, control our economic choices, and - thinking of the chains of debt of many poor countries - dictate whether we will actually live or die.
11

This

was

originally the phrase of Aruna Gnanadason

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We could argue that feminist theology itself is a global culture: through our synods, conferences (I think of the global outreach of the

World Council of Churches), of south-north dialogues (such as that which took place in Costa Rica in December 1994), of the gender focus of some of the NGOs, we have a global outreach, and now a global challenge. How can we respond to the challenge of the new context? How does David defeat Goliath?
4. A Personal
I will make
a

Response

little about my own journey. When I came to feminist was with the conviction that all theological categories had to be transformed to relate to the lives of poor and oppressed women and communities and to offer new possibilities of liberation and transformation. Rooting theological ideas in the concrete lived reality was the goal. So I wrote Redeeming the Dream to change the classical theologies of redemption and Atonement to become dynamic processes of right and just relation. 12 In The Wisdom of Fools? I tried to do the same with the theology of Revelation. I asked the question, could Gods communication be revealed-not by dogmas from on high, but by the fragile connections between women and men, humans and non-humans, between all the complexities of the strands of the web of life. 13 I knew that you could not just be feminist, but must also be eco-feminist-the earth is the very condition of there being any relation at all! Then I felt I could not avoid the dangerous area of the church, despite it being fraught with pitfalls. It felt like leaping in where angels feared to tread, but I asked how could we move from the Dark Night the church is in, to a community, the beloved community, where right and just relations are respected?14 I will spare you the rest of my efforts. But the point is that I am now convinced there must be a change of method. Not that it was necessarily wrong. But there is now no dimension of oppression- sexism, hetero-sexism, Christo-fascism, racism, militarism, colonialism, eco-justice that can be tackled except within the structures of global capitalism. Because everything now is
start

by saying theology it

12. Redeeming the Dream (SPCK, 1989) has been re-issued as an International Edition by Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Post Box 70, Anand, Gujarat 388 001, India. 13. See M. Grey, The Wisdom of Fools ? Seeking Revelation for Today (London.

SPCK, 1997)
14

See M

Grey, Beyond the Dark Night

Way Forward for the Church? (London.

Continuum, 1997); idem, Prophecy and Mysticism: The Heart of the Post-modern Church (Edinburgh T & T Clark, 1997).

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by these killing systems. Let me give two examples. dam Expensive systems in India (the Narmada Dam scheme, to be funded by the World Bank will uproot 50 million people specific), tribals and dalits. Droughts - and many of you know how especially in Wells for India, have been raising emergency relief for we, projects of our partners in the Thar desert, in the current droughtare largely human-made disasters. Yes, there are climatic factors; but global warming is influenced by chopping down trees, by the destruction of the ozone layer... The increase in trafficking against women is sparked off in the countries of Eastern Europe such as eastern Germany and Albania by the desperate poverty following both the collapse of the socialist system and the Balkans wars, yes; but also by the capitalist corporations managing an economy which encourages the greed of individuals to set in motion organized crime on a huge scale. These are but two examples. A third would be the speed with which the campaign to patent life is increasing. Some of you know that Vandana Shiva has been leading the resistance to this - a resistance which is now being echoed by many European governments. What I am now calling for is a theology to respond to this political/ economic and cultural reality in an effective way. Why theology and not an alternative economy? Well, we do need an alternative economy and an alternative politics too. Vandana Shiva in her recent Reith Lecture calls for an alternative democracy, an earth democracy which includes the earth as subject and not object. We need the pressure of all the Ecology groups and the prophetic lifestyles they inspire. But at the heart of the capitalist economy is an idolatry - of money, wealth and the glamorous lifestyle they engender. The capitalist self - not the connected, ecological self I spoke of earlier - is an arch-individualist, and competitive. He is the heir to the roving pirate of earlier centuries, to the conquistadors who ravaged Latin America, more powerful because he now - in this world of cyber space - does not need to move at all. And yet, vast crowds of people are forced to be on the move, because life becomes unsustainable in their own lands. At the heart of it all is a demonic religion-an idolatry of money, geared to and sustained by a lifestyle of spending and shopping. To exist is to be a consumer, Tesco ergo sum. If you cannot spend you are a non-person, a non-citizen of the global market. What is pernicious about this is the endless series of unsatisfied desires that capitalism has succeeded in creating. To possess the dreamed-of object is no longer satisfying because in so doing an emptiness is created, which is only filled by desire of another object-be it car, or expensive toy, or new bathroom... The capitalist agenda has succeeded in hijacking our
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psyches and

our deepest desires. As well as those of our children... It is diseased eros we speak about here. But surely this is what religion is all about? What do you seek ? said Jesus, when potential disciples appeared before him. The young fool, Perceval, before he becomes a knight of the Holy Grail, fails the test, when confronted by the wounded king (symbolic of the wounded kingdom). It was a failure of knowledge, insight and wisdom. He didntask the right question-something that I feel is not happening now. Remember that Isaiah declared that My people go into exile for want of knowledge. Augustine, fifth century Bishop in North Africa

(and not usually considered a friend of feminists), cried that Thou hast made us for yourself 0 God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee... In other words, our hearts desire, our eros, will not be satisfied until it encounters and is permeated by what is authentically sacred. (There is a strong argument that our addictive society - to money/ sex/ power/ drugs/ consumerism -is related to the degree that we are cut off from the earth, her rhythms, seasons, gifts.)15 But I realize that the sacred icons of religion have lost their ancient power, approached as they have been in the trappings of capitalist enterprise, hetero-reality and always misogyny. Do we have to do without them in our struggle - as our children frequently tell us? Adrienne Rich says not: in her poem, The Desert as Garden of Paradise she evokes the struggle faced in this desert of contemporary living to live a human life, when the sacred religious symbols may be somewhere else, no longer to be relied upon. 16 Even if Miriam, Aaron and Moses are elsewhere - the sacred will try - just one more time!1? This is the hope given for the third millennium. Surely this is our authentic theological challenge, the burning issue with which we are confronted-without the power of the icons from outside to call on, perhaps. What do we want and how should we know ? In other words, how can the facts of poverty, famine, degradation of land, sexual violence and abuse be engaged with, in order to inspire a
commitment to

change?

can we change what we want? How to turn around the diseased eros of society so that our deepest desires become focused on fullness of life and flourishing for all? In fact, there

And, secondly, how

(London:

See Bruce Wilshire, A Wild Hunger. The Primal Roots of Modern Addiction Rowman and Littlefield, 1998) 16 Adrienne Rich, The Desert as Garden of Paradise, m idem, Poems1985-8 (New York: W & W Norton, 1989), pp 29-30 17. Rich, The Desert as Garden of Paradise, pp 29-30
15

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a well-established discourse of Eros in feminist theology that spreads wider than what happened between two people to include a basic vitality, and energy that is creative and life-sustaining. To set in

motion this erotic energy both

women and men need to collaborate and create new forms of co-operation and trust-building. (In this vital task to break the dominant hold of hetero-reality, it is of the utmost importance that we find positive and creative ways of working. The Womens Movement has failed in the past many times because it did not allow a meaningful role for men.) First, a new epistemology, or way of knowing and engaging with the world. It can be argued that feminist theology is well-placed for this task. What do women want? asked Sigmund Freud - but did he wait for an answer? I suggest, first, the healing of the violated and despised bodies, now, in the memories of the past, in real histories, in the texts and in the symbols. This text of Toni Morrison is powerful in the Afro-American context of slavery as to the work of healing, where the beginning is nowhere else than in our own bodies:

She did not tell them to clean up their lives and go and sin no more. She did not tell them that they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it. Here, she said, m this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet m grass; Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They dont love your eyes; theyd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skm on your back. Yonder they flay it And 0 my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bmd, chop off and leave empty Love your hands Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them... And no, they aint in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it agam What you say out of it they will not heed. When you scream from it they do not hear What you put in to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavings msteadThis is flesh Im talking about Flesh that needs to be loved... Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to

say..18

But desire expresses itself not only in our personal histories, our personal need for healing and happiness, but what we want for our children, our communities, our societies and the future of the planet. So, I will end with two things-a text and a picture. At the Beijing

18.

Toni Morrison, Beloved

(London. Chatto and Windus, 1987), p

88

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Feminist
some

Theology

conference
is:

Latin American

they thought

women

women presented a Creed of what wanted-not in the next world, but now. Here it

Bread A clean

sky Active peace. A womansvoice singmg somewhere, melody drifting like smoke from the cook fires. The army disbanded,
the harvest abundant The wound healed, the child wanted, the prisoner freed, the bodys integrity honoured, the lover returned . The labour equal, fair and valued. Delight in the challenge for consensus to solve problems No hand raised m any gesture but greeting. Secure interiors-of heart, home, land - so firm as to make secure borders irrelevant at last. And everywhere, laughter, care, dancing, contentment. A humble, earthly paradise in the now.19

There is no need to go into an analysis of this - every phrase strikes a deep chord. Our hearts, imaginations and eros are touched and this is partly because this springs from a group of women who have crossed boundaries to long for a world where boundaries are irrelevant. You have the impression that these women have been through war contexts ; they know what it is to keep the community going when the men are away fighting-as in Kosovo, or looking for work, as in Rajasthan and in many parts of Africa. They know what abuse is all about but they have reached a space where bodily integrity is honoured. Surely, since our networks are already global, we have the power and the passion to tackle this necro-culture (Dalys terms), this necro-technology. We already have a re-imagined eros, where eros is the energy connecting us with life forces. Have we not a great desire and longing for the good, for the fullness of life for all? Have we not made repeated commitment to life in its fullness for the poorest and most vulnerable? We have a re-imagined theology of the Spirit as a great boundary-crosser - connecting us across culture and context in order to form powerful coalitions against global capitalism-theologically as well as in economic and political terms. Is it not time to respond to the urgency of this new millennium by engaging theologically from our roots in the power to sustain life itself, by giving birth and caring and educating the next generation, by engaging in a transformed economy of care, enlarging the shrunken notions of the economy to include life-sustaining forms of care? Then

19 A Womans Creed cited in Beijing Preparatory documents, and quoted in Catherine Keller, Apocalypse Now—and Then A Feminist Story of the End of the World (Boston Beacon Press, 1996), p 268 Actually it was composed by Robin Morgan with a group of Third World women sponsored bv a womens Environment and

Development orgamzation
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indeed do we redeem the tIme, redeem the dream, by embodying patterns of relating that offer authentic joy and satisfied desires...in the here and now. Caroline Mackenzies painting, evoking the Resurrection, is of the Divine dancing figure emerging from the tomb.2 It takes us back to

dreaming. It suggests that we are women, waiting, contemplating, dreaming, to receive Resurrection, the new and blossoming creation-not just of people, but of the entire cosmos. Here the RISIng Christ, a woman, is dancing the Be-Dazzling millennium...will we join the
our

dance ?

20 Caroline Mackenzie is an artist w ho integrates Indian Christian themes into her painting She spent many years in an Indian Christian ashram, where also the Indian Christian artist Jhoti Sahi was working

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