WATER Meets the Moment
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
The Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER) joins a worried world in contemplating the global impact of the U.S. Presidential Election. Those who are poor and marginalized, women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, and Earth itself have every reason to tremble.
We seek to live not in fear, but in committed hope. WATER persists for justice with passion.
We are grateful for the many expressions of support and solidarity shared with the Alliance. We join our energies in collaborative efforts to make love, equity, inclusion, and non-violence the hallmarks of a wonderful world.
To that end, we offer this music to soothe troubled souls today. Then tomorrow, we rise together strengthened for and committed to the challenges ahead.
“Can we be like drops of water falling on the stone
Splashing, breaking, dispersing in air
Weaker than the stone by far but be aware
That as time goes by the rock will wear away
And the water comes again”
From “The Rock Will Wear Away” by Holly Near
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcgh1rw-DTY
“Let justice roll down like water.”
Thank you for being part of WATER.
Mary E. Hunt, Diann L. Neu,
Magdalena Müller, Wed Naji, Anali North Martin, Emily Neufeld
Upcoming Programs
WATERmeditation
Monday, January 27, 2025 at 7:30 PM ET
“Finding a Cure for Loneliness” with Brad S. Lutz.
Brad writes: “The US Surgeon General has declared Americans are in the midst of a ‘loneliness epidemic’. American poet Marianne Moore suggests that ‘The cure for loneliness is solitude’.” Our January meditation will be a chance to find the grace ‘to leave your loneliness panting behind you…while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas’ (Naomi Shibab Nye).
WATERritual
Tuesday, January 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM ET
“Welcome the New Year with All of Its Struggles and Hopes” with Diann L. Neu and the WATER community
Let us pray, hope, resist, and recommit! Let us be together as we struggle to make meaning out of these historic times. Let us make change.
WATERtalk
Wednesday, January 29, 2025 at 1 PM ET
“The Synod and Women: What’s Next?” with Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D.
Phyllis Zagano is an expert on women deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. She will analyze the recent Synod on Synodality with regard to women, focusing on the discussion about restoring w0men to the ordained diaconate. Dr. Zagano will offer insights into possible ways forward, challenging as they may be. All are welcome.
Charlotte Bunch: Lesbian Feminist Activist with Religious Roots in Conversation with Mary E. Hunt
February 12, 2025 at 1 PM ET
Join us to hear this incisive conversation about the progression of lesbian feminism and its intersections with religion with global feminist activist Charlotte Bunch and feminist theologian Mary E. Hunt. This dialogue will explore Bunch’s early religious activism and her analysis of how religion influenced—and was challenged by—LGBTQ activism and lesbian feminism, in particular. Hunt and Bunch will reflect on how LGBTQ and religious experiences evolved in global settings. Together they will reflect on where we are today as much of what we have achieved is threatened and discuss how we can collaborate across differences to bring insights from faith perspectives that might be helpful to the doing of justice.
Co-hosted by LGBTQ Religious Archives Network (LGBTQ-RAN) & Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER)
Intern at WATER
Be a Part of an Action-based Community
Become a WATER Intern
for Winter or Spring!
WATER welcomes students from seminaries, universities, colleges, volunteer programs, and more to work in the WATER office.
Interns at WATER engage in the full range of activities from office work to program planning. They learn how a small non-profit is run and what it takes to nurture an Alliance. Those wishing to do their own research will have a chance to utilize WATER’s constantly growing Resource Center as well as consult with our experienced staff through in-house seminars.
Interns must commit to a minimum of six weeks and can stay for as long as a year or two. All participants are encouraged to apply for academic credit from their home institutions for their work at WATER. We are delighted to work with programs which sponsor volunteers with expenses shared by WATER as the on-site placement.
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Land Acknowledgement
WATER, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, acknowledges that it sits on the traditional and contemporary homeland of the Piscataway and Nacotchtank (sometimes known as the Anacostan) people, the original stewards of this land.
We are committed to lifting up the names of these lands and the community members from these nations who reside alongside us and who were here long before we were. We affirm WATER’s intention to promote healing, respect, and love for all people through our work, with special indebtedness to Native people whose lands we are privileged to share.