Dance of the Dissident Daughter

"They heard me into speech, and loved me into healing."

-Sue Monk Kidd, Dance of the Dissident Daughter

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter

I'm only in the intro, but two themes stood out to me.

"...a woman's right to define the sacred from a woman's perspective."

"... [A] struggle to wake up, to grow beyond old models of womanhood and old spiritualities that no longer sustain."

I cannot shake the conviction that the vitality and vibrancy of women, our stories of women, and women's authentic voices in the church, arts, politics, etc is deeply essential to my hope and future as a man.

To quote the Dakota Fanning version of Lily Owens, in all of it's 14-year-old drama, "My whole life's been nothing but a hole where my mother should have been." A hole where the strong feminine should have been. The "wholeness women have lost within patriarchy" (Sue Monk Kidd's intro again) was devastating to me as a boy and haunts me as a man.

Secret Life of Bees

Black Madonna

"Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here."

"You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside."

-The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fascinating exploration of the divine feminine and maternal deprivation. 14 year old Lilly's painful ache for a mother and the Daughters of Mary and their deep commitment to a feminine face of God glow brightly amidst the gender and racial prejudice of 1960's South Carolina.


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