Notes Towards Day 25 (Thurs, Dec. 6): Welcoming Sister Linda-Susan Beard

Sister Linda-Susan Beard will join us today (and Sor Juana may return!) ; please read
Sister Linda Susan Beard. Silence is the Winter Name of God. August 28, 2002.
Sister Joan Chittister. Seeking the Interior Life. Program #4806. Good Minutes.org. November 7, 2004.
James Kullander. Be Not Silent: Sister Joan Chittister Speaks Out On War, Feminism, And The Catholic Church.
The Sun Magazine. Issue 308. June 2007.

Sister Joan wrote, "Silence frightens us because it is silence that brings us face to face with ourselves. Silence is a very perilous part of life. It tells us what we’re obsessing about. Silence reminds us of what we have not resolved within ourselves. Silence shows to us the underside of ourselves, from which there is no escape, which no amount of cosmetics can hide, that no amount of money or titles or power can possibly cure. Silence leaves us with only ourselves for company. Silence is, in other words, life’s greatest teacher. It shows us what we have yet to become, and how much we still lack to become it."

* any more questions about end-of-semester projects/planning/portfolio work?

* By 5 p.m. on Sun, everyone should post their afterthoughts from this week;
please consider doing this in response to one another as well as in "stand-alone" form;
this will be your last posting til you get to your summary work.

* on Tuesday, Barb and I will join you in Jody's class, to work out the details of our
final event together; we'll continue that work, in small groups, during this class time....

* on Thursday we will do evals, and Owl is cooking up something musical for us

* any advice for me re: supper @ my place on the 17th? anything you can't/must eat?
(all I've heard so far is that hummingbird will eat anything, and that HSBurke won't eat fish...)

----
Why was Sor Juana silenced?

"me han perseguido ...sólo porque he tenido amor a la sabiduría y a las letras/I have been persecuted ... because of my love for learning and letters" (71).

"trájeme a mí conmigo y traje mi mayor enemigo en esta inclinación/I brought myself with me, and brought my greatest enemy in my inclination to study" (51).

"Nada veía sin refleja; nada oía sin consideración, aun en las cosas más menudas y materiales/Nothing could I see without reflecting upon it, nothing could I hear without pondering it, even to the most minute, material things" (73).

"...que ni aun el sueño se libró de este continuo movimiento de mi imaginativa; antes suele obrar en él más libre y desembarazada, confiriendo con mayor claridad y sosiego las especies que ha conservado del día/...not even my sleep has been free of this ceaseless movement of my imagination. Rather, my mind operates in sleep still more freely and unobstructedly, ordering with greater clarity and ease the events it has preserved from the day" (77).

"no sólo no estorban, pero se ayudan dando luz y abriendo camino las unas para las otras, por variaciones y ocultos engarces--que para esta cadena universal les puso la sabiduría de su Autor/...these subjects help one another, shedding light and opening a path from one to the next, by way of divergences and hidden links--for they were set in place so as to form this universal chain by the wisdom of their great Author" (57)

Why does she choose silence?

"que se entienda que el callar no es no haber qué decir, sino no caber en las voces lo mucho que hay que decir/ One must name the silence, so that what it signifies may be understood" (43).

"si no es interviniendo vuestros preceptos, lo que es por mi defensa nunca tomaré la pluma/Unless your instructions intervene, I shall never in my own defense take up the pen again" (97).

"'y que no es sólo para ellas taceant,' sino para todos los que no fueren muy aptos/'Let [them] keep silence' was meant not only for women, but for all those who are not very competent" (83).