Bread and Roses

The Ken Loach film 'Bread and Roses' (shown on Channel 4 at the weekend) was also the general theme for a women's weekend I was part of last weekend. The 'Bread and Roses' theme explored images of stuggle and beauty in the lives of women in the bible and contemporary women. In the first session we made a huge long list of all the women in the Bible we could think of - their names, roles, stories and characteristics. This helped us set the scene for being connected to this inheritance in God.

In another session we explored 4 women and different aspects of their lives. Our first was Miriam in the Old Testament who led the Israelite people towards the promised land. She is remembered for dancing, playing a tambourine, leading women and in relation to her brother Moses. She, like her brother Moses, did not make it into the promised land but was a woman who enabled people to make some steps in that direction. Some women asked what it must have been like playing 'second fiddle' to Moses? What was it like not making it to the promised land and others were inspired by her leadership of the people of Israel and that she has more to share with us.

The second woman we learned from was an unnamed woman from the New Testament (Mark, Luke and Matthew all mention her) who had a flow of blood which made her unclean in the Jewish law. The women goes to Jesus in a crowd, touches the edge of his cloak and power goes from Jesus to the woman and she is healed. She and Jesus have a conversation and her healing begins to be outworked.

We noted that being unclean meant she would not have eaten, slept or worshipped with other people (including her husband if she had one) and she would not have been able to go to Temple. As a group we imagined this woman was sat with us and what things we wanted to ask her:

1. How did you feel in the crowd when you touched Jesus?
2. Did other women support you when you were excluded from places?
3. How did your faith make you well when it was so difficult for you in your faith community?
4. What did it feel like to have this 'power' which left Jesus and was made yours?
5. We also asked questions about what kind of blood made her unclean - was it the blood in her veins or menstrual blood? This was interesting since many of us women had not thought about this before.
6. What happened after all that - how was did God restore to you all that had been lost?
7. How was your life different after meeting Jesus?

We shared about women in the UK who have had the experience (within the last 30 years) of being 'churched' after giving birth so that they were cleansed and made acceptable (by a church leader praying with them at home) before they could go back to church and be with the whole body of Christ again. This caused us much discussion!

We acknowledged the place of Mary in giving her body and shedding her blood when she gave birth to Jesus and chatted and listened to each others thoughts and emotions about the phrase 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood' which are said so often with only Jesus as the focus. We wondered whether now we may feel more connected to both women and men throughout the ages because of the bloodlines, blood taboos and blood shed by women's bodies. There is more to be said about this another time.

Our third woman was Mo Mowlam - a strong and courageous public figue who worked for peace through the political system in Northern Ireland and died from cancer (a brain tumour) this summer. She was an inspirational figure we could relate to in different ways - both through her personal and her public experiences. We shared photos and quotes about her in our small groups and thought that if she was with us she would have just joined in and chatted together like one of us. We saw ourselves in her and we admired her too. We liked that she got a children's playground put within the grounds of Stormont - a small but significant step for peace.

Our fourth woman was Frida Kahlo - a mexican painter whose colourful art brought her own bodily experiences to life when she painted about her husband, her tram accident, mexican fruits and vegetables and plant life and herself. She was a woman a few of us had heard of and we looked at a couple of her large paintings, talking together about what they meant for us and how she had painted them and where they came out of in her life. They were not easy to look at but we saw much beauty present even when there was obvious struggle.

In each of these 4 women we learned something from each other as we listened and chatted in groups, saw pictures, read a little and heard them brought to life and connect with us in very different ways. We also felt more connected to women through the ages who have known God and expressed it in very different ways - though leadership, courage and focus, public life and paintings. We have to dig around to find the beauty or roses because some of the women are 'thorny' and we back off too much, finding them too difficult or challenging sometimes. Perhaps this was how it was for some of us in watching the film Bread and Roses too?

In watching the film the following things arose-

1. We were a Christian group watching a film with very coarse language - what would we make of it and how would we respond to it?
2. We already have many experiences of struggle and of the bread part in our lives but we need more roses to help us and encourage us.
3. We watched the film in a chapel and for some women this was a sacred space but the film made is difficult to worship.
4. For some women the lives of Maya and Rosa from the film were not true to life although they came directly from a life story of them.
5. Some women were challenged by the responses of other women in our group, some were offended, others felt positive although also challenged about the lives of Rosa and Maya.

There are many questions and issues which we are still left with about ourselves and about the film and its use. Some of the issues would be resolved differently next time about timings and sharing in groups and better preparation for watching such a 'gritty' film however the deeper, perhaps more important questions and issues for us relate to how we understand that worship of God needs to relate more to our context.

1. Does a film like this corrupt or dirty us in some way as followers of Jesus? How does that relate to our relationship to God, church and other women as Christians?
2. How might we be able to hear God in the film? Where is God in it?
3. Are the characters in the film able to teach us more about belonging together and how?
4. Are the ways in which Maya and Rosa respond differently to the same situation indicative of us and our responses?
5. How much does our spiritual formation as Christians help or hinder us to watch a film such as Bread and Roses and respond in an informed and Christ-like way?
6. Or should we not have watched it at all?

There's more to be shared but another time...

Any thoughts anyone?