Who are these women of faith? They are people who “create a life of meaning” not just for themselves but for both neighbor and stranger. They are clergy and laity. They are women who roll up their sleeves and wade in not always sure how they are going to make a difference, but knowing they need to. These women are “irreverent, funny, eloquent and infectiously passionate about their work.” They are not afraid to “break the silence” since silence, in itself, is an act of injustice as it was when German Christians failed to speak up about the horrors of the Holocaust.
Henderson’s chapter titles alone draw you in immediately: “The Treasure in the Dark,” “Every Person Is a Universe,” “Finding the Words to their Songs,” “Living a Seamless Life,” “A Palimpsest of Forces,” and finally, “Taking the Leap.” What these chapters describe are women who never thought they would be so strong in the face of injustice, but couldn’t help themselves and were thus empowered to do more than they ever imagined on behalf of the poor.
As a foreshadowing of what’s inside, the cover of the book displays a single drop of water creating ever larger concentric rings — a metaphor Henderson uses to demonstrate the enormous impact one person’s life can have on the world. In a section titled “Relying on Ripples,” she writes, “Diving deeper, like throwing the proverbial pebble into a pond, does indeed set in motion a series of ripples which extend in ever-widening circles. It is a testament to the women leaders’ conviction about the continuum between personal and systemic that they so clearly rely on the ripple effect to help create widespread social transformation. They trust the power of the intimate encounter to create life-altering change, human to human, in ever-expanding numbers, until our whole sense of how to be together — ‘what it means to be responsible for one another’ — is so transformed that we naturally begin to capture it in the very systems we construct to institutionalize our values” (p. 66).
Who are some of these 21 change-makers, spirited women of faith who combine the “power of one” with determination and collaboration? One is Melodye Feldman, who founded Seeking Common Ground, which helps Jewish and Palestinian teenage girls build a more peaceful community. Another is Henna Hahn who founded The Rainbow Center, which addresses the needs of abused immigrant women from Asia. Then there is Riffat Hassan, a Muslim from Pakistan who founded an Internet-based international movement to put a stop to the brutal torture and death of women by male family members in Muslim countries. Another is Sister Helen Prejean, activist nun and author of Dead Man Walking, an international proponent working to stop the death penalty. Henderson also highlights Gretchen Buchenholz who founded ABC, the Association to Benefit Children, a woman who believes “none of us is really an innocent bystander.” We can all make a difference.
How do these women and countless others make such an impact? Through a kind of spiritual alchemy, which Henderson calls “the ethic of interdependence,” a deep belief in “the possibility of transformation,” “resistance faith,’ and “blowing on coals from the margins.” The women Katharine Rhodes Henderson highlights in this book demonstrate how to lead imaginatively by being story-weavers and myth-makers and reminding us that we are all “kin,” in one way or another.
God’s Troublemakers is extremely well written and deeply insightful for women and men in a time when all of us need to see our potential for bringing peace and justice to a world that desperately needs both.
William J. Carl III is president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pa.
