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COVID-19 Series

COVID-19 Lockdown Interview: Katie Edwards

by Katie Edwards on

Like everyone else, the COVID-19 pandemic terrifies me. I’m increasingly aware of my privilege and I veer between feeling extremely grateful and very guilty for all that I sometimes take for granted. I’m thinking a lot about the people for whom confinement in the home has horrific consequences. I worry about the implications for widespread serious mental health issues and the increase in domestic abuse and financial distress caused by the lockdown. I worry about the stories being buried under the avalanche of Coronavirus headlines. If I think about the pandemic and its implications for too long, or read the news too often, then I can spiral into panic. At one point I had updates flashing up on my mobile but I stopped those and over the last couple of weeks I’ve trained myself to listen to the news once a day so I can stay informed but manage the general anxiety triggered by a constant stream of awful news.

I’m a primary caregiver for my parents, who’re classed as vulnerable by the NHS. The pandemic has made me acutely aware of how much I depend on them. Despite my role as caregiver I rely on them for so much emotional support. I’ve lost a lot of sleep worrying about losing them – and sometimes I’ve experienced moments of breath-taking premature grief – but now I try to take each day as it comes and make sure I show them every day in some way how much I love and appreciate them. They’re my mates.

Another ritual I’ve developed during lockdown is to perform a show tune for my partner, Mat, each morning as soon as he wakes up. I sing and do an improvised dance routine. I know my performance energises him because he gets up as soon as I start singing and races to the shower. The neighbours love it too – they bang on the wall in appreciation of my powerful vocals. It’s so important to keep spirits high during difficult times.

My family, friends, and dogs, Minnie and Buster, keep me going every day of my life but I’ve become acutely aware of how much I take them for granted. I miss seeing and hugging my nieces and nephews.

Buster Edwards

Working collaboratively is a real saviour for me. I’m so grateful to work with such kind, supportive, fun, and super-intelligent people. My close friends Caroline Blyth and Johanna Stiebert, who co-direct The Shiloh Project with me, continue to be my life-line. We always message lots but we’re having regular virtual meetings and just hearing their voices improves my mood. As well as Caroline and Johanna, I’m working with journalist and theologian Rosie Dawson on the forthcoming Shiloh podcast. I always enjoy having a new project to think about and Rosie’s a perfect working partner. I often work closely with Chris Greenough, Dawn Llewelyn, Meredith Warren, Emily Colgan, and Minna Shkul too and we’re all keeping in touch during the lockdown. They’re a brilliant set of pals.

    When I’m working and the weather’s nice I try to sit in the garden so I can listen to the birds sing. The pandemic has triggered a renewed appreciation for birds, greenery, and nature more generally. I found the film The Road very disturbing when I saw it years ago and I had nightmares afterward. Sometimes scenes from the film come flashing into my mind when I’m loading the dishwasher or reading a book. I take care to appreciate the nature around me in these apocalyptic times – bird song sounds like life and happiness to me.

    One Walk a Day Photos

    I’m missing dear friends like Adriaan Van Klinken, Dom Mattos, Cheryl Exum, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and Mmapula Kebaneilwe too. I’m so looking forward to seeing them when the lockdown comes to an end.

    Mat says I must finish by thanking him for his unending support, appreciation, and patience. He suggests that I say “something like.. he really is the best partner a person could have” and I am “so very lucky”.  He is a joy to behold and the show to my tunes.

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Rhiannon Graybill

    by Rhiannon Graybill on

    1. Tell us about yourself. What have you been doing and are you able to work during this COVID-19 lock-in? 
    I was already on sabbatical before social distancing started, so for me it’s been less of a change to my daily routine (especially since I was already doing my writing from home). I’m also at the point in my research where I’m mostly writing, rather than researching things, which is very lucky given that all the libraries are closed. I’m trying to stick to my pre-pandemic pattern of working on my book in the morning and then other projects in the afternoon or evening. Of course, I’ve been having trouble concentrating and getting work done, but I’m not being too hard on myself about that — we’re in a pandemic, these are not normal times! On a personal note, my husband is also an academic and working from home; we don’t have children and we’re not currently taking care of any family members (or home schooling!). This gives us a very different experience of shelter in place than other friends and colleagues, especially those with kids, and I’m very sympathetic to what they’re juggling right now. 

    2. Which aspects of your work past and present might be particularly interesting for supporters of the Shiloh Project? 
    Right now I am finishing up a book called Texts after Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible, which is a study of biblical rape stories. I argue that the frameworks we use to talk about sexual violence in the Bible are dated and un-feminist, and that we need new models for reading and theorizing “rape stories” (a term I use to refer both to biblical texts about rape and to texts that involve rape culture more broadly). One model that I offer in the book is a framework for describing sexual violence as “fuzzy, messy, and icky” — fuzzy in that it’s not always that clear what happened or how it was remembered, messy in its consequences, as well as in the ways that sex and bodies are often messy, and icky in the ways that sexual violence fails to fit into neat patterns of evil perpetrators and innocent victims. I first developed this argument in a lecture I gave at the Shiloh Project’s inaugural rape culture and religion conference in 2018 in Sheffield; it’s even posted on the website! In  addition to this book project, I’m also finishing up an edited volume on Margaret Atwood and the Bible with my colleague Peter J. Sabo called “Who Knows What We’d Make Of It, If We Ever Got Our Hands On It?”: The Bible and Margaret Atwood  — the quote in the title is fromThe Handmaid’s Tale, a novel that I’m sure many Shiloh Project supporters know well. 

    3. How are you bearing up and what’s helping you most? 
    Like a lot of people, I’ve been video-chatting with friends and family, which has definitely helped. Yesterday, my niece turned one, and we all celebrated together on Zoom and watched her eat her first cupcake (she loved it!) I’ve also been reading a lot of murder mysteries, just to give myself a break. My family is all far away in Montana, and my friends are scattered all over the place, so there are a lot of people I’m worried about. 

    4. Send us a picture that captures your COVID-19 days.
    Here’s a picture of my research assistant helping me with my book project! 

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Ruth Everhart

    by Ruth Everhart on

    Tell us about yourself. What have you been doing and what are you working on during this COVID-19 lock-in.
    I’m an author and pastor, although I find it difficult to be both at once! This fall I’ll celebrate my 30th anniversary of ordination, and for the last nine years I’ve put a lot of energy into writing while pastoring part-time.
    Two of my three books could be classified as “spiritual memoir.” Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land (Eerdmans, 2012) takes the reader along on a transformative pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine. Ruined (Tyndale, 2016) tells the story of a traumatic experience of sexual violence when I was 20 years old, and explores how that shaped my life and faith through the next decade. 
    My new book (InterVarsity Press, Jan 2020) is The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct. In this book I widen my lens to tell other people’s stories as well as my own, and intertwine those stories with scripture. 
    So far during this Covid-19 lock-in, I’ve been following up on podcasts and articles related to my #MeToo book launch. My speaking engagements have been cancelled, of course, so I’m doing more videos and webinars than I had planned to do.
    I would love to begin to think about “the next thing” but it’s been challenging to find mental and emotional bandwidth during a time of global distress!

    2. Which aspects of your work past and present might be particularly interesting for supporters of the Shiloh Project?
    My memoir Ruined explores how my religious upbringing shaped my response to a brutal rape by two African-American strangers — and the response of the Calvinist faith community in which I was submerged. The title is a synonym for shame, which engulfed me. My viewpoint alternates between the 20-something Ruth who felt ruined, and the self who became a pastor and found healing in a larger faith tradition.
    My more recent book is The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct. The interplay between current and ancient stories of abuse may be of particular interest to the members of the Shiloh Project. In the introduction I itemize the lenses I bring to the work: “My interest in sexual assault and faith is not academic. I wrote this book because I felt called by God to do so, and could find no excuse to refuse (although I did search for one). I bring certain lenses along with me. As a rape survivor, I am passionate about justice for victims and accountability for victimizers. As a former “good girl,” I am conversant with the conservative subculture. As a committed Christian, I am tenacious about loving Jesus, who first loved me. As a pastor, I spend my days swimming in Scripture. As a wife, I am one half of what turned out to be an egalitarian marriage, thirty-five years and counting. As a mother, my heart walks around outside my body with two daughters, a fact that will keep me poking and prodding the church toward greater gender equality as long as I live. Most of all, as an author, the response to my earlier writing about assault has softened my heart and thickened my skin. I will not be bullied by blowback or made callous to the plight of my sister survivors, and brothers as well. It is time for a reckoning.”

    3. How are you bearing up and what’s helping you most?
    I am in a very fortunate situation. I am “locked-in” with my husband, with whom I am very companionable. There is plenty of room and quiet for each of us to pursue our own work. We are doing yoga each day and going for walks in the fresh air as often as possible.
    We are very grateful for technology which allows us to see the faces of our loved ones — our two grown daughters who each live alone about an hour’s drive from our home, and our two aged mothers, each living in a facility a great distance from us.
    Every one of us is living with a great deal of pain and loss right now, on a personal level and a societal level. I find that naming these losses — even trivial ones — and then naming that for which I am grateful, helps me feel more centered and settled during this most unusual Lent. Because I tend toward the contemplative, the practice of praying for others is also essential.
    I also look forward to a few ounces of tawny port and a dose of Netflix each evening!

    4. Send us a picture to capture you or your work in these COVID-19 days.
    I do quite a bit of supply preaching, and had agreed to help a local Presbyterian congregation for a few weeks, which turned out to be the beginning of lockdown. The picture, taken by my husband, is of me preaching via FB Live in my study, with an improvised worship space created by a purple stole, a cross on the wall, and a few sprigs of forsythia.

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Adriaan Van Klinken

    by Adriaan van Klinken on

    The first week of this lockdown I spent closely following the news with updates about the pandemic across the globe, which became depressing. I also felt sad about having to cancel a trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe, where I had a friend’s wedding, a holiday with my husband, a conference and two book launch events lined up – a trip I’d been planning and looking forward to for months. After that first week or so, I decided to only check the news twice a day, and to take a distance from social media, especially WhatsApp where groups were constantly buzzing, and instead to make the most of “working from home”. 

    I’m lucky that I’m on research leave at the moment – so I could ignore the many emails that the University sent about student education related matters, while feeling sympathy for my colleagues who suddenly had to experiment with online teaching methods. My planning for research leave has been greatly affected by the current crisis – in addition to cancelling the South Africa trip, I also had to postpone a trip to Kenya in May to launch an AHRC funded research network, not knowing when I can reschedule; I’m also uncertain whether or not I should start preparing for my inaugural lecture that’s planned for June. In recent days I spent quite a lot of time planning the sessions of the African Religions unit for the AAR annual meeting in November, with on the back of my mind the idea that the meeting may soon be cancelled. 

    With all the uncertainty, I decided to prioritise a couple ofprojects I can actually easily do from home: preparing the launch of a documentary film, completing a book manuscript, and processing and analysing the data of a research project. Each of these projects might actually be of interest to Shiloh readers! 

    The film is called Kenyan, Christian, Queer, and is related to my book with the same title that was published last year. The film features an LGBT church in Kenya and the work they are doing to create an affirming space for LGBT Christians in a mostly conservative society. The actual production of the film is done by Aiwan Obinyan, a British-Nigerian film maker who is a friend of mine. I’ve been giving feedback on drafts, communicating with relevant stakeholders, and preparing educational resources for using the film in classroom settings. Unfortunately the African Studies conference where the film was to be launched has been cancelled, so we’re currently making alternative plans. 

    The book I mentioned is titled Reimagining Sexuality and Christianity in Africa, and I’m authoring it with Ezra Chitando, a colleague in Zimbabwe. It’s aimed at a non-specialist audience of students, religious leaders and activists, thus requiring a more accessible writing style than the typical academic monograph. The book seeks to interrogate the dominant narrative of Christian homophobia in Africa, demonstrating how Christianity also serves as a site to imagine alternative possibilities of sexuality in African cultures and societies. Thereto we discuss a number of African thinkers, ranging from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to feminist theologian Mercy Oduoye, but also a range of creative and cultural expressions, such as novels, films and poetry.

    Then, with my Leeds colleague Johanna Stiebert I’ve been working for the past year on a British Academy funded project for which we work with a group of Ugandan LGBT refugees based in Nairobi, Kenya. It focuses on the life stories of participants, and how biblical stories can be used to narrate and signify their experiences, struggles and hopes. The group we are working with is truly amazing – in terms of their creativity and resilience – and so is Johanna as a very inspiring colleague and collaborator. Going through the transcripts of interviews and focus group discussions brings back many wonderful memories. The creative bible studies we did, about Daniel in the lion’s den and about Jesus and the “adulterous woman”, resulted in drama plays that have been video recorded. This project is also supposed to result in a book, and the lock down gives us the time to start working on it. 

    So, after the initial setback I’m now managing reasonably well. I intersperse my working hours with gardening – hooray for the goldfish that we were able to buy the weekend before the lockdown started, which make the garden pond so much livelier –, with a daily run along the canal, and checking in with friends and family nearby and far away to try and help them cope with the current situation. The reports I get from friends and colleagues in Kenya and other parts of Africa do worry me – the lockdown there has an enormous impact on people’s livelihoods. The whole situation makes me aware, again, of my own privilege and makes me reflect upon what solidarity means in these times. As much as it’s true that the virus does not discriminate, the effects of the pandemic are felt most severe by communities that are already vulnerable and marginalised. (On that note: If anyone reading this is able to offer some support to the above mentioned group of Ugandan refugees, who really struggle economically in the current crisis, please get in touch.)

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Simon Phillips

    by Simon Phillips on

    I am Simon Phillips, Community Engagement Officer at West Yorkshire Police, responsible for strategic engagement with hard-to-reach and minority communities. This includes faith communities and migrant communities, and I have been, and continue to be, involved in work in the area of domestic violence and abuse.


    I have been working from home a few days a week anyway for the last 5-6 years, although the Coronavirus pandemic has meant that I am now working from home completely. As a result, little difference has been made to my working pattern, although a lot of my normal work has been put on the back burner due to various pieces of work connected with the crisis – notably monitoring community tensions and producing information on police powers and engagement in other languages.


    My wife is also working from home alternate days. She is an optometrist, and needs to go into the practice every few days to see patients who might otherwise need to go to A&E for eye-related issues. So, she is reducing the demand on the NHS.


    It’s actually been amazing spending so much more time with her, although I appreciate that lots if women (and men) aren’t as fortunate and I really worry about victims of domestic abuse during the lockdown. 


    I suppose what I’m missing is human contact in terms of face-to-face meetings. Skype, Zoom and WhatsApp are great, but I miss being in the office. Mind you, I must be saving on fuel costs! 


    I also worry about what the future holds. 


    So, for victims and potential victims, I would remind people that if they call 999, they can just type 55 into the phone and the police Contact Centre will know that it’s a silent call and that the caller is unable to speak. I would also recommend the Bright Sky app. This is a free app, which looks like an app to look at the weather forecast. However, behind the front screen is a wealth of information relating to recognising and reporting abuse.

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Helen Paynter

    by Helen Paynter on
    1. Tell us about yourself. What have you been doing and what are you working on during this COVID-19 lock-in? I have a number of roles, which I’m trying to juggle effectively in these strange days. As Director of the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence at Bristol Baptist College, I’m continuing to work on books we’re editing, and a reading group I’m convening. I’m also, rather distractedly, trying to get on with writing a paper on retellings of the conquest narrative. Since the lock-down started, I’ve also been appointed Biblical Studies tutor at Bristol Baptist College, to start in August (DV). My other main role is that I’m a Baptist minister, sharing the care of a local church. So my colleague and I have been discovering the joys of online services, zoom leadership meetings, and trying to offer pastoral support to people over the phone. Most importantly, I’m doing my best to be a non-anxious presence for the congregation, and to help people to stand firm in their faith in these scary times. Some of this will be shifting around soon, however, as I’ll be returning to work as a doctor in one capacity or another, three days a week. I hung up my stethoscope 13 years ago, so this is a rather scary thought, but the NHS is offering intensive retraining and good support, and once a doctor always a doctor! So this will probably mean that my research will have to be put on hold for a while, though I will continue to serve the church as their minister.


    2. Which aspects of your work past and present might be particularly interesting for supporters of the Shiloh Project?
    I think they might be interested in my recently published book on a terrible act of sexual violence in the Bible (Telling Terror in Judges 19: Rape and Reparation for the Levite’s Wife), and my forthcoming one on the use of the Bible in domestic abuse (The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So: Why you don’t have to submit to domestic abuse and coercive control).
    I’m very concerned about the problem of domestic abuse in these days, as people are trapped in homes with abusers, and frustration and anger are riding high. I understand that nine women were killed in their home last week. I’ve been trying to help raise awareness of this issue, and to highlight that refuges are still open and that this constitutes an acceptable reason for leaving lockdown.


    3. How are you bearing up and what’s helping you most?
    I’m doing okay most of the time. I’m incredibly grateful that we have a garden, and we’ve been playing a lot of swingball! I’m trying to keep a good daily and weekly routine, which includes writing the day in large letters in our hall(!), making sure I always get dressed, and exercise regularly. There are five of us at home here – I’m very grateful that our two student daughters have been able to come home to be with us. We’ve been having some great family times, including a riotous quiz evening, board games (if you’ve never played Terraforming Mars, it’s utterly addictive), and recreating famous works of art very badly! (See pictures.)
    Above all, I’m appreciating regular a rhythm of prayer throughout the day, which really helps me to recentre myself. In the mornings, I ‘gather’ with colleagues from the Baptist College to pray. After our evening meal, as a family we have been using the Northumbria evening prayer together – great words for a time of darkness (see here). And at bedtime I’ve been streaming an Anglican church’s evening office. Three very different traditions, and all very helpful.

    (Helen is also during self-isolation giving a ‘Tour of the Bible’ in daily short recordings. Here is her recording of Judges.)

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Chris Greenough

    by Chris Greenough on

    Like many introverts, I think I’ve been practising social distancing for many years! But, as an academic, these aren’t times where you can knuckle down to work, wrapped in a comforting cocoon of your own reading, thoughts and writing. Coronavirus brings a real, present and threatening worry that breaks concentration, interrupts everyday activities and the anxiety is real. But, if anything, the social aspects of my life have picked up through making a conscious effort to stay in touch with people and check in on how they’re doing. Ironically, therefore, being connected and being in touch with others are helping me most.

    While work sometimes pales into insignificance, there has been an urgent need to move teaching online, to stay in touch with students in new ways, to get to grips with technology I’ve never used before and to continue to supervise students. I’ve learnt that I’m less of a luddite than I thought. I’ve much appreciated and been touched by the genuine exchange of good wishes and the warm relationships we have with one another – whether we are lecturers, students or colleagues.

    There have been some days where I’ve found research to be a helpful distraction, too. I’m currently finishing off my volume for the Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible series entitled The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men. Working with Caroline Blyth, Katie Edwards and Johanna Stiebert as editors has been such a rewarding experience. The book examines social and cultural myths around sexual violence against men: that boys and men can be sexually abused, and this has nothing to do with their gender, sexuality or how masculine they are. At least 1 in 6 men have been sexually abused or assaulted. I’m grateful to feminist criticism in biblical studies that has drawn attention to sexual violence against men in the Bible, and in my work, I’m exploring Lot’s daughters’ sexual assault of him (Genesis 19), Joseph’s rebuttal of unwanted sexual attention from Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39) and the attempted rape of men in Genesis 19 and Judges 19. As it is Eastertide, it is relevant to mention how I am also looking at the stripping of Jesus as an act of sexual violence.

    During the times I’m unable to concentrate or just need to stop, I’ve been able to benefit from the garden, the intermittent sunshine, my companion dogs and rabbit, my hilarious partner and wine.

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Meredith Warren

    by Meredith Warren on

    Tell us about what you’re doing and what you’re working on during this COVID-19 lock-in.

    I admit that I have been fairly distracted since I started effectively self-isolating around the 10th of March. I’ve got only a few days, if not hours, left before I go on Maternity Leave with my first baby, so keeping my household healthy and safe has occupied a lot of my brain space. 

    That said, I had some pretty tangible goals that I wanted to achieve before stopping work, so I’ve been working as much as I can on those. I’ve been adjusting a workshop that was set to meet in-person in July, on embodiment and the senses called What the Body Knows, which now has funding to hire a PhD helper — the workshop is going to be online now, so it has taken some creativity in figuring out how that will work! I am very pleased that the second issue of JIBS, on transgenderqueer and genderqueer perspectives on biblical studies was released last week, guest edited by Caroline Blyth. I’ve also just finished up an article co-authored with Sarah Rollens and Eric Vanden Eykel, for JIBS’s forthcoming issue on Activism in the Classroom, guest edited by Johanna Stiebert. I’m also chipping away at a text book that Sara Parks and Shayna Sheinfeld and I are co-authoring, on Women in Ancient Religions, and an essay on angelic eating in Good Omens. 

    2. Which aspects of your work might be particularly interesting or relevant for Shiloh Project readers?

    The textbook that Sara Parks and Shayna Sheinfeld and I are writing might be of interest to friends of the Shiloh Project. It’s based off of a class the three of us used to teach when we were finishing up our PhDs at McGill University. Our aims in the text book are intersectional, trying to look at overlapping identities that women held in antiquity while providing an accessible and progressive introduction to the topic that will make teaching it easier for those who would like to do so. We invariably will have to wrestle with texts and images which depict or advocate sexual violence given the nature of women’s lived experience then and now.

    3. How are you bearing up and what’s helped you most?

    It feels good to be working on collaborative pieces right now, and having regular contact with my colleagues (as well as with friends) has been really helpful in keeping my head above water. Work is sometimes a welcome distraction from the chaos outside. I’m also doing a lot of baking, taking my state-sanctioned daily walks in the nice weather, reading non-academic books, and trying to spend quality time with our cat Button while he is still an ‘only child’. 

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    COVID-19 Lockdown Interview Series: Deryn Guest

    by Deryn Guest on

    These days, most of us will be having to live such different lives than we are used to – keeping self-isolated, working from home,juggling commitments to our family, work, and research, as well as caring for the health and wellbeing of ourselves, our friends, and our loved ones. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be asking some of our Shiloh members and supporters how they are dealing with this “new normal”way of life. We hope this helps to keep our community connected with each other, and can serve to inspire us, reassure us we’re not alone, or even distract us a little from everything else we are dealing with right now.

    Our series kicks off with one of the greats of biblical studies, Deryn Guest. Deryn teaches Biblical Hermeneutics in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham and is a trailblazer in the areas of gender theory, queer theory, and psychological theory as these relate to the Hebrew Bible.

    Co-editor of The Queer Bible Commentary (SCM, 2006), co-author of Transgender, Intersex, and Biblical Interpretation (SBL, 2016), and author of Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies (Sheffield Phoenix, 2012), all of which break new and important ground in the discipline, Deryn has published extensively on the book of Judges in particular. At present, Deryn is writing an Earth Bible Commentary (Bloomsbury) on Judges. Deryn’s is a totally distinctive voice, blending whip-smart scholarship and integrity and never compromising on either.

    So, what’s up, Deryn Guest?

    Gosh, even introverted home birds miss social contact. Such was my realization as the morning work schedule kicked in during week one of lockdown. I was no longer filling up my kettle at the water cooler with office staff and colleagues, chatting about moments of hilarity on the Great British Bake Off, or the over-crowded commute that morning, or, of course, the perennial topic of the weather. Bonhomie at the water cooler – a convivial, social start to the academic day.

    I rely now on my usual pre-commute morning ritual: a lit candle, a steaming cup of tea, some quiet moments of contemplation. After that, I’m ready for organizing the day into varied activities that keep the body oiled as well as the mind. A couple of hours on research, break for half an hour gardening, answer emails, take exercise, create some online teaching material, skype supervisions for postgrads. And I’m bearing up well. The quietness of being at home is good for my soul. The office of choice is the garden where I am accompanied by the chatter of birds communing socially at their own water coolers based at strategic points in the garden.  When wet, I work in the kitchen where I can see the garden through the patio windows. Either function well for writing an ecological commentary on the Book of Judges, which is the current project.

    Fresh in my mind as I work on the story of the abducted women in Judges 21 is the capture of the Yazidi women taken into sexual slavery against their will by ISIS soldiers, dislocated from their place of home and family. Warfare, ancient or modern, always has severe consequences for the bodies of women. Writing ecologically, I think of how the land can act as witness to atrocities; how the sacred energies of a place are desecrated; how, in Judges 21, the pulsing, whirling of girls’ feet was suddenly felt no more, leaving the earth bereft of its place in the dance.  Being in the garden, watching the birds, listening to their singing and scolding (of cats), I wonder what the sounds of the places called Shiloh and Sinjar were in usual times, what were the sounds during the abduction, and then, with sadness, I ponder the sound of the aftermath.

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