{"id":331,"date":"2011-03-20T12:10:53","date_gmt":"2011-03-20T16:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/?p=331"},"modified":"2011-03-20T12:10:53","modified_gmt":"2011-03-20T16:10:53","slug":"her-body-broken-for-many-sunday-lent-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/her-body-broken-for-many-sunday-lent-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Her Body Broken for Many: Sunday, Lent 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we come to ending of this week’s story—and, as with last week’s tale of the daughter of Jephthah, to a beginning. How will we remember this woman, and where will our remembering lead us?<\/em><\/p>\n

In Judges 19, we read that when the husband receives no response from his concubine whom he has found lying on the threshold, “he put her on the donkey; and the man set out for his home. When he had entered his house, he took a knife, and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. Then he commanded the men whom he sent, saying, ‘Thus shall you say to all the Israelites, “Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out.”‘” <\/em><\/p>\n

In Pieces<\/em><\/p>\n

Piece by piece
\nthey brought her forth;
\npiece by piece
\nthey had gathered her
\nfrom the farthest corners.
\nIn every land
\nwhere they had asked for her,
\nshe was known by a different name.<\/p>\n

Piece by piece
\nas they laid her out
\npiece by piece
\nthey whispered her names:<\/p>\n

Felicitas<\/em>
\nChristian slave who, along with Perpetua, was martyred by the
\nsword in Carthage, North Africa, in the third century.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Bridget Bishop<\/em>
\nconvicted as a witch and hanged in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Kim Hak Sun<\/em>
\none of the 80,000\u2013200,000 Korean \u201ccomfort women\u201d
\nforced to be prostitutes for the Japanese Army
\nduring World War II. Raped repeatedly for months,
\nKim Hak Sun survived to speak out;
\nthousands of others died or were killed.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Anne Frank<\/em>
\nyoung Dutch Jew killed in the Holocaust in 1945.<\/p>\n

Anna Mae Pictou Aquash<\/em>
\nmember of the American Indian Movement.
\nWhen her unidentified body was found in 1976
\non the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota,
\nthe cause of death was listed as \u201cexposure.\u201d
\nThe FBI agent present ordered her hands severed
\nand sent to Washington, D.C. for fingerprinting.
\nAfter her family reported her missing,
\na second autopsy was performed.
\nThis time the coroner attributed her death
\nto a bullet fired into the back of her head
\nat close range.<\/p>\n

Jean Donovan<\/em>
\na Catholic lay missionary who, along with
\ntwo Maryknoll sisters and one Ursuline sister,
\nwas raped and murdered by government soldiers
\nin El Salvador in 1980.<\/p>\n

And all the unnamed sisters,
\nknown only by the earth
\nin all the places
\nyou were buried:<\/p>\n

Woman of Hiroshima and Nagasaki<\/em>
\nannihilated by manmade pillars of fire in 1945.<\/p>\n

Woman of freedom<\/em>
\nwho lived and died with \u201cBefore I\u2019ll be a slave,
\nI\u2019ll be buried in my grave\u201d on your lips.<\/p>\n

Woman of South Africa<\/em>
\nstill bearing the wounds of apartheid.<\/p>\n

Woman of Bosnia<\/em>
\non your body their war yet rages.<\/p>\n

Woman of silence<\/em>
\nyour voice beaten out of you.<\/p>\n

Woman of hope<\/em>
\nwith your hands upon the threshold.<\/p>\n

Piece by piece
\nthey touched her skin
\npiece by piece
\nre-membering
\nthe broken body
\ninto flesh
\nthe ancient wounds
\ninto new life.<\/p>\n

\u2014Jan Richardson<\/p>\n

Questions for reflection<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The word remember<\/em> means to re-member:<\/em> to put the pieces together again. The pieces never return precisely to their former shape, especially when they have been torn apart by violence. Yet we are called to the work of remembering and to the difficult grace found there. In this Lenten season and beyond, God beckons us to hold the broken pieces—to gather them, to speak of them, to not forget, and to open ourselves to how the Spirit might act through us to breathe life and wholeness into those shards. In your own life, what might it look like to do this? In the presence of widespread brokenness—especially as we remember the people of Japan this week, and the people of Libya, and every place torn apart by natural disaster or human destructiveness—where is one place that you could begin? What single piece could you pick up and journey with in the days ahead?<\/p>\n

Blessing<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Blessed are you
\nwho re-member the ancient wounds,
\nfor through your remembering,
\nbroken bodies and broken stories
\nwill receive new life.<\/p>\n

From Sacred Journeys<\/strong> \u00a9 Jan L. Richardson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we come to ending of this week’s story—and, as with last week’s tale of the daughter of Jephthah, to a beginning. How will we remember this woman, and where will our remembering lead us? In Judges 19, we read that when the husband receives no response from his concubine whom he has found lying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent","category-sacred-time"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p190Xv-5l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanctuaryofwomen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}