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26/9/2016 0 Comments

Women & God

For future reference - I'm rarely late.

​So, the thing about my mum is she's a lay Carmelite. I said to her, 'Does this mean you're a voluntary nun?' ​It got momentarily confusing as I didn’t mean to imply that religious devotion was derived out of duress, in the  first place* After some clarification, I understood that lay Carmelites make some kind of pledge to the Order of the Carmelites - of goodness, and more practical virtues such as helping out with administrative tasks and arranging charitable events and fund raisers. Nothing wrong with that. ​Lay Carmelites do not partake in the solemn vows of profession, as do the regular nuns. I was relieved to hear this as I suspect she might struggle, having an unfortunate propensity to veer on the ligher side of life. - a predisposition which, despite my best intentions, I fear I may have inherited.
​The point is, I wanted to get some insight into religious belief - probably brought about by my chance encounter with the Jehovah Witness in the park last week. I lost my own religion years ago. I’d like to put it down to intellectual enlightenment, but that implies that I consciously thought about and wrestled with my faith, but it wasn’t like that – just too busy. ​I think religious faith can be a lot like love, despite your better judgement it can just strike you (down), like Paul* on the road to Damascus.
As I write about religion here, I have a strong sense of a connection with and a continuation of working-class women’s experience. Religion, if not a direct influence, has historically been a significant presence in the lives of many working-class women, as their autobiographies testify. When talking about religious belief - as when talking about the working-class – it is sensible to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. In other words, to get an authoritative and authentic account leave it to the people themselves. They know best.  
That’s why I talked to my mum.

(*thanks, it's been a quite a while since I read the Bible ha!)
 




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    I recently completed an academic research project (MPhil) about working-class women’s autobiographies. Now I’m writing my own...

    To cut a long story short:

    My dad and both my grandads were coal miners. I was born in Coalville. I belong on this website. 
    I returned to education as a mature student: got a couple of A-levels, went to university; got a BA, an MA, a PhD, and an MPhil. It was not as easy as that. It was not as quick as that. But I did.
    I have spent most of my adult-life studying something. Generally something to do with English literature: mainly something to do with working-class women. My MA is about Women and God – inspired by and emotively written through my experiences as a pupil at Catholic primary and secondary schools. My PhD and MPhil projects are about working-class women writers – inspired and emotively written through my experiences as a working-class woman in a materialistic and class-ridden society. When I was an undergraduate at university, there wasn’t a module about working-class writing. There just wasn't. I didn’t study any working-class texts. I just didn’t. I once gave a research paper about my PhD (ie: talking about my work) and I remember someone laughingly said, ‘Was there a recession in the 1980s? I must have missed that.’ That just about sums it up.
    I have had no working-class peers. I found them in my reading and writing. In my reading and writing I found myself.

    Welcome to my blog.
    It's basically about me.It’s called ‘My Travel Blog’ (because I’m time travelling through my memories of the past). See what I did there?


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