Equity, Ethics, Embodiment
Last month, I had the great privilege of delivering the baccalaureate address for the class of 2022 at Amherst College. This was such an honor and I am incredibly grateful to Harrison Blum and the whole office of Religious and Spiritual Life for their support in making this happen.
You can find audio of the whole baccalaureate program HERE
Text of my remarks can be found HERE.
-ALD
Pray for mothers and motherhood,
That most sacred place between being and not being
The gift of grace
The promise of personhood
The dawn and the dusk.
For, mothers everywhere
Mothers of all kinds
Give life to dreams
And illuminate our souls
They are often our best selves
Within us and our world.
Pray for motherhood
That is more than just a choice
But rather a lived dialogue between the human and the holy
In which each woman and person who holds the potential for birth
Is affirmed as being fully fluent
Conversing with their own God
Their own spirit
Their own meaning
And their own possibilities within,
And sharing that wisdom with the world.
Pray for motherhood
Not as a battlefield
But as a harvest
Of everything that we can be
Feeding us, nurturing us
Helping us to grow
And having the unique wisdom to tell the world
When the field should bear no crops
When the furrow should remain fallow
When the only word is “no.
Pray for motherhood,
All motherhood…every shape and size, length and kind.
May they all be blessed and holy
And in their every and individual ways, whole.
-ALD