Author Archives: Matilda Cantwell

2021-2022: The Center for Religious and Spiritual Life Explores Transformative and Disability Justice as Spiritual Practices

This year as Smith focuses on “Democracies,”  we are painfully aware that social injustices were woven into the fabric of our society at its founding. We also find ourselves at a point at which the very structure of democracy in … Continue reading

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The Planting of Critical Hope: The Practice of Grief and the Blooming of Justice

Dear Friends, Critical hope is defined by Scholar Paulo Freire as a way of addressing injustice through meaningful dialogue—we are not hopeful because we wait for the future, because we create it. Critical thinking is the process by which we interrogate and dismantle. Critical hope is the … Continue reading

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A Reflection

The Place Where We Are Right by Yehuda Amichai From the place where we are right Flowers will never grow In the spring. The place where we are right Is hard and trampled Like a yard. But doubts and loves … Continue reading

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CONVOCATION (Invocation) 2020, August 31, 2020

Smith College acknowledges and appreciates the fact that our College is built within the ancestral homelands of the Nonotuck peoples. We also recognize our present-day neighboring indigenous nations: the Nipmuc and the Wampanoag to the East, the Mohegan, Pequot, and … Continue reading

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Why Now, and What Now? A Theological Reflection on the Fire of the Current Moment

Why Now, and What Now? A Theological Reflection on the Fire of the Current Moment “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” –John Lewis God gave Noah the rainbow sign ‘No more water but fire next time. – … Continue reading

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A Note About The Use of Sacred Texts

Dear Friends, On behalf of the Smith College Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, I write to condemn the recent use of a sacred text to illustrate a political point. Christian scripture in particular has been manipulated to oppress black … Continue reading

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Seeking Refuge in Uncertainty: A Rite of Passage for These Times

My college graduation was very strange. I had been accepted into the Smith College School for Social Work and was scheduled to begin the summer program there on June 4. This was, however, the very same day of my undergraduate … Continue reading

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On Isolation and Consolation

As we all know, in these days of quarantine, loneliness and isolation are prevalent. Zoom is as depleting as it is efficient. Social distance may be wearing on us, our own particular responses to stress may be in full action. One … Continue reading

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Fear and Freedom: Hand in Hand

“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.”  ― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Here … Continue reading

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Times of Captivity, a Time of Liberation

For the next two issues, our newsletter will focus on the theme of liberation. Passover, the holiday which began last night, April 8, commemorates the successful exodus of the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. The COVID-19 crisis kept … Continue reading

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