As an entry into discussion for this brief introduction to feminist theology, you may like to consider the follow questions: 

		How has your theology changed over the years because of your experiences, and your experience as a woman?
		In what ways has your understanding of power evolved? What helps you feel more empowered?
		Is there a story of a woman in scripture or history that you hold onto because she inspires you?
		Who is the God you no longer believe in? Who is the God at the center of your life today?

Intergrative spirituality 

Theology is never separate from our  experience of the Spirit.Distinct from theology, yet inclusive of our theological understandings, integrative spirituality encompasses and includes  all of who we are. It embraces every conceivable relationship we experience:  relationship with every aspect of ourselves, with our Sacred Source, with one  another and with the cosmos. Relationships are at the heart of integrative  spirituality. Because story has a unique and powerful role to play in  relationship, we are encouraged to embrace the unfolding story of the universe, our personal stories, our communal stories, the stories from our Sacred  Scriptures. In the telling and the listening we allow ourselves to be  transformed.

Sandra Schneiders, writing in Women's  Spirituality (Paulist Press, l996), describes spirituality as "the experience of consciously striving to integrate one's life not in terms of isolation and self-absorption, but of self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives. Christian spirituality involves a specification of this  definition in terms of the participation of the person in the paschal mystery of  Jesus the Christ. For the Christian, the horizon of ultimate concern is the holy mystery of God revealed in Jesus Christ and experienced through the gift of the Holy Spirit within the life of the Church."

We've become accustomed to descriptions of spirituality which add specific emphases, e.g., "marian"  spirituality, "feminist" spirituality, "eco-spirituality" and, now, "integrative" spirituality. When we use the term "integrative" spirituality we  emphasize that as body, mind, spirit persons, rooted in earth wisdom, we understand, experience and express our relationship with our Sacred Source and  all of creation.

Understand. Experience. Express. These are broad inclusive functions. Theologian Anne Carr offers specifics about  this inclusively when she writes: "Spirituality is larger than a theology or set of values precisely because it is all encompassing and pervasive. Unlike theology as an explicit intellectual position, spirituality reaches into our  unconscious or half-conscious depths. And while it shapes behavior and  attitudes, spirituality is more than a conscious moral code. In relation to God,  it is who we really are, the deepest self, not entirely accessible to our  comprehensive self-reflection. In a Christian context, God's love goes before us  in a way we can never fully name.

Spirituality is expressed in everything we do. It is a style, unique to the self, that catches up all our  attitudes: in communal and personal prayer, in behavior, bodily expressions,  life choices, in what we support and affirm and what we protest and deny. As our deepest self in relation to God, to the whole, and so literally to everything, spirituality changes, grows, or diminishes in the whole context of life. Consciously cultivated, nourished, cared about, it often takes the character of struggle as we strive to integrate new perceptions or convictions. And it bears the character of grace as we are lifted beyond previous levels of integration by  a power greater than our own. Spirituality is deeply informed by family, teachers, friends, community, class, race, culture, sex, by our time in history, just as it is influenced by beliefs, intellectual positions, and moral options.  These influences may be unconscious or made explicit through reading,  reflection, conversation, even conversion. And so spirituality includes and  expresses our self-conscious or critical appraisal of our situation in time, in history, and in culture.

We each live a personal story that is  part of a wider familial, cultural, racial and sexual myth. When our myths are  made conscious, we can affirm or deny them, accept parts and reject others, as  we grow in relationship to God, to others, to our world. Personal, familial,  religious, cultural, racial, sexual stories answer the great questions: Where do  I come from? How should I live? What is the meaning of the end, of death? Making  myths explicit means that we have already moved beyond them and that they become available for criticism."
"On Feminist Spirituality"
Anne Carr, Women's Spirituality: Paulist, l986.

In the light of the above, you may like  to consider the following questions for discussion:

Questions

		What three words best describe prominent aspects of your spirituality?
		In what ways has your spirituality changed? What influenced the changes? What nourishes your spirituality?
		What practices express your  spirituality?
		What has been, or is currently, an area  of struggle for you as you've tried to integrate new perceptions or convictions? Can you name the stages you pass through?
		What has been your experience of grace lifting you "beyond previous levels of integration?"