Front Row Preview

Today on "Front Row" produced by KUHA/KUFH Houston Public Radio, a preview of "Easter in Memory of Her" will air.  There will be interviews with me, Betty Adam, and Sonja Bruzauskas about our production and two soloists present portions of their parts.  It will air twice.  Once at noon on KUHA Classical and then again at 10 pm on KUFH News.  The link to Front Row's website is HERE.  It will be archived on their website tomorrow.  Hope you will listen to this historic production.

Let's Remember the Biblical Women at Easter: Huffington Post

As you know, this Easter I have worked with Reverend Betty Adam of Christ Church Cathedral here in Houston to create an Easter event for Holy Saturday that would remember the biblical women.  My idea for the production was to focus on the faithfulness and feelings of the women who followed Jesus to Jerusalem and remained with him as he died. 

As I wrote the script with Betty, I "stayed" with each woman in her story as it is recorded in the bible, and as I did so I imagined what it would be like to be that woman.  What was her relationship with Jesus?  Why was she with him at his crucifixion?  What was going through her mind and what was she feeling in her heart? 

As I wrote, I realized how different each woman's relationship with Jesus was, and how their reactions to him were very personal, just as our own are.  I realized how much of their spirituality we have lost because we have forgotten to include them in our Easter services.

So I wrote a piece called "Remember the Biblical Women At Easter" and it has just been published by Huffington Post HERE. 

I hope that if you can't attend our special service on Holy Saturday, that you will join us in spirit during the hour 4-5 p.m. by rereading the women's stories in the bible and remembering their faithfulness and steadfastness, and their prominence in Jesus' life and death.  How do their stories touch you?

You are invited to "Easter in Memory of Her"

I am excited to invite you to a special service that will be performed at Christ Church Cathedral (Houston, Texas) on Holy Saturday (March 30th) this year.

It is a service remembering the biblical women in the life of Jesus who followed him to the cross and remained steadfast by his side as he died.  The idea for this service came when Reverend Betty Adam approached me and asked me to help create a service that would feature the women followers of Jesus.  I was so honored and excited to get involved in this project and within a couple of weeks Betty and I had written a script and asked local musicians to get involved in creating an original score for voice and harp.

The musical performance and meditation features five women in the life of Jesus who remember Jesus as they stand near the cross and look on.  We hope that this remembrance of the women can become part of the traditional cycle of Easter services performed in Christian churches across the world.  We choose Holy Saturday because it is a silent time, a time vacated and empty when churches strip their altars and when clergy only perform last rites services.  We thought that this time, from 4-5 p.m., would be an appropriate time to remember the women who have been forgotten, whose voices we seldom hear, but who remained steadfast and faithful to Jesus, even to his death.

Women Yesterday and Today 1: The Wage Gap

March is Women's History month. So I am going to be devoting a good portion of my blogging this month to a series I'm calling: Women Yesterday and Today. To start off the series, I thought I would highlight a few statistics that are very troubling.

Women are now 50% of the workforce. On average women earn 77 cents to every dollar earned by men. Just one year (!) out of college, women already earn less than their male colleagues earn, even when they work in the same field with the same degree. At ages 66 and older women are twice (!) as likely as men to be poor. It has taken 40 years (!) to begin to close the wage gap by a meager 12 cents.

What is really alarming is just how much the wage gap widens the older women get. One year after graduation, women average 80% of the salary their male counterparts are earning. Ten years later they are earning 69% of the salary of their male counterparts. Even when researchers control for all the known factors that can affect earnings (hours, occupation, parenthood, etc.) their research shows that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained. Over time, this unexplained portion of the pay gap grows larger and larger.

The AAUW has an interactive map HERE where you can hover over any state and find out the wage gap stats closer to home. It is sad to view these stats. Among college grads, women in Texas are earning 70% of what their male counterparts are earning. In my home state Michigan, it is even worse: 68%.

Last year, President Obama began to work on this problem by signing into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The second part of this legislation has been stalled in the Senate, but it will finally receive its hearing. On March 11, the Senate will hold a hearing on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which is an update of the 46-year old Equal Pay Act. If you want to read more about this legislation or if you want to send your senators a letter to support this legislation, go HERE (AAUW website page). They have set up the website so that it is very easy to create and send your message, either via email or on letterhead. It took me two minutes.

I will come back to this topic again since April 20th is Equal Pay Day. And HERE are some pay equity ideas for action for that day if you want to make the problem more visible around your local area.

All stats are taken from AAUW.