Cami Ostman - Beyond belief: The secret lives of women in extreme religions

BEYOND BELIEF

THE SECRET LIVES OF WOMEN
IN EXTREME RELIGIONS

edited by

Susan Tive & Cami Ostman

SEAL PRESS

BEYOND BELIEF

The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions

Copyright 2013 by Susan Tive & Cami Ostman

Note to the reader: In some stories, names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Published by

Seal Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ostman, Cami.

Beyond belief : the secret lives of women in extreme religions / by Cami Ostman & Susan Tive.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-58005-461-4

1. Women and religion. 2. ReligionControversial literature. 3. PatriarchyReligious aspects. I. Tive, Susan, 1962- II. Title.

BL458.O88 2013

200.9252dc23

2012041943

10987654321

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Interior design by Domini Dragoone

Distributed by Publishers Group West

To all who have trusted me with their stories
and listened to mine in return.
Cami Ostman

To my parents, who taught me that good conversation
is more important than table manners.
Susan Tive

W e met in a memoir writing class taught by author Laura Kalpakian in the fall of 2006. Susan was writing about her years spent in Orthodox Judaism, her difficult divorce, and the disorientation of transitioning out of living an Orthodox life. Cami was writing about how her journey to run a marathon on every continent was helping her find her way after a divorce and a profound change in her relationship with God. As we shared our respective storiesboth in class and over coffee or wine outside of classwe discovered surprising parallels in our lives. Both of us had chosen to enter religious communities we werent raised in. We had each adopted faiths that asked us to eschew many personal freedoms and choices most nonreligious women take for granted. Though Cami was not asked to cover her head or stop wearing pants as Susan was, she was asked to believe that women shouldnt teach men in church and that her husband should be her head.

Comparing notes further we realized that, despite the differences in our respective religious practices, we could empathize with each others difficulties reintegrating into the secular world and shared the doubts and second-guessing of our decisions to leave. We understood the self-blame and guilt that comes with leaving strict religion behind. We experienced similar struggles surviving the wistful, nostalgic, and sometimes heart-wrenching emotions that arise from missing familiar community and ritual.

The more we talked, the more we began to ask ourselves, Why did we choose to join such restrictive religious practices? Even more compellingly, we wanted to explore both Why did we stay so long? and Why was it so hard to leave? After all, although we each experienced intense emotional and psychological pressure from friends and family to stay, we were not obliged by fear of violence as some women around the world are. What did we gain by stayingwhat kept us in even through years of serious misgivings?

As we formulated more questions and explored our own answers to them, we began to wonder about all the other women who, like us, had lived or were living through their own version of this story and were grappling with many of the same experiences, emotions, and questions. As our friendship with each other taught us, women living life inside extreme religions have much in common despite their differences of practice and belief. Sharing our stories with one another through writing and in conversation helped each of us to feel less isolated, learn from our experiences, and become willing to dig deeper. Realizing that the commonalities of our lives within extreme religion far outweighed the differences of our particular paths inspired us to widen the conversation. We decided to share our stories and give other women the opportunity to tell theirs. Thus, the seeds of Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions were first sown.

Far and wide we flung our net, asking writers the same core questions we had asked ourselves: Why did you, a modern-day, liberated woman, join a religion that restricted your autonomy? What did you experience inside? What compelled you to stay? What compelled you to leave? How did you leave? What do you miss? How do you make sense of the world without your faith (or with an altered understanding of your faith)?

As Beyond Belief began to take shape, the one question we were asked most often by contributors was, Whats your working definition of extreme? Its true that the word extreme is an extreme word! For some of our atheist friends, any religion that espouses a belief in any kind of supreme being is extreme. Yet for those who live inside orthodoxy or fundamentalism, what they live is not extreme to them at all: It is quite normal and sensible.

We agreed that we would let women who resonated with the term extreme define it for themselves. As editors, its not our place to pretend we have an objective, unbiased definition of what is extreme that we can apply like a measuring stick to other peoples experiences. What we do know is that, looking back on what we put ourselves through at an earlier time, we now see our religious commitments as extreme in comparison to our current lives. We hope you, the reader, will keep an open mind to the stories contained in Beyond Belief, and employ empathy as you read, even if certain writers beliefs dont resonate with your own.

Another question we encountered when we made our call for submissions was, I was born into a family that practices this religion. Can I still submit a story? Our answer at first was no, but we changed our minds. Although we originally hoped to find women, like us, who chose to enter their faiths in adolescence or adulthood, we came to understand that, except for some women who risk their lives to leave their religion behind, even those who were born into a particular faith must choose to stay in it at least for some period of time (often because the consequences of leaving were, while not deadly, quite huge).

Finally, potential contributors asked us, Ive left a conservative branch of my religion, but I still attend a more liberal church/synagogue/congregation. Does my experience count as leaving? Again, our answer was yes. We understand firsthand that faith and spirituality can be in flux. Where we are today may not be where well be tomorrow, and so its best not to judge as definitive where other people happen to be on their spiritual journeys at any given moment.