Conference 2000!
"And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: You Shall Be My Witnesses"
by EEWC Member Linda Williams

Through these months of planning and working for Conference 2000, I have found myself coming back to two prayers in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. One is from the liturgy for Holy Communion:

"Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name."

And following a baptism, those present join in this prayer for the newly baptized:

"Sustain them, O Lord [Mother God], in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works."

It seems to me that many of the words and hopes voiced in these prayers reflect the intent and experience of an EEWC conference. We come from a diversity of places, of times in our lives, of relationships, of religious traditions. We celebrate our differences even as we work toward unity of purpose and commitment.

We do indeed come to the EEWC table to have our eyes opened, to be surprised by grace, to speak to our searching for and finding God in the world and in one another.

We come for solace . . . 
for nurturing and comfort, for healing of wounds-wounds from abuse, loss, marginalization, indignity, prejudice, hatred, disease

We come for strength . . . 
for courage to take risks, for the support of sisters, for the sharing of struggles

We come for pardon . . . 
for the grace to find our way back from alienation and bitterness, knowing that we will be embraced in compassion

We come for renewal . . . 
for the surging again of hope, for energy to keep loving, for wisdom given to shed light on the journey

And anyone who has attended an EEWC conference has experienced the joy and wonder of God's work in the gifted, challenging, loving women present! . . .women who . . .

share their stories 
teach us to dance and sing 
take us to the center of prayer 
enlarge our understanding of Scripture 
stir our imaginations 
take off our blinders 
bring us to laughter and to tears . . .

We meet those who have suffered for risks they have taken -- women who have had the "courage to will and to persevere." We sense that rarely are so many gathered together who without exception have "inquiring and discerning hearts" --women who are seeking, who are honest, whose faces are set toward learning and not toward judging, excluding, or limiting.

There is surely a spirit to know and to love God in all that Loving One's manifestations -- and there is a similar spirit to know and love one another in the rich, exuberant variety of who we are!

And so we come to Conference 2000 -- which will mark EEWC's 25th anniversary even as it marks the beginning of a millennium.

The conference title -- "And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: You Shall Be My Witnesses" -- presents intriguing questions: 

Who are these daughters? 
What is it they are to prophesy? 
What does it mean to be a witness? 

As we consider these questions, our companions along the way will be women of insight and passion -- peace activist Sister Joan Chittister, young African-American women from Chicago, EEWC foremothers, a Korean theologian and preacher, enthusiastic workshop leaders -- and one another.

Through all will be woven music, art, dance, prayer, conversation -- and laughter! We will come together in celebration and gratitude, finding again solace, strength, pardon, and renewal.

We will leave knowing that these days of breaking bread at the EEWC table are a hallowed time and space. And we will see, in joy and wonder, that we are gifted and graced by God and by Her Spirit in each of us. 

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Linda Williams is an editor with a major textbook publisher and is a member of EEWC's Chicago chapter. She  is serving as one of the three coordinators for EEWC's Conference 2000. The other coordinators are Jeanne Baly and Claire Cruise Warren.

 © 1999 Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus