Certain Women

When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women. – Acts 1:13-14 (NRSV) 

What do Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, Another James, Zealous Simon, and Judas (not That One) all have in common? Besides the occupation of a room upstairs and a penchant for 24/7 prayer, you might notice that they are all men.  

There are other people there, too, in that upper room: “certain women.” On the one hand I give thanks that those certain women, unnamed though they may be, have slipped past the pens of two thousand or so years of editorial patriarchy. On the other hand, I grieve for what we don’t know about them – their names for starters. Or honestly, anything at all about them. Pick a woman in that room, any one. What color scarf did she put on that morning? What was her favorite meal? What led her to that room to pray? We just have to imagine.  

Today things have gotten only marginally better. Globally, news outlets tend to report the names of women only about a quarter of the time, although everywhere we are half the population. We still don’t tell women’s stories. And when women’s stories are told, they are often not believed. It’s so simple to shift this imbalance and we have the power to do it, Church. We are storytellers, after all. So let’s tell the stories – all of them! 

Prayer
Holy One, put women’s stories in our mouths and in our ears. Amen.

About the Author
Rev. Jennifer Garrison (formerly Brownell) is a writer, spiritual director and pastor living in the Pacific Northwest. Her published work most recently appeared in the book The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle, available from The Pilgrim Press.