A Bishop, A Rioter, And An Invitation
Storytelling and hope when our world is broken
I want to tell you about two women.
Two women with virtually nothing in common except for their refusal to stay silent.
Two wise women in midlife and beyond whose stories we’d probably never know except for their insistence on telling their truth.
Two women who knew that this truth-telling could bring them repercussions of many kinds — to their professional and personal lives and even to their personal safety.
The first is Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde.
She is the one you probably know the most about.
She is the first woman to serve as the spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C. Budde is an author of three books, a wife, the mother of two sons, a grandparent, and a doctor of ministry from Virginia Theological Seminary.
For years, she’s been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, even writing a New York Times opinion piece in 2020 expressing her disgust with his treatment and dehumanizing language about peaceful protesters and his decision to stand with a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church to talk about the use of federal forces to clear protestors.
In the New York Times in 2020, she wrote: “Mr. Trump used sacred symbols to cloak himself in the mantle of spiritual authority, while espousing positions antithetical to the Bible that he held in his hands…Had the president opened the Bible he was holding, he could have read passages calling on us to love God and our neighbor, to seek God in the face of strangers and even to love our enemies. He could have read exhortations calling us all to the highest standard of love, which is justice.”
A few days ago the bishop stood in front of newly inaugurated President Trump, his family, and many members of his new administration at the National Cathedral and had another decision to make: Would she stay silent? Would she give a sermon that pleased our new leaders?
She was just learning of the even more extreme promises found in the just released series of executive orders against immigrants, people of color, women, and the LGTBQ community: for unprecedented, large-scale mass deportations, for the suspension of refugee programs, for the cancellation of all appointments for asylum seekers, for the end of birthright citizenship, for the targeting of transgender Americans, for the dismantling of all federal diversity and anti-discrimination programs, and on and on.
How many of us could make a decision this brave? To stand feet away from the most powerful person in the world, look him and his loved ones straight in the eyes, and say,
“And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives… I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”
I also want to tell you about Pamela Hemphill.
She is a January 6th rioter — nicknamed the “MAGA granny” — who served 60 days in federal prison and sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty when charged for her participation in the insurrection.
Like hundreds of other January 6th perpetrators, even those from extremist groups like the Proud Boys or those who committed violent offenses against police officers, she was granted a full pardon by Donald Trump this week.
Hemphill, 71 and from Idaho, is speaking out because she does not want a pardon. She is speaking out publicly because she knows that it is the right thing to do.
In an interview with the New York Times, she said, “It’s an insult to the Capitol Police, to the rule of law and to the nation. If I accept a pardon, I’m continuing their propaganda, their gaslighting and all their falsehoods they’re putting out there about Jan. 6.”
Since January 6th, she has worked with a therapist to understand her role in the riot and to realize she “was not a victim of Jan. 6; I was a volunteer.” She no longer supports Trump nor his lies about the 2020 election. She now states, “I lost my critical thinking. I knew it was a cult, and I was in a cult.”
Look For the Unruly Women
In the week before the Inauguration, I couldn’t stop thinking about this essay by
, "We Are All Witches Now.”
Louden reminds us of Roxane Gay’s quote:
“Unruly women are always witches. No matter what century we’re in.”
Louden writes:
“A witch is transgressive, a truth teller, and has no f**ks to give.2 She speaks truth to power or goes behind power’s back and cuts it off at the knees. She defies meaningless rules and empty conventions. She uses her power to help, herself included.
The witch is the opposite of the trad wife or the MAHA yoga influencer mom, a way to push back against those archetypes, to offer women an alternative. We are all witches now. Could that be a rallying point for our rage, our fear, for feeling gaslit?”
I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never thought of myself as a witch until the past week. But now I love the historical reminders that I think of when I hear this label and the history of transgressive women from centuries ago who came before me.
It’s so easy to look out at the world and feel broken right now. Part of me does.
It’s understandable to want to retreat, to pull inward, to respond to our fears with avoidance or denial about what’s happening.
As
of explains in “Why Are We All Feeling So Broken?”:“We're not just tired. We're tired of being called hysterical for seeing clearly. Tired of being told to stay positive while watching our rights disappear. Tired of carrying the emotional weight of a system designed to fail us while being expected to show up every day with a smile….
Tired women are easier to control. Tired women don't have the energy to question why they're doing the work of three people for the salary of less than a man. Tired women are too exhausted to notice that "having it all" means doing it all. Tired women don't have the bandwidth to overthrow the system.”
I’m not a conspiracy theorist and I generally hate explanations of complex problems that are loose and inchoate, but it’s hard to shake the feeling right now that “they” — the newest power structures in our society, however defined — want us exhausted, overwhelmed, broken. They don’t want us to be paying attention. Or when we do try to stay informed and attempt to know what’s going on, they want us to feel helpless in our scrolling, outraged by the latest tweet, and confused about what to do next. They want us hiding and scared.
I have lots of everyday, practical ideas about how to stay informed without going crazy in our new reality — like subscribing to new media initiatives like this and turning away from most social media — but for right now, on a big picture level, I’m wondering if we should all just start by looking to the witches.
What if we center the stories of unruly women like Bishop Budde and Pamela Hemphill?
What if we share the experiences of women like them that bring us hope, that draw us into community, and inspire us?
What if we refuse to pretend that these women are not also main characters in our world even when we’re told our society needs more “masculine energy”?
On Inauguration Day on Monday, I posted this:
Here at Midstory, starting now, we’ll be focusing a lot on these stories of unruly women — midlife women and older (well-known and unknown) — who refuse to stay quiet, who are brave in big and small ways, who want to make the world a better place during a time when that hope seems harder than ever to sustain.
Through the lens of unruly midlife women’s stories, we’ll help you stay informed but not overwhelmed.
In the coming days and weeks, we’ll explain more about our direction for Midstory, and we’d love your support and participation.
And, if you’re a writer on Substack, we’d also love for you to join our community for midlife writers, Midstack, if you haven’t already. Midstack includes a directory of Substack publications and opportunities to gather over Zoom and to share your writing with other women.
How has this week felt like to you? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you heard other stories of unruly women?
Crone Revolutionaries.
I'm horrified about what's happening and frustrated with how little impact I'm likely to have. I keep telling myself to just do the next good thing. Show kindness to those around me. Write and share what I think needs to be said. Give someone a helping hand. Read to a child. It won't change the world or public policy, but it might make a difference for one other person. It doesn't feel like enough, but it's honestly all I can do.