God is not something I think about but something I experience as an energy, a Presence. I do find it easier to pray to a female Presence or an androgynous Presence.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a personal connection to the divine as an experiential presence rather than an abstract concept.
Olympia Dukakis speaks to the nature of spirituality, suggesting that the divine is not just a thought or belief but a tangible experience akin to energy or presence. She implies that this connection becomes more personal and accessible when envisioned as feminine or androgynous, highlighting the significance of relational dynamics in spiritual experiences.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of spirituality during a philosophy class.
Feminism without spirituality runs the risk of becoming what it rejects: an elitist ideology, arrogant, superficial and separatist, closed to everything but itself. Without a spiritual base that obligates it beyond itself, calls it out of itself for the sake of others, a pedagogical feminism turned in on itself can become just one more intellectual ghetto that the world doesn’t notice and doesn’t need.
It is an absurd law [Section 295A of the Indian penal code] but also extremely dangerous because it gives fanatics, whether they are Hindus, Catholics or Muslims, a licence to be offended. It also allows people who are in dispute with you to make up false accusations of blasphemy.
God has cast our confessed sins into the depths of the sea, and He's even put a 'No Fishing' sign over the spot.
The word in language is half someone else’s… it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own.
Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.
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