Dear friends:

I am new to the Sophia group, but not new to this work. I have been concerned that there was some displeasure posted for all to read, and then silence. It kind of left something in the air--that needs more discussion.

When writing the second discussion for the Epilogue to the Root of All Evil, our Jewish Israeli author was in Israel and it was at the time of the Israeli war with Hezbollah (although most of Lebonan suffered in this). The Egyptian Muslim author and myself had very different perspectives on all this from our dear Israeli friend. When the latter sent her writings for the Epilogue, my response was "oops!" (as we were writing for peace and against patriarchal ways). As the primary author of the book I had to process Rachel's response and see how to integrate it and allow for her voice.

The following is from the beginning of the second part to make room for all voices.

In response to Part I we all agreed that it was important to go ahead and share any places of disagreement, and to acknowledge the areas that had been problematic. We had worked on this book for the last three years, and given the nature of the project and our own cultural differences, we didn’t always concur with one another. Sometimes, we agreed to disagree, sometimes we simply came to a consensus, and other times we simply found a way to re-state something in a way that encompassed both sides of the discussion. The escalation of war between Israel and Lebanon then brought up all our differences at a yet deeper level. We had to meet more than once to listen with an open heart to all sides of the story. We found areas of disagreement, and we listened to one another as friends— the person and the relationship had more value than our differences. In Part II of the Epilogue we discuss these areas, and how we resolved them to the best of our ability. We also share why and how we moved beyond these spaces, for we had agreed upon on a mutually shared goal. As women, the mothers of the human race, our hearts were, and are, filled with concern for the entire human family, and all other life. We’ve probably said this before, but it’s worth saying again in that, it was, and is, this caring and intention that fuels every sentence, word and page of this book. As we end this book, we share our deep intentions..."

I hope that our goal on developing the Sophia work will benefit from a bump in the road by deepening our communication with one another. It's important that the core is clear.

Blessings, Sharon "...