L I TERAT URE IN RE VIE W
Continued from page 25
Perhaps most striking are the responses at Penelope’s Brooklyn independent school, Miriam
Carr Academy, founded by an African American female bishop who was graduated from Princ-
eton Theological Seminary. First, there are Penelope’s fellow students, who quickly accept that
his gender and pronoun are both male: “Penelope was in fact a boy. His classmates knew it... and
they weren’t about to let the adults confuse what they so fiercely knew to be true.”
When Jodie and her husband meet with the Bishop to
explain Penelope’s self-definition and ask if she can ac-
cept this truth, her reply is brief and moving: “Penelope
“‘There was a whole
is a prophet. And I’m with him on this journey.” Later
generation coming up
on, Jodie sees that “There was a whole generation
under me whose defini-
coming up under me whose definition of ‘normal’ cast
a far wider net than that of the generations before. In
tion of ‘normal’ cast a far
fact, they eliminated the net completely.”
wider net than that of the
generations before. In
fact, they eliminated the
net completely.’”
A special quality of The Bold World, one that may help
some readers overcome their own reservations, is its
consistent and frank spirituality. The women in Jodie’s
life depended on prayer and meditation to see them
through the trials of their eras, and Jodie still does.
She speaks frequently of the soul and the body, of
the body being “overanalyzed and micromanaged,” and of “letting the soul lead.” In one of her
highest moments she declares, “Penelope is spirit. We all are. This is about Penelope, his soul,
nothing else.”
In the end, the highest praise I can give The Bold World is that as I read it, the words of two
spiritual giants kept echoing for me: Simone Weil’s “Every being cries out silently to be read
differently,” and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We
are spiritual beings on a human journey.” Not bad company. l
Richard (Dick) Barbieri “retired” after 40 years in independent schools only to take up a new
career in conflict resolution and mediation. He mediates between parties and facilitates
discussions in a broad range of circumstances, from family and court cases to cross-cultural
dialogue between students from universities around the world. In addition to Connections
Quarterly, he writes regularly for Independent School, and online at www.mediate.com. He
is editor of ACResolution, the quarterly of the Association for Conflict Resolution. Contact
him at [email protected].
Page 26 Summer 2019
CSEE Connections