Rachel Contos is our Woman of the Week, nominated for her work in community organizing around ending homelessness and improving maternal and child health. You see her here with colleagues from the Homelessness Alliance and the priest and two chanters from her parish. Her experiences in community organizing helped determine her graduate studies. We asked her to tell you what drew her to theology:
"When I tell people I study theology, they often respond in one of two ways—either asking why I would study theology or with a deeply personal story about their own relationship to God, the Church, or spirituality in general. And I realize now that I’m getting a PhD in theological ethics because of these stories--and am blessed to hear them because I’m studying theology. Each reason is deeply connected to the other.
"Saul Alinsky, the prolific community organizer, talked about how we needed to live in “the world as it is” and seek “the world as it should be.” Hearing the lived experiences of others has helped me often see “the world as it is,” while theology has given me a framework for building, in community, the “world as it should be.” We cannot pretend that one is the other. If we think we live in the world as it should be and ignore the cries of those experiencing it as something other than that beautiful "should," we won’t work to build what is possible.
"What this has meant for me in my theological journey is radical honesty with God—a radical honesty that has always led me to trying to work in community to build a better world. For example, my first real experience at feeling upset about Orthodoxy was in high school. The story is not completely mine to share, but suffice it to say that I was going to leave the Church. The world as it was sucked for me—I experienced a Church I felt didn’t care, a God who was hateful, and a bunch of people who didn’t get it. So, I prayed to God nightly saying, “God, I hate you right now.” Every night for months I told God about my hate. I wasn’t nice. I didn’t express disagreement. I expressed disdain. And you know what? In that radical honesty, I felt like God’s presence encircled me with love and asked me to make a world where I didn’t feel hate. That’s how I started going to liturgy again. It felt like a simple enough step to just be part of the Church.
"In college, I remembered seeing the world as it is—with homelessness, people dying because of a lack of healthcare, systemic racism, lack of access to education—and I was angry. I prayed to God and tried to be honest with how I felt. I asked “WHY? Like really, why is this OK, God?!” That’s when I decided to study theology and also focus on social justice. I lived in the world as it is, and Orthodox theology taught me about a theology that sought the Kingdom of God—the world as it should be.
"Out of undergrad I worked at an organization whose mission was to end homelessness at the systemic level. And people would mention God in the most heart-wrenching ways. One that stands out is a young man I worked with whose brother was murdered. He said to me “It’s just God’s will—I just don’t know why he wanted my brother to die.” This young man’s world was one where he thought God wanted his brother to die. When that young man expressed that to me, it was his radically honest truth—and I’m glad he said it. But, in my understanding of Orthodox theology, God doesn’t will us to get murdered: In the world as it should be, his brother would be alive. This encounter helped me decide to get an MA in theology focused on theology and society at Marquette University, where I was also a Trinity Fellow (part of a fellowship program dedicated to developing urban leaders with a commitment to social and economic justice).
"During my MA, so many women came up to me and expressed a sense of sadness at the role of women in the Church. That is their experience of the world as it is. And what I’ve learned is God will help me and guide me if I’m radically honest about my sadness about the role of women in the Church. That’s how I ended up on the board of Axia Women and the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess—two organizations that are working for the world as it should be. I’m also starting a PhD in theological ethics at Fordham Unviersity to study, theologically and practically, what it looks like to listen to these stories, see the honestly in them and, in responding with love, create the Church, the world, the Kingdom as it should be."
Axia!
Our Woman of the Week is Rachel Contos, nominated for her work to end homelessness and improve maternal and child health in her community. (You see her in her workplace and with colleagues advocating for the Just Housing Initiative.) In her graduate studies, she has specialized in intersectionality, not a common topic among Orthodox theologians. We asked her to tell you what that is and why she is drawn to it:
"I study intersectional theology because to me it is the most holistic framework for integrating systemic change with Orthodox theology. Intersectionality is the idea that each of us has intersecting social locations (or identities) that interact with overlapping systems of oppression. For example, in the story of St. Photini, the Samaritan woman, she is seen as an outsider for being a Samaritan and a woman—but the oppression she faced couldn’t be parsed out based on which identity because she is a full person who has both social locations.
"One particularly important aspect of intersectionality that I want to highlight is the basement metaphor, an idea in Kimberle Crenshaw's original work on intersectionality, because I think it pairs beautifully with Orthodox theology. The basement metaphor asks us to imagine that we are all in a basement stacked on top one another and that there is one hatch at the top. There is no underlying reason someone is at the bottom or top, it is simply their location—but clearly those at the top have an easier time getting out of the basement. We could start getting out of a basement by building a ladder down to the first row and then adding more rungs. Or, we could build a ladder to the bottom, thus getting everyone out of the basement. Those at the bottom have the most potential for liberating everyone from the basement.
"I study this because it reminds me of Christ’s Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection—the keys to the Orthodox idea of theosis (divinization, salvation). Christ saved us by literally bending the heavens to become human. Christ then went through an ultimate form of marginalization and suffering in His death. Christ then went literally down to the deepest basement—Hades—and saved us. Christ is the ultimate example of the basement metaphor, and I’m interested in continuing to study what that means for how the Orthodox community participates actively in creating a more just world."
We asked our Woman of the Week, Rachel Contos, about her morning routine:
"Full disclosure here, I have a kind of chaotic and non-linear morning routine. It’s more of a cluster that happens in some chunk of time before noon, but not necessarily before work. So, what I’ve decided to do is share that cluster of things:
- I always awaken to a gentle alarm clock. No violent wake-up for me. My current alarm sound is chimes.
- I snooze the alarm for 10-15 minutes. This time can be used for many things—but not thinking about work or to-do lists. I might reflect, pray, sleep, think about a happy memory, stretch, or just zone out and then feel startled that it’s already been 15 minutes.
- I brush my teeth and listen to a song. I often memorize the 2-minute mark of songs I like just so I can brush my teeth to them, precisely to know when I’ve brushed for the recommended amount of time. (If you want to try this, I recommend ‘I Am Woman’ by Helen Reddy, because the start of the third verse falls at the 2-minute mark exactly!)
- I check my planner. I’m a big fan of the Happy Planner because it’s like a bullet journal but with some parts already made. And it has fun stickers. I love the idea that if I design a week I don’t like, there is always next week. My habit tracker reminds me to:
- Read the daily reading, and
- Study Spanish
- Make an iced…something! Water, coffee, tea, horchata, juice—something cold.
- Make something for breakfast.
- Start work.
"With the exception of waking up, I’ve done all of these in a different order (and I’ve probably dreamt about some of these things). I like this more chaotic style because it allows me to listen to my body and to do things as my own creative or productive energy flows."
Thank you, Rachel!