Dumplings and Devotions.....Preface to the 3rd edition

When a published book goes into several editions at some point the author thinks it is a good idea to update a bit the preface, which is something like “why do this in the first place?’ type of writing. When I began this blog some three years ago it was a bit of a pandemic project connected to an academic need. While the need still exists it seems slightly mind-boggling to think I was living at the time in a country that still required masks. Although, that being said, I am now currently living in a country that almost two months ago recommended making masks compulsory again during the combined flu/covid season we were experiencing. Now, some years on, it might be a good idea to rethink this whole thing again or not. Sometimes it’s simply fine to ‘spill my guts’ as it were on here expressing what needs to be ‘screamed’ to the world at any give time. Until the world becomes too much and hibernation is necessary. This happened between July and December of the past year. The news was so universally depressing and angering that I chose to tune it all out. I am now slowly resurfacing. What has happened in the interim, well maybe the question should start a bit before the hibernation began and should pass through both church, political, and academic topics. 

So much has happened since last Spring and that has shaped a bit what I have written. Since school the concept of truth and that of feminism have weaved themselves into my interests and these have come up frequently over the past year. This ‘year’ began last March with the foreseen fiasco of the self-identifying ‘catholic’ Church in Germany versus the minority Catholic Church in Germany, neither of which were getting much help from the Vatican who appeared to be watching with little interest at a distance. It went through the summer of political ‘bonkers’ in Spain, the utter shambles that is the political landscape in England and globally, punctuated by different politicians in most of the west and Latin America claiming ‘democratic’ victories over a small voting percentage who only went to vote because ‘why not’, some of those ‘victories’ were brought about by unconstitutional means.. Parallel to this and rather fittingly two open wars raged on, a dictator in Nicaragua imprisoned priests, Nigeria kept being a dying ground for more priests, and it became increasingly obvious that in the west we have no idea of what is really going on in Rusia, China, or the Arab countries. A decade after a woman in India was attacked and died from gang rape another woman was gang raped and as far as we know is in hospital (western media has not mentioned her again?) proving that the way deterrent measures are conceived does not really work and some rethinking needs to take place. Yet, on another level, rather depressingly, I discovered that ‘inclusivity’ has reached the once immovable sector of medicine. This is an interesting one, and I asked my rabid atheist brother who is a doctor for some info, which confirmed what I suspected, chromosomes cannot yet be changed by surgery, ie men born men stay men even after sex-change surgery, so no they should not be competing in women’s sports even if they look like a butch woman. My brother, the rabid atheist, who initially questioned Kathleen Stock’s protest and couldn’t understand why a lesbian leftist would be against transgenderisms current promotion of changes in policy, had to conceded that Stock was right, it is wrong to let a man who has ‘transition’ to woman compete against other women, his chromosomes will always be male and they will always have male strength. Now my ‘conversation’ with my rabid atheist brother was not the depressing point in all of this realisation, it was hearing in the news that “non-binary people can menstruate”. The blinders most of the west has on is really the both unsurprising, depressing, and simultaneously mind-boggling fact of the past year. Since our chromosomes don’t change with the sex-change operations only women born women can menstruate. While people should not be discriminated against for wanting to be women when they were born men, and chromosomally continue to be men, we should also try to retain some attachment to the truth about human biology. That our social and political landscape has become so flat as to be unable to contemplate these two facts as two facts that can live next to each other peacefully is truly depressing. 

On a personal level, I have been struggling with chronic illness, reaching its climax with an unexplained swollen knee and in my battle to get some form of care from the NHS while still living in Oxford, and after some months in pain I reached the conclusion that my time and money were better spent travelling to Spain. A short two week trip to Spain to get some treatment followed. Life has a way of working out sometimes as if it knew (God knows of course) before you what you need at that moment. Around this time spending an initial semester at my old Uni in the north of Spain was proposed and well things have improved since then. After my GP in Oxford refused to follow medical protocol and perform an ultrasound of my thyroid (according to him the Germans do it because they are paid to do it) except of course that a person with hypothyroidism and a cyst on her thyroid should be getting one every two years. This I was told by the Cuban doctor that initially diagnosed me. You know, Cuba, that land with so much money for healthcare. This was matched by being told scanning my knee would show nothing, except that MRI’s  of an unexplained swollen knee that is not broken is standard practice in all other countries that can afford to have the machine. What have the overdue scans shown? That I have been suffering from a thyroiditis-so not absorbing vitamins properly and impressive weight gain, and that the untreated knee injury, there was a tear in my ligament, developed a ligament ulcer that now means life-long knee problems. I have a few other things not working that the spaniards are doing their best to help with, so life continues. 

Academically it has been very fruitful, while I continue to work through the myriad materials of the debates on women’s education during the 18th century that form the backdrop of my book on Pietists Lutheran women, the next project has also begun to take shape, one that is more theological, more focused on feminism, and centred on the theological/philosophical renewal of the early 20th century. So I am excited to see if and when, and where, this project will begin to see the light properly. 

Companions to all of this have been the Dominican brothers, sisters, and laity, in Oxford/Cambridge, and here in Pamplona. They are a source of joy and understanding, true companions in this journey. This past year has been a time in which I have come to realise in a new way how blessed I am to have them in my life, from the late night prayers sessions, the regular discussions, the meals, and plans for future pilgrimages, retreats, and adventures I am happy to see St Dominic’s wish and dream that his sons and daughters would be a light to the world lives on. The image in this blog was done by a lay Dominican, a lovely, faithful, big-hearted woman named Alix, it is God’s dog, the image attributed to a dream of Blessed Juana, St Dominic’s mother, and symbolises Dominicans taking God’s light to the world. It also gives the order its more commonly known name ‘Domini’ ‘Cannes’ God’s Dogs, Dominicans. The name also adopted for the blog  and youtube page of the Dominican House of Studies in Oxford: Blackfriars Studium, where the tradition that unites Study and Contemplation, “Contemplata allis Tradere”, lives on. 

At one point during the pandemic, my research project had moved along enough that I would write up a book proposal for it. Shortly after it was accepted for publication I spoke to some friends who said it needed a catchier title with one jokingly saying it should be called "Dumplings and Devotions". Since then I have wondered if I can somehow add this title to the current title. This book in questions being about Lutheran Pietist women points clearly to the devotions part of the title. The Dumplings might confuse some. The events take place in the Protestant German of the Holy Roman Empire in the 18th Century. Germans eat knödel or as my friend calls them Dumplings, delicious dough balls that can either be made of semolina, potatoe or flour or a mix of a few of these. They are usually salty, though some can be sweet, like the Austrian Topfenknödel. I think the coming year, following the Liturgical calendar beginning this Easter, we might just continue in the world of Dumplings and Devotions broadly conceived. To pray, to eat, to enjoy this beautiful life God has given us.