Quotes from Helen LaKelly Hunt

And that's not all the bad news. Another powerful component of our Imago is that we also seek the qualities missing in ourselves—both good and bad—that got lost in the shuffle of socialization.

The history of women has been the history of a destructive kind of suffering, and I do not suggest moving further into that experience. My point is that walking away from pain altogether is equally as destructive. The debilitating suffering come when we do not allow ourselves to feel and work through our pain. Facing pain honestly and surviving gives us strength.

An astute observer might suggest that my emphasis on connection probably comes from experience of its opposite. And that's true. I know what it's like to feel disconnected, on the outside, estranged, not only from other people, but also from myself. I spent many years trying to reassemble the fragments of my divided self and reconnect them.

Every childhood is a dismantling of wholeness, and every adulthood is a process of putting the pieces together again.

Voice is an important aspect of wholeness. Feeling our pain moves us into shadow, where we reclaim denied parts of our selves. This leads to developing a voice that grows increasingly more authentic and full-throated with each newly claimed aspect of our identity. We are no longer speaking from a foundation of self that is riddled with fault lines. The more unified we are, the more authority our voice contains. We voice ourself into being.

The more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that religion and feminism are different expressions of the same impulse toward making life more just and whole.

Nineteenth century feminists made a distinction between institutional authority and their own intensely personal religious experiences. The fact that the church wasn't supporting their efforts didn't mean that God wasn't supporting them, nor did it invalidate their religious faith.

Personal religious experience is not necessarily the same as organized religious doctrine. My concern is that as a contemporary women we have lost the capacity to make this distinction.

The value she gave to the power of relationship was fundamental to Lucretia [Mott]'s sense of social activism.

While Lucretia [Mott]'s public life was inspirational, I also want to to discuss her private life: her quiet actions. I agree with Lucretia's ethic that private acts of integrity are the foundation of a more just and more equitable society. She taught us that small moments of love in action can add up to potent agents of change.

This love in action, the commitment to right relationship and integrity, is essential to the success of any professed sociopolitical agenda.

Pain shapes us, breaking us open so that we can reconfigure ourselves in a way that more deeply mirrors our authentic self.

When we work through our own grief, we can cut to the heart of the common universal experience, which opens us to feel for others.

Our relationships are the crucible of our greatest growth.

If we don't tell our stories to each other, we lose the opportunity to find what binds us together, as human beings and spiritual beings.

We need not the king's horses and men but do need each other to put ourselves back together again.

What I know to be true is this: the crimes of any religious institution do not negate the value of universal love and the religious ideals at its core. Sadly, human institutions will always be flawed reflections of the values they hope to embody.

The patriarchy may have stolen our freedoms, but we don't have to be complicit in the abandonment of our souls.