The spirit of a few women honored

BARBARA DIAMOND

Four feminists shared their paths to personal spiritual enlightenment

with a receptive audience last week at the Laguna Beach Woman’s Club.

“Once a year, we try to pick a feminist issue to discuss,” club

President Peggy Ford said. “Tonight’s topic is one we are all

interested in -- spirituality.”

K Turner, Joan Trivett, Avivah Winocur Erlick and Karen Polek were

the guest speakers.

“No one has ever asked me what my personal spiritual journey was

-- and this isn’t easy for me to talk about,” said school board

member Turner, whose New England background is reflected in her

dignified mien.

Turner was “hard core” Baptist, until she was 19 and realized she

was a lesbian, a realization incompatible with the church in which

she had grown up and her conservative family.

“My parents believed that only boys should go to college and only

men could be ministers,” said Turner, who has degrees in nursing,

law, education and is an ordained minister.

From 19 to 46, Turner searched for a spiritual home.

“Then I was in a horrible traffic accident,” she said.

Her parents cared for her during a long convalescence and

inadvertently led her to a path she now treads with joy.

“These hard-shelled New England Baptists kept babbling about a

television show, ‘There’s a Way,’” Turner said. “I figured if they

liked it, I wouldn’t. I watched it to shut them up.”

The program introduced Turner to the Church of Religious Science.

She has been a member since 1983 and serves as international director

of education.

“It’s what my life is all about now and it’s a nice place to be,”

Turner said.

Trivett’s path brought her full circle.

“Earlier in life, I searched different paths,” Trivett said. “I

studied Yoga under an Eastern master; I became a vegetarian -- and I

still am, but my roots were Western Christian.”

A small step put her on the right path.

“I made a commitment to keep a journal about what I was grateful

for,” Trivett said. “Before that, I thought I was a positive person,

but sometimes at the end of the day, I was angry at myself and others

for things that hadn’t gone well.

“I tend toward perfectionism and few things are perfect. At day’s

end, I had piled up a list of how I and others had failed.”

Keeping the journal shifted her focus.

“I became aware of how blessed I was and more willing to bless

others,” Trivett said. “Life is not all about how perfect I am.”

Women have played a significant role in Trivett’s spiritual

journey. She includes the feminine in her concept of God, including

“Grandma God.”

But it was the circle of women she met when she joined the Laguna

Beach Presbyterian Church eight years ago that played a huge role in

her spiritual journey.

“We became a sisterhood that flourishes today,” Trivett said. “I

have had friendships before but I had never known such depths as this

companionship in Christ.”

Formal education in teachings of St. Ignatius is one of the most

significant changes in Trivett’s life.

“I am happier, more peaceful, less selfish, able to live in the

moment more often and a better listener,” Trivett said. “I am not

perfect, but I am not angry about it any more. I have made the

journey from head to heart.”

For most of her life, Erlick was Diane. As a Rabbinical student,

she has taken the name Avivah, which means life.

Erlick is the daughter of club member Lee Winocur Field and was

remembered by some in the audience as a former reporter and later

editor of the Laguna News Post. She went on to become editor of 10

business newspapers.

Success in journalism and the casual observance of the Jewish

religion were not enough to satisfy her spiritually.

“Judaism wasn’t that important to me as a child, except that I

went to a Conservative summer camp at Ojai,” Erlick said. “It opened

a door for me, but just there at the camp.”

She has bachelors’ and master’s degrees in journalism, which she

chose as a career because she was a feminist.

“I saw my role as changing the world,” Erlick said. “There were

places women couldn’t go. I was going to change that.”

While pursing her career and fulfilling her roles as wife and

mother, Erlick also pursued what she thought of as a hobby: chanting

the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament.

“It was important to me, but I didn’t know why,” Erlick said.

Having reached all her goals as a journalist by the time she was

40, Erlich began to consider another career.

Erlich quit her job and began studying to be a Rabbi, following

the path blazed by Regina Jonas in 1932, the first female Rabbi, who

couldn’t find a pulpit until the male Rabbis fled the Nazis.

Of the divisions in her religion, Erlick leans toward the

Orthodox, but she would never be accepted as a Rabbi by an Orthodox

congregation. She considers herself a Conservative.

“For about a year, I have had a more functional relationship with

God,” Erlick said. “Now I am so happy.”

Polek, also born in New England and a perfectionist like Trivett

explored Judaism in her spiritual journey from strict Catholic to a

smorgasbord of choices.

“I am spiritual, not religious,” Polek said. “I pick and choose

from them all.”

Polek said her parents sped her on her journey. Her father, a

farmer, taught her to love and respect nature.

“I see God everywhere,” she said.

Her mother, who adored Mary, mother of Christ, led Polek to seek

the goddess in herself.

She was angered that her brother could serve as alter boy and she

could not; that she had to wear a hat in church and he did not.

“When I was about 19 or 20, my parents gave me an ultimatum: go to

church or get out,” Polek said.

She got out and discovered sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. She also

got married and began a stodgy career.

“I got a divorce at 33, the best thing I ever did,” Polek said.

At 40, she started exploring her inner self. She quit corporate

life to open a physical therapy practice that includes treatment of

mental and emotional pain.

She was ordained a nondenominational minister in 1999 and is

writing a book about spirituality of nature.

Asked for criteria for a feminist, all four speakers said it’s a

belief in and striving for the equality of women.

“Some of us think that women approach spirituality differently

than men,” program chair Anne Johnson said. “Makes sense -- women

approach everything differently.”

* OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box

248, Laguna Beach, 92652; hand-deliver to 384 Forest Ave., Suite, 22;

call (949) 494-4321 or fax (949) 494-8979.