Dossin's writing groups help women witness to their faith

Mary Mortimore DossinMary Mortimore Dossin has been a writer and a teacher of writing for more than 40 years, having retired several years ago from the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Years of encouraging and guiding writers in high schools, adult night schools, colleges, and now in churches, have taught her that people everywhere long to write their stories. Helping them do so has become her life’s calling and led to the writing and publication of her book, Christian Voices: Leading Women’s Writing Groups in Churches (Trafford Publishing).

Currently a member of  Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Plattsburgh, N.Y., Dossin has been active in congregational life since childhood. Her experiences have convinced her that most congregations need more intergenerational activities that lead to close bonding of members and shared laughter and tears. Women’s writing groups, she feels, fill this need. They also offer a forum in which women can witness to their faith and offer spiritual hope and comfort to others in an encouraging and personal setting.

Leading these groups enable Dossin to intertwine three essential threads in her life – writing, teaching and faith. “The groups also allow me to continue to grow as the women share their stories and witness,” she said.

“Writing and teaching are gifts from God that I have had the privilege of using and developing throughout my life,” she added. “To be able to continue to serve my church and my Lord in my retirement with these gifts builds my own faith and, wonderfully, that of others. I cannot imagine being more blessed at this time in my life.”

Dossin, a graduate of Valparaiso (Ind.) University, has been extensively published in academic and religious journals and anthologies and has been a speaker at numerous national writing conferences. She has authored devotional pieces for Augsburg Fortress, including two pieces for Sundays and Seasons 2009.

Dossin also contributes to Lutheran Woman Today, the monthly magazine of the Women of the ELCA. Her article  Come As You Are about how the love of her congregation helps heal a hurting family, appears in the “Give Us This Day” column in the April 2011 issue. A second article is scheduled to run as a feature in the fall.

Dossin and her husband Ernie, former treasurer of the New England Synod, divide their time between Chazy, N.Y., and St. Petersburg, Fla., near their sons and grandchildren. While in Florida, she leads a women’s writing group at Our Savior Lutheran Church, St. Petersburg.

Rejoice

By Mary Mortimore Dossin   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

“Rejoice in the Lord, always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4 NRSV). Paul was in prison awaiting trial when he wrote these words, and the young, beloved church to which he wrote them was facing serious problems about which Paul was very concerned.

The women who come to the writing groups I lead are generally joyful people also, smiling and exchanging greetings as they enter the room and take their seats around the table. Our conversation as we wait for time to begin is always upbeat. But the stories they write and share during our sessions reveal the burdens they bear as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and friends.

One described watching with great pain as the marriage of her son disintegrated over a period of several years. Her daughter-in-law fell under the influence of a group of younger women addicted to texting, bar-hopping, and divorcing their husbands in order to attain their own “freedom.” The mother’s attempts to talk to the young woman were in vain. The break was especially painful to her because of its effect on her beloved young grandson.

Another woman and her husband are still giving substantial and sacrificial financial support to their elder son, now over 50, who has never held a job that pays well enough to support his family. Though extremely intelligent and capable, he is unable to get along with people and never lasts long in a job that requires him to do so. He has long, heart-rending phone conversations with his mother.

A son who has always been a Goodtime Charlie, avoiding anything that seems like work—homework, chores, and now, as an adult, a regular job—has brought his widowed mother real heartache by achieving, on his third try, the undeserved designation of “disabled” from Social Security and looking forward to an “easy” life.

I tell the women in my writing groups to write about questions they need to answer for themselves.  Some are concerned about children who have fallen away from the faith they were taught and grandchildren who are “being raised like little heathens.” One woman wrote about her lifelong responsibility for an increasingly debilitated brother, a burden complicated by the fraught relationship between him and her unwell husband. Others choose to write about how to balance caring for aging parents with managing the duties of their own lives.

As I age myself, I increasingly identify with the older women in my groups who have concerns about husbands whose health is beginning to fail or who are confined to nursing homes where the care is substandard.  Widows have many questions about how to survive on their own, and aging women are troubled about their own health problems.

Women face every day life’s basic question, Paul’s question: How does one live with joy despite the presence of evil and suffering and the inevitability of death? At the end of a session of women’s writing group that has been particularly loaded with care, we do what Paul tells the Philippians to do: “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (6). We have available to us the same resources that made it possible for Paul to experience “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (7): the fellowship of other Christian believers and the solace and power of prayer.