Rerun, 1993: My piece about Marianne Williamson that ran in my regular Sunday column in the Chicago Tribune....
She is an announced Democrat candidate and taking on President Joe Biden in the primary (if he runs) and I just saw her on ABC's This Week. And she was darn good.
Original Link from 1993: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-05-30-9305300013-story.html
HELLO, GODDESS, ARE YOU IN THERE?
By Bonnie McGrath
Chicago Tribune
• May 30, 1993 at 12:00 am
You might say that through the years, my female peers and I have had to be flexible. Ready for change. Quick to react. It's been a challenge keeping up with new expectations from a demanding world that never seems to just let us be.
Even a steel core is meltable if there's a fiery smelter of radical change outside, right? So what do we have to do to survive? Tap into our inner core and recognize it for what it is: a reservoir of female strength and individuality.
At least that's what Marianne Williamson says in her new book "A Woman's Worth" (Random House, $17). There's a "goddess" within every woman, she claims, who can weather a frantic, changing world of pressurized demands. (And maybe even put shrinks and Prozac-purveyors out of business.)
You know Williamson. She's the inspirational lecturer, author, non-denominational minister (she performed Liz Taylor's latest marriage) and "gospel singer who doesn't sing," as she refers to herself. Oprah bought 1,000 copies of Williamson's first book, "A Return To Love," to give to her friends.
A lot of people I know are awed by Williamson, the latest guru of inner fulfillment. She's not from a Tibetan mountaintop. She doesn't speak in voices of ancient wise people. She speaks simply and passionately with a very slight Texas twang.
She kind of reminds me of me. And some of the women I know: Around 40. Has a kid. Keeps herself up. Although she-unlike me who only has four girlfriends who call nightly for love/work/kid/makeup/medical/legal advice-is revered by millions for her wisdom and inspiration.
So how and when did Williamson discover the "goddess within" idea? "When I sat down to write a book about me and my girlfriends," she said sleepily one morning from a New York hotel while book-touring. "We were looking constantly to the world for permission-and to give us the gift of our own value."
My new pal Williamson says I need look no further than myself to find a soothing and ancient nobility, that I should get to know the depth of my feeling and passion-and my own intuition. Each woman's goddess "is like a flower," she says. "But there is a similarity. Every flower is different-but all flowers are flowers."
Williamson is a good cheerleader. She made me want to get in touch with my flower/my power. To boldly weather the storms of a sometimes-harsh world. I want to cultivate the kind of confidence that can save a business; the kind of passion that can save a relationship; and the kind of intuition that can save the world. Not to mention the kind of positive thinking that lasts more than five seconds.
All right. I've checked, and I think my goddess within is a slightly wilted petunia. But a flower is still a flower, right?