I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me
as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
- Dawna Markova
What do I trust and believe in? I believe that there was this guy named Jesus, that he preached and embodied God like no other being. I believe that the Bible tells a story of a history of people desperately reaching for God and trying to understand… and I believe that sometimes they misunderstood. I believe that the Bible speaks of a history of people following a certain God, but that certain texts are less historically valid and more corrupted than others. I understand textual criticism and how to apply it to my sacred texts.
Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness
olds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise
each day splintered down, and wrapped in time
like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at
dawn fast over the mountains split.
—Annie Dillard
For centuries, women’s rights have been withheld because of religious patriarchy’s claim of women’s supposed moral inferiority. Women’s ordination has remained a controversial issue and is not available to Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and many Protestant denominations, despite the compelling arguments for women’s equality and the progress that feminists have made in creating a voice for women around the world. Many, if not most, Christian institutions still reject the notion that women should have equal rights to ordination.
The consequences of the denial of ordination rights to women are far reaching—the conscious and subconscious mindsets created and supported by antifeminist religious positions are damaging to progressive movements and serve to keep people in an archaic mindset that presupposes the spiritual and moral superiority of men, which can be used to support abuse, oppression, and varying forms of mistreatment toward women.
Penny: “Where is the presence of God in my privilege?”
Genesis is a story of increasing diversity.
“For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers for ever.”
–Jeremiah 7:5-7
Rick Perry… If people have no health insurance, should we just let them die?
Immigration… let them die?
The migrant experience is such that they always feel homesick at home.
We think about the presence and absence of God. My process theology views don’t work that way.
The women from Chilpancingo are like Mary, watching their children crucified by an unjust system. We re-crucify God when we ignore humanity’s pain.
Comfort in discomfort. Jesus’ ministry gives us comfort, but Jesus’ ministry was also to make us feel uncomfortable. The discomfort that we feel is God working within us. Jesus wanted us to give up our comforts, which I think extends to our spiritual comfort. Our spiritual discomfort is important and challenges us to strive for justice.
Perhaps we should feel comfortable with our discomfort.
Lee: “I know what is right and this is not right.”
Still small voice.
We had a meeting with Dan Romero, a retired minister who now works as an immigration lawyer, all pro-bono.
Immigrants pay money into federal taxes more so than local taxes.
John F. Kennedy: A Nation of Immigrants
Two or three times, Latinos have been swept up and deported in waves throughout history.
Code words: “Illegal alien.” Illegal connotes criminal. Fact: being here illegally is not criminal in U.S. law. It’s a federal civil matter.
Judges in immigration are appointed by the justice department.
More immigration judges are women.
Refugees are legally entered and received.
Asylum = already here/at border. There is a quota.
The waiver process takes about a year and a half (if you want to be excused for the time here illegally and the 10 year penalty). However, you may not be granted the waiver. Three visits to the office are required.
What is fair?
We don’t have the right to horde the resources of the globe. We should be working on bridging the economic divide.
On one of the border walls (because there are so many), construction was stopped because the contractor was using undocumented workers. Seriously.
On one of the border walls, it says:
“The cross of the migrant Jesus
Abused by the police
Betrayed by the coyotes
Persecuted by Border Patrol”
The Bible tells us to, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” Is that what this is?
We met with some women from Chilpancingo. The women are/were factory workers. They are made to take constant pregnancy tests and fired if they are found pregnant. They have clocks attached to a tie on their wrist, so if they leave their work station to go to the bathroom, they don’t get paid. Women wear diapers to work because of this.
10,000 families (families, not people) live in this shanty-town. It is being bull-dozed to make space for a canal.
I woke up that morning to find my mother asleep on the couch. She had not been there the night before; she’d gone to my grandparents’ house, as she had many nights, because Grandpa’s fever was high and it might be his last.
My mom was asleep on the couch and my dad stood in front of the fireplace, watching her sleep. He told us. My mom is usually the one to do the “parenting,” especially the emotional stuff, but my dad took it that morning.
We went to grandma and grandpa’s house. Nothing felt real. The absurdity of someone disappearing from your life– your mind and body resist it. This isn’t real, our brain seems to tell us. Almost every time this happens, it’s followed by waking up in my bed. But death is the nightmare you don’t wake up from.
Everyone was there. Wandering through the house like zombies, we looked at each other like broken dolls. A strange smile– Hello, I am trying to comfort and I love you but the world isn’t real right now and are we really here?
I went up to his bedroom, searching for the truth. It’s as if I was daring the world to hit me. Do it. I dare you. The hospital bed was gone. It left a bright spot of plush carpet that was surrounded by a ring of worn carpet from visitors, family, and caretakers around his bed.
I stared at the bright spot of carpet and sat on my grandmother’s bed. I looked in the mirror; my face was contorted and red and swollen and wet. I could hear people looking for me, but I stayed there. I stared at my reflection; it was the most real and artificial moment I have ever experienced.
Someone peeked through the doorway and found me. They didn’t say anything and went back to the kitchen.
Everyone tells you that death is hard. That love is hard. That grief is hard.
But they don’t tell you that it changes your life. It breaks you in a way that makes you forever stronger and weaker, a spiritual wound like Jacob. It’s make and break.
After the funeral, when people silently stand around, committing themselves to carrying on the beautiful lights of those lost, we all quietly agree to become better people.
Twenty years later, I’ve found a way to make sweet honey out of pain. Knowing how important John Kiely was to the world, I knew there were parts of him that I needed to carry forward. 20 years later, my life is changed.
But I still wish that all of my begging with God had worked. I still wish he were here. I would still hold the secret and never tell a soul about the miracle, if only God would work it. I can try to look on the bright side and see how a candle, held above, lights all below.
But I just want to get closer and feel its warmth.
"When [the Right Reverend Graham Leonard] was not able to prevent the celebration of this Eucharist [by a female deacon], his rhetoric became so excessive and his prejudice so obvious that he actually helped our cause. He attacked his dean, Elizabeth Canham, and me. He demanded that I “discipline Miss Canham.” I do not quite know what he expected me to do, but I was amused by his archaic language. When Bishop Leonard announced in the mid-1980s that “women could not be priests in the Anglican Communion because God had created them just to be wives and mothers,” I howled with delight. “These words,” I said in a prepared statement, “are spoken by the bishop of London in a land where Elizabeth II sits on the throne and where Margaret Thatcher runs the government. Perhaps the bishop of London does know know either what country he is living in or what century.”"
NOTHING WILL BENEFIT HUMAN HEALTH AND INCREASE CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL OF LIFE ON EARTH AS MUCH AS THE EVOLUTION TO A VEGETARIAN DIET.
Albert Einstein
I worry that my enthusiasm for vegetarianism is perceived as judgmental. I think that any time someone says that something they do is RIGHT, it is perceived as though anything anyone else does to the contrary is WRONG. Seriously, almost everyone in my life eats meat and pretty much all of you I love and admire for various reasons. I never meant to imply that any of you are not good, moral people.
I do believe that veganism is the right thing to do. That said, I still eat eggs and dairy sometimes. It is a source of spiritual unrest for me and I hope that someday soon I will make the full switch.
There is a documentary called “Earthlings” that, even as a devout vegetarian, I have yet to watch. It’s called the “vegan-maker” and that’s exactly why I don’t want to watch it. I enjoy eating eggs. I enjoy community and family that surround meals. I enjoy normalcy and not having to defend my choices because they become painfully obvious about 3 times a day. I know that people think vegetarians and vegans are aggressive, but perhaps until you give up animal products (I have been pescatarian since about 2004, vegetarian since 2008, and I have been vegan every Lent since 2008) you understand little of what it takes. I get criticized a lot. I get defensive diatribes frequently, despite the fact that “in real life,” I almost never bring up my vegetarianism. Almost all of the time that I go into why I don’t eat meat is when I am being defensive because someone is trying to tell me how stupid I am or how I am fighting genetics or classist or something. Yes, cravings. I craved meat for a while and every so often something will make me think “wouldn’t that be nice?” When my dad makes his signature spaghetti sauce for our family gathering with out-of-state relatives who I see every few years, wouldn’t it be nice if I could enjoy that Eucharist-like meal with them? Wouldn’t it?
But as anyone who is remotely religious knows, once you know something in the core of your being, it stays there. I know Jesus existed and I know that his life changed the world. His unprecedented connection with God and the universe is unparalleled and beautiful in a way that still has ripple effects of spirit on my life today. His acts of radical inclusivity changed the paradigm of “love” and challenged each of us to widen our circles of compassion and consider our lives in a grander scheme, to understand how our own ripples effect the future in very real ways.
Proactive justice is real. I know so many people who are proactively orienting their lives on a trajectory of justice.
I know so many people who do few things in their day-to-day lives that constitute any kind of moral decision-making.
Both of these “categories” contain their passive elements. PASSIVE INJUSTICE is real, too. In the ways we forget to make room for our LGTBQ friends, for our friends of color, for our friends of differing abilities, for our friends of different genders and languages and cultures and ages and etc etc etc etc etc.
I truly believe that most of us commit most of the injustices of our lives in the ways that we spend our money. The classist, racist, sexist, genderist, homophobic, hateful people we give our money to by virtue of our spending habits, the industries we support and the things those industries do to strip us of our dignity and moral compass.
Follow the money.
Please please please, if you have any agency in the ways you spend money… I know not all of us have the luxury of choice. But if you DO. If you have enough money to buy coffee or eat out or buy clothing out of anything but need or eat out of anything but hunger….
Consider what your money supports.
If you eat animals, it likely supports inhumane treatment, genetic interference with species, torture, mistreatment of workers, environmental degradation, carbon emissions, and the decline of healthful bodies. If you have the ability to consider your spending habits and make choices about when and where from you buy things in a way that can improve the nature of your contribution, I pray that you will. I pray that I will.
Since issues on the border are dominating headlines, I want to share some of my experience in a border immersion trip I took with my church a few years back.
“I am your servant, O God. I live to do your will.”
Bring your whole self and open your whole self.
You live in a different world than everyone else and the same world as everyone else.
Struggle with the presence or absence of God.
“Mexico: so close to the United States but so far from God.”
Mexicans are the disposable people of the United States. They are not treated like other immigrant communities. After we welcome their workforce, we have pushed them out into the poverty of communities in Tijuana.
A story: San Diego police would go to a hotel in town and insist that the owner open its rooms and show people’s documents. They told the owner, “If you don’t, the next time you need us, we won’t come.” How is that good law enforcement?
Recently, a Puerto Rican was deported to Mexico because he didn’t have a passport. People are harassed because of how they look. Puerto Ricans are citizens!
Lest we get all upset that our stories are biased, the police department and Border Patrol will not send officers to speak at Centro Romero (the center we visited).
On the plus side, Police in San Ysidro are very quick on crime. It’s a safe place.
Each year, 85,000 to 90,000 victims of sexual trafficking come through Tijuana. Prostitution is illegal, but there is a Zone of Tolerance in the city. People pay $10,000 to $25,000 for young virgin girls. Girls are kidnapped or sold by their families. The U.S. is the second largest market for sexual trafficking. Germany is 1st.
I think to myself: Why did I get this life? There is no cosmic justice.
Your life is not good or bad because of anything deserved or undeserved. You can improve your life. You can hurt your life. You don’t control it any more than God.
God is what connects us. Not more or less. God will not make your life better or worse except to help you connect and feel connected to whatever world you live in an whichever people are surrounding you or your mind.
We watched a documentary called Maquilopolis which was about the factory workers, most of whom are women, in Tijuana. The factories pay them horrible wages, they work 6 12-hour days per week in poor conditions, and live in a shanty-town which is heavily polluted by the factories (against NAFTA policy). U.S. companies are supposed to dispose of waste outside of Mexico, but they simply dump it in the water supply.
NAFTA made it hard for Mexico to compete with the larger global sources of agriculture. Since Mexico was a primarily agricultural country, many of its citizens lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA. The Tratador de Guadalupe also led many legal workers to be pushed out of the US and displaced them in the border region of Mexico. This is a reason that the maquiladoras rose in the border region.
NAFTA violated the Mexican Constitution (mandated its change); the Mexican Constitution guaranteed land ownership to Mexicans. No foreigners could own land before NAFTA.
The Mexican government doesn’t care/likes illegal immigration in the US because it brings money back into Mexico.
Part of the problem is that after NAFTA did so much to destroy Mexico’s agricultural industry to the benefit of the US, Mexico and its government can’t offer its citizens work that can sustain their families. Most migrants want to be in Mexico, but they need to feed their families. Many Mexicans are here out of necessity.
There have been more deportations in the Obama administration than in the entirety of the Bush administration.
Someone asked, “What happened to Obama?” I think Obama wants to demonstrate compromise, but instead has been stomped on because the Republicans aren’t willing to compromise.
Today I am carrying 2 stones in my pockets. The peace “hearth stone” was part of a ritual in my morning class offered by Marie, one of my amazing Roman Catholic peers. The stone chose me (according to the ritual) and is a needed message for me about balance, center, and biting off more than I can chew. The other stone is one that I chose to pick up from a #tdor altar, “to help carry the burden of lives lost.” With everything going on in the world and in many of the circles I operate within and try to support, this time is heavy with grief and struggle. I find this contrast with a season of thanks and the coming of Advent to be infusive. May we all find a balance between grief and joy, saying “yes” and saying “no,” giving and receiving, works and grace. #prayer #ritual #tdor #translivesmatter (at Pacific School of Religion)
I'm just gonna post this because I think holidays are complicated. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I wrote this yesterday, but chose to post it today, so as not to rain on everyone's parade.
I don't eat meat, so having an animal carcass in my refrigerator is honestly hard for me. It feels yucky and I feel like I need to be praying for that bird, who lived a tortured, short life, and is now shrink-wrapped and beheaded, waiting to be unceremoniously (or ceremoniously, but without much respect for the life of the bird) devoured by my family as we commemorate a lie that perpetuates a white supremacist imagining of American history and continues to ignore white complacency in racist genocide and the ongoing suffering of America's indigenous peoples.
Recognizing and celebrating gratitude is important, especially in a nation as privileged as the U.S. However, the premises of the holiday fly at odds with an honest telling of history and the spirit of the holiday itself. To celebrate gratitude for the abundance in our lives without acknowledging the lives slaughtered so we could call that abundance ours (speaking as a white American) is indicative of some of our greatest flaws as a nation.
In many ways, this holidays speaks to who we are, but I would argue that the lessons of gratitude are outweighed by a kind of scotosis that seems to dominate our national narratives. That may be the truest part of this celebration.
The Thanksgiving holiday is representative of our national scotosis more than it is representative of a nation that is truly grateful for its blessings or honest about how we come to those "blessings."
Am I grateful that I am well-fed and surrounded by family? Every effing day. Do I think holidays that bring us together and ask us to be grateful in a culture that values consumerism and expansion are good ideas? Of course. Do I think consumerism and expansion are problematically wound into the narrative of the holiday? Yes. Do I think it's harmful to re-tell an historical lie? Yes.
I think we need to find a better way to root ourselves in gratitude and family than to tell ourselves lies at the expense of the integrity and value of a massacred and continuously oppressed population.
And eating animals is gross and barbaric, IMHO. A holiday centered around eating an animal in a culture that eats far too many animals, to the detriment of our own health and the health of the planet, not to mention the integrity of animal life, is pretty nasty.
I don't want to go into my arguments for vegetarianism (you can search my tags to find them).
While this holiday is well-intentioned, I think it highlights some of our biggest problems as a nation. That we glorify these things and continue to celebrate a holiday that most of us know is built upon a damaging lie, says a lot about where we are in the unfolding of our nation and our moment in history.
I continue to believe in change. We can do better.
I would say that religion is a system of beliefs and values one has that are related to a history and, most often, a community of others who hold similar beliefs and values derived from that shared history. I would argue that religion is one’s dominant paradigm, whether or not that paradigm can be categorized under the traditional understanding of “religion.” Therefore, political views, atheism, etc. can be considered religions. One’s religion is, more simply, whatever worldview most inspires one’s morality, values, beliefs, and practices. I don’t believe there is anyone who isn’t religiously devoted to something. It’s part of self-identity for most of us.
For me, religion isn’t something that helps me sleep better at night or provides me with some sense of comfort that people who die end up in some kind of Disneyland. My religion is a system which provides a holistic approach to bettering the world and my person. Derived from a history of people seeking to do good in the world (in its better moments), it’s a study of this history, a commitment to justice, and a lens with which to look inward at the kind of relationship I seek to have with myself, others, and the higher order of being. While religion provides me a sense of inner peace and orients my life in a way that enhances meaning, it doesn’t make me giddy.
She wanted to be one of those people who found a subject to pursue, then discover a sweet secret about themselves, finally seeing through the filter of what was learned. To take knowledge— facts, stories, equations, whatever it was— and learn to breathe under the water of that place. People who did this found out how alive they were.
Elizabeth Cox, The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love
I try to read daily as part of my spiritual practice. I have a handful of books that are good for small, daily portions that are good to sit with and think on.
So, I've done two of my readings for today. The first dealt with a certain idea: "God, make me a bird so I can fly away."
It's from Psalms, not Forrest Gump. FYI.
My second reading dealt with another idea: "God, make me a mountain."
These seem like opposite ideas. I like to look for synchronicity in life. I like to think God/the Universe is trying to tell me something when I come upon these moments. You might think, Girl, all you're doing is spiritualizing random coincidences.
Here's the truth: I don't care. Humans are unique in our ability to create and perceive meaning. If there's no God or no particular order to the universe, and no one's "talking to" me, then maybe I'm just creating weird stories to go along with my experience. If that's the truth, that's okay. If I'm just creating my own meaning, then that is beautiful, too. Whether or not we believe in God or spirit or any kind of grander, more-or-other-than-scientific realities, finding meaning and metaphors in our experience is still beautiful.
So, whether or not you share this view, I like to think moments of particular synchronicity or contrast mean something. So what does it mean to be a bird and a mountain?
I am someone who believes in balance. Few things in the world are inherently good or bad. Alcohol in excess is a bad idea. So is water. Or broccoli. Anything in excess is bad for us, even much of what we like to think is good for us. It's not good to be a bird all the time, right? Trying to escape all of our problems is probably not healthy, but there are certain circumstances that are quite important to escape. Or, even if our circumstance should be dealt with, it's okay to want to fly away. Bravery can be fighting that feeling. Bravery isn't an absence of fear-- that's just insanity. Bravery is acting despite our fear when we know there is a greater good to be achieved.
Sometimes life needs us to be a mountain, to be strong and unmovable. Other times, we need to be birds.
So today, am I being a bird or a mountain? And which should I be aspiring to?
It's okay to say "no" to your thoughts.
My brain can be a minefield of damaged and damaging thoughts. While the better parts of me know that, it's hard not to get swept away in our thoughts and emotions. I think, therefore I am, right?
Now, when someone I love says something ignorant or wrong, I know how to hold my love for them and say, "nope" to whatever idea they have. I can change my TV channel and stop watching a dumb show.
And I can say "no" to my thoughts.
"Nope, not going down that spiral of self-hatred. I am not listening to that voice today."
If I can learn to speak out against things in the world, I can learn to speak out against myself when I need to.
Is this thought bringing me growth or trying to keep me small? Is this accomplishing making me a better person, or am I just beating myself up for things I wouldn't beat up anyone else?
A little while ago, a thought occurred to me that changed some of my thinking. Perhaps it's simple and perhaps it's not something you need to hear, but here it is:
It's okay to say no to your thoughts.
When this came to me, it changed a lot for me. As an anxious, depressed person, I often feel captive to my thoughts. They can feel minimizing and paralyzing.
I'm trying to learn (and it's a process that requires consciously reminding myself, which I am not always able to do) that when I think thoughts that are self-hateful or rooted in fears that I realistically know are unmerited, I can decide they don't matter. Just like when someone says something I know is wrong or is misinformed, I can recognize that my thoughts are sometimes rooted in my illness or the unhealthy ways I've learned to navigate the world.
Like when I look in the mirror and my mind jumps to all of the criticisms of my physical appearance, I can say no to those thoughts because I know that my body weight is relatively stable and falls within a healthy range for someone my height. My signs of age are proof that I have survived everything I've survived. They're proof that I've spent 33 years improving myself and I have no desire to go back 15 years. My stretch marks are signs my body gave me that maybe I needed to be healthier, but they're also scars of eating disorders and depression. They're more proof of survival. They're also proof of my body's ability to adapt. My body is healthy. My body looks like my ancestors and people I love. My body has gotten me here. If I believe in progress or resurrection or guidance from God or wisdom -- or all of those things-- then I believe that all of what brings me to where I am is a journey ordained by the universe, particularized to my soul, so that I might learn more.
When I feel hate within myself, no matter where it's directed, I have to try to re-train myself to love. So when I think those self-hateful thoughts, I can say "nope," and choose to exit that internal conversation, just like I can choose to walk away from any jerk who disrespects me.
Not today, brain. Not today.
So here's today's truth: It's okay to say no to your thoughts.
What thoughts do you find it's healthy to say no to? Are there thoughts you find yourself lured into and losing control of?
So I like to try to stay informed about what happens in the Holy Land. Here is a playlist of recent news videos, in case you also care to stay informed:
I don't know what will happen in the 2020 elections. I don't even know what will happen in elections this November. If this political era has taught us anything, it's that the story we think we're in can change drastically from week to week.
I don't know who the Democratic nominee will be, but I wonder....
If (IF) Trump doesn't win in 2020, what will happen? I fear that Trump will not accept the election results, and since he will still be in power in that moment, what will he do?
One thing I've learned from Shonda Rhimes is that dancing can help with stress. I also think dancing around my house is a good way to move my body for a while.
Maybe try it? Make one or a few playlists and make a ritual of dancing for 20 minutes each day. Just get down by yourself and see how it makes you feel.
Most studies show that most behavioral changes become habit after one month and also seem to start producing effects within a similar time frame.
Well, according to Ezekiel 1 they might look something like this…
According to Daniel 10 something like this…
According to Isaiah 6…
In Ezekiel 10…
Again in Ezekiel 10…
Basically, when the people writing Scripture tried to describe what they saw when they saw an angel… they run into the end of their imagination… they can never quite seem to fully explain it because they had trouble even comprehending what they saw, let alone being able to describe it to someone else.
Yeah, that’s usually how people responded to seeing them in the Bible…
There’s a good reason why angels’ standard greeting is ‘Do not be afraid’.
Just in case that grammar is tripping you up, the essence of this idea is that people who have been hurt often go on to hurt others. In some ways, it's statistics. People who grow up in homes with abuse are more likely to be part of an abusive home as an adult. People who grow up in violence are more likely to become violent.
In some ways, it kind of boils down to a sentiment that my mother expressed when I was younger (and maybe yours did, too) about how the mean kids were only mean because they felt bad about themselves.
I don't believe people are mean for no reason. There are very few people whose brain chemistries are so severe that no matter the health of their environments, they will become violent or cruel. Most of us, while we may have some genetics involved, learn our behaviors from those around us. Some of us repeat behaviors we see and others of us may behave in opposite ways. Some people want to be just like their mother and some people want to be nothing like their mother, right?
None of us happen in a vacuum. When I behave in ways I later regret, it's always rooted in something. In fact, most of the people whom history lifts up (or down?) as horrible people thought they were doing something good or participating in a necessary evil that would ultimately create a better world.
I often tell people that I like difficult personalities. It's true. I have noticed, in life, that the folks that many people find abrasive, rude, or perhaps just "super weird," are people I quite enjoy. I think this is because these people tend to have deep, interesting stories. They have survived things, seen things, and deal with a well of feelings (though not always well). Maybe you have one of "those friends" that not everyone gets, but that holds a tender spot in your heart.
Today I'm grateful for the ways that I am kind. I'm grateful for the people who contributed to the better parts of me and will try to forgive myself for the ways I am not perfect. There are reasons. Those reasons don't excuse me, but they challenge me to understand them and rise above them-- to break whatever cycles are not worth repeating. I'm grateful for the "difficult personalities" that allow me to practice this forgiveness and empathy, to better understand how we form, grow, and love. May I always try to remember that nothing is created or destroyed-- when someone hurts others, that hurt has come from somewhere and they have not yet been able to transform it.
Let's break cycles that should not be repeated and transform our own hurts into ways we can understand others and offer healing, love, and transformation.
I know I'm not the only person in the world who struggles with feelings of guilt.
My local family is Irish Catholic, and while I was not raised in the RCC tradition, I feel the religious traditions of my family have been very influential, although not directly.
Guilt is a huge motivator in the ways my family thinks of things. I manage to feel guilty about things that are silly for very long periods of time.
For instance, I still regularly think about a moment in time in which I got mad at my friend for coloring most of a coloring book I left at her home. I feel bad about it because she felt like she was making a gift for me, whereas I felt like she was using up my toy without my permission. As the story perhaps suggests, this happened a long time ago. I was probably about 7 years old. I'm 33 and I still think about it at least once a week.
There are things like this in my life. I hold grudges against myself that I can't seem to let go of, even though the more rational, forgiving parts of my brain and spirit know I am being silly. It doesn't seem to change the ways I feel about myself.
I think I even developed (thanks to crap boyfriends and some upbringing stuff) a tendency to smash down feelings of pride or desire and beat myself up about them. Like, when I start to think something good about myself, my brains says, "No, stop! This is the way to arrogance or disappointment! You are crap!"
This often leads me to feel like I don't deserve good things. It is a way I learned to cope with people who treated me poorly. A helpless feeling of loving someone who treats you poorly can make us feel like we deserve that treatment. If this person treats me poorly, it's because I deserve it. I start to feel like I don't deserve happiness and happiness starts to make me feel uncomfortable. It almost feels unsafe.
Life is weird, right?
Sometimes I feel guilty about my blessings. I don't know how to accept success because I spent a lot of time telling myself I wasn't worthy of good things. When good things come along, I sometimes push them away because they don't feel safe to me.
All of this is to reference something I lost. It was an OWN (Oprah Winfrey) thing, but I can't recall who she was talking to. The question I learned to ask myself is:
"Instead of feeling guilty, can I feel grateful?"
It's a way of orienting myself toward more truth. It's a way of discerning whether my soul actually feels like I don't deserve something or whether it's a behavior I've learned through abuse.
Breaking these cycles in myself will hopefully help me raise children who don't get trapped in them.
I think I am in touch with certain ways of knowing that not everyone is... a mystical way of knowing... a sort of spiritual intuition or acumen that not everyone is able to perceive acutely. It feels important to share the truths I find when listening to this "voice," and from the study it leads me to engage.
The Best Among Us: Progressive Profiles of Courage
Although I feel like this book exists (in different forms) under different titles.
There are many similar books in the world, though they seem to reach different audiences. Do I write a book that exists in similar forms, or do I lift up those books that exist? How do you build an audience without creating content, though? I would make an awesome curator of media, but that's not, like, a thing...
Creating retail component... I don't want to give too much away, because I feel like someone could steal my ideas (!), but I would need to figure out not only most advantageous and honest tax filing body type and figure out how to do something that has a top-to-bottom chain of supplies and labor that are just and sustainable.
-An Honest Bible Study (incorporates scholarship and interpretation)
-New Year's Resolution: Build a Spiritual Life
a year of easy ways to start finding your spirit
or Finding Your Spiritual Path (in a year, because who has time?)
-Whatever Wisdom: Modern-Day Parables and Pop-Culture Proverbs
-A Potty-Mouthed Young Minister Challenges the Church
or Church is Boring, Jesus is Cool, Don't Tell Me What to Think
"Regarding the Spirit as animator of the church, here I highlight that pedagogy ‘in the Spirit’ is to have both a genuine hospitality and an 'outward-bound’ orientation. Clearly, it is possible to bond people into a closed or elitist group that has a sense of communal identity but is turned in on itself. The pedagogy of Christian religious educators should never encourage any kind of sectarianism; it is to help create a welcoming and inclusive community and 'lead them out’ into solidarity with any human community in which God’s Spirit is moving to bring about God’s reign for all creation."
I went to UCC.org and searched for “global warming.” The first link that comes up offers ways that we can help reduce our carbon footprint. Under ways we can do that with food, it says:
Food: grow a garden for vegetables and herbs, support your local farmers through a CSA, limit packaging and waste, start a compost pile.
I am disappointed that this says NOTHING about reducing consumption of animals, even though animal agriculture is the LEADING CAUSE OF GREENHOUSE GASES. Reducing animals consumption will do more to slow global warming than ANYTHING ELSE, but no one suggests doing that because it’s an ugly thing to talk about. People like eating meat and they get really defensive about it.
You know what else people are defensive about? Their homophobic views. The reasons they don’t support social safety nets. The reasons they “deserve” wealth and people in poverty “deserve” that. Alcoholism. Racism. Sexism. Why they drive a giant vehicle even though they don’t haul things. Why they don’t recycle (it’s too hard!). Why they don’t compost (ew!). Why they shop at giant corporate stores who abuse people in many ways.
Yet we all understand that these are important things to speak out against because we understand that while it can be difficult to talk to someone about these things, they matter. Yet when you say that folks should try to adopt more earth-friendly eating habits, you’re an extremist. You’re a terrible person.
If I called someone out for eating beef, I would come off as a jerk. If I call someone out for saying “f*g” or “p***y” or driving a Hummer, though, I’m brave and awesome.
I understand that no one likes being judged. I don’t say things to my friends and family who eat meat in front of me every single day because I understand that it comes off as judgement. However, when we talk about any of the other issues above, we are promoting justice. When we talk about promoting vegetarianism or veganism or simply REDUCING animal consumption, I’m a judgmental jerk.
All I know is: science is on my side. 97% of scientists agree that global climate change is HAPPENING and that it is because of HUMAN activity. The largest contributing factor to global warming is animal agriculture. 17% of greenhouse gases are caused by animal agriculture.
I’m ONLY talking about the environmental impact, too. Animal agriculture is mostly inhumane, funded by our tax dollars to keep costs ARTIFICIALLY low, disproportionately abuses undocumented workers, with NAFTA it impoverishes farmers in developing and impoverished countries where their styles of animal agriculture are NOT cruel and inhumane, it breeds disease, and the unhealthy amount of meat that we eat contributes to health epidemics like heart disease, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, etc.
Seriously. Reducing animal consumption is the right thing to do and I’m a giant jerk for even writing this.
"In the New Testament story of Luke-Acts Anna and Mary speak as prophets, as do the four daughters of Philip (Acts 21:9). Mary learns from Jesus the teacher (Luke 10), and Priscilla teaches. Yet, when the women face the empty tomb and embrace the mission to tell the disciples what they have seen, ‘the story seemed like nonsense, and they refused to believe them.’ Women are taught by Jesus and speak for Jesus. They pray and they prophecy. Yet, even so visibly embraced, welcomed, challenged, and given the task of proclamation, the world will not listen."
— Turner and Hudson, “To be Saved From Silence” in Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (St. Louis: Chalice Press) 1999, 88.
about some of the things happening in and near the Holy Land?
I'm concerned that what is going on in Gaza, Syria, and Iran, including international interplay between these places and their governments (as well as, potentially, North Korea, given its alliances).
I'm concerned that a war in the Middle East could result in destruction of countless places of religious and historical significance, including a multitude of holy sites. I'm concerned that it could result in the effective genocide of the Palestinian people.
So I haven't been utilizing this space much lately. Life went in directions I didn't necessarily anticipate after grad school. So here's a bit of an update.
I finished my Masters in May, so I'm officially hella smart and probably a stable genius.
I accepted a job as Director of Young Adult Ministries at a church in the peninsula, but ended up having to walk away from that opportunity because my husband and I bought a home.
For those unfamiliar with the Bay Area, it's dense and expensive, but also many kinds of amazing. I've grown up here, as have generations of my family. I love this place and want to stay here. My spouse and I moved an hour or so from my hometown and the the beautiful city of San Francisco to a small town in the mountains.
I totaled my car the week we bid on our home and until a few days ago, I was essentially under house arrest in the middle of the mountains. I am now the proud grateful driver of a 15-year-old Mazda.
Long story less long: My ministry plans for an urban, millennial ministry need some re-thinking.
