The Kim Dynasty

"What's My Line?"

Part 2 will post next week.

Ideas

*Senior High youth programming that spends a full year on each Gospel and summers on the other 4 “Major World Religions” (Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism).  

That Place

"All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don’t need and who you are not… . Then, when you can get little enough, naked enough, and poor enough, you’ll find that the little place where you really are is ironically more than enough and is all that you need. At that place, you will have nothing to prove to anybody and nothing to protect from other people. That place is called … freedom. It’s the freedom of the children of God."

— Richard Rohr (via azspot)

(via notalwaysluminous)

God

God is perhaps most manifest in love and compassion.  Our most authentic “godding” is in acts of compassion and love.  We are most in line with Interrelatedness and mutual concern when we act in love and compassion… In being cognizant of interrelatedness, we are most aware of our Godness and thus living in our best potential.

Forgiveness

In moments when I can’t seem to forgive myself for my faults and mistakes, I think I will try to remember that massive list of mistakes and faults of Christianity and Christians and how much I love that mess of a Church.  I come back and love it hard every day, wanting it to live up to its potential and capable of seeing the beautiful light in the world that it can be and is, in many ways.  

And maybe I can love myself.  MLK was an unfaithful husband.  The best of us have our darkness. 

Listening for God

Metaphor! Renita Weems, “Stumbling in the Silence” in Listening for God: A Minister’s Journey Through Silence and Doubt (Touchstone Books) 1999, 29.

Quotes

spinachandmushrooms:

Wonderful collection of quotations. Turner and Hudson, “To be Saved From Silence” in Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (St. Louis: Chalice Press) 1999, 82.

"The Dark Age"

Next week at this time, I'll post videos for "What's My Line? Part 1," the first half of a two-part episode.

President as Commander in Chief

Black Rage

"Lie to Me"

Watch this playlist after watching "Lie to Me":



Next week's episode is "The Dark Age."  I'll post a playlist to watch after that episode next Sunday evening.

Left, Right, Center

The problem Christianity faces today is ignorance. Secularists frown at the perceived ridiculousness of religious tradition and seek to remove its influence from public discourse. Religious adherents fear the loss of their tradition’s voice in society. Neither party understands the other, nor does either party really understand themselves. 

As a child handed an orange New Testament by an evangelist on my walk home from school, I lacked the background required to understand it. The sad truth is that most people lack that background, even in their adult lives. There is so much misinformation spouted from within religious bodies that most people who call themselves Christian have very little idea the contexts within which their scripture was written. As one of my professors would so often spout, “A text without a context is a pretext.”

A Christianity that can give the Bible its context would lead to a more educated Christendom, a more compassionate Christianity, and a generation of Christians who know and love Christ more intimately than ever.

Salt and Cotton in the River

From Anthony De Mello’s “Song of the Bird.”

I really love this book.  It’s full of short stuff like this.  I never read more than one per day and I reflect on the truth of each as I go about my day.

My Bleeding Body

Yesterday, I dressed in white.  

I dressed brightly.  I covered in my body in the color best able to reflect light.

I wore the color of strong women who demanded the right to vote for people with bodies like mine.

I know the risks of being proud of my body... because I am a woman.  

Can you hear me?

I know the risk of reflecting light off the shape of my thighs because I am a woman…. and my thighs have been touched without my permission.

I have been sexually harassed in dresses and baggy jeans and sweatshirts.

I’ve been disrespected with short hair and with long hair.

My face has been criticized with makeup and without.  

I’ve been too skinny and too fat.

Too loud and too quiet.

It’s too much.

It’s too little.

Don’t sit that way.  It’s not feminine.

Don’t talk that way.  It’s not feminine.

Don’t cross your legs.  People won’t take you seriously.

Don’t wear too much makeup.  People won’t take you seriously.

Keep your body covered or people won’t take you seriously.

Yesterday my body cramped.  I fed it and drank tea and still the twisting in my side told me something the news anchors seemed reluctant to admit.  

Yesterday my body cried because it needed healing.

Today my body is tired.  

Today my body shakes with caffeine and fear.

Today my body is one to be grabbed at and judged.

Today my body is one to be discarded with age or boredom.

Today my body is one to be controlled by law.

Today my body is an object.

Tonight I wear black because this body is grieving.  

Tonight I wear a collar denied to bodies like mine for centuries and in other sanctuaries across town.  Every woman in this room knows that there are still people who don’t want us to wield power or influence.

Tonight I wear the color that absorbs light and warmth.  Because this body needs healing.  But I know that this body, capable of creating and carrying life, can heal itself.

Tonight I wear the uniform of service because this body knows how to endure pain and sacrifice for love.  This body knows how to heal itself after being torn apart.  

Tonight I wear black because I am a woman and I claim all of the grief and power that comes with that today.  

Women Preaching

"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.

Placement

"Living away from my native place I became more consciously Kentuckian than I was when I lived at home. This is what the experience of exile can do, change your mind, utterly transform one’s perception of the world of home."

—

bell hooks, “Belonging: A Culture of Place”
(via jordantarwater)

I think this happens (to a certain degree) to me because I live in a city of transplants.  I am always conscious of the fact that most of the people I know are not from the place we are in… but I am and it fills me with love.  It’s odd that living in San Francisco and being from the Bay Area is a seeming anomaly within my generation.

So many people come to the Bay Area and stay because of what a wonderful place it is.  I’m blessed to have this place in my blood for 6 generations.  We are the changemakers and dreamers of dreams.  

Bay Area forever.  

"Halloween"

Here are videos for the episodes preceding:

4.  "Inca Mummy Girl"

5.  "Reptile Boy"

6.  "Halloween"

Next week's episode will be "Lie to Me," a good episode written by Joss Whedon.

Transience

"Each new epoch enters upon its career by waging unrelenting war upon the aesthetic gods of its immediate predecessor. Yet the culminating fact is conscious, rational life refuses to conceive itself as a transient enjoyment, transiently useful. In the order of the physical world its role is defined by its introduction of novelty."

— Alfred North Whitehead

Precedents of George Washington

Constitutional Powers of the President

Voice

"We read that female and male alike were created in the likeness of the Creator and called forth to create the good and dispel the bad through speech. Why should that view of women’s power not be believed?"

— Turner and Hudson, “To be Saved From Silence” in Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (St. Louis: Chalice Press) 1999, 87.