"All right, then, I'll go to hell”
And yet another great blog post by Rachel Held Evans.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”- and tore it up.
Patriarchy, Pop Culture, and Pornography, Part 1
Excellent article by Jenny Rae Armstrong. Be sure to check out Part 2 as well.
On the one hand, you have pastors’ wives taking pole dancing classes, lest they be complicit in their husband’s downfall by “letting themselves go.” Our porn-drenched, sex-obsessed culture has so saturated the church that women are being pressured (from the pulpit!) to perform acts their grandmothers couldn’t even conceive of. On the other, you have the “modest is hottest” crowd, where a woman’s demure virginity is praised as an irresistible turn-on to conquest-oriented males (as if everyone knows that’s the real goal of chaste Christian girlhood—to drive prospective husbands “mad with desire”).
What it comes down to is that in many ways, society ascribes value to women based on how attractive and/or useful they are to men.
Why?
”For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. ‘Blessed are the merciful’ in a courtroom? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon?”
-Kurt Vonnegut
Found these stashed away in my dear late grandmother’s house. Besides thinking about how adorable my grandmother was, I was comforted in the realization that I come by my Clinton fascination honestly. :)
The 5 Tibetan Rites
Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.
Found this video on Pinterest.
In the enigmatic Canon 1 a 2 from J. S. Bach’s “Musical Offering” (1747) (also known as “crab canon” or “canon cancrizans”), the manuscript shows a single score, whose beginning joins with the end. This space is topologically equivalent to a bundle of the line segment over the circle, known as a Möbius strip.
A Litany to Honor Women
A Litany to Honor Women, from the book Common Prayer by Shane Claiborne.
We walk in the company of the women who have gone before, mothers of the faith both named and unnamed,
testifying with ferocity and faith to the spirit of wisdom and healing.They are the judges, the prophets, the martyrs, the warriors, poets, lovers and saints who are near to us in the shadow of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams.
We walk in the company of Deborah,
who judged the Israelites with authority and strength.
We walk in the company of Esther,
who used her position as queen to ensure the welfare of her people.
We walk in the company of you whose names have been lost and silenced,
who kept and cradled the wisdom of the ages.
We walk in the company of the woman with the flow of blood,
who audaciously sought her healing and release.
We walk in the company of Mary Magdalene,
who wept at the empty tomb until the risen Christ appeared.
We walk in the company of Phoebe,
who led an early church in the empire of Rome.
We walk in the company of Perpetua of Carthage,
whose witness in the third century led to her martyrdom.
We walk in the company of st. Christian the Astonishing,
who resisted death with persistence and wonder.
We walk in the company of Julian of Norwich,
who wed imagination and theology, proclaiming “all shall be well”.
We walk in the company of Sojourner Truth,
who stood against oppression, righteously declaring in 1852, “Ain’t I a woman!”
We walk in the company of the Argentine mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
who turned their grief to strength, standing together to remember “the disappeared” children of war with a holy indignation.
We walk in the company of Alice Walker,
who named the lavender hue of womanly strength.
We walk in the company of you mothers of the faith,
who teach us to resist evil with boldness, to lead with wisdom, and to heal.
Amen.
I’ve noticed that on the weekends, some bloggers like to share some of their favorite things from around the web.
So here’s one of my favorite things. Enjoy.
Approved and Accepted
For the past month or so I’ve been following the Virtual Abbey’s Night Prayer (Compline) on Twitter. It’s been my simple way of celebrating Advent and ending my day in peace.
Last night one part of the prayer stood out to me. It is taken from Psalm 31:5:
“Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit; For you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth.”
Some translations of this verse use the word “commit,” while others, like this one, use the word “commend.” The use of “commend” caught my attention, so I looked it up in the dictionary to get a precise definition. Here is what I found:
commend (verb): present as suitable for approval or acceptance; recommend: I commend her to you without reservation.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/commend
In other words, “Into your hands, O Lord, I present my spirit as suitable for your approval and acceptance. For you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth.”
Because of the concept of God’s redemption for all mankind, you can rest in the thought that your spirit—the very core of your being—is suitable for approval and acceptance by God Himself. You are approved. You are accepted. You do nothing but recognize this. He has already completed the redemption.
Approve yourself. Accept yourself. Because in God’s eyes you are just that. And in turn, share that approval, acceptance, and yes, that love, with others.
Maybe, just maybe, this is what Christmas is all about.
