Nothing will be impossible with God.

Chestertonian Protestant. Pro-life: every life matters, from conception to natural death, and that means YOU. Exploring the place of monasticism in the Baptist denomination: ask me about my dream for the first ever Baptist order of nuns! Librarian; now taking clients for developmental and line editing. Profile picture Sunlight, 1909, by John White Alexander

[iseult-blanchemains]

Last year sure was A Year, and the biggest thing of all I never openly mentioned on here — but that may be changing soon, as it gets more widely known among my in-person circles. It is a Glorious Impossible, to borrow L’Engle’s phrase for the Incarnation, and I would love to share my dream with y’all. Perhaps soon! 

[iseult-blanchemains]

Well, last year was also A Year, for some of the same reasons and some very different, and things didn't move as quickly as I'd anticipated, so I'm only just now getting around to announcing this.

(And I've been working on it and talking about it for over two years now and it still feels a little weird to say it right out like this:)

I'm looking into the possibility of Baptist convents becoming a thing.

There's a lot behind the scenes of that sentence, and the thesis I keep mentioning is what I'm writing to explain, defend, document precedents for, etc. the core idea and the things that feed into and flow from it. I've also been corresponding with several pastors, as I sent letters to the churches I have even the thinnest connection to, briefly explaining the idea and asking them to share the letter with their congregations so I can find out how much interest there is in it. (So far none of them have, that I know of, although two did not have any objections to the idea of a Baptist convent in itself, which is amazing; several have had more expected amounts of reluctance; two thought I was asking for money, which I explicitly said I was not.)

This is something I have wanted for over nine years now, and which for the first seven was a completely hopeless longing, because I knew it was impossible. . . to make a very long story a little bit short, impossible things have kept happening, and this enormous impossibility doesn't look impossible anymore.

Things have to move slowly, and unless we get a lot of miracles in quick succession I doubt I'll have a housefull of women to show for it any time soon, but just the ability to work toward a definite goal. . . permission at last to daydream. . . and oh, goodness, the research I've been doing. . . it's been a lot of fun getting to think of the future as both real and good for a change.

[hellenicgoddess]

Ancient Greek Diadems ✨

[clemence-dupont]

[dogpuppy]

[iseult-blanchemains]

#just a thought but you know what we can even make sure something good does!#we can say hi to a neighbor. we can help the old lady across the street. we can forgive. we can give a guy a hand up or a nice word.#we can be the good thing in the world that happens#let’s doooo it let’s get this bread!! tags via @magpie-trove

[greelin]

being alive is great because there are so many different vegetables you can sauté. but then there are also the horrors

[yves-and-scessernee]

with faith and perseverance, one day we will sauté the horrors

[magpie-trove]

More ancient than the primal world

And older than the morning star,

Before the first things took their shape,

Creator of them all, you are.

Your image is the Lord of life,

Your Son from all eternity;

All that must perish, he restores,

In him, all reconciled will be.

Transfigured Christ, believed and loved,

In you our only hope has been;

Grant us, in your unfathomed love,

Those things no eye has ever seen.

O Father, Son and Spirit blest,

With hearts transfigured by your grace,

May we your matchless splendour praise

And see the glory of your face.

Stanbrook Abbey Hymnal

[killxbunnyyy]

Hey sorry if I’m kinda weird I was supposed to be dead by now

[mozzygan]

"If I could take you out of here, I'd hold a feast and a dance, and see you bedecked in a silver deel, laughing and bounding about." "Why silver?" "Because in the dark, your voice sounds like silver."

—Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

[meanbuddhist]

happy face the thing that you’ve been avoiding thursday

[afieldinengland]

just overheard a mum in the museum ask her seven-year-old child ‘shall we say bye-bye to the skull?’

[sockth]

Hey if you See This can you reblog this or comment on this with a character you headcanon as aromantic, asexual, or both. It can be canon it can be founded on absolutely nothing I just need more aroace stuff on here #yay

[greenpen3]

[myelicia]

[quietwingsinthesky]

like the betrayal’s always going to be worse if they cared about you and it didn’t matter. someone discards you because they didn’t give a shit, then you can be angry about that, you can feel vindicated in that, you can get over it. but if they can look you in the eyes and say “I love you. I would make the same choice again.” You will never sleep peacefully again, is all.

[quietwingsinthesky]

“I thought they cared about me, but they were lying this whole time.” <- tired. boring. removes all the nuance of this relationship to make it easier to move on from.

“I thought they cared about me, and I was right, and every minute they were there for me, every time they said they were proud, every laugh we shared leaning against each other bruised and breathless, all of it was real. and they still left me behind. They could put their love aside. I couldn’t.” <- insane. will never leave you alone. reminds you that even the worst people are still people and can still care about even the ones they hurt the most and that undoes neither the harm nor the love.

[quietwingsinthesky]

okay. something about the way i worded this is making people think this is a vent thing about real relationships. and it’s fine if that’s where it took you. but i feel like i need to be transparent here: this be blorboposting. karlach cliffgate and her terrible awful no good very bad betrayal.

[quietwingsinthesky]

they are seasoning my fucking post with unknown herbs. beefleaf. the fuck’s a beefleaf. why are you putting that in the stew.

[simena]

Helmer Osslund

[losangelesqueens]

Feminists might kill joy simply by not finding the objects that promise happiness to be quite so promising. The word feminism is thus saturated with unhappiness. Feminists by declaring themselves as feminists are already read as destroying something that is thought of by others not only as being good but as the cause of happiness. The feminist killjoy “spoils” the happiness of others; she is a spoilsport because she refuses to convene, to assemble, or to meet up over happiness.

Does the feminist kill other people’s joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy?

Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way?

Feminists do kill joy in a certain sense: they disturb the very fantasy that happiness can be found in certain places. To kill a fantasy can still kill a feeling. It is not just that feminists might not be happily affected by the objects that are supposed to cause happiness but that their failure to be happy is read as sabotaging the happiness of others.

The Promise of Happiness by Sara Ahmed

[catchyvideos]

OP theaverycottage on TikTok ♡