Christ, Culture and Everything In Between

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. ~ Isaiah 1:17

[nocontextgoodplace]

[homunculus-argument]

Story idea: The most wanted woman in town has announced that she’ll only marry the one who can open her front door with the key around her cat’s neck. Many men try to hunt the cat down, chase and trap it, but to no avail, the cat is simply too quick, smart and clever, and always finds a way to evade and avoid them.

 You are the first one to figure out the obvious: Do not chase the cat. The cat is befriendable. Get the cat to trust you, to genuinely enjoy your company, and you can hang out with the cat. You may eventually be allowed to touch the cat. The cat will freely let you take the key.

 Secondary plot twist: The woman is a shapeshifter. She is the cat.

[proverbs1624]

But there is a difference between curing and healing and I believe the church is called to the slow and difficult work of healing. We are called to enter into one another’s pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome… The thing about healing, as opposed to curing, is that it is relational. It takes time. It is inefficient, like a meandering river. Rarely does healing follow straight or well that path. Really does it conform to our expectations or resolve in a timely manner. Walking with someone through grief, or through the process of reconciliacion, requires patience, presence, and a willingness to wonder, to take the scenic route.

Searching for Sunday / Rachel Held Evans

[anxietyproblem]

[authorkimberlygrey]

Ascendant ARC sign up!

We’re getting closer to my YA christian fantasy novel Ascendant’s publishing date and so its time to send out ARCs!

ARC (or Advance Reader/Review Copies) are a pre-release version of the book sent out before the official publication date to gather interest and reviews leading up to the novel’s actual release. In exchange for a free copy of the book, you, the reader must provide a review on your social media platforms. A large following doesn’t guarantee a place on the ARC list so if you only have a few followers don’t count yourself out! There has been some delays with the cover so there isn’t going to be any hard copies of Ascendant but I will email everyone who makes the list a PDF version.  

If you make the cut I’ll send you an email and give you more details. The final date for responses will be May 7th!

Reblogs and signal boosts are super appreciated!  <3

https://forms.gle/ZCnsAcX7D7SP36u1A

[Ascendant is my upcoming christian fantasy novel about Guardian angels. My WIP page for desktop users is Here you can read the first chapter Here

and the post for mobile users is Here and you can read the first chapter on Wattpad Here Summary:

For hundreds of years, war has raged across the realm of Guardian Angels. White-Wing against Black-Wing. Grace is the Saboteur, daughter of the White-Wing Spy Master, destined to end the war once and for all. But all of that is snatched away when she is captured by the Black-Wings. Trapped in their secret city, Grace finds herself questioning everything she’s ever been told. About her enemies, and about herself. ] Tag List: @wingedcatwblr @angelwriteblr  @elaynabwriting

@nightskywriter @panticwritten

@ill-write-when-im-dead @ceejay-silvertongue

@emberris @itwasanalaskanbookworm @ragethegemini @boothewriter

@hazeywrites @chargeofastar @kainablue @mezvii @inexorableblob

@quilloftheclouds @thescribesloft

If you’d like to be added or removed from the list just shoot me a note

Find me on:

DeviantArt:   https://www.deviantart.com/somanypuns

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/authorkimberlygrey/

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/AuthorKimberlyGrey

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9Y10-DIBPVa7gYrlm7YxA

[christiandomme]

Boost!

I got a sneak, sneak peek and I am really excited for this story and am planning to purchase several physical copies to give as presents, both for youngins and not.

At its heart, this story is about overcoming trauma to find yourself and your purpose (in a supernatural/divine setting - there are wings!)

If you’re interested in being an advance reader, contact @authorkimberlygrey and help a writer out?

[thenatsdorf]

Baby hears violin for the first time. (via AudreysMMB) [play to hear audio]

[breebro]

HE HUGGED HER LEG

[surfeit-of-stoats]

I just finished Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans and I am raw. I have chills and tears gathered in my eyes. This book is vulnerable, honest, and incredibly poignant. Rachel walks you through the sacraments of the church, exploring the layers of wonder and grace and love in each.

She digs deep into the heart of the church and pulls out this - that we are all followers of Christ; that the church as messy broken and varied as it is, is a portal to The Kingdom; that the more diverse the church is, the more it thrives. She speaks freely of her own pain and wrestling, she invites you into her heart and shares it with words woven as tightly and gorgeously as a tapestry.

She ends the book with this invitation:

Even here, in the dark, God is busy making all things new. So show up. Open every door. At the risk of looking like a fool buried with his feet facing the East or like a mockingbird singing stubbornly at the night, anticipate resurrection. It’s either just around the bend or a million miles away. Or perhaps it’s somewhere in between. Let’s find out together.

In response I can only say: let’s.

[gtasoldier]

We Christians don’t get to send our lives through the rinse cycle before showing up to church. We come as we are—no hiding, no acting, no fear. We come with our materialism, our pride, our petty grievances against our neighbors, our hypocritical disdain for those judgmental people in the church next door. We come with our fear of death, our desperation to be loved, our troubled marriages, our persistent doubts, our preoccupation with status and image. We come with our addictions—to substances, to work, to affirmation, to control, to food. We come with our differences, be they political, theological, racial, or socioeconomic. We come in search of sanctuary, a safe place to shed the masks and exhale. We come to air our dirty laundry before God and everybody because when we do it together we don’t have to be afraid.

Rachel Held Evans (June 8, 1981 - May 4, 2019)

[thecraftyspoonie]

Can’t believe Rachel Held Evans has died today… her writing & talks were so inspiring and seemed like they will be so important to the progression of the Church, that’s it’s hard to understand she can’t share this anymore. But even stranger when you consider how her last blog post ended….“Death is a part of life. My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

[ahollowplay]

i cannot emphasize enough how tremendously proud hannah gadsby should be of what she has created and released into this world. 

[magicalgirlpropaganda]

The whole self love thing is good and all but some people can’t fathom being loved. They can’t imagine there being anything good about them. So they can’t simply just stop doing unhealthy things, there’s a process.

[sandersstudies]

Before self love you have to invoke self tolerance and self neutrality.

[sandersstudies]

If you can’t say “I love my body!” say “my body gets me from place to place.”

If you can’t say “I’m beautiful,” begin by shutting down the “I’m ugly” thoughts and saying “I’m a person.”

If you can’t say “I’m valuable” begun by shutting down the “I’m worthless” thoughts and say “all people deserve basic respect, and I’m a person.”

If you can’t say “I’m important,” or “I’m kind” say “I am the one who waters my plant every week” or “I am the one who tips the kind barista down the street” or “I am the one who makes sure my dog does not eat plastic” or “I am the one who leaves long comments on people’s fan fictions.”

[thescouring]

“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma.

Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. “

- Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

[random-cluster-missile---moved]

Today is the only day you can reblog this

[scoundrelnurlife]

20

[entitledrichpeople]

Marshmallows aren’t likely to fix low-income kids’ real problems

It's not all about self-control. Children's decisions are driven instead by the forces of evidence and expectations.

[heavyweightheart]

“Starting in the late 1960s, a group of researchers led by then Stanford professor Walter Mischel offered young children a choice: one marshmallow now or two later. Mischel and colleagues used this paradigm to study the efficacy of behavioral interventions for enhancing self-control, and they were quite prolific.

It wasn’t those original studies, however, that really got people excited about the marshmallow test. It was a discovery that came decades later. While most children failed to wait for the second marshmallow, those who did went on in life to achieve great things. Kids who waited for the second marshmallow grew up to score better on their SATs and have more friends. They had less body fat, and lower risks of both substance abuse and incarceration. They had better lives.

This work has been popularly interpreted to mean that self-control is the driving force behind all of these wonderful outcomes—the “engine of success” to use Mischel’s own words. The kind of kid who can resist the impulse to grab the first marshmallow could grow up to be the kind of teenager who resisted the impulse to flip on the TV in lieu of studying for their exams. It is an especially alluring tale because it makes the answer to really complex problems seem suspiciously simple. Teach children self-control, and everything wonderful in life will follow.

When I first heard about the marshmallow test, I was working with children in a homeless shelter and my heart sank. I knew that the children with whom I worked would fail abysmally. These children had habits of breaking toys, pouring entire containers of glue and paint onto their papers, and devouring sweets as rapidly as their throats could manage. Like Mischel and his colleagues, these children’s caseworkers observed these behaviors as maladaptive. And so did I, I am now embarrassed to admit.

Here is why we were wrong: The apparent failures of self-control were actually well calibrated to those children’s everyday realities. Waiting for a second marshmallow is only adaptive if you have a strong reason to believe that the second marshmallow will arrive as promised. If you have less certainty, say, because your everyday reality has taught you that you should, you would be better off to go with the shorter-term, guaranteed treat instead.”

[dearnonnatives]

I continue to see people angry that it’s being pointed out that thanksgiving was created to celebrate the murder of Native Americans. I continue to see comments about how y'all are still going to stuff your faces and celebrate.

Nobody said you had to stop using the day to give thanks, spend time with family, and stuff your face. We only ask that you acknowledge the true meaning of the holiday and those of us who have to face a different truth. We only ask that you acknowledge respect us and our truth and sufffering.

It’s very telling when non-natives are more concerned about whether it’s still appropriate to stuff their face than they are about our continued suffering.

[llotefabdv]

I believe we need to take time to acknowledge and offer tangible support to folks abstaining from Thanksgiving celebrations to re-center the day around historical and current injustices. 

But if you are holding to Thanksgiving as family time or a chance to remember what you are grateful for or even just a rest from labor if you get that... there is a way (I believe) to do that without perpetuating Thanksgiving mythologies or pretending the injustices against native communities are isolated to the past.

To those looking forward to a turkey dinner today: Here's wishing you a Mindful Thanksgiving

For everyone bringing awareness to the National Day of Mourning, I hope you receive an extra measure of strength and resilience.

~ The two cents of a non-native

[allthecanadianpolitics]

First Nations Prof From B.C.-Alaska Territory Forced To Leave Canada

Being eligible for Indian Status in Canada hinges on the baptismal record of her great-great-great grandmother.

A First Nations woman working to revive a threatened language in her traditional territory of northern British Columbia says she’s being forced to leave the country on Canada Day.

Mique'l Dangeli belongs to the Tsimshian First Nation, whose territory straddles the border between Alaska and British Columbia. She says Canada won’t recognize her right to live and work in B.C. because she was born on the American side on Annette Island Indian Reserve.

Her visa expires July 1, she said.

“For me, what I consider home is my home community and my people’s traditional territory, which is northern B.C.,” she said. “We’re not immigrants to our people’s traditional territory.”

Continue Reading.

[llotefabdv]

Sunset in Kentucky