Love! Betrayal! Scandal!: Shame and the Church

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Rachel Held Evans' latest blog post, "Ashamed," is convicting, powerful stuff.  She addresses a lot that is wrong with the American church, with nothing held back:

I am ashamed of the bumper stickers, the t-shirts, the logos, the fog machines, the light shows, the celebrities, and that paralyzing fear of Silence we’re so bound and determined to avoid that we keep shouting and shouting and shouting at one another till our words are just clanging cymbals echoing off church walls.  

I am ashamed of the walls. They are built high, with circles of barbed wire around the top, to keep pests away from our bread and wine, to keep the Silence from getting in. 

I am ashamed of the abuse, the shaming, the cover-ups, the secrets, the millstones* being forged in Sunday school classrooms and pastors’ offices where people are supposed to be safe, and the way I want to watch those millstones drag a few more bodies down to the bottom of the sea.  

I am ashamed of the violence—in our theology, in our words, in myself.

Many who read this post agreed with Evans, and told their stories of the pain they felt from fighting so hard to remain devoted to the faith while the church continued to behave abominably.

I identify with those people.  Where once I was delighted to announce my Christianity to the world, felt nothing but excitement at entering the walls of a church, now there is so much pain.

A Library of Reaction Gifs

Just a fun post, because I'm reeling from massive amounts of transphobia in the comments section on an article about a six-year-old DMAB girl who's being prevented from using the girl's bathroom at her school anymore.

SO, when you want to perfectly convey how you feel about something, do you use your words?  Naaah, you use gifs! :D

Warning for relatives sensitive to this sort of thing: Lots of swearing ahead.  STRAP IN.

Dinner for One: Chicken and Rice

Riveting!

What do you do when you're a single university student with a limited budget and a craving for the taste of almost-home?  You make a single serving of chicken and rice, of course!

I should say before I get very far into this that I'm not basing this on any particular traditional recipe.  I'm not trying to be super authentic to Latin cuisine.  I just like chicken and rice and it's something different from the thoroughly European fare I usually have for dinner.  I should also say that while in general this recipe is something I've come up with on my own, I'm stealing the rice steps from British culinary goddess Delia Smith; I also had my mom look over the recipe and give pointers on how to make it go smoothly.  So this recipe is by me, my mom, and Her Excellency Delia Smith.

Gather 'Round While I Preach Some (with GIFs!)

GENDER IS NOT A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT.

What's that, you say?  You already knew that?  Well, congratulations.  You're not an overzealous feminist.

...yes, I do have problems with some feminists.  And this is my number one problem with said feminists.

It's a mistake some people make in combating gender determinism, which is basically the idea that because, say, I have a vagina and breasts and my chromosomes are XX, I am a woman and that means I'm meant to do certain things and I'm only fit for certain roles in life.  To feminists, this is plainly silly, but we have different ways of addressing this huge, society-wide misconception.

I Am Damaged

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I was just engaging in some masochistic reading of conservative Christian blogs, when I came across a statement, an idea, which I hadn't seen in years (mostly because I was better at self-care before I discovered Patheos).

This idea is best summed up as such:

GAY PEOPLE ARE A RESULT OF HUMANKIND'S FALL FROM GRACE.  THEY ARE A SYMPTOM OF OUR DAMAGED, SINFUL WORLD.

I'll let you sit on that for a minute and think.

Dinner for One: French Onion Soup

What do you do when you're a single university student with a limited budget and leftover beef stock?  You make a single serving of french onion soup, of course!

When I got this idea the other day, I was both excited and nervous.  All of the recipes for french onion soup which I knew were for serving 6-8 people, and I'm definitely not 6-8 people, nor did I want to deal with storing leftovers.  So I went over to ASDA, picked up some onions, stock, garlic powder and wine, and I'm cooking my bowl of soup as we speak.  I figure waiting for it to finish is the perfect time to tell other people how to BS their dinner!

Politics and Friendship: Thoughts from London So Far

Outside Buckingham Palace.

Hello, readers!  I'm here, in England, in London (specifically, the district Roehampton in the borough Wandsworth), and I'm going to be here until June.  I'm studying at the University of Roehampon and living on-campus with a bunch of nutty flatmates* and drinking lots of tea.

It's been a very interesting experience so far, because I'm in this strange situation where I'm more informed about social justice issues than I've ever been before, and I'm used to being surrounded by like-minded, sensitive people in my classes and clubs, and I've suddenly had to practically start from square one in making friends.  This has meant, unfortunately, tamping down my indignation, concerns, etc. in the name of getting along.