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one of the funnier parts of having online friends is when they casually reference something that seems weird as hell from your perspective and you have to go "okay so is this like a reigional/cultural difference or is your specific life experience just insane"

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i have this awesome skincare routine called picking at my face till it bleeds. its great because it makes my skin way worse in every way and also it hurts

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hell is full. heaven is full. god created a new holding space for souls called hurgle and the only thibg to do here is this infinitely expading jigsaw puzzle of a finely detailed pigeon. we are just slowwwwwly creating little tufts of feathers for eternity . yesterday , greg found a corner piece

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I’m a person that’s into studying historical and contemporary religions for personal curiosity scholarly reasons but I’m also a practicing Christian so for the sake of intellectual honesty I’ve had to develop two different brains for studying Christian texts and history. An analytical student of literature and history brain and a spiritual religious person brain.

These days when I look at passages about hoarding wealth being corrupting in the New Testament my studying brain is like it’s kind of interesting how Christianity says wealth is a bad thing because a lot of polytheistic religions in the ancient Mediterranean took the exact opposite approach so this was probably pretty weird to people at the time but maybe that’s also why some people found it appealing.

Meanwhile my spiritual brain is like dear Lord God if it be your will please haunt JD Vance’s dreams with these passages about how being rich is stupid thank you for everything good in my life like my cats and cheese on bread and if it be your will please haunt JD Vance with visions of camels trying to fit through the eye of a needle and make him really uncomfortable about it k love you amen

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reject the western gaze!

mutual aid means no hierarchy between givers and receivers

a new mutual aid org, Bridge of Solidarity, has been established in the gaza strip by 17 year old poet yazan mohammed in response to the exploitative practices conducted by some charities and encouraged by the existing charity-based model of fundraising for gaza. according to BoS: "the western attention economy and pity economy plays a large role in who lives or dies in gaza." essentially, people need to make themselves marketable in order to receive lifesaving aid; people who are not marketable die. yazan himself wrote about the damage this can do to one's self image, which you can read here.

after trying for a year to respect his own privacy, my friend siraj was also pressured into posting images of his son's emaciated body in order to gain sympathy from westerners.

we cannot keep forcing people to do this anymore.

here's a declaration of their values from bridge of solidarity's most recent post:

Our organization is against the Western gaze. We refuse to humiliate people. We refuse to force people to take photos. We refuse to force people to take photos with our flyer or logo. People will receive aid freely without being forced to pose. We will respect people's privacy completely. Our principles include autonomy, dignity, sovereignty, mutual respect, and mutual aid.

this org will prioritize giving aid to people without phones or social media, who do not speak english, and who do not have outside support or living parents. these are the people who are not palatable to westerners but who deserve to live with as much dignity as everyone else

as of five days ago, BoS are working on a water truck delivery

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“Frankenstein is great but Victor is such a whiny bi-“ SHUT UPPPP PLEASEEE if you went through what he did YOU WOULD BE THE SAME

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mimes a dismissive jerkoff gesture but im shaking and badly hiding that i orgasmed on the 2nd stroke

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The Christian faith relates to suffering not merely as remover or consoler. It offers no 'supernatural remedy for suffering' but strives for a 'supernatural use for it.' A person's wounds are not taken from him. Even the risen Christ still had his scars.

Dorothee Soelle, Suffering, p. 155

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yaoi (pronounced "yahweh")

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accepting that you’re objectively weird & owning it is infinitely better than being constantly desperate to appear normal to people who don’t even matter to you

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who else is feeling like a poor banished children of eve? who else is mourning and weeping atm ? just me? am i the only one @ the valley of tears right now?

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the idea that jerking off every day makes you a depraved sex addict is so nuts the current obsession with declaring anything a sex/porn addiction is so fucking stupid why am i seeing other queer people and people on the left capitulating to this regressive shamey bullshit. experiencing pleasure is not sinful or overindulgent. we cannot be going around telling people they're not allowed to be horny and not allowed to have whatever amount of sex they want to have.

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What does it mean that you're a catholic presbyterian? What are your views on Church authority and predestination?

I like to imagine myself as a tree with Irish Catholic roots, a Presbyterian/Protestant trunk, and agnostic/ecumenical/interfaith-reaching branches.

I need all parts to be whole. All parts rely on Divine warmth, water, breath for life. All parts depend on a rich soil of scripture, story, and the wisdom of those who've come before me for nourishment and grounding.

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The roots:

I was baptized and raised Roman Catholic. My family (and a large number of families in the area I grew up) has a proud history of Irish Catholicism in particular. My childhood church was Catholic, and I was passionate about participating in that community's life all through grade school.

Some of my earliest religion-related memories are of reading Saints' stories, establishing relationships with those who most spoke to me. Mother Mary has had my heart as far back as my memories go.

As I discovered my queerness in college and gradually realized the need to seek fully welcoming community, I did not leave behind those things I held most dear from Catholic spirituality.

Over the years, my connection to the Roman Catholic Church as an institution has fractured more and more; last May it splintered entirely. But I refuse to let Rome have a monopoly on Catholic faith, or on Mary and the Saints.

...Especially because Mary and the Saints were my greatest spiritual supports in college: with delighted wonder, I came to recognize how very queer my closest Saints were! They helped me embrace my queerness as a holy gift; I carried them with me into a little PC(USA) church that my then-girlfriend, now-wife found near our college campus.

The trunk:

The Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination holds me up in sturdy community: this is the denomination I'm currently "officially" part of — got my Masters of Divinity at a PCUSA seminary, got married in a PCUSA church, am on this denomination's ordination path.

This doesn't mean I think the PCUSA is the best religion or even the best form of mainline Protestantism. They all have their strengths and their flaws. But the PCUSA was the one that first came into my path, and I'm currently satisfied with my decision to commit myself to it — so long as it continues to make plenty of room for my Catholic roots and ecumenical branches.

The branches:

Though Louisville Seminary is a Presbyterian institution, when I attended from 2016-2019 at least 40% of my classmates and some of the staff there belonged to other denominations (or in a few cases, aren't Christian at all).

The opportunity to learn alongside folks from a variety of traditions was invaluable to my continued spiritual growth. I learned so much from them! I grew into my sense that all individuals and faith communities have something to teach us the Divine and about what it means to be human in relationship to Divinity and to Creation.

Then there's the agnostic part of the "branches":

Over the years I've also experienced more and more seasons where I'm just not sure that the Trinity, the Incarnation and Resurrection, and all that Christian-specific stuff is "real." But whether or not it is, I choose to remain committed to this path I'm on — with openness to fresh insights — because I do draw spiritual nourishment here. I do believe that the story of the Trinity and the Incarnation can guide us into living for Goodness, Justice, abundant life for all beings.

...Basically, I don't know whether it's all "true," but I do believe it holds powerful Truth; I remain committed to the Story.

(Also the bible has been my main special interest since i was like 6 so it's one of the main lenses through which i view the world so i'm stuck here for better or worse lfadfjalfjdalk;j! )

I believe it's imperative for Christians living in Christian supremacist cultures to practice humility above all else — to accept the fact that we don't have all the answers, that we're not the Most Right, that we don't enjoy unique favor with God. For me, identifying as agnostic reminds me that I don't know everything about God by any means, and may actually know very little at all. It reminds me to remain humble, open, and curious.

The fruit:

My hope is that this little tree that is me yields good fruit. I don't care if I have all the right answers, so long as I'm glorifying the Divine in some small way; easing suffering in some small way; bringing joy into this world in some small way. That's what matters to me.

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I imagine the above implies my views on Church authority. If it doesn't, well, I'll just say I'm kind of an anarchist about church as much as anything else! The Church should never have come to wield as much power as it has. And whatever the "role" of the Church is in the Divine Story, I remember learning somewhere in seminary that the ultimate future of Church is to dissolve — that when we've experienced the full in-breaking of God's Kin-dom, there will be no more need for Church.

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Not all Presbyterians hold to predestination — and for most I know who do, it's not really a central part of their faith life.

But sure, you could say I believe in predestination: I believe we are all predestined for participation in God's Kin-dom! :)

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Further reading:

My tag of LGBTA patron Saints <3

My first podcast ep explores some of my spiritual journey

My queer and Catholic tag

Some other semi-related tags — good fruit tag; religious pluralism tag; evangelism tag; church hurt tag

My PCUSA tag, which includes a post with some old class notes about predestination

OH ALSO there's a podcast called "Called to Be Multiple" that interviews folks who draw from multiple faith sources. Cool stuff!

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today, on the feast of the transfiguration, i am reminded of our transgender siblings in Christ. i am reminded of Jesus exposing his divinity, showing himself as he truly is, just as trans christians expose the glory and beauty of their gender through transition. i am reminded how transformation-- transfiguration-- is a holy act, practiced both by trans christians and Christ alike. i am reminded that they are God's children, beloved just like Jesus, His son, and I am awed

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The guy!

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V. FRANKENSTEIN & THE MODERN PROMETHEUS: as stitched together by @frankingsteinery & @dykensteinery.

Title page of Frankenstein (1818), Vol. 1, first edition; the Torture of Prometheus by Giovachinno Assereto; Prometheus by Theodor Rombouts; Prometheus Bound by Peter Paul Rubens; Prometheus by Franz Kafka; Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein by Margaret Atwood; unknown image source; Frankenstein manuscripts from the Shelley-Godwin Archive / Bodleian Library; Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of an outcrop; Prometheus by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.