dearestday

[dearestday]

A Daily Prayer

Lord we thank you, we give you praise, we worship you.

May we give our heart to you Lord. May our walk with you guide our hearts to be soft and caring. To give to others just as you have asked of us. To care for others just as you have asked of us. Lord give us this day to hold and to cherish all that we take for granted. Let us rejoice in our friends, our families. Lord guide unto us a day where we can take all the good with the bad and give back to you. Let our troubles sanctify us. Let our pain heal us. Let our struggles guide us. As we put our whole faith in you and you alone, Lord. Our God. Our Creator. The heavens and Earth shall hear our praise to you. Renew in us hearts that bring us and the ones who surround us closer to you. Praying this in your Holy Name, Amen.

[dearestday]

evangelicals being like "god made men to do This and be like This and women to do That and be like That that's just how it is" and it's just a picture of a white man and woman following traditional gender norms makes me so insane like you boring fascist fucks. god made 2 million species of beetles. god made whales, ducks, humans, and 1500 other species capable of same sex behavior. god made fish and amphibians that change sexes. god made more than 30 different intersex variations in human beings. god, in his infinite curiosity. wake up!!! fuck!!

[dearestday]

From Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

[dearestday]

The remedy to despair… remember that our power is in our hope and action.

Art by Grace D. Chin

[dearestday]

A Nenets woman in Russia hugs her grandson. The family is preparing to follow their herd of reindeer, seen in the background, even farther into the Siberian Arctic.

Maria Stenzel

[dearestday]

Thanks be to God for music. I don't know where I would be with without it.

[dearestday]

Some of the descriptions of Christ found in early Quaker writings:

The Light. The Teacher. The Guide. The Lord. The Way. The Truth. The Life. The Seed. The Captain of Your Salvation. The Son. A Husband unto You. The Rock Most Sure. The Word. The Voice You Must Hear. The King. The Judge. The Lawgiver. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. Lord of Joy. Lord of Peace. Thy Teacher by His Spirit. The Wisdom of God. The Mediator. The Everlasting Covenant. The Everlasting Priest. A Hammer. A Sword. A Fire. Your Rest. The Head. The Pure, Living Spring. The Water which Washes. The Bread of Life. The Witness in Heaven. The Ingrafted Word. Your Crown and Life. Him from Whom All Your Help and Strength Comes. The Door. The Second Adam. The Preserver. The Sanctuary. Your Savior. The Pearl. The First and the Last. The Word with You in All Places. The Anointing in You to Teach You. The Bright and Morning Star.

[dearestday]

Jesus, you laid down your head and trusted rest amid the storm;

All around you, doubt and dread were laboring in their alarm;

But when they cried out sharp and shrill, you simply said, 'Be still!'

Lyrics from "Be Still" by Paul Zach

[dearestday]

Feels weird to come into a xtian/xtian-adjacent religion as an adult after practicing solely my cultural faith for a while.

My ancestors were forcefully converted to xtianity with the expansion of imperial Russia way back when. And of course some of my more recent ancestors and relatives were/are devout xtians but like. Usually in a toxic way... Most xtians in my cultural community were born into it, and good chunk of traditional faith folks tend to side eye even the folk xtians as being too westernised. Probably because the Russian orthodox church stopped referring to us as 'death cult pagans' only relatively recently...

I have to tell myself I'm not recolonising myself. That I have some ancestors from all parts of my ancestry who had a healthy relationship with xtianity and it was important to them. That I am half western too and that shouldn't be a bad thing. That xtianity can be positive, especially a less institutionalised form.

[dearestday]

The realization that God is present with the faith community as a whole, not merely with individuals, undergirds the Quaker understanding that spiritual authority comes from the witness of one’s Inner Guide to the words one hears from another, not the station or prestige or claim of the speaker to have received divine inspiration. If God were primarily present in the individual, then the individual could indeed claim to have received an inspired message which the community would have no way to test. As it is, however, the community knows full well that if a Friend speaks the truth, it will be discernible as truth by the entire community; and if there is a conflict between the discernment of the individual and that of the gathered community, the community’s discernment has precedence.

From Lloyd Lee Wilson, Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order

[dearestday]

I was talking to a another student studying access to sciences last month and I mentioned my current career goal is to be an environmental/climate scientist.

She said with some grim humour that she could never, herself, she would become too depressed. I completely get that. For me though, on my worst days after doomscrolling through google scholar, reading the grimmest literature I can find to satisfy my OCD...

I think of the snowball earth theory.

We have evidence that the entire planet froze over but photosynthetic life still survived using the heat from underwater volcanos that warmed the water and melted the ice enough to allow sunlight to penetrate through.

Like in the story from the Torah, life survived.

And when the snowball earth period was finished? The Ediacaran explosion.

The Earth will survive us. Life will survive us.

[dearestday]

Religious themes. Except the religious themes involve animism. Everything you interact with has some kind of spiritual imprint, influence or a number of souls. You should consider how your treat your environment, everything has value.

[dearestday]

I refuse to participate in fast fashion. I can't. I just can't anymore. When my disability was more severe I capitulated but no more.

[dearestday]

@coyotesnout

[dearestday]

I genuinely think there was no greater insight into the modern Christian mindset than when the Pope said he very much hoped Hell was empty and he was absolutely hounded by both Catholics and Protestants outraged at the idea of a man who wanted a place of infinite suffering to have nobody in it.

[dearestday]

christians who think secular music is ungodly....skill issue. God is there, you just aren't listening

[dearestday]

Mennonites singing while being arrested for their protest demanding a ceasefire in Palestine.