#unworthy of any compassion or justification

[sarroora]

Did you know that Rafah…is only about 55km?

Now imagine 1.4 MILLION homeless, starving civilians sitting in dirty, freezing tents next to each other on that measly 55km of land. Incomprehensible, isn’t it?

That picture above? That’s from last December. The real density today is much more horrifying.

They’ve been forcefully exiled into this tiny square, and now they’re being bombed savagely from the sky. While the world watches.

I have no words. I only feel rage in my veins.

[theerurishipper]

I’m gonna wait to see the special before drawing any more finale conclusions but for the moment everything we got from the leaks is just so… weird? and nonsensical? 

So the only reason why our Marinette didn’t turn evil was because of Alya. Which contradicts everything TA and his team have been saying about abuse. Why does Alya being a positive influence for Marinette works but Audrey being a negative influence for Chloé doesn’t? They had Mylene say, “Having a bad mother doesn’t justify your actions” so neither should bullying. The lesson with Chloe is that abuse is ok and children that turn out ‘wrong’ because of it should just be left alone with their abusers because they somehow deserve it by not being able to turn out perfect on their own. Why shouldn’t the same logic apply to Emonette and Emodrien? (I believe they’re the names the fandom’s been using but I’m not sure) You’re being bullied? Doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t lash out and become evil. It’s 100% on you now. Like seriously, am I missing some piece of information here? If I am please correct me! Because as of now it just doesn’t make sense to me. The lessons TA wanted to teach its fans is that sometimes people are just bad and no amount of tragic backstory justifies their actions, but every single choice he’s done from season 3 is just proving over and over that this logic only applies when it’s time to diminish Chloe. Chloe is 14 and has decided to be evil. Emonette and Emodrien are 14 have decided to be evil. “But they tried to show Chloe the right path and she didn’t take it, she’s evil” Gabriel seems to be a good father in the other universe, so shouldn’t be this the same for Emodrien as well? How did he even end up being a ray of sunshine with an abusive terrorist father but ends up being a villain with a good father? How does that even work? I really hope there’s more to the special because if they’re really going for the message that somehow Gabriel’s abusive parenting was a good thing for Adrien… I’m going to scream. 

Like, I understand the story they were going for with Chloe. Unfortunately, it's true that some people don't change. But then they began stating that she's not an abused child and it's not the influence of her mother that made her this way, it's just that she's Evil™. And her "consequences" ended up being more abuse. It's so fucked up.

And you're exactly right about Chloe being exempt from the justifications and explanations that the rest of the cast receives. Emonette gets to commit terrorism, and all this can be explained away by her having been bullied by Chloe, but Chloe isn't influenced by her mother's abuse, oh no, she's just born evil and is unworthy of change! The Chloe equivalent of Emonette's story would be for her to be sent back in disgrace after committing all her crimes to be bullied by Chloe some more, but you just know that ain't gonna be how it goes down. The characters are going to downplay Shadybug and Claw Noir's crimes, offer them compassion and insist that they are good people, and they're gonna get off scott-free. And of course, Emonette wouldn't deserve more bullying as a consequence, and that's the truth. But apparently Chloe's deserved ending is more abuse? It's horrid.

And the Gabriel-Adrien implications are a step further into the abuse apologia category. I just wrote a whole post about it, but you're right on the money about the implications. And I really think that's what's going to be portrayed, unintentionally or not. It sucks.

Thank you for your ask!

[meatcrimes]

Nineteen years. That’s almost two thirds of my life you’ve been gone. I’ll never forget the hot pavement on that sunny, unusually humid July day. I forgave you for this years ago, but if you had known your death would have been a catalyst for so much trauma and pain for your entire extended family, would you have been more careful?

Look at us, those of us who are left. Look at your brother, your daughter, your surviving son. Look at what they’ve overcome in the past nineteen years. Look at me, your niece, and my brother, your nephew who you never got to meet. Look what we’re still trying to overcome. I no longer blame you for the actions of other people done in the wake of your death, but the timeline shifted that day, and whatever track we were on before veered into the wrong lane at 100mph and ever since we’ve been picking up the pieces. I can’t say we would have been better or worse off if we hadn’t lost you, but I can say we all wish you were able to walk your daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Walk your foster son down the aisle at his wedding, because it became legal in 2015 for him and his husband to marry. You had no idea he was gay, did you? Neither did he for many, many years. And the trauma he experienced from your death influenced his own death in his early thirties. Now, you both left widows behind. You have more in common now than you ever did in life.

Look at your daughter, you probably won’t even recognize her, and not just from the weight loss. She’s now a devout Catholic, in a loving marriage with a man who values and respects her, with five beautiful step daughters that call her “mom”. It wasn’t easy for her to get there. She went through far too long of believing herself unworthy and unloveable, and far too many boyfriends who saw her the same way.

Look at your biological son. He’s in the national guard now, making something of his life and what has been left behind. He simultaneously never grew up and grew up all too fast, a lot like me. He doesn’t remember what your voice sounds like, and I wish I could transfer my memory of your voice into his mind. It isn’t fair that I remember your voice and he doesn’t. Really, none of this is fair, never has been, never to anyone. Your generation may have said “Life isn’t fair” with the connotations of “so there!”. Often a justification of their mistreatment of others. But us, we hear it in a different pitch. We hear “life isn’t fair” with “but with compassion and community we can bridge the gaps, even if we can’t close them”.

I don’t remember where I was going with this. I’m sitting in my old room at my dad’s house that he owns, that he bought with money he earned in a career that didn’t exist nineteen years ago. We live in a small town thousands of miles from our ancestral land, in a climate my body will frankly never get used to. I was built for the desert, biologically designed for the Great Basin region. Last time I went back, my anxiety was nearly gone, my acne cleared, my hair didn’t need any styling or products beyond a brush and shampoo. My thyroid condition was getting better at a faster rate than it was before. I thrived in Nevada. I am a Western Shoshone woman. You were a Western Shoshone man, no matter how much you or anyone else ignored it, or explained our genes with ancestry we didn’t share. Las Vegas is haunted ground now. My father plans on never going back, because it reminds him so much of you. And me? No matter how badly I want to return home, it’s not home anymore. It hasn’t been since we lost you. And I don’t think I can rebuild what was destroyed.

[gatheringbones]

I don't know how to feel about that Jane woititz quote about "you are not to be blamed for the suffering you've inflicted" it feels like it takes responsibility away from the person and assuming they didn't have a choice to not treat people badly.

“Not to blame” is a charged phrase that gets my hackles up too, especially when “it’s not my fault!” was one of those tools I saw thrown around a lot to absolve any responsibility to change one’s behavior. I hear you!

but blame, and blaming, got less and less useful the more I saw broken systems from multiple angles and generations, and the less I needed it on a personal level when it came to relating to the abusive people in my life— which pushes me into territories that earlier versions of me that were still very new and tender about the recovery process would have an incredibly hard time interacting with calmly. It used to be very hard for me to take in any information about addicts for example, especially if that information didn’t demonize addicts as horrible monsters whose personal weaknesses were entirely at fault for the chaos surrounding them.

But I got to have my time with blame, I got to dole it out as much as I wanted, and more importantly I got to trace blame back through enough systems and generations that the anger turned into grief. My mom was so fucked up because her mom was fucked up, and so was her mom, and so were the systems that created them, and the systems that created those systems, and once you start going down that rabbit hole it becomes very hard to stop. So you do stop, or at least press pause for a while because it’s an ongoing process where new insights are bound to happen all the time, and because you’ve had your fill of it, and once the question of blame has been settled to whatever level of comfort suits you, questions like what ought to be done now tend to take the forefront.

If I can see my exact role and function in these interlocking systems, with the ability to identify why my maladaptive coping mechanisms failed to serve me the way I wanted them to, and bolstered by the fact that I have been able to grieve whatever needed grieving, where do I go from there? Not the people who harmed me— me.

thinking about my earlier difficulties interacting with materials meant to help and understand addicts made me remember that gabor maté quote about asking why and the function of justification:

“Posed in a tone of compassionate curiosity, “Why?” is transformed from rigid accusation to an open-minded, even scientific question. Instead of hurling an accusatory brick at you head (e.g. “I’m so stupid; when will I ever learn?” etc.) the question “Why did I do this again, knowing full well the negative consequences?” can become the subject of a fruitful inquiry, a gentle investigation. Taking off the starched uniform of the interrogator, who is determined to try, convict, and punish, we adopt toward ourselves the attitude of an empathic friend, who simply wants to know what’s going on with us. The acronym COAL has been proposed for this attitude of compassionate curiosity: curiosity, openness, acceptance, and love: “Hmmm. I wonder what drove me to do this again.

The purpose is not to justify or rationalize but to understand. Justification is another form of judgement, every bit as debilitating as condemnation. When we justify, we hope to win the judge’s favor or to hoodwink her. Justification connives to absolve the self of responsibility; understanding helps us assume responsibility. When we don’t have to defend ourselves against others or, what’s more, against ourselves, we are open to seeing how things are. I become free to acknowledge the addiction the moment the fact of having behaved along addictive patters no longer means that I’m a failure as a person, unworthy of respect, shallow, and valueless. I can own it and see the many ways it sabotages my real goals in life. Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer. Along with our ability to feel our own pain go our best hopes for healing, dignity, and love. What seems nonadaptive and self-harming in the present was, at some point in our lives, an adaptation to help us endure what we had to go through then.”

“Who is to blame?” < “Why did this happen?” for me, and it took a very long time to get there and every stage of that process was necessary for my development.

[wesleyhill]

The Innocent One

A homily on Psalm 112 preached at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois on September 20, 2019

Psalm 112

 1 Hallelujah! Happy are they who fear the Lord * and have great delight in his commandments!

2 Their descendants will be mighty in the land; * the generation of the upright will be blessed.

3 Wealth and riches will be in their house, * and their righteousness will last for ever.

4 Light shines in the darkness for the upright; * the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.

5 It is good for them to be generous in lending * and to manage their affairs with justice.

6 For they will never be shaken; * the righteous will be kept in everlasting remembrance.

7 They will not be afraid of any evil rumors; * their heart is right; they put their trust in the Lord.

8 Their heart is established and will not shrink, * until they see their desire upon their enemies.

9 They have given freely to the poor, * and their righteousness stands fast for ever; they will hold up their head with honor.

10 The wicked will see it and be angry; they will gnash their teeth and pine away; * the desires of the wicked will perish.

A few years ago, the Episcopal priest and professor Lauren Winner wrote about how difficult it had been for her to pray the Psalms. “I must admit,” she said, “I have never much liked the psalms, they have never prayed easy to me.”

It is, of course, absurd to offer this kind of jejune, self-referential assessment — what does it matter whether I like the Psalter or not, and how, really, can I find the psalms (which are, after all, both time-tested poetry and also the prayer book of the Jewish people, which is to say among other people the prayer book of Jesus) dull, but in fact I have found them dull for many years and mostly an occasion for woolgathering.

I had to look up “woolgathering,” which isn’t a word I use. It means “indulgence in idle daydreaming.” Winner is saying that hearing or saying the Psalms makes her eyes glaze over.

I can’t say that’s been my experience exactly, but I have had my own difficulties with the Psalms over the years, particularly ones like the psalm set for us today. Psalm 112 is the sort of psalm that readers of Scripture refer to a “psalm of innocence.” It’s about the goodness, the righteousness, the innocence of the one praying it. “Happy are they who fear the Lord,” the psalm begins, and we’re meant to agree and, it would seem, to recognize ourselves as those who fear the Lord and experience the happiness that comes with doing so. “Light shines in the darkness for the upright,” the psalm continues; “the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.” And again, I think we’re meant to see ourselves in these phrases. Anyone who takes this psalm as her or his own prayer is meant to be able to identify with the “upright” and “the righteous.”

The psalm ends with a contrast between us who are praying it and other people who are unrighteous. “[T]he righteous will be kept in everlasting remembrance,” it says, while the wicked ones “will gnash their teeth and pine away; the desires of the wicked will perish.” And that’s where the psalm ends.

For many years of my Christian life, I have struggled to pray psalms like this. I remember being in high school and beginning to study the Bible seriously for the first time in my life and encountering a psalm like Psalm 18, another one of the “psalms of innocence.” Here is how part of it goes:

The LORD rewarded me because of my righteous dealing; because my hands were clean he rewarded me;

For I have kept the ways of the LORD and have not offended against my God;

For all his judgments are before my eyes, and his decrees I have not put away from me;

For I have been blameless with him and have kept myself from iniquity;

Therefore the LORD rewarded me according to my righteous dealing, because of the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

I recall reading that at about age 16, when it seemed like I was the worst version of myself I’d ever encountered — when anger or rage or lust or pride or selfishness seemed to lurk around every corner of my psyche — and I saw no way to pray this psalm with any integrity. My hands weren’t clean. I hadn’t kept the ways of the LORD. I most certainly had not been blameless nor had I managed to keep myself from iniquity.

Those feelings were still there when I came to this campus as a freshman. I remember waking up early in my room in Fischer dorm and reading the Bible and feeling such a keen sense of unworthiness, of failure at living a godly Christian existence. No doubt a big part of this was the product of having grown up in a legalistic church environment, but I’m sure that wasn’t all of it — because every Christian tradition, whether Catholic or Anabaptist or anywhere in between, has its ways of reminding us that we all fall short of the glory of God, every day, all the time. The confession of sin that my tradition gives me to say every morning includes these lines: “We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” And when you internalize that message, it can be hard to know what to do with a psalm like the one we’ve heard this morning. Can we, as the sinners we know ourselves to be, pray it? Should we?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian who became a martyr in Nazi Germany, wrote a tiny little devotional book about the Psalms called The Prayerbook of the Bible. In it he has a brief chapter about the “psalms of innocence” that gave me a breakthrough when I first read it, years ago now.

What Bonhoeffer, following St. Augustine and Martin Luther and others, emphasizes in his book is that, before the psalms belong to us to pray, they are first and foremost the prayers of — and prayers about — Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one whose voice we hear when we read the psalms. Jesus is the main character we encounter when we read the psalms. Tradition says that Israel’s greatest king, David, authored most of the psalms, and Jesus, as great David’s greater heir, takes the psalms on his lips and makes them his own, orients them toward himself.

The translation we used this morning was a gender inclusive one, in which the singular references and pronouns were converted to plurals. That makes good sense in a setting for liturgical prayer, but listen again to Psalm 112 as I read it in Peter Levi’s translation, which uses the original Hebrew singular forms. See if you can see Jesus Christ in the words of the psalm:

Praise God. I bless the man who fears God, who has pleasure in his law: his seed will be mighty on the earth, the upright generation will be blessed. His house will have riches and precious things, and his justice will continue for ever. Light for the just has risen in the darkness, which is good and merciful and upright. The good man is decent and generous, he furthers his affairs rightly. He will never be shifted, the just man will be remembered for ever. He will not fear wicked talk, his heart is strong and he trusts God: his heart is fixed, he is not afraid, he will see the shame of his persecutors. He scattered his goods and gave to the destitute, his uprightness continues for ever, his head shall be gloriously lifted up. The wicked man shall see it and be sorry, he shall grind his teeth and wither, the wicked man’s wishes will come to nothing.

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this is a psalm that belongs to and is about Jesus Christ before it belongs to you or me or is about us. Jesus is “the man who fears God,” who takes pleasure in God’s law. Jesus is the one whose justice will endure forever. Jesus is the one whose heart is strong, who trusts God and will not be afraid. Jesus is the one who saw the shame of his persecutors when he rose from the dead, triumphing over hell and the grave and leading captivity captive. Jesus is the innocent one who scattered his goods and gave to the destitute. Jesus is the one whose head was lifted up and crowned with glory and honor as he took his seat at the Father’s right hand.

But Bonhoeffer wants us to see that, insofar as Psalm 112 is about Jesus, it is also and because of that about us too, because through our baptism into Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have been united to him — as in a marriage — so that everything he is and has and does is ours as well. Bonhoeffer says it this way:

It is characteristic of the faith of the Christian that through God’s grace and the merit of Jesus Christ he [or she] has become entirely justified and guiltless in God’s eyes, so that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). And it is characteristic of the prayer of the Christian to hold fast to this innocence and justification which has come to him [or her], appealing to God’s word and thanking him for it. So not only are we permitted, but directly obligated… to pray in all humiliation and certainty: “I was blameless before him and I kept myself from guilt” (Psalm 18:23); “If thou testest me thou wilt find no wickedness in me” (Psalm 17:3). With such a prayer we stand in the center of the New Testament, in the community of the cross of Jesus Christ.

If your spirituality is anything like mine, this can be a hard word to accept, particularly, perhaps, at a place like Wheaton. The spiritual lives you think your fellow students are leading can seem like an ideal you could never hope to attain. The life your church expects of you can feel impossible to embody. Your conscience accuses you of never measuring up. Your GPA reminds you that you’re not quite good enough. Your search history on your browser tells you you are definitely not “pure.” Your body tells you you aren’t fit or attractive enough. With all these voices vying for your attention, how can you pray with the psalmist, “Happy are they who fear the LORD” and ever think that that happiness is meant to include you?

But if Bonhoeffer is right, we are not only permitted — we are commanded — to pray the psalms of innocence. Not because of our own track record or spiritual prowess but because Jesus Christ has made us one with himself. We are innocent because God says so. God’s Word has come to us in Jesus Christ, and it is a word of promise. God has spoken his judgment over us, and this is the decree: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus has become for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. From now on, we dare not give our conscience the last word. We must not give any credence to the accusations of our Enemy. We dare not trust the verdict of any other voice but his. The risen Lord, who is alive among us, commands us to call upon him, the LORD our righteousness, and to hold our heads high and proclaim to any who would condemn us,

Jesu, thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head.

When you lift up your head like that, you will see the love that Jesus has called you to share in — and to share with others, with your neighbor, even with your enemy. We need not live for our innocence, to try to attain it (because it’s already ours by gift), but we can now live from it. We can live out of it, we can live it out — we can live in the freedom of the innocence that has become ours in Jesus Christ. We are now liberated to love, to serve, to scatter our goods and give to the destitute, just as Jesus has freely given to us.

Amen.

[frumfrumfroo]

What’s the “he’s on his own now” interpretation that’s a pet peeve of yours? What is it you find annoying about it?

I don’t want to go looking for examples or anything, but there used to be (still is?) a really strong contingent of people repeatedly saying something which boils down to ‘Rey’s done her part, she can’t and shouldn’t reach out to him again, he needs to get it together by himself, he needs to earn her attention/compassion before she will bother with him further, he needs to prove himself, he doesn’t deserve any more help or overtures, it’s unhealthy not to cut someone off when they are “toxic”, etc.’

And I understand the validity of the main idea here (she should not and obviously will not enable him in his terrible decisions), but ‘you need to get it together by yourself now that I’ve given you a shot and you blew it’ is not a good message for extremely numerous reasons. People have to want to help themselves, yes, but they can’t be expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when trying to do that is exactly what got them in so much trouble. ‘Fix yourself or you’re unworthy’ is… awful. If we apply this message to troubled adolescence or trauma or mental illness, any of the things Ben can be read as a metaphor for, it’s easy to see why. He can never learn to accept himself or conquer his fear in a vacuum or in response to an ultimatum.

I don’t really have the wherewithal to explain this right now, but… just let’s note that unconditional love does not mean condoning or ignoring ongoing bad behaviour. It means eternal willingness to forgive the penitent, it means limitless charity towards and cherishing of the humanity behind all behaviour. We’re in a fairy tale, so this is broad and symbolic, not to be held to a standard of psychological realism, but Rey shutting the door does not mean her love is conditional. Ben wanting her to join him does not mean his love is conditional. Rey is not using her love as emotional blackmail or a bargaining chip to hold over his head- if she were, that would not be good or heroic. If he changed his behaviour because of that, he would not be redeemed or healed.

You can love someone and empathise with their justifications and still condemn their actions. It’s not compassionate to tell them their maladaptive coping mechanisms are totally fine and don’t need to change. That does not help them.

Not that either character has yet achieved fully selfless love, because we’re still building towards that, but that’s where we’re going.

[barelimbs1]

inner child

I unknowingly framed my entire sense of self on the desire to be loved, I longed for it the way a child longed a mother's touch. Something I evidently lacked in my childhood. That child with dark skin, a gap between her teeth and the soul of a nurture who was acutely aware of the moods and feelings of others. I often was the one who played the caretaker in my house, I was emotionally drained by the roars of my parents and they relied on me to keep peace - to be the voice of reason and they had no understanding of how this kind of chaos would affect my development. I wasn't taught the importance of boundaries. My feelings and the importance of cultivating my inner voice wasn’t allowed the space to flourish. They had no understanding of it. That resentment laid with me for awhile but through active shadow work I understood the importance of not shifting blame to my mother or father. They did the best with what they knew, they raised me the way they were raised and how could they have known? How could they have known their absence in my life, the fighting, the screaming, and the lack of emotional safety could have affected their only daughter? I extend compassion and forgiveness to them because I know the pain I endured in my childhood wasn't intentional, their love for me just wasn't what I needed in my development.  As an adult, it is my job to tend to those wounds, to be my own caregiver. It is my responsibility to give myself the safety and love I lacked in my adolescence. 

My childhood trauma often highlighted the need to be validated in my adulthood. it triggered my abandonment wounds and my insecurities. My last relationship quickly became a desperate attempt at trying to prove I was worthy of being loved. And I was given crumbs of the love I was clinging on to. I couldn't use discernment to see that the love he was giving me was rooted in resentment and his own trauma and shadow side that he was continuously running away from. My attachment style quickly became anxious, and his was avoidant. Unknowingly, I had mirrored the relationship of my parents, I was the child attracting what was familiar. Chaos and love was my familiar. I was constantly trying to do the work for him, trying to get him to see reason, begging him to accept the love I was trying to give him. But he couldn't get out of his own head, in fact the more I needed him the more he pushed me away and the worse his disdain for me became. I gave until I had nothing for myself and my resentment and insanity grew. I felt a deep sense of betrayal from him but also felt the betrayal to myself. By fighting for his love, I was losing my self worth and self respect. It took a couple blows of him using my insecurities against me to wake up. The pain became so overwhelming I began to look on at him with dismay and contempt. 

Sadly, the person I was fighting for showed me he was no longer that person again and again. The cruelty became too overwhelming that I had nothing else to cling on to. I was forced to face the reality and it broke me. I no longer knew who he was, and I felt as if I had built up some idea of who he was in my head. I no longer felt who I loved ever existed. I wanted to change and grow, he wanted to stay stuck in the past, he wanted to continue doing as he pleased without considering the affect it had on me and subconsciously use the past as a justification for his cruelty. After that I felt as if all the efforts I had were completely wasted, and all I had left was my broken heart and my lost identity. I relied so heavily on him to validate my worth when I always had it within me to do it on my own. I no longer wanted to be a victim and I looked at the situation as something I was experiencing rather than something that was happening to me. I had let go and I let go without anger this time. I let go with acceptance. But most importantly I was exhausted. I had nothing else to give. He is own his own journey and I no longer have a hand in that. It was never my responsibility to help him access a higher state of being. It was never my responsibility to highlight the areas he needed to work on. And had I learned that lesson a year ago, I would have saved myself a great deal of pain. So I forgave him and continued on my journey without him. I can still love the people I loved, even if I cross the street to avoid them. I always thought I was mature for forgiving the ones who hurt me. I always thought my idea of being the bigger person was something to be praised. I didn't understand the concept of forgiving and letting go. My forgiveness was rooted in my own ego, and my desire to look like a good person. I wanted to control the narrative of who I knew myself to be. I knew I was a good person. I knew that my intentions were pure. But, the truth is I will probably be the villain in someone else's story and people may not want to see me in a good light and that's okay. It is not a reflection of myself and that notion is freeing. I can fuck up and that doesn't make me a bad person or someone who's unworthy of love. I can forgive and not go back to the same place that made me sick. I don't need to give any more compassion to anyone if it means taking that compassion away from myself. I can exercise my boundaries and not feel ashamed for doing so. I don't have to prove myself to anyone. What I want and what I feel is more than enough. . He can view me however he wants. I am okay with him seeing the story from his perspective, it doesn’t take away from how I feel or how I know I didn’t deserve to be treated.

Isolation has forced me to confront some really dark aspects of myself. I wasn't given the luxury of being avoidant this time. A breakup, losing friends, and a death in my family sent me into the darkest spiral of my life. After a very traumatic situation four years ago, I didn't think I could sink any lower but I did. This time the universe forced this lesson down my throat, I had nowhere to run or hide. My buried trauma was going to chew me up and spit me back out if I didn't learn what I know now to be a major lesson in my life. I am sitting with myself, and embracing the solitude. The only thing keeping me company is my research, my therapist, and my own intrusive thoughts.  I am okay with not being perfect. And next time I will run far away from a man who calls me his dream woman. Every man who has called me their dream woman has idealised me or put me on some pedestal and when I couldn't live up to their unrealistic expectations they dehumanised me. And became vengeful when I didn't live up to their impossible vision of who they imagined me to be. I am human and I am flawed. I am grateful for the love and the pain. It has sent me on an incredible journey. And what a journey it will continue to be.

[whiteeveningdresses]

that looks suchlike a $1500 clothes for two cardinal dollars 8th grade prom dresses)98yhjdk

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[mathematicianadda]

Core Deceits for Destroying Remediation

Back in 2012, several groups … including the Dana Center and Complete College America … published a statement entitled Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education, a statement which has been used as an a priori proof of specific solutions to perceived problems in the profession of preparing students for success in college-level courses, for completion, and for a better life.

The core principles stated have been treated as research-based conclusions with a sound theoretical underpinning.  The purpose of this post is to look at the truth value of each statement — thus the title about ‘deceits’.

            Here we go …

Principle 1: Completion of a set of gateway courses for a program of study is a critical measure of success toward college completion.

This is clearly a definition being proposed for research.  Certainly, completing gateway courses is a good thing.  “Success”?  Nope, at best this completion would be a measure of association; our students have complicated lives and very diverse needs.  For some of them, I would make the case that delaying their gateway courses is the best thing we can do; this step tends to lock them in to a program.  Curiously, the rhetoric attached to this principle states that remedial education does not build ‘momentum’.  This is clearly a marketing phrase based on appealing to emotional states in the reader.  Anybody who has been immersed in remedial education has seen more momentum than the authors of this statement have seen in gateway courses.

              Principle 2: The content of required gateway courses should align with a student’s academic program of study — particularly in math.

“Alignment” is the silver bullet du jour.  Any academic problem is reduced to building proper ‘alignment’.  The word is ill-defined in general (unless we are speaking of automobiles), and is especially ill-defined in education.  The normal implementation is that the mathematics is limited to the applications a student will encounter in their program of study.  I’ve written about these issues (see At the Altar of Alignment and Alignment of Remediation with Student Programs).  In the context of this post, I’ll just add that the word alignment is like the word momentum — almost everybody likes the idea, though almost nobody can actually show what it is in a way that helps students.

The rationale for this deceit targets remedial mathematics as being the largest barrier to success.  If the phrase is directed at sequences of 3 or more remedial math courses, I totally agree — there is a significant research base for that conclusion.  There is no research base suggesting that 1 or 2 remedial math courses is the largest barrier to completion.

              And …

Principle 3: Enrollment in a gateway college-level course should be the default placement for many more students.

This deceit is based on two cultural problems. One, an attack on using tests to place students in courses — both ‘english’ and mathematics.  In ‘english’, there is a good reason to question the use of tests for placement:  cultural bias is almost impossible to avoid.  For mathematics, there is less evidence of a problem.  However, the deceit suggests that both types of testing are ‘bad.  Another principle deceit addresses placement testing.

The second cultural problem is one of privilege:  parents from well-off areas with good schools are upset that their “precious children” are made to take a remedial course.  These parents question our opinions about what is best for students, and some of them are engaged with the policy influencers (groups such as those who drafted the ‘core principles’ document being discussed).  Of course, I have no evidence of these statements … just as the authors of the deceit have no evidence that it would be better with the default placement rule.

There is an ugly truth behind this deceit:  Especially in mathematics, we have tended to create poorly designed sequences of remedial courses which appear (to students and outsiders) to serve the primary purpose of weeding out the ‘unworthy’.  We have had a very poor record of accepting diversity, and little tolerance of ‘not quite ready’.  Decades of functioning in this mode left us vulnerable to the disruptive influences evidenced by the core deceits.

          Next:

Principle 4: Additional academic support should be integrated with gateway college-level course content — as a co-requisite, not a prerequisite.

I am impressed by the redundancy ‘integrated’ and ‘co-requisite’.  This is a give-away that the authors are more concerned with rhetoric supporting their position than they are with actual students.  This call to use only co-requisite ‘remediation’ is also a call to kill off all stand-alone remediation.  I’ve also written on this before (see Segregation in College Mathematics: Corequisites! Pathways? and Where is the Position Paper on Co-Reqs? Math in the First Year? for starters).

Within mathematics, we would call principle 3 a ‘conjecture’ and principle 4 is a ‘corollary’.  This unnecessary repetition is a give-away that the argument to kill remedial courses is more important than improving education.  The groups who did the ‘core principles [sic: deceits]’ have been beating the drum head with ‘evidence’ that it works.  Underneath this core deceit is a very bad idea about mathematics:

The only justification for remediation is to prepare students for one college level math course (aligned with their program, of course )

Remedial mathematics has three foundations — preparing students for their college math course, preparing students for other courses (science, technology, economics, etc), and preparing students for success in general.  Perhaps we have nothing to show for our efforts in the last item listed, but there are clear connections between remedial mathematics and other courses on the student’s program.  Co-requisite remediation is a closed-system solution to an open-system problem (see The Selfishness of the Corequisite Model).

              Next:

Principle 5: Students who are significantly underprepared for college level academic work need accelerated routes into programs of study.

Conceptually, this principle is right on — there is no deceit in the basic idea.  The loophole is the one word ‘routes’.  The commentary in the principles document is appropriate vague about what it means, and I can give this one my seal of approval.

                    To continue …

Principle 6: Multiple measures should be used to provide guidance in the placement of students in gateway courses and programs of study.

This is the principle to follow-up on the default placement deceit.  Some of the discussion is actually good (about providing more support before testing, including review sources, to students).  The deceit in this principle comes in two forms — the direct attack on placement tests, and the unquestioning support of the HS GPA for college course placement.

The attack on placement tests has been vicious and prolonged.  People use words like ‘evil’; one of my administrators uses the word ‘nuances’ as code for ‘this is so evil I don’t have a polite word for it’. This attack on placement tests is a direct reason why we no longer have the “Compass” option.  The deceit itself is based on reasonably good research being generalized without rationale.  Specifically, the research constantly supports a better record in mathematics placement tests than in ‘english’, but the multiple measures propaganda includes mathematics.

The use of HS GPA in college course placement is a recent bad idea.  I’ve written about this in the past (see Does the HS GPA Mean Anything? and Placement Tests, HS GPA, and Multiple Measures … “Just the Facts” for starters).   Here is a recent scatterplot for data from my college:

        The horizontal lines represent our placement rules.  The correlation in this data is 0.527; statistically significant but practically almost useless.  Our data suggests that using the HS GPA adds very little value to a placement rule; at the micro level, I use the HS GPA as a part of ‘multiple measures’ in forming groups … and have found that students would be better served if I had ignored the HS GPA.

The last:

Principle 7: Students should enter a meta-major when they enroll in college and start a program of study in their first year in order to maximize their prospects of earning a college credential.

Connected with this attack on remedial courses is a call for guided pathways, which is where the ‘meta-major’ comes from.  The narrative for this principle again uses the word ‘aligned’. In many cases (like my college), the ‘first year’ is implemented as a ‘take their credit math course in the first year’.  Again, I have addressed these concepts (see Where is the Position Paper on Co-Reqs? Math in the First Year?  and Policy based on Correlation: Institutionalizing Inequity.

                Meta majors are a reasonable concept to use with our student population.  However, the normal implementation almost amounts to students selecting a meta-major because they like the graphical image we use.  In other cases, like the image shown here, meta-majors are just another confusing construct we try to get potential students to survive.

As is normal, we can find both some good truths and some helpful guidance … even within these 7 deceits about remediation.  Taken on its own merits, the document is flawed at basic levels, and would not survive (even in its final form) the normal review process for publication in most journals.

Progress is made based on deeper understanding of problems, building a conceptual and theoretical basis, and developing a community of practitioners.  The ‘7 deceits’ does little to contribute to that progress, and those deceits are normally used to destroy structures and courses.  Our students deserve better, and our institutions should be ashamed of using deceitful principles as the basis for any decision.

  from Developmental Mathematics Revival! https://ift.tt/31UVIyK from Blogger https://ift.tt/2OvA1RV

[buggie-hagen]

Newsletter Devotion: Justification by Grace

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is sure.

~Titus 3:4-8a

Dear People of God,

         The central theme, or pillar, of Lutheranism is the doctrine of ‘justification by grace.’ From it all other doctrines flow and without it we have nothing. Justification means “to be made right in the eyes of God.” That is, to be reconciled to God from all that divides us from him. It is an act of compassion entirely from God’s initiative. We do not deserve it. We are indeed unworthy. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves or to make God think better of us. For if there was that would put a condition on God’s unbounded love for us. God would become nothing more than an angry judge whom we could never satisfy. It is God, and the God we know in Jesus Christ, that makes everything right—between us and God, between us and others, and between us and all creation.

         God’s mercy doesn’t come to us without means, but through the Means of Grace. Namely, God’s Word and Sacraments. It is not something we get from looking at nature or simply from the goodwill of human hearts. Rather God directs us to his chosen means to be made known. The Word that creates and lifts up our faith. The Sacraments which also create our faith again and again. In these means God communicates grace to us. It is something absolutely certain. No question about it. It is something we so desperately need.

Grace comes to us from outside ourselves, by grace. Grace is a churchy word that I think a lot of us have forgotten or misunderstood the meaning of. It is something that God does to us. Grace is God looking over our sins. It is God forgiving us even though we fail him again and again. Grace is the loving kindness of God in Jesus Christ. Who on the cross overcame sin and death, that we might be saved. And, being justified by grace, we are heirs of the promise. Something so trustworthy we can stake our lives on it 1,000 times. Something so abundant that it never runs out. Grace is something that makes it worth getting up in the morning, makes it worth loving our neighbor as ourselves. Grace is like a healing oil that falls over our head and encompasses all of our being. And, this unconditional grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ is not only for us Lutherans…but for those who doubt, for Catholics, Mormons, people of all faiths, atheists, in fact all of humankind. For this gracious love of God in Christ has no boundaries.

 Peace and joy,

Pastor

[onlyhumanflaws]

Self Care vs Self-Indulgence: The Eternal War

One of my favorite explorations of self care as a concept is an episode of the podcast Still Processing (which can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/podcasts/still-processing-we-care-for-ourselves-and-others-in-trumps-america.html). I rec the shit out of this podcast, btw.

Self care is a bit tricky to talk about when it means so many different things to so many different people, and when one’s own personal relationship to the literal act of caring for themself is complicated. I can barely manage to feed myself most days; how do I go from basic needs to self care?

I have a deep distrust of self-indulgence, a term that also means a great many things to a great many people. A friend once told me that it seemed like my brain found a way to turn anything I enjoyed into a weapon with which to hurt myself, whether it was computer games or writing a certain type of story or eating a certain type of food. All of those things feel self-indulgent to me, as if the only things I should be allowed to do are things I don’t like doing and everything else is an ugly and shameful bit of decadence.

To a certain extent, my brain is very invested in my discomfort, in my anxiety, depression, unworthiness. Not because my brain is masochistic, but because it made a home inside those things where it felt safe, and now that’s the only way to feel safe.

You’d think acknowledging this, understanding it, would flick a switch and I’d be cured. ALAS NOT.

Lately I’ve been attempting--and this is not a hot take, it’s in a lot of the advice for people healing from trauma and childhood shit--to treat the frantic, frightened part of me with compassion, to comfort the part of me that responds with ill grace whenever I do something inexcusable, like spend money on a game I don’t technically need, or spend time on a piece of art or writing I can’t technically use.

Instead of engaging in yet another skirmish in my lifelong battle against myself, I think about the kid I was, the one who wanted and did not receive, the one who both dreaded and relished being shouted at because it was a momentary diversion from being invisible, the one who was alone so much ze never learned how to interact with other people.

That kid? Doesn’t really want to be in this war. Ze just doesn’t know how to get out of it.

Sometimes I legit visualize sitting with zir, like I sit with my own kid, and playing computer games. It’s okay, I say calmly while ze squirms and sweats and zir heart races. It’s okay to do this thing because it makes us happy. It’s okay to spend this time playing even though we can’t justify it any other way. Happiness and play are their own justifications.

Maybe for me there is no line between self care and self-indulgence, and the real battle is to embrace them both. It’s hard going. I can’t always find the place where I can bear the discomfort long enough to enjoy things, to indulge in them. My Steam account is full of games I managed to allow myself to buy but have never played.

Someday I will. For right now, it’s enough.

[1iamhis]

#middaybabymidday

Overcoming through our Testimony

Reading: Revelations 12:7-11

Key Verse: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” verse 11.

Today’s reading refers to a character called satan, “who leads the whole world astray”. Although this misdirection away from God often involves temptation and deception, the name satan actually means “accuser”. In this passage he is called “the accuser of our brothers”. We can read of him first accusing Job of hypocrisy (Job 1:9-11, 2:4-5) and then Joshua the high priest of sin (Zechariah 3:1-4). He will use the same method of accusation against us by placing thoughts in our minds of hypocrisy, failure, sin and unworthiness. 

How can we overcome these accusing thoughts when some of them appear valid? - by our spoken witness to what the blood of the Lamb Jesus has accomplished. Jesus blood has bought us redemption into God’s kingdom through the forgiveness of our sins (Ephesians1:3). Through faith in Christ’s blood we have atonement (Romans 3:25), justification (Romans 5:9), peace and reconciliation with God (Colossians 1:20), cleansing and purification from sin (1 John 1:7), a cleansed conscience (Hebrews 9:14) and access into God’s presence (Hebrews 10:19). 

If a husband later made a false accusation of his bride’s impurity, the girl’s father displayed the proof of her virginity by showing the cloth from her wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:13-18). The testimony of the blood overcame the false accusation!

Prayer:

Lord Jesus thank You that Your blood has made me pure and guiltless before any and all accusations

💛💛💜💜💛💛💜

#middaybabymidday

Compassion

http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/compassion

https://www.gofundme.com/hospital-costs-4-fibroid-tumor

Hillsong Africa Foundation http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/hillsong-africa-foundation/

Grenfell Tower support updates & help https://grenfellsupport.wordpress.com/immediate-updates/

Watoto

http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/watoto/

Vision Rescue

http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/vision-rescue/

A21

http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/a21/

Refugee Response

http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/refugee-response/give/

The iCare Revolution

http://hillsong.com/uk/bwc/icarerevolution/

Sisterhood Initiatives http://hillsong.com/uk/sisterhood/sisterhood-be-the-change/

[pamphletstoinspire]

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE, TO THE HEBREWS - From The Latin Vulgate Bible

Chapter 4

PREFACE.

The Catholic Church hath received and declared this Epistle to be part of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, though some doubted of it in the first ages[centuries], especially in the Latin Church, witness St. Jerome on the 8th chap. of Isaias; Luther and most of his followers reject it, but the Calvinists and the Church of England have received it. Others, who received this Epistle in the first ages[centuries], doubted whether it was written by St. Paul, but thought it was written by St. Barnabas, or by St. Clement of Rome, or St. Luke, or at least that St. Paul only furnished the matter and the order of it, and that St. Luke wrote it, and St. Paul afterwards read it and approved it. It was doubted again, whether this Epistle was first written in Hebrew (that is, in Syro-Chaldaic, then spoken by the Jews) or in Greek, as Estius pretends. The ancient writers say it was written in Hebrew, but that it was very soon after translated into Greek either by St. Luke or St. Clement of Rome, pope and martyr. Cornelius a Lapide thinks the Syriac which we have in the Polyglot to have been the original; but this is commonly rejected. See Tillemont on St. Paul, Art. 46, and note 72; P. Alleman on the first to the Hebrews, &c. St. Paul wrote this letter about the year 63[A.D. 63], and either at Rome or in Italy. See Chap. xii. 24. He wrote it to the Christians in Palestine, who had most of them been Jews before. This seems the reason why he puts not his name to it, nor calls himself their apostle, his name being rather odious to the Jews, and because he was chosen to be the apostle of the Gentiles. The main design is to shew that every one's justification and salvation is to be hoped for by the grace and merits of Christ, and not from the law of Moses, as he had shewn in his Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans, where we many observe this kind of difference: To the Galatians he shews, that true justice cannot be had from circumcision and the ceremonies of the law: to the Romans, that even the moral precepts and works of the law were insufficient without the grace of Christ: and in this to the Hebrews, he shews that our justice could not be had from the sacrifices of the old law.

Chapter 4

The Christian's rest: we are to enter into it through Jesus Christ.

1 Let us, therefore, fear, lest perhaps forsaking the promise of entering into his rest, any of you be thought to be wanting.

Notes & Commentary:

Ver. 1. Let us, therefore, fear, &c. St. Paul continues his exhortation to them, not to be like the incredulous Jews, and so to be excluded from the place of eternal rest. (Witham)

2 For to us also it hath been declared as well as to them, but the word of hearing did not profit them, not being mixed with the faith of those things which they heard.

Ver. 2. To us....hath been declared, as well as to them. That is, as the riches of the country of Chanaan[Canaan], was told by Josue[Joshua] and Caleb to the people, but they would not believe them; so the happiness of the kingdom of heaven has been preached by us to you: but the word they heard (literally, the word of hearing ) did not profit them, not being mixed, or received with faith: let not this be your case. (Witham) --- As the want of a firm faith was the cause of the punishment of the Israelites, of their privation of a promised inheritance, so Christians will be eternally excluded from the kingdom promised them, unless they steadily believe and obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. The reason why so few profit of the word, is because few take care to meditate on it, to digest it, and as it were, incorporate it with themselves by proper considerations.

3 For we who have believed, shall enter into rest; as he said: As I have sworn in my wrath: If they shall enter into my rest: and this when the works from the foundation of the world were finished.

4 For in a certain place he spoke of the seventh day thus: And God rested the seventh day from all his works.

5 And in this place again: If they shall enter into my rest.

6 Seeing then it remaineth that some are to enter into it, and they, to whom it was first preached, did not enter in because of unbelief:

7 Again he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day, after so long a time, as it is above said: To-day, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

8 For if Jesus had given them rest, he would never have afterwards spoken of another day.

9 There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God.

10 For he who is entered into his rest: he also hath rested from his works, as God from his.

11 Let us hasten, therefore, to enter into that rest: lest any man fall into the same example of unbelief.

Ver. 3, &c. It is faith that opens heaven; but faith animated by charity, nourished by good works, and perfected by mortification of the senses. God only enters into his rest after the accomplishment of his works, and shall we expect to enter before we accomplish what he has given us to do? Let us fear, but in hoping; let us hope, but in labouring. --- The works....were finished.[1] This place is the same, and equally obscure in the Greek as in the Latin text. The apostle here examines what David, as a prophet, could mean, when he said of some: they shall not enter, or, if they shall enter into my rest. His argument is this: David could not prophesy of that rest, by which God, after he had created all things, (Genesis ii. 2.) is said to have rested the seventh day, when he had finished the works of the creation. Nor could David speak of that other time of resting, which was promised and given to the Israelites, when, having conquered all their enemies, they were introduced by Jesus, or Josue[Joshua], into the promised land of Chanaan[Canaan]; for these two rests were passed long before his prophecy: therefore David must speak of some rest that was to come afterwards, when he said: To-day, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts, &c. Therefore it must needs follow that some day of rest, some sabbatism, as he calls it, after his time, must remain for the people of God, that should not harden their hearts: and from hence he concludes that David had in view that eternal rest of happiness which the Messias was to obtain for us, a rest without end in the kingdom of heaven. --- Let us hasten, therefore, or as it is in the Greek, let us make it our endeavour, to gain that place of rest, by our persevering in faith and good works, and take heed not to be excluded with the unbelievers. (Witham)

Note 1:

Ver. 3. Operibus ab institutione mundi perfectis, kai toi ton ergon apo kataboles kosmou genethenton.

12 For the word of God is living and effectual, and more penetrating than any two-edged sword: and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also, and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Ver. 12. For the word of God is living, &c. Some understand by the word of God, the eternal word, or Son of God: (to whom may apply all in the 12th and 13th verses) but others rather expound it of the words, promises, and menaces of God, either foretold by the prophets, or preached by the apostles. (Witham) --- All this language is metaphorical, but perfectly well understood by the Jews. In their sacrifices, the Levites made use of a two-edged knife to separate from the victim what was for God, what was for the priests, and what was for the people. Thus in sacrificing sinners to the justice of God, Jesus Christ, like a two-edged knife, will separate what is for God, and what is for man; i.e. whatever is good or evil in the whole of man's conduct.

13 Neither is there any creature invisible in his sight: but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him, to whom our speech is.

Ver. 13. In his sight, or to the eyes, must signify in the sight of God. (Witham) --- If the word of God in Jesus Christ be so terrible, what will Jesus Christ be himself, when he comes to judge us according to the severity of his justice?

14 Having, therefore, a great high priest who hath penetrated into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

Ver. 14. Having, therefore, as I told you before, a great high priest, Christ, who ascended into heaven, who can compassionate our infirmities, let us with a firm confidence approach the throne of grace, by faith, hope, charity, and good works. (Witham)

15 For we have not a high priest, who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin.

Ver. 15. No explanation given.

16 Let us go, therefore, with confidence to the throne of grace: that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid.

Ver. 16. Let us often contemplate Jesus Christ on his two thrones, that of his mercy, and that of his justice; of his mercy, where at present he is seated as our compassionate high priest, to bestow on us the riches of his grace; of his justice, where he will one day sit as judge, to examine most rigorously both our faith and our practice. Our separated brethren pretend to prove from this text that we need no help of saints to obtain any favour. But by this argument they may as well take away the helps and prayers of the living for one another. For we do not require the help of either the saints in heaven, or of our brethren on earth, through any mistrust of God's mercy, but on account of our own unworthiness, convinced that the prayer of a just man availeth more with Him, than the desire of a grievous sinner; and of a number making intercession together, rather than of one alone. This they cannot deny, except they deny the holy Scriptures. Neither do we come less to Him, or with less confidence, when we come accompanied with the prayers of Angels, saints, priests, or just men, with us, as they fondly imagine and pretend; but with much more confidence in his grace, mercy, and merits, than if we prayed ourselves alone. (Bristow)