Latest Posts by depressionanddeconstruction - Page 3

This is me externally processing.

My beliefs about equality and justice are, to me, the logical outpouring of Christ’s love in my life. God commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves. We are called to glorify God by loving people: indiscriminately and unconditionally. A passion for justice should flow naturally from this love. Injustice violates love. God, whose divine essence is love, is supremely and perfectly just. Our love, as Christians, would be incomplete if it did not seek to correct injustice. 

Jesus was the ultimate social justice activist. He was the great equalizer. He spent time with society’s most marginalized groups of people and never looked down on anyone for the situation or their choices. He met people where they were at. He got on their level. Jesus was not someone who stood back and regarded injustice or oppression from afar. He loved them personally and practically. He was involved in their lives. Furthermore, Jesus did not come to uphold an unjust and corrupt social system. He was radical. He was subversive. He upset the status quo. Jesus came to give sight to the blind, and to set free the captive and oppressed. Jesus is the model of social justice. 

It’s because of my deeply-rooted convictions, because of the belief in Jesus Christ that defines my whole life, because of this moral code to which I adhere, that I am so implacably passionate about social justice. This is why discrimination and intolerance offends and outrages me so much. This is why I fight for the rights of all marginalized groups. 

For the past three weeks, I’ve been teaching the gospel to children at a Christian summer camp. The curriculum I’m using is the 5 Gs of the Gospel: God, Guilt, Grace, Gratitude, Glory. When we talk about Gratitude, we talk about how people act when Jesus changes their life. People who know Jesus begin to act more like Him. And God loves people and we love God so we love people. Now here’s the kicker, for me: loving people and acting like Jesus means correcting injustice. It means feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, liberating the captive, including the outsider. It means accepting people. It means treating everybody the same no matter what their struggle is. 

YOUR GOSPEL IS INCOMPLETE IF IT DOES NOT INCLUDE JUSTICE. THE GOSPEL IS JUSTICE. JESUS IS JUSTICE. 

And here is the very big problem that I have right now. This camp that I work at is not as inclusive and tolerant as I am. I’ve talked to way too many people who think my feminist views are unbiblical. The policies of this camp regarding people who are homosexual are in the process of being decided, and I don’t know how it’s gonna go. I’m told that transgendered persons are not permitted to work there and may not be permitted to attend as campers either. Is it because “we don’t want to send the message to the campers that that kind of lifestyle is okay”? Because parts of my lifestyle in 2015 definitely weren’t okay and still aren’t and you would not want to send the message to campers that it’s okay, but I was still hired. Is it because “we just want to focus on teaching kids the gospel, and not engage in discussions about those kinds of topics”? Well this is a problem, because I believe that your gospel in incomplete without the part about treating everybody with respect and equality. How can you teach kids the gospel while discriminating against people who quite possibly need love and support and acceptance the most? 

I’m struggling with this because I think that equality and tolerance is so integral to the gospel message, and when I see an organization that doesn’t practise equality and tolerance, I feel that they are misrepresenting the gospel. I wouldn’t want to work for an organization like that any more than I’d want to attend a church that didn’t teach sound doctrine. I do not believe that those attitudes are of God. God is not about discrimination. And I want no part in it. 

I need to write. I need to breathe again. I'm drowning in my thoughts. Ideas crash like waves over each other, churning in a dizzying vortex of emotion. But how do I start? I can't even tell which way is up anymore. How do I get above the surface? My lungs are filling up with unspoken words and unanswered questions. I need to breathe. But I can't find the air. Is this what they call Writer's Block? Or something else entirely?

I am with you. I am for you. I am sorry. I love you. I want to help.

Out of all the things I’ve received at pride parades, as a Christian, this one is my favorite.

Okay I'm real salty here tonight. I AM SO NOT HERE for that weird form of judgment that sounds like pity. You know the one I'm talking about? "Oh, that poor 16 year old girl out drinking with her friends on a Wednesday night. So sad." Yeah, it's freaking heartbreaking. But not when you say it like that! When you say it like that it sounds self-righteous and preachy. It's the same tone you use for those black-baby-poverty-porn commercials. "Tsk tsk, so sad." And you shake your head and go back to your obviously perfect life. My friend, I'm not about that. You know people could have said about me? "Oh that poor girl failed all her courses this semester. So sad." "Oh that poor girl has hooked up with three guys in the span of a month. So sad." And sure, I was going through it. But that superiority-complex pity you're dishing was not gonna help me one bit. That's a way to separate yourself from the person. GRACE DOES NOT ALLOW US TO SEPARATE OURSELVES FROM PEOPLE. Grace puts us face to face with our fellow man and says, "this could be you." And when we see our brothers and sisters stumbling, our reaction should not be "so sad." It should be "hey, how's it going?" Because we have to be there for each other. We have to recognize that when our girls are out drinking and partying and having sex, it's because they feel empty and unloved. It's because no one cared enough about them to tell that they're worth more than that! It's because they don't know that feeling numb isn't actually better than feeling their emotions. Guess who could have told them that? We could have! When our children are struggling, it is because of our failure as a community to care for them. And it is our responsibility to be there for them in whatever they're going through, and to offer them a hand when they trip. Not to stand back and say "so sad."

Yo whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, you have to admit that the argument that goes like "what if the aborted baby could have cured cancer ???" is GROSS. If you are pro-life and you use that argument, I am disgusted with you. Like think about. Really think about it. Does it mean that a baby is only worth saving if they would have cured cancer? Does it mean that their worth is entirely dependent on their accomplishments? Is it really not enough to say that they're worth saving because they're a PERSON? This argument betrays your deep ignorance concerning your own belief of personhood. You're arguing that a baby is only worth what they may become later, and you're therefore implying that they are not worth anything now, which is absolutely antithetical to pro-life ideology! Besides that, the idea that people have to be useful to society in order to be valuable is revolting. A person's worth is not dependent on their achievements. A person has worth because they are a PERSON. If you're pro-life, you should know that. Stop using that "cure for cancer" crap.

KB’s ruthless advice for grownups

whatever happened to you is not your fault, but how you handle it is your responsibility. 

if you don’t deal with your shit, no one will. 

other people do not exist for your consumption. 

happiness, self-worth, and love do not come from other people. make your own happiness, decide your own self worth, love yourself. no one else is gonna do that for you. 

you are in control of your life. be purposeful. 

feelings are valid, but they often lie, and they always fade. learn not to be at their mercy. 

your choices are what make you who you are. choose wisely. 

“People want to help people, no matter their own challenges.”

Josh Harvey, Innovations Lab Lead and Innovations Specialist, UNICEF Innovations Lab Kosovo

Tell us a bit about your background.

I was born and raised in Amish country in rural Pennsylvania. I have a BA in History from Dickinson College and an MA in International Development and Education from Columbia University Graduate School of Education. Between undergrad and grad school, I was a Teach for America Corps Member in Newark, New Jersey.

What do you do?

I lead UNICEF’s Innovations Lab Kosovo, which is a team of 14 split across three units. The first, the Design Centre, focuses on service design and technology for development (which spans from developing software tools that speed up and improve data collection and analysis by UNICEF and our partners, to building platforms that are used by governments to provide rights holders with access to information, to exploring new technologies to improve service delivery for children); another unit, the Youth Empowerment Platform, develops new programme models for adolescent and youth empowerment and participation; and the third unit - By Youth For Youth - uses an approach we built called UPSHIFT to train and support young people to build and lead innovative solutions to challenges in their communities.

My job is a mix of general management (the Lab has a bit of an unusual structure, so in addition to the programme teams, we have a product development team and separate operations, communications, and finance teams), design, strategy, and policy work. 

In addition to the Lab, I oversee UNICEF Kosovo’s Adolescent and Youth Unit.

What’s your working day like?

Work changes a lot depending on where we are in either the programme or product development cycles. I try to start most days with discussions out of the office with partners or peers. Then it’s a bit of organizational stuff—approve payments and check on spending, review programme monitoring data, work through HR, etc. etc. From there I spend about a third of the rest of the day on immediate things—providing input for our products, discussing plans and progress with our programme teams–another third on longer term things like new programme design or communications and fundraising, and the last third on external things—this might be coordination with our peer organizations or advocacy with government partners; often, it’s dialogue with colleagues in other UNICEF offices as it’s become pretty common that the Lab acts as a resource to others engaged in innovation and/or adolescent and youth work.

On the best days, I get to work directly with young innovators or lead design sessions with youth and partners.  

How would you describe your job to a 5-year-old?

I help a team of really smart, creative, good people help other smart, creative, good people solve problems. 

What did you want to be when you were a child?

I don’t know what his business card would read, but I wanted MacGyver’s job. Creative problem solving and helping people. I actually got closer than I expected!

How/when did you join UNICEF? 

I first worked for the United States Fund for UNICEF from 2009. There, I helped start the sports partnership team and was part of the two-person team that managed partnerships with pharmaceutical and logistics companies. I think my boss sensed my innate nerdiness so I ended up tasked with building a strategy to support UNICEF’s innovation efforts with access to tech sector resources, especially tech know-how, and be part of and lead some of the US Fund’s own innovation efforts. Over time, it became clear to me that UNICEF Innovation was where I wanted to be, so in January of 2013 I left the US Fund to lead the Lab in Kosovo.

What are the most satisfying parts of your job?

Young people come to us hungry to make things better for their communities, their families, their peers, and for themselves.  We teach them how. It’s an extraordinary feeling when 15, 16, 17-year-olds with whom we work are on national television recounting how their efforts have changed their communities.  

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?

There aren’t always precedents for how the Lab’s work fits into UNICEF. That, and it can be difficult to balance with UNICEF’s long planning cycles the imperative to experiment, be agile, and pivot to capture emerging opportunities.  

What’s your best UNICEF experience/memory?

There are so many. One from fairly recently, though, was from a mission to Jordan to share with the office how they might incorporate some of Kosovo’s UPSHIFT work into their life skills and vocational training efforts in Zaatari camp. While we were in the camp, some of the programme participants rolled out a mobile library – a beautiful, cherry red tricycle with a lockable, weatherproof book shelf attached – that they built in order to provide access to books to children living in the camp. It validated two of my biggest beliefs: one, that people want to help people, no matter their own challenges; and two, that the most powerful thing we can do is give others the resources, know-how, support, and opportunity to solve the problems to which they feel close and about which they are passionate.  

What’s one of the biggest risks you’ve ever taken in your life?  

Well, there’s that time I left my job in New York to move to Kosovo…

What are your passions? 

Education. There’s an H.G. Wells quote: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”. I don’t have such a dire view, but I feel quote captures the notion that education—in whatever form it takes, not necessarily formal education—is what lets us, collectively, overcome our lesser natures; it’s what enables us as a human community realize our hopes. I often tell young people with whom we work that, if things are going to get better—in their communities, their countries, the world—it’s not going to be me or the Lab that does it; it’s going to be them. Our role is to give them what we know about how to do it.

What advice would you give others who are seeking a similar job as yours?

The practical response is that getting a job  with UNICEF is hard, and it’s extra hard to just pick up and be an “innovations person” as most offices don’t have a role focused expressly on innovation; better to seek opportunities related to your skills and experience and get connected to our great innovation network from there. The philosophical response? Be curious. That’s probably the single most important trait of someone working in this space. You’re never going to know, ex ante (or ever!), all the things you need to know to do the job well. Read everything, ask “what if..?”, wonder what’s possible, learn programme development, learn project management, learn coding, learn design, learn as much as possible. And then recognize when others have expertise, and empower them to use it.  

Who do you look towards for inspiration?

Mom and Dad. Neither of my parents’ families had the money or inclination to send them to college, they’re nevertheless the smartest people I know. My dad had an unfulfilling job with the post office for 30 years—awful hours, awful work—in order to provide for us, but always had time to help us and other people, and is the definitive jack-of-all-trades—he’s the best creative problem solver I know and his workshop is filled with awesome, hacked solutions. Mom cleaned houses while my sister and I were young to bring in extra money, and then when we were in college she went back to school. Afterward, she started part-time at an organization for abused, neglected, and abandoned children and was so valuable that she worked her way up to manager of administration. Mom is deliberate and thinks hard about how to do things right; she taught me to leave everything you touch a little better.

My colleagues don’t know that… 

I don’t hear well; if we’re out and there’s music playing, there’s a 50% chance that I can’t hear what you’re saying and I’m just smiling and nodding. :) 

I yelled at God today.

This morning, I woke up PISSED. Before going to bed, I had gone on a massive twitter rant about this whole “Make Rape Legal” rally nonsense going on. And I couldn’t let it go. Like, this was really eating at me. This morning, I yelled at God. I wasn’t mad at Him. I was so frustrated and bitter and angry with this world, and the people in it. I was so done with humanity and everything we’ve created. 

This happens every morning. If it’s not a pro-rape rally, it’s a black kid shot by police. It’s protesters at Planned Parenthood. It’s a mass shooting in a school or a theatre. It’s Trump. It’s murdered and missing Aboriginal women in Canada. It’s human trafficking. It’s refugees dying at sea. It’s terrorist attacks. It’s casual racism and sexism on facebook. It’s thousands of children dying of hunger. It’s capitalism. It’s imperialism and colonialism. It’s everything. Every day. I wake up PISSED every morning because of this wretched, broken, messed up world we live in. This wretched, broken, messed up world we MADE. 

I asked God, “how am I supposed to have joy and peace in the midst of these atrocities and injustices?” I knew that I wasn’t supposed to have this rancor and vitriol rooted in my soul. I know that this bitter, hateful, black feeling inside me is not of God. But I knew that I was outraged for the right reasons. I know that I am angry because of all the evil in the world. So why does my reaction feel so antithetical to my calling? Why can’t I help but have the feeling that I am destroying myself from the inside out? My heart is in the right place, right? I love people, so I’m outraged at their mistreatment. So why is this love stealing my peace and my joy? Why does my love feel like hate? 

I asked God this. I said to Him, “are you angry like me? Is your heart breaking like mine?” And He said, “Katherine, my heart breaks for the victims AND the perpetrators. I weep for lives taken and souls lost, no matter who they are.” 

See, my problem is that I say I love people, but I don’t actually love all people. My love only extends about as far as my personal code of ethics deems people worthy of love. I love the victims, and I forget to love the perpetrators. I love the oppressed and I forget to love the oppressor. I love the innocent and I forget to love the guilty. 

Funny, right? Cause I am the guilty. We’re all the guilty. Jesus died for rape victims AND the rapists. And I think I love people but it’s only when God shows me the hatred I harbour in my heart that I realize that I don’t know how to love people at all. 

Somehow, I bought the lie that hate is the right response to hate. Somewhere along the way, my love was hijacked and twisted and corrupted into hate, and I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t understand why I was so tortured all the time. I thought that hate was strong and love was weak. So I hated the people inflicting injustice and I thought I was doing something about it. 

I forgot that love already did it. I forgot that it’s already done. I forgot that Jesus said “It is finished.” I let the enemy steal my peace and my joy because I forgot what real love looks like. 

So when I yelled at God today, and I said “what am I supposed to do?!” He told me to love. 

Which was much more revolutionary to me than one might expect. :P 

Warning signs of a potentially unhealthy relationship 

New Year's Reflections

At the beginning of 2015, I was broken. Broken like something that didn’t work right. Something had gone wrong in my brain and I was glitching. I had just come out of the worse year of my life, and January 2015 followed possibly the most serious emotional/psychological crisis of my young life. I wasn’t me. My self esteem was virtually nonexistent, replaced by omnipresent self loathing. All of my relationships were in shambles, corroded by incessant deceit and self sabotage. I honestly wasn’t sure how I was even still in school based on my grades. And I had strayed so far from the moral path I wanted to be on that I didn’t even recognize myself. I was broken. My life had become nothing but a toxic cycle of lies, guilt, tears, denial, avoidance, and self destructive habits*.

 And 2015 was the year that God fixed me. I am in awe of His care for me. He had orchestrated the perfect cure for the bugs in my system, because He knows what is good for His children. He reminded me of who I am. Summer 2015 was basically like a hard reset for me. Like when your laptop freezes so you hold the power button until it restarts. That’s what God did to me this summer. He sent me to Africa where I felt more alive and more myself than anywhere else ever before. He reminded me of the purpose He placed inside me and the plan He has for my life. Then He sent me to camp where I met girls who not only understood the regrets and struggles in my past, but could relate and sympathize, and they accepted and loved me unconditionally. I learned that I’m damaged, and I’m not perfect, and I glitch sometimes, but I’m still capable and usable and worthy of love. It’s amazing to feel God’s grace in the realest form I’ve ever felt it. The grace that makes me beautiful despite my flaws. The grace that makes me usable despite my weaknesses. The grace that justifies me. The grace that makes me worthy despite my wretched unworthiness. The grace that is so much greater than my perception of my imperfection. The grace that showed me that I can’t shrink myself into something that God cannot love because His irrevocable love transforms me into something greater than human measures. 

 2015 was a good year, by the grace of God. 

 *for the record, my self destructive habits weren't substance abuse or self harm. They were just skipping school and sucking dick. harmful but not quite as bad.

Is sex before marriage a sin? If so, why? Does the ceremony make a difference to God if you're in a fully committed relationship? Is it a sin to have sex the night before the wedding but not a sin 24 hours later? I've always believed in waiting but now I'm questioning what the difference is to God

In your question I can see that you have already gotten rid of the idea of marriage as a covenant. When you ask “does the ceremony make a difference to God if you’re in a fully committed relationship?” the answer is yes because it’s not a fully committed relationship until the ceremony that symbolizes the covenant relationship between you and your spouse before God. If marriage is just a ceremony or a social contract, then yeah, it wouldn’t make that big of a deal, but it is so much more than that. It is an image of the relationship that Christ has with his bride the Church. 

Marriage is not the small thing that the culture has made it out to be. The call in marriage is to give your life for your spouse, and when people throw their marriages away for nothing then it gives people the idea that marriage really isn’t that big of a deal and that in the end it’s basically just like any other relationship. Once you start thinking that way, then marriage becomes irrelevant. But that’s not what marriage is. It’s a covenant between you your spouse and God, and as such it should be treated with great reverence.

The anti-refugee stance is closer to collaborating with ISIS than standing up to it.

Dave Pell (via blakebaggott)

THIS IS WHAT IM SAYING

Thoughts in the aftermath of the Paris attacks

I question how we could have gotten to this point. When was there such a breakdown in humanity that we are capable of committing such atrocities? Was it imperialism and colonialism? Was it the tower of Babel? Was it when Eve ate the apple? And more worryingly, I question how I became desensitized to it. I’m not gonna lie, the first thought I had when I heard about Paris was “I’m not even surprised.” And the more I think about it, the more horrifying that is. I can’t fathom how someone could hold so much hatred in their heart that they would commit such evil against their fellow human beings. 

But here’s the thing: I’ve seen more widespread and more insidious hatred on social media in the past three days than in Paris on Friday. I am dismayed at the tragedies in Paris and Lebanon, and I am disgusted and many people’s reactions. 

ISIS seeks to divide us along fabricated lines of religion, and to sow fear and hatred. When someone says that this is the reason we shouldn’t be letting refugees into Canada, they are dividing us along the fabricated lines of ethnicity, and they are sowing fear and hatred. It reveals extreme xenophobia, and profound racial prejudice, and - quite frankly - willful stupidity (otherwise known as ignorance). When I see inane posts about closing Canadian borders being propagated on social media, I honestly judge those people for being shallow and stupid. If you think critically about the reasons people seek refuge in Canada, you would know that to attempt to deny them that refuge because you’re scared of terrorism is absolutely absurd. 

Not only that, but we are so horrified by ISIS because they presume to make themselves masters of others fate. They take the power of life and death into their hands, and judge other human beings. Do you realize that to let children die at sea is the same thing? Just because we didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean that our hatred didn’t kill them. 

Did you know that the bible says that anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer? (1 John 3:15) Refugees are your brothers and sisters. Your hatred for them is both metaphorically and literally their death sentence. 

If you dare to say that we should deny refugees entrance into Canada because of your racial prejudice, you are just as bad as ISIS. 

I WAS LITERALLY ABOUT TO REBLOG THIS WHEN I SAW THAT YOU TAGGED ME THIS IS SO TRUE AND I GET SO MAD ABOUT IT

dudes in their 20s who try to talk to high school girls are losers

The church is called to be the safest, most gracious, loving place on the face of the earth. No one should ever be shamed for their brokenness. No one can be left behind. No one’s sin deserves more or less attention, and we all have equal access to the Heavenly Father by way of His Son.

J.S. Park (via jspark3000)

I’ll return to Biblical womanhood gladly. Because Biblical womanhood is Deborah being called by God to lead the nation of Israel into victory. Biblical womanhood is Jesus choosing a woman as the first person to whom He revealed His identity as The Messiah and making her the first evangelist. Biblical womanhood is Jesus revealing himself first to women after His resurrection, trusting them with the task of telling His disciples. Biblical womanhood is Jesus inviting Mary and Martha to sit at his feet to be taught as disciples, valuing their presence there with Him instead of busying themselves with meal preparation and “women’s work.” Biblical womanhood is Paul calling Lydia and Priscilla his coworkers in Christ. Biblical womanhood is Priscilla teaching Apollos (a man) and her name being listed before that of her husband, Aquila, when the couple is mentioned in scripture. Biblical womanhood is Paul referring to Phoebe as a minister and a leader. Biblical womanhood is Lydia founding the church in Phillippi. Biblical womanhood is countless other examples of women, valued and empowered by Christ, teaching and leading right alongside men. 

Biblical womanhood is not a few taken-out-of-context verses, written to specific audiences and wrongfully universally applied, about women remaining silent in church and not having authority over men. 

Dress Codes and Modesty Culture: It’s more complicated than a few well-placed buzz words.

All across North America, from Labrador City, Newfoundland, to West Jordon, Utah, students are protesting dress codes which they deem sexist and inappropriate. There are many people camped out on the other side of the line professing that it is actually an issue of self-respect. 

Sexist? Yeah, probably. 

On the one hand, it is true that the length and width of boys’ clothes are not policed as strictly as girls’ and that the reason girls’ clothes are being policed is because they are told that the sight of their exposed skin will be “distracting” to the boys in their classes. Both of these facts support the platform that the entire dress code system was essentially created for males’ benefit, which opens up a number of other issues. For example, doesn’t this kind of system propagate the idea that women’s bodies are men’s property? If men are telling us what we can and cannot wear in order to keep them...docile....we can’t help but hear the message that our bodies exist only to please them, and what we want to wear doesn’t matter, because it’s not about us. It’s not about the way we want to express ourselves or our comfort level, it’s about keeping everybody flaccid. Right? Wait...

But what about self respect?

On the other hand, everybody wants affirmation. And depending on how much you value your own opinion of yourself, and what that opinion is, your threshold for affirmation will be lower or higher. If you have a high threshold for affirmation, you will value affirmation which is “expensive” to obtain: praise for your hard work, or someone’s appreciative insights about your soul. If you have a low threshold for affirmation, you will seek affirmation which can be more cheaply won. And the attention you get for your body is cheap: easy to obtain, freely given, and next to worthless in terms of earning respect. And we all know how to get that kind of affirmation. And for some people, that might be the reason you like showing a bit more skin. If you’re one of those people, I just want to tell you that your own opinion of yourself is the most important one, and I hope that you see yourself for who you are: smart, powerful, beautiful and above all, worthy of respect. If well-meaning modesty pushers feel the same way I do about cheap attention, I can see why they would encourage young girls to cover up, and to seek only more valuable forms of affirmation. 

Wait, THAT’s your definition of self respect?

The problem here is that I’ve read phrases like “your body is a priceless treasure, waiting to be found by the right person, and dress codes only suggest that you keep it in the chest until then.” OKAY. Once again, metaphorically referring to a girl’s body as a treasure is another form of objectification. It is literally directly comparing someone’s corporeal form to a box full of rocks and metal. Our bodies are not something that anybody can possess. It’s a physical manifestation of ourselves, it’s the vessel with which we navigate this natural world. AND THEN. It says “waiting to be found by the right person.” Okay so, not only are our bodies somebody’s possession, it’s not even ours? We are not the ones who get to take ownership of the treasure WHICH WE INHABIT? We are waiting for someone to come along and possess our bodies? What? 

It’s. Just. Not. That. Simple.

What I would like to say to both anti-dress-coders and pro-dress-coders is this: It’s just not that simple. 

It’s not enough to simply say that it is sexist to police girls’ clothes and not boys’. 

It’s not enough to simply say that it’s not about sexism, it’s about self-respect. 

And here’s why:

I will use myself as an example to explain why. I am a fiercely independent, wickedly stubborn, feminist hippie free spirit. In my personal life, I will wear tank tops and shorts and skirts as I see fit, not as any male tells me makes him comfortable. HOWEVER, I do so with this knowledge:

Biology is a thing. Psychology is a thing. Culture is a thing. It has been scientifically proven (I’m sorry, it really really has.) that individuals born with a penis and high levels of testosterone respond with arousal moreso to visual stimuli, which individuals born with vaginas and high levels of estrogen respond with arousal moreso to everything else (auditory, olfactory, touch, and emotional stimuli). Furthermore, as taught to us in most introductory University Psych courses, people can be conditioned to have a specific biological response to a specific neutral stimulus if that stimulus is always followed by a stimulus which is biologically pertinent. The dogs hear the bell then they get fed. Result: the dogs salivate when they hear the bell. Men see breasts then they have an orgasm. Result: men become aroused when they see breasts. AND WE LIVE IN A CULTURE THAT HAS DEVELOPED IN SUCH A WAY TO PORTRAY THE NUDE FEMALE FORM IN MEDIA AND ADVERTISING ONLY IN HIGHLY SEXUAL CONTEXTS WHICH CREATES AN INEXTRICABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN FEMALE NUDITY AND SEX IN OUR BRAINS THAT HAS BECOME SO DEEPLY ENTRENCHED THAT WE THINK IT’S BIOLOGICALLY HARDWIRED FOR MEN TO BE AROUSED BY BREASTS. 

So I make clothing choices with the full knowledge that I cannot stop men from looking at me. And that depending on the man and his personal preferences, there is a good possibility that my cleavage could cause some increased bloodflow. It’s up to me to decide whether I want that to happen, whether I don’t want it to happen, or whether I simply don’t care. But I am always aware, as I get dressed in the morning, that I do live in a world wherein someone could call my cleavage “distracting”.

Oversimplification ignores the real issues. 

And here’s the issue: people who protest dress codes want to pretend that we don’t live in that world, and people who promote dress codes want to pretend that the fact that we live in that world is not a problem. 

The dress codes are just the tip of the iceberg. I understand that women want to wear what they want, and do what they want, and sleep with whom they want. Part of the current liberal feminism is sexual liberation. However, the dress code is a prominent example of modesty culture. Modesty culture suggests that girls have the responsibility to prevent men from being aroused by them. This is less severe instance of victim blaming, which originates in rape culture. Rape culture suggests that girls have the responsibility to prevent men from raping them. In both of these situations, the blame is sadly misplaced. Rape Culture and victim blaming exist because we live in a Misogynist society. The means that we live in a society that discriminates against women, belittles women, objectifies women, and violates women. It’s all well and good to say that women should be allowed to do, say and wear what we want, but the fact is that we live in a society where that is unsafe for us sometimes. 

So the moral of the story: If you protest dress codes, you need to realize that the dress code is not the problem. It is a symptom of a systemic illness of society, and like a fever, this symptom might actually be manifesting itself to protect you. And if you promote dress codes, you need to realize that the fact that we even need dress codes is indicative of a much bigger problem in our society. My advice to both of you is that you’re fighting on the same side and you don’t even realize it. Instead of fighting for or against dress codes, let’s all focus on unlearning harmful philosophies and behaviours to create a safer environment for women, and then dress codes wouldn’t even be that much of an issue. 

Wherever people are suffering, wherever they are humiliated by poverty or injustice……make it your task to serve them.

St. John Paul II (via family-of-god)

My dear beloved friend:

 - No one really has it all together yet. We force so many self-pressuring parameters on our performance that most of us are neurotic, twitchy, over-productive busybodies with no real destination. In a culture where we celebrate only victory and are scared to talk about defeat: please don’t measure yourself on an impossible grading scale. Don’t measure your private moments with everyone else’s highlight reels.

 - Mistakes are how you learn. Everyone is afraid of failure: so we protect ourselves by bargaining with the teacher or begging for extensions or ensuring we never get a scraped knee. Such a pampered coddled culture will keep you feeling safe for a while, but it’ll also keep you sterile, shrink-wrapped, and cold. It’s a lifeless journey. It’s okay to make mistakes, and occasionally it’s even better. Scrape a knee, brush it off, get up and move on. Learn from the past and laugh with it too.

 - You’re doing better than you think. You’re in the middle of your motion, so it’s hard to see where you are. But so long as you’ve been taking one heavy step forward after another, no matter how awkward your stumbling, then this is worth celebrating. Every moment you’ve done right is a miracle in itself.

 - Be willing to pursue a new dream. Sometimes we try so hard to grab our old dreams that we’re not open to new ones. We look too long in the rearview instead of what’s ahead of us. I’ve missed a lot of opportunities this way. But keep your eyes open for open doors, and be flexible enough for a new vision that will be even better than the last.

 - Dear Christian: Your confidence is in Him. We are works in progress looking towards the work finished, Jesus. We believe in a God who knew we couldn’t ever reach perfection, so perfection came to us. If you feel like you’ve failed today, the very reason Jesus came was to take on your failures, your ego, your pride, your pain, your sorrows, your sin. And He’ll keep working on you until glory. Everything good in you is God in you: and anything bad in you, He’s working on that. 

This is His grace.

– J.S. from What The Church Doesn’t Talk About

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke (via anamorphosis-and-isolate)

God does not expect you to be a Wall Street executive. God does not wish you were making six figures. God does not wish you had a happy-go-lucky personality. God does not wish you would just “Get yourself together already!” We are not on our own. We are not broken beyond repair. We are not doomed to be our parents (2 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 22:2). We are not condemned by our heavenly Father for being in process (2 Peter 3:15). He knows us and loves us and is working patiently in and with us

Stop feeling ashamed of being human.

A lesson I am still learning.

Humans!!!!!!! Should!!!!!!! Not!!!!!! Kill!!!!!! Humans!!!!!!!

You don't have to distance yourself from those who speak out on behalf of you and your people group. Whether it be girls who don't identify with feminism or Pharrell calling himself "new black". You are allowed to acknowledge injustice afflicted on you. You are allowed to be outspoken. You don't have to be progressive and conciliatory for the sake of avoiding conflict. Conflict always accompanies change, but it doesn't mean that the change isn't necessary. You don't have to dissociate yourself from that.

Jesus is radical. Grace is radical. The Gospel is radical. Christianity isn't for the faint at heart.

Hate is not a productive response to hate. How are we to have genuine dialogue with someone when we're putting them on the defensive? How are we to overcome evil by stooping to the same level? How are we to correct ignorance by overshadowing the real issue with our ugly words? By hating those who hate us, we ensure that we will remain trapped in a cycle of hate. Just because you're hating in the opposite direction doesn't mean you're doing the opposite of hating. You're still hating. Two wrongs will never make a right. We must overcome hate with something stronger than hate. You know where I'm going with this, right? Love. Love will always conquer hate. Love is the most radical, scandalous answer to hate, because it is unnatural. Not unnatural. Supernatural. Jesus says to love those who hate you. When your love is big enough to swallow wave after wave of malice and vitriol, then you will be truly victorious. Then you will see people take notice. Then you will change the world.

Thinkin' 'bout International Women's Day

I think it's super cool that we have a day to celebrate women, because any time there is time set aside and designated for a topic, it brings the topic to the forefront of people's minds. And I love celebrating International Women's Day by listening to Nicki and Bey and talking about feminism. A lot of the content I see is rather american-centric, i.e. It deals with feminism in the context of a western society. On *International* Women's Day, I think it's suuuuuuper important to also discuss a broader spectrum of feminism. There are still parts of the world where Female Genital Mutilation is a thing. There are parts of the world where girls are married off to middle aged men in their preteen and early teen years. There are parts of the world where women have chemical burns from acid thrown on them by abusive husbands. There are parts of the world where women cannot go to school. To me, that's what feminism is about. That's what International Women's Day is about. Check out The Girl Effect for more info. They're a cool crowd.

Hate in the name of God is still devil worship.

Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he had truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.

The Last Battle, C.S.Lewis // in which Aslan represents God and Tash represents the devil.