Soul (and Brain) Food: January Edition
How is your New Year’s resolution going? We hope better than our resolution to post on time in February — a noble goal that fell by the wayside in light of, you know, life. But no matter where you are in your progress, we’re pleased we can offer up an easy win: catching up on all the dynamic articles we shared on the Sisterhood Facebook page in January.
Sistersong invited organizations that support reproductive justice to share their #RJResolutions for 2018. Here are seven of their favorites.
https://www.colorlines.com/articles/start-new-year-these-7-reproductive-justice-resolutions
“In other words, the well-to-do already do what workfare advocates seem so nervous about: rake in money they haven’t earned through market labor and thrive off the government’s largesse. Perhaps that itself is unfair — so why duplicate it on the other end of the economy? Put simply, it seems ludicrous at best and sadistic at most to start one’s fairness policing from the bottom up. If we mean to transform our economy into one in which people earn precisely what they work for and no more, and receive nothing from the government lest their work ethic wither, it would be best to start from the top down, where nobody runs any risk of starvation or homelessness if they lose their benefits.”
“Today, we often take feminism and what it’s given us for granted, which makes it harder to understand how unusual these women were in the context of their time. But what they offer a modern woman in the midst of the years when we are feverish with change, our declining physical fertility paired with increasingly fertile minds, is a different way of thinking. What was pushed to the margins, cloistered, and silenced feels absolutely contemporary. The end of the Medieval era, after all, was the beginning of the Renaissance.”
“I loved Oprah’s Golden Globes speech on Sunday. It was mesmerizing, pitch perfect, and gave voice to many lifetimes of frustration and vindication with eloquence and a full authority she has earned. But I found the strange Facebook response of “Oprah 2020” weirdly discordant and disorienting. Oprah’s speech — in my hearing — wasn’t about why she needs to run for office. It was about why the rest of us need to do so, immediately.”
“In a way, Donald Trump represents white people’s right to be wrong and still be right. He is the embodiment of the unassailability of white power and white privilege.
To abandon him is to give up on the pact that America has made with its white citizens from the beginning: The government will help to underwrite white safety and success, even at the expense of other people in this country, whether they be Native Americans, African-Americans or new immigrants.”
“We are in a fight for our survival and there’s no turning away from it, no turning back. 2017 was a reckoning, an unveiling. An embarrassment, yes, but it’s honest. And now we are at a very real risk of becoming too exhausted to continue our fight, our journey.”
mashable.com/2018/01/12/resistance-burn-out-activism-new-year/#nsG4WCZ.wsqY
“Your pro-life argument rings hollow if you don’t have an issue with this xenophobic bigotry,” tweeted pastor Earon James of Relevant Life Church in Pace, Florida.
“Let’s show women that there is a space for them in the church, a place at the table,” Ms. Cummings said. “There is a rich history that they are a part of. Women are not always seeking attention, and they’re almost never getting it.”
“At every single crossroad of my life, I’ve had a woman there walking me through it. Every single time I’ve hit the depths I’ve had gracious leaders helping me find clarity. Every time my faith has overwhelmed me a woman has been there to help ease the burden. I would be nothing.”
https://sojo.net/articles/men-respond-john-piper-meet-women-who-have-led-me
“Lately so many people are saying, “We didn’t know. We didn’t know we were this way.” I will admit that even in the last year, I have been amazed at the comments I’ve seen and the arguments that have erupted in online conversations about whether we began as a patriarchal, racist society or if we just suddenly find ourselves as one.
Of course, many are in denial of that, as well.”
www.patheos.com/blogs/kaitlinbcurtice/2018/01/31/careful-misogyny-showing/#Ogu1psTMXDBA0wiJ.99
The gospel doesn’t need your protection, sexual assault victims do.
“Church is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse because the way it is counseled is, more often than not, damaging to the victim. There is an abhorrent lack of knowledge for the damage and devastation that sexual assault brings. It is with deep regret that I say the church is one of the worst places to go for help. That’s a hard thing to say, because I am a very conservative evangelical, but that is the truth. There are very, very few who have ever found true help in the church.”
Have interesting articles, books, podcasts, etc. to share? Email spcsisterhoodchronicles@gmail.com and tell us about them!
