That blog I wrote last time? Major error. Not the blog itself, you guys. Just the title.
See, I work pretty hard around here NOT to write things that random people will click on, because I hate internet trolls and I'm happy with writing for a small community of people who need a tribe and have found one here.
My mistake was putting "War Room" and "lies" together in the title, so that people who don't usually read here showed up in droves.
It's fine if new people read! Welcome, new people! Join the party!
BUT, after four years of carefully writing bad titles that people won't click on, I dropped the ball and ended up with my first-ever internet troll. I had to learn how to blacklist people after one person verbally attacked not only me, but every other commenter who had thanked me for writing the post. Of course, the Holy Spirit was telling him to do it. Or so he said.
I don't regret writing the post, and I believe in what I said.
That wasn't the first controversial thing I've ever said, and I sincerely doubt it will be the last.
I don't expect everybody to agree with me.
I just expect Christians to act like decent people when they disagree with me.
Most of you are very respectful when you disagree, and I'm grateful.
Some people choose to unsubscribe, and that is fine, too.
FYI, newcomers and anybody who hasn't figured it out yet, I'm theologically progressive, a feminist in a happily egalitarian marriage, and LGBT affirming. So far, Bernie Sanders has my vote, and no, I don't think socialism is of the devil. I cuss sometimes, I read romance novels, and I drink a glass of wine just about every day. My favorite theologians are Catholic. (I'm not sure why. When I figure it out, I will let you know.) On Friday nights, I usually have a margarita. Or two, if it's still happy hour.
When I have to choose between Love and the law, I will pick Love every time.
My theological mantra is this: "If it's stupid, it ain't Jesus."
You now know every thing I can think of that could possibly offend anyone, and you can make a clean decision about whether to stay or go, without further investment of your time or emotional energy.
Several people have asked, in one form or another (most of them nicely, thank you) this question:
Why speak out against a Christian movie?
The simple answer is this: I watched it, and this is what I thought. So I said what I thought.
But in general, here's why I say what I say on this blog.
I am 49 years old.
I have thoughts in my head.
They are my thoughts.
Mine.
My.
Own.
Thoughts.
If I don't say what I think sometime soon, I'm going to be dead with all this inside me.
I refuse.
Also.
Other people think what I think and feel what I feel.
They need to know they are not alone.
Often, those people have been shamed into silence by their faith communities, where it's not acceptable to say things like I'm anxious, depressed, addicted, doubting, gay, feminist, progressive.
All these people need to know that they are loved, they are cared for, they are not alone on the long road Home.
And if my voice can help them feel less alone (and they tell me that it can and it does), then I will continue to speak.
Blessings on all of you who encourage me to keep speaking.
When I write for you, I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do.
It's an honor to serve you with the voice I've been given.
I'm more than willing to put up with a troll or two for you guys, especially when I can blacklist their sorry bullying behinds. And I'll write less attractive titles, while I'm at it, which should help.
I have been inspired for years by these words of Audre Lourde--poet, feminist, lesbian, civil rights activist--who writes about the necessity of speaking our own stories in the world:
"I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side."
"I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."
"I began to ask each time: 'What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?' Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, 'disappeared' or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.
"Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.
"And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, 'If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.' And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”
(emphasis mine) ― Audre Lorde