So, I thought I would carve out a little place to share what I'm into these days, some of the things people are doing and writing about that I'm pretty dang excited about.
Blogs:
I read a heck of a log of blogs and right now, I have hella-huge cyber girl crushes on bloggers Kathy Escobar and Emily Maynard (among other bloggers I have cyber crushes on). These bloggers have some pretty fierce voices. Kathy is super passionate about: "community, the marginalized, healing, spiritual transformation, equality, justice, “church”, relationships, diversity, and learning to love and be loved," as she shares in her about me on her website. On the other hand, Emily is unapologetically learning to speak up on topics having to do with purity culture,
Right now, Kathy's particpating in a synchroblog about pain, a topic many people tend to avoid. But, as someone who is dealing with a lot of pain as of late (more on that later), I think this subject is so important, especially, too, seeing how so many people around me are in pain as well.
Finally, I want to promote Dan J. Brennan's blog. He tends to write mostly on friendship and intimacy and is a huge advocate for cross-gendered friendships. Dan believes that men and women truly can have platonic, non-romantic relationships that are honest and deep. As someone who happens to have a good portion of my closer friends be male, I enjoy getting to read Dan's thoughts on this subject. It is challenging and fairly sensitive to those who may disagree.
You can check these their blogs as well as some other neat blogs I read here:
Books:
I'm still reading Community and Growth by Jean Vanier. We read the first chapter of the book as a printed PDF as part of my curriculum/training for Mission Year. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to order the whole book and read through it. It's basically about living in intentional community and Jean Vanier shares the insights that he has gained over the years that he spend with the L'arche community living and loving alongside people with disabilities.
I also picked up The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day from my friend Karen's place. The book is an autobiography about Day. Dorothy Day is a Catholic activist and one of the co-founders of the Catholic Worker Movement, which is a community of folks who work for peace and live in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. Now, there is a Catholic Worker in just about every major city (and maybe even your small town). I have a messy habit of reading multiple books at the same time and picking up past books in the middle of the new ones I'm reading. But, I've had a general curiousi
Other:
Seed Savers Exchange -- I requested a free catalog from this group after one of my new friends introduced me to it. They’re a non-profit dedicated to saving and sharing non-GMO heirloom seeds! I’ve yet to decide what else I want in my garden, but, it’s been sweet looking through the catalog and seeing how many type of tomatoes they have. Some of the species in the catalog were about to be extinct, but were saved! WOOHOO!
Cheap Girls -- I’ve been familiar with the name, but, I had not taken time to listen to until recently. I would describe them to be a pop rock band from a mid-western town called Lansing. I really like their song “Ruby” which I first heard played acoustically with Ryan Russell’s project, Nervous Energies.
Curly Nikki -- is a website started by a woman named Nikki Walton about "natural" hair and hair care. Hair is often a really big deal for women who identify as Black in many ways because of our unique hair texture and how it's been a struggle to embrace given the mainstream standard of beauty. Curly Nikki is one of the first "natural" hair blogs/ online communities that I've stumbled upon and I find it to be fairly positive. I've been "natural" sense last August, which basically means that I made the decision to not put harmful chemical hair straighteners, a "relaxer", in my hair anymore and instead embrace my natural curls. The website inspired me. It's been a journey, and the website is an awesome place to read about other women's hair journeys and get some hair advice and product reviews!
So, yes! I think... I will keep it to here for part one! After all, who says I have to share EVERYTHING I'm into now in just one blog? Writing this has helped me to realized that I have more things that I've been checking out lately than I thought. I hope you enjoyed this blog and that you will tune in later and allow me to share more things with you in the future. Until then, all links are in red, and grace and peace to you!
Love,
Rachel
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