So Rachel, what are you into these days anyway? -- Part 1

I think, sometimes a person needs a place to reflect and share what they like. As someone who struggles with people pleasing and speaking up, I find it important to learn to share. I have gone too long, keeping my voice silent when I sense that others may disagree or that there is no one in the room who may affirm my thoughts. My supervisor says it's okay to march to the beat of our own drum, as long as we're being authentic with ourselves. Maybe then, we'll meet others who will care about our authentic selves, our authentic thoughts and our authentic loves.

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:

kathyescobar.com 

emilyispeakingup.com  

danjbrennan.com 

papyruswillgrow.com

gabbingwithgrace.com

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

Not "Just" Bodies, But Wonderful Bodies

Occasionally, I hear people share this idea that human beings are just souls, and that we have bodies as if our bodies are to mean nothing. Other things I hear are people say things like... "hopefully, when i go to heaven, i'll have blue eyes", or "i won't be bald" or "i won't have six fingers". When I hear such things like this, I can't help but find myself confused and even sadden. Sayings like these concern me, because i think G-d cares about how we see our bodies as much as he cares about how close our hearts are to Him. If G-d couldn't use your body to glorify Him and bring Hope into the world, would we born a certain way? Why do we look the way we do? Why don't we all just look the same?

I know that sometimes people are born with disabilities by fault of the ones who conceived them (drug/alchohal use/etc) or have done violence unto them. These would be reasons why folks would be discontent with their bodies. But i believe the Lord still sees something Beautiful, because He can make all things beautiful.

And that's the reason i just can't swallow that the bodies are not important, or are just... "there". Frankly, I believe that our bodies are AMAZING, and we can do amazing stuff with our bodies. We can MAKE stuff, and walk, and see and eat and think, and our bodies can repair itself and physically be one with our earthly lovers and we can even conceive other human beings and nurture them in our bodies and birth them and teach them how to love and and live to the full. All of that is wonderful! And our bodies are just bodies? I can't believe that. Bodies are beautiful and important. Maybe not everyone's bodies will experience all of the things listed above, but our bodies are part of the adventure of being a full human being.

Human diversity is amazing; G-d didn't speak into existence just one type of bird, or one type of tree, or one type of cloud... Just as we don't see one type of human. If our bodies didn't mean anything then the bodies of animals and plants and the skies wouldn't mean anything either.

But i think all of it is to show how amazing He is and how beautiful life can be and how intimately He loves us..

Even more on diversity; there's so many cultures and so many types of story telling in the world too that speaks of the diversity in the world, and it's beautiful and inspiring. It makes me want to see the world and meet everyone and explore and be happy and bring happiness and excitement to others and show them that they are important, too! i think our bodies are important, because i think they're a symbol, an iconoclast of G-d's own beauty. Perhaps, we are the parts of G-d's image that CAN be seen. G-d's beauty can be found in the diversity of all the other things in the world that have diversity, too.

Here's another thought: maybe we are just souls, and that includes are bodies, not excludes it. This might get me yelled at by a more knowledgeable theologian, but i don't think this type of thinking can harm anyone.... If our bodies weren't important however and only the transcendental was, G-d wouldn't have made Adam or the world or anything. I'm thinking about people who were born disabled or with oddities now, and i refuse to see those people as mistakes. If someone could live with joy, knowing that they are loved, and loving them-self, how much hope and encouragement would that bring to others! Sometimes, i think people try to look harder than they need to. We dismiss the world as ugly and disappointing because it's broken, so we look for transcendentalism and miss out on all the wonders that G-d has given us already. G-d is here! If the world can be beautiful in its fallen, imagine how much more beautiful it will be when we're all in His peace again. Please, stop watching TV all the time, and go outside, or open up that book that has the beautiful faces of all the folks in the world. Pray for His eyes if all you continue to see is ugliness in other human beings. Because, you are the one that is blind. Their faces are beautiful because their faces bear the beauty of G-d. i think folks just don't know that there is a reason why they are the way they are. And i think when we love ourselves, when we love our bodies, we will begin to see hope for more of the world, for all of those who suffer from insecurities about their appearance, those born with oddities and disabilities, the way their culture adorns their bodies, or even those that are oppressed because of the color of their skin.

You're not a mistake, and the beauty of others are not superior to your own. You're beautiful, i promise. When you believe that, you'll see it. Not the other way around. All you need is His eyes.