“I believe God is a fan of people connecting and I think the enemy of God is a fan of people breaking off into paranoid tribes. And I think all the clanging pots and pans in the kitchen to scare people from the territory we feel compelled to defend is playing into the hands of dark forces. I think a lot of the shame-based religious and political methodology has more to do with keeping people […]
What if, in our relationships with others, instead of being driven by a need to be ‘authentic’ we instead tuned our senses to moments of vulnerability? Sometimes I wonder if we are more concerned about striving to be authentic in the presence of others than we are about allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in the presence of others. And I wonder if we forget there is a difference between the two – that they aren’t […]
“If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.” – Brené Brown It’s pretty easy to absorb as true whatever are the social norms we are surrounded by. But when we do that thoughtlessly, we run the risk of discarding any experience or knowledge we feel and/or hold that lands outside of said social norms. What we want, though, in the communities of which we are […]
“Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough.You will always find it (the evidence)because you’ve made that your goal.” -Brené Brown And to build on this, I would further mention the sort of evidence you use to qualify the degree to which you belong any such place could also be the same information that has you isolated from a sense of belonging anywhere. Over the time I have spent as a counsellor, and […]
“What if you’re the rough around the diamonds. Or you’re the awkward swan amongst the ducks. Or you’re a straw tucked in a stack of needles. Or a three-leaf clover filled with all the luck. What if you don’t know the role you’re playing. And your story isn’t in the tales you’ve heard. Well it means your character is still unwritten. And it’s up to you to fill the page with words.” – Dallas Clayton Just dove into a weeks worth of […]
With the rise of the internet and social media – we have access to so much information, all of the time, and not only do we have access to it, it’s practically always in front of our nose – without our asking. I sometimes wonder if whatever we have come to know of the various ‘hot topics’ through these mediums, not only influence us, but, at times, override the valuable insight that the nature of our […]
What makes you different? (Your faith? Your current sense of mental or physical health? Skin colour? Body Image? Insert your *thing* here) When you enter into a room full of people and become aware of your difference, before words, if any, have been exchanged, What do you feel about that difference? Why is that for some of us, our first inclination is to hide whatever of our own differences are most apparent for us? Why […]
“God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Master God, only you know that.” Ezekiel 37:1-3 (MSG) It was as if something had momentarily suspended whatever it was that […]
“I am willing to sound dumb. I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be passionate about something that isn’t perceived as cool. I am willing to express a theory. I am willing to admit I’m afraid. I’m willing to contradict something I’ve said before. I’m willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. I’m willing to apologize. I’m perfectly willing to be perfectly human.” – Donald Miller (Scary Close). As […]
I think it was their ability to create new life again after they lost some pieces of it. There were tragic stories of loss in just about every story; family members, friends, money, health, dignity, voice, language, heritage. And yet, In the face of each, perhaps even more deeply embedded, was a stubborn heartbeat that, without even trying drove these people towards creating new life. It’s not that the messages endorsed denying the pain of […]
anne-marie elizabeth 