the sixty-third formica friday

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  [caption id="attachment_1620" align="aligncenter" width="2048"]I'm rather fond of this one, the Christmas gift for my parents. From Transfiguration Sunday to Advent, it is like this, showing the incarnate Christ transformed before the awed apostles. But from Advent to Transfiguration Sunday, it is inverted, it is displayed like this, the angel coming to the shepherds to announce the coming of the child Christ, the glory coming into our midst. I'm rather fond of this one, the Christmas gift for my parents. From Transfiguration Sunday to Advent, it is like this, showing the incarnate Christ transformed before the awed apostles. But from Advent to Transfiguration Sunday, it is inverted, it is displayed like this, the angel coming to the shepherds to announce the coming of the child Christ, the glory coming into our midst. You can learn more about my painting here.[/caption]

On my mind ...

There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

-- Wendell Berry

Moments:

  • being in the same country as my best friend and his. stunning. wife. (They're newlyweds. I can't even deal.)
  • reunited with friends in Scotland, around dinner tables and in lounges, laughing and plotting and dreaming
  • the end of a beloved series, 30 Rock, which accounted for so many of my life references for the past seven years
  • hearing people from all corners of the Internet space this week and enfleshed around tables here discussing sexuality, purity culture, and new ways forward for the church
  • some amazing story coaching sessions, getting to help shape and blossom dreams that are still forming, dreams that have been rooted for some time
  • Joy the Baker called me brave. So. I really have nothing else to say now. (The integrity of her work is incredible.)
  • the peace of Scottish hills, woods, streams
  • Happy Endings. That show can do no wrong. Jane may be one of the best characters ever scripted.

The best I read this week:

  • My wonderful friend Alise was invited to be a guest on HuffPost Live to talk about interfaith marriages. Alise has a powerful story, a beautiful heart, and you can see her segment and look through her blog here: Segment on HuffPost Live
  • "Sometimes I just want to scream to some Christian writers, 'You’re saying the same thing and it’s the same thing that’s been said for generations in the exact same language, and maybe the reason it’s been said this long (ad nauseum) is because you have to keep humming it like a lullaby so it convinces everyone to stay asleep so you don’t have to be the one to change.'" from Mandy in Oh Christian Writer, Where Is Your Robot Motherboard
  • "She’s only 11, but she finds the right words to wrap around her 40-year-old mother’s heart. I don’t want average either. I want to fight the comfortable middle. I want 'the road that leads to awesome.'" from Jennifer Dukes Lee in Dirty Feet
  • "Getting back to Ferguson’s Deeper Church post, there seems to be a presumption that all criticism made in these cycles of controversies is meant for the person being criticized, and for them alone. But that’s, quite often, not how criticism works. Movie critics don’t critique movies in hopes that directors will listen to what they have to say. Nor do art critics, television critics, literary critics, or basically any other type of professional critic." from Dianna in Not My Pastor? Criticism, Controversy, and Authority
  • "I have three other children, and that is a gift. Caring for them kept me from drowning in my grief. Caring for them has allowed me to experience new facets of another thing we all know in our guts. I like to think of it as the first law of parenting: a parent ought to love their children no matter what." from Joy in No Matter What: My One Good Phrase
  • "I told them I knew I applied for all the wrong reasons as soon as I read that line–that I wanted the two-year security, that I wanted to get out of Texas, and even maybe that I wanted it to at least sound like I was saving the world." from Antonia in Thy, will be done.
  • "I was a tiny bit too old for the purity sweeps that raced through evangelical churches in the nineties. I was a tiny bit too old to sign a purity pledge or to wear a purity ring. There wasn’t a time I could remember that I had been really pure. Not in recent years anyway. By the time the 'Purity Police' got to me I was already in college and pulling off sweaters in the backseat." from Sarah Markley in Two Different Things
  • "I’m done with virginity. I’m done with that word and that idea. I’m done defining myself, my past and my future, in terms of who’s what has been where, or hasn’t. I’m done with stories for virgins and non-virgins, promises and praises, and sentiments of 'restoration' that just push forward bulldozer loads of this horrible twisted shame." from Emily in The Day I Turned in My V-Card
  • The post everyone is talking about from Sarah Bessey, I am damaged goods., but mostly her response the day after: "Here’s something I learned yesterday about doing something scary: it’s hard and holy and impossible and a helluva lot of fun." in In which I am bowed low

Share with me: what was your best post this week, or whom did you read that I didn't?