…humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative
to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being … she is defined
and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to
her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He
is the subject, he is the absolute – she is the other.
Simone de Beauvoir, 1949:16
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Broken…I now talk with God.
O Lord Jesus my Saviour.
Today my heart is empty.
Pride is the thing I will miss least when time comes to and end.
I need a priest.
I need a preacher.
I need an exorcist to banish the snake I’ve been handling called…self.
I need you.
Broken…I now talk to God.
(Ben Pearson: Taken from Ragamuffin Prayers, CCM Books)
O Lord Jesus my Saviour.
Today my heart is empty.
Pride is the thing I will miss least when time comes to and end.
I need a priest.
I need a preacher.
I need an exorcist to banish the snake I’ve been handling called…self.
I need you.
Broken…I now talk to God.
(Ben Pearson: Taken from Ragamuffin Prayers, CCM Books)
Friday, 24 October 2008
to my ladies
I wake up in the morning, stumble on my life, stumble on yours.
Is it possible to get love without sacrifice?
If anything should happen, I guess I wish you well girls.
A little bit of heaven, but a little bit of hell...
Is it possible to get love without sacrifice?
If anything should happen, I guess I wish you well girls.
A little bit of heaven, but a little bit of hell...
Sad Song
Sing a sad song
In a lonely place
Try to put a word in for me
It’s been so long
Since I found this place
You better put in two or three
We as people, are just walking ’round
Our heads are firmly fixed in the ground
What we don’t see
Well it can’t be real
What we don’t touch we cannot feel
Where we’re living in this town
The sun is coming up and it’s going down
But it’s all just the same at the end of the day
And we cheat and we lie
Nobody says it’s wrong
So we don’t ask why
Cause it’s all just the same at the end of the day
We’re throwing it all away
We’re throwing it all away
We’re throwing it all away at the end of the day
If you need it
Something I can give
I know I’d help you if I can
If your honest and you say that you did
You know that I would give you my hand
Or a sad song
In a lonely place
I’ll try to put a word in for you
Need a shoulder? well if that’s the case
You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do
Where we’re living in this town
The sun is coming up and it’s going down
But it’s all just the same at the end of the day
When we cheat and we lie
Nobody says it’s wrong
So we don’t ask why
Cause it’s all just the same at the end of the day
Don’t throw it all away
Don’t throw it all away
Don’t throw it all away
Don’t throw it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
You’re throwing it all away at the end of the day
In a lonely place
Try to put a word in for me
It’s been so long
Since I found this place
You better put in two or three
We as people, are just walking ’round
Our heads are firmly fixed in the ground
What we don’t see
Well it can’t be real
What we don’t touch we cannot feel
Where we’re living in this town
The sun is coming up and it’s going down
But it’s all just the same at the end of the day
And we cheat and we lie
Nobody says it’s wrong
So we don’t ask why
Cause it’s all just the same at the end of the day
We’re throwing it all away
We’re throwing it all away
We’re throwing it all away at the end of the day
If you need it
Something I can give
I know I’d help you if I can
If your honest and you say that you did
You know that I would give you my hand
Or a sad song
In a lonely place
I’ll try to put a word in for you
Need a shoulder? well if that’s the case
You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do
Where we’re living in this town
The sun is coming up and it’s going down
But it’s all just the same at the end of the day
When we cheat and we lie
Nobody says it’s wrong
So we don’t ask why
Cause it’s all just the same at the end of the day
Don’t throw it all away
Don’t throw it all away
Don’t throw it all away
Don’t throw it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
Throwing it all away
You’re throwing it all away at the end of the day
Friday, 17 October 2008
Everything
I can be an asshole of the grandest kind
I can withhold like it's going out of style
I can be the moodiest baby and you've never met anyone
Who is as negative as I am sometimes
I am the wisest woman you've ever met.
I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected.
I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen
And you've never met anyone
Who's as positive as I am sometimes.
You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
I blame everyone else, not my own partaking
My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating
I'm terrified and mistrusting
And you've never met anyone as,
As closed down as I am sometimes.
You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know
What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go
I'm the funniest woman that you've ever known
I'm the dullest woman that you've ever known
I'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known
And you've never met anyone
Who is as everything as I am sometimes
You see everything
You see every part
And you're still here
(A. M. )
I can withhold like it's going out of style
I can be the moodiest baby and you've never met anyone
Who is as negative as I am sometimes
I am the wisest woman you've ever met.
I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected.
I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen
And you've never met anyone
Who's as positive as I am sometimes.
You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
I blame everyone else, not my own partaking
My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating
I'm terrified and mistrusting
And you've never met anyone as,
As closed down as I am sometimes.
You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know
What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go
I'm the funniest woman that you've ever known
I'm the dullest woman that you've ever known
I'm the most gorgeous woman that you've ever known
And you've never met anyone
Who is as everything as I am sometimes
You see everything
You see every part
And you're still here
(A. M. )
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Saturday, 23 August 2008
Testimony...
Brennan Manning suggests ‘The question for all of us is what we will really aim at next. If all we are going for is placid decency, routine prayer, well-behaved worship, and comfortable compassion, then we have effectively parted company with the shipwrecked and have no fellowship with the pearl-finder.’'
'I didn't go to the flea market the week of my abortion. I stayed home, and smoked dope and got drunk, and tried to write a little, and went for slow walks along the salt marsh with Pammy. On the seventh night, though, very drunk and just about to taking a sleeping pill, I discovered that I was bleeding heavily. It did not stop over the next hour. i was going through a pad every fifteen minutes, and I thought i should call a doctor or Pammy, but I was so disgusted that I had gotten so drunk one week after an abortion that I just couldn't wake someone up and ask for help. I kept changing Kotex, and got very sober very quickly.
Several hours later, the blood stopped flowing, and I got in bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill. I had a cigarette and turned off the light. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there - of course, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond a doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.
And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, "I would rather die."
I felt him sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing him with.
Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.
This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.
And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which i just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or 'something' was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling - and it washed over me.
I began to cry amd left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers inder a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my boathouse, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, "OK: I quit."
I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in."
So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.'
(Anne Lamott: Travelling Mercies - Some Thoughts On Faith)
I don't believe in covering up cracks. Rather I believe in redeeming those landscapes of brokenness and terrifying loneliness and difficulty that we often find ourselves traversing. To fight hard to give back to the little people of this world that which this world had taken so remorselessly from them.
Mike Yaconelli said of himself, ‘I want to be a good person. I don’t want to fail. I want to learn from my mistakes, rid myself of distractions, and run into the arms of Jesus. Most of the time, however, I feel like I am running away from Jesus into my own clutteredness. I want desperately to know God better. I want to be consistent. Right now though the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency. Who I want to be and who I am are not very close together. I am not doing well at the living-a-consistent-life thing.’
'I didn't go to the flea market the week of my abortion. I stayed home, and smoked dope and got drunk, and tried to write a little, and went for slow walks along the salt marsh with Pammy. On the seventh night, though, very drunk and just about to taking a sleeping pill, I discovered that I was bleeding heavily. It did not stop over the next hour. i was going through a pad every fifteen minutes, and I thought i should call a doctor or Pammy, but I was so disgusted that I had gotten so drunk one week after an abortion that I just couldn't wake someone up and ask for help. I kept changing Kotex, and got very sober very quickly.
Several hours later, the blood stopped flowing, and I got in bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill. I had a cigarette and turned off the light. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there - of course, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond a doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.
And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, "I would rather die."
I felt him sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing him with.
Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.
This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.
And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which i just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or 'something' was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling - and it washed over me.
I began to cry amd left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers inder a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my boathouse, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, "OK: I quit."
I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in."
So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.'
(Anne Lamott: Travelling Mercies - Some Thoughts On Faith)
I don't believe in covering up cracks. Rather I believe in redeeming those landscapes of brokenness and terrifying loneliness and difficulty that we often find ourselves traversing. To fight hard to give back to the little people of this world that which this world had taken so remorselessly from them.
Mike Yaconelli said of himself, ‘I want to be a good person. I don’t want to fail. I want to learn from my mistakes, rid myself of distractions, and run into the arms of Jesus. Most of the time, however, I feel like I am running away from Jesus into my own clutteredness. I want desperately to know God better. I want to be consistent. Right now though the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency. Who I want to be and who I am are not very close together. I am not doing well at the living-a-consistent-life thing.’
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