You are not what they taught you. You aren’t going to hell for loving somebody. You aren’t going to hell for being born in the wrong body. You aren’t going to hell for having an orgasm outside of wedlock. You aren’t going to hell for taking off your clothes for the gram. You aren’t going to hell for covering your body in black from head to toe. You aren’t going to hell for the lingering depression you can’t seem... Read more
Less than a week ago, the world lost Rick Love, one of the most amazing and humble peacemakers that this world has ever known. A man whose subtle and brief introduction into my life in 2011, ended up changing the entire trajectory of my path. As I write these words, my heart is filled with endless gratitude for Rick. There is a lot that could be written about this amazing man and all he did in this world, but I’d... Read more
In the U.S. we like to say that our military constantly goes to war to “protect our freedom.” But what does that even mean? When was the last time another nation truly threatened our freedom? Are we so special that unless we are proactively killing humans from other countries, we would lose our freedom because other nations that don’t spend trillions of dollars to be in a constant state of war, aren’t actually free? It’s ridiculous to even say. Did... Read more
It takes a special kind of pastor to exploit the tragic death of a child, releasing sensitive details of the tragedy without the consent of the grieving mother, to illustrate some bullshit “god is good” crap in a sermon. I cannot imagine anything more painful than losing a beautiful child, but last month Grace Ferguson’s world was crushed into a million pieces when she lost her sweet, kind, amazing 14-month-old daughter, Temperance in a tragic accident. Grace herself doesn’t... Read more
The following is a guest piece by Trista Ann Marie Eazell. I do not remember a time where my body wasn’t screaming in pain. At eleven years old I – a child who had never once complained of pain before – began crying because my body hurt so bad. My mother took me to multiple doctors, but they didn’t believe me and told her I was making things up. That the pain in my body wasn’t real. My mother... Read more
Conservative Christian America, just stop. Please. Do you have even a spec of empathy within the place where your soul should be? Can you really watch ICE rip children from the arms of their parents and be even a little okay with it? Are you truly cool with deporting your literal neighbors, sending them to their certain death? Seriously, what is going on in your mind? Maybe you are just ignorant. Maybe you don’t know how incredibly horrible the policies... Read more
The recess bell rang and a flood of children ran onto the playground on a bright sunny afternoon in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. I smiled as I stood by the fence chatting with some of the teachers, apparently looking pretty suspect as a bunch of kids streamlined my way to figure out who the random lady on their playground was. It was my first time hanging out at the most amazing school I have ever stepped foot in –... Read more
Yesterday I read an article highlighting items that were found among the ruble, after the towers in New York City fell many years ago, and the stories of the people who owned these items before they lost their lives that September day. I cried. Seeing old pictures of smiling faces ready to take on the world paired with a picture of bloody heels or an airline pin they wore as their lives were stolen, broke my heart. What happened that... Read more
She wasn’t even 21 when she left this world. We first met almost a decade before at the youth group I was forced to attend in the early days of my teenage rebellion before I moved a thousand miles away. When I think of her, I remember a beautiful, wild, curly-haired girl on the beach with a scrunchy on her arm and the Sublime sun on her shirt. I remember one of the few people during a hard time in... Read more
For one, Jesus was never like, “Do you know where you are going when you die?” You know, the number one question of American Christianity, the question plastered on billboards throughout the country with 1-800 numbers and everything. I mean, looking at the words of Jesus, I don’t think that he was even trying to save our souls from some after-death, gnashing of teeth in the fire, drama. I think he may have been trying to save our souls from... Read more
Sheri Faye Rosendahl
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