rent party

"Activism is my rent for living on this planet."  Alice Walker

whoa

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.  But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered.  The fear of our desires keep them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance.  The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our oppression as women.  - Audre Lorde

this is all too familiar

love, life, growth

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can offer is not an answer but your presence, your being there to share the feeling of loneliness, your being there while someone goes on breathing in and out, whether it matters or not. -Sally Casper

audre lorde is my hero

Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives.  And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.  Audre Lorde

growing

Darkness was a presence.  I learned to see in it, I learned to see through it, and I learned to see the darkness of my own.  - Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

hells yeah

Patriarchy and capitalism are not autonomous, not even interconnected systems, but the same system.  

- Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong

take the time

When we live outside ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives only rather than from our internal knowledge and needs when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves, then our lives are limited by external and alien forms, and we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human need, let alone an individual's.  But when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense.  For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense.  For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society.  Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.  - Audre Lorde  

summer

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." -John Burroughs 

long since

As for myself, I am splintered by great waves.  I am colored glass from a church window long since shattered.  I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them. 

- Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

electric alive powerful

Feminism is about change, about a redistribution of power.  It is about challenging the status quo.  It is call for the redefinition of the family, the mosque, the temple, the church, the synagogue, and of love.  Change is threatening to those of us who wield power and those who do not.  And because it is threatening, it is electric and alive and powerful and I want to touch it.  - Samantha Sacks

whoa

What I remember is love – all love – love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.

- Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

the personal is political

Opposing cruelty should not be seen as a specifically liberal or conservative cause. -James Rachels

goodness

I used to be a hopeless romantic.  I am still a hopeless romantic.  I used to believe that love was the highest value.  I still believe that love is the highest value.  I don’t expect to be happy.  I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy.  I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution.  I think of love as a force of nature – as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving.  And when it burns out, the planet dies.- Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

hells yeah

i know it's not super cool to quote TV, but here ya go.  wisdom.

If you think back and replay your year - if it doesn’t bring you tears, either joy or sadness, consider your year wasted. - John, Ally McBeal

JW on love. she knows her stuff.

I am part civet, part mouser.

What should I do about the wild and the tame?  The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home.  I want to be held.  I don’t want you to come too close.  I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights.  I don’t want to tell you where I am.  I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me.  I want to be with you.

• Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

histamine

The circumstances of our lives are another medium of God’s communication with us. God opens some doors and closes others.... Through the wisdom of our bodies, God tells us to slow down or reorder our priorities. The happy coincidences and frustrating impasses of daily life are laden with messages. Patient listening and the grace of the Spirit are the decoding devices of prayer. It is a good habit to ask, What is God saying to me in this situation? Listening to our lives is part of prayer.

- Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast

YUC

In the bulletin of Young United Church. I love this.

 If you come troubled, may you find peace; if lonely, may you find friendship; if in doubt, may you find faith; if happy, share your joy with others. We welcome all persons who seek to live in faith, regardless of age, gender, racial or ethnic background, sexual orientation, differently-abled condition, economic or cultural background; and we affirm that they are full participants in the life, work, membership and leadership of this church.

i love this so bad

Seize the day, if you must, but do so gently and never, ever shake it. All days are not alike, and some of them are just not meant for seizing. Some days you wake up with a headache, a dentist's appointment, and a long to-do list. But that's okay. Seize tomorrow instead and today follow the path of least resistance - because deciding not to seize this particular day is also a form of seizing the day, if you follow my drift. Likewise, whoever came up with the bright idea that you should live each day as if it were your last has probably never taken this advice . . . what this cliche fails to address is that the day after your imagined last day quickly arrives and transforms your grand exit into an unmitigated disaster. Now you're chubby, broke, jobless, and have really spooked your cute UPS driver. And you're supposed to live this nightmarish new day as if it's your last. You see where I'm going with this - it gets old very fast. Better advice is to live each year as if it's your last. Pace yourself. Prioritize. Most of all, enjoy the constructive daydreaming it takes to plan your fantasy, because if you don't, you're missing the whole point: Living each day as if it's your last is really about enjoying now. Even if you're not exactly where you want to be yet, there really is a ton of pleasure to be had in stopping to smell the rugosas along the way. Adventure comes with no guarantees or promises. Risk and reward are conjoined twins . . . there are many good reasons not to toss your life up in the air and see how it lands. Just don't let fear be one of them. - Mary South

faith

I will gather myself around my faith, for light does the darkness most fear – Jewel