The Social Porcupine

Last weekend I taught hand sewing and embroidery at Turtle Island , an off-grid thousand-acre nature preserve in North Carolina. I also participated in blacksmithing and netmaking classes and went on a long quiet walk... discovering I shared a birthday with one of the founders. It was a beautiful weekend to unplug and pick up skills. The students were a delight. I watched them fall in love with sewing, some of them claiming they'd never thought such a thing possible. The truth is matters of femininity are far from despicable once we move past the lie that we're incompetent. The word empowerment gets thrown around a lot, but it's simply capability and joy.  Some call it domestic servitude... because they want more corporate slaves and fewer competent women guiding communities. A skilled, capable woman isn't a doormat. She's a queen with a broom in hand ready to beat the pulp out of that doormat so you'll feel welcomed in her domain. ,, ...

Women are leaders in grace, conversation, and reconciliation. You know what odd combinations I love to see most in evangelical home churches? A woman fully living in her femininity, and yet quite not silent in church. It isn't that I wish to defy 1 Timothy 2:12, but that I understand sobriety isn't the absence of speech or the presence of silence. It's that I understand that the works of the Proverbs 31 women are so perfectly aimed the attention lands where she intends --her fine work, her husband, her community.  Several years ago, I attended a dance that demonstrated traditional femininity and masculinity through honor, sacrifice, respect, and romance. The oddest of statements was issued: women traditionally were the leaders of conversation in society. They hosted spaces for men to converse, and certain women were sought after for invitations  because the spaces they held invoked the best discourses. Arguably, these women weren't brazen or given to much de...

*Disclaimer, I'm writing about an exchange with a large twitter account because it's a prime example of the culmination of struggles in my heart right now, and she likely won't see my post. If she does, I would hope she would at least appreciate my perception of the event and that I'm willing to be honest. We have all these terms we throw around about people to justify our perceptions of them as toxic. Truth is life isn't as simple as that, and we're too complex to be the pure victim or the total perpetrator.  A couple months ago it came to my attention that there was deep tension between two acquaintances and myself. I'd known of it for a long time and didn't know what to do about it... until I realize I could just be honest, accepting, and kind.  Within two day I'd reached out to both young women and reconciled.   Something unexpected happened. They reciprocated. We forgave each other, the misunderstandings were shattered and forgotten, and we now ...

Written a long time ago Walk the narrow straight.  It's not so straight, but it's narrow. No room for a companion. No guardrails for when I feel weak. My strength is ebbing. I am drowning in a moving circling current, unable to float into freedom.  What does it mean to let go of someone you love?  I know I mustn't cut him out of my life. I know I mustn't hate him. How could I? My heart aches because I love him so much and don't know how to be merely a friend.  A friend? I wait. I grow. I pray. I gave him my heart... he said, "Thank you for your vulnerability. Let me hold it for a bit. Never mind. It bores me."  Oddly, he never returned my gift. How could he? How can a heart be returned or taken back? How can fire be unkindled? Passion must burn its course until it dies.  * * * "What do you want to do with your life," a man asks a girl.  "I want to forget all of my dreams save the ones that might add sparkles to your life," t...

As you can see this world is full of lies. Contradictory lies, too - it's not too hard to pull them apart, either. Here are some: It takes two to fight . - Then there would never be a victim. Or slaughter. Just love yourself. - If this were so easy then suicide wouldn't be a thing. You are beautiful. - Sometimes you aren't. Just being honest. Skinny is healthy. -It's just not. It's really not even beautiful. This sex-craved world just keeps changing it's mind on what's healthy{ beautiful } and tries to drag the rest of us down in death. Work hard and your dreams will come true. - Sometimes they won't. We can't control life. Good things happen to good people - They happen to bad people, too. And bad things happen to both good and bad people. If your heart is good people will see. - No matter what you do there will always be people appearing to be good that will treat you like trash. Wanna know why...

All you ladies out there, I just want to take a moment to express some thoughts of mine. And make you think. And ask you this question: Who determines who you are? Thoughts toward a disgusting attitude that seems to becoming so predominate as of late. Selfish, vulgar, and even down right false. It's where we women are acting like the world owes us something as we have somehow been mistreated? We aren't privileged? We have no rights? We are somehow being oppressed by men? I'm told that I'm just lucky to not have experienced such things at the hand of man when I try to stand up for my father, brothers, and guy-friends by stating “All men aren't evil.” I'm told I'm stupid and ignorant when I say “I don't hate men.” Stereotyping and being hateful toward men seems to be justified by this: statistics prove what experience can't. It doesn't matter that I or you don't know any evil, white guys. Statistics prove that women are m...