Apprentice to Wonder

We no longer have the strength to endure what is happening to us.

This is one of the worst tragedies in history.

Please speak up for us. Share, comment, and let the world know that two million people are suffering every day.

I’m not only trying to survive…

My father is sick, and I can’t afford his treatment. Watching him get worse while I can do nothing is breaking me.

I just need to buy medicine and food for my family.

Similarly, there is a boundary around what's actually Christian. The definition of Christian isn't actually "everyone who says they are." And it's not everyone who reveres or venerates Christ. Muslims and Manichaeans revere Jesus but aren't Christian. Not everyone accepts non-Nicene Christianity as Christianity. And movements can be destroyed by allowing in everyone who says "I'm a _____" without pushing back. Look at the watering down of feminism. "It's feminist to conform to the status quo, actually," was a devastating boundary shift.

So here we come to a charge that I must accept everyone who says they are a Christian as part of my faith. And it's difficult to create a satisfying response because we have two things that are true:

1. People bearing the name "Christian" are causing significant, real harm in our name and it doesn't do any good and it doesn't repair any harm to tell our neighbors "well, ACTUALLY that was a FAKE Christian and I'm different and better 😌"

2. Some of these beliefs aren't Christian. These are beliefs that cut you off from the body of Christ. White nationalism ISN'T Christian. Jesus crossed boundaries of nation and ethnicity all the time. And this is beyond being a church of wheat and tares. There is a swath of Christianity right now that has set up an idol in the form of a man they call Jesus, but they are not in any way worshipping the God revealed in scripture. I can't accept that as Christianity. Christian nationalism is idol worship.

I think it mainly comes down to we have a secular facing responsibility and a church facing responsibility. It's the difference between I wouldn't tell anyone recounting how they suffered at Christian misbehavior "that wasn't a real Christian™️" but I would tell (and have told) other Christians "that belief is not Christian, it's not scriptural, repent and return to the true faith."

We're not talking about "no TRUE Christian would say cuss word/take the Lord's name in vain." Yes, TRUE Christians would do and have done and will do horrible things and we can't absolve ourselves through distance. But we are also talking about a deep theological sickness in our body. We have the right to fight off that sickness. We have the obligation to fight it off before it kills us.

So, in terrible news, Trump's trying to pull some strings to pass this massive internet censorship bill, featuring all the kinds of internet censorship we're terrified of, including mandatory ID for accessing basically any website, specifically to crush state regulation of AI, because apparently this man will always see the moral bottom of the barrel and start digging.

In portuguese, much like spanish, we have no gender neutral pronouns. People who do not use ele/dele and ela/dela (he/him or she/her) all use whatever neopronoun suits them best in portuguese (ie elu/delu, eli/deli) because we have no access to a universal gender neutral pronoun like gringos do. When I brought this up upon them making fun of my "neopronouns", they said to suck it up, and that being foreign does not make neos valid.

In mocking people who use neopronouns in english, you are mocking a very large sum of latin american genderqueer and trans people.

I know various latin language speakers that struggle with their identities in their native tongue due to us not having they/them equivalents, so they are forced to let go of their, in example, brazilian queerness, to appease to anglos who would harass them and call them mockeries of trans people for not sticking to what The Cis want.

When non-anglos tell you the usamerican and british dominance over queer spaces ruins things for them, they mean it. We are forced to repress our identites because you people think they're too "out there and problematic". We are forced to suppress our own queer culture because we don't fit into your neat little boxes of what makes someone gay what makes someone a lesbian what makes someone trans or what makes someone anything else.

You tell us to remember "our queer elders", but do you know of any queer latin american figures? We learn your history, and you refuse to learn ours because you already have "too much on your plate". You disregard us and shame us for not fitting your ideals of queerness and using labels for ourselves you dislike, and try to baby us and tell us the proper way to be gay.

Your culture is not universal.

You are not saving queer people by making jabs at other queer people you don't personally get. Odds are you are harming an entire group of foreign queers you never bothered to consider, because your anglo bubble is too self important.

If you want to do queer people a real favour instead of getting mad at identities that existed long before you were even born, here. Make yourself useful. Donate to queer brazilian housing and support programs. Your beloved dollar is worth a lot more than the Real. Even five dollars help.

Casa Um

Eternamente Sou

Some thoughts.

Kofi Tip jar

Why might someone from a group of people that historically have been denied access to wealth, now brag that they have it?

“Rappers only talk about sex!”

Why might someone from a group that have historically been denied sexual autonomy now brag about their sexual escapades on their own terms?

“Rappers only talk about drugs and crime!”

this one has been passed around recently from the mayo clinic and that actually makes me so happy because how many of transfeminine people are aware of what their options even look like?

“I wish someone would see through it when I tell people I’m fine-” Well, but have YOU considered not lying when people ask you how you’re doing?

“I am so resentful of my friend because they keep doing this thing that really bothers me-” Well, but have YOU directly communicated that the thing is bothering you?

“I am burning out because my friend keeps expecting me to help them with serious struggles-” Well, but have YOU tried to establish the boundaries you need to feel okay?

“No one ever asks me about this thing I really care about-” Well, but have YOU brought it up yourself?

“I miss my friend but they haven’t texted me-” Well, but have YOU been reaching out to them?

Being cared for is not a fantasy. But you have to let people know you need it. And you have to understand that sometimes they will let you down. Just like you totally could live in a cute farm, but you still have to shovel shit, and the crops sometimes die anyway. Or maybe you win the lottery, but you still have to manage your money and learn real estate law.