superba frango.

“It’s funny, but writing about [queer] themes never felt like a decision. It just felt like the natural thing to do. I’m gay. I have gay friends, straight friends, bi friends, queer friends, trans friends, ace friends. I have friends who are monogamous, friends who are poly, friends who are single and hate it, friends who are single and never plan on being anything else. Sometimes my friends love their bodies, sometimes they do not. Sometimes *I* love my body; often, I do not. So, as writers, we’re supposed to write what we know, right? Well, that’s the world I know. Those are the people I know. To write a future that did not have people like me and mine in it, *that* would have been something that required a conscious effort (and a super weird one at that). I wrote what I thought was obvious. People like me exist, therefore we exist in the future. Easiest decision in the world.”

Image says: 

“While contemporary youth ministry encourages hands-raised, heartfelt sincerity, in fact such paradigms reflect the “excarnation” of Christian faith in modernity…We have effectively communicated to young people that sincerely following Jesus is synonymous with being “fired up” for Jesus, with being excited for Jesus, as if discipleship were synonymous with fostering an exuberant, perky, cheerful, hurray-for-Jesus disposition like what we might find in the glee club or at a pep rally. The result, I would caution, can be disastrous. If we effectively communicate to young people that being a serious follower of Jesus is synonymous with being an extrovert for Jesus, then all of our young people who simply are not wired that way are going to quietly assume they can’t be Christians…. For those young people who are either scared or suspicious of happy-clappy versions of youth group Christianity, ancient Christian disciplines and historic Christian worship can be received as a life-giving gift. When you have only seen forms of piety that value spontaneous expression and clichéd sincerity, to be given the cadences and rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer can be like receiving the gift of tongues.”

elizabeth's grand theory of faramirs