ancora imparo

it’s a tiredness, and not of self, but

of this self, of waiting around to be

a better person, a better woman,

a girl who i dreamed of being, or even

more than that, who God has willed me to be

Lord, forgive me, I could be

so much more if I

christianity is fueled by trauma and spreads by creating it

i could couch this more but honestly yeah the teachings of jesus are neat but the text of the bible is cruel and twisted and unsustainable and that book did not solve humanity

There was one time when I was a teenager that my family went to the grocery store and didn't wake me up when they left. When I woke up I tried calling them on the phone and none of them heard their ringtones. After the like fourth attempt, I started to freak the fuck out. The only explanation my brain could think of was that the end of the world had started and everyone I cared about had been sucked up into heaven leaving me to deal with the end times alone. At this point I started panic dialing every single person I knew from church and progressively got more and more scared every time I got a voicemail. Eventually, I got ahold of my youth pastor and felt too embarrassed to say why I was actually calling, so I told him a lie about forgetting when youth group started that week. I was so close to crying at this point that I had to spend the rest of the time before my family got home telling myself that surely my youth pastor wouldn't get left behind, so I was probably fine.

It was so hard to calm down and I basically had a mini version of this experience every time I was alone cuz one of the pastors at my dad's church had been preaching constantly about the end times being near and how the majority of Christians weren't true believers and wouldn't be saved cuz they weren't good enough. It got to the point that I had to ask my dad and step mom if I could go to a different service cuz this guy's 'teachings' freaked me out so much.

And, on top of all of those- the Hell, damnation, obedience mantras, shaming, guilt tripping, terror, torment and tribulation, fundamental flaws of being human-ness and having human thoughts and actions, especially as a kid, because like, fuck, literally not being able to have well developed forethought, etc.

Add to it: Sons of God.

Eve was the downfall of humanity. Lilith became a fucking demon for daring to open her mouth and question her husband. Lot’s wife didn’t even deserve to be named for her sins- his own daughters were depraved beings. Hagar was at fault for the conspiring against her by her master and mistress. Sarai was at fault for laughing. Dina was at fault for being raped. The widows were helpless but for the intervention of the prophet. It was Miriam who was punished for their offenses, not Aaron. Even Jesus was gracious and showing of his extreme mercy and love- he went and talked with the woman at the well. He saved the harlot. He allowed Mary to listen. (When she should have been serving, in that her sister was right. Is God, then, a liar?) “‘I do not permit a woman to open her mouth, but if she has questions, let her ask her husband at home.’”

“Make no mistake, God has no daughters; we are all sons of God!” “Brothers in Christ”

Also, as a Christian fundamentalist I tried to “martyr myself” for being queer.

And yes, that means I thought I was commanded by G-d to commit suicide.

People who really love you don't try to control you that way.

(There's a reason that a well-known book about surviving abusive parents is called "Will I Ever Be Good Enough?")

How messed up is that? That this huge group of people have looked at the world and all the cool stuff in it, and decided that the entity in charge of it is an abusive parent writ large?

You do not deserve abuse. You do not deserve to be hurt for being you. Or for not obeying someone's interpretation of a translation of a translation of something written thousands of years ago. Or for not meeting some arbitrary standard of "good enough".

I do not care if something claiming to be God Themself is pulling that shit, it is not okay. Ever.

but everyone around me was so sure. so i grew up scared. i had a nightmare when i was about nine or ten where i was falling into hell, and a demon saw me falling, and he said, “you’re going to wake up this time, but next time you won’t.” and i’ve thought about it, on and off, for twenty years now.

i’m still scared sometimes. what if we’re wrong? i do my best anyway: we have to believe in justice, we have to believe in truth, we have to believe that it’s enough just to try. what if i’m wrong? what if hell is out there somewhere just waiting for me. i’m still scared sometimes, and i still don’t understand it. 

i don’t think god and hell can exist in a just world, in a fair system, and if they do exist then it’s our duty to fight them both and reform that system. all i can do is live, and try, and hope.

I think that the greater something is, the more dangerous the corruption of it is

we have to be sympathetic when people come at us with these kinds of accusations, because there are genuinely people out there who have used perverted forms of Christianity to abuse people

My grandmother had to marry a man she didn’t love (and never came to love him either) due to cultural norms. She had 7 children. When she was ready to leave my grandfather, she discovered she was pregnant with baby number 5, my mother, and realized that she couldn’t get a job to support the kids because she was going to be pregnant THEN have a new baby to take care of at home.

My mother was born in 1957, a noticeably not good time for women to get divorced. In the USA, it wasn’t until 1975 that women could get their own bank accounts in their own name. My grandmother was a smart woman. Whatever her plan was, she had just figured out how to make it work and a baby made it all collapse.

My grandmother always resented my mother. Anytime my mother discussed having any goals my grandmother would say, “well what makes you think you could do that?” My mother has ASD and NPD, how do you think being raised in an unloving home effected her as a neurodivergent child? What type of mother do you think she became? (Hint: terrible and abusive.)

but it’s so, so important to recognize that a woman’s natural ability to become pregnant is not the evil thing here. We are not naturally oppressed by our own bodies. Our bodies are good. 

The problem is not something that women do naturally. The problem is cultures that fail to accommodate women, fail to support them, or even force them into situations that are less than ideal (to say the very very least) for having children.

idk it just grosses me out that this man is saying that the problem comes from women’s bodies, and not from these outside causes, causes which are often a result of men objectifying women and not fully recognizing their human dignity.

me:

“the position of ‘ruler of Babylon’ has been vacant for a few years, hasn’t it?”

“well, someone has to translate those ancient curses in movies”

scream “ΒΡΕΚΕΚΕΚΕΞ ΚΟΑΞ ΚΟΑΞ” and run away

“destroy Carthage”

start reciting the Iliad and don’t stop until the person leaves

“I was thinking of killing a giant in Lebanon, losing my bro and going on a subsequent quest for immortality, what do you think?”

say nothing and keep building that sweet Hittite chariot you’re going to use to become a new superpower

“I’m going to construct a fort with all the Loeb books I own and never come out”

“bold of you to assume my studies will ever be over”