Always. Choose love.

Dear 16-year-old Dani,

Happy birthday a day late! And let me just say right now that you completely and totally ROCK that hair cut. Seriously. Enjoy it. Don’t listen to people who tell you that they’re afraid that it makes your face look fat. It doesn’t. You look amazing. You won’t have hair that short again for a really long time, and you won’t find a style you like as much as this one for even longer, so savor it (even though you’ll get convicted in a few months that you’re disrupting God’s order by having short hair. I wish I could say don’t do that, but we both know that time travel doesn’t really exist).

This picture, ten years later, embodies for 26-year-old-you all of the sheer awesomeness that you possessed at that time in your life. Sophomore year of high school was your year, though you probably don’t realize it. You have a group of friends with whom you hang out regularly. You’re almost popular — at least, the popular kids no longer make fun of you. You are at your musical height — I wish I had your vocal range, and man do I ever wish I was as fantastic of a pianist as you are. Your biggest regret is not-quite dating that loser who swore to you that his girlfriend wasn’t actually his girlfriend and you believed him. You’re doing pretty great. You will look back on this year of your life with tremendous fondness and longing.

There’s so much I want to tell you. Like your current crush really isn’t worth it. (Really. I promise.) And homeschooling is not going to be a good experience for you. Even little things, like don’t get your cartilage pierced at Claire’s…twice. Seriously. Don’t do it.

But if there’s one thing and one thing only that I could impart to you right now, it would be this:

choose love.

Always. Choose love.

When Beauty and the Beast are both within.

This project from Dove has me so introspective today*. Please take a few moments to watch the video.

I don’t have the words at the moment to explain why this speaks so deeply to me.

But part of that is because I’ve sort of started a project semi-similar to this, inspired by a chapter of bell hooks’ “Feminism is For Everybody” in which she talks about the importance of changing the depiction of women in media.

I’ve decided to illustrate the women in my life that I greatly admire.

Mostly because I don’t know a single one of my friends who hasn’t struggled enormously with body image. And I want to capture them, their beauty, in artwork that they can look at on those days when they feel like they’d rather just disappear for good, to remind them that they’re their own worst critic.

But…I’m starting with me.

Because even though I was able to embrace myself for a few short days back in January, by and large I still hate myself. I’m still cruel to myself. I think of myself as monstrous, hideous to behold, an ugly eyesore to all who know me.

I feel very much like the Beast, when perhaps if I were to step back and be honest, perhaps I have more Beauty in me than I thought.

So here’s the beginning, trying to set a style of illustration to follow through my project with. If you like, I can update here as I go.

Initial illustrative style exploration. More to come until I settle on a technique I like.

*While the video meant a lot to me, that doesn’t mean that it and other marketing campaigns of Dove are free from reinforcing the very narrow beauty definitions they decry. Read this article for a very balanced explanation of the more problematic aspects of this video in particular.

The ever changing faces of God.

Today I’m guest posting over on Dianna Anderson’s blog, Faith & Feminism, in her “Account and Countenance” series.

This was a very difficult post to write. It is “Of church, feminism, and safety” in story form. It’s my experiences, the way they shaped my understanding of God, and where that’s left me now. I crave your gentleness and understanding — and if you cannot offer that, then I crave your silence.

After years of squelching doubts and emotions and fears, I finally began talking.

I began to tentatively share my questions, my problems, my fears with a small but growing group of people. They told me about a God who really doesn’t hold past sins over our heads to beat us with. They told me about a God who understands fear, anger, pain, and doesn’t shame or punish for those feelings but instead listens, loves, cherishes, and comforts. They told me about a God who isn’t abusive, who isn’t capricious, who isn’t cruel. I hardly dared to believe them.

But there it was, that seed of hope.

And God became someone I really felt I could wrestle with, because He might really want to engage my heart and mind, no matter what that meant. Even if it meant waiting until I was ready.

Read the rest of this post at Dianna’s.

Learn more about the Account and Countenance series, or read the other posts.

Of church, feminism, and safety.

This week has been Feminisms Fest, a synchroblog hosted by J.R. Goudeau, Danielle Vermeer, and Preston Yancey in which bloggers were encouraged to write about what feminism is to them, why it matters, and what the week has taught them about feminism. I haven’t been able to participate until now, nor read very many of the excellent offerings from our wonderful community of writers. But there have been two posts that stuck out to me more than any others, and I’d like to talk about them a little bit.

Shaney Irene wrote a post on Wednesday called “Why does feminism matter?” in which she explained why she needed to embrace feminism outside the church in order to pursue justice and show love. She says:

…the truth is that feminism is having conversations that the church is not.

The church is not yet a safe place for victims of abuse. The church is still blaming women for causing men to stumble, thinking that “What were you wearing?” is a perfectly okay question to ask a victim of rape, and refusing to believe women when they come forward about being sexually assaulted by Christian men.

The church is not yet asking questions about privilege, and seems to think oppression is something that happens outside its walls. The church needs the framework that feminism is providing.

Then today, Emily Joy Allison wrote a fantastic piece entitled “What I Learned: Like a fish needs a bicycle,” in which she noted common (and sadly expected) Christian responses to the posts that Femfest was producing: “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But the church cannot even do that.” She further commented:

I am already a Christian. I have been for much of my life. And even I had to look for validation and affirmation outside the doors of the church. There was none to be found within. Within, I was less than. Within, I was restricted because of my gender. Within, I was not respected or taken seriously. The most painful rejections, abuses and injustices I’ve experienced have been at the hands of church people. Even the people inside the church who love me are usually people who have been rejected by the church themselves and who, like me, for whatever reason, are still in it.

Why would I want to invite somebody to that?

Reading these posts made me feel understood. Validated. They helped give me the vocabulary I needed to write this post today.

I am a feminist. And I am a Christian. I think these are completely compatible systems that ought to go hand in hand.

But I do not — cannot — will not — go to church. Not in the foreseeable future.

When something’s not okay: pondering reconciliation & relationship.

What forced forgiveness often feels like. Photo credit.

I wrote recently about one of the most empowering things I’ve learned recently:  that it’s okay to not be okay.

Today, I’m going to touch on a related topic that has been equally empowering (and very confusing): I don’t have to pretend that it’s okay for people to do bad things.