she wont be telling you anything
she wont give you the specimens you want
carefully displayed and labeled


while you discard the bedrock, the blood
the knowledge that
even then there were days worth fighting for
even then there was good music and starlight

The knowledge that
even now
she will not turn her head fully in your direction
that she doesnt like all you have to say

the knowledge that
that there were things she loved that got lost in the recovery
such as liminal spaces and having no further left to fall

it is not his name that matters
not his name she wishes you to hold high
not his hands on her body
but her name
her hands upon the world
it is not the things he broke that matter here
but the things she kept whole
the things she rescued from the burned out building

but it is his name you take from her
his actions
not her carefully crafted life
that includes the shadows as well as the singing


you are waiting for her to ask for absolution
to lay her confession, to lay herself, across your sacrificial altar

how you tell her story is not the narrative that matters
it was not your language that she learned first
but blood,
bone,
knife edge,
hunger,
running with a gang of kids on the edge of everything,
tattoo needle
trickster eyes
and the word warp
that got her through


nothing was cut from a whole cloth
certainly not your cloth
but patched from rags and fragments

I'm hitting my upcurve and balancing out, and other things are changing for me really positively

paul's sister came for the weekend and pissed me off immensely, shes so fucking patronising and thinks shes really open minded and knows lots about the world, and people but shes really narrow minded, and racist, and misogynistic and homophobic. Also she seems to think that because she is actually old enough to be my mother she should treat me like a child.

so Saturday lunch came round and we went to a carvery for dinner, which was really nice actually, but anyway she started a sentence with "well what bothers me is when people from other countries come here and..." so i was " you know I don't want to have this conversation, we have it every time you come here and its really racist" so she kept trying to talk about it tile i was like "I DONT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT" so she said in this really patronising tone "say please" so I'm WTF don't patronise me, so she comes back with "well you should use manners when you are talking tom people" so I told her she wasn't my mother and she was really out of line telling me how to behave. so she flounced and was like "well I need some fresh air"

Paul and I finished our meal then in the car home she started again with the "well I should be able to say what I like, I pay my taxes, I work six days a week, I don't appreciate people coming over here blah, blah, blah"

then as she was leaving Paul walked her to her car and she was "i don't understand why I cant get on with my families partners, I don't know why my friends stop getting on with me,etc etc" yeah possiblly its got something to do with the way you treat people

And it was really clear that this was the first time shed noticed that shed pissed me off, because it was the first time I'd really snapped at her even though she pisses me off every time I see her, so she clearly doesn't actually take any notice of other peoples reactions or emotions

so pissed off fed up and unmotivated with my life
need to start getting up with the sun and filling my days with stuff other than the computer

I would get rid of all laws around immigration and asylum seekers everywhere in the world, if people wanted to live here who werent born here they could, no questions asked.

This would mean that refugees would have a place of saftey wiothout all the stress of not being belived and going throught an incredibly complex beurucratic nightmare to claim asylum.

recently, through reading 0hyourgod I learned the spiritual movement I grew up in had a name According to This post its called the third wave and it incorporates the toronto blessing phenomena. According to the article linked

The beliefs and manifestations of the movement include the use of 'strategic level spiritual warfare' to expel territorial demons from American and world cities. Worship includes excessive charismatic manifestations such as hundreds of people falling, 'slain in the spirit,' and congregations laughing, jerking, and shrieking uncontrollably.

Recipients of such "spiritual" or miraculous healing make a wide range of astonishing claims - to have been cured of life-threatening illnesses, had joints repaired or replaced, been given gold teeth or gold fillings, regrown stunted limbs and even had deformed skeletal structures straightened and reshaped. Worldwide mission efforts of the movement are built around the idea of combating witches, warlocks, and generational curses, which prevent churches from being able to take root.


(i have no idea who the guy is who wrote the article, i know nothing about his political position or anything else hes writen but here, hes right on the money)

knowing that it has a label feels like my experiences are legitimised, like i can talk about it now coherently instead of fumbling for words.

There is actually quite a lot written about it online but most of it is about how the movement is "unbiblical" and you know I'm not really interested in faction fighting within Christianity, I'm interested in weather it hurts people and i know from my own wounds that that movement does.

where I'm placed now in relation to that spiritual movement is really, really complicated, it would be easier i suppose if i were an atheist but as a christian I feel like I'm in a really uncomfortable position about it.

I have to say i am personally really, really uncomfortable with public spiritual experiences such as those described in the quote above but I don't know if that's because I kind of was overloaded with them when i was in that environment, or whether its just that i am just private about those sort of things. i do totally believe that people have spiritual experiences but I feel that they are private things, i am as likely to have a deep "spiritual" experience in public as i am to have sex in public, i am also as likely to discuss in detail my deep spiritual experiences as i am to discus my sexual experiences, those things for me are on a par and are as sacred and important as each other. But that's not the issue here, i totally get that lots of people don't feel like I do about deep spiritual experiences.

However the more diffuse spiritual type experiences (or what non religious people would call "group hypnosis/hysteria I guess) I have had those in public and well I'm really interested in how they are thought about by neocharismatic Christians and I'm quite uncomfortable and often pissed of by the way they are thought about. The feeling that people get when they are worshiping is exactly the same feeling you get at a large gig, and I have been told also the same feeling you get at a football match > I would imagine that the feeling is also very similar/the same as other religions trance states or shamanic journeys and such.

But all the neocharismatics I have heard talk about it say that only their experience is the real, godly authentic one and everything else (in the case of football matches and gigs) is fake or (in the case of other religions) is evil, demonic, from "the enemy".

i really really don't buy that. I pretty much think you either have to see all of them as spiritual experiences, and enriching experiences or none of them, i also think denying the spiritual experiences of other peoples religions and saying yours is the only one that counts really fucking sucks.


The other main issue I have with this is what is it for? the received wisdom from the neocharismatics is that 1) it gets you closer to god 2) it is a result of the churches righteousness. and you know I'm not buying it, if these kind of spiritual experiences were either a mechanism or a reward for churches being closer to god abuse would not be endemic in neocharismatic churches. The men In my church who gave the guy who was efectivly my pimp money so they could gang rape me frequently all took part in "spiritual outpourings" so clearly they were not righteous people by any stretch of the imagination

one of the things that ties in with this is that in my experience and as far as I can tell neocharismatic churches are really, really conservative and I don't understand why. Neocharismatic movements tend to take hold amongst communities of "bible believing" Christians (which generally means people who read the bible literally, don't believe in evolution, are anti gay, believe in rigid gender roles including the subordinate place of women, believe all non Christians are potentially evil and going to hell)I'm not sure this has to be so but it does always seem to be so.


Something else is the healing thing, i don't believe god heals people, i just don't, i do however believe people have healing experiences especially if they have autoimmune diseases, and i think some/many/most of those "healings" are just respite. The brain does do wonderful things and I do think part of the high from spiritual experiences is caused by endorphins flooding the system so that is going to have a knock on effect on pain levels. Because there's is so much store set on healing, people with disabilities and long term health issues are often put under a hell of a lot of pressure and made to feel guilty when they aren't healed, but not only that they are made to feel broken and at fault because they wont "co operate" or they don't have enough "faith"

some of the claims to healing are theologicaly unsound as well as being impossible. I recently heard of how someone was miraculously raised from the dead and how this was a wonderful thing to be celebrated. how does that work theologically? I mean if it was possible I would think that it was an amazing thing to be celebrated but when your theology basically hinges on waiting to go to heaven, isn't stopping someone from going to heaven cruel and bizarre? Also with neo charismatic theology is the fact that god micromanages the universe so surely if someone dies god wants them to be dead?

I dont know where I'm going with this but these are just things I need to say, and knowing that theres a label for it, a frame work to fit it in gives me the space and the motivation to be able to say it, to unpick and examine the efect it had and is still having on my life

When you see this, post another Buffy quote in your LJ. Let's see how long this can go on.

BUFFY
Look, I wish this could be a democracy. I really do. Democracies don't win battles.It's a hard truth, but there has to be a single voice. You need someone to issue orders and be reckless sometimes and not take your feelings into account. You need someone to lead you.
ANYA
And it's automatically you. You really do think you're better than we are.
BUFFY
No, I -
ANYA
But we don't know. We don't know if you're actually better. I mean, you came into the world with certain advantages, sure. I mean, that's the legacy.
BUFFY
I -
ANYA
But you didn't earn it. You didn't work for it. You've never had anybody come up to you and say you deserve these things more than anyone else. They were just handed to you. So that doesn't make you better than us. It makes you luckier than us.
BUFFY
I've gotten us this far.
XANDER
But not without a price.


From EMPTY PLACES

I actualy hate that episode it sucks so hard but I love this quote, its a really simple way of explaing privelige to people

I cant find any resources explaining to Christians about how privileges and oppression play out in christian communities so I am going to write something myself, because yeah they should be reading all the stuff that's written about it elsewhere but the wont because of how its "of the world" and evil and secular and stuff. also they will be all "but that's got nothing to do with me I behave like this because I'm right, because the bible says so" ummm yeah okay, so I thought if i used bible teaching using jesus's actual words they are more likely to listen

( Read more... )

If anyone has any personal examples or knows any Internet examples of the playing out of privilege in christian communities and/or bible verses that talk about how that's not okay, i would be really grateful.

this is a really important post you should all go read!

Well, then! Thank you, o feisty abstinence-only group, for letting me know I should have killed myself when I was seven!

so I'm really intersted in the corelation between the way people were taught poetry at school and how they feel about it now


1)did you learn poetry at school?
2)How old were you?
3)which poets/poems did you learn? (this doesnt mean by heart)
4)What did you get taught about poetry?
5)How do you think your experiences with poetry in an educational setting affected the way you feel about poetry today?
6)How do you feel about poetry today?
7)do you ever read poetry for plesure?
8)how old are you now?

I love Leonard Cohen, love, love, love. I've been listening to him since I was sixteen, so very nearly half my life. he is so fucking talented. What can I say. I always find he has something to say to me. The first album of his I stumbled across was the best of which contains my favorite song of all time, famous blue raincoat



I have fourteen different versions of that song but I always come back to his version the original and best, I love the lyrics, its such an enigmatic story (I mean none of its true, he made it all up but there are still so many different ways of weaving the narrative.)

and the lines Yes and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes. I thought they were there for good so I never tried are so beautiful and remind me of a fair few people in my life who really helped me get my shit together.

I really like his weird religious undertones to his music,and his connections between spirituality and sexuality I can really relate to that and some of his lyrics just drill right down in side me

yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control,
it begins with your family,but soon it comes down to your soul

later I came to songs of love and hate which is a much harsher.angrier album but which was really relevant to me at the time, I especially loved diamonds in the mine



It really reminded me of the socialist worker party who were at that point in my life irritating the fuck out of me.

probably my favorite album of his as a whole entity (though strangely it doesn't actually have many of my favorite songs on it) is various positions which has "dance me to the end of love



dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in

also on that album are the ever beautiful Hallelujah



and if it be your will

(Jennifer Warnes is, as often, his backing singer and she is incredibly talented and they work really well together)


and then one of my very favorite songs



Which, is beautiful and has beautiful lyrics.

So I love him, but I know he's hot entirely unproblematic, he writes odd, sometimes very misogynistic things about women, he wrote a book called Beautiful losers which is up there with American Psycho as the most disturbing, troubling thing I have ever read. But he has so much to say to me, and has been a really stabilizing point in my incredibly nomadic fractured life.

he's coming to do a concert near me soon but we can't afford it which I'm really bummed out about.

Why do both hardcore Atheists and hardcore Christians think that to be a christian you have to be a creationist, homophobic,anti sex, woman hating, bible literalist whack job?!

seriously it pisses me off so much

I think every woman every where should have the choice weather to have an abortion or not. The or not there is really important because lots of women are just expected or worse coerced or forced to have abortions against their wishes and that kind of goes into the whole </i>reproductive justice</i> sphere (rather than reproductive rights which is a very white, westeren, able bodied middle class way of conceiving of it.)

But with the phrase pro choice most people tend to centre their thoughts around abortion, so i'm going to stick to talking about that here.

I think the choice to carry a child to term or not is always absoloutley and only the choice of the person carrying the child and I think abortions needs to be free and accesable to everybody regardles of the reason they are wanted. Avalible abortion means that women are not harmmed by backstreet abortions and are not extremley traumatised by having to carry and give birth to a child they dont want and then the mother and child are not further traumatised by either having to bring up a child they dont want or being unwanted (and I dont believe adoption is an option really as it tends to traumatise the hell out of both the mother and the child for ever)

My personal views on abortion are complicated and actualy I do lean more towards life begining at conception but I don't think that means abortion shouldn't be avalible and its not up to me to decide when an abortion is nessacary or justified. I also read a really interesting thing by a bhudist woman who said that many bhudists saw abortion as an unethical choice but in lots of situations it is the most ethical choice of several unethical choice (and yes I do think it is better to abort a child that is going to be unwanted than to keep it)

I actualy dont talk about my own personal views on abortion very much though because I dont want the whatck jobs to distort my words for their own ends. And I do activley campain for abortion rights and a change in abortion laws so abortion is easier to obtain.

So, the latest Carnival of radical feminists is up at spinning spinsters and it irritated the fuck out of me. There are some Gems in there such as the entry by Whattamisaid and Jo22's feminist interpretation of the genesis story

but there is also the ever revolting smug irritating arogannce and transphobia of Pollystyrene and miss andrea

and then it seems its perfectly aceptable to link to a post titled Retards make it to the atlantic How did anyone think this was okay? but I know if i pointed out the abelism involved I would just be accused of not caring about women and caring more about disabled people (because clearly there are no disabled women, anywhere, ever, so clearly I am either not disabled or not a woman. Intersectionality! learn you some!) in the same way i was informed recently that pointing out racism meant I didnt care about mysogny.How is it ever acceptable not to unpack our ablism? how is it ever acceptable to use ablist slurs? How the fuck do women who consider themselves to be radical feminists think that the word "retard" is ever okay to use?

There are three links to writing by Rmott62 while I think her writing is important and she seems to find it a healing experience I'm not convinced its radical feminism. Radical feminism is about way more than porn and prostitution. I'm also really concerned that she is being used by these people, she is held up as exibit A, as a poster girl against anti porn and prostitution. I think there are much more positive productive ways to help her heal than encouraging her to talk about her experiences in graphic detail all the time. Also what happens if or when she decides she doesnt want to write about her experiences any more or if she decides she doesnt agree with the radfem position on everything? because i am under no illusion that they will ditch her when she isn't usefull to them any more

maybe that's a harsh thing to say but I have very similar experiences to her yet, my words on the subject get ignored, minimised and invalidated because I don't agree with the radfems on everything. in fact three times in the last two weeks I have had that experience, in fact all three of the dismisals were from women who have entries in the carnival

by demonista, by Maggie Hays and by Heart who are all women who claim to care about all women, about the experiences of all women and who talk about the damage abuse does to women all the time so you know I'm not convinced these people do have the interests of women who have been prostituted at heart unless they fit into their ideology of correct victim behaviour.

Pick five of my interests from my profile and I will write a 200 word post on each of them.

You took the blood from my veins
and poured it away
You took the blue my eyes
and faded it grey
You made me lower my voice
because it was shrill to your ears
you took all my wordcraft
My tilting, lilting
need for langauge
and handed it back
as if it were a gift from you
and not part of the same DNA
that forces perfect rapid fire rhymes
out of the mouth
of my sisters son