a-queer-seminarian

[a-queer-seminarian]

Lavender for queers, poppies for Palestine — solidarity is a garden, our roots are intertwined, and none of us are free till all of us are free 🌱

A better pic now that it’s fully finished! See more angles below the readmore + the WIP i’m just starting now that incorporates more communities into the design

It took the cricut nearly ten full minutes to “print” this larger design; I have a feeling it’ll take like 50 hours to complete sewing it 😅

#sharing here too since I posted about it here the other day! #free palestine #solidarity #embroidery

[a-queer-seminarian]

Hold the fuck on no way WW3 jokes are trending on Twitter when this is an extremely serious situation that’s threatening to destabilize an entire region. No way everyone’s gleefully looking at this as if it’s the grand show finale they’ve been waiting all along. There is no fucking way

#current events

[a-queer-seminarian]

*Shows up to your fundamentalist church looking Like This with a backpack covered in rainbow pins* hiya :-) where’s the queer group meeting in here? :-)

#(see my previous post lol) #my face #log #spring 2024

[a-queer-seminarian]

Oh god oh fuck i accidentally showed up at a very conservative church looking Very Queer, asking the front office where my gay little group is having our meeting 🤣

#it’s spring retreat for more light pres #hasn’t even started and I’m already burnt the fuck our #out #look i love these folks but WHY would you say we are meeting at APC without saying the whole damn church name #i hate acronyms #these folks were like ‘we don’t think you’re in the right place but do you want us to pray for you’ fmllllllll

[a-queer-seminarian]

lowered my mask momentarily to take a sip from my water bottle with its “God loves Their transgender children” sticker on it and almost did a spit take when I noticed the person next to me on this plane is watching Fox News

#apparently there’s a scrabble for snowflakes now!! lmao #holy run on sentence batman

[a-queer-seminarian]

cw alcohol

.

I accidentally broke sobriety in the funniest way possible — my wife & I were staying over at Ye Olde Church Lesbians’ house this weekend (note: every affirming congregation has at least 1 older lesbian, or more often a sapphic couple, who holds the whole church together; it’s the way of things)

& they headed to church early, so we helped ourselves to breakfast. I saw they had maraschino cherries in the fridge & got excited because I JUST read a great poem about maraschino cherries, so I opened the jar and popped two in my mouth.

…..they were moonshine-steeped maraschino cherries 😂

btw anyone interested in the cherry poem should check out Padraig Ó Tauma’s podcast; he read it there back in February! 🍒

#alcohol ::/ #sobriety /// #don’t worry I’m totally fine — it cracked me up #didn’t feel any of the effects #i was like Well honey guess you’re driving us to church this morning

[a-queer-seminarian]

i want to make a sewing piece with flowers from different liberation movements — e.g. lavender for queers, poppy for Palestine...

anyone have information on flowers linked to other movements / cultures? For instance, Black liberation or Latin American / Indigenous liberation?

[a-queer-seminarian]

cw religious transphobia, Catholic trauma, plus a weird dream involving violence and bombs lol

had another of my dreams about my childhood church last night — probably prompted by the latest shitty Vatican publication condemning "gender theory" :/

...the document doesn't have much new in it, just more of the Roman Catholic Church's usual bullshit with slightly different language. but God i'd take fundamentalism's look-even-slightly-closer-and-it-falls-apart cognitive dissonance any day to the very carefully ordered logic of Catholic bigotry. i always feel physically ill reading through these Vatican documents because the language is so "loving" and "reasonable" — at least for me as someone who was raised into the Catholic logic system; some deep core of me resonates to this specific pitch and aches.

It's like they know exactly what language to use to shatter me — this time it's language about the Infinite Dignity of human beings, which is something i deeply believe in! It's heart-language for me. Tell me queer folk are "intrinsically disordered" or "demonic" and i can mostly scoff it off as outdated unscientific bullshit. But tell me queerness is on par with fucking WAR and POVERTY and XENOPHOBIA in attacking human dignity and that hurts.

...but they also, of course :/, bring in abortion — but also, in a surprising twist, surrogacy??? — as attacking human dignity, and that thankfully snaps me out of my spiral a little bit. Like seriously?? you think all forms of surrogacy violate the *checks notes* child's "right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin..." and the recognition of "every dimension of the dignity of the conjugal union and of human procreation."

It reminds me that the Catholic condemnation of queer sex is like, one level in a house of cards where you take out one piece and it all collapses: the logic they follow to condemn queer sex and extramarital sex requires that they also condemn contraceptives, and priests getting married, and yes, surrogacy and IVF too. To become lax about any one would send the whole logic tower tumbling --

Okay now i'm just ranting incoherently lol. the dream:

my dream was actually kind of interesting? it's the first one where instead of me being scared about my own safety when suddenly finding myself back in my childhood church, i was scared for everyone else —

i was running home trying to escape some kind of violent attack unfolding in a city center (idk the details don't worry about it lol), and realized i had to cut through saint raphael for the fastest route home. so i entered, only to realize the sanctuary was packed full with people in the middle of Mass. (it's the old sanctuary, the one i grew up with, rather than the new bigger one built back in like 2014)

so i'm trying to slink behind the pews so they won't notice me -- and then i suddenly realize someone is up in the choir loft with a bomb. everyone is clueless except for me. i don't want to alert the person with the bomb that i've seen them in case it prompts them to attack, so i start speaking urgently to people in the pews nearest me. some listen, some tell me to shut up, Mass is more important than whatever danger i think is there. very few get up to hurry out the nearest exit. but i keep trying, going pew to pew to warn people, getting closer to the front.

and there is father tim, about to begin eucharistic liturgy at the altar. i'm about to race up to him, to warn him, to beg him to tell everyone to flee, when the person in the choir loft finally speaks. i don't remember what he says, but he hurls the bomb. finally everyone is running for the exits, but it's too late to get everyone out. they'd ignored the violence in their midst far too long.

i don't remember what happens after that except that i get out, get across the street, and turn back to look upon the crumbled mess of my childhood church, one side entirely exploded outward, people soot-streaked and bleeding hobbling from a smoking doorway, shouting.

idk, it just feels symbolic somehow. Catholics who are either very happy with the queerphobic poison the Roman Catholic Church espouses, or who at least shrug and ignore it so as not to rock the boat and cause discomfort / risk their own standing in the church, seem to think they won't be harmed by that poison too. Very "i didn't think the tigers would eat my face" meme-esque. They are happy to let it seep into every crack and crevice in their churches, to swallow it with their Communion wine, to spread it among their children.

But it is poisoning them, all the same. We are just the canaries in the coal mine, dropping first. The queerphobia, the misogyny, the scandals buried under the rug — these warp their ability to experience the Divine, to recognize God's activity in their midst.

The bomb is already activated. Some of them applaud it, almost worship it. Others ignore its quiet, patient tick. And they push out all the queers, all the survivors of church abuse, all the people with pregnancies that will literally kill them, who are desperately trying to help them shut off the damn bomb before it's too late.

#log #pentecost incident

[a-queer-seminarian]

fingers in his lacunae sunday

#HAPPY FINGERS IN HIS LACUNAE SUNDAY!!! #John 20 #Easter

[a-queer-seminarian]

Today is Easter Sunday. Today is Trans Day of Visibility. Today is day 176 of genocide.

This year the lectionary gives us Mark's account of the Resurrection, with its fearful cliffhanger ending — an empty tomb, but Jesus's body missing. And isn't that unresolved note fitting?

In the face of so much suffering across the world, it feels right to be compelled to sit — even on this most jubilant of days — with the poor and disenfranchised in their continued suffering.

Mark's account:

Just days before, the women closest to Jesus witnessed him slowly suffocate to death on a Roman cross. Now, now trudge to his tomb to anoint his corpse — and find the stone rolled away, his body gone. A strange figure inside tells them that Jesus is has risen, and will reunite with them in Galilee.

They respond not with joy, but trembling ekstasis — a sense of being beside yourself, taken out of your own mind with shock. They flee.

The women keep what they've seen and heard to themselves — because their beloved friend outliving execution is just too good to be true. When does fortune ever favor those who languish under Empire's shadow?

Love wins, yet hate still holds us captive.

I'm grateful that Mark's resurrection story is the one many of us are hearing in church this year. His version emphasizes the "already but not yet" experience of God's liberation of which theologians write: Christians believe that in Christ's incarnation — his life, death, and resurrection — all of humanity, all of Creation is already redeemed... and yet, we still experience suffering. The Kin(g)dom is already incoming, but not yet fully manifested.

Like Mark's Gospel with its Easter joy overshadowed by ongoing fear, Trans Day of Visibility is fraught with the tension of, on the one hand, needing to be seen, to be known, to move society from awareness into acceptance into celebration; and, on the other hand, grappling with the increased violence and bigotry that a larger spotlight brings.

The trans community intimately understands the intermingling of life and death, joy and pain.

When we manage to roll back the stones on our tombs of silence and shame, self-loathing and social death, and stride boldly into new, transforming and transformative life — into trans joy! — death still stalks us.

We are blessedly, audaciously free — and we are in constant danger. There are many who would shove us back into our tombs.

And of course, the trans community is by no means alone in experiencing the not-yet-ness of God's Kin(g)dom.

Empire's violence continues to overshadow God's liberation.

The women who came to tend to their beloved dead initially experienced the loss of his body as one more indignity heaped upon them by Empire. Was his torture, their terror, not enough, that even their grief must be trampled upon, his corpse stolen away from them?

The people of Gaza are undergoing such horrors now. Indignity is heaped on indignity as they are bombed, assaulted, terrorized, starved, mocked. They are not given a moment's rest to tend to their dead. They are not permitted to celebrate Easter's joy as they deserve. They are forced to break their Ramadan fasts with little more than grass.

Those of us who reside in the imperial core — as I do as a white Christian in the United States — must not look away from the violence our leaders are funding, enabling, justifying.

We must not celebrate God's all-encompassing redemption without also bearing witness to the ways that liberation is not yet experienced by so many across the world.

This Easter, I pray for a free Palestine. I pray for an end to Western Empire, the severing of all its toxic tendrils holding the whole earth in a death grip.

I pray that faith communities will commit and recommit themselves to helping roll the stones of hate and fear away — and to eroding those stones into nothing, so they cannot be used to crush us once we've stepped into new life.

I pray for joy so vibrant it washes fear away, disintegrates all hatred into awe.

In the meantime, I pray for the energy and courage to bear witness to suffering; for the wisdom for each of us to discern our part in easing pain; for God's Spirit to reveal Xirself to and among the world's despised, over and over — till God's Kin(g)dom comes in full at last.

"The Empty Tomb" by artist He Qi.

#essays #log #spring 2024 #easter #easter sunday #palestine #tdov #mark 16

[a-queer-seminarian]

“Everyone who saw the risen Jesus saw him after. Whatever happened in the cave happened in the dark. As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

— Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

[a-queer-seminarian]

ID in alt text. Link to the tweets. The thread continues:

And she endures that space alone. Peter and the Beloved Disciple enter it for a moment, as first light tentatively touches the tomb’s rolled-back stone.

They sprint into it — that pregnant space between question and answer, death and rebirth — past Mary weeping without a word to her.

They enter the empty tomb and they see the burial cloths that God has stripped off and left behind. They see and the beloved, at least, “believes” (John 20:8). Believes that Jesus is risen — does he also believe that Jesus will return? That they will all see Jesus again, and soon?

If he does, his action is not to hunker down with Mary into the waiting space. He and Peter “return to where they were staying” (v. 10).

They cannot bear the waiting space. Most of us can’t. Who would choose to settle down in hospital halls with figures hunched and haggard, to wait with them for whatever news there may be?

Most of us wouldn’t. Magdalene might.

We can’t skip past the waiting, though. So Mary waits — waits for whatever will come, whenever it comes — and as she waits, she weeps. Her tears are not despair — they are lament.

In This Here Flesh, Cole Arthur Riley describes the power and purpose of lament:

“Lament is not anti-hope. It’s not even a stepping-stone to hope. Lament itself is a form of hope. It’s an innate awareness that what is should not be. As if something is written on our hearts that tells us exactly what we are meant for, and whenever confronted with something contrary to this, we experience a crumbling. And in the rubble, we say, God, you promised.”

Mary believes in the promises of her teacher, his proclamations of a world turned on its head, a new creation born where the poor are lifted from the ashes.

Her hope in that world has crumbled, but she doesn’t abandon the rubble: she settles into it. Makes her home there to wait and see what rises from the ruins.

Mary is crying, “God, you promised!” And she in turn promises God, “here I am — whenever you come, you will find me. I’m not going anywhere.”

In her chapter on lament, Cole continues, “Our hope can be only as deep as our lament is. And our lament as deep as our hope.” Mary’s lament is long, because her hope is deep.

Mary Magdalene does not sit in the garden in despair. Her lament expects response — demands it. Like God of Isaiah 56, she is waiting to be sought — waiting for her call to be met with response…and it will be! Her God WILL call her name — “Mary!” — and she will know the joy of lament answered, of hope fulfilled.

Magdalene is actively waiting for what she KNOWS will come. And she’s not going anywhere till it does.

Thank God for those who wrestle blessing out of pain; who brave the liminal lament and don’t let go.

Mary, your waiting is not in vain. Joy comes with the morning. Hallelujah!

#self reblog

[a-queer-seminarian]

A poem for Holy Saturday, when we remember that for a short while, God lay dead in a tomb. Let us make space for hopelessness and grief to be felt.

You can also read this poem here.

ID: a grayscale video of a white genderqueer person with short hair reading a poem they wrote.

#self reblog

[a-queer-seminarian]

this good friday, i think of palestine. i think how the symbol of christianity, the cross, was the method of execution used by the romans for those who were not considered citizens of the roman empire. jesus, a man born and lived in the land called palestine, the land called judaea, who knew the wood of its trees and the dust of its fields, the taste of its water, its bitter herbs, its wine and grapes, its olive oil, was killed as someone who was not granted full citizenship in his own land by the violent colonizers who occupied it. he was killed by them for the audacity to envision a better world. the legacy of easter is the cry of the oppressed and the stateless. tonight i pray not for new life in christ but for the new life of a free palestine.

#Good Friday #palestine #crucifixion

[a-queer-seminarian]

Ramadan Kareem to all those who observe, may Allah accept our fasts and duaa and allow us growth and harmony over the course of the next month. May Allah ease the suffering of those in Gaza and across Falasteen, Sudan, Congo, Yemen, Tigray, Kashmir, West Papau, and all those who are oppressed around the world. May He grant them shifa, tranquility, steadfastness, and sabr. May He grant us the strength and ability to fight injustice wherever we see it, and victory over our oppressors.

Here is a list of resources for Gaza and Falasteen. Here is an even bigger list. Here’s a much smaller one. Here is one with resources for both Gaza and Sudan.

Here is the link to a GFM that is very important to me. Here is the link to a GFM for a family in urgent need of evacuation out of Gaza.

Here is a way to help out Sudan. Here are links for donations, Sudanese businesses to support, and brief education about Sudan. Here is a post with resources for education and updates about what's happening in Sudan.

Here is a post with resources for Tigray.

Here is a post with important information on boycotting for Congo. Here is a post with links to support Congo.

Here is a list of resources for education on various issues around the world, including but not limited to West Papau, Hawai'i, Kashmir, and Armenia.

You can check my resources tag for more. I know tumblr's searching system isn't the best, though, so I tried to put as many as I could from that tag here.

Ramadan Kareem. May every action we take towards justice bring us lasting freedom and tranquility 🌙

[a-queer-seminarian]

If you're in the mood for some Holy Saturday liminal listening, allow me to recommend the latest episode of Blessed Are the Binary Breakers — get it wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript available.

Now are the days that God lies dead — the God who, in dying, expressed ultimate solidarity with all who have been unjustly killed across the ages. Let's explore how various queer theologians between 1993 & 2006 — plus some trans poets more recently — have connected Jesus's Passion, death & burial, and resurrection to LGBTQ experiences.

#self reblog

[a-queer-seminarian]

The linked blog post shares two poems by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish connecting Christ's crucifixion to Palestine's plight.

I also share several images from other oppressed peoples' recognition of Jesus's intimate identification with all whom Empire attempts to crush.

#najwan darwish #palestinian poetry #good friday #crucifixion #god of the oppressed