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Pride Atlanta 2015 – St. Mark UMC & Parade
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Category Archives: God
St. Mark UMC Diversity Worship Service – Pride Week Atlanta 2015
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Awesome Jazz@781 Prelude, then the service begins at 24:30.
Links of the Week – July 10, 2015
* What A Shot! 38 Amazing Sports Photos
* Breathtaking Ruins Of The Soviet Space Shuttle Program
* Ranking Women Somehow Not Issue in Miss USA Debacle
* Mango-Lemon-Buttermilk Icebox Pie
* Ending A Conversation With My Crush
* Aww! Watch This Rescue Kitten Grow Up With His Golden Retriever BFF
* LA Police Unit Intervenes To Get Mentally Ill Treatment, Not Jail Time
* The MLB Manager Tree – (“The following managerial ‘tree’ connects all 30 current major league managers back to either John McGraw, Connie Mack or Miller Huggins, Hall of Famers who played for Ned Hanlon, ‘The Father of Modern Baseball.'”)
* PostSecret: Waste – (It never matters…)
* Milk Chocolate Cookie and Cream Cookies
* South Dakota Man, 101, Competes In National Senior Games – (Throwers gonna throw!)
* Gaslighting Is A Common Victim-Blaming Abuse Tactic – Here Are 4 Ways To Recognize It In Your Life
* What If We Treated All Consent Like Society Treats Sexual Consent
* 7 Reasons The Kindest People Are Actually The Strongest
* Star Trek Yeoman Martha Landon Kicks Much Vaalian Ass!
* Star Trek Voyager’s Seven of Nine On Dealing With Sexual Harassment
* “What’s attractive about a man who isn’t excited as hell to be with you?…”
* Jimmy Carter: “I Believe Jesus Would Approve Gay Marriage”
* Blog Post Of The Week: You Saw Me
* 1972 Hartford Whalers Jersey – (So beautiful it makes my heart ache!)
* The Pirates Banded Together To Save The Grounds Crew From The Tarp Monster
* Child Therapist Excited To Actually Be Seeing Patient With Psychological Issues
* This Bozo From The Audience Tried To Charge His Phone ONSTAGE In The Middle Of A Broadway Play
* Colorado Teen Pregnancy Drops 40% — How They Did It
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“‘He wasn’t evil, Miss Cora,’ I finally said, still choking back sobs. ‘He wasn’t. He wasn’t.’
‘I know, chile,’ she interrupted, kissing my forehead. ‘He was a sick man. Sickness took all reason from him. Same as with a lot of folks. I ‘speck there is very few evil folks. Just a whole lot of sick folks.'”
– Drinking From A Bitter Cup, Angela Jackson-Brown
“I don’t believe in happily ever after, but I do believe in happy right now. And right now, I am happy. But more than my being happy, I am not frightened anymore.”
– Drinking From A Bitter Cup, Angela Jackson-Brown
“Because Grace bats last.”
– Anne Lamott
“If love is a casserole, which I believe it is, then an icebox pie is the first kiss…”
– Lisa Donovan, Southern Living – June 2015, p. 88
“I’d been put into a box long before, after all. Each of us has. Are you the ‘difficult’ child or the ‘histrionic’ lover, the ‘argumentative’ sibling or the ‘long-suffering’ spouse? Boxes make us easier to understand, but they also imprison us because people don’t see past them.”
– Ghost Boy – Martin Pistorius
“Whatever else they talk about, though, I’ve come to know that there are three topics women will return to again and again in conversation: their husbands, who are often a disappointment; their children, who are usually wonderful; and their weight, which is always too high. Again and again, I hear them commiserate with each other about how difficult it is to make men more responsible and diets more effective. While I don’t understand their problems with their husbands, my heart always sinks when ever I hear them talk about calorie counting. Women seem to think they go on diets in order to feel happier, but I know from experience that this isn’t true. In fact, I can safely say that the less women eat, the grumpier they get.”
– Ghost Boy – Martin Pistorius
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Links of the Week – July 3, 2015
* Me After Every Day At The Office
* When Someone Asks Me Substantive Questions Of What I Do
* 10 Things You Can’t Do While Following Jesus
* 10 POLITICAL Things You Can’t Do While Following Jesus
* 10 Things You Need To Be Okay With If You Want A Happy Relationship
* 27 Pictures The Perfectly Sum Up Your Life
* Zack Hunt : A Word Of Warning To My Fellow Christians About Same-Sex Marriage
* Star Trek Uglydolls – (WANT!)
* Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America – (Absolutely.)
* Extra Tiny Customized Pet Portrait Fiber Friends
* Hawks Unveil Plan To Win By Damaging Opponents’ Retinas
* How To Change The World From Your Couch – (One person CAN change the world!)
* Mini Peanut Butter And Chocolate Baked Doughnuts
* “Night Burgers” – Bob’s Burgers – ( ❤ ❤ ❤ )
* It Doesn’t Matter That We Don’t Speak Or Read Japanese
* Researchers Say Virgin Mary Actually God’s Second Choice To Bear Son – (“There came a time, the parchment suggests, when God confided to Erica that He couldn’t ‘wait around forever…'”)
* Julia: Super Special Summer Family Togetherness
* This Dude Challenged Himself To Wear Heels All Day And Wanted To Die – (Women too, y’all. We’re just dumb enough to keep doing it.)
* Transgender Swimmer Given Choice Of Harvard’s Men’s Or Women’s Teams
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“We are all important, but not for the reasons we think.”
– Anonymous
“I am trying to do what I can to love, today. Can anything else be more important?”
– Anonymous
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How Do I Love Myself?
Contrary to popular belief, depressed people desperately want to feel better. I know this from my own experience. For me, the self-loathing and apathy were excruciating. I would pray and pray and pray that God would fix me, or would send me a man who would fix me. But neither of those things would ever happen no matter how often or how feverishly I hoped and prayed. Eventually I was so sad and hopeless I pondered jumping off my 20th floor balcony. I sat with a noose around my neck. I felt like I was being swallowed whole by my mere existence.
When I came out of that funk, I was terrified by where I’d been. I felt like I’d been balancing on a tightrope over the pit of hell. I never wanted to be swallowed up by that fear and emptiness and darkness ever again. I knew I had to take my life into my own hands and stop waiting on someone or something else to change me.
I hate pablum and cliches. So I am often too cynical and sardonic to “lower myself” to follow simple, common advice from friends and family. But at this point I was willing to try anything, even things other people had suggested. (How gauche! :rolleyes:)
I had to get off the couch, stop isolating and get back into the world. I started going to AA meetings again. I let myself enjoy food that was fattening. I volunteered to work with FurKids, an agency that works to rescue and find homes for homeless cats and dogs. I continued to be active in my church.
Yes. All the things that people had been telling me to do for years.
Even though it was sometimes tiring, and I was socially engaged more often than I really liked, I quickly realized that I was feeling better. Part of it was being with people. Part of it was spending three hours a week playing with kittens. Part of it was the serenity I found in other women’s stories in AA. Part of it was Ben & Jerry. And frankly, lots of times it was just being too busy to worry about all the things and people in the past and the future that I’d been obsessing and worrying about.
Man, it was an incredible relief! I was starting to feel like myself again. The weight was lifting off my shoulders. I actually looked forward to things a couple of times! I felt like everything was finally coming back together.
But one piece of advice that I’d been told over and over still kept nagging at me. “You have to love yourself.”
Well how the hell do you do that?!? I can’t just will myself to fall in love with the next guy I meet. How can I do that with myself. Love is one of those things you either feel or you don’t.
So, with no answers, I just went on and kept trying to open myself up to people and stay active and be less critical of myself and others. I said the Serenity Prayer out loud a lot. I felt so much more in control of my life. But there was still that unscratched itch at the thought of how to love myself.
And then one day, out of the blue, it occurred to me. DERP! I’ve always thought about love as a feeling. But turns out, love is a verb!
It’s the way we act, and the way we treat and care for ourselves and others! You are kind to yourself. You do nice things for yourself. You forgive yourself. You treat yourself as you’d treat your neighbor. THAT is how you love yourself. Turns out love isn’t a feeling; it’s an action.
It had been that simple all along and I was just too smart to see it.
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Judgement Belongs to God
Written by United Methodist Bishop Melvin G. Talbert
“I am a life-long United Methodist.
Early on in my ministry, I did not approve of gay and lesbian people because I thought I knew God’s Word regarding this issue.
While attending a church gathering in Boston in the mid-1970s, I met a very charming young lady, let’s call her Jane. She did not fit the stereotypical image I had of gay people. The event was designed to allow straight and gay people to get to know each other without knowing our vocations or sexual orientation. During our final session together, we were invited to divulge our vocations and our sexual identity.
When Jane shared that she was gay, she shook the foundation of what I had always thought and been taught about gay people. I had to reexamine my beliefs.
In Matthew, Jesus says, ‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.’ Then and there, I promised God that I would never again discriminate against any persons because of their sexual orientation.
Reflecting on my involvement with the Civil Rights movement, I was reminded of how it feels to experience marginalization and oppression. I have always had a loving quarrel with my church because of what it did to my people over the years.
I slowly came to realize that, like the disciples, I had been blind to the truth that was right in front of me. Gay and lesbian people, just like people of color, are members of God’s human family.
So, I have come to the realization that we are all children of God in the process of being saved by God’s grace. Therefore, we do not have the right to deny another child of God his/her place at God’s table. By God’s grace, we are granted the privilege to invite all people to God’s table. But it is not our call to judge who is worthy. Only God can make that call.
Reflecting on scripture, tradition, experience and reason, my mind was changed on the issue of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians in the church. We all belong to God.“
Links of the Week – June 26, 2015
Love is written in the stars.
* Leaving My Parents’ House And Going Back To My Apartment
* When I Meet Somebody Cute Who’s Just As Cynical As Me
* Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage – Nobody’s Head Explodes
* Openly Gay Dartmouth Runner Pays It Forward
* John Oliver On Online Harassment
* Women’s World Cup Of Arm Folding
* PostSecret: Afraid – (Totally.)
* Our Prayers For Emanuel AME Are Worthless
* Google Feud – (It’ll suck you in!)
* puravida Bracelets – ( ❤ ❤ ❤ )
* Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage – Nobody’s Head Explodes
* Chocolate Pie – (Noms!)
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“Mama cupped my chin in her hand. ‘Don’t love me too much, Sylvia. Don’t love anybody too much. Keep just a little back. You understand, baby?'”
– Drinking From A Bitter Cup, Angela Jackson-Brown
“That was a turning point in my sobriety. Instead of always going to a meeting to feel good, there were more and more times when I went to a meeting to do good.”
– Anonymous
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Links of the Week – June 19, 2014
* Jack King, NASA’s ‘Voice Of Apollo,’ Dies At 84
* Baseball And Black History – (So wonderful!)
* Even Baby Rhinos Need To Snuggle – (Dawwwwwww!)
* Strawberry Cornmeal Griddle Cakes
* Star Trek Celebrating DeForest Kelley’s Life
* The Old Mansions Of Peachtree Street – (Back when anything north of North Avenue was the suburbs of Atlanta)
* Astonishing Adventure T-Shirt – (Paging Mr. Herman…)
* How To Think Like A Sound Engineer
* PostSecret: Rat – (Me too!)
* When My Boyfriend Is Giving Me The Silent Treatment – (EVERY. Single. Argument my ex-husband and I ever had.)
* Love Is Not Enough – (I need to carry a copy of this with me always.)
* This Disney Princess Softball Team Photo Is Blowing Up The Internet
* Black Work-It Skort – (Don’t be fooled by the name. This idea could make wearing skirts ALMOST bearable!)
* WWN Guide To Mercy Killing Your Family If Gay Marriage Becomes Legal – (The funniest thing I’ve read in quite a while! 😀 )
* 4 Mixing FAQ’s For New Sound Techs
* Zack Hunt: Does God Still Heal The Sick?
* Spaghetti Toes: Taco Bell Is Just Alright With Jesus
* GLIDE United Methodist Church – (God, let all our churches be more like this one!)
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“Before my transition, I was hesitant about calling myself a woman, mostly because I had no desire to live up to the societal expectations and ideals that others often project onto that identity. I use to fear that embracing that identity would be tantamount to cramming myself into some predetermined box, restricting my possibilities and potential. But I now realize that no matter how I act or what I do or say, I remain a woman – both in the eyes of the world and, more importantly, in the way that I experience myself. While I used to view the word ‘woman’ as limiting, I now find it both empowering and limitless.”
Whipping Girl, Julia Serano
“In trans women’s eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman’s eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that’s seemingly fueled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one’s femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness, or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are ‘fabulous,’ but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!”
Whipping Girl, Julia Serano
“The feminist assumption that ‘femininity is artificial’ is narcissistic, as it invariably casts nonfeminine women as having ‘superior knowledge’ while dismissing feminine women as either ‘dupes’ (who are too ignorant to recognize they have been conned) or ‘fakes’ (who purposely engage in ‘unnatural’ behaviors in order to uphold sexist societal norms.)”
Whipping Girl, Julia Serano
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Links of the Week – June 12, 2015
* Planets Of TOS – (The background paintings were the best!)
* Mom Dresses Cat In Daughter’s Crop Top To Prove How Small It Is
* Week-Long Camp Teaches Intellectually Challenged To Ride Bikes
* 17 Times The World Wasn’t All That Bad
* NASA Marks 50 Years Of Mission Control, Plans Apollo Room Restoration
* Learning To Leave The Past Behind In 5 Steps
* What Self-Love Means: 20 Ways To Be Good To Yourself
* NASA Aiming For Multiple Missions To Jupiter Moon Europa
* Winged Greek Leather Sandals – (Woot!!!)
* Lionel Richie T-Shirt – (Brilliant! 😀 )
* If You Love The Duggars But Not Caitlyn Jenner, What Credit Is That To You? – (Post of the week. All Christians in particular should read.)
* This Dad Took Some Incredible Color Photos Of His Hipster Daughter…In 1913
* There’s A Drive-Thru Waffle House In Stone Mountain!
* Saltine Ice Cream Sandwiches
* No, Your Favorite Food Is Not Like Crack – (Take note…)
* South African Veterinarians Intervene To Save Hope The Rhino
* 7 Habits I’m Breaking Now That I’m In ACOA Recovery – (Me too! I’m not ACOA, but I’m lots of other acronyms!)
* 53 Of The Best Opening Sentences In Literature
* The WNBA Finally Recognizes Its Lesbian Fans
* Peach Cobbler Cupcakes – (!!!!)
* Man Treats Mother To Detail About His Personal Life
* Ghosts of DC: Walter Johnson Hosts Event For Hunting Dogs On His Germantown Farm – ( ❤ ❤ ❤ )
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“A good question to ask myself frequently is: What am I looking for – advice or approval?”
– Anonymous
“We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism.”
– Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman On Sexism And The Scapegoating Of Femininity, Julia Serano
“If we truly want to be taken seriously in our identified sex, then we must not only refuse to indulge cissexual people’s compulsion to pigeon hole us in our assigned sex, but call them out on the way that they continuously objectify our bodies while refusing to take our minds, our persons, and our identities seriously.”
– Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman On Sexism And The Scapegoating Of Femininity, Julia Serano
“Unlike gender dissonance, which is only experienced by trans people, gender entitlement can affect anyone. It is best described as the arrogant conviction that one’s own beliefs, perceptions, and assumptions regarding gender and sexuality are more valid than those of other people. Gender entitlement often leads to gender anxiety, the act of becoming irrationally upset by or being made uncomfortable by the existence of those people who challenge or bring into question one’s gender entitlement.”
– Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman On Sexism And The Scapegoating Of Femininity, Julia Serano
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Links of the Week – June 5, 2015
* Louisiana’s First Female HS Football Coach Driven By Championship Dreams
* The Curse of Being Guilt Prone
* Loving Others Without Expecting To Fill A Void
* Brown Butter Oatmeal Shortbread Cookies
* What Should We Call Me: Summer
* Tommy Lasorda Once Threw at 15-Inning Complete Game
* Open Minded Man Grimly Realizes How Much Life He’s Wasted Listening To Bullshit
* Girl Claims Senior Photo Was Removed From Yearbook Because She Wore A Tuxedo
* Do You Applaud Caitlyn Jenner Because She’s Brave, Or Because She’s Pretty?
* Opal Stud Earrings – (Ooooooooh! Pretty!)
* What Should We Call Me: When People Want To Talk About What I Have Planned For My Future
* Here’s What The Duggars Can Teach The Church About Islam
* Wonder Woman Mesh Cami & Panty Set – (!!!)
* Can Flaky People Make Good Partners?
* Way Too Many Americans Can’t Afford To Take Care Of Their Teeth
* John Stewart Welcomes Caitlyn Jenner To Womanhood: “Your Looks Are The Only Thing We Care About”
* I Can Haz Cheezburger: Smoke Detector – (Brilliant idea!)
* David Barton Alters Iconic Works Of Art
* Pluto’s Moons Are Tumbing “In Absolute Chaos,” NASA Says
* Dale Gribble T-Shirts – ( ❤ ❤ ❤ )
* 24 Pictures That Perfectly Sum Up Not Fitting In – (SO funny!)
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“I could go mad, I realize as I parse this thing out to its furthest implications. There is nothing more disquieting than loving someone who does not love you back and won’t tell you why, or give you any sort of glimmering of understanding. The inanity of heartbreak lies in the unfathomable mystery of another’s heart – how can she not feel exactly the way I do? In other, more plaintive and pathetic words, how can she not feel joyous and enthralled about our time together, and yearn for more of it? How can she seem to feel so indifferent to me, so coldly uninterested? I had thought we were experience something together, and now it appears I’ve been a fool. There are no words to describe how humiliating and disappointing this is.”
– The Epicure’s Lament, Kate Christensen
“‘…Vivian blew this up into a love affair in her own mind. Of course, she knew it was all in her own mind, but that only made it more intense; you know how that works, I’m sure.'”
– The Epicure’s Lament, Kate Christensen
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Boundary Issues 