Mtr. Caitlyn Keith ✨

CAN I PUT YOU ON MY INSTAGRAM

The moral of today’s story is:

Give more women knives to strap to our feet

🇺🇸🥇🇺🇸🥇

Our numbers were up too. We ran out of bulletins even after printing extra over last year's number.

didnt you see that lent is about giving up lol

Today's a good day for imprecating "the tyranny of the [prince] and all his detestable enormities."

⚓

Good lord deliver us from them all, and sparest thou thy victims.

Happy to screenshot the song choices! Stupid capitalism.

A Holy Lent: for loud lamenters

It’s that time again!!!

Penitential season playlist! No worship music, but all vibes. This one is not for the quiet and meek. ⚓️

As always I’m open to suggestions!
open.spotify.com/playlist/3Ir...

After my ICE arrest, I learned one crucial way to respond to trauma. We can all take part | Rümeysa Öztürk I was detained for co-writing a op-ed about Gaza as a student at Tufts. My experience has only made me feel more connected to others facing oppression

www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

The fasting is not about flogging ourselves. It’s like NFL players doing Pilates. It’s about training ourselves in a different way for the race that is set before us, so we can continue to run it well. Hope something in all that was helpful

Even doing the prescribed “almsgiving and reading and meditating on Gods holy word” is a giving up of our possessions and time (plus I’ve known people to give “alms” of gratitude-literal thank you notes and compliments -to people they know).

Final thought. Sometimes the giving up of something too can be a symbol for something else. One year I gave up makeup, which was a sign of me giving up hating myself. I know someone who gave up jewelry which was a sign of giving up false security.

Not every year is a life changing lent practice- for me it’s like, once every five years something hits me good. But the four years in between are always worthwhile too. I also totally ate dessert and drank my beers that year too, because i didn’t need to do 17 fasts at once. my joy is greater now

So what’s the opposite of looking down? Looking up. The fast was limiting social media time (not totally off! Just limited, which is also a prescribed way of fasting!) And instead I would look up every day, find a bird, figure out what kind, and write it down. It ended up changing my life lowkey

e.g. I joke that all my friends live in my phone. It gives me real joy to talk to them here. And also I noticed a couple of years ago that in doing it I was also getting addicted to the dopamine of notifications and the reels scroll waiting for notifications. I was looking down anxiously all thetime

that we don’t need to be attached to things to find joy and peace. It’s not about giving up every good thing, just a thing, and for a relatively short time. There is a real
gift of grace’s freedom that can be unlocked.

I also think there’s are some things that do indeed give joy AND steal it

This is SUCH a good question and I think there’s a few things here. I don’t think giving something up has to be deprivation of joy, nor do you have to give up so much that the joy is sucked out. One of the treasures of the discipline, and starting it on our “momento mori” feast is to show ourselves

And I would also hope that someone of that spiritual maturity would also know by that point how to filter and discern for themselves among clergy whose job it is to instruct on all sides of the maturity spectrum. Paul writes about that a lot I think

We’ve been in WAT spaces together a long time, so I suspect you and I will forever disagree about this. I’ve observed that the most devout disciplined folks I know love taking on something for Lent, funny enough. None of us has given enough away, read enough scripture, or is perfectly disciplined.

What if Lent IS about giving up!

I’m sure this is a fine podcast but, 🧼 📦, I hate that so much of the mainline is allergic to the idea of giving something up for Lent. We don’t need to be clever or subversive or “read against the grain” always! It’s actually good to give things up and practice discipline! ⚓️

*Weeping in my-birthday-is-good-Friday-AGAIN*

msotlg lol jk

You better answer or it’ll be all “get behind me Satan”

8 If all these are yours and they are growing in you, they’ll keep you from becoming **inactive and unfruitful** in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

5-7: This is why you must make every effort
to add moral excellence to your faith;
and to moral excellence, knowledge;
and to knowledge, self-control;
and to self-control, endurance;
and to endurance, godliness;
and to godliness, affection for others;
and to affection for others, love.

"Through his honor and glory he has given us his precious and wonderful promises, that you may share the divine nature and **escape from the world’s immorality that sinful craving produces.**

man i really wish we had 2 Peter 3:10 anywhere in our lectionary. Verses 5-7 are banger to preach on and we never get to ⚓

It really helped my guilt AND he was right. I love the library I built and I do use it. Have continued to think about your comment all morning and wanted to share :)

Something one of my profs said really stuck with me (esp as a c avg. student- didn’t know yet I needed adhd support when I was in school 🫠) — “you won’t master all of this theology here. My job is to help you build your library and give you the skills and curiosity to use it well.”

Being intellectual or not doesn’t matter for priesthood, and theology need not be inherently intellectual. Theology is for being able to tell your people about God well and truthfully, and in a way that everyone understands and wants to talk about. Good ministers are translators.