Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Heartbreaking and infuriating.

For people who just want to get rich, we live in a golden age. But for those who ascribe to a faith in which riches and wealth. are articulated as God's greatest rival, we live in an age of horror. Ours is an age when Mammon is eager to sink its talons into our hearts and stretch its tendrils around our throats.

“Ours is an age when Mammon is eager to sink its talons into our hearts and stretch its tendrils around our throats.”
The Anti-Greed Gospel by Malcolm Foley, pg. 31.

Let's start with a simple question: Where did our global economy come from? Capitalism requires capital, resources that can be used to produce the goods that we enjoy. The readiest example of such capital is land. In the late fifteenth century, this particular resource began to change hands in wide swaths. It was the colonial era, when Europeans explored the world, saw that it was good, and reached out to grab it. Did any part of our global economy originate without covetousness and theft? American history depends on these realities, and to a certain extent, world history from the sixteenth century onward has depended on them. That theft was specific: theft from particular people and theft of people.

“Did any part of our global economy originate without covetousness and theft? American history depends on these realities...
That theft was specific: theft from particular people and theft of people.”
The Anti-Greed Gospel by Malcolm Foley, pg. 25.

I agree. People say the texture is creamy, but that can’t overcome the stench of death and decay IMO.

I feel this so strongly. Covid was a test of our moral integrity & decency -- *not just elites, but all of us* -- and we failed.

I genuinely think one reason Covid has been memory-holed so hard, & so crusted w/ myths & conspiracy theories, is that on some level we know this & are ashamed.

“I hereby pledge myself—my person and body—to the nonviolent movement, therefore I will keep the following ten commandments!” 1. MEDITATE daily on the teachings and life of Jesus. 2. REMEMBER always that the nonviolent movement in Birmingham seeks justice and reconciliation—not victory. 3. WALK and TALK in the manner of love, for God is love. 4. PRAY daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free. 5. SACRIFICE personal wishes in order that all men might be free. 6. OBSERVE with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy. 7. SEEK to perform regular service for others and for the world. 8. REFRAIN from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart. 9. STRIVE to be in good spiritual and bodily health. 10. FOLLOW the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.

Whoa. I'm just going to stare at this for the next hour.

From the 1963 Birmingham campaign.

HT: @revchrisdavis.bsky.social

The worst part of a project.

The Old Muppet and the Sea

Muppetmarch

Principia Muppetmatica

I usually unpick the stitches one by one unless it’s garter or stockinette in a yarn that holds the loops. Then ribbit away.

I still frog. I’m working on a five-pointed star shaped blanket and dropped a stitch several rows back. The increases made it too complicated to salvage. I need to start using lifelines and stop knitting when I’m tired which leads to mistakes.

« Happy New Year. Moomin’s year of the horse. » Illustration of Moomin on a horse.

Happy lunar new year! 🧧🏮🌕

Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social

If our Christianity causes the abused to be ignored, the stranger to be unwelcome, kids to go hungry, the sick to go without healthcare, and our planet to be disregarded all while billionaires get richer, we've profoundly misunderstood the most basic elements of Jesus' teachings.

Close up picture of a clump of green daffodil shoots pushing through rusty brown pine straw in full sun.

Life finds a way.

Two human upper leg bones. One says, "There is no god." The other says, "I agree." Caption is "Blasfemurs."

I've got a bone to pick with this.

Christian nationalism may appear to align with Christianity, but it actually counteracts it. Its way of looking at the world — which embraces messages of violence, exceptionalism, exclusivity, success, and power — is often at odds with the gospel of Jesus, which preaches charity, self-sacrifice, and humility. Jesus's favor is not limited to one country; in fact, his "kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). The good news is offered to all people from all nations and is not meant for a particular place or people alone. Such is the power of the imagination of Christian nationalism on its adherents' sense of identity and belonging that Christian nationalists often do not see — or do not care (Handwritten note in margin: Not just “often.” Inevitably at odds.)

about — such contradictions between their positions and Scripture, orthodox creeds, or Christian practices.

“Christian nationalism may appear to align with Christianity, but it actually counteracts it. Its way of looking at the world…is often at odds with the gospel of Jesus, which preaches charity, self-sacrifice, and humility.”
Becoming by Beholding, Lanta Davis, pgs. xvi-xvii.

🧶 #stashmatician
#knit #knitsky 🧶

I received a work email for a trade show with the headline “Experience IBS!”

They need to rethink that acronym.

The true religion of Jesus is shown in our love of neighbours.

Everything else is a counterfeit.

"This is Mia, 7 years old -- 'I don't want to be in this place. I want to be in my school'" -- Walkinshaw confronts Lyons with letters written by kids being detained by ICE

Back when IBM dinosaurs ruled the earth. 🙂

Age verification? I punched cards for COBOL.

When non-Indigenous groups ask us to justify the relevance of our identity and cultural practices to our faith, how often we would like to offer the same challenge to them. If only they would look in the mirror and recognize that their own expressions of Christianity reflect modern Euroamerican expressions of the faith. If they would only consult any work on global and historical expressions of Christianity, they would find that our faith has never existed in a cultural vacuum. Christianity has always syncretized to some degree to the host culture. Moreover, cultures are complex, dynamic, and ever-developing networks of creativity that are always negotiating the traditional with the new. Charges of syncretism function more as rhetorical bludgeons, often used by the dominant culture to describe and judge something it doesn't like or approve of— whereas describing a cultural mixing as "contextualization" is reserved for those approaches that the dominant culture approves or at least tolerates. Handwritten in the margin: Enlightenment myth of objectivity. Sky hook religion, acultural, atemporal, ahistorical.

“When non-Indigenous groups ask
us to justify the relevance of our identity and cultural practices to our faith, how often we would like to offer the same challenge to them.”
Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, pg. 161.

There comes a point when the best thing for my mental health is to gray rock the flying monkeys.

Because a few of you ordered a #melttheicehat, I was able to buy some things for a Mpls food pantry where my friend volunteers. They work with many immigrants. You get a cool hat & make a difference! Hats are $25 + $5 shipping. #resistice

I am escorting the Crespo-Gonzalez family, including their seven year old daughter, back to Oregon now.

Out of respect for the family, additional information is not being shared at this time.

How do you convince someone they are trapped in empire’s machinations when they are unwilling to see the harm of empire and unwilling to ditch it?
Is it impossible save for the Spirit opening unseeing eyes and softening hardened hearts and consciences? IOW it’s beyond mere discussion.

Carbon fiber foldable walking stick

Happy Black History Month!

It costs 0$ to Repost a Black disabled queer small business! It could lead to my next sale.

These carbon fiber foldable walking sticks are lightweight and strong. You can fit them in a bag! And they come in 3 great patterns!!!

Store: Bibipins.com

Removing a post doesn’t remove the racism.

Just like redacting names doesn’t redact the truth.

What divides us now is not our political views, but our ethical beliefs. #Truth