2.The NIMBY Christmas cinematic universe (December 23) "Particularly frustrating is the argument that economic growth, development, and newcomers — the very things that ailing small towns desperately need — are actually the root of their problems."
3.Firewood Banks Aren’t Inspiring. They’re a Sign of Collapse. (December 9, via) "You don’t start a wood bank in a country with functioning institutions. You start one when heating assistance programs can’t keep up, when the grid flickers every time the wind shifts, when propane and heating oil costs swing so hard that families can’t budget more than a week out. You start a wood bank when seniors stop turning on their heat because they’re scared of the bill. You also start one when the country pretends energy insecurity doesn’t exist because acknowledging it would mean admitting that entire regions were left behind on purpose."
4. Collections: Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’ (January 3, 2025, via) "So a denarius or a drachma isn’t a unit so big that no normal person would ever use it, but it is a big enough unit that one is hardly going to use it casually"
1.Is It Too Late? (December 9, via) "The full-on hijacking of the 14th Amendment has not been challenged with commensurate concerted outrage and political clarity. That is because far too many white Americans associate the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of birthright citizenship and equality, as provisions that only protect Black people, migrants, Latino people, and other marginalized groups, rather than as core democracy infrastructure of our Constitution."
2.What We Can Learn from the Right’s Attack On “Toxic Empathy” (December 11, via) "But by trying to get inside Chauvin’s head and heart, by insisting that he should be the focal point of identification, Stuckey can move away from what actually happened, and can instead present herself as the truly thoughtful and empathetic voice, feeling along with the right, white, and supposedly Godly person."
3. The return of the r-word (December 23) "But it turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all."
4.Conservatives Want the Antebellum Constitution Back (December 21) "What this means in practice is that if you are not white, you cannot go certain places without the risk of being kidnapped by federal agents. That is not “common sense”; it is the nullification of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights under the law."
Christmas stocking for sale on a Chinese site. Image source.
How do we say "Christmas stocking" in Chinese?
Well, it's 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ]. 圣诞 [shèng dàn] means "Christmas", like when you're using "Christmas" as an adjective to talk about Christmas cookies, Christmas trees, etc- but when you're talking about Christmas the holiday, as in "Today is Christmas", it would be 圣诞节 [shèng dàn jié], because 节 [jié] means "holiday." And 袜子 [wà zǐ] means sock.
Wait, 袜子 [wà zǐ] means sock? Like any normal sock is 袜子 [wà zǐ]? Yes, any normal sock is 袜子 [wà zǐ]. Every day when you wear socks, they are 袜子 [wà zǐ]. The Chinese word for Christmas stocking is Christmas sock.
Something about this feels a little wrong, to me. When we talk about "stockings" in English, the feel of it is like... an old-fashioned sock. An old-timey word for "sock." Like the origins of this tradition are that long ago, people really did hang up actual socks for Christmas, but now we use a dedicated product specifically made to be a Christmas stocking, which would not work as an actual sock you can wear on your actual foot.
All of that is wrapped up in the English word "stocking," and the Chinese 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ] doesn't have any of the same feel.
There's no tradition about Christmas stockings in China. I think a lot of Chinese people have seen them used in Christmas decorations, so they vaguely know that Christmas stockings are a thing that exists, but they don't know any details beyond that.
This is how translation always is. You take a word in one language and you want to translate it to a second language, but the second language doesn't have a word with the exact same feel. And I just asked me husband (who is Chinese) about this, and he said "we don't care" about the fact that "stocking" sounds more old-fashioned and not like an actual sock, because in China they don't have this tradition. (And perhaps there *is* a Chinese word that feels more old-fashioned and is related to socks- though I don't know one myself- and one might argue that it is a better translation for "stocking", except that you won't get anywhere making that argument, because Chinese people are already using the translation 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ].)
[content note: spoilers for "Pride and Prejudice"]
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, was first published in 1813. It's a romance story, about how the fancy gentlemen and ladies of 1700's England go about partnering up and getting married.
Those of us who grew up in purity culture in the American church in the 1990's were taught an ideology about "sexual purity" and rules about dating and gender roles. This ideology was presented as timeless, traditional, how God always intended relationships to work. Like everyone has always known that these were the rules, until the sexual revolution of the 1960's- that's when all the problems started. We need to just get back to these traditions, which are straight from the bible. That's how dating is supposed to be.
So, naively, one might imagine that when you encounter writing about romance/relationships/marriage from hundreds of years ago, in a society that was greatly influenced by Christianity, it would basically match what purity culture teaches. That the rules that proper men and women followed back then should be more or less the same as the rules that purity culture is putting on us now. That the way that people in that time period viewed romantic relationships would match what purity culture tells us.
But oh goodness, let me tell you, this is very much not true about "Pride and Prejudice."
Wow, it is very much NOT TRUE that purity culture ideology is just getting back to the way that every proper and respectable person used to approach romantic relationships. Purity culture is a movement that was invented in the US in the 1990's, and its aesthetics give the appearance of being old and traditional, but it's not.
So let me tell you about 4 things in "Pride and Prejudice" that are at odds with the purity-culture perspective on relationships.
1.Families Bring Legal Challenge Against Yale, CCMC For Capitulating To Trump On Trans Youth Care (December 18) "Critically, no law in the United States currently bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth, meaning the hospitals cannot credibly claim federal preemption of state law. Instead, the cessation of care appears to be driven solely by fear of retaliation from the Trump administration. This is particularly significant in Connecticut, which—like several other states where hospitals have dropped care—has strong statutory protections for transgender people, raising the possibility that these decisions violate state civil rights law, a question GLAD is now seeking to resolve."
I have a lot of links from Erin in the Morning:
Nationwide Trans Youth Care Ban Incoming As Trump Admin Announces "Nuclear Option" Federal Rule (December 19) "These draft rules comprise a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to undermine the longstanding right of states to ensure the health and well-being of their residents, the right of parents and caregivers to support and love trans and nonbinary young people, and the guidance of doctors and medical organizations on the well-established standard of care."
Trans Youth Emergency Project Offers Families Guidance To Help Keep Getting Care After New Trump Anti-Trans Rule (December 21) "Adam Polaski explained, 'At every turn, we have been able to pivot and scale up and show people the reason that this is important. Folks have stepped up with their dollars, and also folks have requested support and spread the word. So right now, I don’t want folks to feel like they shouldn’t reach out because they ‘don’t really need it’ or someone else ‘needs it more than them.’ Everyone needs the support right now, and it’s ok. We have the capacity to take it on.'"
2. Let's all watch the CECOT 60-Minutes segment that Bari Weiss doesn't want us to watch.
[content note: torture]
60 Minus (December 22) "If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient."
3.The year Trump broke the federal government (December 21, via) This is very long, and hard to read. I haven't read the whole thing. It's about the huge numbers of government workers who have been fired this year.
4. The Horns and Whistles Work (December 19, via) "Border Patrol might spend hours waiting to detain an immigrant, only to be thwarted by a united neighborhood effort."
Today in "books that Perfect Number heard about 10 years ago and finally got around to reading"...
I recently read Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality, by Wesley Hill, published in 2010. Hill is a gay Christian and believes in the traditional Christian teaching that says same-sex romantic/sexual relationships are sinful. The book is about how he struggles with the pain of loneliness and desire that can't be fulfilled, but he holds on to his faith that God sees what he is doing, that it's the right thing to do, and God will reward him some day. The purpose is to encourage other gay Christians who hold these beliefs and struggle with them.
I wasn't going to blog about this because I'm not really the right person for this... I feel like, a very obvious solution suggests itself... like why don't you just date a man? See, but I shouldn't actually say that to someone who is in this situation because it would come across as really insensitive. People in this situation are working so hard to keep the rules that they believe God is requiring them to keep, and they feel like it's so difficult and painful and lonely and they need encouragement, and if I come along and say "hey good news, your beliefs are wrong and you don't have to do any of this at all" well that is not helpful.
Actually, though, I think a lot of what Hill writes about in this book can be applied to singleness in general. People may be single for all sorts of reasons- all sorts of reasons which don't have an "obvious solution"- and they often do feel like it's overwhelmingly lonely. The book emphasizes that we all need human connection, and that the desire for friendship/connection should be embraced, and the church is supposed to meet that need. The church doesn't do a good job of this- churches often don't seem to know what to do with single people- but, in an ideal world, it would be a place where people can form deep, meaningful friendships. It's good that this book exists.
Anyway, the main thing about this book that inspired me to write this blog post is this: This is a very different version of Christianity than what I believe. Superficially, one might thing that it's just a matter of "some Christians think same-sex relationships are sinful, some Christians think same-sex relationships are okay", perhaps just a few Greek words in a bible verse being interpreted differently by the 2 different sides. But it turns out it goes way deeper than that.
The book is called "Washed and Waiting"- because celibate gay Christians are "washed" clean from their sins and are "waiting" to get to heaven and finally be rewarded by God and healed of their homosexuality. (Yes, the book says that homosexuality is an abnormality that will eventually be removed when we are all made perfect in heaven.) The "waiting" part is really difficult- living one's whole lifetime with this pain and longing and loneliness, struggling, failing, trying to be faithful to God's law, clinging to the hope that someday God will reward you.
Is the Christian life about waiting, and trying not to sin? Wow, no, I very much do not see it that way. The Christian life should be about doing, not waiting. We are supposed to take action to help people and do good and make the world better. That is what actually matters. Not the extent to which you can control and discipline and repress yourself as it relates to your own personal habits and thoughts.
I was also struck by how much this ideology relies on heaven to finally make everything better. This life is full of pain and struggle and that's just how it is; we won't be healed until after we die and meet God. I don't agree with this. I don't think we should wait for heaven; I think we should bring the kingdom of heaven to the earth.As Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." We can't wait for God to save us; we need to take action and do it ourselves. And what if there is no heaven? I don't want to bank on that. We need to do what we can now to make this world better.
If our religion doesn't help people right here and now, I think it's worthless.
I will say, I can think of some circumstances where you can't really do anything to solve your problem except look forward to heaven. For example, what if someone you love died? Nothing you can do about it, except hope that you will see them again in heaven. Or what if you have a chronic illness or disability that you wish you could be healed from- nothing you can do except look forward to being healed in heaven. So yes, this idea of "waiting" and relying on heaven's existence can apply to some situations, but I very much do not think this "waiting" is the main point of Christianity. The book talks about it like it's the main point of Christianity. Waiting and *not* doing things. Maybe Hill would disagree with me saying that; maybe he doesn't think it's the main point of the Christian life. But if you read *only* this book, that's the impression you would get.
Still, though, it shouldn't just be "waiting"- we should take action to change the world and help people and advocate for disabled people's rights, etc, do what we can to make things better here on earth, even though we can't *completely* solve these problems. It feels so bizarre and jarring to me, to encounter this ideology that says gay Christians can't date a same-sex partner, because reasons, and that causes them to suffer loneliness and it sure seems like we could easily solve this by allowing them to date, but no no, let's not do that, let's wait for heaven.
(Okay, yes, I'm kind of oversimplifying it- Hill *does* give reasons in the book for why he believes he can't just date a man. It's not like this "obvious solution" has never occurred to him. All his reasons rely on a view of Christianity that's very different from mine though, so they don't really do anything for me.)
I don't think we should wait for heaven, and accept that we suffer in this world because that's just how it is. Christianity should be about bringing the kingdom of heaven to this world. Christianity shouldn't be about waiting, it should be about doing.
Oh yeah this has happened to me. The posts that get the most views aren't the ones I really really care about and spend a lot of time on. Hey if you really want to make my day, you can leave an appreciative comment on any of my very long blog posts about the bible.
3. Journal Club: The Quoiromantic Manifesto (December 17) "'Quoiromantic' was especially a response to asexual discourses where romantic orientation is so common that people are expected to have it as a slot in their identity. Quoiromanticism expresses unwillingness to participate in this framework."
4. I usually do a "Christmas music roundup" post in December, but it turns out I just like all the same songs every year. So instead of doing a whole post, I'll just share them one by one here and there.
1.‘Good will to all’ rejected as ‘political’ and ‘divisive’ (December 9) "'Peace on earth, good will to all' is the same thing Christians have been reciting every year at Christmastime for centuries, but those Christians can’t say it this year without being — correctly — perceived as 'political' and 'anti-Trump' and 'anti-ICE' and 'anti-MAGA,' because 'peace and good will to all' is the opposite of everything that Trump and ICE and MAGA stand for."
Also from the Slacktivist: The end of 20th-century white evangelicalism (December 15) "I remember what it feels like to identify as an evangelical because loving Jesus and loving the Bible was the most important thing to me only to be told, constantly, that this did not matter at all — to constantly have the gatekeepers of evangelicalism reminding me that loving Jesus and loving the Bible wasn’t nearly as important as voting Republican no matter what. And then seeing 'no matter what' ratcheted into something ever more extreme."
This is so real. I'm also one of those evangelicals who followed Jesus right out of the church.
3.Her Christmas lights were going up. Then Border Patrol showed up (December 13) "'It looks completely ridiculous,' she said. But she decided to leave it that way 'as a symbol of what happens when ICE and Border Patrol get involved in your world. Things don't go as planned. And a lot of work doesn't get done.'"
5.A radio station in Amsterdam is a lifeline for Sudan. After USAID cuts, it's faltering (December 21) "From Amsterdam, the journalists at Radio Dabanga try to shed some light on the dire situation. They report on where fighting has erupted, on disease outbreaks in refugee camps, and the aftermath of recent atrocities, such as those in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher."
6. Trump's push to end transgender care for young people opposed by pediatricians (December 19) "Goepferd, who is the founder of Children's Minnesota Gender Health Program, says that for the medical community, nothing has changed about the evidence supporting gender-affirming care that could justify the government's actions."
"Santa Tell Me" is a 2014 song by Ariana Grande. The chorus goes like this:
Santa, tell me if you're really there
Don't make me fall in love again if he won't be here
Next year
Santa, tell me if he really cares
'Cause I can't give it all away if he won't be here
Next year
She is interested in a boy, but doesn't want to fall in love with him if the relationship isn't going to last. So she's asking Santa if she will still be with this guy in 1 year, and also if this guy really cares about her.
She's asking Santa? Since when do people ask Santa for dating advice??? Since when is Santa believed to have the ability to see the future? Since when does Santa read people's minds and feelings?
Like, okay, sure, according to the standard tropes about Santa, he has a "naughty list" and "nice list." I suppose Santa could look this guy up and see which list he's on, but I don't think Santa's naughty/nice binary categorization system is really going to give Ariana Grande the information she needs. Just because this guy is nice enough to deserve a Christmas present doesn't really tell you if he's boyfriend material. This song seems to be implying some kind of knowledge or ability on Santa's part that goes beyond "he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice."
Also, "don't make me fall in love again"- is she saying Santa has the power to manipulate her emotions to stop her from falling in love if the relationship isn't going to last? What? Since when is that something that Santa can do? Or, maybe we should just read this as, he should give her the information she is asking for, and then she will be able to keep *herself* from falling in love.
This song has bothered me for so long because these are just *not* things that Santa is typically regarded as being able to do. This is not the role that people expect Santa to play. He just judges who's "naughty or nice" and gives gifts. That's all. He doesn't give relationship advice, what on earth, who has ever asked Santa of all people for relationship advice? He doesn't predict the future, my goodness. (This seems like more the sort of thing that people would ask God. Not Santa.)
But actually, this is how the Santa mythology has always worked. Pop culture is always adding to it, through songs, movies, Coca-Cola ads, adding to the body of knowledge that people "know" about who Santa is. It changes and develops, and we should read "Santa Tell Me" as an attempt to develop the cultural ideas about Santa in this direction. If it catches on, then there will be more songs and movies made, which portray Santa as an all-knowing relationship-advice-giver, and people will think it's just self-evidently obvious that that's who Santa is, just like it's obvious that he lives at the North Pole and gives gifts to children and has "naughty" and "nice" lists.
Well, the song is from 2014 and this new interpretation of Santa doesn't seem to have caught on. But I will always be on the lookout for anyone else claiming that Santa knows the future and has insights about whether your boyfriend really cares about you.
1.The cookies that fueled votes for women (December 14) "Cookies, cakes, pies and treats like these little kiss cakes were sold at bake sales around Salt Lake City and all over the West. The proceeds helped suffragists crisscross the country to make their case for women's rights."
3.Questions of accuracy arise as Washington Post uses AI to create personalized podcasts (December 13) "In a statement, the Washington Post Guild — which represents newsroom employees and other staff — tells NPR, 'We are concerned about this new product and its rollout,' alleging that it undermines the Post's mission and its journalists' work." This sounds like a bad idea.
4. LET’S PLAY: ‘Text With Jesus’ (December 1) "That’s a nice dodging of the actual question. But real talk here: The chatbot can’t actually answer this question because no Christian can."
So apparently there's this "Text With Jesus" app which uses Chat GPT to create chatbots of bible personalities, like Jesus. Okay, so, the first thought I had was, wouldn't it be something, to be able to pray and then get an actual response back? Whomst among us has not had the experience of desperately praying, asking God why, and never receiving any answer? But a chatbot- it *has* to reply. Wow, prayer would be a totally different thing if it came with a guarantee like that.
But as Captain Cassidy's investigation shows, the answers that "Jesus"/the other bible characters give are very boilerplate, Christian cliche answers. This is all stuff you can hear at church. Nothing new. Nothing real. And, I mean, of course it can't be anything new, it's just a chatbot. It's not real.
(And apparently you can choose options about which denomination of Christianity you are in, and the chatbots will answer according to the beliefs of that denomination. I feel like that kinda breaks the illusion. Here, choose the set of things you already believe, and then this chatbot will regurgitate them back at you, in a quirky bible-character voice.)
If I had the real Jesus captive and required to answer me, I would ask extremely pointed and emotional questions about the problem of evil. I kinda wanted to try that on this chatbot, but you have to download it first, and that's too much trouble, also, it's just silly for me to treat this as if there's a possibility of actually getting new truths from it- it's a chatbot.
I wonder what kind of person uses this app and views it as helpful for their spiritual life. Are there people actually texting all their prayers into this app, and it feels better than just praying the normal way and "listening to God"? That seems... bad because it's fake. Like instead of experiencing the actual struggle of trying to "listen to God", looking for answers and getting nothing, overanalyzing your thoughts and "signs" you might have seen, you just get this easy-to-read AI response.
But also, this seems quite limited in how much enjoyment you can get out of its responses. It's all very boilerplate, nice-sounding churchy language. Don't know how long one can stand to listen to that, when one wants *real* answers.
I got this book for my kids, Mother God, by Teresa Kim Pecinovsky. Here's my review of it.
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Summary
This book tells us that God is our mother, and every page gives examples of the actions She performs as a mother. For example:
Throughout day and night, God wakes To nurse the infant at Her side. She snuggles Her baby gently Until he closes his sleepy eyes.
The inside cover of the book says it contains "a dozen images of God inspired by feminine descriptions from Scripture."
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I have ex-evangelical thoughts about this interpretation of the bible
Some of this imagery I recognized- I know the bible passages that they came from. For example, the page about God the mother hen, gathering Her chicks under Her wings, comes from the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:37, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."
I wish the book included a list of bible references, because I feel some of these might be a bit of a stretch, and I want to check them. There is one page in this book that says God is a leopard taking care of Her cubs, and I'm trying to figure out where in the bible that is supposedly coming from. I did a search, and the word "leopard" only appears in the bible 8 times. The one that I think "Mother God" must be alluding to is Hosea 13:7-8, which says:
So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them— a wild animal will tear them apart.
Not really the cheeriest of bible verses.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the imagery of God as a mother leopard. I love that this book has that. I think it's fine to describe God that way, even though the bible doesn't quite do that, not exactly.
It's just that... if you're having an argument with a conservative Christian who believes we're only allowed to talk about God with he/him pronouns, and you want to pull out this book and say "see? The bible itself talks about God with feminine language, so we are so allowed to call God 'her'," well, you're kind of over-selling it. Yes, there are places in the bible where God is described with feminine language. It never goes so far as to use a 'her' pronoun, though. The bible's feminine descriptions of God are comparisons and metaphors, while the masculine ones are literally calling God "he", "Father", "Son", etc. Conservative Christians in arguments about God's pronouns are quick to point this out. They're not really wrong... it's just that... I want to believe in a better God than that, a God who is every gender.
Probably the closest the bible gets to non-metaphorically calling God a woman is 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, which refers to Jesus Christ as "the wisdom of God" - and this was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word for "wisdom" is "Sophia," which is a feminine name. Christ is the woman, Sophia Wisdom. (Okay, yeah, this is still pretty metaphorical.)
So yes, I love this book, I love every single thing about it, I love when people call God "Her," I love the bible passages which use feminine language or metaphors to describe God. But not every page in "Mother God" is rooted in such a straightforward reading of Scripture that you can use it to win arguments with Christians of the "God is a he/him" persuasion. I mean, personally I'm no longer interested in participating in such arguments, so this is fine for me. But I'm just a bit concerned that this book is misrepresenting itself... if you're coming at it from an evangelical biblical-inerrancy perspective, you expect this book to be "here are bible verses where God is described as/ compared to a woman." But actually, it's more like, "here are bible verses which allow for an interpretation where God is a woman." And I 100% support doing such interpretations. I am so on board with this. But you'll definitely get people responding with "no, that's not what that verse means." (I mean, I agree that in some cases it's not what the verse is supposed to mean. I'm just not so hung up on only being allowed to think about the bible as what it was originally "supposed to mean." It's living and active.)
Another example from "Mother God":
Granny, Baba, Halmeoni, God is a woman with gray hair. She passes down stories of old, Rocking softly in a chair.
This is great, love this, but also, I have no idea what bible passage this is supposedly coming from. I don't even know what search terms to use- "bible verse where God is a grandma telling stories"?????
So yeah, some of these are a bit of a stretch. I'm sure there is some bible verse, perhaps where God is metaphorically compared to someone who tells stories from one's ancestors, and the author of "Mother God" envisions this person as an old, wise grandmother. Yeah, probably it's something along those lines.
Like I said, I think this is great. *My* take on biblical interpretation is that you can use the bible as inspiration for whatever story about God is meaningful for you. Make sure when you do that, though, you don't claim "this is true" or "this is what the bible says." Your interpretation makes sense only to the extent that you can present coherent reasons why it makes sense- you can't claim it's just automatically right because it comes from the bible. This approach is very different from "biblical inerrancy" ideology, where we believed we were very seriously adhering to what God and/or the original writer really meant to say, and so our conclusions just simply were true. (We *believed* that, but in reality, "biblical inerrancy" ideology isn't as unbiased and faithful to the bible as it claims to be...)
---
When we call God a woman, does it always have to be in the context of pushing back against patriarchal religion?
Obviously, the reason I love this book has a lot to do with my being a queer Christian with a lifetime of experience hearing people call God "he" but never "she." It just feels so refreshing, to hear people saying that God is a woman.
Also, in the previous section of this blog post, I talked about arguing with conservative Christians who say you're not allowed to call God "she", and the extent to which this book can be used to bolster our side in such arguments.
Ugh, but does it always have to be that way? When we call God "she", does it always have to be about "wow this is great, because everyone always calls God 'he'" and "yes, we *are* allowed to talk about God in this way"? I wish it could just be... that it could just be what it is, rather than needing to be about Taking A Stand Against Patriarchy.
"Mother God" actually starts out by saying,
You know God the Father, But God is your Mother too. You are made in Her image-- She is making all things new.
So even this book isn't able to just be about "we are calling God a woman"; it has to be about "we are calling God a woman becauseeveryone always calls God a man." It's unavoidable.
My beliefs about God are in many ways a reaction to the evangelical ideology I was raised in. I always wonder, what does that mean for how I teach my kids? I call God "They" when I talk to my son about what I believe, and the feel of it is like... I'm queer and I chose this. But for him it's never going to feel like that, if he hears someone calling God "They." Soon he'll be at that age where he thinks everything I do is extremely uncool, and that will be the lens he uses to think about the concept of calling God "They."
This isn't just about religion- so many societal trends are like, one generation is reacting to something they didn't like about the way they were raised, but the younger generation didn't have whatever negative experience they are reacting to. The older generation creates a new approach intended to be a healthy correction of the errors of the past, but the younger generation doesn't necessary experience this new approach in that way. Without that context, it will be understood by the younger generation as something else entirely.
So yeah, I bought this book for my kids, but I have no idea what it would be like to grow up with the idea that calling God "she" is just a normal, unremarkable thing. This book means something very different to me than it does to my kids. I don't really know how to understand that. I think it must be a *good* thing to expose them to this idea, and also *not* expose them to the idea that 'we're only allowed to call God he/him or else it's HERESY.' But I can never really *get* how my kids are thinking about this, because for me it always carries that context of rebelling against conservative, patriarchal religion.
---
The actions God takes in this book
A lot of the imagery in "Mother God" is about real actions that real people do, and the book says that God is doing these actions. I'm not sure what to make of that. For example:
God is a skillful seamstress Who stitches and sews thread together. She makes clothes for rain, snow, and sun, Caring for you in all kinds of weather.
What does this mean?
Does it mean that when we see actual real women making clothes, God is there?
Does it mean that the clothes we wear come from God, in the indirect sense that God created the world and helped people learn the skills to make clothes?
Does it mean that some of the spiritual things that God does are metaphorically similar to sewing clothes- for example, creating the earth, or perhaps this is a reference to Psalm 139:13, "you knit me together in my mother's womb," where fetal development is metaphorically compared to God knitting?
Does it mean that when we imagine God performing these feminine-coded actions, like making clothes, that opens up our understanding of God, to help us view God in powerful new ways? Maybe you always imagined God as looking like and acting like your male pastor- but what if you imagine God as a woman making clothes? Don't we believe that a male pastor bears the image of God to the exact same extent that a female seamstress does? Don't we? It brings our biases to the surface and challenges them.
I like interpretations 1 and 4. But I do feel like it's strange, to talk about God doing such concrete actions, and I'm really unclear on what this is intended to mean.
I am so into this book. I love it. I love it because I'm a queer Christian- and so I wonder about how my kids will take it, and what it would be like to grow up with the idea that it's just fine and normal to call God "she."
1.Love's Work in "Go, Dog, Go" (December 6) "I ask you, who has been changed by their first meeting? She has only become more of herself, while he has adopted a brand-new hat habit."
2.If you hear any noise, it ain’t the boys (December 5) "In practice it’s a lot more complicated because the cover charge and the price of drinks is never the only variable being considered by the “ladies” that Ladies Night is trying to attract."
3. The Reality of AI Animal Content (December 5, via) "AI videos and heavily edited clips can show animals doing things they would never do in a healthy, ethical setting, such as jumping into a person’s arms at a zoo, endangered species at your doorstep, or dancing on cue. This can create unrealistic and even dangerous expectations."
2.Jesse Watters says criticizing boat strikes makes people sound “effeminate” (December 8, via) Jesse Watters really went on tv and said that people *like* the videos of military strikes on defenseless boats, murdering people. "People love these videos. They hit your feed, they're like, yes, let's go." This actually says more about what kind of person Jesse Watters is, yikes.
3.Immigrants kept from Faneuil Hall citizenship ceremony as feds crackdown nationwide (December 5) "'As an immigrant takes the oath of citizenship, it’s a reflection and recognition of the tremendous sacrifice of time, energy, and financial resources they have made in the hopes of becoming a full member of our community and nation,' said Elizabeth Sweet, Executive Director of MIRA Coalition. 'To have that final step canceled is unnecessarily cruel and does nothing to make this country a safer place.'"
And: How Trump is remaking one agency to aid his deportation push (December 10) "'They're reaching deeper into the weeds of immigration policy, and they may be more successful in slowing legal immigration, which at least some members of the Trump administration have stated is their goal,' said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. 'That's a pretty different stance towards immigration than we've seen over recent decades.'"
4.Border Patrol left Charlotte. The damage stayed behind (December 10) "Many immigrants in hiding have relied on allies to help with basic services like delivering food and medicine. Volunteers have set up a support network. People deliver supplies, take reports of vehicles suspected of belonging to immigration agents and go check them out, and wear bright yellow vests while they watch over children walking to school."
Sharing this because I will always be on the side of 'we should give immigrants the support they need, to deal with bureaucracy/cultural/language/etc barriers.' But also, I'm a little uncomfortable with the implication that 'the big lesson to be learned from the Washington DC shooting is [whatever my pet cause is]' which I've seen a lot of- from the felon, when he uses this as a reason to discriminate against all Afghan immigrants (and also other countries he doesn't like????), and from those of us on the left, saying this is the MAGAs' fault for sending the National Guard there in the first place, and perhaps I'm also participating in this by sharing this article, as if to imply that the actual problem wasn't the shooting itself, but the lack of support received by Afghans who worked for the CIA. Which is why I am writing this disclaimer. No, let's be clear about this, this is the shooter's fault, there is no excuse to go around shooting people.
6.The fight to beat neglected tropical diseases was going well. 2025 could change that (December 10) "'A group of scientists went to the Hill and made the point that there is a known strategy in treating communities that are infected,' says Wainwright. 'You go in, treat them once a year and if you do it for a set number of years, you can either eliminate or control the disease.'"
8. The Trump-Epstein Emergency Isn't in the Files (December 5) "Trump’s treatment of Maxwell—a convicted sex trafficker— is by far the most glaring, brazen, and openly corrupt part of the current moment involving the president."
