The Best of the Month: MARCH

Each month, I'm collecting my favorite posts from around the internet and on the last day of the month, I'll be sharing them here.  Some of these are posts that I deeply resonate with and others are ones that made me think or reconsider.  I'll also be sharing my favorite thing I've written this month.


CHRISTIANITY

Zack Hunt at The American Jesus: Complementarianism: The Church's Segregation Problem

"The language may be slightly – and only slightly – different, but at its core complementarianism is little more than the church’s sanctified version of Jim Crow. 

Like its segregationist forefather, complementarianism is a deceptively eloquent way to keep one group in power (men), while marginalizing another (women) based on an accident of birth (genitals). Where once minorities were “separate, but equal,” now women are “equal, but different.” It’s segregation in the name of Jesus. In the name of the very Christ who shattered the gender divide, women are kept separate from the pulpit, separate from leadership in the church, and separate from leadership in the home."

MILITARY

Kim at She Is Fierce: War is Over (And I'm Not Ready To Reflect)

 "You might tell me of the cost of the war, and how it wasn't worth the lives 

And you will look at me with pity, and you will tell me that I must be so grateful to know he doesn't have to go again. 

You may tell me all of this not to be hurtful, but because you assume it must be true. 

And I won't tell you that you are wrong, because what you think I should feel makes more sense than what I do. 

I will assume, because I am just as set in my thoughts and ways as everyone else, that you don't actually want to hear what it really feels like. 

It really feels like defensiveness. 

Because every time the news reports on how useless it all was, well it seems like that is somehow a personal attack on what my family gave up, which was a tiny sacrifice compared to what other families lost."

PARENTING

Sarah Bessey: In which I don't mind if my tinies see me on the computer

"I don’t feel guilty taking them along when we get groceries or pay bills or drop off library books or help others or any other of the chores and tasks and work that goes into running this little family. 

Maybe my prairie kid work ethic is showing. My grandpa raised our clan to know that truth: work is honourable.Now I’ve rounded that out with the belief that work is also a gift from God, part of our heritage as co-creators with God. Particularly when our work – paid or unpaid – is personally fulfilling, an act of creativity or beauty or usefulness. What a gift to be able to work! 

So, is it a shameful thing for a mother to work on the computer while her children are present? Nope. 

Not only is it not damaging to my tinies to see me – gasp! – working on the computer while they’re here, I believe it’s downright good for them."

RECIPE

Christy at The Girl Who Ate Everything: Swig Sugar Cookies

(Technically these were posted in February, but I didn't make them until March.  Still, SO GOOD!)

WRITING:

Dorcas Cheng-Tozun at the Redbud Writers Guild Blog: Why Writing Terrifies Me - And How That's Changing My Life

"But for me, being a writer is also terrifying. And it is for that very reason that I believe God has called me into it. Like so many things in life, he is using this to both bless and transform me. In particular, he is challenging me to lay down three powerful idols that I have clung to for most of my life: people-pleasing, achievement, and perfectionism."

MY OWN WRITING:

Honesty in a Culture of Church Taboos at RELEVANT magazine

"Churches preach the benefits of living in community, yet we somehow forget that living in true community is guaranteed to be messy and complicated. While we talk of authenticity, Church often remains a place where you can’t be honest. 

Church should be a place muddled with honesty and real-life messiness. And it should be a place where a shame-filled person can find relief. It should be a place where shame loses its power."

What was the best thing you read (or wrote!) this month?