#2016 #fuckthisShit and #lookout2017

I don’t know about you, but 2016 was a rough one for me!

I guess this is being an adult, when national news effects your daily life

Starting with Police shooting minorities, to the bathroom needs of  transgender people, the election and celebrity deaths.

Carrie Fisher really got me….like really got me. Princess Leia broke so many barriers and Star Wars was my constant companion, getting me through the hell that was Jr. High. The fact that she opens up by spitting in the face of evil (Governor Tuck) and then getting the hell out (Somebody has gotta save us kids) helped me..I watched Star Wars almost every day in Junior High.

Then there is Carrie Fisher herself, opening up about toxic family relationships, addiction and mental illness. Putting a name and a face to the reality so many struggle with–once again busting through the barriers.

I don’t know about you, but every time I hear someone has died, I’m like #fuckthisShit! No more 2016. No more brown and black women lying dying on the street. Every time I hear about a hate-crime or bigotry being enabled, I’m like #fuckthisShit.

#God do I need #Jesus. I need #Jesus because we humans are fumbling at best, with our simple platitudes and our inane struggle to communicate and be community.

I need the #HolySpirit, so I can hear the strong leadership of my #queer sibs, who have taught me about strength and hope in a new way.

I need the #HolySpirit, so I can be angry about the institutionalized racism that I cannot help but to be a part of…and every time the #HolySpirit helps me to listen more and talk less, its a gift.

I’m going to do #2017. As my colleague Katie Mulligan is apt to say, the work is still the same. Whether things seem rosy and happy or dark and terrible, the binding of wounds and feeding of the hungry are still the basis of our work, and our existence.

#FuckthisShit I will not be defined by what has not yet been done, I will not let death have the final say–didn’t Jesus step out of the tomb and say Ta-Da! Didn’t he throw life in the face of death, betrayal, hatred & darkness? This is what I’ll be doing.

I’ll raise my children, and love my church, and open myself to be in relationship over and over and over again.

I will not let evil have the last word

#FuckthisShit, because I know of a better way and a better truth, and a better way out of here.

I will spit in the face of evil, I will fight for the rights of every human being, and I will continue to love.

#lookout2017

(PS #fuckthisshit is an online advent  study about the real/harsh/viscereal exp of living human life. The language, tho offensive, is not that different from Psalms were we to translate the actual words…. as you know I curse very sparingly, but have found this super helpful)

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword