katyandtheword

Shuhada Sadaqat prof known as Sinead O’Connor

We call the Cassandras crazy
While they stand bravely
Telling truths
We think them
Defiant
When in
Retrospective
They were Futurebearers
Birthing
What we could not yet Grasp
We say Rest in Peace
When what we mean is
We hear you now

Prayer for the Small Town

Here’s a Prayer for the small-town.

The first one I lived in, where no-one left
Except to join the military
And school was closed on the first day of hunting season
and where the disabled girl was welcomed in Brownies,
But we had to go to the nearest city to earn our diversity badge
Where the KKK marched, and all the churches protested–
and my parents explained “free speech” to me
while we read books about the Holocaust
where I learned the N-word from another 1st grader
but also did a report on “My Left Foot”
And everyone was worried
Because the last Coal mine was closing
and there were no jobs to be had
And where we had to leave, because they didn’t want a woman pastor
(in 1980s)
When my mom graduated from seminary

Here’s a prayer for the small town
where the schools were all integrated
and we were in the Bible-belt, and attended “that liberal church”
Where I had the most black friends
but a lot of people did not go into the “Black stores”
Where I was the only girl who joined the baseball team instead of the softball team–
did you know baseball got snow cones after every game, it was NOT FAIR
And all the boys won the leadership awards every year, never the girls
And all the girls joined cheerleaders and wore makeup by third grade…
Except me, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
who, it turned out, wished they could be cheerleaders anyway
Here’s a prayer for that small town

Here’s a prayer for the NorthEastern Small Town
Where everyone made fun of me
when I said “Yes Ma’am” the first day of school
And never bothered to find out that I only lived down South for 3 years
Rich and Stuck up, no one had time for me
In their small, elite classes, in the small elite school
Drinking every weekend, Worried about who was in and out
The teachers even knew who was cool and who wasn’t
Everyone walked to school
but the people of color pretty much sat together
and there were still lines between the poorer and richer students
Here’s a prayer for that small town where status was everything

Here’s a prayer for the small town, where my husband went to college
And I lived for a year, where Obama said guns and God
And he and I laughed and laughed, because it was so true
Where I attended a small church on the same lawn of another small church
Of the SAME denomination
Where I worked two almost full time jobs, lived at the library, and never saw the sun–and was probably the strangest person in town, because every other adult who was weird moved away.
Here’s a prayer for that small town.

I’ve lived in every kind of small town–
Where the gossip was if your laundry was up all night
Where the whole village turned out to find my sister–
Who had been thankfully asleep in the garage the whole time
Where everyone knew who was mistreating who, and still it wasn’t fixed.
I’ve lived in places where the friendliness is real,
where it’s ok to talk to everyone, and that’s a kind of relief.
I’ve lived where religion is a second language,
and church is your second home.
I’ve lived in the small towns that are in the middle of nowhere,
and the ones next to cities,
I pray for all of them, because they are all over, and so important.
I pray for the small towns. Because it’s hard, in a small town, sometimes,
to try things
And yet so much of the Bible is God calling people
out of small towns
to try things
–so I pray for those small towns.

More Memes/Notes resources

More things I’m finding along the way (Under Construction, I will add onto this as I find things that strike me)

If you appreciate my work, please support my D. Min in Creative Writing. I am in my final year and raising money here: https://gofund.me/391febb1
I am more than halfway funded! Any amount $10-$200 helps. Receipts available!

The Breath Prayer written by Sheridan Voysey Lord God, Fill me with your Holy Spirit. I receive your love & release my insecurity. I receive your joy& release my unhappiness. I receive your peace & release my anxiety. I receive your patience & release my impulsiveness. I receive your kindness & release my indifference. I receive your goodness & release my ungodliness. I receive your faithfulness & release my disloyalty. I receive you gentleness & receive my severity. I receive your self-control & release my self-control.*

*Some of these breath prayers are very Christian or too severe or ableist. I would be very careful before I gave these to an entire group. However they are good for ideas, and might be ok to be given as a choice with the gentle caveat that they are just ideas and do not fit everyone.

There is no end to what a living world will demand of you –Octavia Butler @BlackLiturgies author is Cole Arthur Riley who also wrote “This Here Flesh” Sermon Series (Which you may recall is a sister series to this one)

Inhale: The demand is too great Exhale: I deserve to stay whole @BlackLiturgies

Inhale: My “no” is sacred. Exhale: I can honor its Sound @BlackLiturgies

Meditate & Reflect: How does your body feel today?What practice brings you renewal? Who in your community is protective of your body and its needs? What dominant fear keeps you from saying “no'”? Explore its origins. What demands are you making of others that you can release?

@joynessthebrave This is your gentle reminder that one time in the Bible Elijah was like “god, I’m so mad! I want to die! so God said “Here’s some food. Why don’t you have a nap?” So Elijah slept, ate, & decided things weren’t so bad. Never understimate the spiritual power of a nap & a snack.
(This is one of my all time favorites)

“May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap, and the pause in all its forms.” Alice Walker

Sermon Series

Sermon Series on Rest is Resistance is Fully Structured and Complete katyandtheword.com/2023/06/01/sermon-series-rest-is-resistance/ The plan is there along with the liturgy andnotes, you write the sermon

I am in the midst of my final residency week for my Doctorate,

Then all I have to do is write a book

Please support my writing here! I do everything by donations! https://gofund.me/391febb1

Rest is Resistance Week 7

First jar full of rocks “We developed negative coping skills because they worked to help us survive.” Second jar empty “Healing isn’t ‘getting rid’ of ways we cope.” Third jar full of colored rocks “Healing is finding and *adding* healthier ways to cop so we rely less and less on coping in ways that aren’t good for us.” @LindsayBraman

“Who do I want to be?” p. 56
Psalm 23:6
John 14:27
Restoration & Liberation

Call to Worship
(Breathe in) I am a divine human being
(Breathe 0ut) Rest is Resurrection

Prayer of the Day
God, I am seeking peace.
I hunger for liberation.
I want grace.
I think I have to work for it.
But the liberation of Holy Spirit
The Resurrection of Jesus
is all contained in the promise,
that we can rest safely
in the arms of God
anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

Call to Confession: God will give you peace, come let us find it and confess ourselves to God.

Prayer of Confession: God, I confess that I am not very comfortable with emobodied liberation, with the trust that things will happen that I can’t see or hear, and that grace and peace will chase me, that DreamSpace is a generous place to just be. Help me to just be, and trust that God will work liberation on our behalf. (Silent Confession) Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: Hear the Good News. God will liberate us from all sin, let us proclaim the truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Suggested Rest Practices:
Examine a leaf/blade of grass closely
Play Ad Libs, Tell Knock Knock jokes/Jokes with partners, Tell stories of childhood, fun, joy, rest (funny places you’ve slept)
Go back through and pick a practice you missed
Read Mary Oliver’s The Orchard
Read What If All I Want is a Mediocre Life
Read any of the practices in the Book

Notes

Other Resources
Raising of Dorcas/Tabitha: Did She want to Get up?
4,000 Weeks
Doing Laundry While Drowning
This Here Flesh
Trauma Informed Yoga
Letters from the Ecotone: Ecology, Theology and Climate Change
The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy And “Women’s Work”
More Memes/Notes that I am adding along the way

Rest, Sabbath, Jubilee, Liberation

@CanPanicNow “The Bible forbids debts lasting longer than 7 years, therefore it is my deeply held religious belief that I cannot pay student loans.

Week 7 Notes

“Grind culture is a collaboration between white supremacy and capitalism. It views our divine bodies as machines. Our worth is not connected to how much we produce. We ignore our bodies’ need to rest and in doing so, we lose touch with Spirit. Our bodies are a tool agents for change. A site of liberation. The time to rest is now. Our collective rest will change the world because our rest resides in a Spirit of refusal and disruption. Resist is our protest. Resit is resistance. Rest is reparations.” p. 12

Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy.
Our bodies are a site of liberation
Naps provide a portal to imagine, invent and heal
Our DreamSpace has been stolen and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest p. 13

“Embrace knowing that you have been manipulated and scammed by a violent system as powerful evidence. Now with this knowledge you can grieve, repair, rest, and heal.” p. 17

Grind culture has traumatized us and then begin the lifelong process of healing from this trauma. This work is about more than simply naps and sleep, it is a full unraveling from the grips of our toxic understanding of our self-worth as divine human beings. Grieving in this culture is not done and is seen as a waste of time because grieving is a powerful place of reverence and liberation.” p. 28

“Once we know and remember we are divine, we will no participate and allow anything into our hearts and minds that is not loving and caring. We would treat ourselves and each other like the tender and powerful beings we are.” p. 29 Goodness and Mercy

“When I say sleep helps you wake up—it helps you wake up to the turret of who and what you are. And the system doesn’t want that. It would crumple und the weigh to this power.” p. 29

“We can bend time when we rest and I’m grateful for the slowness and the embodied work of refusal. The way taking your time and disrupting the dominant culture’s need to rush is liberation. To just be, to just depend what already is and can never be taken from us is the praxis.” p. 32

“I want you to firmly plant yourself inside your imagination Take refuge in the beauty and power of community care and our daydreaming…Rest is a portal. Silence is a pillow. Sabbath our lifeline. Pausing our compass. Get your healing. Push back. Slow down. take a nap.” p. 32

“We are resting simply because it is our divine right to do so. That is it! Rest is this proclamation for a moment.” p. 62 Reclamation

“As a person totally focused on our Spirits, souls, minds and bodies, I am worried about the road the Metaverse will play in an already sleep-deprived and disconnected world. There are too many ways to ignore the deep inner knowing, intuition, and divine wisdom that exists in us from birth already. To exists daily over time in a space of increased virtual experiences will have lasting effect on our ability to push back against capitalism and white supremacy.” p. 70

“My freedom from grind culture is intimately tied up in the healing and liberation of all those around me. Community care and full communal unraveling is the ultimate goal for any justice world, because without this we will be left vulnerable to the lie of toxic individualism.” p. 76

bell hooks all about love “‘mutual giving strengthens community’ Mutual and collective rest disrupts, interrupts, and heals. Our collective resting coordinated with traveling deep within our hearts begins the process of dismantling capitalism, white supremacy, racism, homophobia, ableism, and patriarchy.” p. 78 Rest Interrupts

“True liberation to me is to not be constantly attempting to prove our worth and ticking off to-do lists. To just be”. p. 80

“You can begin to create a ‘Not-TO-Do List’ as you gain the energy to maintain healthy boundaries. Our opportunity test and re-imagine rest is endless. There is always time to rest when we reimagine.” p. 83

Emile Townes Womanist theologian “Liberation is a process. Freedom is a temporary state of being. Liberation is dynamic. It never ends.” p. 98

“Imagine a life outside of grind culture right now. You can create it because you are more powerful than you believe. We are more powerful than we belie. What liberations can you craft outside your grind culture.” p. 137

“The illusion of living within grind culture offers the myth of control. many of us are on automated, robot machine mode and there is not room here for the magic of mystery and Spirit to move in your life.” p. 140

Do not let your credit score, man-made poverty, and/or racism define your extreme power. Your body is a site of liberation.” p. 148

“You can rest. You can shift. You can heal. You can resist. You can lay down right now. If you are in a safe space that would allow for you to lay down, please do so as you read. If it’s not safe to recline. just slow down your breathing. Visualize your favorite place to slumber and relax. Go there in your mind. May these rest moments multiply as you integrate more into your daily practice.” p. 148

Ideas to dream into p. 151-152: Safe surfaces to nap, silence as a sound, baths, stretching, detox from social media, experiment with naps, read poetry, meditate, journal

“You don’t have to be always be creating, doing, and contributing to the world. Your birth grants you rest and leisure as well.” p. 152

“Resting is not a state of inactivity or a waste of time. Rest is a generative space. When you are resting your body, it is in its most connected state. Your organs are regenerating. Your brain is processing new information. Your connecting with a spiritual practice. You are honoring your body. You are being present. All these thing are so foundational for liberation and healing to take root.” p. 153

“Your bodies don’t belong to capitalism, to white supremacy, or to the patriarchy. Your body is a divine temple and a place of generative imagination. A place of healing and freedom.” p. 153

“I believe any work that is rooted in wellness and justice and doesn’t include the collective, without a framework about dismantling and decolonizing, is incomplete work” p. 154

“I am forever inspired by bell hooks and Octavia Butler for believing in and teaching us about imagination as a tool of our greatest liberation.” p. 159

Meditation 159 to steal back time

“I believe specifically that my Ancestors, those enslaved on plantations, had their DreamSpace stolen. A theft. The space to just be replaced with racial terror and violent terror.” p. 160

“How would our justice work look different if all involved were not sleep-deprived?” 160

“What transmissions would we receive in our dreams that guide us to our liberation?” p. 160

“There is rest for the weary. For those working two or three jobs and still unable to pay rent consistently. For those parenting, working, and going to school, there is rest available to you. For the body that is unable to labor the long hours grind culture requires, rest is a refuge to you.” p. 161

“I am not overlooking the blatant reality of poverty, low wages, late-stage capitalism, corporations generation billions of dollars while the worker isn’t offered a living wage and all other trickery and abuse that make it feel impossible to thrive.” p. 161

“Rest is an imagination tool because it makes space to simply be. To be a human being is an ancient miracle that we overlook when we work so hard to prove our worth via exhaustion.” p. 161

Discernment Journal

What do I feel called to do?
How can I create space for me and my community to heal? What needs healing in me?
Can the idea of unplugging and resting for a whole month be reimagined by creating smaller moment daily, weekly?
What does intentional rest and care look like to you? Sketch a map out a visual.
How is your heart?
Who are you being?
What are you Holding?
What story are you telling yourself? What is a more liberating Story you can tell?
How can you create rest in this moment?
Are you ready to change?

p. 163

Go on Social Media rest to create space p. 163-168

“The Nap Ministry is a commitment to an ideal that may seem unattainable. This makes it revolutionary because it creates space to imagine and hope. Both are keys to our liberation. p. 174

“In Afrofuturism, there is a future where all current problems are solved. the future is now.” p. 177 We need to remember to imagine together

“Between growing up in the Black Church, watching what the Spirit can do for and to a person during embodied worship, paired with my obsession with Afrofuturism, it is easy for me to connect the dots to rest as a portal for healing.” p. 181

“I am very comfortable with embodiment and the idea of trusting deeply what is happening behind the scenes. Things essays and ears can’t see and hear.” p. 182

“Rest on a somatic level is a small resurrection. I have always been interested in the concept of community resurrection…A resurrection is a waking up into a new thing. It’s life, insight, breathing, refusing, think and a movement that is alive and made new. Rest is resurrection. A literal raising form the dead. Grind culture is a spiritual death.” p. 182-183

Meditations for rest

I deserve to rest now
I am worthy of rest
I am not lazy. How could I be lazy? My Ancestors are too brilliant for that.
Capitalism wants my body to be a machine. I am not a machine.
I am a magical and divine human being.
I have the right to resist grind culture.
I do not have to earn rest.
Do less, watch how I thrive.
Rest is my birthright.
I will rest.

p. 192-193

Rest is Resistance Week 6

For many of us clergy, overwork may be a sign of PRAGMATIC ATHEISM. We don’t trust God enough to rest, leaving what is undone in God’s care

“How do you make space to transcend the confines of a system that prays to the call of ‘profit over people’?” p. 56
1 King 19:4-7
Romans 8:22-26
Grief & Healing

Call to Worship
(Breathe in) I will give space
(Breathe out) I will let go

Prayer of the Day
God,
we have crammed
so much into our lives
we do not leave much
room.
What thousands of stories
are untold, because
we are not rested?
What work is the world
groaning towards
already?
What dreamwork
did Elijah do
under the fig tree?
Let us find more
space for all work
to be done
without us
we pray.
Amen.

Call to Confession: Let us turn towards God, and open our hearts to pour out any hurt and grief we might have, so that God can wipe away our tears and renew our hope.

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that we are tightly hanging onto so much–that it is hard to let the Holy Spirit in. We feel like we need the perfect words or actions. We feel like we need to always be co-creating with you to get things right. We are afraid to stop. Afraid of what we will see when we rest. Give us the courage to rest. Tell us it’s ok to stop, remind us that the Holy Spirit will fill in all of the gaps. Grant us the trust we need we pray. (Silent Confession) Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: The Holy Spirit is here, filling our hearts anew, granting us all the mercy we need, so let us assure one another of the Good News: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Suggested Rest Practices:
Make a Dream Journal
Make a Not To Do List, Rip it up or Burn it
Dismiss everyone to Take a walk/Quiet Sitting time for 10 minutes
Play with Playdo/Clay
Create a Grief Wall/Ribbon Weaving Symbolizing everything to let go of
Have everyone commit to one time they are going to rest that week
Share around the room/small groups/on paper a new rest practice they have started (Fit your needs to the extravert/introvert nature of your reality)
Go Outside and look at the Clouds

If you appreciate my work, please support my D. Min in Creative Writing. I am in my final year and raising money here: https://gofund.me/391febb1

Notes

“My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn’t look well. But my uncle says they was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn’t want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs any more. They’re too comfortable. Get people up and running around” -Ray Bradbury; Book Farenheit 451

Art a man in a white beard, snooze-like, sitting on a porch. Photograph by Sonny Lee

People miss small talk in the Pandemic (and how that might be feeding into the violence of today): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/coronavirus-small-talk.html, https://hbr.org/2021/03/remote-workers-need-small-talk-too, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/long-reads/the-big-power-of-small-talk, https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/opinion/2021/05/18/small-talk-is-the-glue-that-keeps-society-running-and-gossip-is-a-force-for-good-i-miss-both.html?rf (Google it, there are so MANY articles)

Week 6 Notes

Grief and Healing

“Capitalism was created on plantations. We as a culture class over this historical truth. We must grieve. Grieving is a sacred act and one of the ways we can begin to reconnect with out bodies, as we craft a rest practice.” p. 15

“A mind shift, a slow and constant practice filled with grace” p. 16

We should use every tool we have to constantly repair what grind culture has done to us” p. 16

“Embrace knowing that you have been manipulated and scammed by a violent system as powerful evidence. Now with this knowledge you can grieve, repair, rest, and heal.” p. 17

“Resting is ancient, slow and connected work that will take hold of you in ways that may be surprising. Let deprogramming from grind culture surprise you. Let your entire being slowly begin to shift. Get lost in rest. Pull up the blankets, search for softness and be open to the ways rest will surprise and calm you.” p. 17

“We have been trained to believe that everything we accomplish is is because of our own pushing alone. This is false because there is a spiritual dimension that exists in all things and in everything we do. To understand that we are spiritual beings navigating life in a material world opens us to the possibility os rest as a spiritual practice. Our entire living is a spiritual practices. Much of our resistance to rest, sleep and slowing down is an ego problem….We can do nothing alone.” p. 18

“Grind culture has traumatized us and then begin the lifelong process of healing from this trauma. This work is about more than simply naps and sleep, it is a full unraveling from the grips of our toxic understanding of our self-worth as divine human beings. Grieving in this culture is not done and is seen as a waste of time because grieving is a powerful place of reverence and liberation.” p. 28

“A grieving person is a healed person. Can you guess why our culture does not want a healed person in it?” p. 28

“I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system.” p. 29

Black Ancestors “They straddled the lines between exhaustion and always thriving. They moved mountains with their faith alone and created pathways for invention that I am still uncovering. They resisted every moment by exiting in a world that was not welcoming or caring.” p. 46

“Sunday was not a day of rest for my parents, especially my father. It was a day of working tirelessly for the Lord.” p. 49

“Sunday was not a day of rest for my parents, especially my father. It was a day of working tirelessly for the Lord.” p. 49 (Revenge Waking)

“His love of community and God fueled him endlessly, but the toxic side to this passion was his overworking, exhaustion, and lack of caring for his body.” p. 51

“Grind culture killed my father and is killing us physically and spiritually. Sleep deprivation is a public health issue and racial justice issue.” p. 54

“It is firm evidence that we as a culture don’t have clarity about what rest is and can be.” p. 55

“We are born knowing how to rest and listen to what our bodies need…This inner knowing is slowly stolen form us as we replace it with disconnection. We have been bamboozled and led astray by a culture without a pulse button.” p. 55

“Everything we believe we know about rest is false.” p. 55

World is groaning/birthing (grieving) and systematically trying to give birth to a new one, we need to rest and let it do its thing: Romans

“I know that saving my own life from the exhaustion of racism, poverty, and sexism made space for all, no matter their race, to also begin dismantling process from these systems.”

“I know that my visualizations of what a world without capitalism and oppression looks like is based on something I have never experienced in this lifetime. IT is dreamworld and alchemy. p. 57

“In postmodern womanist theology, salvation is an activity… A postmodern womanist theory strives for tangible representations of good. The good includes justice, equality, discipleship, quality of life, acceptance and inclusion” Monica Coleman p. 58

“Yes the system continues raging and destroying, but we will not be able to tap into spaces of freedom, joy , and rest by pushing our precious bodies and minds in abusive ways. To rest is to creatively respond to grind culture’s call to do more. It’s the possibility of rest, reparations, resurrection, and repair that holds us like a warm, soft blanket. “ p. 59

“How do we transform grief to power?” p. 59 grief article https://pres-outlook.org/2023/05/grief-as-innovation/?fbclid=IwAR0-hhwOI0DYgJoZq-PE5g1OMEten2iGyq5kyYwJii6ozZWqfQgNYHJAV_w

“There is space to just allow rest to settle and answer the questions for us.” p. 60

“We must remain committed to building community and go into the deepest cracks to gather and care for anyone left behind. Trading each other and ourselves and with care isn’t a luxury, but an absolute necessity if we’re going to thrive. Resting isn’t an afterthought, but a basic part of being human.” p. 61

“We must make space for rest in small and large ways.” p. 61 Make room for the Holy Spirit–is this what that phrase means? Make room for hope, is this what this means?

CORRECTION “The concept of filling up your cup first so you can have enough in it to put to others feels off balance. It reeks of language that is part of our daily mantra. Language like ‘I will sleep when I am dead,’ “rise and grind,’” and is geared to women p.62 esp. marginalized!!!

“I propose that the cups all be broken into little pieces” Something about communion here p. 63

“I don’t want to pour anymore. p 63

Rest is Resistance Week 5

Coffee Cup that says Your Worth is not defined by your productivity, artwork by France Corbel

What have you been told about your worth and existence?” p. 56
Isaiah 14:3-4
Psalm 62:1 In God alone my soul finds rest, for my deliverance comes from God, who alone is my rock, my salvation, my fortress: I will never be shaken. (Inclusive Bible)
Worth and Blessedness

Call to Worship
(Breathe in) I am born
(Breathe out) I deserve rest

Prayer of the Day
God
I am here
My birth
was not a Coincidence
It was in community
to be beloved, in the fabric.
But that does not mean that I always need to be active
Just as a baby is beloved, when they sleep in their parents arms
I am just as beloved, when I rest or play
as when I work
Help me remember that I pray,
Amen.

Call to Confession: Come, let us confess ourselves to our creator, who loved us into being.

Prayer of Confession: God, I confess I do not think of rest as a connectional time. I do not think as slumber as time spent with God, even though, the first thing you want humanity to do with you, was to stay and rest with you a while. I confess that I do not find other humans worth in how much Sabbath they take, full confession, we humans do not value one another by how good we are at resting and playing with each other. Help us God, to figure out spaces and ways to value and bless one another differently we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon Hear the good news, Jesus sits with us, blesses us, and forgives us, let us rest in the good new: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Suggested Rest Practices:
Read p. 130-131 Reclaiming Our Right to Rest
Read: “You can rest. You can shift. You can heal. You can resist. You can lay down right now. If you are in a safe space that would allow for you to lay down, please do so as you read. If it’s not safe to recline. just slow down your breathing. Visualize your favorite place to slumber and relax. Go there in your mind. May these rest moments multiply as you integrate more into your daily practice.” p. 148
Journal all the ways to think of worth and Blessedness that are not about money: Community ties, all the ways one plays or rests, hobbies, all the interest one has, favorites colors, etc.
Renewal of Baptism: You are beloved and You deserve Rest
Make/Decorate Small Pillows
Gentle Stretching Practice

Shared: The Resistance Garden (a FB group I highly rec) Existennialmemes DON”T CHASE YOUR DREAMS! Humans are Persistence Predators. Follow your dreams at a sustainable pace, until they get tired and lie down.

If you appreciate my work, please support my D. Min in Creative Writing. I am in my final year and raising money here: https://gofund.me/391febb1

Notes

Week 5 Notes

Worth and Blessedness

“Fear is a function of grind culture..” p. 22

“We believe we are only meant to survive and not thrive. We see care as unnecessary and unimportant. We believe we don’t really have to rest. We falsely believe hard work guarantees success in a capitalist system. p. 24

The thought of not doing, even for a short time, is seen as lazy and unproductive. So an explanation for rest as a form of justice is layered and danced.” p. 27

most concise ways: “Rest makes us more human. It brings us back to our human-ness. To be more human. To be connected to who and what we truly are is at the heart of our rest movement.” p. 27

“Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us….Our bodies and Spirits do not belong to capitalism, no matter how it is theorized and presented.” p. 28-29

“I Trust the Creator and my Ancestors to always make space for my gifts and talents without needing to work myself into exhaustion.” p. 29

“Our rest is centered on connecting and reclaiming our divinity, given to us by our birth.” p. 62

“Without examining ;the hold social media has over our lives, we will never be able to push any rest movement forward. IT’s simply not possible because social media is an extension of capitalism.” p. 71

“I see the brilliance and miracle of human beings. We are not machines.” p. 74

“Is the Nap Ministry just for Black people?’ The question itself stems from a white suprematist mindset that refuses to accept this truth: Black libration is a balm for all humanity and this message is from all those suffering from the ways of white supremacy and capitalism.” p. 75

“White people have had their humanity stripped from them via white supremacy. They are spiritually deficient and blinded by the idea that they are superior to other divine human beings. The lineage of terror, violence, enslavement resides in those bodies and hearts.” p. 76

“Rest is a meticulous love practice.” p. 147

“Do not let your lack of money and possessions make you feel negative about your worth as a human being.” p. 148

Do not let your credit score, man-made poverty, and/or racism define your extreme power. Your body is a site of liberation.” p. 148

“Your birth was not a coincidence.” p. 148

“You don’t have to be always be creating, doing, and contributing to the world. Your birth grants you rest and leisure as well.” p. 152