Jane Elliott

I was blessed to be in the presence of a powerful woman. Jane Elliott The 3rd grade teacher who created the Blue eye/brown eye experiment the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. She told her students with blue eyes that they were stupid, lazy and incapable of success. Her brown-eyed students were brilliant. She said that she saw in 15 min. a child with Dyslexia learn to read on grade level, and a bright child who read at a 6th grade level stutter while reading aloud. As a blue-eyed person herself, she realized how angry it made her that for the first time people had to obey her, but not respect her.

She discussed, ranted, yelled, growled and teared up discussing violence against women, rape, homophobia, racism, ageism, and ethnocentrism. She declared herself a B*%@# and was proud of it. She told the men that just because they had the ability to harm a woman that didn't make it right to "take a cold shower, take lots of cold showers, jump in a lake, drown yourself, but keep it in your pants"

She brought up a white man and a black woman, she asked them about power, the man said his height gave him power and his sex gave him power, the woman has no power. She brought up that the end of "America the Beautiful" says, Land of the free (pointing to the man) and the home of the brave (pointing to the woman) The woman admitted to sending out her children each day knowing what kinds of intolerance and just pure hatred that they would experience each day because sof the color of their skin.

She gave a lot to think about, she is against abortion for herself and homosexuality for herself, but she says we should leave other people's bodies alone.

Mrs. Elliott used feminine pronouns for God, which was really interesting to see since I am in a theology class about Christian feminism. (To clarify my views on this is that pronouns help with the relationship aspect of God, bringing him closer, but also take away from the magnitude of the mystery of God, think how the Jews did not call God by a name. God is not boxed by strictly male or female qualities. God-language to me can be either, both or none (he/she/or just God)

She talked in statistics, commanded attention from the community members and college students, with her 4ft10in frame towering above us. she was rough, and real and angry. I loved her! I love how Hope College a conservative liberal arts college in the middle of Reformed church land is integrating more liberal aspects, allowing the community to be exposed to different ideas and form our own opinions, because many of the students grew up in this land of Western Michigan and many more in communities like this and have no exposure to different opinions.

Please continue to pray for Stellan, Richard, end of the year final stuff, summer situations, and for me to figure out how to get back to the Phils soon!

Salamat po! (Thank-you in Tagalog)

Power...

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
~Marianne Williamson

We tend to loose sight of just how powerful we are. We have the power to make of break someone's day, to serve, to use, to lift up and tear down others.

To speak, to live, to breath...

What are you going to do with your power?

Those who say sunshine brings happiness... have never danced in the rain!

For those of you from my old blog on yahoo 360, welcome. I may move some of the posts here when i have time.

I am realizing how important it really is to learn to dance in the rain. I see how many people do it everyday. how wounded we all are.

I have been looking at and understanding things differently lately. becoming more in tune with creation and the Creator. I feel so filled i could burst yet so empty i could implode. tremulously blessed and blessed tremulously. yeah tremulously not tremendously. i am shaking. So filled with the power of Yahweh, it's scary!

There are no guarantees and nothing stays the same, but the journey... the journey we take alone and how we journey together is what makes the difference. I believe that there are times when those who are strong falter, and those that are weak rise up. there are times when we must "fall apart" but one can never completely sever the connection with another life, another creation of the Living God. "you can no longer separate one life from another as you can separate the breeze from the wind." Even if for a time it seems like the relationship is crumbling at the foundations. even if the entire structure crumbles,the land where the building lasted has been changed and will forever bear the marks of it's foundation....

Thank God for babies...