“A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means I survived.”
— Chris Cleave, Little Bee
Category Archives: Quotes
Oh Mama…may it ever be my lot!
“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”
| — | Marvin J. Ashton |
The In-Between Spaces
“I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I’m coming to believe it’s in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.”
| — | Shauna Niequist |
Do You Dare?
“Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end. Submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.
Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
| — | Last lines from the book Mere Christianity from C.S.Lewis |
The “Anti”-Fair Weather Friend…
Every person has a dark side.
What defines a person with good character is not a spotless life of constant kindness, smiles and even temperament.
But rather, it’s the yearning to learn from your mistakes, applying it, making amends for them and choosing not to repeat them that defines good character.
These are the friends to keep in your life because they have stared adversity in the face and became a better person because of it.
I Am Systematically Intentioning This…
Constance, I am adopting this quote as part of my credo…not as a replacement for my relationship with God, oh God no! How could that even happen? That is like thinking that I can replace my blood type with a different one and still live.
But there is room for growing, evolving…learning…and this is a good addition.
Caveat: This will be difficult for a lot of people who have known me in the past…they will think I am being a jerk, but I am not. I simply decided that there are things that are not my fault or responsibility and I am not going to eat those plates of Sh*t on a Shingle anymore. I am just setting good and righteous boundaries that are actually far more humble than the lack of boundaries I was previously dogged by (which were a function of poor self-image which is just a mask for pride).
I choose to choose how I spend my precious. I will teach, and learn in the process.
Oh…and those of you who just now me now? You will scratch your head and wonder what’s different! Lol…it will just be the blossoming and blooming of the flower you have known.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa
Me, Too
“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.”
| — | Maya Angelou |
Excerpt from “Gone Girl”
“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.“Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much!
“And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)”
| — | ― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl |
…”and a little child shall lead them…”
Constance, I ran across this account from a blog aggregate site. I am going to post it here without much comment, other than to say yes, I am aware of the scatalogical vocabulary, and urge you to overlook it in order to access the deeper truth.
It is towering to me that there is more of the gospel expressed in the lives of hearts that are simply oriented to love, regardless of dogma, orthodoxy or persuasion.
I wonder what would happen if we all practiced this sort of love, and left the judging and convicting and convincing to the One Person in the Entire Universe Whose job it is to do those things (Mama)?
Hmmmm…
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Fuck i’m crying now
So my mother was up to her usual shit; calling me useless and entitled. Saying that I’m no longer allowed in the bathroom with a shower and I need to clean the other one by noon tomorrow morning or else keep in mind it hasn’t worked in 3 years.
I was hiding in my bedroom while my parents argued over who’s fault I was when my sister came in. She walked up to me and opened up her fist revealing a rainbow popsicle ‘best friends’ necklace. She thrust it into my hand and whispered that she wanted me to have it.
“because it’s a popsicle?” I asked
“no silly because it’s a rainbow. I know- I mean- I thought you’d like it.”
She then winked and told me that I no longer needed to worry about cleaning the bathroom because she had spent the past hour doing it for me.
This seems so petty and small until you realize that for the past two years my parents have been doing their darnest to get rid of me. My sister will admit that I’ve always been the scapegoat but since I came out it seems their attacks are more pointed.
My sister is 11. She has grown up in a homophobic home and listened to my parents bitch about “those damn gays” her entire life. A couple months ago I came out to her and told her the reason our parents have been threatening to kick me out or send me away. I explained that sometimes gay girls and gay boys are even beaten up by people, just because of who they love.
I cannot express how much her support means to me; perhaps I am not the one who’s wrong. If an 11 year old who has been taught nothing but hate, perhaps there is hope for the future.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
I Absolutely LOVED this Quote! :-)
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
| — | Douglas Adams |
Too Late?
“Make sure you tell the people you love that you love them.
Loudly and often. You never know when it might be too late.”
Too late…what is that?
I think that the sentiment behind this statement is one that is commonly grasped, and yet it is not commonly embraced…because if it was, then there wouldn’t be so much casual, callous disregard for one another as human beings.
Our eyes caress these words…while our hearts just glance right off like stones skipping along the surface of a lake…
again……………again…………again………again……again…and sink.
for good.
I think about the situations of my own life…I poured my heart into a group of individuals for over 10 years, and since I openly transitioned, I have had interactions with two of them during which I was told that I was under the influence of a demonic spirit, that I was not “submitted” to other christian people, and that I was rebellious towards God. None of these things are true, but hey, at least there was some conversation there, some acknowledgement of me as a person. And the rest…nothing.
It is as if I never was, as if we never lived, never had those one on one conversations. It is as if I am not the repository of their secrets that I am, as if I had not prayed for them, loved them. No…our connection was based strictly on what it was I could do for them…and that seems surreal to me in light of the sentiment above.
Here is the deal: we read the quotes like the one I quoted and we think “yeah, I gotta be sure I am remembering that it could be too late someday”…and then it is…too late.
Just like that.
I don’t know if there are any people that would think “too late” when I die. I cannot control that. But I do know what I can control: saying I love you to the people I do love and care for…and telling every person I meet that they are important, valuable, and lovely.
Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.
Charissa
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I have the audacity to believe that… what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land. ‘And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.’ I still believe that we shall overcome.”
Words…and Meaning
“Words never say
what I’m really saying”
Statements of being, not of preference!”
“Let’s hope this will be the year when we stop using language that invalidates transgender and nonbinary people. Our gender is as valid as everyone else’s.”
Good one for me!
“You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge. Apologize for mistakes. Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone — profusely. But don’t apologize for being who you are.”
This Is How You Lose Her
“You must learn her.
You must know the reason why she is silent.
You must trace her weakest spots.
“You must write to her.
You must remind her that you are there.
You must know how long it takes for her to give up.
You must be there to hold her when she is about to.
You must love her because many have tried and failed.
And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.
And, this is how you keep her.”
— Junot Díaz,
This Is How You Lose Her 
I Think I Like This
“Make your ego porous.
Will is of little importance,
complaining is nothing,
fame is nothing.
Will is of little importance,
complaining is nothing,
fame is nothing.
Openness,
patience,
receptivity,
solitude
is everything.”
| — | Rainer Maria Rilke |
Thinking of 4…
“Say it before you run out of time. Say it before it’s too late. Say what you’re feeling. Waiting is a mistake.”
| — | Always say it. |
Says it all for me
Day by Day by Degrees
“Flowers grow back, even
After they are stepped on.
So will I.”
My Christmas Gift To Myself
“Go where you are celebrated – not tolerated.
If they can’t see your true value and worth,
then it’s time for a new start.”
There are a number of ways that this is applicable for me…this is a good reminder for me in terms of friendships. So often I have felt like some people see being friends with me as a job or burden to be endured…and I think that I am worth more than that.
I think that maybe being friends with me is an honor and something to be treasured…at least, that is the idea that I am toying with.
Those who think otherwise, or give off that impression, well I think I can safely just invite them to move along, nothing for them to see here.
I am sick and tired of feeling guilty for being who I am.
Conversation, Dialogue, and Speech
Constance…I think this is soo salient and has huge implications. I want to encourage you to read this and consider it carefully, especially if you blog.
I would add this question: What is conversation? How does it relate to the quote below? What is dialogue? Are conversation and dialogue the same thing?
Where does correspondence fit into all this?
I have some thoughts about dialogue and especially correspondence. I am old enough to have had pen-pals when I was a child and even all the way up through adulthood (when it became correspondence). I think that dialogue is a sustained conversation that occurs over time, and that the key to fruitful dialogue leading to growing and thriving relationship is EFFORT.
Effort.
Having a relationship of any kind that is meaningful and more than just a surface association takes time.
It takes investment! Investment of self…investment of energy…investment of time. Time is really all we have, no? Thus, the spending of time on someone is in some measure the true indicator of our heart. Of course, this is given the context the relationship occurs in…obvi relationships that include distance or some form of separation as a component have to take those factors into consideration.
But once they are accounted for: distance, daily routine and commitments that are not possible to alter, etc. well, then it comes down to investing one’s self or not, and that is what takes a conversation into a dialogue and a dialogue into a relationship and a relationship into a friendship and a friendship into love…agape love, romantic love, platonic love, brotherly love, whatever…love. Where the other person matters to you more than you matter to yourself.
Anyway, please read the quote below and perhaps begin to actively position your online presence in such a way as to be strengthening things that remain instead of pass away faster than a deleted email.
And to those of you that I correspond, I am deeply thankful and grateful for you all! 🙂
“The great benefit of speech has been that it’s contextual.
It’s spoken to a particular person in a particular place at a particular time.
The great danger of writing is that it deprives speech of context.
It allows the illusion that something true in the particular can be universal. Literature and philosophy have been struggling with this tension of writing since its dawn, but its benefits and power are too great to ignore and writing has developed into a unique skill, generating great art and social movements based in finding the universal in the particular.
The problem of social media today is that it can’t sustain the inevitable issues caused when speech is treated as writing.
Social media masquerades as speech, invites the sharing of the particular, but is treated as writing. It is deprived of context, the speaker and listener removed from all that would make the act meaningful in the particular and left unable to bear the weight of the universal.”
This. True. That’s a Wrap, Gracie!
Yes. YES!
I was touched by this
Dear Constace…any of you struggle with self-loathing? Oh I know, we all at times don’t like ourselves, but that is different. I struggle with self-loathing…a lot. Self-Loathing is when you know better cognitively, you recognize that the feelings you have about yourself are inaccurate and not true in any external objective sense, but the feelings themselves just don’t care! They exist anyway, no matter what you tell them or believe.
Usually the best I can get by myself is a compromise: I will ignore you (the feelings) and you (the feelings) will hate me and we will just walk thru the day that way. And silence…well silence is like gasoline to self-loathing because it feeds the feelings and the feelings get control and feed the wrong thoughts which feed the feelings and before you know it I am in internal 5 alarm fire and human emotional conflagration.
But there is a wild card: Love. Love can break the back of the feelings and make them go away, whether it be the words of my baby or my bestie or even a stray compliment from a total stranger.
And Mama…She has saved the day so often.
Well, I saw this lil quote and it made me smile, cus yeah…this works too! Thanks Darling!!!
please
tell me which part of yourself
you hate the most
so I know exactly where to plant my lips
every time I see you
That Gift Gone Awry
She packed it, after all…after
we had eaten the pie,
fresh from the oven and then
cutting that gift gone awry.
she put it in its covering and heart
full of glad good cheer
so it was hurtful to her too
when touched with doubt and fear.
It helped a bit to know
that I was not the only one
and makes it easier to let go,
let yesterday be done.
This is How Dysphoria Feels, How I Feel
Khalil Gibran Just Beat Me UP!!
“God Said
‘Love Your Enemy’
And I Obeyed Him
And Loved Myself.”
— خليل جبران
Khalil Gibran
Umm…okay so my face just got slapped big time, yes? How about you? Do you struggle as I with self-loathing and self-hatred (and not the holy, good kind)?
Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself…so if I cannot love myself then what kind of pathetic love will have for my neighbor.
It is quite likely that self-loathing is merely a manifestation of pride and the old original bugaboo of self-worship.
Hmm…another thing to consider during Advent Waiting!
The Third…and the Last…especially the last!!
The Hidden Me
A true artist
gives their all,
even on the parts
you barely see…
especially there.
This Blessed Longing
“The celebration of Advent is possible
only to those who are troubled in soul,
who know themselves to be poor and imperfect,
who look forward to something greater to come.
“For these, it is enough
to wait in humble fear
until the Holy One Himself
comes down to us, God
in the child in the manger.
“God comes.
The Lord Jesus comes.
Christmas comes.
Christians rejoice!
“When once again
Christmas comes and
we hear the familiar carols and
sing the Christmas hymns,
something happens to us…
“The hardest heart is softened.
We recall our own childhood.
We feel again how we then felt,
especially if we were
separated from a mother.
“A kind of homesickness
comes over us
for past times,
distant places,
and yes, a blessed longing
for a world without violence
or hardness of heart.
“But there is something more—
a longing for the safe lodging
of the everlasting Father.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, December 2, 1928
You Know This is For You
“I exist in two places,
here and where you are.”
here and where you are.”
| — | Selected Poems (1965-1975) (Margaret Atwood) |
I TOTES agree with this!
“One of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face in life is choosing whether to walk away or try harder.”
Saw this quote, and it was so timely for me.
I have been wondering why I didn’t just walk away…my therapist told me that I was not capable of quitting…and by that she meant that I lacked the capacity to do just that. I am not built that way. But that is how I saw my dilemma…quit, or try harder.
Walk away…now that is a different thing. Because then you aren’t quitting anything. So from now on, one I am going to seek is to view situations thru this lense rather than the one that involves a value judgement called “quitting”.
And this way, I can always be me: resolute, firm, but yielded and surrendered in how I make my way to my various destinations…just like water.
Why “SHE”!?!
Constance…I will admit that the turn of a phrase here is tickling to my inner poetess…but I don’t like this. At all.
Cus I know far more men than women that this describes. Used to work with a bunch. Say the wrong thing and BAM!
No…I do think that women are far more likely to keep their powder dry and their matches separate.
This feels like another nail in the never ending attempt to box us into the picture frame of
Woman: either feed us, pleasure us, or leave us, cus anything other than that is them being crazy.
I don’t like this. Not at all, and I am very cranky now.
“She had a mind like a box of fireworks and hands that played recklessly with matches.” — Michael Faudet
oh MY!! Margaret Atwood has indeed nailed it!
“Here is the handful
of shadow I have brought back to you:
this decay, this hope, this mouthful
of dirt, this poetry.”
of shadow I have brought back to you:
this decay, this hope, this mouthful
of dirt, this poetry.”
| — | Margaret Atwood, Mushrooms |
How To Move On
“How do you move on?
You move on when your heart finally understands
that there is no turning back.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien
Taylor Swift says something Great!!
And I am sharing it here, putting it to service for Transgender Remembrance Day.
Sisters, brothers, who have paid in death with life and blood:
I do so solemnly swear this day to live full and free, not solely for myself but also as my weak pathetic effort to add value to your priceless selves…selves that still do shine on regardless.
May you rest in peace, and may I never rest til that last breath or all we free to find our voice and dance.
A Note To My Kid: Do Unto Others: An Open Letter from Violet About Her Gender Nonconforming Child
A Note To My Kid: Do Unto Others: An Open Letter from Violet About Her Gender Nonconforming Child.
Best Quote Ever: “My love is stronger than your hate.”
Corollary: Mama’s Love is stronger than death.
Why Don’t We Tell??
Here is why…posting this except without any further comment…she says it all:
“I was raped at 17.
My rapist was not a powerful celebrity.
He was a nobody.
But I didn’t go to the police.
I didn’t go to a hospital.
“Why don’t we tell?
“Because our skin burns with shame.
I thought my body would never get clean, not only from him but from my own stupidity and weakness.
The minute after it ended I felt like I was being torn into pieces, like I was on fire, and I just wanted to shower.
I felt crazy, confused, angry, beaten, lost, like I had a zipper running from throat to naval.
I felt more alone than I’ve ever felt before or since.
I felt like the severed pieces of my body were floating in darkness.
I felt savaged.
I felt terrified.
“Here’s what I did not feel: capable of calmly picking up the phone.
Capable of walking to the hospital and talking to one functionary after another.
Capable of filling out paperwork.
Capable of being touched by another person without exploding into flames.
Capable of functioning at all like a human being because I wasn’t a human being.
I felt like if I even went outside of my room my organs would explode out of my body.
How would I explain that to the cops?
“Ultimately, I told one person who I swore to secrecy.
Had I allowed him to tell others, my rapist would perhaps be serving time rather than serving sandwiches in the Bronx at the vegetarian restaurant he now owns.
But I believed I was to blame.
“Months passed before I told someone else, but they did not take appropriate action, and he remained free.
Years passed before I went into detail about it
— in a cover story for a newspaper, no less —
and I didn’t use his name.
Even now I allow him to have a family, a business, a good life, from what I hear, because I think to myself:
Well, he was young. Maybe he’s changed.
We contain multitudes. It’s complicated.
“Why don’t I tell?
Deep down, I still feel like that terrible girl who made something bad happen.
I think about confronting him, sure. But I do nothing.
I will do nothing. If he were a celebrity, however, you bet your f**king ass I’d tell my story.”
Dearest Friend of my heart and folds…we need your story. We need the gold.
I will walk with you…spin, lil R…spin.
Kitty Quote of the Day
Change VS Transformation
“When people says “You’ve changed”
there’s a 95% chance
that you just stopped acting
the way they wanted you to.”
— Anonymous
We GOTTA!!
“We gotta start teaching our daughters to be somebodies
instead of somebody’s.”
— Kifah Shah
OUCH! So sad that this is true.
…and I still think that my position regarding sexuality really poises each person to experience the highest and best!
Posted here to comment, but without irony
“Maturing is realizing how many things don’t require your comment.”
— Rachel Wolchin
I am holding on to this right now
So there are some pretty serious things happening in my life right now, and they are quite stressful, quite discouraging, frankly.
Well, I ran across this today, and it was a good reminder for me…but best of all, it is true.
I get distressed, very much so and quite anxious as well…and somehow have to find the courage to go on when I just want it to all be over, but it isn’t going to be, is it? Ever? Not until the very last day at last. But when that is I do not know, and how I will last until then, I do not know either.
So I am gonna try to make it thru the hour, and then the next, and then the next, and things will happen as they will.
Not an Excuse…
either don’t get drunk…
or don’t say things.
Period.
I miraculously have a couple of these! (Correction: HAD)
“The best kind of people are the ones that come into your life, and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds.
The people that believe in you so much, you start to believe in you too.
The people that love you, simply for being you.
The once in a lifetime kind of people.”
Me? I just make one up and I am good to go!
I think this is what someone who cares for me is trying to say…
“Intimacy is not who you let touch you.
Intimacy is who you text at 3am about your dreams and fears.
Intimacy is giving someone your attention, when ten other people are asking for it.
Intimacy is the person always in the back of your mind, no matter how distracted you are.”
God knows the horrors of assumption, and as is my mantra, forgive me my presumption such as it is.
This is my heart of hearts trying to yelp (See Horton Hears a Who) and break out of the cloud of unknowing that smothers and socks in with the fog of self-loathing.
You are there, always, in the back of my mind.
I SOO love the exposure of the entitlement thinking here…
the following photo was take in 1937 and captioned as follows:
In 1937 two women caused a car accident by wearing shorts in public for the first time
I read the following comment on a site where I just spotted this:
No they didn’t. The man driving his car who took his eyes off the road because he was staring at a pair of women caused a car crash. He averted his eyes from the road, he endangered other people and he crashed his own car. This is all the proof you need that we live in a society that blames women for things they didn’t do.
Constance…your assignment for today: think of all the ways that we blame shift in our society…because blame-shifting is such a common thing for humans to do anyway (hey, see Genesis: the woman blames the snake, and then Adam blames the woman, and then blames God too…).
But there are huge ways we do that culturally…rape is a good one to look at. Ways that people are either empowered with entitlement in shifting blame to women for being raped, or ways that women are violated even deeper in that they are made responsible for their own violation.
Race is another one…and the issue of “driving while black, walking while black, or fill in the blank while black” and how police authorities then blame-shift their own hatred, or fear, or whatever onto the ones they brutalize.
Religion is another, and it is a veritable tennis match as haters on both sides shift viscous volleys of blame back and forth from “those damned liberals” to “those ignorant fundies”.
And now that you are warmed up…how about just lil old you? How do you blame shift onto others? (Charissa will not comment regarding her own woodshedding with Mama regarding that Q)
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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