Engage – Page 22 – Confluence Daily

Reading Time: 4 minutesI wish we could send out an SOS to the international community begging for help. My prayer is that they recognize what’s happened to us and that someday someone will send help. My fear though is that we will be judged by our president as if we chose him and that history will not smile on that choice.

2018 will go down in history as the year that decided the fate of our democracy. The congressional races at hand matter more than we can predict at this point. There is no excuse for apathy. The price of apathy is way too high. The most effective and quite possibly only SOS we can send to the world is a 2018 election cycle that rejects Trump and what he stands for. As the world watches, we need to show them without question that we did not choose this and we never will.

Engage Weekly

May 28, 2018 Confluence

Guilt, Religion, and Sex Before Marriage

Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Old and New Testament were not kind to women; we were sold by our fathers, raped by our husbands, and even Mary was impregnated by God without consent. Female choice or pleasure is never been rewarded or even considered in the Bible(s).

Engage Weekly

May 21, 2018 Confluence

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: The Ins and Out of Period Sex

Reading Time: 2 minutesMy question is, Do you ever feel sexy or desiring of sex when you’re on your period? If yes, that’s a clue that it’s something you shouldn’t ignore, and I encourage to ask your safe and supporting partner what you just asked me: “I know that we usually abstain from sex when I’m bleeding but I’m wondering if you’d be comfortable fooling around with me when I am?”

Engage Weekly

May 19, 2018 Confluence

Royal Wedding Redux: The Real Legacy of Princess Diana – Why Royal Weddings Matter Part 7

Reading Time: 3 minutesAs the world welcomes a new “princess” today, we are reminded of another celebrated royal wedding almost four decades ago. It was a landmark event broadcast in 74 countries and watched around the world by over 750 million people—including me and my pajama-party friends!

The moment Diana stepped out of that fairy-tale-inspired glass coach on her wedding morning with endless yards of silk train magically materializing with her—”like seeing a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis,” her gown designers wrote later—she had us hook, line and sinker. Princess Diana did not invent our fascination with royalty, nevertheless, her wedding ushered in a whole new ballgame—and the world was never quite the same.

Engage

May 18, 2018 Confluence

Aspen Baker: A Better Way to Talk About Abortion

Reading Time: < 1 minuteAbortion is extremely common. In America, for example, one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime, yet the strong emotions sparked by the topic — and the highly politicized rhetoric around it — leave little room for thoughtful, open debate. In this personal, thoughtful talk, Aspen Baker makes the case for being neither “pro-life” nor “pro-choice” but rather “pro-voice” — and for the roles that listening and storytelling can play when it comes to discussing difficult topics.

Engage

May 17, 2018 Confluence

Homelessness Facts: Helping Houseless People Starts By Humanizing Them

Reading Time: 3 minutesHave conversations with the people in your life about this who may think visible drug use and mental health crises are because people are refusing help. The leading causes of homelessness aren’t drug addiction or mental illness. They are lack of affordable housing, unemployment, and poverty. Many houseless individuals are employed.

Engage

May 16, 2018 Confluence

9-1-1 What’s your emergency? Yes, It Even Happened to Bob Marley’s Granddaughter

Reading Time: 7 minutesNext time you decide to call the police, if you can, and your life is not in imminent danger, please pause. First fully assess the situation. Take a deep breath. Do you need to call the police? Or is it just your sense of pristine dignity that just got offended?

Just know that if it is a person of color that you are calling the cops about, you may have just lynched the person.

Engage

May 15, 2018 Confluence

Choose Radiance: Princess Diana, Mr. Trump & the Best Revenge

Reading Time: 5 minutesI don’t know what it will take in such wide-reaching murkiness for each of us to keep our hearts open, not act out of fear nor lash out in anger; to reclaim the benevolent “values of the feminine”—to find our “radiance.” But whatever it takes, whatever smallness we have to let go of, whatever feelings of anger or self-doubt we need to transmute into positive energy, it’s essential so that we light the way for our daughters and granddaughters, our nieces and great-nieces, ensuring a chance for them to shine their own unique and powerful magnificence.

It’s time to declare, the wise-woman vote is in: “choosing radiance over retaliation” is the best revenge!

Engage Weekly

May 12, 2018 Confluence

Wedding Vows: Diana, Kate and Meghan, Why Royal Weddings Matter Part 6

Reading Time: 3 minutesI look forward to the upcoming royal wedding, the marriage ceremony of Harry and Meghan—not just for the “glam and glitter,” but especially to be present to the intimate recognition of the other, the deep listening of love in action, and the “set the world on fire” changes possible when wedding vows are made inside a spiritual partnership like both of these modern-day princes and their beloveds have created. All of life, then, becomes an awakening to “love and cherish.”

Certain wedding “traditions”—royal or otherwise—are indeed outdated and need tossing aside; others are keepers in their own right. Then there are those traditions that simply need the wisdom of a woman’s touch!

Engage

May 11, 2018 Confluence

I’m White. I’m Privileged. And I’m Not Ashamed, but I am Accountable

Reading Time: 6 minutesThis is a moment in history that is demanding more from us than any of us expected, maybe even more so if you’re white. There is a fight going on for equality right now, in the streets and in the soul of this nation. Not choosing a side is in fact, choosing a side by default.

If you’re white, no one is asking you to be ashamed of your privilege. So, you can quit pretending you don’t have it. You can quit feeling attacked when someone points out the obvious. However, history is requiring that you’re accountable for that privilege you can’t hide. It’s ok. I can’t hide mine either.