A Shiny, Resilient Hold

This will come as a surprise to pretty much everyone who didn't know me during my formative years, but from about the age of 13 to the age of 17, my sincere goal was to pursue a career in ministry. Raised in a Mennonite home with my father as a minister himself, I was exposed to, and encouraged to investigate intersectional faith relationships and teachings. Contrary to the image that many will conjure when picturing a ministers daughter, my experience of faith exploration was one of community, scholarship, and respect for the multiplicity of belief systems around the world. There was also an underlying thrumb of violence, which was so powerful that it put me off the pursuit of any sort of moral community for 17 years. I hesitate as I write this, because to be so bald faced with my experience continues to jar me. It feels like a threat to say aloud. But even in the fairly liberal reaches of the Mennonite church, violence was and is taking place against LGBTQ people, women,...

“Mind if we join you, old-timer?” “Join me, m’son. Join me.” “You work for the railroad, grandpa?” “I work for no man.” -O Brother Where Art Thou What is an oracle? Our histories, our cultures, our families, have centred around this mysterious figure for centuries. Somewhere in our collective thought, there exists a person we all seek. They are the voice of our own introspection; that “gut instinct,” the urge to move forward in our lives and seek resonance with someone and something other than ourselves. We cling to them as a guide. What I find interesting about the oracles in our lives is that 1) we consistently attribute them to outside forces (they are our friends, our ancestors, our books) and 2) we so fervently believe in our capacity for futures that we have created an archetype for individual inspiration.  The oracle as an outside force, I believe, says something about our need for other people in our lives to act as enrichers. Isolation is devastating, a...