... guilty of being you ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Hi John! Do you constantly feel guilty? Of 100 different things that you really can't control? What if I told you the things the church told you to feel guilty about aren't what you should feel guilty about? Onto that in a moment... In this week's email: Cartoon: Big smiles now people 🙂 Dad Jokes: One, two, three... 🖖 Post: Youth group memories 👀 Original: Skrr skrr ⛸️ Quote: Paging you 📄 |
| LET'S GET VULNERABLE
Vulnerability takes trust. You aren't required to expose yourself to people you aren't ready to trust yet 🧡 This cartoon is available for digital download here. |
| A man loses three fingers in a work accident. At the hospital, he asks the doctor, “Will I be able to drive with this hand?” The doctor replies, “Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it.” |
| What's the wildest thing that ever happened in your youth group? I asked this on Instagram and your responses were SO GOOD! Click here to see it. |
| Jesus Skates with the LGBTQ Sheep is one of my most fun cartoons. And the original is still available! The Church thinks it can shut people out. But in this cartoon, Jesus is all smiles with his LGBTQ friend. This is how it should always be! |
| “Boundaries are important, and learning to not feel guilty about setting them is crucial.” This is from Elliot Page's Pageboy: A Memoir. Guys… you gotta read this book. I highly recommend it. Elliot’s journey to coming out as trans is profound. The pain and suffering he went through… I’m sure many of you will identify with this. The trans journey is our journey. Coming out as our authentic selves. Yes, of course, for some of us, it is more difficult because of stigmas, etc., but all of our coming-out journeys are illustrated so well in the trans journey out. Not only that, but Elliot writes so beautifully about his pain. Poetic. Deep. Emotional. Empathic. Brave. |
| THE ONLY THING YOU'RE GUILTY OF IS BEING YOURSELF 🧡 |
| Have you learned to not feel guilty about the boundaries you’ve set? Have you learned to not feel guilty for feeling your feels? Have you learned to not feel guilty for being you? If not, why not? Something I’ve learned over the years is that if we are given a safe space to be our genuine and authentic selves, we will be. It’s the systemic oppressions and expectations of organizations and individuals and groups and societies that provoke fear in us to make us conform, comply, and cooperate with them all so that we can belong. Our most ancient ancestors would banish the uncooperative into the desert or wilderness or execution in order to maintain control and order. Now, even though we aren’t necessarily physically banished as much (although sometimes we are), we are most definitely socially banished. Social death is the new physical death. So we hide our most authentic selves to survive. I just realized in the past two weeks that even though I thought I was living outside this box of control, I still subject myself to certain limits in order to survive. Even though I am marginalized because of who I am, what I think, what I say, and what I do, the margins are still a part of the circle. It will take courage to take the next step. So, I ask again: Do you feel guilty about the boundaries you’ve set? Do you feel guilty for feeling your feels? Do you feel guilty for being you? Let’s drop this guilt together! |
| I mentioned last week that I'd share some exciting updates in this week's newsletter... well things have sort of snowballed and I can't tell you where I am (or where I'm not) just yet. As always, thank you for reading and for staying in touch. Much love, my friends! David |
| Copyright © 2021 nakedpastor, All rights reserved. No longer want to receive these emails? Unsubscribe. NakedPastor Gondola Point Road Quispamsis, NB E2E 1H6 |
| | | |