It has been snowing for days where I live with no end in sight. The suffocatingly beautiful kind of snow, and I’m gifted with a fresh blanket of purity every morning. Aesthetically, the world outside is breath-takingly gorgeous. Spiritually, the world outside is becoming smaller and the tiny life I live has become more clear. My community is in focus and the noise of the globe is muted in the trappings of the weather. The people before me, the Native... Read more
Christmas 2017 was the fifth consecutive year I have not attended church services during the season. My children have never experienced being in a children’s ministry Christmas program. I do not have any pictures of them dressed up on stage singing Christmas songs with their Sunday school classmates. It’s been a little strange as my childhood Christmas memories are synonymous with church memories. However, I have been unable to participate in church after deconstructing. When I lost my fundamental religion,... Read more
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) The world has gone mad it seems. Everyday it is increasingly becoming more difficult to make sense of this new normal or this new America. It appears that we’ve followed the white rabbit into a hole that has lead us into a land of confusion and exhausting cognitive dissonance. We are being told that what we are seeing and hearing are complete lies. This... Read more
If you aren’t an ex-evangelical or former fundamentalist Christian, you may be scratching your head wondering how professed “Jesus followers” could vote for Roy Moore. You may be puzzled watching the Republican National Committee endorse and fund Moore’s campaign. Perhaps you’re bewildered watching Moore’s supporters sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “How Great thou Art” as the results began to swing in favor of Doug Jones on election night. Maybe you’ve been puzzled watching faith leaders such as Jerry Falwell Jr., James... Read more
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away Wild, wild horses we’ll ride them some day.” –The Rolling Stones I’ve always been in love with horses. The thought of riding a horse into the wild excites my spirit with feelings of freedom and escape of all that I want to run from. There has always been so much to run from. Mostly chains placed upon me by other people and systems I never asked for. The shackles of oppression came in the... Read more
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” 1 John 4:8 During the Obama years, and since, if you are left-leaning, democrat, or a liberal, you may have heard insults that you are “godless”. This seems to be the rhetoric of the religious right. If you are not one of them, you are a heathen and are among the secular “godless”. I am among you if you have been called any of these things. In fact, just... Read more
I watched a lot of female mice being raped during my senior year of college. Yes, you read that right. I was part of an insanely hilarious group of psychology students whom embarked on a research project to compare human sexual behavior to sexual behavior in mice. Our hypothesis was that the male mice would do anything they needed to do to get laid, and that the male mice would fall asleep directly after sex. Observing hours upon hours of mice,... Read more
Confession: I am a hypocrite. This year specifically I have violated my first and foremost belief, one that I have been preaching my entire life: To love my neighbor as myself. I’ve spent a lifetime pushing back against Christianity. I’ve fought to expose the blatant hypocrisy and incongruence to Jesus’ core values. My life has been lived out in the open, no secrets, all sins laid bare. I’ve drank and abused alcohol, smoked cigarettes, lived with boyfriends, bartended, advocated for... Read more
My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn’t ‘Til I grew up, now I blew up, it makes you sick to ya stomach Doesn’t it? Eminem Last night during the Hip Hop Awards, Eminem gave an explosive freestyle rap, blasting Trump, and drawing a line in the sand to his fans. Either you’re on the side of his, or you’re on the side of Trump. He showed courage and the ultimate middle finger to... Read more
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive” –C.S. Lewis I grew up in a fanatical world of Christianity that set me on course to be part of a movement, a culture war, to take the country back for Christ. This meant voting Republican, being anti-LGBTQ, pro-life, pro-war, pro-gun, pro-prayer in schools, anti-evolution, anti-feminist, and anti-science. I want to express that there are so many innocent players in this movement,... Read more
Kimberly Stover
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