The thoughts and reflections shared on this page are deeply personal and represent my individual worldview as shaped by my experiences and values. They include strong opinions on politics, religion, and moral obligations that could be polarizing. My intent is not to alienate or offend but to foster open and thoughtful dialogue.
January 28, 2017
I'm sickened to read that Christians are supporting #45 - his blatant and aggressive disregard for people compells me to articulate how I feel toward the church who in many cases no longer manifests the body of Christ.
I need to split wide open
So constrained by conventions,
I exhaust myself trying to contain all that I hold inside
Frustration, anger, bafflement (something akin to disbelief or yearning to understand) - head spinning because nothing aligns anymore.
The church ordained constraints that kept me from full expression are not constraints of Jesus love. People have repurposed them for handcuffs on society, projecting their judgements on others and being judge and jury slap the handcuffs on their neighbor, self righteousness propelling the rhetoric, hamstringing love and compassion. It's inside out and I'm dismayed.
All that I've tried to clap shut within me is seeping out. Bitterness of a life lived in pleasing the church instead of authenticity, my mouth taped shut, confused because the laces that once bound me, are no longer applicable when it comes to the outward manifestation of todays' so called Christianity.
I hear individuals purring platitudes of Christian love and compassion, but how does the collective become a monster if each individual is love? What has caused the ugliness that shows not the compassion and love that is the foundation of our belief?
Rather, it is a beast searching for transgressors of the letter of the law and in finding it, devoid of love and compassion is inexorable in its judgment, forgetting they are not called to be the fist of God in a secular world, but rather they are to be the love of God in a hurting world.
The beast unleashed is hard to recall. Unstoppable in their belief that they hold the holy stamp of approval they push forward without regard.
Show me, please show me what ink wets that stamp of approval because I know with certainty it is not the blood of Christ.
- Priscilla Werdal-Phillips
Evangelical Christianity
The corset tightens
Fashioning the body into
a likeness of Christ.
Devoid of living water
Implacable, it hardens into
an alabaster statue where
the messiness of humanity is
Wiped away with a cloth of intolerance.
-Priscilla Werdal-Phillips (2017)
Maybe the heart fractures to prepare it for growth, but rather than allowing this expansion, we try desperately to fit it back together. It's chipped and cracked, suture lines clumsily held together with binder twine, in an attempt to hide the events that broke our hearts open. Wrapped so tight, the heart scarcely visible, we give the world the illusion that all is calm in the dark of night.
- Priscilla Werdal-Phillips
Mirroring Emotions
The glass bowl shatters
Words spill out
Shards without substance
Meaning splintered, lost
To glittering emotions that
Etch the skin
With a faint trail of blood
Leading back to childhood.
- Priscilla Werdal-Phillips