Engage – Page 21 – Confluence Daily

Reading Time: < 1 minute When women run for office the reasons they do it are far and wide more personal than political. More women are running for office than ever before. Record numbers of women making the very vulnerable decision to run for office, many without the support of the systems that have elected their career politics opponents.

Most political ads are a bunch of campaign mumbo-jumbo intended to build name recognition. This one is different. This candidate is different. Buckle up, buttercup. Meet MJ Hegar, she’s running for Congress in Texas District 31. It’s personal for this woman on yet another mission.

Engage

June 21, 2018 Confluence

Peace on Earth

Reading Time: 4 minutes Spiritual practices are not just for us. Spiritual practices and beliefs are personal, yes. Often we are born into specific belief systems and taught certain practices when we are very young. We then grow into adulthood and come to a place where we adopt those beliefs and practices by choice. We make them our own, or we don’t – we drop them and choose new beliefs and new practices, and our choices are deeply personal.

But as personal as those choices are, (I cannot choose yours and you cannot choose mine), we still do well to understand why we’ve chosen the specific beliefs and practices that we have.

Why?

I can’t answer that question for you. But I do want to ask it, of you, and of myself.

Engage Weekly

June 13, 2018 Confluence

WHY ROYAL WEDDINGS MATTER, PART 9: WHAT THE VEIL REVEALS: MEGHAN FOLLOWS DIANA’S LEAD

Reading Time: 4 minutes Both Kate and Meghan followed Diana’s lead with their veils, bringing this spirit of beauty—femininity and stillness, sacred yet seductive—into the hearts of modern brides worldwide. And, in turn, Meghan brought a fresh modernity to the bridal veil beyond any “fairy princess myth” into something so irresistibly feminine and confident about feeling beautiful and mysterious: Cocooned in sheer silk tulle with her veil floating behind—leaving “princess blessings” in her wake—and being revealed into the eyes of her beloved.

Engage Informed

June 12, 2018 Confluence

Trump and Kim Jong Un: We Will Be Known By the Company We Keep

Reading Time: 4 minutes I 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 minutes The 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 minutes My 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 minutes As 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 minute Abortion 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 minutes Have 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 minutes Next 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.