Rebel Nation Blog

Grace is the revolution Grace is stepping into the unknown Grace is willingness to fail Grace is being open to hearing how you have hurt others and changing your response to life instead of using defensiveness to cope Grace is knowing that something bigger than you is giving you strength Grace is knowing you have no control and being ok with that knowing Grace is the silence between the hard conversations Grace is the light in the darkest hour Grace is total surrender Grace i

I grew up hearing “love one another.” It was a phrase woven into the fabric of the culture I grew up in in Utah. Often said, rarely practiced. Today was the first time that I actually heart it in scripture, read out loud directly from the Bible in church. Us Episcopals are so good with our liturgy (wink wink, nudge nudge). “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.” By loving others we expand love into the world. Loving others means giving

A revolution begins with one person doing one thing. We think of a revolution as a monumental event — the tea party, civil rights, women’s rights. Events of such great magnitude they forever change how people live their lives. But, that is just the end result. The crash of a wave where it all comes to a head. Where shit gets real on a large scale. That’s not where it starts though. It starts with that one person doing that one thing and then that one thing becomes two, and so

Last week I posted this article about tea on my Facebook page. According to the article for the English, “poor women drinking tea, might threaten the wholesome diet of British peasants, overturn hierarchies and be at the root of a secret revolutionary society.” For the Irish, “Tea was a waste of time and money, luring working girls away from their never ending husband and home-tending duties.” This past weekend as I was sitting at a table with 18 glorious women drinking my te

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my motivation. What motivates me? What gets me going? What keeps me engaged in the quest for justice? Metallica. Metallica motivates me. For my entire teenage life Metallica was often the only thing that kept me going. I was a struggling kid in a pretty violent household who wanted to rebel in all the worst ways so I played it as loud as possible as often as possible to piss of my parents and basically any adult anywhere near me. #quest

When is the last time you got a juicy love letter? Dear you, Yes YOU. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for gracing me with your delicious, juicy, magical ways. Thank you for becoming a part of my community and sharing with me all of the way that my words and my voice inspire you. Dear you, Yes YOU. Thank you for choosing to wake up every single day and keep going. Thank you for pursuing your dreams. Thank you for thinking it may not be a gigantic thing but I am going to ta

Be strong in love and in the strength of its power. Put on the whole armor of love, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of doubt and fear. Therefore take up the whole armor of love so that you may be able to withstand days of doubt, and having done everything to stand firm in love. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of courage. Dr. Bird’s take on Ephesians 6:10-20 Create some mayhem, raise some hell.

When I was sitting in church last Sunday the sermon was all about abundance. When I was sitting in the Women’s Conference at Netroots Nation the conversation was all about abundance. In fact, one of my new favorite humans, Michele Jawando said, “Throw off the shackles of limitation in the spaces that you are. You walk away with bounty when you have an abundance of ideas.” I have abundance in a great many ways. I have a home, food, water, a car. I have safety, love, hugs. I

My vote doesn’t count they said. The Supreme Court isn’t a big deal they said. The lesser of 2 evils they said. She is worse they said. I wish I could explain to you the depths of the anger I feel towards you. My birth control will never get taken away they said. I can still make a living they said. It doesn’t matter if he becomes president, he won’t do anything THAT bad they said. She is worse they said. I wish I could explain to you the depths of the anger I feel towards yo

Last night I broke my cardinal rule. I picked a fight with a total stranger on Facebook. It made me cry all night and all morning. It took me all the way until this afternoon to gather my wits and apologize publicly, which I did. Yes, the impenetrable Dr. Bird has a heart and cries…a lot. She also has the grace and wisdom to know when she is being combative. In order to process this I called all of my posse. I needed wisdom from my best girls. My conversation with my friend

I have been reflecting back at where I was at this time last year. My sadness was palpable. I was worried about what would happen under the current administration. It is worse than I thought it would be. In today’s Monday Mayhem, I take a look back at my words. 11/19/2016 I am broken, I am on fire. I am shriveled, I am revolutionary. I am devastated, triggered, charred, broken, silenced, shamed, saddened, heartbroken, shocked, disgusted, scared, horrified, traumatized. I am d

I am grateful for activists. I receive lots of really incredible emails on a pretty regular basis. This week I received some remarkable messages that I think are pretty great. One was from a student of mine who read the chapter about “substance use” in our textbook and took exception with the language used. He emailed the authors of the textbook and got this response: “The textbook publisher emailed me a proof of the next edition’s chapter on addiction asking me to look it ov

This week @JW4Hillary posted on Twitter that Hillary Clinton was, “guilty of writing while female”. The Internets have BLOWN UP because a WOMAN has written a book about her experience running for President. The BROS have their knickers in a twist and I am mad as hell about it. All this bitching about Hillary Clinton telling her story means it is time to get down to brass tacks. Enough is enough. It is time to infiltrate. It is time to write. It is time to run. It is time t

The events in Charlottesville, VA 10 days ago smacked me in the face and left me paralyzed. White supremacy is is NOT OK. It makes me feel gaggy in my throat with anger. It makes me damn mad. I know I am not alone in that feeling. I know that there are more of us than them. I also know that I am not surprised about what happened in Charlottesville. I see my privilege. I am white…I am middle-upper class…I am married…I am educated. People assume that makes me like them when w

December 2, 2015 I am supposed to be coding my data for my qualifying exam right now but instead I am texting my husband to tell him about another mass shooting. Another shooting that the FBI refuses to call a terror attack. See, if it causes terror I am thinking it should be called a terror attack. I just read about the record number of guns sold on Black Friday. Shootings are routine in America. We just don’t like to talk about it. Since Sandy Hook, 10 states have passed 17