Beth Wise

Tag: the church

  • Welfare Queens and Other Lies My Hard Heart Believed

    Welfare Queens and Other Lies My Hard Heart Believed

    I grew up in West Texas- land of wide-open spaces, sky high teen pregnancy rates, and a colorblind racial ideology that masks racism instead of confronting it. In colorblind ideology, it is impolite to talk about someone’s race. I remember hearing a story about a friend who was trying to tell her son which store…

  • Guest Post: Don’t Be a Boob

    Guest Post: Don’t Be a Boob

    (Welderbeth here: A friend has written an anonymous guest post for today. I think the post is great. She is great. This is all great.) I was around third or fourth grade when my friend Cindy’s grandmother looked at me and said, “It’s about time you covered those with a bra!” If I had any…

  • Let’s Keep It: Confession

    Let’s Keep It: Confession

    I once went to a movie with a boy that I liked. It wasn’t a date, exactly. I don’t remember him paying- it was just more like two friends going to a movie, with one of them being a nervous weirdo. After the movie, he opened the door of his truck for me (this wasn’t…

  • Sermon: Communal Lament and Modern Sackcloth

    Sermon: Communal Lament and Modern Sackcloth

    My friend Sarah and I preached on Lamentations 4 on Sunday. You can listen to it here. Here’s a written excerpt from my conclusion: People of privilege, I interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to give you good news. God does miraculous things in the midst of suffering and we do not have to be left…

  • Can you Hear Me Now?

    I’ve been thinking alot about tone policing this week. It’s a term I learned in an anti-racist context, as in white people tone police people of color when they’re talking about their experiences. In essence, it’s saying, “I can’t hear you unless you can talk about this calmly and rationally.” It’s just another way to…

  • The Cancer Scare

    The Cancer Scare

    It’s no surprise that children’s hospitals can be really depressing places to be. After taking guardianship of The Baby, he was (still) in the NICU for about a month. It was my first time spending any length of time at a children’s hospital and, despite the hospital’s best efforts, it could get very grim. One…

  • Our Joy is Resistance

    Our Joy is Resistance

    I used to be fun. Fun, like silly and laughy. Kind of an entertainer. I don’t think I’m that fun currently. That’s a hard statement for me to write , actually, because I feel like a large part of my identity has hinged on being happy and funny and joyful. In the last several months,…

  • The Wilderness

    The Wilderness

    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it…

  • On Being LGBT+ Affirming

    On Being LGBT+ Affirming

    I was a mere 21 years old when I got married. My uncle officiated our wedding. Before the wedding, my then-fiancee, now-husband,  Alex, and I drove down to Corpus to do some premarital counseling sessions and stay with my aunt and uncle. After one of these sessions, Alex and I got ready to leave and…

  • God, My Mother

    I broke my left arm shortly before I started 3rd grade. I was at daycare and someone challenged me and a friend to a piggy back race, so I loaded her up on to my back and we took off. I should have known better, right? I mean, I was not known for my athletic…