Category: blogging

Black and white drawing of a man being fired from his job and leaving the building. Text on black background: The six most satisfying decisions I made in 2020 (#4 commissioning this artwork) workthegreymatter.com

The six most satisfying decisions I made in 2020

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

I want to remember some of the positive things that came out of 2020. 

Disclaimer: I’m sharing this post because giving myself permission to do these things was a big deal for me; maybe my story will encourage other people. But I wasn’t living under a rock. I know I was lucky to be able to invest in myself in these ways. Investing in other people was also a big priority in 2020 – it’s just not one I want to blog about. 

Here are the six most satisfying decisions I made in 2020 (not necessarily in order).

Decision #1: Starting singing lessons

In Christmas 2019 I thought it might be fun to record my favourite carol: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Recording my voice has long been a dream of mine. I even bought a pre-amp before I had any microphones to plug into it. 

Anyway, by 2019 I had my mac, GarageBand and a Røde microphone – and knew how to connect them. So, I recorded myself. 

It sounded rubbish. 

Continue reading The six most satisfying decisions I made in 2020 →
Manga image of grey woman holding staff of Aaron with light showing her blue eyes

About me and my blog – April 2020 edition

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

About once a year I seem to have a good long hard think about what my blog is about and how I should present myself to the world. It’s not deliberate, but anyway — here is the latest about me, my writing, my theology and my feminism. (And the different sections of this post have now also been split over several pages on my site.) Continue reading About me and my blog – April 2020 edition →

Picture of a black grand piano with the lid raised and music rest up; the music rest is the main part of the shot; in the background there’s a camera an tripod, also microphones positioned over the piano’s soundboard. In the music rest there is a reflection of an iPad filming the piano. Also hanging on the wall in the background is a Mulan poster. Centrally are the words: Why am I making piano videos during a time of global crisis? Workthegreymatter.com

Why am I making piano videos during a time of global crisis?

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

Yesterday I spent the whole morning setting up the living room.

That meant:

  • clearing stuff off the piano, taking the cover off and lifting the lid;
  • setting up a t-bar on a microphone stand, putting in pencil mics and connecting them to a pre-amp;
  • placing a proper camera on a tripod, positioning an iPad (as a second camera) on top of a box, on top of a stool, and then angling it via use of a laptop riser stand (in the featured image for this post, you can see a reflection of the iPad in the piano’s music rest);
  • collating music books and hymns, printing copies (because books are cumbersome and prone to closing themselves when you least want them to);
  • bringing down a stool from upstairs that doesn’t creak when I sit on it and shift my weight;
  • disentangling the living room’s extension flex to serve the iPad whilst it finished charging;
  • connecting my laptop to the pre-amp and my husband’s computer speakers (the very top of the laptop is just in view behind the piano and tripod).

Oh — and I did a few practice runs before hitting record.

Before Coronavirus, yesterday had been fully booked; playing the piano would have been off the cards. As for spending most of the day setting up a recording studio in my living room, that would have been out of the question.

So, why did I do it?

Short answer: because right now, I can’t write. Continue reading Why am I making piano videos during a time of global crisis? →

Hands poised in typing over a mac laptop with the words on top: I've learnt that I can't blog about virginity without discussing violence workthegreymatter.com

I’ve learnt that I can’t blog about virginity, without discussing violence

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

A few weeks ago I had a long sit down and pondered what I blog about and how I categorise it.

One of the difficulties my readers face is that one week I’ll be posting something light and reflective, and the next I’ll be delving deep into toxic teachings and abusive practices. With such variety (volatility?) in subject matter and tone, I realised I wasn’t making it easy for people to make decisions on what to read.

So last year I introduced four categories: sunlight, firelight, moonlight and starlight. Sunlight was the uncontroversial, positively-oriented stuff that would generally be easy to read. Firelight was more stretching; it was more likely to challenge long-standing assumptions and it discussed how/why bad things are bad. Then there was the moonlight category. I reserved this for posts about the wildly unorthodox, the not-safe-for-work topics, and serious violence. After all, this blog started as a take-down of Fifty Shades of Grey.

The last category, starlight, was a wildcard, collating posts about my life and reflections — often as a blogger. This post, in case you were wondering, is starlight.

The framework helped me focus how I blogged. For example, if I wrote about hope, I might have a sunlight post discussing how God created us to have our own agency, a firelight post on how penal substitutionary atonement is problematic, and then a moonlight post carefully examining teachings about hell.

And to begin with, I thought that I’d be able to do the same with purity. But now I don’t think I can. Or at least, not when it comes to virginity. Continue reading I’ve learnt that I can’t blog about virginity, without discussing violence →

Glass bowl of pink ice cream on a wooden surface with the words: I met Sheila Gregoire! And we talked about sex, consent and blogging over ice cream. workthgreymatter.com

I met Sheila Gregoire! And we talked about sex, consent and blogging over ice cream.

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

So, Sheila Gregoire came to the UK on holiday and WE MET UP!

We had a great chat over ice cream and it was wonderful hearing her vision for her platform and her take on recent events in the marriage/sex blogging world.

So, if you’ve not heard of her, she runs To Love, Honour & Vacuum.

Her topic is sex (for married, Christian, heterosexual couples) and she finds that a lot of people come to her blog for sex and begin to deconstruct a number of their (false) complementarian beliefs. Which is an absolutely fabulous work.

Continue reading I met Sheila Gregoire! And we talked about sex, consent and blogging over ice cream. →
Manga image of grey woman holding staff of Aaron with light showing her blue eyes

About me and about my blog – April 2019 edition

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

Extract from artwork created by Siku (@theartofsiku, www.TheArtOfSiku.com).

I updated my ‘About Me’ page. It won’t be the last time, but here’s what it now says:

I’m actually quite a shy person.

But once I’m talking, I’ll tell it as it is. I’ll say the words that aren’t being said, I’ll delve the topics that are too taboo and I’ll throw out challenges for people to wrestle with.

As for this blog, it’s a space where I write at the edges of ideas that relate to hope, sexuality and consent. I want to lean into the grey places where people haven’t yet distilled their thoughts or figured out where they want to stand. I’ll disentangle complexities and dare to re-open questions where the standard answers now seem incomplete.

In practical terms, that means I write about:

  • sex and portrayals of sex,
  • consent and consent culture,
  • purity and purity culture,
  • inclusion and transformation,
  • bodies and personhood,
  • the Bible and Christian witness.

I approach these topics as a Christian and a feminist, but also with a listening ear to the sex-positive community.  

Make no mistake, I hold a high view of the Bible and believe it to be inspired, so I ground my perspective there. However, I don’t think the Bible can be understood without – at least in some sense – recognising it is literature. I also think that the church can learn from people who are outside of the church. Certainly, this was my experience when it came to consent.

And Christians really oughta know about consent! Continue reading About me and about my blog – April 2019 edition →

Mobile with Facebook app and title: An open letter to group admins, from a borderline Aspie

An open letter to group admins, from a borderline Aspie

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

I am not your easiest of customers.

But I’m one of the most earnest.

How you treat me has a huge influence on how I feel emotionally. But you’re also in a position to influence my behaviours towards others.

That means your reach goes way beyond the Facebook groups you manage; the advice you give me today might carry years into the future, as I interact with people both online and offline. (No pressure!)

I wanted to write to you because when I make mistakes, you can greatly influence how much my mistakes end up costing people. I’ve had some great admins who’ve steered me away from pitfalls. On the flip side, there have also been times when much pain and stress was avoidable.

So I thought I’d share a collection of thoughts in the hope we might understand each other better.

Continue reading An open letter to group admins, from a borderline Aspie →
Coloured windows at Norwich Cathedral

How do I handle non-responses on social media? Yeah, not great.

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

Coloured windows at Norwich Cathedral

I saw a tweet today:

Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.
– Will Smith

It came at a timely moment. Around lunchtime today I left a comment on a Facebook post written by a woman I highly respect. I’d invested a lot in what I said. It’s now gone 9pm and there’s no response. I also saw another Facebook post this afternoon asking a great question and I commented on that too investing my creative energy and thought process again. Again, no response. I saw some great tweets and retweeted them on Twitter. Nothing.

The non-response eats at me.

And it shouldn’t.

It really, really shouldn’t.

Continue reading How do I handle non-responses on social media? Yeah, not great. →

My greatest regrets are when I was trying to be someone I’m not

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

That moment when I hit “post”, “tweet” or “publish” – I never know what the response will be.

Some of my most laborious works have been put out there with only the most meagre amounts of attention paid to them. Other times, what seemed like a passing thought has been whipped up and shared widely. Well – much more widely than my average.

Since I’ve been blogging, I’ve felt a tension between writing what I want to write and what I think people want to consume. Of course, there has to be a balance between these two. The frustration comes when I’ve written something I think people would enjoy but then don’t read. But that feeling of frustration isn’t the problem. It comes, it goes. Something didn’t work. I shrug. I move on.

The problem is the feeling of fear: You’re doing it wrong.

You’re doing it wrong.

You’re doing it wrong. Continue reading My greatest regrets are when I was trying to be someone I’m not →

Grey woman with the staff of Aaron, art by Siku

New profile picture: grey places and the art of Siku

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

Extract from artwork created by Siku, @theartofsiku  www.theartofsiku.com

If you’ve spent time on Facebook or other social media, you’ve probably seen one of those alerts telling you that a friend has changed their profile picture. You may also have noticed that some friends never seem to change their picture – and others seem to change it every week.

For myself, I’m someone who prefers to choose a picture and stick with it. But a few days ago I updated my Twitter profile and today I’ve made a similar change on this blog. Here’s why…
Continue reading New profile picture: grey places and the art of Siku →

Protest banner against 50 Shades "Not consent, not redemption, not a fairy-tale" with quotes from Fifty Shades Darker

Reflections from standing outside the Fifty Shades Darker premiere

By ChristineThis post is Starlight content.

The banner I held up during the protest outside the ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ premiere

It wasn’t as bustling or as glitz as the Fifty Shades of Grey premiere two years ago. There weren’t as many presenters and DJs to whip up the crowd; there weren’t as many fans; and there wasn’t as much press. But there were enough.

We were outside the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, London. The waist-high metal railings had been carefully placed to allow space for fans, space for VIP vehicles and narrow passages at the side for the general public to mill past. The fans who had got there early were already inside enclosed areas while the security detail urged people outside the railings to move on if they didn’t have tickets. Every now and then, you’d see one or two people together dressed in very expensive outfits and you know they actually had tickets to go inside and see the film. Everyone else was wrapped up in gloves, coats and scarves – it being February after all.

The giant screens played the Fifty Shades Darker trailer silently but on repeat throughout the evening, much as had been done with its prequel two years before. And music thumped its way across the square, providing many (myself included) with a well-needed excuse to bob up and down and keep moving. Continue reading Reflections from standing outside the Fifty Shades Darker premiere →