#if you're one of those big city left wingers who wanted to cancel chappell for playing in red states and thought texas deserved to freeze:

[wortcunningwitch]

i work with my ancestors. for this reason, as painful as it is to see my grandma decline mentally and become increasingly brainwashed by her far-right church, i still try to keep up with her life.

the whole concept of being able to love people that spew hatred towards my identity would have been a lot harder to embrace at the beginning of my practice. now, though? if they're part of my family, nothing, to me and my current practice, is more important than connecting with them.

talking to my grandma -- really relating to who she is outside of her church -- has strengthened my bond with my ancestors, which is crucial to my veneration of them. she was born just before the post-ww2 baby boom; many of her childhood memories, which she gladly shares with those who listen, are of people like my (2x-great-) grandma "goldie": born in the late 19th century, raised in the rural midwest.

my ancestor goldie is someone that i would've learned jack shit about if not for my own grandma. if i hadn't dedicated myself to pushing through the frustration of hearing my grandma's right-wing word vomit, i wouldn't even know this ancestor went by one of her middle names. i wouldn't know that she never cut her hair, and that she always wore it in a bun at the nape of her neck. i wouldn't know that she read bible stories to her grandchildren -- my grandma and her siblings -- in her living room. i wouldn't know that she used to sit under a tree with my grandma and prepare green beans to be used in stew -- a memory that my grandma shared while i was doing the exact same thing with her one day. if not for my grandma, i wouldn't get to call my ancestor goldie my grandma, too. i wouldn't be growing out my hair in her memory.

it's difficult. i know it is, especially at this super tense moment in our history. i'm a queer, disabled leftist, and to some extent, my grandma knows this. but i understand why she is the way she is. i understand, through talking to her, why she copes with her trauma through religion. she can be incredibly rude, inconsiderate, and bigoted; but somewhere underneath that front is a kind, vulnerable woman that was manipulated by a religious institution.

you can cut ties from your bigoted family. you can remove yourself from their life. none of this is wrong, unjustified, or bad. but if you're a bit like me, and ancestor work is a priority in your practice, please never underestimate the resources -- memories, heirlooms, stories -- that your relatives can provide (and google can't). your ancestors are more than a name, birthday, and death date on a page.