Benjamin Perry

Want to hear something amazing about crying? Emotional tears have higher protein concentration than irritant tears, which makes them fall down your cheeks more slowly—increasing the chance they’ll be seen and solicit care. In literal ways, your body is built for community.

Anyhow, quite proud of the hundreds of folks who showed up and showed out in 5 degree weather in our little rural town. Love your neighbors. Do anything in your power to struggle against those who snatch them from our midst. Or as I learned it growing up: Love God. Resist evil.

Blocking a road is not violence. Organizing boycotts are not violence. Following ICE agents is not violence. Alerting people is not violence. The federal push to classify all resistance as violence has one purpose: To criminalize anyone who disrupts the actual, ongoing violence.

“When masked agents disappear communities without accountability it is not time for normal order.” Never post these days, but at a protest in our lil Maine town, folks told my friends and I to leave the street b/c “this is a nonviolent protest.” So let’s talk about “violence.”

"Despair and fear are the intended outcomes of the current regime. Choosing hope subverts those intentions. It resists succumbing to a spirit of inevitability. It reclaims agency and the possibility of a different present and future." Happy Easter ❤️ open.substack.com/pub/garrettsem…

“At the heart of the Christian story is the claim that both the mother and ancestral grandmother of Jesus are migrant women on the run, looking for safety, security, and community.” - Rev. Javier Viera How we treat migrant neighbors is how we treat God. um-insight.net/perspectives/o…

“Learning to Cry is an honest, powerful, and critically important book about what we transform with our tears—and how making space for our tears can transform us and the society in which we live.”—Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @FaithfullyBP hubs.li/Q02_C-qM0

Learning to Cry is now available in paperback!!! I’m so excited to see my baby all dressed up in green, and ready to encourage more people to embrace a full emotional life. 😭😭😭 Order your copy today, wherever books are sold.

hands don’t look back don’t stop anywhere Your kindness to this disaster Look, the sun risen over the land dense smoke rising God brought out of catastrophe where Lot had lived /end

Here's a Genesis 19 blackout poem, "Saving Sodom." Full text below 😘🌈 The two angels arrived and spend the night insisted so strongly that we can have sex I who have slept with a man can do what you like kept bringing pressure The outcry so great the angels urge “Hurry!“ /1

Available NOW wherever you get your podcasts and tonight at 6:30pm on Radio 4 - ep 4️⃣ of Best Medicine! @DrLindseyFitz practices Ritual 💀 Dr Claire Roddie champions CAR T-Cells 🧫 Fatiha El-Ghorri spouts Water 💧 Rev Ben Perry on Crying 😭 Pod: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bes…

This stunning illustration was drawn by Karina Cruz Ortiz for @GarrettSeminary, the cover of their new magazine. Please, go read President Viera’s cover story. “We cannot idolize the manger without contending with the filth into which Jesus was laid.” issuu.com/shane206/docs/…

The image on my heart this Christmas. “At the end of a year when the country’s loudest voices repeatedly demonized migrants, Advent demands empathy—and a reckoning with how we act as Christians in the days to come.” - Javier Viera, “Our Migrant God.”

Breaking my Twitter reclusion for a Halloween reminder that my incredible partner (horror queen E.K. Sathue) has a SubStack (co-written with the inimitable @Gaby_Moss). If you like spooky vibes and funny nonsense, you should check out 👇 iknowwhatyoudidlastfriday.substack.com/p/i-know-what-…

Here’s the full text if you want to read ❤️ benjaminperry.substack.com/p/ode-to-a-rai…

a teacher turned my poem into a bulletin board for their students 😭😭😭

I got some really good news yesterday! There’s this medical thing that I need that I thought was at least a year off if not closer to 2 years. I got a call yesterday that it’s happening in less than 2 months!!! Of course the obstacle now is about $5000😬 venmo.com/u/NeyhartJN

UPDATE: The school board voted last night to reinstate protections for trans students 😭😭😭 This is what is possible when communities come together and seize power from people who use it for harm—we can make sure every child knows they are safe, welcome, and loved.

Honored to write with @RevJacquiLewis and the ministers of @middlechurch for @RNS: “Voting is not about anointing a savior but doing the hard work of building a society where love and life can flourish.” religionnews.com/2024/07/31/tru…

The question isn’t whether a dying beast will, in fact, die. The question is how many people will it take with it? How many wars will it start? How many lives and lands will it destroy? How much more will we let it take from the world?

What an absolutely inspiring organizing story—uncompromising solidarity with trans youth rights backed by independent mass politics wins in rural Maine. So many lessons to take from this.