Elevate Difference

Reviews by Jillian Vriend

Jillian Vriend

Jillian Vriend is founder of Breva Healing, a spiritual and emotional healing path for embodying qualities of the Divine Feminine for both women and men. She offers frequent musings felt through the lens of the Divine Feminine in her blog Breva Woman. She advocates through Breva for gender equality, end of violence and abuse against women, and for deeper embodiment through Breva healing sessions of feminine qualities such as compassionate care, stillness, community connection, intimacy, and passion. Breva offers an increasing sense of balanced expression of our divinity and humanity freed from the constraints of middle man guru, fundamentalist church systems, and patriarchal pictures of enlightenment attainment.

Jillian has published numerous articles about small business, poetry, short stories, and received an academic scholarship award for writing. She is currently writing a book about Breva titled Breva: Sacred Human, Arising Wonder.

Voices of Witness Africa

Voices of Witness Africa honors the truth and plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Anglicans in Africa, who have often been excommunicated by the Anglican Church. This is an admirable task for the producers of this film, since their target audience is Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference, a meeting of bishops which happens once every ten years. The producers must work not to overly offend the church bishops that they are trying to win over. However, this tension to represent various sides of the issue leaves the film with a sense of having been diluted to be palpable.

Take It From Me

Take It From Me makes an emotional statement even more than a political one. This documentary film chronicles the time period after the passing of the 1996 Personal Responsibility Act, which placed a five-year limit on public assistance. Emily Abt, the producer and director, is a former social caseworker in New York City. She offers us the daily lives of four women who are struggling against great odds to raise themselves and their children up out of poverty.