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cassianus · 1 year

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An examination of conscience from "The Way of the Pilgrim":

Turning my eyes carefully upon myself and watching the course of my inward state, I have verified by experience that I do not love God, that I have no religious belief, and that I am filled with pride and sensuality. All this I actually find in myself as a result of detailed examination of my feelings and conduct, thus:

1. I do not love God. For if I loved God I should be continually thinking about Him with heartfelt joy. Every thought of God would give me gladness and delight. On the contrary, I much more often and much more eagerly think about earthly things, and thinking about God is labor and dryness. If I loved God, then talking with Him in prayer would be my nourishment and delight and would draw me to unbroken communion with Him. But, on the contrary, I not only find no delight in prayer, but even find it an effort. I struggle with reluctance, I am enfeebled by sloth, and am ready to occupy myself eagerly with any unimportant trifle, if only it shortens prayer and keeps me from it. My time slips away unnoticed in futile occupations, but when I am occupied with God, when I put myself into His presence every hour seems like a year. If one person loves another, he thinks of him throughout the day without ceasing, he pictures him to himself, he cares for him, and in all circumstances his beloved friend is never out of his thoughts. But I, throughout the day, scarcely set aside even a single hour in which to sink deep down into meditation upon God, to inflame my heart with love of Him, while I eagerly give up twenty-three hours as fervent offerings to the idols of my passions. I am forward in talk about frivolous matters and things which degrade the spirit; that gives me pleasure. But in the consideration of God I am dry, bored and lazy. Even if I am unwillingly drawn by others into spiritual conversation, I try to shift the subject quickly to one which pleases my desires. I am tirelessly curious about novelties, about civic affairs and political events; I eagerly seek the satisfaction of my love of knowledge in science and art, and in ways of getting things I want to possess. But the study of the Law of God, the knowledge of God and of religion, make little impression on me, and satisfy no hunger of my soul. I regard these things not only as a non-essential occupation for a Christian, but in a casual way as a sort of side-issue with which I should perhaps occupy my spare time, at odd moments. To put it shortly, if love for God is recognized by the keeping of His commandments (If ye love Me, keep My commandments, says our Lord Jesus Christ), and I not only do not keep them, but even make little attempt to do so, then in absolute truth the conclusion follows that I do not love God. That is what Basil the Great says: 'The proof that a man does not love God and His Christ lies in the fact that he does not keep His commandments'.

2. I do not love my neighbor either. For not only am I unable to make up my mind to lay down my life for his sake (according to the Gospel), but I do not even sacrifice my happiness, well-being and peace for the good of my neighbor. If I did love him as myself, as the Gospel bids, his misfortunes would distress me also, his happiness would bring delight to me too. But, on the contrary, I listen to curious, unhappy stories about my neighbor and I am not distressed; I remain quite undisturbed or what is still worse, I find a sort of pleasure in them. Bad conduct on the part of my brother I do not cover up with love, but proclaim abroad with ensure. His well-being, honor and happiness do not delight me as my own, and, as if they were something quite alien to me, give me no feeling of gladness. What is more, they subtly arouse in me feelings of envy or contempt.

3. I have no religious belief. Neither in immortality nor in the Gospel. If I were firmly persuaded and believed without doubt that beyond the grave lies eternal life and recompense for the deeds of this life, I should be continually thinking of this. The very idea of immortality would terrify me and I should lead this life as a foreigner who gets ready to enter his native land. On the contrary, I do not even think about eternity, and I regard the end of this earthly life as the limit of my existence. The secret thought nestles within me: Who knows what happens at death? If I say I believe in immortality, then I am speaking about my mind only, and my heart is far removed from a firm conviction about it. That is openly witnessed to by my conduct and my constant care to satisfy the life of the senses. Were the Holy Gospel taken into my heart in faith, as the Word of God, I should be continually occupied with it, I should study it, find delight in it and with deep devotion fix my attention upon it. Wisdom, mercy, love, are hidden in it; it would lead me to happiness, I should find gladness in the study of the Law of God day and night. In it I should find nourishment like my daily bread and my heart would be drawn to the keeping of its laws. Nothing on earth would be strong enough to turn me away from it. On the contrary, if now and again I read or hear the Word of God, yet even so it is only from necessity or from a general love of knowledge, and approaching it without any very close attention, I find it dull and uninteresting. I usually come to the end of the reading without any profit, only too ready to change over to secular reading in which I take more pleasure and find new and interesting subjects.

4. I am full of pride and sensual self-love. All my actions confirm this. Seeing something good in myself, I want to bring it into view, or to pride myself upon it before other people or inwardly to admire myself for it. Although I display an outward humility, yet I ascribe it all to my own strength and regard myself as superior to others, or at least no worse than they. If I notice a fault in myself, I try to excuse it, I cover it up by saying, 'I am made like that' or 'I am not to blame'. I get angry with those who do not treat me with respect and consider them unable to appreciate the value of people. I brag about my gifts: my failures in any undertaking I regard as a personal insult. I murmur, and I find pleasure in the unhappiness of my enemies. If I strive after anything good it is for the purpose of winning praise, or spiritual self-indulgence, or earthly consolation. In a word, I continually make an idol of myself and render it uninterrupted service, seeking in all things the pleasures of the senses, and nourishment for my sensual passions and lusts.

Going over all this I see myself as proud, adulterous, unbelieving, without love to God and hating my neighbor. What state could be more sinful? The condition of the spirits of darkness is better than mine. They, although they do not love God, hate men, and live upon pride, yet at least believe and tremble. But I? Can there be a doom more terrible than that which faces me, and what sentence of punishment will be more sever than that upon the careless and foolish life that I recognize in myself?

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puppydogsys · 1 year

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What is being angel kin like!! For you and also what does it seem like it’s typically like for others

ah ty for asking! it got super long so im putting it below a read more lol

ok for me its... a bit complicated? like, i know im an angel, both physically and mentally. that's just a fact to me. fuck its harder to describe than i thought... ok. so like, it can definitely be looked at as trauma put through the lens of jewish ideas of angels? its an inherent identity and one ive had for as long as i can remember but thats a decent way to explain it i suppose. i wont go crazy trying to describe it but the main points i connect with are the ways angels are created, and the idea that humans are holier and closer to HaShem than angels. angels are one-dimensional, they have no free will, and were created by HaShem to do one specific task, or created from the actions of a human. Humans on the other hand are multifaceted, they are given the choice to listen or not, the human soul is capable of emotions and like serves HaShem in many ways etc etc. the human soul is a piece of HaShem, where angels are a mere creation. this is all a very basic and rough/bad explanation of the religious stuff so forgive me for that. i think the religious aspect of this is important to me for sure, but a big part of it is how those truths tie into my own life and perception of myself. i wont go super into my trauma details but it made me feel like i was created solely to follow rules in service of humans (not rly in a positive way), and like i'm inherently lesser than them down to my very soul.

and for others in the community, idk i just mostly see posts talking in flowery language about feeling holy and pure and protecting humanity and stuff. all of the aesthetics are gold/white/soft, lots of flowing fabrics, classical music, poetry, love, beautiful things. it all feels very rooted in that to me? i dont identify with p much any of those things. thats not what being an angel looks/feels like to me. its grey, difficult, kind of ugly, lonely in a darker way. i could probably go into better detail about how that all feels when my brain isnt quite so mushy. but yeah so when i see anything i start to identify with more, it falls more into demonkin or fallen angel stuff, but neither of those is true for me. maybe im just the odd man out here? who knows.

another big part of it is the emphasis on christianity & solely focusing on being an angel from that lens. as a jew, that doesnt work for me lol, there are just deep fundamental differences in how we view angels/G-d/humans/heaven/etc. its easy to connect over the physical parts of this (phantom wings, etc), but yeah its been hard for me to find anything i really connect with about the identity part.

i could fully be misinterpreting or not seeing the parts of the community i'd connect with better. but as of right now this has been my experience! i would absolutely Love to hear from other angels about their experience with their identities and the community and stuff.

this got kinda long lol, and i know there was other stuff i had wanted to add but i think this is plenty 😅

#i forgot how bad i am at explaining myself lollll #hope this makes at least some sense #cutieposts

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zerozeroren · 1 year

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Okay, so this is a different question from the other ones. I'll lay off on the musical geeking.... for now. But here's my question about Sophie AND Tony! (Yay!)

Are either of them religious or spiritual? Or did they used to be at some point in their lives? Tony, being Italian with a large extended family in Italy that has been described as "traditional", absolutely strikes me as being raised Roman Catholic. I kinda see him as like, not really being all that religious at this point in time. I totally imagine him being baptized at birth, attending Catechism classes as a child, and even participating in First Communion, but probably not being "Confirmed" and sort of just drifting away from the church. Like, he might still consider himself Catholic by technicality, but he doesn't attend church regularly or even go "just as an Easter and Christmas thing", and certainly doesn't follow the teachings of Catholicism. Similarly to myself, he might wear a saint medallion-- but it's not because he feels any connection to _that_ saint, moreso he might wear it as a means to feel more connected to his family. (Like I often wear a St. Christopher medallion, not because I feel a connection to him or because he's my favorite saint, but because it makes me feel connected to my maternal uncles that passed away early in life and I never got to meet them.)

Sophie definitely feels like she would be Jewish. Like I totally imagine Sophie as a little girl with her mother, preparing for Chanukah, helping her mother make Latkes, playing with a Dreidel with her brothers, and listening wide-eyed to her mother or father share stories of the strength and resilience of her Jewish grandparents, especially during WWII, and what that means to her. But I can just as easily imagine a Christian Sophie becoming disillusioned and distrusting with her denomination, and Christianity in general, and being disgusted with how they treat marginalized groups and women, and becoming angry with it all and vocally repenting - giving up her role as a Christian, as it doesn't align with her personal beliefs and morality, and definitely going through a cynical period of religion and Christianity... then finally once she reaches her late 20s/early 30s, not necessarily coming back to the church, but possibly being at a point in her life where she considers herself Agnostic on the topic of whether or not "God" exists.

At least, that's my personal theory... I could totally be wrong though.

Okay attempt to answer №2, now with less details and enthusiasm

So yeah you are correct in both cases, Tony is Catholic and Sophie is Jewish

Tony did grow up in a very traditional Italian family, he was baptized and went to church and everything else. The Catholic rituals were a big part of his early childhood. His late grandfather specifically was a very devoted Christian and Tony often accompanied him to church because it was a way to get closer to his beloved Nonno. However as Tony was growing older the started to drift away from church practices. His parents are both atheists (Mom being completely unreligious and Dad a "going through the motions on major holidays" variety), so it was a natural development for him. Tony still has beliefs, they're just detached from the church and its regulations. Basically he believes in being kind, not hurting others and helping those in need. But his beliefs are "between him and god", so to say.

Sophie is indeed Jewish (posting this art from i believe 2020, because I still really like this sweater XD).

Sophie's deal is that she's very detached from her roots, in more ways than one. She grew up in a Jewish community, but neither of her parents were the kind to teach her about spirituality and traditions or encourage her to learn on her own (I'd recommend that long post to get a bigger picture of Sophie's family life and why it is the way it is). Sophie feels conflicted about religion, neither in nor out. Her lifestyle is pretty much secular, but she definitely could use a good tale of strength and resilience. She feels the connection and longing, but doesn't know how to apply it or what to do with it.

Here's a panel from a comic i abandoned in, i believe, November, where Sophie's pondering a stand-in for a sufganiyah in the middle of a Christmas fair

#oc lore #sophie brannt #tony leventini

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writing-good-vibes · 3 years

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brad dourif characters x reader headcanons: marriage

marriage isn't for everyone but if you did tie the knot, there is no way it wouldn't be a wild ride with all of them, one way or another. warning for smut (mild).

charles lee ray

no one could ever accuse this man of being a romantic

(except he really, really is)

legally he doesn't care if you get married or not

but you suggest it first (not a proposal) and you both mutually agree to it

then he sort of proposes (with a ring and flowers) after you've already agreed

if you want a legal marriage it would have to be before any of his murders are he is known to the police

(he's already known for petty crime but getting married would really blow his cover if he's already a wanted murderer)

you go to the nearest courthouse and have a bare minimum ceremony

he wears the nicest suit he already owns

and you go out and get a white dress that you could wear again to a bar

you sign the papers

then you consummate your love in the ladies toilets

whether you go on honeymoon depends on how much money you have at the time

either you go to a tacky wedding motel or you stay in and don't leave the apartment for a week

either way you're having a lot of sex

like seriously

jack dante

it's hard work to get him to actually go through with the wedding

he is actually the one to propose to you

after sex of course

"babe, we should like, get hitched"

he means it, he does, but maybe in a more metaphorical way??

it takes some nagging but you finally get him to go down to the courthouse with you

there is definitely a legal/financial aspect of your marriage

like he may be the wild card employee but he gets paid ludicrously well for everything he contributes to the company (and to try and keep a little bit under control)

if something happened to him (and he has no doubt one day bob might just have him bumped off) he may as well give everything to you, there's no one else for it to go to

neither of you dress up for the ceremony

but you do buy some tacky bridal lingerie to wear underneath

another bare minimum ceremony

it's not your first rodeo doing it in a public restroom

it's almost romantic, a repeat of your first time

the white lacy panties are surprisingly very appreciated

you have to convince him to move back to his old apartment together now that you're married instead of hiding away at CHAANK

he honestly probably forgets you're even married until you bring it up

billy bibbit

he proposes to you

one day while you're at home on a sunday afternoon

lay together on the couch while you read

"h-hey, i h-h-have sssomething to a-ask you"

his stutters gets a tiny bit worse and you worry something is up

"l-l-listen, I-I rrreally love y-you a-a-a-and I-" he has to pause and collect himself

but you already know what he's going to ask and you can't keep from smiling

"w-will you m-m-mmmarry me?"

you throw your book aside and throw your arms around him

"yes! yes, of course I will billy!"

billy is a good christian boy so you have a good christian church wedding (unless you have other religious/secular preferences)

it's a very small wedding

only your favourite family members and closest friends come

same with billy

he feels incredibly guilty for not inviting his mother, but he hasn't seen her since he finally discharged himself from the hospital

you reassured him and remind him that this is the start of your lives together

he looks so dapper in his suit

you help him pick it out

he insists he doesn't want to see your dress until the big day

he cries when he sees you walk up the aisle

loves calling you his wife, and you calling him husband makes him feel wanted

puts your wedding photo in every room and carries it around in his wallet

sheriff brackett

he didn't expect he'd ever find someone he'd want to marry

(what with his last marriage ending the way it did)

when he realises he's truly in love with you, and you with him, he plans his proposal

it's nothing extravagant but it's absolutely perfect

you have a romantic dinner together and he does a whole speech about how much he loves you

and you see where it's going but you let him go on for a minute until you're like "do you want to ask me something?"

he flusters about it but is very cute and finally pops the question

"i - sweetie, i'd be honoured to make you my wife, will you marry me?"

you have a church wedding (unless you have other religious/secular preferences)

close family and friends only

cries when you walk down the aisle

annie gets very invested in helping with the planning and is probably more bothered about it than either of you are

you have a (very) classy dress

loves that he can call you his wife now !! the sheriff's wife !!

reception at your house, classic buffet

lowkey you both cannot wait untl everyone just leaves

*wink wink*

you do have a first dance in private though after everyone leaves

you're both soft and giggling and the song is a cheesy love song but it's perfect

your wedding night is the height of romance

your bridal lingerie really does it for him

what better start for your marriage than him making you cum so many times that you lose count?

doc cochran

you and doc didn't think you'd get married at all

neither of you felt the need to make anything official

you both consider yourself as his common law wife anyway

but something happens (either you get pregnant or some unrest with the camp politics makes the future seem uncertain) you decide you may as well tie the knot officially

there's no real proposal, he just sort of asks

you go to the Grand where E.B (being mayor) unfortunately has to officiate

you don't intend to invite anyone, saying it is no one elses business

but people catch wind (i.e. al, trixie and jane, merrick, maybe sol and seth) and basically invite themselves

you wear your best dress

and doc doesn't half scrub up well

Al invites you both back for a drink at the gem which you accept

("only one though, al" "sure, sure, you gotta get back home - the marriage bed is waiting - I understand")

the marriage bed is waiting though and you get kind of emotional when you go home together for the first time as husband and wife

funnily enough no one shows up at doc's that night for treatment and you have the whole night to yourselves

grima wormtongue

it takes you both a long time before you admit your feelings for each other and commit to having a relationship rather than a friends with benefits situation

marriages move fairly quickly in middle earth

no sooner are you engaged are you at the alter

wedding is moderately fancy because grima is doing pretty well being the king's adviser

few people actually show up who don't have to be there though because neither of you exactly have a lot of friends

grima almost clams up when it comes the ceremony because he doesnt want to say all this personal stuff about how much he loves you in front of other people

but you both get through it and finally, finally you are properly married

he's very emotional when you consummate your marriage but he tries to hide it

(but you know him too well)

tommy ludlow

he proposes one morning after sex

it's only just getting light and you both have to get up for work soon

you're still sweaty and his face is pressed into your neck

and in hushed tones you whisper back and forth

"will you marry me?"

it takes you a second to process what he said, "you wanna get married?"

"if you'll have me"

you kiss him and whisper "yes"

it's a church wedding for you and tommy (unless you have other religious/secular preferences)

he has a pretty big extended family and he has to invite them all

your dress and his suit are second hand

(because you're saving for better things)

laura takes a lot of photos for you

including the classic confetti toss one as you leave the church

takes you ages to comb all the confetti out of tommy's hair afterwards

cheesy first dance at the wedding reception

you can tell tommy is nervous so you joke around and make sure he doesn't take it too seriously

when you get home? goddamn you ride him like there's no tomorrow

(still in your wedding dress)

leo nova

it's go big or go home with him

80s fashion at its best

your dress is worth more than the rent on your old apartment

he doesn't see it before the wedding

you're surprised at how many traditions he sticks too despite him having the emotional range of a teaspoon

not many people get an invite to the ceremony but it's a wild after party

like a bunch of coked out 80s gangsters ?? amazing

the honeymoon is next level

you go to some tropical holiday resort (caribbean, thailand or spain) and it is all sun, sex and sangria for two whole weeks

tucker cleveland

didn't think he'd want to get married again

but in reality he just didn't like his first wife all that much

takes you out to dinner and proposes

when you say yes he is honestly relieved

but because he doesn't want to get emotional he calls over the waiter to get your free dessert

courthouse wedding

you do insist he wears a suit though and you buy a white dress

does the whole "just married" thing on the back of his truck

actually takes you on a honeymoon (sort of)

you go out of state and stay in a motel for a week

(vigorous sex ensues)

now you're married good and proper you can be his good little wifey

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Hey! I’m currently writing a Jewish character and was wondering if this would be offensive: my character has a family where her mother is Jewish but her father celebrates Christmas, so they fuse their holiday celebrations to bring their two families together for any holidays that fall in line with eachother. Would this be a problem? I’m basing her off of irl friends who’s family does this, but I want to make sure it doesn’t seem like I’m erasing her Jewish heritage and pride. Thanks so much!

Celebrating Hanukkah & Christmas in interfaith family

No problems from me other than to note that I hope you meant to say that they're both celebrated, not that they're literally "combined." Because putting Christian ritual into a Jewish holiday would bug me, as a reader, but someone watching Mom light the menorah before going out caroling with Dad would not--for example. Does that make sense? There are plenty of interfaith families out there that do both, but keeping the actual practices separate is the best way to keep the Jewish ones Jewish. (And in my example I was picturing both parents there for each activity, so it's not like I'm calling for that much separation -- just, not bringing up "the meaning of Christmas" while you're literally telling the Chanukah story.

You may also want to decide if the character themselves is drawn in one direction or the other, or neither yet. (You said "Jewish heritage and pride" so from this I gather that's how she believes? In that case, is Christmas totally just a fun secular thing for her or is it something she regards as an outsider, religiously speaking?)

--Shira

I'm going to start by saying that interfaith families exist, and have a variety of ways of expressing their combination of cultures. I'm absolutely not here to argue with that, be negative about that very real way of life, or invalidate those experiences in the slightest.

With that being said... people outside our community really, really love to show us celebrating Christmas, and Easter, and eating bacon, or doing anything else that might code us as assimilated (regardless of our internal identities). These are things that some Jewish people do, and I think it's absolutely good to show the breadth of the community, and the varied ways we express ourselves, but I do not, at all, trust someone outside the community to do that mindfully.

In wider media, whether books, television, movies etc. Jewish characters are so often shown to be either assimilated, or from an interfaith family. Interfaith does not necessarily mean assimilated of course! But the fact of their interfaith relationship is often used as a convenient way to get the Jewish character into situations that are intended to show how "not really" Jewish they are. There is an obsession with showing us as assimilated, a delight that is taken in trying to prove that we either are exactly the same as the broader culture, or that our differences can be erased and eroded until we are.

A Jewish person remains Jewish, whether they go to a Christmas party or not, whether they have shrimp at dinner or not, whether they marry a non-Jewish person or not, but the intent behind constantly showing Jewish characters doing this is suspect to me. This asker may not have this ill-intent, but frankly, it's hard to come by a character, written by a non-Jewish person, that says "I'm Jewish" in the beginning of a work, and then "oh, no thank you, I don't celebrate Christmas" in the middle, let alone even continuing to say "I'm Jewish" by the end.

When I read a work about interfaith families, and their specific traditions by a person inside the community, or coming from an interfaith background themselves, I'm interested, happy to learn about the characters, and their lives. When I read a work like that by someone outside the community it leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth, and the feeling that even fictional versions of us are being gleefully, voyeuristically, intentionally assimilated.

-- Dierdra

1) If your character is invested in their Jewish heritage, celebrating Chanukah is not enough to show this. Please please please research our other holidays and traditions, talk to Jewish people who feel the same level of connection to their Jewish roots, consume #OwnVoices materials.

2) Agree with Dierdra that interfaith families exist and deserve representation, but that writing an assimilated character requires a lot of research and sensitivity; any blatant disregard of halacha should probably be avoided in case it is consumed in that voyeuristic way by the reader.

3) And with Christmas in particular, you can be close to touching a nerve because not all Jewish people have fond memories of Christmas, to say the least. To people of minority faiths, it can be the time when our othering is the most blatant and impactful (we’ve included some personal stories below).

It would be best to listen to many Jewish experiences of December shenanigans, from people who celebrate Christmas partially or fully, to those who are indifferent, to those who have mainly negative associations and memories.

-- Shoshi

Our personal experiences with Christmas (Jewish Mods)

Also, as a note from all of us, discussing this question brought up so many stories about our own experiences with Christmas, and the culture surrounding it. A selection of them are below, just to give an idea of what it can be like:

- Just not having lights up was enough to get our neighbor asking our then roommate if we were "you know... sorta..." When our roommate confirmed that we are indeed Jewish, he reassured him that it was "fine." It didn't feel fine to be told that though. I also had a neighbor ask what we were doing for Christmas once, and I said "oh, we do Chanukah in this house" just to keep it casual. She excitedly yelled back "JEWS!!" Even without Covid I was getting to the point where December was just a month where I tried to stay in, and avoid getting grumpy at people who are just enjoying their holiday (they just happen to be enjoying it everywhere, all the time. And sometimes kind of aggressively). God forbid you correct someone when they wish you a Merry Christmas.

- Me too, it's the marketing, it's so aggressive. Last year I got so fed up with Christmas music being on in the office that I decided to bring a dreidel and spin it casually on my desk throughout the day, just so that my own space could feel like it was somewhat reserved for my own identity, you know? On day two of this, a colleague I didn't know that well came up to me and said, "Please could you stop doing that? It's really loud." I wanted to yell "NOT AS LOUD AS YOUR MUSIC!", but I didn't, I just stopped spinning it because I'm a darn pushover at times. I had to sit through my first hand-wringing 'how will we do Christmas with Covid?' conversation in about September, even though Pesach and Eid were both during the height of lockdown in this country and no one said a thing until after the fact.

- I've had people scoff, and sniff, and make snide comments to my face in my old workplace when I politely reminded them that I don't celebrate Christmas. It can get so uncomfortable, just existing in the world, and Christmas can end up a really miserable time.

#minemelody #Chanukah #Hanukkah #Christmas #interfaith #Christianity #Jewish #Judaism #holidays #assimilation #asks

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kittyprincessofcats · 3 years

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She-Ra S5 E09 - An Ill Wind

In which the Best Friend Squad’s back on Etheria and I’m back to writing up my thoughts about it. (The real question is whether I’ll manage to finish these posts before season 5’s one-year-anniversary.) I probably really don’t need to say this anymore, but there might be spoilers for the rest of the season in this post.

- I think it’s funny how Catra can’t stand teleporting, but what’s even more important is how visibly concerned for her Adora is each time. Have you seen how she touches Catra’s shoulders and looks at her with such a worried expression? D’awww.

- “Wow, you don’t trust the princesses? I am shocked.” No Glimmer, Catra’s 100% right. This has nothing to do with trusting the princesses; you really don’t know who’s chipped and which places are occupied by clones. Perfuma literally told you the rebellion was compromised.

- “Catra’s right.” THANK YOU, ADORA! (Also, I love Catra’s satisfied little smirk in the background when Adora says this.)

- I just paused the episode when they arrive in Erelandia and counted the Horde flags you can see hanging all over the town: 14, plus one giant Horde sign in the sky and a spire not too far away. Prime, are you compensating for something? (Also, Adora has an arm on Catra’s back again. Cute.)

- Is it a little disappointing that all the rebellions against Horde Prime on other planets got reduced to one brief exposition scene where a clone mentions they’re happening and a few quick images? Yeah. But I also get why the show just didn’t have the time for more and wanted to focus on Etheria.

- Speaking of, are those the magicats we see in the second image? Interesting… I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of Catra potentially being an alien as well. But then again, the show never clearly answers it one way or another, and there’s no reason magicats couldn’t have existed on multiple planets.

- Also, am I understanding this right: The Star Siblings started the intergalactic rebellion after meeting the Best Friend Squad? And now there are already rebels on several planets? Nice job, Star Siblings!

- “My heart aches for these misguided children.” I’m not sure if I’ve ever properly addressed the heavily religious symbolism around Horde Prime and his cult, but… that right there is *such* a Christian-extremist-coded line, holy hell…

- So Prime says he wants to use the Heart of Etheria “to bring peace to all the universe” and at this point I’m not entirely sure what his exact goal is. Does he just want to destroy all the planets with the Heart? Because I’ll be honest, I tend to find “I just want to destroy everything” a bit boring as a motivation in villains. What’s the point of him ruling the universe if there’s no one left to rule over? I mean, I know Prime had his whole “If there’s no one left, there are no wars, etc.” speech in an earlier episode, but that’s also just so dumb.

- Where did the Best Friend Squad even get those cloaks? Either way, Catra looks adorable with the outline of her ears showing under the hood. 🥺

- “I hope you, too, are full only of love for Horde Prime… and have no crippling doubt eating at your soul.” / “Brothers, there is nothing to see here!” Like I said in an earlier post, all of Wrong Hordak’s lines are absolute winners. Also, I love how the other clones just keep falling for his very obvious bluffs.

- Wrong Hordak learning to wink so quickly makes me jealous because I can’t wink. (No, I really can’t; I’ve tried. Whenever I try to only close one eye, I always end up closing both. If anyone has good advice on learning to wink, let me know.)

- I love the character designs of the mushroom people.

- Catra wasn’t wrong about the locals selling them out and not telling them anything useful. The others should listen to her more.

- Bow posing as the “average traveler passing though” is especially funny because I’m pretty sure there are no “travelers passing through” in times of Horde Prime.

Catra: “A town that hates princesses? Should I buy property here?”

Everyone else: *glares*

Catra: “Is what I would have said before I joined you. Go, team.”

😂😂😂 Catra’s quiet little “Go, team” in the end is what gets me most about this moment 😂. She’s adorable and trying her best, okay?

- I love how Wrong Hordak just calls everyone “brother” regardless of gender. Also, Adora’s little “Did you just wink at me?” / “That’s not how winking works!” moments are hilarious and adorable.

- “You’re wearing hooded cloaks, it’s highly suspicious.” Okay, mushroom lady’s not wrong, though. And I love how someone finally points this out, since hooded cloaks are so often used as “undercover” disguises in shows like this.

- That said, both she and mushroom guy earlier did try to sell the Best Friend Squad out super quickly. Like, I get that the locals are scared, but still… They could have tried to stay safe without running towards the clones to tell them everything right away.

- I’m just noticing that Erelandia has mushrooms everywhere. Obviously the people are mushrooms, but there are also mushrooms growing outside in the streets everywhere, and the shop they’re in is selling mushrooms and clothes with mushrooms on them as well.

- Both Bow and Glimmer blowing their covers almost immediately and Adora just quietly shaking her head at both of them in the background is amazing.

- Love Catra (and Melog) just casually stealing a mushroom from a mushroom lady.

- So Catra’s just chilling in a tree and eating stolen mushrooms and Entrapta wants to analyze samples that’ll be ready in 4-6 weeks – neither of them’s really helping right now. But then again, Catra wanted to leave in the first place because she thought the locals would sell them out (and she was right about that), so she probably thinks it’s not worth the effort.

- Also, you know who this scene with Entrapta and Catra is missing? Scorpia. If there is one problem I have with season 5, it’s that we didn’t get any Super Pal Trio reunion / moments with all of them on the same side now. (Or just in general, that we didn’t get to see Scorpia and Catra properly talking things out.)

- “That’s the windy one, right?” Okay, am I the only one who finds this line weird? Spinnerella literally has Adora, Bow and Glimmer trapped in a tornado as Entrapta says this. Obviously she’s “the windy one”? Entrapta can literally see that??

- “Lord Prime has given me peace.” Oh, I’m just realizing that’s just what Catra said when she was chipped. That’s got to be awful for Adora to hear again.

- Glimmer grabbing Bow and Adora’s hands and teleporting them out of the tornado was badass.

Adora: “How are we supposed to fight our own friends?”

Catra: “It never stopped you before.”

OMG. I love that Catra still considers their time as enemies as “being friends”.

- I really love Netossa’s entrance. What makes it really cool to me is that at that point the Best Friend Squad didn’t even know if there were any unchipped princesses left, so Netossa jumping in there with a casual “Welcome back, guys” was just an amazing moment.

- Also, I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but I really like that this season finally made Spinnerella and Netossa more important characters. (And I wonder how much network censorship of LGBT+ storylines had to do with them not being that important earlier on.)

- Hordak getting flashbacks of Entrapta again (while Prime looks at his older body’s memories) is just 🥺. I like how Prime talks about Etheria while Hordak slowly remembers more and more about his own life on Etheria.

- “So, the only person I’m fighting here is… my own wife.” I love the on-screen confirmation that they’re married! But also, Netossa wanting to attack Catra and Wrong Hordak at first was pretty funny.

- Catra and Glimmer’s respective expressions when they hear about Scorpia and Micah being chipped are a gut punch. Also, Netossa talking about how she has to get Spinnerella back is making me tear up.

- “Where are the rebels?” “Right beside you!” 😂😂😂 Amazing, just amazing.

- Love to see Catra taking out those bots. She’s so badass ❤️.

- “Be careful.” “Always am.” I wonder at what point Netossa started to realize what’s going on between Catra and Adora.

- Love Netossa whistling at She-Ra’s new look. Your wife’s right there, darling. But then again, who wouldn’t whistle at She-Ra’s new look?

- Honestly, why did anyone ever say Spinnerella and/or Netossa were weak? Their fight here really shows how powerful both of them are when they don’t hold back.

- “Stop holding back. She won’t.” Looking past how hard this must be for Netossa, this line really sums up why so many characters in shows like this seemingly become more powerful when they turn evil (or less powerful when they turn good): Because the bad guys have no reason to hold back.

- Adora firing a rainbow beam from her sword was amazing. I wish we’d gotten to see a bit more of She-Ra’s new powers this season.

- “Please. I love you. Come back to me.” I’m crying 😢. That’s a nice first taste of all the “I love you”s to come in the finale. And I love that it works (even if just for a bit). The whole “power of love helps you break free from mind control” thing might be a cliché, but it’s a cliché I love, so…yay, awesome!

- But also, and I’ll probably talk about this more when I get to the next episode (that I had a few problems with), I like how Netossa doesn’t only rely on the power of love, but still realizes she has to first fight Spinnerella without holding back to get her into a position where they can even have this talk.

- Yay, mushroom town is saved!

- Catra reassuring Netossa that Spinnerella will be okay was so sweet. She’s really trying to be nice and I think she’s doing great 🥺. (Also, Adora looks at her so proudly.)

- I just noticed that when She-Ra replaces the Horde symbol in the sky with her sword symbol, all the Horde flags around town are already gone, too. Did Catra, Glimmer and the others just like… take all of those flags down in between fighting the bots? Or did Wrong Hordak maybe walk around taking off the flags while the others were fighting?

- That said, the rainbow sword in the sky looks amazing.

- “I think Horde Prime is going to know She-Ra’s back.” “Good.” Love Adora’s determined expression here.

- Geez Horde Prime, no need to punch the screen. The screen didn’t do anything to you.

- Okay, so Horde Prime finally decides to go to Etheria himself, and when he announces that, Hordak looks at the crystal in his hand – it’s all coming together.

- “This is where the rebellion is hiding out?” “Yup. Why, have you been here?” The looks on Glimmer and Catra’s faces here are amazing. People have of course already written all kinds of amazing metas analyzing their expressions, but the short version is that Glimmer seems to remember their fight fondly, while Catra seems embarrassed.

- Perfuma trapping them all in vines and demanding to see their necks is not only hilarious, but also shows that the rebellion has learned from their past mistakes. 👍

- All of their reunions (Bow and Perfuma, Glimmer and Frosta, Adora and Swift Wind, Entrapta and Emily) were super sweet – I like big reunion scenes 🥺. Wrong Hordak meeting Emily was adorable. Perfuma clinging to Bow and crying about how she doesn’t want to be in charge anymore had me laughing so hard 😂.

- Okay so, I know Frosta’s punch breaks the mood a moment later, but I really think Adora wanting to officially introduce Catra to everyone after seeing her standing there alone while everyone else was having big reunions was super sweet. The way her face falls when she sees Catra standing there sadly, the way she asks her to come here so gently… it’s just so sweet. 🥺

- Also, unpopular opinion, but am I the only one who didn’t really find Frosta punching Catra funny? (And the same goes for Scorpia electrocuting her in the next episode, by the way.) I know these moments are meant to be cathartic “drag the former villain because some people are still mad at them” moments, but Catra’s whole story is largely about being a victim of physical abuse. Wasn’t there some way for the story to make fun of her without having other characters physically assault her? I like how Catra’s redemption was handled overall, but moments like those kind of rub me the wrong way. (Netossa trapping her in a net was fine though, because that didn’t actually harm her.)

- That said, Adora’s “Catra’s with us now. Okay? Hmm.” was hilarious. I love how she just gives the briefest explanation and then turns away from Frosta with a smile and little “hmm”, just completely expecting Frosta to be fine with this now.

- That ending shot of all of them together is epic.

So, what changed this episode is that Erelandia was freed, the space group has reunited with the remaining princesses, and Horde Prime is heading for Etheria. Good episode!

[Previous episode] [Next episode]

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marshmallowprotection · 3 years

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I apologize if this is an uncomfortable topic and you can feel free to skip it, but this is just something I've been wondering about for awhile...

How would the Christian MM characters (Saeyoung, Jumin, V, Jaehee...Saeran, I don't know if he is for sure tho?) react to an MC who is uncomfortable with Christianity?

I have absolutely nothing against them practicing that religion, it's just...

I grew up going to private Christian schools, being forced to comply with the religion, being told my feelings (me liking people regardless of gender) were sinful and damnable, being told that because I was born female I could only be a certain way, constantly being told I would go to hell for this or that or for even questioning certain things, has caused me to feel pretty uncomfortable about Christianity. I would even go as far as to say it traumatized me.

I'm okay with any religion, and I rationalize when it happens in game (them mentioning their religion or wishing God's blessings on MC and such) that for them this religion is something positive and it brings them comfort, which is great and I'm glad it's something that makes them happy, even though it's the opposite for me...how would they react to MC feeling that way?

It's not quite uncomfortable for me but I understand the sentiment. I'm Agnostic, so, I get it. But, it's not like the characters in MM are trying to convert you or make you believe the same thing they do. They may have their own personal faith that they follow, but they don't really subject that to other people.

When people say they're praying for you or that they hope that the light guides your safety, it's not usually out of ill-will. When it's coming from a good place, they're giving you kindness by wanting to wish the best for you in a way that they feel comfortable. That goes for any religion, not just Christianity. There's some prayer-based system in most of them, I think, and to wish well for others is their kindest act. If you decline, they should respect it, though.

Nobody in the RFA that aligns themselves as Christian is going to shame you or make you feel bad for having different views. They're not going to do that. They're not bigots or the type to speak with such ignorance and hypocrisy. A lot of the characters are Catholic or in that realm, so that'd be the sect they're in. Though, not everyone prays aggressively or all the time, or even goes to church all the time, either.

Saeyoung is the one that feels a strong connection to his faith, but he doesn't go to church anymore. He prays by himself and his faith is his to keep. He doesn't bother others about it. He'd never make you feel like you had to believe in it or that you had to humor something that isn't comfortable to you. He respects your boundaries just as you are kind to his.

Jumin doesn't go often to church anymore, he's a busy man, but he does practice similar to Saeyoung. It's a personal thing, it's not one of those things where you go every Sunday and feel keen on everything you do. It's questionable how much faith he even has, but, again, he will understand your discomfort and not discuss these things with you if it isn't your cup of tea.

As you can see, there's pretty much a theme here. They're not going to shame you or corner you for not agreeing or viewing things with the same heart. That's not how life works. If you tell them it's not good for you and makes you upset, they won't bring it up. You can have meaningful conversations about your religious views with every member and they will listen. What's okay? What's not okay? You can learn it together.

I'd say that Zen and Saeran are definitely not religious. I feel Saeran is more... agnostic, and Zen is hard to pin down. He's probably agnostic, too, frankly. Like, they don't know what to think about it, could be a true thing, couldn't be a true thing, who knows? Nobody can say for certain. Neither of them is going to tell someone not to feel either way about it.

Jaehee is religious, somewhat, but again, not super involved, either. Jihyun hasn't gone to church in forever and I feel like anything he felt faith-wise dwindled when he lost his mother and then everything that came afterward.

Yoosung, I'm not even sure, I feel like he's not even thought about it, he just goes with his family's view, but that seems like a very non-strict and casual religious faith setting, unlike what his uncle and aunt believe! Since his parents said: "You can't go near them because their belief is used for cruelty."

That's just my opinion. Nobody in this game gives me the awful vibe you can get from certain people that say they practice their faith but they really use it as a weapon for bigotry and hatred. Their faith comes from a good place.

#tw religion #ask #anon #mod kait #character analysis #mm #mystic messenger #mysticmessenger #mysme

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in-the-whisper · 3 years

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I'm sorry if this is a common/stupid ask but I fundamentally don't understand religion and I couldn't imagine believing so strongly in anything, but it seems very nice(?) and possibly even optimistic to have a constant like that in your life. so in the sense I think I have an idea of what religion is, what makes you decide(?) to follow it or believe in it? genuine apologies if this comes across as patronizing or condescending, it's not my intention and sometimes I'm just bad with words ':]

dude you are always welcome here and i will never assume that you are being mean you are very sweet <3 i am very happy to talk to you!

ok so i come from a super different background so it’s hard for me to even imagine like not knowing a ton of people who are religious so i will try to explain and then if it doesn’t make sense feel free to poke me and i will try again. also it makes me happy so dont be scared i will say oh! someone asked me about God! yay! and then i will write a silly tumblr post while making this face -> c:

okay so one of your confusions seems to be why i would believe in something so strongly. in a way everyone believes things strongly, some even more than me (i mean look at politics and thanksgiving dinner). i think the reason that my relationship with God in particular is something i feel strongly about is because i derived my faith from my natural understanding of the value of my friends and from my understanding of morality.

i love my friends very much (most people do) and the idea of them getting hurt or mistreated makes me very angry (i think people would agree). and you could make the argument that the reason that i care so deeply about people and justice is because of all the stuff ive been through but i did think this before anything bad happened to me really.

there is a difference between atheist (philosophical) morality and Christian morality. for someone who doesn’t believe in God, there isn’t anybody who is more important than humanity who can tell them what to do. if one person does something, and i don’t like it, all i can say is, “i don’t like that,” and not “you shouldn’t do that.” because im not in charge of them. i’m just another person, who am i to go around establishing moral laws for other people?

but what that /also/ means is that there isn’t any “grounding” or like /reason/ for morality or the value of life other than personal preference. this Really bothered me about my philosophy class, every atheist philosopher did this. they all wanted to say that you could make morality for yourself (looking at you nietzsche). But then what happens? What about when someone is killed? or raped? I want to be able to say, “Rape is horrible.” and not just “Rape is horrible in my opinion.” Anything that doesn’t allow for these like absolute, unquestionable, overarching standards of how people /should/ or /shouldn’t/ live just doesn’t add up imo.

Atheist professor of law at Yale, Dr. Arthur Leff, wrote an article on this exact topic called “Unspeakable ethics Unnatural Law.” The entire thing is amazing and I recommend it, but here is the conclusion:

All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.

Nevertheless: Napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling each other is depraved. Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation. Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned. There is in the world such a thing as evil. [All together now:] Sez who? God help us.

So if I think this is true, if I really believe that death is evil, that rape is horrible, that there are some universally binding and unchallengeable truths about how people ought to live, I have to believe in a God. or i can live in a state of constant existential dread hahahahaha, , I joke but I actually did do that for a while it was pretty miserable.

i think the next question was kind of what made me believe in it? and that is kind of a difficult question because i think in a way Christianity just encapsulates a bunch of things that i already believed, and i just found like a label for them i guess. i also grew up Christian, so for me my experience questioning my religious identity was more like, three people you love are dead why do you still believe in a loving God? Rather than which religion or philosophy do i like the best?

idk maybe they come out to be the same but it doesnt feel entirely the same. i’m still a christian because of sunsets and sunrises and because the world feels beautiful and intentional, and because i’ve been in a lot of pain and it was real. it really happened. it wasn’t in my head (looking at you stoicism). it wasn’t unimportant. there is not if buts ands ors it was just awful and that’s that. so what can explain it? what can explain meaning? only God can.

Christianity is specifically the religion im interested in because it’s the only one i’ve come across that is as internally consistent, historically accurate, scientifically accurate, coherent understandings of the universe.

No other philosophy allows you to grieve. That’s why I believe in God. No other philosophy validates grief that a belief in a loving God, a belief that death isn’t meant to happen, that people are violently ripped from you without purpose and that you are meant to live together forever. It allows for a belief in the value of humanity and grace while also allowing you to believe that things that happen to you that might last with you forever are wrong and not just in your opinion. They were violently wrong, they violated ancient laws of the universe, they were an act of aggression toward God himself.

Ok im rambling now but I will leave you with this, which is what i wrote after finally deciding to remain a christian:

“There are several questions I asked that stopped me from rejecting Christianity.

Where did the universe come from and why does it exist?

Why does our experience involve morality?

Why is there love? (deep love between brothers, self sacrificial love, to die for another love)

Why is there goodness?

There are, of course, answers to these questions under ideologies other than Christianity, but I found their answers to be unsatisfying because to me, the existence of these things screams that there is something more to the universe than an unfortunate accident in a vacuum of uncaring nothingness.

When I listened to music encouraging its audience to live, when I listened to people fight for the lives of those they love, when i watched the sun set, or cried at the end of a deeply touching movie, I would think, “In light of this how can you say there is no God?”

In Christianity I found answers that profoundly satisfied my deepest questions.

There is a universe because God in his wisdom fashioned it to be a beautiful gift. There is morality because we stand in the midst of a cosmic battle between good and evil. There is love because God’s nature is perfectly loving and the fabric of the knowable universe was woven in his loving kindness. There is beauty and goodness because life wasn’t created to be a void and an unknowable miserable darkness.

The true issue with atheism is that while intellectually and technically feasible, it gives empty answers to facets of life that do not have empty realities.

It forced me to ask myself this question: How can such a beautiful, meaningful, tragic world exist from nothing and for nothing?”

#rape tw #rape #griefjourney #grief tw #long post #i specify philosophical morality because atheists by and large dont actually think like this but at an academic level this is how the logic #ends up working out

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aerialsquid · 5 years

Text

How to Bury a Gentile

I wrote a short vaguely historical vaguely spooky ghost story about Jews and burial rites and I have to justify it existing so here it is.

“Are you the leader of the Jews?”

There was no good that ever came from that question. Rabbi Jacob stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame, ready to yank it closed at a moment’s notice.

“Well, not all of the Jews.”

The man at the door made a frustrated little grunt. He was clad almost completely in dark grey clothing that seemed to fade into the shadows of the darkened street behind him. The collar of his coat was pulled up so high that it was impossible to make out more than a pair of sharp grey eyes beneath the brim of his hat, and the cloak he wore over the top of it concealed most of his body. There could be any number of guns, knives, or angry mobs hidden under there.

“But the ones in this town, yes? You are their priest, you lead prayers and weddings and so on?” the man said impatiently.

“Rabbi. Yes. I’m the rabbi, that’s correct.” Jacob said, stiffening his posture and assuming the most neutral expression he could manage. Being completely ignorant didn't exclude someone from being completely dangerous--if anything, that heightened the risk. "What can I do for you?"

“Rabbi,” the man repeated, as if to seal it into his memory properly. One gloved hand squeezed the pommel of his walking stick. “And you preside over the funerals of your people, and perform the rites to send them to the next world?”

“Yyyyyes?” Jacob shifted his weight to his back foot, poised to slam the door in his face. This sounded unpleasantly like an opening for a death threat.

“To any of them, regardless of the sins they carried in life?” An eagerness entered the man’s voice.

“Of course. Though sin as a Jewish concept differs from the Christian…mm. Yes, of course.” The scholars of old might have debated the nature of the evil in men’s souls until the crack of dawn but Jacob had no intention of doing so at half-past midnight with a complete stranger.

The shadowed man took a half step forward and Jacob leaned back to maintain the distance between him. “What about a gentile?” the man pressed. "Would you tend to his corpse too?"

“Huh?”

“There is a man needing to be buried tonight who requires absolution. He is not a Jew, but a Jew’s prayers may be close enough for what is needed.”

“Um. It’s not usually a request I get.” Jacob tried to keep his voice calm and soothing. There was some kind of entrapment lingering in the conversation, he just knew it. That or a giant box of crazy that had managed to dress itself stylishly. Gentiles asking Jews intrusive but urgent questions never turned out well for their target--a day-long case of irritation was the best outcome the target could hope for.

The man’s hands pressed together as he completed the full step forward, making Jacob back up into the doorframe. Desperation was in his tone and Jacob was forced back over the threshold just to stay out of his grip “All I need is someone to accompany me to the cemetery to consecrate the body and pray for its soul. Barely an hour of your time. I cannot pay you with anything but my gratitude, but you will have it eternally.”

“And you came to me?”

The man sighed. Even the top hat seemed to slouch slightly as his body slumped. “I have asked every holy man in the city, Catholic and Protestant alike, and they have refused to come to the cemetery," he bemoaned. "The last one told me to visit you. Likely a ploy to make me leave faster, but you are all I have left.”

“What did this man do, that so many people refused him? Who was he?”

The man at the door hesitated. The sharp eyes vanished as his eyelids slid down, and then appeared a few moments later.

“Must you ask?” he said quietly. “Is it not enough that it is a corpse which can do no man harm any longer, and you will lose nothing but a half-night of sleep?”

The inside of Jacob’s head was ringing with warning bells like the frantic clanging of gongs announcing a fire. He swallowed and tried to ignore them.

“You say he wasn’t Jewish?”

“He was not…much of anything. He felt God had no interest in him, and returned a lack of interest in kind. Perhaps if he had been more attentive he wouldn’t lie in a pauper’s grave…or perhaps he would have not changed a whit.” The man’s voice was bitter and the sharp eyes briefly looked away from Jacob, to Jacob’s deep relief.

“Who was this man, to you?” he asked.

“Close. I would prefer to say no more. Please, rabbi. It must be done, and it must be tonight.”

Seminary did not prepare me for this, Jacob thought, and then thought again. There is absolutely something in the Talmud about this and I’ve just forgotten it, because I’m an idiot and I’m half asleep and there is a goy on my doorstep asking me to go out to the cemetery with him at midnight to bury a man whose name he won’t tell me.

“Look, I’ll need someone to help dig the grave.”

“Of course."

“And a coffin. A plain pine box. And I’ll need to get my supplies from the--”

“But you’ll do it?” said the man excitedly, standing up even taller. “And do it tonight, before the cock crows?”

Jacob held up his hands to keep the man from getting even further into his personal space. “Fine. Yes. Give me half an hour and a lazy rooster.”

The cloak almost seem to inflate as the man gasped for joy. He grabbed Jacob’s hands and shook both with enthusiasm, sending Jacob stumbling. “Thank God for you, my good rabbit! Whatever God there is, thank God for you!”

The man ran off into the shadowed streets and was out of sight almost immediately.

Jacob’s hands slowly fell back to his side as he mumbled, “Rabbi,” to the darkness.

My wife is going to kill me if whatever’s at the cemetery doesn’t.

Twenty six minutes later, going by his watch, Jacob showed up at the Jewish cemetery that back-ended the only synagogue in town. It was guarded by high brick walls that made it impossible to see inside, but when Jacob went to put his key into the wrought iron gates he found them already unlocked.

Only a few other people had the key, and he briefly prayed that it was one of them who’d opened it. Then he prayed again, a more general ‘please keep me from being murdered in my own cemetery’ plea as he passed through the gates. One hand patted his pocket, feeling the edges of the folded knife he’d brought along just in case matters went nasty.

In the very corner of the cemetery a lantern burned beside an open grave, a long wooden box, and three figures with two shovels. As he approached he recognized Maud, the gravedigger’s wife and her two eldest children.

The city’s Jews and Christians kept separate cemeteries but shovels didn’t need any particular religious affiliation and neither did the hands who were paid to hold them. Maud’s husband served the dead of all faiths as long as they needed a few feet of dirt to rest their heads in.

“You’re out late,” Jacob said, casual, like they'd met at the grocer's instead of the graveyard.

Maud shrugged. She was thin with unkempt, slightly greasy hair that fell around her face in soft waves and a dress that had no functions besides the practical. Jacob knew her to be much like her husband – not bereft of compassion, but very straightforward when it came to the rites of death. It happened. The mourners mourned, but someone had to dig the holes and move the coffins, and tears only hindered the process. “And what are you, out for an evening constitutional among the headstones?”

“Let me guess, a man in grey showed up on your doorstep and asked you to come out here in the middle of the night with minimal justification but great urgency."

Maud laughed bitterly. “The same.”

“Where’s your husband?”

“Visiting family. Had to bring them instead.” She gestured to the two young people with her, one a stringy and acne-ridden lad of thirteen and one a sixteen year old young woman who was growing into having her father’s thick arms. Both looked profoundly uncomfortable with the situation.

“And he’d put up a storming fuss if a mysterious stranger asked him to dig a grave at half past nonsense at night. Me, I know better.” Maud put a finger next to her nose and tapped it. “There’s something strange going on about this. Otherworldly. Not to be trifled with.”

“Do you have any idea who this man is?”

“Not a clue. Wouldn’t give me a name, even.”

Jacob gestured to the open grave. “Who are we burying here, Cain? A murder victim?”

Maud shrugged, followed by shrugs from her two children. “Whatever he is and whoever wants him in the ground, I’m of no mind to tell him no. He’s too determined for someone who’d take it for a good answer.”

They waited in the stillness, listening to crickets softly chirp in the bushes lining the graveyard. Suddenly Jacob could see movement in the fog, then the billowing of a grey cloak, and then the shape of a man dragging something behind him on a pull cart.

Sticking out over the rim of the cart was a large, curved piece of rock that Jacob recognized as the rough draft of a gravestone. There was a crack down one side of the stone, indicating it had likely been tossed aside as defective before it could be engraved. Beside it was a long bundle wrapped in a dirty sheet.

The four at the grave steeled their nerves in the way that best suited their spiritual preferences as the man in grey approached.

“That’s our man, is it?” Jacob asked, pointing at the bundle. The man in grey nodded.

“Do what you need to tend to him, rabbi. But do it quickly.”

Jacob uncovered the man and winced at the smell. The man had obviously been dead for at least a day, and hadn’t died in any particular state of valor. There were ligature marks around his neck, which tilted at an uncomfortable angle. That plus the bulging of his eyes and the shape of his face meant he’d died of strangulation—a slow death on the gallows, with no kind executioner ensuring that he fell fast and far enough to snap his neck at the bottom. He’d also been stripped down to his underclothes by whoever’d taken him down off the rope, and those garments that remained were…messy.

“Lay him out flat,” Jacob said. “We’ll need to get his clothes off first.”

The man winced. “Must you? He’s endured enough humiliation.”

“Do you want him purified or not? He’s covered in his own…ugh. Covered in a number of things.”

Maud took out a long pocket knife and began cutting the undergarments off the corpse, nose wrinkling. “Hate hanged corpses,” she muttered. “Wish they’d just behead them, it’d look neater and go faster.”

“But then you’ve got the body in two pieces,” said the son.

His sister rebutted, “You could tie it back on afterwards under the shirt.” The pair descended into a discussion of ideal execution methods that Jacob tried to block out with sheer willpower.

As a distraction, he studied the dead man's face. Besides the strangulation the man wasn’t unhandsome. Jacob would put him at an elegantly-aging 45 at the oldest, with stylishly cut ruddy hair and a strong jaw. It wasn't the kind of man you'd expect to find on the gallows.

“I’m going to need a name,” Jacob said, looking to the man in grey.

The man in grey hesitated, staring down at the corpse.

“James,” he said finally.

“That’s the truth, right?" Jacob pressed, in the tone he used on children who were too young to lie effectively. “It’s actually James?”

“Yes, actually James,” the man snapped.

“James…son of…?”

“Haven’t a clue.” The sharp eyes stared daggers into Jacob’s face. Jacob sighed and went with the one sure bet he had for ancestry.

“…James ben Adam, I ask forgiveness for you, for your family and friends, and for

all of Israel, and I ask forgiveness from you for any mistakes or indiscretions I may unintentionally commit during this service.”

“He’s dead,” the man in grey interjected. “Don’t waste time asking him how he feels, just prepare him.”

“It’s part of the ritual. Besides, I hardly want him coming back tomorrow to complain.”

Jacob ran quickly through the rest of the prayers in Hebrew– the prayer for forgiveness from the corpse, the prayer for those preparing it, the prayer for compassion for the dead. The man in grey was silent. Maud and her children answered with a hasty ‘amen’ after each paragraph, even though they had no real idea what he was saying. Their religious policy seemed to be ‘whatever gets the job done’.

Jacob sighed. “All right, let’s get to the business.”

Maud and her children huddled by the corpse as Jacob poured water over it and recited the familiar words. He is pure, he is pure, he is pure. Amen, amen.

Between pourings the four rubbed the filth from the man’s skin. There were bruises on the man’s body, and scars ranging from years old to less than a month. As he cleaned under the fingernails Jacob noticed how soft his hands were, as if he’d lived in wealth and luxury until recently.

Tahara was usually the domain of the synagogue’s chevra kadisha, the funeral society, not something one rabbi did on his own. Jacob hoped that whoever was supervising the legalities of the affair would accept one rabbi and four multi-gender gentiles as a valid substitute for meeting adult male Jewish quorum.

Jacob looked up at the grey-clothed man, who’d taken a seat on a nearby headstone, cane resting beneath his folded hands. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help?”

The man shook his head. “Willing, yes. Able, no.”

“Why?”

The man angled his head to the side, voice going soft and hoarse. “There are a lot of things I cannot say. If I did, it would not…be what was necessary.”

“And what is necessary?”

“That he be buried tonight before the cock crowed, with full funeral and rites, by a man of faith, without promise of wealth or other reward for the deed,” the man rattled off as if by rote.

“You say that like it’s in a contract of some kind.”

“It is legally binding, in its own way. Now please, enough questions, we’ve not much time.” The man looked up nervously to the moon.

“Fine. Can you at least go fetch us more water?” Jacob asked the man in grey. Once he’d left with the jug, Maud huddled down next to him.

“Think I know who this dead man is,” Maud whispered. “Heard about him over the local gossip from my cousin. He was a criminal. Nasty one, a thief and a murderer. Mutilated bodies. They say he even made a deal with Lucifer himself. Must be why this one sought you out.”

“You know we don’t believe in your Devil, right?” Jacob muttered, almost by reflex. “Let alone have any positive relationship with him.”

“The people what hanged him this week in the next town over believed in the Devil. What else would be so bad the church wants nothing to do with him And why else would he need consecrating so badly and so quickly, if he’s not got something he needs absolving form?”

Jacob watched the fog for the return of the man in grey. “And this gentleman who’s such an advocate for him, you think he’s…”

Maud followed his gaze. “If I believed in such things, I’d think it,” she whispered.

“But you don’t?”

Maud gave him a sharp look. “You think a gravedigger’s wife can afford to believe in ghosts? It’s bad for business, Rabbi.”

“Might not be, if you convince them a ghost prefers an expensive grave. Ah, hush, he’s coming back.”

Rather than put it into Jacob’s hands, the man in grey set the jug on the ground and stepped back from it. Jacob continued to pray as they wiped the corpse down and combed through his ruddy hair, reciting so quickly that Jacob ran out of prayer before he was done and ventured off into additional prayers that couldn’t hurt to add on top of the pile.

Jacob reached for the bag next to him and pulled out piles of white linen. “Now we dress him.”

“You just finished undressing him! He’s a corpse and he’s going to rot, does it matter?”

Jacob gritted his teeth, half-rising to his feet. “It. Is. The. Tradition,” he hissed.

The man in grey put his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right. Do what you will. Just do it quickly.”

Jacob wrapped the corpse gently in the burial clothes – pants, shirt, belt. As he laid the white cloth in place over the face he felt the tension growing in the air, an odd pressure he’d previously chalked to humidity.

You can’t buy and sell a soul, he told himself. All souls belong to God. That’s how it works.

On the other hand, God might rent them out on commission. If he made it out of this intact he really needed to see what the Talmud said on the subject.

The man in grey was fidgeting. He kept looking to the moon, then to the watch in his hand, and then worrying the cane between his legs until it dug a long furrow in the dirt in front of him.

“Get his feet, I’ll take his shoulders.”

“Yes, mum.”

Maud and her daughter dropped the corpse into its plain pine box.

“Nails,” Maud said over her shoulder.

“Here, mum.”

The gravedigger’s son brought the hammer down hard. The resounding noise of the pine box being nailed shut jangled Jacob’s nerves after all the hushed prayers. The youth gave the nails a few extra swings each, just to make sure that nothing inside the box decided to come back out again.

The four of them lifted the coffin and crab-walked with it until it was vaguely over the grave, then dropped it in. The man in grey leapt to his feet. “Now. Funeral. Perform it, and quickly,” he insisted.

Jacob steadied himself at the edge of the grave. Maud and the children took up the politely sympathetic stances identical to the one the gravedigger did when waiting for the funeral to finally end so he could get to his business.

Jacob was used to these. He was just used to them during the daytime, with a row of mourners lined up neatly with their ritually torn ribbons pinned to their chests as a substitute for rending their actual clothing. Even the most loathsome of people had someone to show up in order to keep up social status. A funeral for a man with no mourners to comfort was novel.

He looked at the man in grey, who was standing well back with his arms folded. “I will say, I’ve never done a eulogy for someone I don’t know the identity of, so I can’t promise anything quality.”

“I don’t care. Do it.”

Jacob took a long, deep breath, and let it out slowly. He thought back to other eulogies, pulling together scraps of them and tying it nicely with a scriptural bow.

“We are all cracked vessels,” he pronounced in his Official Rabbi Voice. “But we are all vessels made in the image of God, and even in death that vessel is subject to respect. As the Torah says, even if a man commits a sin so severe that he is sentenced to death, his body shall not be left out overnight, but buried that same day, for a hanging corpse is a blasphemy to God and a defilement of the land.”

The man in grey made a small noise, like a half-stifled bitter laugh. Jacob forced his voice to be steady.

“And from this we see that there is no crime that separates man from God. He is not spared from judgment, but he is still in God’s image, and to disrespect his right to burial is to disrespect God himself. May those that James ben Adam has harmed in life forgive him and gain healing, and those whose lives he has enriched remember him. Amen.”

And may this not come back to bite me in the arse, whatever strange theological zone I may be playing in.

“Amen,” echoed Maud and her children. Maud’s daughter shivered, a strange act when the night’s heat seemed to be growing ever more oppressive on Jacob’s shoulders.

The words of Kel Maleh Rachamim felt heavy on Jacob’s tongue. Towards the end he felt himself slurring vowels and having to stop and go back to repeat them properly. His throat burned, and he took a swig from the dirty water jug just to soothe it, but found it brought no relief.

“Please,” whispered the man in grey. “Now! Bury him now!”

Jacob could feel dawn coming somehow, though he hadn’t checked his watch since they began. He could feel it in his bones as the heat surged through him. Maud and her children went for the shovels.

Jacob kept the prayer flowing, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mey rabah!” he muttered as dirt flew into the grave. The words of the Mourner’s Kaddish were some of the most familiar he knew. They were said every Shabbat morning, and the same words were repeated for their own reasons several other times during the service. In the dense air they seemed to be the only thing keeping his throat clear, when he would otherwise suffocate.

The two children shoveled as fast as they could but they were slumping under some unseen pressure. The girl winced, gritting her teeth, and tears were gathering at the corners of the boy’s eyes.

The man in grey jumped to stand beside them, waving his hands. “Faster!” he shouted.

“You heard him, faster!” shouted Maud.

“Mum, my arms hurt, let me rest!”

“Keep going!” the man in grey snarled. “We haven’t much time!”

When the shovel fell from the young man’s limp hands Jacob grabbed it and began piling in the dirt furiously. He felt claws dig into his arms draining the strength from his muscles. The man in grey urged them onward, with pleas and with threats, and Jacob tried to ignore both. There were whispers invading his mind and he drove them out by chanting at double speed. Beside him Maud was saying the prayers of her own people and her daughter was fumbling along behind her in repeating them. It made a rhythm to shovel to, up and down and deep into the dirt again, until the coffin was covered completely. Maud’s son heaved the crudely-carved rock from the cart and nearly dropped it on his own foot as he planted it at the head of the grave.

“Amen!” the young man shouted.

“Amen, amen, for god’s sake, are we done?” asked the daughter, thick arms limp at her sides.

“We’re done!” said Jacob, barely getting the words out.

“You’re not!” shouted the man in grey. He had his arms around himself, head bowed as if under unseen blows. “It’s not finished!”

Jacob ground his teeth, his muscles screaming in pain. “There’s nothing left!” The gravedigger’s son was on his knees trembling.

“You must have forgotten something!” yelled the man in gray in a shaking voice, huddled inside his cloak.

“I didn’t—"

Oh.

Of course.

Jacob pulled the knife from his pocket. The act of opening it felt like moving a boulder. He took his shirt cuff and with great effort jabbed the knife into it, dragging it down until he reached the hem.. The sound of the cloth tearing reverberated through the graveyard and magnified a hundred times, until it was shaking Jacob down to his bones.

Like rain breaking on a broiling July day, the tension snapped and vanished. The pained sniffles of the gravedigger’s son faded into silence. Across the graveyard, the crickets started up their song once more.

The man in grey uncurled slowly. “What did you…do?” he asked, looking to Jacob in awe.

“Mourners,” Jacob gasped, the knife falling from his hands. “There were no mourners. Had to—you tear your clothing, when you’re mourning. Funeral’s not just for the dead. It’s for the living. It needed mourners.”

A feeling of cool mist enveloped Jacob as the man in grey launched at him for a deep embrace. It was the first time the man had touched any of them since the night began. “Thank you,” the man said, voice nearly a sob.

Jacob patted his back. The man felt like a damp blanket cloying to his skin. “Shalom Aleichem, James.”

“Whatever that means, the same to you, Rabbi.” The weight of the man vanished from his arms, followed by the man himself. The first rays of morning light shone down upon wet grass dented by absent boots.

Maud’s daughter slumped against her mother. Maud’s arm reached around her and gave her a hard squeeze, a weak smile coming to her face.

“Do we get to believe in ghosts now, Mum?��

“No, dear. It’s bad for business.”

#ghosts #ghost story #judaism #jews #burial #spoopy #writing #writeblr #original fiction #squid writes

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cassianus · 2 years

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Examination of Conscience:

Turning my eyes carefully upon myself and watching the course of my inward state, I have verified by experience that I do not love God, that I have no love for my neighbors, that I have no religious belief, and that I am filled with pride and sensuality. All this I actually find in myself as a result of detailed examination of my feelings and conduct, thus:

1. I do not love God. For if I loved God I should be continually thinking about Him with heartfelt joy. Every thought of God would give me gladness and delight. On the contrary, I much more often and much more eagerly think about earthly things, and thinking about God is labor and dryness. If I loved God, then talking with Him in prayer would be my nourishment and delight and would draw me to unbroken communion with Him. But, on the contrary, I not only find no delight in prayer, but even find it an effort. I struggle with reluctance, I am enfeebled by sloth and am ready to occupy myself eagerly with any unimportant trifle, if only it shortens prayer and keeps me from it. My time slips away unnoticed in futile occupations, but when I am occupied with God, when I put myself into His presence, every hour seems like a year. If one person loves another, he thinks of him throughout the day without ceasing, he pictures him to himself, he cares for him, and in all circumstances his beloved friend is never out of his thoughts. But I, throughout the day, scarcely set aside even a single hour in which to sink deep down into meditation upon God, to inflame my heart with love of Him, while I eagerly give up 23 hours as fervent offerings to the idols of my passions. I am forward in talk about frivolous matters and things which degrade the spirit; that gives me pleasure. But in the consideration of God I am dry, bored, and lazy. Even if I am unwillingly drawn by others into spiritual conversation, I try to shift the subject quickly to one which pleases my desires. I am tirelessly curious about novelties, about civic affairs and political events; I eagerly seek the satisfaction of my love of knowledge in science and art, and ways of getting things I want to possess. But the study of the law of God, the knowledge of God and of religion, make little impression on me, and satisfy no hunger of my soul. I regard these things not only as a non-essential occupation for a Christian, but in a casual way as a sort of side-issue with which I should perhaps occupy my spare time, at odd moments. To put it shortly, if love for God is recognized by the keeping of His commandments ("If ye love Me, keep My commandments," says our Lord Jesus Christ), and I not only do not keep them, but even make little attempt to do so, then in absolute truth the conclusion follows that I do not love God. That is what Basil the Great says: "The proof that a man does not love God and His Christ lies in the fact that he does not keep His commandments."

2. I do not love my neighbor either. For not only am I unable to make up my mind to lay down my life for his sake (according to the gospel), but I do not even sacrifice my happiness, well-being, and peace for the good of my neighbor. If I did love him as myself, as the gospel bids, his misfortunes would distress me also, his happiness would bring delight to me too. But, on the contrary, I listen to curious, unhappy stories about my neighbor, and I am not distressed; I remain quite undisturbed or, what is still worse, I find a sort of pleasure in them. Bad conduct on the part of my brother I do not cover up with love, but proclaim abroad with censure. His well-being, honor, and happiness do not delight me as my own, and, as if they were something quite alien to me, give me no feeling of gladness. What is more, they subtly arouse in me feelings of envy or contempt.

3. I have no religious belief. Neither in immortality nor in the gospel. If I were firmly persuaded and believed without doubt that beyond the grave lies eternal life and recompense for the deeds of this life, I should be continually thinking of this. The very idea of immortality would terrify me and I should lead this life as a foreigner who gets ready to enter his native land. On the contrary, I do not even think about eternity, and I regard the end of this earthly life as the limit of my existence. The secret thought nestles within me: Who knows what happens at death? If I say I believe in immortality, then I am speaking about my mind only, and my heart is far removed from a firm conviction about it. That is openly witnessed to by my conduct and my constant care to satisfy the life of the senses. Were the holy gospel taken into my heart in faith, as the Word of God, I should be continually occupied with it, I should study it, find delight in it, and with deep devotion fix my attention upon it. Wisdom, mercy, and love are hidden in it; it would lead me to happiness, I should find gladness in the study of the law of God day and night. In it I should find nourishment like my daily bread, and my heart would be drawn to the keeping of its laws. Nothing on earth would be strong enough to turn me away from it. On the contrary, if now and again I read or hear the Word of God, yet even so it is only from necessity or from a general love of knowledge, and approaching it without any very close attention I find it dull and uninteresting. I usually come to the end of the reading without any profit, only too ready to change over to secular reading in which I take more pleasure and find new and interesting subjects.

4. I am full of pride and sensual self-love. All my actions confirm this. Seeing something good in myself, I want to bring it into view, or to pride myself upon it before other people or inwardly to admire myself for it. Although I display an outward humility, yet I ascribe it all to my own strength and regard myself as superior to others, or at least no worse than they. If I notice a fault in myself, I try to excuse it; I cover it up by saying, "I am made like that" or "I am not to blame". I get angry with those who do not treat me with respect and consider them unable to appreciate the value of people. I brag about my gifts: my failures in any undertaking I regard as a personal insult. I murmur, and I find pleasure in the unhappiness of my enemies. If I strive after anything good it is for the purpose of winning praise, or spiritual self-indulgence, or earthly consolation. In a word, I continually make an idol of myself and render it uninterrupted service, seeking in all things the pleasures of the senses and nourishment for my sensual passions and lusts.

--Going over all this I see myself as proud, adulterous, unbelieving, without love for God and hating my neighbor. What state could be more sinful? The condition of the spirits of darkness is better than mine. They, although they do not love God, hate men, and live upon pride, yet at least believe and tremble. But I? Can there be a doom more terrible than that which faces me, and what sentence of punishment will be more severe than that upon the careless and foolish life that I recognize in myself?

On reading through this form of confession which the priest gave me I was horrified, and I thought to myself, "Good heavens! What frightful sins there are hidden within me, and up to now I've never noticed them!" The desire to be cleansed from them made me beg this great spiritual father to teach me how to know the causes of all these evils and how to cure them. And he began to instruct me.

"You see, dear brother, the cause of not loving God is want of belief, want of belief is caused by lack of conviction, and the cause of that is failure to seek for holy and true knowledge, indifference to the light of the spirit. In a word, if you don't believe, you can't love; if you are not convinced, you can't believe, and in order to reach conviction you must get a full and exact knowledge of the matter before you. By meditation, by the study of God's Word, and by noting your experience, you must arouse in your soul a thirst and a longing- or, as some call it, 'wonder'- which brings you an insatiable desire to know things more closely and more fully, to go deeper into their nature.

"One spiritual writer speaks of it in this way: 'Love,' he says, 'usually grows with knowledge, and the greater the depth and extent of the knowledge the more love there will be, the more easily the heart will soften and lay itself open to the love of God, as it diligently gazes upon the very fullness and beauty of the divine nature and His unbounded love for men.'

"So now you see that the cause of those sins which you read over is slothfulness in thinking about spiritual things, sloth which stifles the feeling of the need of such thought. If you want to know how to overcome this evil, strive after enlightenment of spirit by every means in your power, attain it by diligent study of the Word of God and of the holy Fathers, by the help of meditation and spiritual counsel, and by the conversation of those who are wise in Christ. Ah, dear brother, how much disaster we meet with just because we are lazy about seeking light for our souls through the word of truth. We do not study God's law day and night, and we do not pray about it diligently and unceasingly. And because of this our inner man is hungry and cold, starved, so that it has no strength to take a bold step forward upon the road of righteousness and salvation! And so, beloved, let us resolve to make use of these methods, and as often as possible fill our minds with thoughts of heavenly things; and love, poured down into our hearts from on high, will burst into flame within us. We will do this together and pray as often as we can, for prayer is the chief and strongest means for our renewal and well-being. We will pray, in the words holy Church teaches us: 'Oh God, make me fit to love Thee now, as I have loved sin in the past'"

The Pilgrim Continues His Way

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antidrumpfs · 3 years

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Trump supporters at the Capitol on Jan 6th - Brent Stirton/Getty Images

On the morning of the Capitol riot, Vern Swieringa told his wife during a walk with their dogs: "Something is going to happen today. I don't know what, but something's going to happen today." The Christian Reformed Church pastor from Michigan had been watching for months as some members of his congregation grew captivated by videos about the QAnon conspiracy theory on social media, openly discussing sex trafficking and Satan-worshipping pedophiles. He had watched as other spiritual advisors, including the self-proclaimed "Trump Prophet" Mark Taylor, incorporated wild and dangerous QAnon beliefs into their sermons on YouTube and as organizers of the Christian Jericho March gathered in Washington, DC, days before the insurrection, urging followers to "pray, march, fast, and rally for election integrity." So when hundreds of President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol hours after his premonition, Swieringa was shocked, but not surprised. "I think some of the signs had been there all along, and it just all came to a perfect storm,"

Swieringa told Insider.

The pastor said he had been worried about so-called Christian nationalism since Trump was elected in 2016. (Neither Swieringa nor any of the other pastors interviewed for this story say who they voted for in 2016 or 2020.) He became even more concerned when, in 2018, some older members in his own congregation started sending him what he described as "disturbing" QAnon videos. When Swieringa brought these to the attention of his superiors, he said, they were mostly dismissive, telling him they didn't know what QAnon was. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, the problem grew larger and a lot more personal. Swieringa felt increasingly uncomfortable when a large part of his congregation dismissed the pandemic as a hoax. The 61-year-old pastor had been taking the pandemic very seriously, he said, partly because his wife was considered at risk. A bout of pneumonia in 2019 had left her with permanent scarring in the lungs. "It was at that point when I put my foot down and said, 'I'm not going to preach in front of a congregation that wants to sing and not wear masks,” Swieringa said. "But they still wanted me to preach in front of them without wearing a mask." He said the church offered to him a plexiglass barrier to preach behind, but he felt it wouldn't make much of a difference in an enclosed space. "We agreed to separate at that point, and so it felt pretty cordial at the time," Swieringa said. "But I found out later that there were really hard feelings amongst the congregation, and many of them felt like I abandoned them. It was heartbreaking."

Swieringa is not the only pastor to struggle with the rapid spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation in his congregation. A poll released in January by the Christian research organization Lifeway Research found that more than 45% of protestant pastors said they had often heard congregants repeating conspiracy theories about national news events. Another survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute found that more than a quarter of white evangelical respondents believed in QAnon and that three in five believed that President Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election was "not legitimate." Those rates were the highest in any religious group. The trend has prompted hundreds of evangelical pastors and faith leaders to speak out. In February, more than 1,400 of them published an open letter condemning "radicalized Christian nationalism" and the "rise of violent acts by radicalized extremists using the name of Christ," The Washington Post reported.

Among them is Jared Stacey, a Southern Baptist youth pastor from Virginia who ended up leaving the church altogether after QAnon and other conspiracy theories began to divide his congregation. He moved to Scotland in December, where he now studies theology at the University of Aberdeen. He told Insider he left to "create some space," adding that pastoring in 2020 was "a struggle" for many faith leaders. "I do think that a lot of pastors are burdened right now and need a friend," Stacey said. "It's not easy watching people that you've invested time in becoming radicalized so quickly right in front of you." He said that while some people might say politics shouldn't be discussed in churches, there comes "a point where refusing to talk politics is a false front for protecting the political sensibilities of your stakeholders." "That is why there is a theological need to address what the Bible would describe as telling lies or having a false God," he added. But keeping up with the information online is not always easy, and Stacey worries that the church is falling behind in the race to bring Christian messages to a world that spends most of its time online." The church is going through the biggest information shift since the printing press," Stacey said.

The road to recovery from QAnon

One person trying to use technology to reach more Christians who have become affected by QAnon is Derek Kubilus, the senior pastor of Uniontown United Methodist Church in Ohio. Kubilus runs the "Cross Over Q" podcast, which offers "healing for QAnon followers and family members from a Christian perspective." The pastor started the podcast after the Capitol riot and has received a wide range of listeners, including former QAnon believers who have told him that the podcast has been part of their recovery. "When I saw crosses being carried alongside QAnon banners and a noose as those folks marched on the Capitol I just knew I had to do something, but from a Christian perspective," Kubilus told Insider.

While some pastors, including Stacey and Swieringa, opted for private conversations with their congregants to warn against the dangers of misinformation, Kubilus does it publicly. In his podcasts, he debunks theories, speaks about how they're dangerous, and preaches about the importance of unity. "Members of the clergy are expected to maintain a certain kind of distance from secular politics ... both in order to preserve the unity of our congregation, and to make sure that we don't unduly influence elections," Kubilus said. "But I don't believe that QAnon is inherently political. It starts with politics, but these are people's lives, in relationships, that we're talking about."

Kubilus is aware that the recovery from QAnon radicalization is by no means a short one, but he's hopeful that his efforts will bring Christians back home eventually. "It takes a lot of courage, time, and patience," he said. "But when you hear the stories of people who are being hurt, in the families that are falling apart, you recognize that it is absolutely necessary."

Story By Sophia Ankel 3-14-21

#right wing extremism #right wing terrorism #hypochristian

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itsjustascarecrow · 3 years

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Ayy no I didn't make a sideblog, I just don't keep a blog after deleting a joke board I had in highschool, this account is 6ish? Years old. No, my point is, if they aren't allowed to take off their helmets around any living being, what would it matter if someone knew what their face looked like? What can they do with the information, esp if they're already hunting down mandos. I don't understand why you think I'm trying to start shit I'm trying to brainstorm key reasoning behind the helmet rule.

“I tried to discuss in messages but you have them shut down :/ Sorry just saw the end of your response, lol not catholic, islander/asian mix af. I think the reason people are taking offense at me asking the logic behind it is because they're looking at the religious insinuations, and think I'm arguing with that. I want to talk canon etc, which I guess this is the wrong place. ‘NOT TO MENTION THE SHEER AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO THINK THE IRL EQUIVALENT OF JEDI ARE CHRISTIANS??? AND NOT LITERAL MONKS????LIKE JUST ADMIT YOU HAVE CHRISTIAN BASED RELIGIOUS TRAUMA AND GET SOME THERAPY; STOP PROJECTING IT ONTO STAR WARS’ FUck okay you're hypocritical no wonder you just snap at questions, nvm I'm gone”

copying all your dumbass asks onto one, lol

first off, how tf do you have a blog for that fucking long and have absolutely shit all on it and NOT expect people to think you’re a spam account/sideblog, ghsjg.

and secondly, i’m aware of at least three of us now (myself included) who’ve been getting asks/replies from supposedly the same person who is just straight up not listening to a damn thing we’re trying to explain, like did you just completely fucking miss the part where i said din was FORCED DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCE to reveal his face to the empire?????? (not to mention we have no fucking idea how long these particular mandos have been using the strict helmet rule, so this could be an entirely new thing they decided to do to protect themselves further.) and even if it wasn’t an imperial agent who happened to see any of their faces, they can sell that information to them. and then the empire would have a face to a name to a set of armor and that makes it easier for them to track. they can find old contacts, haunts, etc and basically use backdoor methods to figure out all they can about their targets. and at this point, i can’t help but think you completely missed the scene where moff gideon knew who din and cara were and rattled them/got under their skin by sharing background info that neither thought the empire knew. THAT’S what they fucking do w/ information like that and again, it takes TWO FUCKING SECONDS to puzzle this shit out, kjghskdhkj.

thirdly, no fucking clue where you got this idea that i haven’t been talking about canon THIS ENTIRE FUCKING TIME. like eve before the fucking ethnoreligious parallels, i’ve been trying to give in-fucking-universe examples/theories what tf ever to answer your damn question, but it’s like half of it you’re not even fucking reading, lmao.

and as for my tags on a completely unrelated post, how tf is that hypocritical. i’m fucking mixed native american/scandinavian raised by two recovering catholics but i’m not out here like the people i was complaining about who (also have zero critical thinking skills and) think christianity/the jedi are parallels for each other then there’s no evidence to that point. these people are projecting their religious-based trauma onto a group of people who aren’t even comparable; i may have my gripes w/ christianity too, but at least i’m not making baseless connections, lmao.

lastly, pretty sure i have my blog set to replies from mutuals only, so you wouldn’t be able to reply regardless, and i only snap at stupid questions like yours, honey. but good, glad you’re gone, you will not be missed, and frankly i’m amazed you came back into my inbox at all. please gain some fucking critical thinking skills before you bother anyone w/ this kinda shit again

#CYNDI. CAN YOU BELIEVE #ask silhouby #the mandalorian #star wars #random bullshit #importantwhisperstimetravel

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

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If you were a witch, which animal would be your familiar? I don’t what a familiar is or anything about witchcraft.

If there's a design on your shirt, what is it? I literally just described it in the previous survey I did, but it has Ralphie from A Christmas Story on it with a bar of soap in his mouth and says, “Oh, fudge”, which is a quote from the movie.

If it was possible to colonize any planet and you were the leader, which planet would you choose? I really wouldn’t want to be the leader of anything. I’m not fit for that.

Is there a piece of technology that you just can't live without? I mean, I’m pretty attached to my laptop and phone, but of course if for some reason I couldn’t have them I would survive, but it’d be really quite boring. I don’t have much to do.

Would you ever visit a ghost town? That would be interesting.

What's the last thing you ordered from the last fast food place you went to? Loaded potato wedges and 3 egg rolls from Jack in the Box.

Which natural disaster scares you the most? They all sound terrifying. I’ve never experienced one. What're your religious beliefs and why do you follow them? I’m a Christian. I believe in God and that Jesus died for our sins and is our Savior.

What do you think happens after you die? I believe in heaven and hell.

What would you do if you found out your life was only a simulation controlled by someone else? That’s scary. I’ve had thoughts like that, though. Like a Truman Show scenario or that one day I’ll wake up and find out my whole life has been a dream.

What's the scariest thing you've accidentally found on the internet? Ugh, I HATED when jump scare things would go around. Like, people would disguise as a link for something else and then you click it and it’s some ugly, creepy looking girl screaming really loud. OH, and there was that one with the car that was driving down some winding road and you’re watching and waiting to see what the video is about and then bam! something pops up on the scream and scares you. Ughhh. Not cool. I’m such a jumpy person as it is already.

Is there anything bothering you right now? The usual stuff as always.

Thinking of every Halloween costume you've had, which one was the most creative? I never had a really creative one. They were pretty simple.

What song are you currently listening to and what song was the last you listened to? I’m not listening to music.

What's the picture on your calendar for this month? I don’t have a calendar for this year at the moment.

If you were a mythical creature, which would you be? A fairy.

If you were an animal, which would you be? A dog.

Were you ever bullied when you were younger and how did you handle it? I wasn’t, fortunately. It was something my parents worried about when I was in elementary school because I’m in a wheelchair, but honestly I never had any issues with anyone. The only bullying I receive is from myself on a regular basis.

What do you remember most from being five years old? I have some vague, bits and pieces of memories from kindergarten.

What do you remember most from being ten years old? I have some memories from 4th grade. My favorite teacher ever was my 4th grade teacher (who later ended up teaching 8th grade and I had him again) and I remember funny stuff he did and like how he read out loud to us books such as Matilda and he would the voices and made it fun for us. He also used to sing, and I remember one time he led all of us in a rendition of “I Want It That Way” by The Backstreet Boys lol. He was so cool. Oh, and he was known for doing “the robot” dance and miming.

What do you remember most from being fifteen years old? Stuff from high school.

What does the last person you found attractive look like? Alexander Skarsgard is 6′4, has blonde hair, blue eyes, is very fit and in shape, and Swedish. He’s absolutely gorgeous.

Have you ever thrown something away and then wanted it back? Yes. I hold onto a lot of stuff that will sit in a box somewhere forever, but then if I get rid of something I’ll suddenly wish I still had it or have a need for it again.

What's one random city you want to visit? Seattle.

If you owned a store, what would you most likely sell? Books. It would have a cafe, too.

If you had a garden, what sort of plants would you grow? I don’t know, man. I have zero interest in gardening.

What's your favorite phase of the moon? I don’t have one.

What're your plans for today? I’ll attend my church’s livestream and then do the normal things I do everyday.

What's the song for your life right now? I don’t know.

Do you believe that when you die, you get to see all your loved ones again? Yes.

Who would you be the most excited to see? My grandparents.

Have you lost or almost lost someone close to you to death this year? Not so far... I don’t want to think about that.

Did you lose any of your friends this year and if so, how? I don’t have any friends to lose.

Have you experienced anything new this year and if so, what? Not so far, but we’re only in January.

Do you enjoy reading National Geographic magazines? I’ve only read a few.

Would you rather read the book or watch the movie? I love to read and I’m down to check out the movie.

Do you know anyone who's serving in the military right now? No.

Does or did either of your parents serve in the military? Nope.

Has anything in your house ever caught on fire? No.

Have you ever hugged a stranger you thought was someone else? No. Omg, that would be super embarrassing. I’ve waved to someone I thought was someone else, but never went so far as to hug someone I thought was someone else. As a small child, did you ever feel as if you were different or weird? No, not really.

If you could instantly know any language in the world, what would it be? I’d like to be fluent in Spanish.

This year, how many times have you been to the doctor? So far just once. I go once a month and we’re only in January.

Do you have a library card and if so, do you use it often? Nope. I haven’t had a library card since I was in high school.

Do you like romcoms and if you do, which one is your favorite? Yeah, I’m a sucker for the romcoms. I have several favorites.

Thinking of your ex and the person you love, are they similar in any way at all? I don’t have a significant other or someone I’m interested in at the moment.

Is there something you currently want and/or need that you can’t have? Yes.

Thinking back to six weeks ago, were you happier then or are you happier now and why? Neither then or now.

Who's the first male you can think of whose name begins with "T" and what can you tell me about him? Thomas, my maternal grandpa. He sadly passed away 10 years ago. Both of my maternal grandparents passed away. I was very close with both of them and losing them was very hard for me. I miss them both every single day. My grandpa was an amazing man. He was the best husband, father, and grandpa. He was hardworking. He provided well for his family. He was loving. He was so funny. He told the best stories. He was known for being a talker haha, he could go on and on for hours, but everyone always wanted to hear what he had to say. And sometimes he’d go off on tangents, but the stories always came for circle. He was just an incredible man, well loved and missed by many.

Can you say "happy birthday" in another language? Yeah, “Feliz cumpleaños.”

What subjects do you or did you get the worst grades in? Math was always my worst subject, I barely scraped by with Cs.

Should you be concentrating on something else instead of this survey? Nah. This is my nighttime routine.

Have you ever told someone that you loved them and they rejected you? I didn’t tell them I loved them, but I expressed my feelings for them and was rejected. Twice.

Do you know anyone else that's happened to? Yeah.

Is there anything you want to say to someone, but you can’t or won’t? Not at this time. What're your reasons for not saying it? --

Who's someone in the music industry you think is overrated? Taylor Swift. Don’t for me, Swifties.

Who's the eleventh contact in your phone and when did you last see or speak to that person? I’m not checking.

What’s your mother’s middle name? I’m not sharing that.

When was the last time you ate cake and what type of cake was it? I had some red velvet cake a few days ago.

Have you ever been told you were too good or not good enough for someone you loved? I had friends who said I was too good for Joseph. I wasn’t good enough, though.

Why do you think someone would say that to you? They didn’t like how he treated me and thought he was too immature.

If the last person you kissed said you were the only one they wanted, would you believe them? That was 8 years ago, I don’t see him ever saying that now...

Who was your first crush, how do you feel about that person now and do you still talk to them? My first crush was this kid Philip when I was in 3rd grade lol it was just some little crush, I was 9. He didn’t even know me.

Who was the last person that apologized to you and what was it for? I don’t recall.

So how're things going with the person you love? There’s no such person.

Are you "in love" with the last person you kissed? No. I moved on years ago.

Do you have photos to go with all of the contacts in your phone? I haven’t added a photo for any of my contacts.

Who was the last person to comment on one of your photos on Facebook and how did you meet that person? I think it was my Nana.

How many of your friends are sexually active?

To finish, is there anything you would like to say to someone? Sigh.

Do you think surveys are annoying? They can be sometimes, but I really do enjoy doing them. Clearly.

What career paths are you considering? I don’t know. :/

Do you watch music videos? I haven’t in a long time.

Have you ever clicked on those banner ads that promise a prize for clicking? No. I definitely don’t miss popup ads.

What kind of computer are you using? Macbook Air.

What kind of computer do you wish you were using? I’m happy with this one.

Have you ever had a weight change so drastic you went to the doctor? I didn’t see a doctor for it specifically, but yeah it was concerning. It’s still a problem I’m struggling with.

How cold does it have to be before you put on a sweater? In the 60s F, I’d say.

Do you eat things off the floor? Never.

Who do people say you look like? My mom.

Do you usually get your homework done on time? I’m done with school, but yeah I always got my homework done on time. I may have been a major procrastinator, but my work always got done.

Have you ever framed your old movie ticket stubs? Not framed, but kept.

Do you have a digital camera? Nope.

Have you ever stuck something inappropriate in an electrical outlet? No. I’m afraid to plug in things that meant to go in there as it is.

What do you have anything scheduled for the 16th of this or next month? We’re past the 16th now, but no I didn’t have anything going on that day and I don’t have anything planned for that day next month either.

Can you sleep without any pillows? No. I can’t sleep flat, I have to be propped up.

Is there a color you refuse to wear? I don’t like to wear white.

Has anyone ever pulled a gun on you? No, but I am a victim of random gun violence.

Are there any chairs in your bedroom? My chair. There’s an ottoman that could also be a chair as well.

How many pairs of shoes do you have? Like 6 or 7.

How much was the last item of clothing you bought? My total was $40 for 2 shirts, but I ordered online so there’s additional fees.

Where's your father right now? He’s in his room asleep.

Do you skip breakfast often? Yeah.

How many days has it been since your last birthday? My birthday was 6 months ago.

Do you want any more siblings than you have now? Nah, at 31 years old I can’t imagine having another sibling.

Would you make a good president or prime minister? Nope. I have no desire to be one.

Are you going out of the country soon and if so, where to? No. I don’t have any travel plans and who knows when I will at this point. :(

Do you ever feel like you want to get away from everything? Yeppp.

Do you need a haircut? I could use a trim.

When was the last time you went on a trampoline? Never.

Were you alone today? I’m alone right now in my room cause everyone else is asleep, but they’re here in the house. My dad is off today and will be home all day. My mom and brother have work, but they’ll be home at some point.

Who was the last person you saw today? The day isn’t over yet, it’s only 4:51AM, but I’m willing to bet my brother will be the last person I see cause he and I stay up late.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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apesoformythoughts · 4 years

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«On the Fourth Sunday of Advent in 1511, Antón Montesino, the most gifted preacher of the Dominican missionaries, stood before a crowded church in Santo Domingo and spoke the prophetic words of John the Baptist: “I am a voice crying in the desert [Ego vox clamantis in deserto]” (Jn 1:23). He continued preaching:

I have come here to make you aware. I am the voice of Christ in the desert of this island. It would be wise of you to pay attention and to listen with your whole heart and with every fabric of your being . . . You are all in mortal sin. You live in it, you die in it. All because of the cruel tyranny you exercise against these innocent peoples. Tell me, by what right and with what justice do you so violently enslave these Indians? By what authority do you wage such hideous wars against these people who peacefully inhabit their lands, killing them by unspeakable means? How can you oppress them, giving neither food nor medicine and by working them to death, all for your insatiable thirst for gold? And what care are you providing them spiritually in teaching them about their God and creator, so they are baptized, hear Mass, and keep holy days? Are they not human beings? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obligated to love them as you love yourselves? Do you not understand or feel this? How can you remain so profoundly asleep?

[…] The following Sunday, this time before an even larger congregation, the Dominicans repeated their admonishment of slave-holders as mortal sinners. But they also raised the stakes in a way that was as scandalous as it was Christian: anyone who refused to free their laborers and make restitution would be denied absolution in Confession. According to the Order of Preachers on the island, excommunication was the last resort to effectively address such widespread injustice entrenched among members of the Church.

The fruit of the Advent 1511 sermon was nothing short of revolutionary in the religious and political history of the Latin West. The event mobilized a concerted, tireless effort to promote solidarity and a love for the humanity of so-called “infidel” neighbors, not in spite of the Gospel but in genuine service to it.»

— “On the Catholic Origins of Human Rights”

#history #human rights #OP ftw #catholicism

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surveys-at-your-service · 5 years

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Survey #221

“god is making fun of me; he’s up there laughing, i can see.”

What type of toothpaste do you use? Crest. What is your favorite color(s) of eye-makeup? b l a c k Are you sexually active? No. Do you have sensitive skin? I guess? Are you egotistical? I have the self-esteem of like... a blobfish. Do you have an older sister? Multiple. Favorite song by Owl City? I like "Fireflies" and "Hot Air Balloon." What color is your mum’s car? White. Where do you keep your kitty litter box? In the hallway that connects the bathroom and kitchen. Are you a lighter complexion than your father? I AM MUCH MUCH LIGHTER. My dad is really dark-skinned from being a mailman for all my life. Always being outside does it. His arms especially are really really tan from sticking them out the window. Do you like apricots? Noooo. Do you like kinky sex? Never tried anything kinky before, so wouldn't know. What country were you born in? The U.S.A. Solid soap bar or liquid body wash? LIQUID. Bar soap grosses me out, even though it's... yeah, soap. Like multiple people (if you live with others, anyway) are rubbing that on their body, no thanks. Do you believe being gay is a choice or a “disorder”? Neither; I believe it's a mutation. How many birds can you name just by looking at them? Uhhh jaybirds... cardinals... bald eagles... crows, ravens... vultures... peacocks... Victoria crowned pigeons... barn owls, horned owls, snowy owls... probably others. There's so many, I'm not musing over it forever. Which birds are most common around your neighborhood? I don't live in a "neighborhood." But you see lots of crows in this area. If you don’t understand a reference in something, do you look it up? Sometimes. Depends on what it is, how interesting it is. Are you the kind of person to look at accident sites, when passing them by? Morbid curiosity gets the better of me here. Did you ever make dolls or hand puppets in primary/elementary school? Yeah. When you were little, what sorts of make belief did you play? Y'ALL I did the weirdest shit. I remember I loved mimicking A Bug's Life by taking a leaf and placing things like seeds and stuff on it, my little sister and I enjoyed "cooking" with plastic food and our oven set, we liked playing house with friends, OMG I FORGOT ABOUT HOW WE USED TO LOVE BEING MERMAIDS IN THE POOL, uhhh. Idr, there's other stuff for sure. I was really creative as a kid and loved playing make believe. Has a friend’s parent ever given you a present just because? I don't think "just because." What do you do with clothes you can’t wear anymore? We donate them, give them away to friends if they like something, or, when it comes to our favorite shirts, my mom has actually been working on creating a big blanket out of them since we were kids. I hope she finishes before her time's up. What is something you’re very particular about? How my food is prepared. What is your dearest stuffed animal that you own? Why is that? My moose Brownie from Cabela's in Ohio. I ALWAYS slept hugging him as a little kid and even teenager until Jason got me Rebel the meerkat. He's still on my dresser. Name something awesome from another culture that is not part of yours: Oh man, idk. When at a Chinese or Japanese restaurant, do you use chopsticks? I have pretty intense tremors. I could NEVER use chopsticks. What’s something you can’t wait for about growing old? Um, nothing? Nothing about being elderly seems fun. How do you expect your life to go like? How are you ensuring that? Ideally, it would be defined by contentment and success. I want to know financial peace, stability, and pride in what I've accomplished. I'm trying my damnedest to ensure this by going back to school, trying as hard as I can to push my photography, and work on my mental health. Or do you just wing it as you go? NO. I've always had plans and goals, and I act on the desire to achieve them. The only time I was truly "winging it" was during my suicidal depression phase after the breakup. I was literally too busy wanting to die but being too afraid to and so lost and hopeless that I didn't know what to do. What’s a yard game that you still enjoy playing as an adult? Hunny I don't go outside rip. What do you think is the most interesting sea creature? Portuguese man-o-war, probably. They don't have a fucking brain yet are alive????? And deadly as a mfer????? How do you reset your head to zero, so to speak? Sleep. Have you ever gone exploring an abandoned building? Well, shacks. Are there any foreign television shows you enjoy watching? Some anime. What’s your favorite way to spend a weekend? I don't think I have a set "favorite" way. What’s your “Death Row Meal”? I mean, it'd depend on what I wanted at the time? Do you like going to the movies or prefer watching at home? I strongly prefer going to the theater. Don't really know why, though... I guess the setting, being in the dark and watching on a huge screen? When you were a kid, did you eat the crusts on your sandwich or not? Yeah. I've never minded crust. What activity instantly calms you? Car rides where I can blare my music. Ideally, how would you spend your birthday? It'd depend on what I was up for that day. But definitely doing things with friends and family. What’s the best joke you’ve ever heard? Idk. I don't really like traditional jokes. Be witty. What’s the career highlight you’re most proud of? Ha. Do you think you’ll stay at your current company awhile? Why or why not? N/A How would your 10-year-old self react to what you do? That's like the most depressing thought possible lmao. What do you remember most about your first job? The fact I can't do customer service. All I remember is the anxiety. Did you start working immediately after finishing school? Why or why not? No. I just wasn't ready. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? I lasted two hours in a deli in a constant state of panic. Guess. What’s the best career decision you’ve ever made? Going back to school for a degree. What’s the worst career decision you’ve ever made? Trying the deli. How much time do you spend with your family? Like... none, almost ever. We all live in different places. Who do you most like spending time with and why? In my family? My mom, because we relate on a lot and just generally get along. Were you close with your family growing up? My immediate family, yes. How do you define your family now? Distant. What traits are most important to you in your family members? Being accepting and open-minded. And supportive. Who are you the closest to and why? My mom. I live with her and she's supported and loved me through everything. Do you want a family of your own? Why does "family" always have to mean including kids? I don't want any. I just want my s/o and pets. What’s your favorite family tradition? We don't really have any anymore. If you could change your relationship with a family member, would you? If so, with whom? Yes, with my oldest sister. She pretty much disowned me at one point, we reconnected, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't like me again. We are VERY similar according to Mom, so it'd be nice to be close with her, but. What’s your favorite family memory? As a family... uh. Idk. Probably some times we were all in the pool together when my parents were still together, having fun. What TV family most reminds you of your own? *shrugs* Do you ever wish you were raised differently? In some ways, yes. Chores absolutely needed to be more enforced. What’s the best piece of advice a family member has given you? Idk, I'm sure something my mom said about moving on from things. Do you wish you had more siblings? If so, why? I wish I had a little brother, but one I was still relatively close in age with. I would've rocked that protective big sister over slightly-younger bro jazz. It would've been cool to have another kid to play with, especially a guy instead of a relatively girly-girl; not trying to make any pre-judgments about an imaginary kid, but you get it. Stereotypes and all. It would've been nice to have a more boyish sibling. Did you ever hide anything from or lie to your parents? Yeah. If you had a family business, what would it be? That would never happen in my family. Do you and your family have any nicknames for each other? Nothing out of the ordinary; ex. they usually just call me "Britt," but it's clear and reasonable why. What’s your favorite way to spend time with your family? I mean it varies. My parents are divorced and best apart so we're never really "together" unless we're at my older sister's house for birthday parties or holidays. That's the only time we're really *all* together. How do you show your family you love them? Always being there to listen or offer a signature bearhug. Have you ever been to a family reunion? Noooo, our extended family is littered all throughout the country. What’s the most important holiday you spend with your family and why? Christmas. It just reminds me of being a kid again. Who in your family would you describe as a “character”? Ho boy, my grandma. It's hurting lately to think of her as a "character" now though, seeing as she's dying of cancer now. She starts chemo soon, but this one's a death sentence regardless. It's spread too much. My relationship with her is strained and difficult, but I care for her nonetheless, and I worry that I'm really going to feel it all crash when she dies and I probably won't be there due to distance and school. What’s something your family would be surprised to learn about you? Shit, my family doesn't know most big things about me, I think; not because they don't care, but because I'm embarrassed of hobbies and interests and thus secretive. Only my mom knows mostly everything. I guess more than anything, uhhh... I'm no longer a Christian? I was raised religious, so most probably just assume I still am, and I don't just go around talking about how I dropped my faith. Which family member do you confide in most? Mom. If you had only one sense (hearing, touch, sight, etc.), which would you want? Sight, I think. What’s the first thing you look for in a partner and/or friend? A friendly, likable personality. When was the last time you shaved your legs? Oh wow, not since... around my birthday in February. The last person to say they loved you? Mom. Last thing received in the mail? For me, school textbooks. Do you have any famous relatives? Only ancestors. I consider "relatives" different/closer. Have you ever had sex in a public place? No. Have you ever been searched by the cops? It was either staff or police who did so the numerous times I went into the hospital and ER for my mental state. Are you any good at math? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? No. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight? No. Well, I think. Do you remember the most naughty night of your life? Yes. Have you gone to college/uni? What is/was your major? I'm in college now! My major in this school is organismal biology because they don't have zoology. I'm getting what I need here and then going to a university for zoology. What color is your best friend’s hair? Brown. Where were you going the last time you were a passenger in a car? Yesterday otw home from school. Have you ever dated someone who had a kid from a previous relationship? No, and I wouldn't. What was the last event that was a turning point in your life? Going back to school! :') What’s your favorite setting in nature? (mountains, beach, desert, etc…) M O U N T A I N S M O T H E R F U C K E R What hair color is most common in your family? BROWN. Almost everyone is brown-haired. For how long has your favorite band been your favorite? Damn, it's been Ozzy Osbourne since 6th or 7th grade, and I'm 23 now. He probably always will be. I'm hopefully seeing him next year and I'm!!!!!!!! not!!!!!!!!!! prepared!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you have any photos on your refrigerator? What are they of? Yeah. There's numerous of my older sister and her fam, plus my grandmother and her husband. Maybe others, idr. What color are the pillows on your couch? We don't have pillows on there. Have you ever gone more than 5 years without going to the dentist? No. My mom always makes sure her kids keep up with health check-ups. Do you have a hard time sleeping when you’re away from home? It depends on the emotional and physical comfort of where I am, really. Do you know anyone who got engaged while still in high school? I believe so. Are you friendly to retail employees? Honestly, fuck you if you're not for no good reason. Half the shit you complain about isn't their goddamn fault. Do you know anyone who litters? Not regularly, no. I wouldn't associate with them, I don't care how simple that sounds. However, I kept my mouth shut at my nephew's last b-day party because the kids let balloons up into the air; they tend to end up on beaches or in the ocean, so technically, it's littering, but I didn't want to seem like an asshole. I'm certain my sister didn't really think about that though, or else she wouldn't have allowed it. Do you think your neighbors have any complaints about living near you? No. We don't do any harm. The dogs bark sometimes, but not obnoxiously loud to where you can hear it if you're in your house. What was the last kind of soup you ate? I tried canned vegetable soup when my tongue piercing was healing, but I didn't like it. Where do you usually buy groceries from? Wal-Mart or Harris Teeter, depending on a few circumstances. What’s your favorite candy? Reese's if you include chocolate, strawberry Sour Punch Straws if not. Have you ever gone to a strip club? No, not my kinda scene. Are you jealous of anyone? *Envious, yes. Last song listened to? why????? do i like????????? "love rhymes with fuck you" by j star??????????? Do you take vitamins daily? No; only on Sunday I take a vit. d pill because otherwise I'm severely deprived. Is anyone jealous of you? I HIGHLY doubt that, homie. Last CD you listened to? Metallica's "Ride The Lightning" album when Mom and I were otw to my therapist once and my iPod wasn't working. This was FOREVER ago and I'm pretty sure it's still in there, lmao. Is there something you want to tell someone? I'm going to die wanting to see Jason one final time and apologize to him for how I treated him after the break-up. When you eat Frosted Flakes, do you add sugar in it? NOOOOOOO not a fan of Frosted Flakes. How many kids do you want to have? Zero. Have you ever gone behind your parents' backs? I actually don't think so... Who’s the biggest hugger you know? Ashley's huband's grandma will give you a hug even if she met you for only five seconds. Not a bad thing, it's just kinda uncomfortable. Where did you get your worst scar from? Surgery. Do you name your stuffed animals? Some. Have you ever been to Disney World? Yes. What is your favorite roller coaster, and where is it? My ass will not sit in a roller coaster, probably ever. What is your favorite state? From what I've seen, I find Utah the prettiest. Do you own any form of a Gameboy? I have a red Gameboy Advance that somehow still works. How is the world going to end? I find a meteor striking to be most likely, or we're swallowed by a black hole. Do you have any pets? Do you want any/more? Yes, and I do want another ball python morph, as well as a bearded dragon. Though if/when Sara and I move in together, Doris will be enough for a beardie, oml I love that sassy baby. :') <3 How did you find out about Myspace? Probably my older sister, or classmates. Are you careless with your information on the internet? "Maybe by some people’s standards." <<< Change "maybe" to "probably" for me, lol. I'm trying to improve, though. Have you ever owned a lava lamp? No, but my older sis had one as a teen. I want one SO BADLY. Is it better to color with markers, crayons, or colored pencils? Colored pencils, by far. Do you like to draw or write better? Write. I get more satisfaction out of drawing something I like, but I draw so rarely because I'm painfully critical over what I make. Do you have a favorite cousin? No. Can you knit? No. Are you interested in more than one person at the moment? Nope. Who are your last three missed calls from? Mom, Mom, and a number I didn't recognize. What’s the biggest upcoming event for you? I dunno. Have you hung out with any guys recently? No, but I miss Girt, so I should invite him over some time soon. Do you like your school? I love my school. They are very invested into their students' success, as well as being a community. Who’s the weirdest teacher at your school? I wouldn't know, I've only been here a month. Do you have nightmares often? Apparently. Mom sleeps on the couch right outside my door, and I spook her quite a lot by waking up screaming or attacking my bed, she says. Thank God I don't tend to remember them. Clarification, they're not night terrors or anything like that. I'm just pretty active in my sleep, such as talking and such. Can you remember how old you were when your appearance started to matter? I was kinda self-conscious in middle school 'cuz BOY was I an ugly duckling. How frequently do you pee at night? I almost without fail get up once a night to go. Do you name your pet fish, if you have any? N/A Do your parents care about you cussing? Dad doesn't, but Mom does about "severe" words, so I try to censor myself around her. Who is your favorite person in the world? Sara. Who do you spend most of your time with? I live only with my mother, so. Is there a stuffed animal you still take places with you? No. Last insult you received? Idk. Have you ever eaten Pop Rocks and drank Coca-Cola at the same time? Yoooo I think I did once at a b-day party, but not a lot bc I was scared lmao. At concerts, do you buy merch? I've only been to one, but I did. I would if I went to more. I've missed some fucking amazing bands' concerts this past year, and it's really annoying me now. Are you gullible? Not really. Do you get excited easily? No. Are you a headbanger? No, I'd get dizzy with a headache on board. First concert you went to? Alice Cooper. What venue was that at? Somewhere in Raleigh, idr. Have you ever been out of state for a concert? No. Are you fascinated by outer space? I don't know a person who isn't. It's very intriguing. Do you shop for new clothes each season? No. Is your hair dyed right now? If so, what color is it? No, but damn I want to. I wanna dye it lilac. I just need a professional to do it. Do you look up your symptoms online whenever you have a problem? Not "whenever," no. I typically just ask Mom. Do you eat enough fruits and vegetables? No. Definitely not vegetables. Do you have dreams that you’re not giving up on? Being truly content with my life one day. Do you think your hair looks better up or down? It's too short to go up. Do you like bare trees or green-leaved trees better? I prefer autumn trees. What season would you want to get married in? October/November, preferably, when the trees are all pretty. <3 What does your favorite stuffed animal look like? I have three "favorites," those being Brownie, Plum, and Rebel. I've already talked about Brownie the moose, then Plum is a stuffed snake from Sara that she'd had growing up, and Rebel is my stuffed meerkat from Jason that I always slept with while we were together and for a very long time after the break-up. He was a big comfort to me, and though he's a bittersweet stuffed animal now, idk. A lot of memories. His fur is all matted and you can just tell that fella has seen some love. Do you collect anything? Meerkat & Silent Hill stuff. What was the last book you read? I'm almost done with The Handmaid's Tale for school, and it is fucking phenomenal, coming from someone whose love for reading slipped away long ago. I have never in my life read a book with such vivid imagery and description. When was the last time you moved to a new house? The beginning of 2017. How long was your longest relationship? 3 1/2 years. Tell me about how your parents met. How old were they? They met through work. Idk how old they were, somewhere in their 30s, probably. What makes your bedroom special to you/what is your favorite part about it? It is VERY personalized; my room is looooaaaaded with shit relating to me and my interests, and that's what I love about it. It's very homey to me, surrounded by my passions. When washing your hands, do you wet your hands or put soap on first? I put soap on first. When was the hardest you ever cried? What was the circumstance? I think the night of the breakup, when Mom essentially dragged me home from trying to walk to his house to talk. I entirely fell apart. When it comes to school, how motivated are you to work? It depends on where I am, actually. I'm at school for hours most days because my schedule fits into Mom's to avoid driving back and forth, and while I'm waiting in the library, I'm very motivated, even a bit obsessive. Meanwhile, at home, I don't want to work like... at all. I'm so used to this being my chill place. Do you know any high school sweethearts? How’s life treating them? My sister and her husband dated for a while in HS, actually, and they seem just fine. I'm sure my former friend and her husband are still together, and they've dated since middle school. I haven't had contact with her for like a year or so now though so idk how they are. Where do you usually buy your clothes? HotTopic or Wal-Mart. If you had to be a school teacher, which subject would you teach? Science, probably. But God FORBID I ever be a teacher; I wouldn't last. Which is the scariest ride you have ever been on in a theme park? Whatever that ride is where you sit in a bunch of chairs in a circle, go up way too damn high, and drop. I did it as a yolo even though I was terrified, and yeah, I screamed way too fucking loud. Never again.

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