#congregation for the doctrine of the faith

[cathnews]

Belgian bishops create prayer liturgy for same-sex couples

Belgian bishops create prayer liturgy for same-sex couples

A group of Belgian Catholic bishops have defied the Vatican by introducing blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples in their dioceses. The bishops of Flanders also published a liturgy for the celebration of homosexual unions. “In doing so, they are going directly against the Vatican,” reported the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad. The Vatican clarified in March 2021 that the Catholic Church…

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#Being Pastorally Close to Homosexual Persons #Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith #Homosexual blessings #LGBTQ Catholics

[theexodvs]

“Cult” (n.) and “cultic” (adj.)

There is great confusion when describing certain groups and movements as "cultic." Since the most famous examples of cultic groups and movements in living memory include the Manson Family, People’s Temple, the Branch Davidians and Heaven’s Gate, the popular conception of a cult has become a centralized group with one leader with a type-A personality. This is not how most cultic groups take shape.

"Cultic" and "centralized" are not synonyms. They are entirely different concepts, and whether one group or movement is one has no bearing whatsoever on whether it is the other.

The United Pentecostal Church International and Pentecostal Assemblies of the World are both cults. They are part of the Oneness Pentecostal movement*. Note, the UPCI and PAW are not in fellowship with each other and have no official relations. This is because this movement is decentralized, encompassing various different groups that are united in few if any ways besides (some) similar teachings. Whatever leadership and governance model they have, shared or contrasting, is secondary, because Oneness Pentecostalism as a set of doctrines is itself cultic, meaning any group that espouses it is a cult by definition.

Christian Identity is a more pronounced example of a cultic movement that is decentralized. It is a white supremacist group that teaches that white people are the descendants of the ancient Israelites, and that "gentiles" (people who aren't white) can never be saved. Its footprint is almost entirely made of websites, prison gangs, and local congregations, which are not in fellowship with each other or with any larger group. I would hope any decent person would be opposed to this movement and its teachings, but an attempt to treat "cultic" and "centralized" as synonyms might keep one from recognizing CI as something that should be avoided.

Other decentralized movements that are cultic include the Word of Faith movement, the Men's Right Movement, dispensationalism, neurodiversity, the Sovereign Citizens movement, BDSM, the New IFB, kinism, and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Every group that is part of these is a cult, thought they may not be in fellowship with other groups within the same movement.

*The Oneness Pentecostal movement is not representative of Pentecostalism as a whole. Most of the world's Pentecostals belong to the Assemblies of God which has taught the Trinity for its entire existence. Pentecostalism is not necessarily cultic. Oneness Pentecostalism is.

#cult #cults #manson family #charles manson #people's temple #peoples temple #jim jones #branch davidians #david koresh #heaven's gate #heavens gate #united pentecostal church international #pentecostal assemblies of the world #upci #paw #oneness pentecostalism #oneness pentecostals #christian identity #word of faith #prosperity gospel #men's rights movement #mra #men's rights activism #men's rights activist #men's rights activists #mras #mrm #mens rights movement #mens rights activism #mens rights activists

[prolifeproliberty]

Anticipating further confusion, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement clarifying that every statement by Pope Francis should be understood as having a silent "no homo" added to the end of it. "The Pope always speaks nullus homo," said Achibishop Fernando. "It is a tradition that traces its origins to Saint Peter himself."

#Babylon bee #satire

[eternal-echoes]

The new document signed by Pope Francis and DDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández was written in response to a bishop from the Philippines who had expressed concern at the growing number of Catholics in his diocese who are taking part in Freemasonry and asked for suggestions for how to respond pastorally. The dicastery’s response, dated Nov. 13, calls for “a coordinated strategy” involving all of the bishops in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines to promote catechesis “in all parishes regarding the reasons for the irreconcilability between the Catholic faith and Freemasonry.” The Freemasons are the largest worldwide oath-bound secret society. Freemasonry promotes ideas and rituals incompatible with the Catholic faith, including indifferentism, or the position that a person can be equally pleasing to God while remaining in any religion, and a deistic concept of a “Great Architect of the Universe.” The Vatican document reaffirms that “those who are formally and knowingly enrolled in Masonic Lodges and have embraced Masonic principles” fall under the provisions of the Catholic Church’s 1983 “Declaration on Masonic Associations.” The 1983 declaration, signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declares that Catholics who enroll in Masonic associations “are in a state of grave sin and may not receive holy Communion.”

#Catholic #Christianity #freemasonry #Pope Francis

[werewolfetone]

whats the belfast society?

Ok so to understand the Belfast Society one first needs to understand a few things about eighteenth century Irish Presbyterianism: one, that it was very very very very centred around the idea that Christ is the only one with any right to legislate on religion, i.e. that the Bible is not only the only guideline for Christianity, but that if you deviate from the letter of the Bible at all you are Doing It Wrong. This led to a tradition of free thought within the church but also, to paraphrase historian Ian McBride, left the official Synod wide open to harassment from various groups on the grounds that the Synod was misinterpreting scripture in some way and therefore perverting true Christianity. Two, as contradictory as it may seem, the Synod also only tolerated dissent and "heresy" from both ministers and the laity up to a point; they were not above going scorched earth on someone for disagreeing with them too much. Three, like many other major Christian sects at the time, they regarded the belief that Jesus and God are not the same being who form 2 parts of 1 trinity but totally separate, which is common among Unitarians and Arians, as heresy. This will become important in a moment.

The immediate story of the Belfast society starts with an English Presbyterian minister who became the minister of the Wood Street congregation in Dublin in 1702 by the name of Thomas Emlyn. People liked Emlyn, but it didn't take his parishioners long to notice that he never talked about the aforementioned trinity doctrine, which was really odd, and made them suspicious, because Unitarianism was in the air and a number of major religious authorities were screaming + crying + throwing up about it. So one of his parishioners asked him outright: did he believe in the idea of the trinity? And Emlyn said no.

Immediately, Emlyn was called before the Dublin Presbytery. They exiled him, he (outraged because only Jesus was supposed to be able to legislate like that in the church) compared them to the Pope, they threatened to come after him if he ever took up preaching again. A pamphlet war ensued. Eventually, Emlyn was thrown in prison. He stayed there for 2+ years until one of his friends intervened and liberated him.

Cut to Ulster. It was now 1705 and the Ulster Synod was also nervous about heresy. So worried, in fact, that they decided to institute something called the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is essentially a (really, really long) list of basic Christian beliefs a prospective minister would need to agree to in front of the Synod before he could be ordained, even if a congregation had already asked him to become their minister. Predictably for a group of people whose whole thing was no earthly authority on religion but Thee Bible, many Presbyterian ministers in Ulster immediately took exception to this. One of them was a man called Rev. John Abernathy, of the First Presbyterian Church in Belfast, and he was so upset that he founded a group for like-minded ministers and laypeople who liked philosophy and hated the Westminster Confession called the Belfast Society.

To quote historian ATQ Stewart, "The Society devoted itself to consideration of the scriptural terms of the unity of the Christian Church the nature and mischief of Schism, the rights of conscience and private judgement, the sole dominion of Christ in His Kingdom, and other subjects of that kind." They studied and debated on the Bible, talked about what they were reading outside of meetings, and generally generated a lot of talk and ideas that certain orthodox Presbyterian writers would malign for centuries afterwards. Like an extremely Presbyterian debate club, really. Additionally, a lot of big names in the New Light controversy of the 1720s (which is a related but different story), including Samuel Haliday, Samuel Dunlop, Abernathy himself, etc, were members of the Belfast Society first. Thomas Drennan, father of William Drennan, was friends with nearly everyone involved. Through Drennan and through the way they influenced the outcome of the New Light controversy, one might say that they actually influenced modern Belfast a fairly significant amount!

Sources beneath the cut

McBride, Ian. Scripture politics : Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late eighteenth century. Clarendon Press, 1998.

Stewart, Anthony Terence Quincey. A deeper silence : the hidden roots of the United Irish movement. Faber & Faber, 1993.

Whelan, Fergus. Dissent Into Treason: Unitarians, King-killers and the Society of United Irishmen. Brandon, 2010.

Whelan, Fergus. May Tyrants Tremble: The Life of William Drennan, 1754-1820. Irish Academic Press, 2020.

#asks #irish history #18th century #jory.postbox

[floating--goblin]

anyway. hyper specific ministry headcanons

Layout

It's made up of one large central building shaped like a Grucifix, and several annexes

Actually not that big or ostentatious a place, it's elegant but utilitarian. The church isn't made of money, y'know

There are however many secret escape passages, that are well-maintained and of critical importance. New members get taught how to escape any area of the Ministry, in case of an attack.

There's a reason the gates are so well guarded, after all.

Most of the estate is actually just made up of fields, a bit of forest, and a portion of a river, used for baptisms.

There's a cemetery that doubles as a garden, because memento mori and all that. It's very lovely, very ornate, full of old statues and well-cared-for trees

There's a big fountain in the middle affectionately called the Spring of Saints, because the statues on it are supposedly figures of importance to the Ministry, like Jezebel. That, however, has not been confirmed, and who exactly the figures are is up to interpretation.

All Papas share a study, that gets passed down by the retiring Papa to his successor. As a result, over time it just filled up with all sorts of items left behind by previous Papas.

Most of the congregation lives in dorms in the main building, with some annexes being reserved for families

The library is open to every member, and hosts a surprisingly low number of Satanic texts-- mostly because there just aren't that many.

It does however have copies of pretty much every religious text, so that members can remain informed and make their own decisions on their faith.

Social structure

Anyone may join. While the Ministry's goal is indeed to convert, it doesn't mean to do that by force-- so people who just need a place to stay are welcome, albeit hosted in one of the annexes and not included in any important rites. Black mass or baptisms are free to witness, though.

Human sacrifices are practiced, but not in the traditional sense-- no one's getting killed, but blood can be willingly offered, in moderation. Other forms of "human sacrifice" are work done for the Ministry, good deeds, counseling, etc.

Suffering is never demanded by doctrine. Members are invited to indulge in all great aspects of life, safely and within reason, and to lean on one another through hardship.

There are twelve Cardinals at any given time, mirroring the Apostles. They are elected mainly based on work ethic and can have any age or gender. The title isn't as prestigious as one would think, but they do have more duties than the average member-- most often they're in charge of sermons, counseling or training the choir.

Despite their reputation, Sisters of Sin aren't required to dress a certain way or to engage in anything sexual. They represent an inverse of Christian purity culture, but that only requires a certain attitude, not certain acts.

Those who are comfortable dressing more provocatively are however most often picked for public appearances, but that's only because the Ministry means to send a message to the mainstream. All Sisters are valued equally and highly respected within the church.

The same goes for Brothers and other Siblings; though they don't have as much of a public presence because of the way the Ministry chooses to present itself, they aren't any less important.

There isn't a proper hierarchy to the Siblings, but the eldest/most responsible/most beloved of them is often given the affectionate title of Prime Mover or Mother Superior (regardless of gender), and is unofficially in charge of everyone.

Surprisingly, there are children in the Abbey-- be they children of members, orphans or troubled youth who just ended up the Abbey's doorstep. They live much more secular lives and don't have access to all spaces, but can be part of the choir or assist in some rituals.

They are, however, treasured! And the church has a bit of a culture of raising kids communally. While childcare duties aren't forced on anyone, every member does have the responsibility of keeping the kids safe at the very least.

Speaking of families, while the Ministry isn't really in the business of marrying people, it's not like they forbid love. A bonding ritual may be performed, upon request, for sentimental purposes.

Anyone found to have harmed another member willingly is immediately expelled and, if the deed calls it, reported to the police. Especially monstrous offenses are faced with much more grim consequences before all of that, though.

Let's just say, ghouls are great at making someone look like they got stalked by a pack of wolves through a hundred acres of woodland.

The Ghouls

They're an... interesting bunch.

While they're counted as a separate group from the bulk of the congregation, they're neither above nor below your typical Sibling. They're just a different kind of beings.

Their duties range from kitchen work, to guarding the premises, to of course representing the band-- all things that Siblings do, save for the last one.

Despite being demonic in nature, they aren't demons per se. They are technically speaking a class of lesser demon, but they are not hellborn.

Instead, they are the souls of humans that returned to haunt their own bodies.

Their undead nature gives them some uncanny attributes, but when it comes down to it, they are very similar to humans.

Their bodies aren't quite right, though-- they're sometimes too hot or too cold, their hearts don't always beat, some of them miss vital organs and live well without them. By all means, those are living bodies-- they're not zombies, they don't rot, and all basic functions are there-- but there's anomalies that are just unexplainable.

They are always masked not only as a sign of service, but because their faces aren't... all the way there. A quick glance from afar will have you convinced you're just seeing another person, but look too closely or for too long and that illusion falters. There isn't one single thing you can point out as being wrong, but they're just... wrong. Like crude approximations of human faces, made by something fundamentally detached from humanity.

Some say they look that way because faces are a reflection of the soul, and they reconstructed their faces from memory the way they used to feel it before death. It would explain why some ghouls are so expressive in a way that's closer to caricature than anything natural.

They also retain no knowledge of their previous lives, save for some sensory or muscle memory, maybe a vague idea of where they used to live.

However, of course, they are not without personalities! Those personalities just tend to be based on lived experience from after they died. Whether anything from before remains is difficult to tell.

Elements aren't indicative of any magic properties, they're just designations based on their role in the band.

In fact, ghouls don't have much in the way of magic powers-- they're inherently magical by being demonic, but that mainly comes in the way they're built.

Still, some are especially good at reading emotions and intentions, though that can be written off as a heightened sensitivity earned after death.

Some people might see claws, tails, fangs or horns on the ghouls, though these features aren't physically present. The way that ghouls move, being so theatrical and bordering on animalistic, can sometimes cause these impressions.

By tradition in some parts of Europe, especially wicked or "mad" people were thought to become ghouls after death; as a result, they'd get nailed down in their coffins so they couldn't awaken and hunt down their families, often times through their hearts, hands and/or mouths. Some ghouls in the Ministry retain these marks, along with the knowledge that they used to be viewed as monsters in their first lives.

They don't speak often unless communicating with humans, because ghouls can easily understand one another. As a result, they also don't give each other names. It's just not necessary. Their human peers can give them nicknames for convenience sake, though.

They live in the Den, a large hall underneath the Ministry that resembles an inverted cathedral, and all share that space. Things like privacy aren't exactly important to ghouls, nor do they have strict concepts of monogamy, romantic or platonic attraction. They're a very tight-knit group and those sorts of labels just don't have any relevance.

Siblings call the Ministry's ghoul population the pack.

They tend to be big on casual physical affection, maybe due to their nature as undead outcasts.

Much like their human counterparts, community is very important to ghouls. If a member of the pack is suffering for whatever reason, the others will stick by their side, fiercely defend them and do anything to help. No questions asked.

#THIS IS LONG AND STUPID just keep in mind if you choose to click that keep reading button #the band ghost #nameless ghouls

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

Dr. Michael Brown is held up as an “apostolic elder” of Mercy Culture Church. This means he is at the top of the “five-fold ministry” structure overseeing this congregation. Mercy Culture teaches the Word of Faith doctrine called “Healing in the Atonement”, a harmful lie claiming that Jesus died for you to be free of sickness and disease in this life if only you have enough faith.

They teach that there are “many ways to connect with God” and they help individuals find their own unique way of “accessing His presence”.

They emphasize finding favor with God. Friends, you will only find favor with God through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Your good works will not earn favor because they’ll never be good enough for our Holy Creator. He gives you His favor solely on behalf of Christ and His amazing grace.

You may have heard of the purpose driven church, but have you heard of “presence driven church”? Me neither. Our access to the presence of God is also solely based on the merit of the Son of God. Read the entire book of Hebrews please. No singular congregation has more access to His presence than another. His presence is not something that music and emotion can usher you into. The only way you get to the throne of grace is by faith in the Great High Priest.

I could go on, but take things like this as an exercise in discernment. Run from leaders that claim to have the secret sauce to finding favor with God and accessing His presence. The Gospel is the very public good news of how needy sinners find favor with the thrice holy God.

It’s not a secret and there aren’t many unique ways to connect with God. He’s spelled out exactly how He wants you to approach Him. It’s not something to experiment with. Come to Him on His terms and be at peace through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

These Aren’t the Apostles You’re Looking For

[3rdeyeblaque]

Today we venerate Ancestor Bishop C.H. Mason on his 157th birthday 🎉

Bishop C.H. Mason founded the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), THE largest Black American pentecostal church in the U.S. In doing so, he preserved and cultivated the religious culturesof our Afrikan ancestors while fighting for ourreligious freedom of expression and integration in the church house.

Brother Mason born to former slaves in Shelby County, TN. Due to his family's impoverished status, young Mason worked as a sharecropper and did not receive a formal education. Yet he still learned how to read and write. As a child, Mason was greatly influenced by the religion of his parents and other former slaves. He admired their prayer rituals, spontaneous singing, & shouting. At age 12, he embraced the Afro-Baptist faith and was later baptized in his older brother’s church.

In 1895, Brother Mason met Charles Price Jones, a popular Baptist preacher from Mississippi. Mason and Jones started preaching the doctrine of holiness and sanctification together in local Baptist churches, which led to their expulsion from the Baptist & Methodist churches. They, and others, established the Church of God and Church of Christ. Their movement consisted of both Black and White folk were grossly dissatisfied with mainstream denominations. From COGIC’s inception, Brother Mason ordained and allowed whites to join his denomination. He dreamed of an integrated church and believed that all races were entitled to equal rights and authority therein. Their principal belief was that being sanctified was an internal experience that resulted in external changes within individuals & their communities. They taught their followers to seek higher spiritual development and encouraged them to rekindle the dynamism of "slave religion".

In 1897, Brother Mason established St. Paul COGIC in an old cotton gin located in Lexington, Mississippi. He then started using the name “Church of God in Christ”, because, "God told him that if he used that name it would cause people to follow him". By 1904, Brother Mason established pastoring 4 churches: St. Paul in Lexington, Saints Home and Dyson Street in Memphis, and a COGIC church in Conway, AR.

In 1907, he attended an interracial service in Los Angeles, CA. After which, he declared that he'd experienced a spiritual metamorphosis and that he now believed in speaking in tongues. This is what spurred Jones and others to excommunicate him from their Holiness association. This ultimately led to Brother Mason and Jones’s 12yr partnership ending over theological differences, rights to church properties, ecclesiastical power, and the COGIC name itself. After 3 years of legal battles, in 1911, Mason’s legal victories catapulted him into historical prominence and placed COGIC in the Mid-South’s religious pantheon.

Brother Mason was also an outspoken conscientious objector. He was arrested in 1918 and probed by the FBI for teaching pacifism and encouraging Brothas to refuse being drafted into WW I and II.

By the early 20th century, the Black Christian middle class frowned upon any & everything associated with Mother Africa. They believed shouting, dancing, & especially speaking in tongues, were shameful & hindered Black progress. Defiantly, Brother bMason encouraged his followers to embrace their Afrikan heritage and gave them space to express themselves in church. He allowed the working classes to dance shout, testify, speak in tongues, string musical instruments, & sing gospel. His preservation of the Afrikan heritage, freedom of religious expression, & leadership spearheaded COGIC’s astronomical growth.

In the 1920s, COGIC had 30K members &, as a result of the Great Migration, 68.7% percent worshiped in urban cities. By the 1930s, COGIC was an urban phenomenon. During the Great Depression, Brother Mason’s churches fed and clothed poor Whites and Black Peoples across Memphis

Today, it has an estimated 6.5 million members and 12,000 congregations. COGIC is the largest African American denomination in the United States, with eight million members worldwide.

We pour libations & give him💐 today as we celebrate him for his passion & commitment to the preservation & cultivation of our Central/West Afrikan cosmologies, cultures, & belief systems via our religious of expression.

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

Offering suggestions: COGIC bible/prayer offerings, water libations, gospel songs of praise/dance

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#hoodooheritage #ATR #ATRs #hoodootradition #TheHoodooCalendar #ancestors #veneration #theblackchurch #ancestorveneration #bishopchmason #cogic #cogicchurch #og #deepsouth

#bishop ch mason #cogic #cogicchurch #black America #black Christians #ancestor elevation #ancestor #hoodoo #hoodoos #atr #the hoodoo calendar #atrs #conjure

[kassandras-one-braincell]

Eivor x Fem!Reader - Forced Penance

Summary: Eivor is enraged upon witnessing you, a young sapphic woman forced to repent for her “sin” by her town, brainwashed into believing it was egregious to love another woman. She makes it her mission to dissuade you from your perspective, learning that you lack both experience and knowledge in the more pleasurable aspects of life. Some of her tales have you waking up in cold sweat, and you find yourself torn between the faith you were taught and indulging in the warrior’s teachings. [explicit]

A necessary disclaimer: I'm not religious, but I have read both the King James Bible and the (translated) Qur'an. I set out writing this fic with the intention of handling the subject of religion and extremism with appropriate sensitivity, keeping things as historically accurate as possible while tackling the important theme of internalised homophobia brought on by indoctrination. The reader is portrayed as Christian (the dominant Saxon faith) of an unspecified denomination, but the initial perspective they possess is far from healthy, and certainly doesn't reflect the benevolence of the faith.

If religious trauma is something prevalent in your life, I would read this at your own discretion.

(The second half, I'd like to add, was written in one fat block between 5pm and 6am without a wink of sleep and a multitude of distractions, about four months after I started writing the first half. There may be an issue with continuity, for which I apologise.)

Word count: 7429

AO3 link here. Minors DNI.

Eivor had only ever loved the fairer sex.

It was never something she had been taught to be ashamed of. Women were softer, with tender hearts and beautiful spirits; the notion that loving them as another woman was a repugnance in the eyes of Saxons was baffling. While she had always respected people for their faiths, she could never eye a doctrine that deems her love for women as a sin with anything but scorn. So she silenced her heart, as severely as it ached, to avoid offending the English nobles in her quest for allegiance.

The moment she learned that women as herself were shunned into forced penance by the church for their love, her heart not only ached but seethed. For a congregation whose foremost rule was to “love thy neighbour” to shame people for their love seemed too cruel an irony. Alas, she bit her tongue as she met with lords in the houses of their God, despite every fibre of her being screaming at her to burn the blasted books sitting atop the churches’ lecterns. Or Leviticus, at the very least.

Still, the Saxon principle of sapphic love being a sin often made her wonder just how satisfying it would be to plow a devout maiden within the holy walls of a church. Eivor would never allow herself to kneel in a House of God, unless, of course, to worship a sweet virginal lady with her mouth as she wildly ground against her tongue, flooding her tastebuds with nectar as the darling little thing shook, wailed, palm splayed behind her against the stained glass window with the other hand gripping her hair—

“—here when her men have been eradicated. Any objections, Eivor?” The words of the town’s reverend sliced through her fantasy. Eivor coughed quietly, knowing full well she hadn’t been listening to a word he had said.

“Apologies, reverend, I was beside myself with thought. Could you repeat that?” she smiled, internally wincing at the holy man’s sigh of annoyance.

“I said, if the Sickle’s men could be…disposed of,” hushed, that part – wouldn’t want to advocate the breaking of the Ten Commandments under God’s roof, Eivor thought – as the reverend scanned for eavesdroppers, “as cleanly as possible, it would weaken her influence and allow for us to strike her with greater ease. Meet me here when the deed is done.”

Eivor nodded, allowing her eyes to drift back towards the object of her distraction: the maiden sat in prayer at the front of the church, clutching a rosary between her dainty hands with a veil of purity concealing her hair. Softly and shakily – with uncertainty – muttering, “—shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind…”

Frowning, Eivor turned back to the reverend, cocking her head at the praying maiden. “She has been repeating that for some minutes now. Is she quite alright?” she asked in concern.

He wrinkled his nose, head shaking solemnly. “That woman is greatly disturbed. The town suspects her of being of an ungodly persuasion, and so she repents, lest the consequences be dire.”

Eivor’s eyes widened in shock. “Repenting for a sin she may have not committed? That hardly seems Christian, reverend.”

“She is beguiled by heathen thoughts, Eivor. It is wise for her to be cleansed of such thoughts before she acts upon them.”

“I’m sorry, these rumours are not of an action, but a thought?”

“Thoughts plagued by the sin of Sodom. We fear she holds abnormal affection for fellow women, and we would not want her to be denied Heaven. A closer connection with our heavenly Father might cure her of her affliction,” he explained, head held high.

Eivor huffed. “I will not ridicule a holy man with his God’s teachings inside his own place of worship, although I recall your saviour saying, ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’.”

The reverend glared at her, nostrils flared with indignation. “Do not insult me, Raven-feeder,” he warned. Thankfully, before she could brashly retort, he spun on his heel and stormed out of the church.

Whistling, she glanced around the holy building; the mother and her son who had been praying when she arrived had left at some point during her conversation with the reverend, leaving the pews empty, save for the repenting maiden. The only sounds resonating through the stone walls were the cooing of pigeons, the rattling of prayer beads and the biblical passage that made her grit her teeth.

Of course, Eivor bore no anger towards the lady fiddling with the rosary. Her sympathy for her heightened tenfold when a faint sniffle caught her attention. Realising her fist was clenched, she relaxed her fingers, softening her posture before making her way over towards the front pew.

 - - - - - - - - -

By God, why did you have to cry? The reverend’s words were nothing compared to the spiteful, hate-filled curses of the townsfolk when the rumours of your affliction first surfaced. But he was a messenger of the Lord, and to receive His scorn would damn you for the life hereafter—

The pew creaked as a second weight sat down beside you. While your veil obscured your vision, you were almost certain it belonged to the Dane who spoke of death with the reverend barely moments ago. Swallowing the anxious lump in your throat, you grasped at the rosary in your hands tighter, opening your mouth to recommence your prayer.

“He’s gone, miss. You don’t have to keep reciting,” came the north-woman’s gravelly voice. The grip you had on the beads slackened just for a moment, but tightened once more as you scolded your weak-willed self. Only prayer will save you, you thought.

“It is rude to disturb a woman in prayer,” you squeaked, voice free of conviction.

The barbarian – Eivor, the reverend had called her – shifted beside you. “Devotion cannot be forced, and can you truly claim to pray without devotion?”

The beads shook with your fingertips. “I am devoted to our Lord in Heaven,” you managed through gritted teeth. “And He would not receive me if my head is ill.”

“That’s what they’re telling you, is it? That you’re sick in the head,” she tutted.

Frustration growing by the second, you angrily ripped off your veil, allowing the rosary to fall to the floor in the process. “I am sick,” you hissed at her, your own words cutting deeper than any knife could.

And you were. The reverend told you that your mind was diseased, and how could he be lying when the second you lay your eyes on the warrior beside you, your heart skipped a beat. Eivor was a rugged sort of beautiful, her skin littered with scars and ink and lightly kissed by the sun, her face sternly chiselled, jaw sharp and eyes sharper. You were sick to want to run your hands over her peculiar braid, to want to test the firmness of the muscle undoubtedly surrounding her broad frame.

“No, you aren’t,” she said, firmly, but not with anger. There was a sadness to her tone. Empathy; something you were disillusioned into thinking Danes were incapable of possessing.

Every fibre of your soul wanted to believe those words. You longed for their truth, but your mind knew better. This…savage’s words were sweet on the ears, but held no weight to God’s truth. As the scales of your heart struggled to balance, you brought your veil to your eyes, pleading internally that the whites of your eyes weren’t bloodshot enough to compromise your dignity as the cloth absorbed your tears.

“And I should take the words of a Dane over His holy book?” you frowned, hoping to muster a bitterness that fell flat.

“I know a few of its teachings, miss.” Eivor leaned forwards, resting her forearms on her knees. “Your god is loving of all, is he not?”

Without hesitation, you affirmed, “Of course.”

Eivor nodded, the devotion in your quip failing to present a surprise to her. Head hung in thought, she rung her hands together. You could see the quill in her brain hesitating as she tried to ink up an agreeable perspective.

“There is no benevolence,” she murmured after a pregnant pause, “in creating somebody with this ‘sin’ in their nature, only to punish them for it.” Her glacial eyes held a world of compassion as she spoke. “There is no evil in two women holding love for one another. Murder, rape, cruelty, those are evils. Not love.”

Breath quivering, you shook your head in denial. This pagan could not speak of good and evil.

No, this was but a trial. God had sent you temptation in the form of this dastardly, beautiful woman, with convincing words and kind eyes, to test your loyalty to Him! Yes, that must be it. You took a deep breath, battling the heat crawling across your cheeks and ears, and reached for the beads once more. “It is— It is against nature for two women to lie together. Lovemaking is for the creation of children—”

“Yet there are parts of a woman’s body that serve no purpose in procreation, but do so in lovemaking.”

Spluttering, you cast your eyes to the window to your left, hoping to hide your expression from the heathen beside you. “H-how would you know of such things?” you stammered. The words were so casual from her lips. Just how familiar was this pagan with debauching women against God’s will?

The heathen chuckled. “You’re a woman yourself. Are you that unfamiliar with your own body?” Gasping, you permitted yourself to glance in her direction. While her eyes were set on the lectern before her, there was a glimmer of mischief shining in her irises, as if she anticipated your reaction…as if she spoke to evoke said reaction.

“H-he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body,” you recited quietly, heart thudding erratically against your chest.

She smirked.

To lie to one’s self in the presence of God was surely a sin as any other. So you were candid with yourself: the smirk on Eivor’s face made you feel warm all over, even if she mused about your innocence. But the reverend said that God would help you overcome your plight. Any moment now, He would intervene and rid you of this heat.

“Are you preaching to me or yourself?” she laughed. You gripped the rosary with nearly enough force to crack a bead or a knuckle. If this was His trial, you were determined to pass.

“Purity is something you could stand to learn,” you huffed, lungs light in your flustered state. Although her lack of regard for the virtue made her far more intriguing.

“Perhaps, but it sounds terribly boring.” Lips still curved in her amusement, she bent down and retrieved your veil from the floor, folding the fabric neatly and placing it in your lap. The coarse skin of her palm brushed against your hand, and your breath hitched in your throat. “I won’t disturb your prayer any longer, but please don’t punish yourself for the affection you hold.” She stood from the pew, headed for the door.

Shakily, you called out, “I shall pray for your soul as well as mine!”

Eivor held up her hand in dismissal. “No need. I’m proud of my sin.” Then, she was gone.

I gathered as much. Proud to live a life without sanctity. It was wrong, hedonistic…yet nothing she said sounded wrong.

Frowning, you glanced at the Bible atop the lectern. Its open pages mocked you for your confused mind, for your hesitance to find truth in God’s word. The veil now resting in your lap felt heavy, dirty, and the prayer beads hollow as if riddled with rot. Deciding your conscience was too impure to pray, you rose from your seat and fled the church, trying desperately to forget the image of the pagan’s face and the warmth between your legs.

 - - - - - - - - -

God was supposed to guide you down a holier path, free from your heresy. Yet every night of the past week, you dreamt of braided flaxen hair, inked skin, blue eyes and rosy lips. You woke up in a sheen of sweat, damp heat taunting you from the junction of your thighs, the illusion of the north-woman’s gruff voice echoing in your mind. Lucifer whispered for you to touch yourself to the thought of her scarred lips caressing your neck. The nerves above the core from which came your monthly bleed almost throbbed, and you wondered if that’s what she meant by those words. Parts of a woman’s body that serve no purpose in procreation, but do so in lovemaking.

But you were a good Christian. You abode by your vows and ignored the devil’s wills, each and every night.

It was unbearable.

No woman had ever plagued your thoughts so indecently. She visited you each day in the church, taking the seat beside you, almost caging you in. What started as her attempting to understand your faith quickly became a cruel game: she would speak of nefarious deeds in the bedroom that set your cheeks aflame with bashfulness, asking which passages in the Bible prohibited them. You left the building with images floating about your mind that God would never approve of, and an ever-growing curiosity you feared only she could satiate.

Worst of all, Eivor would call you things a husband should only ever call his wife. Beautiful. Sweet. Darling. All with sincerity and a smile. Your better judgement told you to run to the reverend, begging for him to cast out the pagan who swore by her sin, but you never did, because her words never felt wrong.

Your change in attitude towards the warrior hadn’t gone unnoticed, though. Eivor was an observant woman. A fiendish spirit flickered within her soul whenever your eyes would linger on the stronger parts of her body as you conversed. It roared when you asked how two women could make love, and she delved into more elaborate detail than was necessary, watching as your eyes glazed over in wistful hypnosis, your thighs subtly pressing together. The image certainly spurred a more prurient fantasy in her head.

Most importantly, Eivor had helped you begin to realise that loving women was not a disease, even though the town cried otherwise.

“I suppose…there is no passage condemning women for being fond of one another, at least to my recollection,” you pondered on the seventh day after your initial meeting, veil and rosary in a neat pile on the end of the pew. Eivor smiled beside you, lessening the doubt in your heart.

“That is music to my ears,” she grinned.

“But—”

“Gods, don’t tell me there’s a ‘but’—”

“But,” you giggled at the exasperation on her face. The sound itself was enough to bring back her smile. “It is a sin to lust.”

Eivor rolled her eyes. “It is perfectly normal for people two desire one another, regardless of what that book says.”

“For a man to lust for his wife, yes. Otherwise—”

“Why would your God create people with the tools to lust, if it’s a sin to do so?”

“Because, it—” You stuttered, mind suddenly blank. A victorious smirk painted Eivor’s lips. Some peculiarly strangled sound escaped your throat. “To teach us self-discipline,” you frowned, the words coming out as a question.

“You’re talking out of your arse,” Eivor grinned.

Playfully smacking her arm, you gasped through a laugh, “By Christ, Eivor, mind your language!”

“All I’m saying is that it seems rather unfair to burden somebody with lust, only to say it’s a sin to relieve themselves of their lust.” Sighing, you folded your arms. There was reason to her words, as with most things she said, but to question His plan while sitting under the roof of a church felt…dangerous. Eivor’s impish expression faltered. She carefully took your hand, squeezing your palm. “Listen, no book written by man is infallible. You care for your god, and I’ve been told that he cares for his creations. I can’t see why he would condemn you to eternal suffering for something so natural,” she said softly.

A solemn smile tugged at your lips as her thumb rubs circles into the back of your hand. “Sometimes,” you began, taking a deep breath, “I struggle to tell whether He sent you to me, or Satan to misguide me. Your words are always wise, but they go against everything I’ve been taught, and you make me feel things that should be wrong.”

“What things, little dove?”

Dove.

Anxiously, you peered over your shoulder, conscious about onlookers. The church was empty, but sound carried well through the stone walls. Biting your lip, you looked up at Eivor. “Might we talk in the room behind the altar? We can speak freely there,” you asked. She nodded, standing with you in suit, hands still intertwined as you briskly guided her towards the room in question. You let out a long-held breath when Eivor closed the rickety door behind you.

“We shouldn’t be disturbed now,” she smiled.

“Good, because—” You nervously fiddled with the ends of your hair. “People wouldn’t respond kindly to what I have to say.”

“Go on,” she coaxed gently.

You inhaled deeply, hoping to calm your pounding heart. “Yesterday, you explained how women…make love.” Taboo, spilling from your mouth in a holy building. Your blood roared in your ears. “You made it sound so wonderful, and not at all abominable like the scripture says. I dreamt of you last night – well, every night this week, but last night…God, what am I saying?” Eivor didn’t want to hear this, you thought. Your lip quivered, tears pricking your eyes, as you feared you had ruined your relationship with the woman.

Unbeknownst to you, Eivor, however, was beyond ecstatic as your ramblings fell from your lips. Hearing you pause your thoughts in their tracks was torturous to the warrior. She wanted you to tell her every little detail of those dreams, how it felt to wake from them, and if you endeavoured to… No, you wouldn’t touch yourself, would you?

As her thoughts raced, you could have sworn her icy eyes darkened slightly. A mistake of the mind, surely, for Eivor brought your hand to her lips and dusted a chaste kiss across your knuckles. “Confide in me, darling. There’s no need to cry,” she murmured, wiping the stray tear that fell with her thumb. Her hand remained cradling your face, the curve of her palm fitting perfectly against your cheek.

Nodding slowly, you lowered your tone to a whisper. “In my dream, you kissed me. But there was nothing innocent about it, and I woke up this morning with such an ache between my—” Your cheeks burned with embarrassment, but as your eyes met hers, you saw a hunger lurking within the woman. Sinister wouldn’t be the right word to describe the smile on Eivor’s lips. It was more predacious, like a wolf cornering an injured doe, listening intently to its final whimpers before devouring its prey. “I need to know what it feels like, Eivor,” you pleaded.

“Kissing, or everything else too?” Her voice was low and mesmerising. You found yourself confessing to her without a shred of shame.

“If only just the once, God, yes—”

“Have you kissed before?” Eivor asked, perching on the windowsill with a sultry smile, guiding you by the hand until you were stood beside her. Shaking your head, you went to occupy the space next to her when she pulled you onto her lap, cradling your waist with her arm. You elicited a gasp at the firmness of her torso. She gently caressed your jaw with her thumb, and your eyes fluttered closed.

“Follow what my lips are doing, love,” she muttered.

Before you could nod again, a soft warmth captured your lips, slowly gliding over the skin. You sighed, trying to map the motion in your mind, too anxious to kiss her back in fear of doing something awkward. Eivor could feel your mental struggle, murmuring against your lips, “Relax for me.”

Clearing your mind, you started with the gentlest pecks against her lips, tension melting from your shoulders when you felt them curve into a pleased smile. She was warm and comforting, unhurried and sweet; it didn’t take long for you to fall into a sensual rhythm with her. You reached up to touch her face, running your fingers along the gnarly scar cutting into her cheek, then down to cup her strong neck. The tendons flexed underneath your fingertips as she deepened the kiss. In tandem, you got a little bolder, hands exploring the sculpted muscle hidden underneath her tunic while she held you close. Her lips began to tug at yours, suckling softly on the flesh, drawing the faintest of moans from you. Ordinarily, you would have been mortified, but you had all but forgotten you were in a church. You could kiss her for an eternity and the afterlife thereafter, and you would never grow tired of it.

When Eivor broke the kiss and detangled her arms from you, your lungs were thankful, but your heart froze. Panic set in, thinking you had been too forward. Panting, you asked, “What did I do wrong, Eivor?”

She unclasped her fur cloak from her shoulders, folding the weighty garment into a roll, setting it down on the patch of windowsill behind you. “Nothing, darling. I just wouldn’t want you to hurt your head,” she chuckled. You breathed a ragged sigh of relief.

“You would tell me though, wouldn’t you? If I did anything wrong.”

Eivor delicately pecked your lips. “There is nothing for you to do wrong.” An arm settled once more around your waist, her other hand smoothing over the fabric of your skirt. “But should you find yourself uncomfortable, tell me. I will stop the moment you say the word.”

Resting your head on her broad shoulder felt natural. Safe. “I simply wish I wasn’t so nervous,” you muttered, toying with the hem of her tunic that grazed her clavicle. “I promise I’m eager, Eivor.”

You felt her stiffen at the words, and your stomach felt shallow. She closed her mouth, inhaling steadily, something tugging at the corners of her lips. With visible effort, she fought it off. “Perhaps,” she started, the fingers on your leg trailing from your thigh to your calf, “you should tell me more about your dreams.” Her tongue darted out to damp her lips. You couldn’t rip your eyes away from the sight even if God willed it. “Let me kiss you exactly how you imagined it,” she purred. “Maybe you’ll find some phantom familiarity.”

There it was again. That incessant warmth, taunting you from between your legs. With every gravelly syllable, the heat throbbed, faintly quelled by pressing your thighs together but not enough.

A dozen different fantasies raced through your mind in an exhilarating blur, each with Eivor’s lips pressed salaciously against different patches of skin, her formidable frame pinning you against a plethora of surfaces, handling you with roughness, as a Dane would. You struggled to find words to encompass them.

“You would have me against a wall, or…” Images flooded back. A bed. A desk. The floor. “Wherever you wanted. I was yours to handle as you pleased,” you confessed quietly. “And it all felt so wonderful, except for that unbearable ache. I wouldn’t know how to describe it.”

Eivor’s brow upturned, almost pitifully, as her lips curved into an alluring smirk. “Of course you wouldn’t, sweetling,” she chuckled. Gently, she leaned forward with a hand hooked under your knee, lowering you until your head softly met her bundled-up cloak. She hovered over you, arms braced either side of your head. A knee found purchase between your thighs. “Am I somewhat on the mark?” she asked.

“Are your knees alright?” you squeaked, eyes flickering to where they met the stone of the windowsill.

Eivor light-heartedly rolled her eyes. Instead of answering, she tilted your chin with her hand as her thumb caressed your lower lip. The knee positioned between your legs slowly rocked forward, snugly pressing into your core. That dull ache momentarily alleviated, making you gasp, before returning stronger than before, only…sweeter, somehow. Instinct told you to roll your hips against the thick muscle of her thigh; your stomach twitched at the thought.

“Did you ever feel that in your dreams, dove?” she muttered, fiendish curiosity swirling in her dark eyes.

“No,” you half-whispered, half-whimpered. “That felt…”

She repeated the motion, firmer this time, the friction lingering just a second longer – long enough to elicit a strangled sound from the back of your throat. This time, you couldn’t resist the impulse to grind down against her. You felt wetness between your thighs, but were too consumed by desperation and fleeting pleasure to care.

Eivor leaned down, sealing the gap between your lips, swallowing the breathy moans that escaped you with voracity as you rocked against her. Her knee chased the junction between your hips, ebbing and flowing like the tide. Eagerly, you returned the kiss, hands moving to explore the broad, muscular expanse of the warrior’s back.

“Why does this sin feel so good?” you panted, breaking away as your lungs cried for breath.

“Because it’s not a sin,” Eivor murmured, working a trail of kisses into your skin from your mouth to your jaw before burying her face in your neck, her lips latching onto the first patch of skin they met. “It’s beautiful,” she rasped.

She suckled on the sensitive flesh, smiling wickedly as you arched your neck. She raked her teeth across your skin, pressing a dizzying map of hot, wet kisses onto every spot that evoked a tell-tale stuttered breath from you. You were overwhelmed by two different shades of bliss, unable to do anything but weave your fingers through Eivor’s flaxen locks and melt as the incessant aching of your core grew ferocious.

“Then why,” you moaned as her thumb grazed over your nipple through your dress, “am I feeling such a tenderness? Is this not my body punishing me?”

“Your body wants relief,” she rumbled into your neck. She rolled the peak of your breast between her fingertips, making the bud tingle sweetly even through the fabric of your clothing. “Part of me wants to wait until there’s a bed beneath us, so I can rid you of your clothes and devour every inch of you, to bring you that relief,” she avowed, dark, devilish, against the flesh. “But, more than anything, I want to give your god a show, and give you a taste of the heaven you speak of so fondly while he watches.”

The Eivor who respectfully debated your faith with you was gone. This woman was a demon starved, possessed by the need to corrupt the worldview of the maiden caged beneath her. God may have frowned upon your lack of will; He may have denied you a place in paradise the second you allowed your lips to touch.

Heaven be damned, you needed everything this heathen promised you.

“How does relief feel?” you whispered. Eivor bit back a groan at the dichotomy of your innocence and wanton interest.

She pressed one final kiss to your neck before lifting herself, lust-clouded eyes staring deep into yours. The warrior’s cheeks were ever so slightly pink, lips gorgeously kiss-bruised. “May I show you?” she asked. You could have sworn it a plea.

You nodded with urgency. “I’m yours, Eivor.”

“Spread your legs a little wider for me,” she cooed, smiling with satisfaction at your immediate compliance. The time for shame had passed; you were yearning.

With your knees bent either side of her frame, there was a vulnerability aloft in your mind, but Eivor was doting, tentative. Your comfort came before her cravings, if the pillow she fabricated was testament to anything. She may have been dangerous, but you felt safe in her care.

A hand meandered up over the curves of your body. The modest silhouette of your frock did nothing to conceal your shape as her fingers roamed, before they finally rested on your lips, delivering two feather-light taps to the plump flesh.

“Will you take my fingers in your mouth, darling? I want this to be as pleasant as possible for you,” she murmured.

It wasn’t necessary, of course – you could feel the slick of your arousal through your undercloth. But you wanted to be good for her. To hear her praise you, just to hear her call you sweet again. You parted your lips impulsively, drawing her fingers in as far as their length would permit without a word. A lewd instinct drove you to swirl your tongue around her digits and hollow your cheeks, coating them thoroughly with your spit. “Gods, you’re perfect,” Eivor groaned at your obedience. Wetness seeped from your quim at the words.

Gently, she eased them from your lips, admiring the sheen. She gazed down at you adoringly. “Beauty like yours should never have to wither away in forced penance,” she muttered. Your heart fluttered; perhaps this was the same Eivor who coaxed you from your punitive prayer after all.

Slowly, she snaked her hand underneath your frock, the side of her palm smoothing over your bare thighs before she reaches the junction between them. Eivor sucked in a sharp breath at the wetness she was met by.

“You poor, sweet thing,” she chuckled, delving her fingers between your folds, slickening them further with your honey. The pressure was pleasant, although it did nothing to appease the hunger burning inside you.

But then, she dragged upwards, until her fingertips met a pebble of nerves hidden above your quim. She rubbed a tiny circle into that spot, and for a fleeting second, the ache dissipated, replaced by the purest pleasure she had fed you so far. A breathy “oh” flew from your lips before you could stifle it.

Eivor smirked and set a hasteless pace, fingertips languidly circling the nerves. “How does that feel?” she purred.

Her ministrations melted into a steady stream of bliss, turning your bones to syrup and your throat to a lyre, producing melodious sounds for the blonde to marvel at. Warmth consumed your veins. Your skin prickled with delight. Your hips gyrated naturally into her hand, silently begging for more of her touch. It felt incredible, a pleasure that transcended anything you could describe.

“Good,” you managed – slurred, more aptly – whining as Eivor began to massage the bead between her fingers, stealing away your ability to think. “Oh, God—”

“So responsive,” she hummed in a tone teetering on the boundary between observant and mocking. She had every right to assume the latter stance: within moments, she had reduced you from a devout virginal woman of faith to a moaning mess within the walls of a church.

The blinding rhythm of her fingers stirred something far deeper within you. Something both palpable and intangible at the same time. A tightening, almost, in the pit of your core, growing more intense with each methodical circle Eivor rubbed into those nerves. The pitch of each breathy moan bleeding from your lips heightened, air leaving your lungs in pants.

“Eivor, t-that’s too good,” you stammered, grasping at the hand braced beside your head, half-lidded eyes searching for hers.

She hushed you, her cerulean irises glossed over, intoxicated by your rapture. “Focus on my hand and your body,” she softly commanded, keeping her tempo, infatuated by the shallow rising and falling of your chest.

Your eyes fluttered shut, neck arching back into the bundled cloak beneath you. Brow knitted in concentration, you pursued the peculiar yet euphoric tightening. Swiftly, you found yourself drowning in the heavenly sensation brought by the warrior’s attentions. “God, I—”

“That’s it, come for me,” Eivor cooed, never stopping.

The coil snapped.

Wanton blasphemies rolled off your tongue as the precipice of your pleasure devoured you alive, engulfing your skin in white-hot flame. Toes curling, legs trembling, hips bucking wildly, you cried out the name of the heathen who ravaged you, choking back a sob as she continued to toy with your bud through your peak. Her praises blurred together, all the ‘goods’ and ‘sweets’ and ‘beautifuls’ echoing in your mind in a gruff symphony.

As the intensity faded, you were suspended in a hazy warmth. Your eyelids felt heavy, but you managed to keep them open, watching as Eivor stared at you like an idol.

“Doesn’t that feel so much better?” she whispered, leaning down to kiss your temple as you nodded languorously.

“Thank you,” you breathed out.

In no hurry, your senses came about you with clarity once more. You began to ponder how Eivor would clean her hand: her trousers, in crude fashion, or perhaps she carried a handkerchief…

You never anticipated her bringing her drenched fingers to her lips, tongue curling around the digits doused in your essence. Mouth agape, you stared as she savoured your taste, helpless to the reignition of heat in your quim. An astonished croak was strangled in your throat.

She noticed your flustered, shocked state and smirked. “Your god wouldn’t bless you with such a delectable flavour if you weren’t meant to be tasted, now, would he?”

Of all the sinful nothings the woman had said in the week past, you were certain this would be the thing to kill you.

Eivor studied your thighs as they bowed inwards, pressing together to battle off the arousal creeping up on you once again. “Have I completely tired you, my dove?” she asked, languidly stroking your legs beneath your dress. You could see a nefarious plot weaving together in her mind, the outcome of which you found yourself craving.

“I don’t think so,” you murmured.

“Good,” she hummed, “because I can’t bring myself to wait to get my mouth on that sweet cunt of yours.” She paused, restraining herself. “If you’d allow me, of course.”

“Are you positive?” You gnawed on your bottom lip.

She grinned. “I find it one of life’s greatest pleasures, darling.”

There was enough confidence in her tone to convince you she was well acquainted with the act. She had described it once before, a few days ago, in enough detail to make your face burn with bashfulness. Back then, you hid your face in your hands, gasping at the debauchery of such an act. At the present, however, it had an appeal; the pulsing between your legs agreed.

You released your lower lip from your teeth. “In that case, will you help me remove my, uhm…” you faltered off, glancing down at your hips.

“Of course,” she chuckled, coaxing your hips off the sill, allowing her to shimmy your undercloth from its grip on your hips. The stain of your desire clung to the cloth, and you had to avert your eyes. “You’re still so shy, even after I brought you to peak?” Eivor mused. Before you could chastise her, she leant forwards, placing the cloth beside her and pressing her lips to a little patch of skin that had you half mewling for her earlier, mapped firmly into her memory. The scold left your lips in a heartbeat.

As she dotted light kisses and nips across your neck, she made an attempt to situate herself further down your frame, until her heavy boot collided with the stone wall. With a disgruntled huff, Eivor leered at the windowsill. She sat up between your legs, analysing your position on the stone. “Something tells me that church windowsills weren’t designed for plowing,” she grumbled.

Her candid frustration made you giggle as you propped yourself up with your elbows. The mild malcontent on her face melted at the sound, replaced with a smile at your bemusement. Beaming, she eased herself off the windowsill, opting to kneel on the floor instead. Without warning, she spun you in her direction. You laughed gleefully, and her smile widened in delight.

“Are you sure your knees are alright?” you jested, trying to stifle your grin. “You’re not able to pull that stunt this time,” you tittered, heart skipping a beat as you reflected on how her knee felt pressed against your heat.

Eivor traced her canine with her tongue, promptly reminding you of the pounding between your thighs. “I have other tricks up my sleeve,” she smirked, positioning your legs so they sat on her broad shoulders. She hiked up the front of your dress until it pooled in your lap, exposing your bare quim to her ravenous gaze.

“And what tricks are th-ose—”

With hands hooked around your thighs, she flattened her tongue against your dewy folds, the tip teasing at your entrance, before licking a flat line upwards. The strength, the warmth of her muscle was unlike that of her fingers – the pleasure it brought was rawer. Primal. And the moan, God, the moan, she relinquished reverberated through your flesh, enthralling your mind.

She first lapped up the remnants of your previous peak. Her tongue gently pushed into you, her nose nudging against the especially sensitive nerves hidden between the very top of your folds. You gasped, hips attempting to squirm away from her onslaught, but her grip was firm, leaving you wholly at her mercy.

Eivor knew that you needed more before you did. Experience told her that you were confused in your oversensitivity, struggling to determine whether it was uncomfortable or pleasurable, and that with a little push you’d be spiralling into ecstasy once more. So she broke away, allowing herself a breath of air, and repositioned her lips above your pearl. She allowed her spit to drip onto the nerves, momentarily soothing them before honing in on her target.

The sensation of her lips closing around the hood guarding the bundle of nerves had your head thudding back against the stained glass window behind you: a beautiful piece of art depicting Lucifer’s fall from grace. The irony was lost on you, however, as you cried out into the church, a hand flying to her head. Your nails lightly raked across her scarred scalp before you threaded your fingers through her hair, gripping a little tighter than you intended, not that Eivor minded. She groaned, sucking delicately on the hood.

“Fuck!” you moaned, feeling yourself throb against her tongue, unable to stop your heels from digging into her back.

Eivor redoubled her efforts, flicking her tongue in some sinister fashion to assault your pearl furthermore. Voracious and unrelenting, she worked you to the brink of madness with her lips. Barely a minute had passed before euphoria drew nigh. Torn between craving the feeling of another peak, but wishing this almost brutal pleasure would last an eternity, you could do nothing but mewl and clutch onto the warrior’s hair as she decided your fate.

You had to cover your mouth as something of a scream threatened to spill from your parted lips. One more suck was all it took for you to crumble, shuddering into her grip, bucking against her mouth. “Eivor—” you sobbed, eyes rolling back as she continued to fuck you with her mouth, her name resounding through your disoriented mind in a sacrilegious prayer. She grunted, watching as you shook in her hold, only pulling back when tears began to prick the corners of your eyes.

Panting, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and kissed your inner thighs, caressing where her hands could reach as tranquillity began to wash over you. “I’ve got you, sweetling,” she rasped, peppering your trembling legs with the most delicate pecks.

She rose from her knees and picked you up with her, strong arms encircling you as she sat herself back on the windowsill with you in tow. Her large hands coaxed a foggy afterglow into your skin. Eivor pressed her lips to the top of your head while she smoothed over you hair, whispering, “You were so wonderful for me.”

The church was silent, save for the calming of your pounding heart. It remained as such while you basked in the warmth of the woman who offered you a new light with which to regard the world. You were safe. God hadn’t struck you dead for indulging in what the reverend denoted Sodom. No bolt came from the sky, no hellfire erupted around your body, none of His divine wrath came to your reckoning.

Eivor was right, after all. A love for fellow women was nothing to be ashamed of, certainly not when making love was a thing of beauty.

Said heathen – not that you were entirely convince the term still applied – sat and relished in your steady breathing, curling the ends of your hair between her fingertips. Gently, she squeezed your shoulder. “Are you with me, love?” she asked.

Blinking your eyes open, you nodded into her shoulder. “Sorry, Eivor.”

She laughed softly. “There’s nothing to apologise for. I just wanted to know if you’re alright,” she smiled.

Boneless. That was a word, and it certainly described you in that moment. But there was a lingering question pertaining to the warrior who had utterly subverted your worldview:

What now?

Eivor had come to your town with purpose; one she had either already fulfilled, or was drawing close to fulfilling. Compared to that, you were surely inconsequential.

Your heart ached at the thought of being a conquest. Another notch in her belt, that she’d forget about within the month after leaving for whence she came, only to find another virginal woman in your predicament in the next Scire. At best, you’d continue to be shunned by the townsfolk, forced to kneel in reluctant prayer by the reverend until you, as Eivor had aptly worded it, withered away. Had anyone discovered today’s escapade, you’d surely be facing a fiery death against a stake.

It was a painful revelation, that this week was likely your only reprieve from a miserable life.

“Talk to me, darling. I can feel something’s wrong,” Eivor murmured.

Tears threatened to spill from your eyes. You squinted in a futile attempt to stop them. “When you leave,” you croaked, “I’ll spend the rest of my life thinking about how happy I could be, if I was allowed to be honest with myself.” You felt her breath still in her throat. “But I don’t have that luxury.” A drop fell from your eye to your cheek. “I’m the town’s pariah.”

Her thumb caught the trickling teardrop. “How much has the reverend taken from you?” she whispered.

“Too much,” you sobbed. “Far too much, Eivor. By Christ, my own family won’t speak to me.”

“Then come back with me to Ravensthorpe,” she murmured. “Find a new family amongst my clan. Be your uninhibited self.” Eivor kissed the top of your head. “I couldn’t live with myself without offering you a chance to be free from all this.”

“Can you earnestly say you’d have offered this, had I kept my mouth shut?” you asked, shaking your head in disbelief.

“Yes.”

God, lend me your wisdom, should this be deception to the ears—

“I doubt I’d be able to forget you if I tried, love,” she confided, reaching for your hand. “I’ve seen – I’ve felt – your soul, radiant as a summer’s day. You deserve to fall asleep warmed by furs and a hearth, to wake in a bed cushioned by something other than straw, to be fed berries in the morning and, by the gods, to live in a place where sin refers to atrocities and atrocities alone.” The tears now streamed steadily down your cheeks. “And I want to give you this and more.”

Hiccupping, you forced a small laugh. “I doubt I’d be a boon to your town.”

Eivor smiled, caressing the back of your hand. “I’m not convinced of that,” she assured you. “You mentioned you used to teach the town’s children to read and count, right?”

“Aye, before the reverend deemed me perverse.”

“Well, three children come to mind who could certainly use some schooling, to keep them occupied if nothing else,” she grinned.

“Oh?” Her smile was contagious, a mirrored expression fighting its way onto your lips.

“We can leave this afternoon, if you’d like,” she offered. “It’ll be a couple of days on horseback, but believe me, I have enough tales about the little shits to fill a week.” Her wink ripped a spluttered laugh from you.

Perhaps this woman is one of His blessings after all.

#eivor #lady eivor #eivor x reader #f!eivor x reader #eivor varinsdóttir #lady eivor x reader #smut

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The commemoration of all the faithful departed is celebrated by the Church on November 2, or, if this falls on a Sunday or a solemnity, the feast is celebrated on November 3.

The Office of the Dead must be recited by the clergy on this day, and all the Masses are to be of Requiem except one of the current feast, where this is of obligation.

Through prayer, intercessions, alms, and visits to cemeteries, people commemorate the poor souls in purgatory and gain them indulgences.

The theological basis for the feast is the doctrine that the souls which, on departing from the body are not perfectly cleansed from venial sins, or have not fully atoned for past transgressions, are debarred from the Beatific Vision, and that the faithful on earth can help them by prayers, almsgiving, and especially the sacrifice of the Mass.

In the early days of Christianity, the names of the departed brethren were entered in the diptychs.

Later, in the sixth century, it was customary in Benedictine monasteries to hold a commemoration of the deceased members at Whitsuntide.

In Spain, there was such a day on Saturday before Sexagesima or before Pentecost, at the time of Saint Isidore (d. 636).

In Germany, there existed (according to the testimony of Widukind, Abbot of Corvey, c.980) a time-honoured ceremony of praying to the dead on October 1. This was accepted and sanctified by the Church.

Saint Odilo of Cluny ordered that the commemoration of all the faithful departed be held annually in the monasteries of his congregation.

From here, it spread among the other congregations of the Benedictines and among the Carthusians.

Of all the dioceses, Liège was the first to adopt it under Bishop Notger (d. 1008).

It is then found in the martyrology of Saint Protadius of Besançon (1053-66).

Bishop Otricus (1120-25) introduced it into Milan for October 15.

In Spain, Portugal and Latin America, priests say three Masses on this day.

A similar concession for the entire world was asked of Pope Leo XIII; he would not grant the favour but ordered a special Requiem on Sunday, 30 September 1888.

In the Greek Rite, this commemoration is held on the eve of Sexagesima Sunday, or on the eve of Pentecost.

The Armenians celebrate the passover of the dead on the day after Easter.

Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright 1907.

#All Souls Day #November 2 #Commemoration of All of the Faithful Departed

[apesoformythoughts]

We need a “How dare you stand where he stood?” meme about the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

[apollondelios]

I have decided to make it my goal to apply for and create a religious corporation by the Apollonists within the next five years in Japan.

Japan is a polytheistic country, and many foreign deities are also believed in and have their own shrines. The Constitution of Japan also guarantees freedom of religion. In this sense, the threshold for the creation of a religious corporation is lower than in Western countries, which are monotheistic cultures.

There are many advantages to incorporation, but first of all, religious corporations are tax-free in Japan, and everything that the congregation dedicates to Apollo is guaranteed as the property of Apollo. They also have an advantage in land acquisition.

However, in recent years, there have been a number of cases of illegal activities by sects that deceive in the name of God, financial exploitation of believers, and terrorism, which have become a problem in Japan, and the public has become more wary of religious organizations, and the requirements for application for incorporation are becoming more stringent every year. Furthermore, the number of congregations is not large due to the low visibility of Apollo in Japan. Therefore, I would like to ask for the help of all Apollonists congregations around the world.

What is required at the time of application,

1. many photographs and specific doctrine proving three or more years of religious activity

2. at least three executive officers and a member of the congregation.

3. an open religious facility where we can worship

So please, when you build an altar for Apollo, please post a picture with the tag #ApolloFaithRevivalMovement

I will be looking for a few board members and people who would like to be listed in the congregation directory (no cost, no The only requirement is that you have faith in Apollo).

And the most problematic issue is the preparation of a religious facility, but I 'm still working on the specifics of how to do this. I'll be selecting the land and preparing the budget.

I know that many of you have never visited Japan or do not know much about Japan, but it is the perfect place to announce the revival of the Apollo faith, and there are the legal arrangements for this purpose.

I am a person who was saved by Apollo. In order to return the favor, I would like to dedicate a new shrine and a new his territory to Apollo. I want his shrine where we can still worship today, not a dilapidated ancient ruin. And I will strive to make his great power known to the world.

More details will be announced as they become available, but if you would like to support this effort, I would very much appreciate your cooperation.

Congregation of Apollo Japan Representative

TACHIBANA Yuki

#apollo #απολλων #greek gods #apollon

[unitedbyprayer]

(via Flee From Any Form Of Unrighteous Judgement)

Flee From Any Form Of Unrighteous Judgement

https://www.unitedbyprayer.com/united-by-prayer-wall/flee-from-any-form-of-unrighteous-judgement

Jesus had been teaching His disciples the principles and practice of righteousness in the life of a believer and the spiritual priorities that should govern our behavior. He emphasized the importance of living our lives in dependence upon Him and charged us to live our life as unto the Lord and not for the applause or attention of others. Christians find it all too easy to pass judgement on another member of Christ's Body if their behavior or life-style does not reflect their own walk with Christ (or what they think it should look like), but none of us has the right to judge the motive or conscience of another believer. We cannot read the mind of another, nor can we correctly assess the motive behind their actions. And neither should we judge the value or otherwise of someone's service to the Lord, nor should we be judgmental if they have opinions or reservations that conflict with our own opinions and scruples. However, there are many areas in the Christian life where we have been given the right and authority to make judgements, which include disputes within a church body, the corrective role of elders in a congregation of believers, and especially in the area of doctrinal error. We are certainly called upon to differentiate between what is good and what is evil, we are not to have any connection with the destructive forces of evil, but to hold fast to that which is good. Let us read the Bible with the eye of faith, with an understanding heart, with godly discernment, and in its correct historical context, and let us apply it in our lives in spirit and in truth. Let us Flee From Any Form Of Unrighteous Judgement, hypocritical conclusions, sanctimonious reasonings, legalistic tendencies, and destructive criticisms, but let us hold fast to sound doctrine and seek to walk worthy before the Lord.

“Do not judge, or you will be judged.

Our United Prayer:

Heavenly Father, keep us, we pray, from hypocritical thoughts and unrighteous judgement of others. But please give us the wisdom and discernment we need to judge between that which is good and that which is evil. Keep us walking humbly before You, and help us to always consider the needs of others before our own. This we ask in Jesus' name, AMEN.

[revlyncox]

A Worldwide Faith

An orientation to Unitarian Universalism as a faith with a worldwide history, a worldwide community, and a worldwide impact on human rights.

Unitarian Universalists are a diverse and quirky bunch, and yet we have values in common. These values include justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, and generosity. All of these values came into play during the longest trip of my life, a pilgrimage I took shortly after the turn of the century to Hungary and Romania. I attended the conference of the International Association of Religious Freedom, held that year in Budapest, and I visited Unitarian congregations in Transylvania, our cousins who have been gathering in freedom and reason and tolerance since the 1500s. 

I looked forward to the tour of Unitarian congregations and pilgrimage sites in Transylvania partly because it gave me a chance to spend more time with a friend and colleague who had spent a year as a scholar in residence at my seminary. Those day-to-day conversations led to a deeper understanding of the interdependence that exists today in the theological and cultural exchange between Unitarians in Transylvania and around the world and Unitarian Universalists in the United States. I learn different things about historical UU figures like William Ellery Channing and Henry David Thoreau and Clarence Russell Skinner when I get the perspective of people who are applying a different strand of Unitarian or Universalist theology in another country. 

Lifting our heads up above the walls of our mental and emotional cubicles is important, and it can be hard to do when we feel pressured by time or intensity or despair. There are a lot of forces that benefit when they can separate us from each other or from our best selves. Reconnecting with our larger communities, with our heritage, and with our values helps us to overcome that sense of isolation. And so it is worthwhile to remember that we Unitarian Universalists are part of a worldwide history, a worldwide faith community, and a worldwide network of action for justice and equity. 

Worldwide History

In addition to the international interdependence angle, I also wanted to visit Transylvania to learn more about Unitarian history. Studying our history can help us to take pride in the depth and beauty of our movement. In addition, knowing our history is one aspect of knowing ourselves. History doesn’t have to be destiny, yet we will have a better sense of how to create a path forward when we can learn from the experience of where we have been. 

Transylvania is one of the origin points of our faith movement. The founder of Unitarianism in Transylvania, Dávid Ferenc or Francis David, got some ideas from theologians who came before him. During the Council of Nicea in 325, Arius argued that Jesus was not of the same substance as God, and was not co-eternal with God. Obviously, Arius did not win that debate, and the doctrine of the Trinity left no room for dissent for a long time. Arius’ ideas continued as a heresy without much traction in the Christian world, though of course Jews and Muslims maintained the unity of God throughout their histories. 

Michael Servetus was martyred in 1553 for trying to correct the theological error of the Trinity. Servetus wasn’t trying to start a new church, he was trying to make changes in the churches that already existed. But his books had already been published, and the book bans couldn’t keep up with the spread of his ideas. Giorgio Biandrata, a physician who learned from Servetus, fled from Geneva and became the personal physician to Princess Isabella of Poland, who later became the mother of King John Sigismund of Transylvania. 

Dávid Ferenc was a scholar, then a Lutheran priest, then a Calvinist or Reformed leader, but his ideas kept evolving. Reading about Servetus and Arius and others, Dávid Ferenc came to believe that the Trinity had no scriptural basis, and so he preached his first Unitarian sermon in 1566. Crucially, unlike Servetus, Dávid Ferenc already had a community of people who were following him, the seeds of a religious movement. 

In other places in Europe, disagreements over religion were solved with violence or banishment. King John Sigismund of Transylvania brought together the leaders of the four major religious viewpoints for a peaceful debate in the Diet of Torda in 1568. The king took to heart Dávid Ferenc’s statement that “The conscience will be peaceful when it reaches the truth.” King John Sigismund issued the Edict of Torda, guaranteeing religious freedom to Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Unitarians. That still left a lot of people out, but it was the most tolerant position of any monarch in Europe at the time. The king converted to Unitarianism, having been convinced by Dávid Ferenc of a loving and singular God, and so was the only Unitarian king we know of for the rest of his short life. 

Backing up in the lineage a bit, the Italian scholar Laelius Socinus had learned from Servetus, and Laelius’s nephew Faustus Socinus inherited his papers and his ideas, and led a group of religious reformers who fled Poland and took refuge in Transylvania, where he met up with Dávid Ferenc. 

When King John Sigismund died in an “accident” at age 30, the rulers who followed him couldn’t put all of that religious diversity all the way back in the bottle, but they did outlaw “innovation.” Each of the four religions was allowed to continue, as long as they didn’t spread any new ideas. Dávid Ferenc could not stop evolving, despite the advice of his friends. He was old and unwell by this time, and did not survive imprisonment. He died in Deva in 1579. We consider him a martyr, and there is a memorial in his prison cell. His epitaph was these last words scratched into the wall of his cell: “Neither the sword of popes, nor the cross, nor the image of death – nothing will halt the march of truth."

Unitarian congregations in Transylvania kept meeting, and continuously operate to this day. Faustus Socinus kept writing, and his ideas made their way to England, where they were picked up by Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey, who started a Unitarian church in England in 1774. Joseph Priestley kept evolving his ideas, too, and eventually found a more receptive home for his thinking in America, where he helped start Unitarianism in Philadelphia. 

So, from these origin stories, we learn that pluralism is important. Through pluralism, we have an exchange of ideas, strength in diversity, and a chance to engage with differences through peaceful means. All of that fuels transformation toward inclusion, justice, and equity. We learn that studying matters, and that sometimes ideas that seem new are points of connection with friends we haven’t yet met; we are more interdependent than we know. And we learn that being learned and articulate is not enough, we need to organize communities of people. The congregations of Transylvania were held together not only by theology, but by the practices that were informed by their belief in a loving and caring God. Ideas are resilient, and communities of people who take care of one another even more so. 

Worldwide Faith Community

The history is inspiring, but we can’t let that distract us from the real and living faith community we enjoy around the world today. As I mentioned earlier, my trip to Transylvania was a double-header with attending the annual meeting of the International Association for Religious Freedom, which was held in Budapest that year. The IARF conference was interfaith. I attended lectures led by Bahai and Christian Reformed leaders. I stayed in the young adult dormitory (which should emphasize how long ago this was). Some of the others in my cohort included a Muslim woman and a Hindu woman from Pakistan and India, who sang together for the dorm talent show. I lit shabbat candles on Friday night with a rabbinical student from Great Britain and a Jewish UU colleague. A contingent of Catholic students from Mexico presented a story about water and interdependence. 

That being said, Unitarians and Universalists and Unitarian Universalists from all over the world had a strong presence at the conference. I would like to think that our practice with pluralism helped us to be supportive participants in that environment. 

We got a lot more practice with pluralism that week. Not only did we meet in interfaith small groups to listen deeply and to explore tough questions, we also learned more about our worldwide UU faith movement. I found it transformative to meet Universalists from the Philippines and Unitarians from northeast India and British Unitarians, and to have deeper conversations with my friends from Transylvania and Canada and other parts of the United States. Participants in our worldwide faith have a lot in common, and there are also beautiful and diverse expressions of that faith in each location. The practices of Universalism in the Philippines and Unitarianism in the Khasi Hills and Unitarian Universalists in western Europe and Unitarians in Transylvania all look different from each other. 

We can be interdependent and connected without being the same. In fact, we shouldn’t be the same. Enforced sameness that disregards local culture would not be true to our roots or our values. Most of our international cousins are some form of Christian, though almost always in a more liberating and wide-ranging way than their local ecumenical neighbors. That means that when we tend to our international relationships, we listen with grace and appreciation, even if our cousins pray differently than we might in our home congregations. 

After the conference, I was off to visit a series of Unitarian friends and heritage sites in Transylvania. Though Transylvania doesn’t exist as a country anymore, this region that is mostly in what is now Romania still has its own identity. Our Transylvanian cousins speak Hungarian at home, and so in Romania they hold a minority religion, language, and ethnicity. Between World War II and 1991, Unitarian church lands and schools were taken by the government for communal rule. Many Unitarian churches are still negotiating with the government to get their property back. Nevertheless, they persisted in keeping their language and their faith alive, even when it was dangerous to do so. Today there are about 150 Unitarian congregations in the region, with a combined membership of about 50,000 people. 

On my tour, I had a deep experience of generosity. I didn’t have a car, but relied on rides from friends, organized tour groups that made a temporary spot for me, and help from my Transylvanian colleagues with navigating public transportation. I stayed one night in the dorm at the Unitarian school in Kolozsvar, and otherwise was treated to home hospitality. The homes I visited were elegantly simple and lovely, and my hosts brought out their best to help me to feel welcome. I saw inspiring architecture, cheered for young people finally allowed to do their traditional dances in their traditional regalia, did my best to sing hymns in Hungarian, and ate really fantastic cheese. I will never forget their kindness and their patience with my ignorance. I hope that I can learn to welcome the stranger as heartily as my Transylvanian colleagues welcomed me. Generosity is a value in American Unitarian Universalism, and we can learn how to live that value more fully by deepening our relationships with our international cousins. 

Even though I met hundreds of people on that trip, there were international communities of Unitarians and Universalists I did not get a chance to hear about at the time. There are communities in Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Burundi, Italy, Germany and more. The Universalists or Unitarian Universalists of the Philippines have their own fascinating history, starting in the 1950s when their founder, Toribio Quimada, received assistance from the Universalist Service Committee. Universalism in the Philippines is a community of joy and resistance, and the risks they take by proclaiming their faith became evident when Quimada was assassinated in 1988. The Unitarians of the Khasi Hills and northeast India have a tradition going back to 1887. Again, pluralism and generosity help us to open our minds and hearts to learning, and this in turn leads us to deeper truth and more effective action for justice and equity. 

There have been a lot of changes recently to the ways Unitarian Universalism in the United States handles relationships with our larger international faith community. Our international connections have been vital and valuable for over 100 years, and yet sometimes our American tendencies to take over or to operate out of charity rather than solidarity have gotten in the way of deep and accountable relationships. Rev. Morgan McLean is the Program Manager of the UUA’s International Office. She tells me that the UUA has been helping to facilitate the process of reimagining our global faith. The International Partner Church Council and the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists have been dissolved, and there is a Leadership and Design Team in place with representatives from all over the world who are slowly, relationally, mindfully imagining something new, better, and more congruent with our shared values. My colleague says, “We are building a world transformed by love.” 

Worldwide Action

The operations of the UUA and its counterparts in other countries is, to an extent, internal. We are interdependent in our UU universe. Yet we also put our values to work in the world without regard to evangelism or the similarity of our human rights partners to ourselves. I’m talking about the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. 

Just as we in the UUA have learned more about how to have equitable relationships with our international family of faith, the UUSC has learned more about decolonizing their work. They center the voices and leadership of the most impacted rather than parachuting into a crisis situation and acting as experts. The UUSC has focused their United Nations advocacy work on amplifying the voices of their partners and helping those partner organizations get into the conversations. At the UN’s COP28 [Conference Of Parties] late last year, the UUSC helped people from 18 grassroots organizations get to the conference, and helped five of them from the Pacific Islands and the Philippines to get into the “Blue Zone,” where formal negotiations occur. We know that climate change most deeply impacts the people and nations who contribute to it the least, and that climate change drives other kinds of human rights disasters. Elevating the voices of the most impacted, getting them to the negotiating table, is the kind of thing a human rights organization driven by UU values can do with generous support. 

The UUSC’s human rights work related to climate justice is in addition to their support for their other partners. With the UUSC’s help, local partners are supporting Black and Trans people who are impacted by the war in Ukraine; organizations helping migrants in Mexico to find safety; and organizations in Burma working to achieve accountability for human rights violations. The UUSC also has a congregational accompaniment program for asylum seekers. They offer tools and information that support congregations and other groups in advocacy related to human rights. You can learn more in the recently-published UUSC annual report. 

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is not about evangelism or congregational operations. The UUSC is a human rights organization that channels resources and translates core values like justice and equity into action. By partnering with the UUSC, we can have a global impact that we would never be able to have operating as an isolated congregation. In partnering together, we remember that we are one interdependent world, resilient when we remember that we are not alone. 

Conclusion

You are not alone. We are not alone. This congregation is one of about a thousand congregations in the United States, connected in covenant with all of the other member congregations of the UUA. We are connected in history to the congregations in Transylvania and Great Britain and beyond who carry on traditions from the great turning points when our faith movement started and restarted. We are connected in mission and values to Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist congregations all over the world. We are connected in generosity and action to the international partner organizations of the UU Service Committee, supporting human rights and resilience in the face of climate change. 

Let’s keep in mind this larger picture of pluralism as we think about how to be in relationship with neighboring congregations in our cluster, across the state, in the Central East Region, and in our wider Association. Let’s celebrate the possibilities for transformation as we lift up our interdependence, open our hearts to generosity, and practice justice and equity together. 

So be it. Blessed be. Amen. 

#unitarian universalism

[blackestnight]

14: no forgiveness, no deliverance

Prompt: Attrition

Word count: 1286

noun: (in Christian theology) sorrow, but not contrition, for a sin.

A reflection on Aymeric, religious doctrine, and remorse. Or: today’s prompt word sparked a very interesting conversation in the DRK zine server, and I got about two paragraphs into a mile-long ramble and then realized I could just write fic instead. Borrows Lucia’s prayer from @starswornoaths​ and their masterwork of a character study all about Lucia, religious doctrine, and remorse, as well as finding personal faith and why are you still here and not reading that.

In the aftermath of the Dragonsong War, Ishgard had gone to great pains to ensure the Vault was always open to the public—both as a place of worship and a place of governance, mostly because there were very few places in the city other than the audience hall large enough to hold the varying members of its new governing bodies—but Aymeric had been raised in the congregation of Saint Reymanaud’s, as had his father (foster father, he thought, and then: no), and his father before him. His mother had been even more devoted to worship there, and so when Lucia said church his mind always went first to the cathedral that had so awed him every Lightsday as a child.

It was still her preferred place of prayer; this early in the morning in the middle of the week the sanctuary was empty but for a single deacon cleaning displays around the altar, so he and Lucia were undisturbed as they stopped by the font at the entrance and dipped their fingers before they made the Sign of the Spear.

“Coming?” Lucia whispered, eyes cast down and voice kept low out of respect for the quiet of the grand hall. Aymeric shook his head, and she squeezed his elbow in acknowledgement, moving down the aisle and slipping into a pew with its prayer bench already lowered.

She bowed her head, hands folded in prayer: probably similar to the ones he had heard from her a hundred times before, drawn from the same outline he had learned at his mother’s knee. O Halone, I give thanks to you for this blessed day… It relieved him, in a way, to know his parents’ relationship with the church lived on with his foster-sister, even if it had been many years since he himself had found much comfort in it.

He took a moment to consider the statue of the Fury towering over the sanctuary, chin raised and spear held at the ready, before his eyes fell to the confessional.

Clearly there was no priest available to perform the Penance, which suited Aymeric just fine; he hadn’t attended a confession himself almost since the war’s end, and his last attempt had ended with an excruciatingly polite theological debate—or just an argument, in his more honest moods—held in hushed tones through the screen. The issue, at its root, was remorse, or rather the lack of it.

Aymeric had sins aplenty, and regrets nigh-uncountable, but not in a way that would balance on the scales of the church.

The refrain of every Ishgardian—the mantra that fueled their holy war—had been one of repentance. If only they could live lives holy enough, lives that served the Fury well enough, She would be moved to pity and strike down their oldest foes, and allow Her blessed children to abide in their promised land in peace. It was Ishgard’s duty to show their devotion through steel, and will, and penance. Halone’s forgiveness and subsequent divine intervention was to be their ultimate reward. Such a convenient narrative to justify a never-ending slaughter.

Proper penance required sincere regret, unmarred by such base emotions as fear of consequences: true remorse, the church claimed, was driven by one’s genuine sorrows over their own sinful nature, rather than the threat of consignment to the Hell of Ice. Yet what did the church teach, if not a doctrine of fear? Beware the sky. Beware the fires. Beware your fellow man, your neighbor, lest he be swayed by the wicked temptations of the Dravanians. The sentence for heresy was death: the innocent, according to the Inquisitors, would be raised into the Fury’s halls, while the guilty would either repent their wicked ways in the depths of their hearts or else be cast down, but what difference was there between a saint and a sinner when their corpse landed at the bottom of Witchdrop? They all died the same. The blood of heretics had never looked any different than his own.

If the church swayed its people with fear, what hope did they have of achieving true contrition?

Not that he’d had such grand points at the time. Confession required regrets, and among Aymeric’s there were: selfish frustration with the set ways of his countrymen. Envy of his friends’ freedoms, particularly as his beloved and her fellow Scions scattered along the eastern wind, called to grand purposes half a world away. Neglect of the spiritual welfare of those under his command, who were lost and confused with the shaking of the foundations of their faith. The priest had assigned him penance, prayers and oaths, and then asked, and your other sins?

Disobedience of the doctrine of the Holy See. Disobedience of his spiritual leaders, of the most holy figure of authority in the church. Murder. Patricide. Laying with a woman outside of the confines of a marriage bed, at which point Aymeric had felt a surge of indignation so strong that he had laughed, stunning the priest into silence.

If these were sins, it was only according to the laws of a doctrine crafted to evoke fear and shame. Fine. Let them be sins in the eyes of men. If Halone knew his heart, She knew that the most grievous of these were done in the name of true salvation for Her people, that Thordan and his leadership and his lies and his ambitions would have been Ishgard’s ruin. That his life was a threat Aymeric could not abide, not if he wished to fulfill his duty as shield for the people of Ishgard. That his only regret was not in his action, but rather his inaction, in sending another to do the deed in his stead. She would know that his choice of bed-partner came from a place of love, and commitment, separate from the arbitrary requirements of a ring or a ceremony for a faith she did not follow. And even if, knowing his heart and his mind, She still judged his duty and his love to be sins, She would know that he would not—could not—repent for them.

Penance served no purpose when he was not sorry, and even the most performative remorse was beyond him when he would not be made to feel shame. Without fear to force his tongue, the priest had no weapon with which to prise out an admission of guilt.

Perhaps the ever-changing landscape of Ishgard and her faith would revisit the concepts of fear and contrition, and perhaps there were those who found comfort in the act of confession even now, but for him it rang hollow as the gaps between the wood that formed the confessional itself. He would feel no shame for that, either.

He startled from his reverie at a touch to his shoulder—Lucia, he realized, blinking his eyes back into focus, regarding him with a raised eyebrow.

“Apologies,” he whispered—courtesy, rather than confession. “Shall we go?”

“Aye, if you’re ready,” she said, and together they departed the shade of the cathedral in favor of the late morning sunlight.

Perhaps his regrets did not suit the taste of the church, but that was fine: Aymeric would pay his own penance with intentional action, and careful leadership, and simple good, like treating his overworked First Commander (and beloved sister, even if her favorite time to leverage that title was when she was bopping him on the head with a stack of papers) to a nice breakfast, free for a little while from the stress of reshaping a nation.

“You had best keep your sticky fingers away from my scone,” she warned him, “or I will make you sorry.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” he said, his heart lightening at the thought.

#ffxivwrite 2022 #final fantasy xiv #aymeric de borel #lucia junius #wolmeric as kind of a side thing but i'll still tag #s: a minor justice #idk if this turned out the way i wanted or if i lost the plot but hey! i wrote it anyway. #writing - mine

[beardedmrbean]

Jan. 19 (UPI) -- A coalition of 13 religious leaders filed suit Thursday to overturn Missouri's abortion ban, saying the ban unconstitutionally imposes one narrow religious doctrine on all Missouri residents and violates separation of church and state.

The suit comes on what would have been the 50th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision, which guaranteed abortion rights until it was overturned last year.

Thirteen clergy from six different denominations represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) and the law firm Arnold & Porter are the plaintiffs.

"The people of Missouri have the absolute right to live free from the religious dictates of others," the lawsuit begins. "The Missouri Constitution protects that right by ensuring a strict separation of church and state. But this fundamental guarantee of religious freedom for all is under attack: In a years-long crusade against abortion access, state officials have weaponized their religious beliefs to control the bodies and deny the autonomy of women and all who can become pregnant, jeopardizing their health, lives, and futures."

The clergy plaintiffs said in the suit that Missouri's abortion ban violates the separation of church and state and the suit asked the court to hold that the abortion ban provisions "are unconstitutional establishments of religion that cannot be enforced."

"My God is a God of choice. In the United Church of Christ, we believe that God intended people to have autonomy over their lives and bodies, and to have authority to make complex decisions, including whether to have an abortion," said the Rev. Traci Blackmon, association minister of justice and local church ministries for the United Church of Christ.

"The people of this State, through their Constitution, have spoken loud and clear: We each have the right to decide for ourselves whether and what to believe and practice when it comes to matters of faith," the suit said. "In enacting and enforcing the Challenged Provisions, legislators imposed their preferred religious doctrine on everyone, forcing the citizens and taxpayers of this State to fund the establishment of that doctrine and to obey it regardless of their own faith and beliefs, and irrespective of the resulting grave harms to those seeking abortion care."

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Missouri bans abortions except in medical emergencies. Medical providers who perform abortions can be sent to prison for 5-15 years and lose their medical licenses.

The thirteen religious leaders suing Missouri are:

Rev. Traci Blackmon of the United Church of Christ

Rev. Barbara Phifer, a United Methodist minister

Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis

Rev. Molly Housh Gordon of the Unitarian Universalist Church

The Right Reverend Bishop Deon K. Johnson, Eleventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri

Rabbi James Bennett of St. Louis

Rev. Holly McKissick of Peace Church United Church of Christ

Rev. Krista Taves. minister of Congregational Life at Eliot Unitarian Chapel

Rev. Cynthia S. Bumb of United Church of Christ.

Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis

Rabbi Andrea Goldstein of Congregation Shaare Emeth

Rev. Janice Barnes

Rabbi Douglas Alpert of Congregation Kol Ami

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