#there was a boy sitting behind me during latin who kept sniffing every few seconds and I was about to punch him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yukina-otome · 3 years

Text

Ikevamp pregnancy and family headcanon pt.3

I am back ! This time with Isaac and jean ! I hope you enjoy ! Please encourage me and let me know what you think !

@ginshoujo @bierunderdbeeren @fun-ghoul-neela @loverofmanyrandomthings

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

-Isaac: A daughter

-He spent most of his life alone so the idea of one day being a father was foreign and impossible for him. -When you came into his room one day being all nervous and refusing to look him in the eyes he thought you were there to dump him. -The last thing he expected you to say was that you were pregnant. -Isaac was so shocked he kept silent as you started rambling in nervousness. -After few minutes of Isaac staying silent and you rambling on how you want to keep the baby because it is the product of your love, Isaac finally spoke: -"P-Pregnant....as in....B-Baby? Mine ? Wait....no that's no what i should be saying in this situation...ah wait a minute.....So there is a baby made of my sperm and your ovule in your uterus ??" -"Yes Isaac that's exactly what pregnant mean....are you not happy ?" -"NO ! I am very happy ! It's just that i never had a father, and I'm so awkward and clumsy I don't know if i can be a good father to our child" -The word "Our child" felt so foreign to him yet the second he said his heart felt so full. -After that you spent long hours reassuring him before you both fell asleep dreaming of your future together with your baby. -Few days later both of you guys decided to announce it to the whole mansion during dinner and as soon as the word "I am pregnant" left your mouth the whole dinner room fell silent. -The silence was broken by Arthur who said "Congratulation Newt you old chap, I can already suggest a pretty good name for your child! What about Apple if its a girl ! And if its a boy Applo !" -Isaac started arguing with Arthur and Dazai who also suggested naming your child Ringo. The rest of the resident all congratulated you and Sebastian banned you from doing house chores. -Your pregnancy was very peaceful. You would visit Isaac at the university almost every day and all his students treated you as if you were made of glass. The dean would always ask you about how you were doing and when you were in your 8th month, all the students and the dean gave you presents for the baby. -You were in university attending one of Isaac's class when your water broke. You started groaning and screaming in pain and the whole classroom started panicking. -Isaac was at your side by the second and quickly carrying you out of the class and toward the hospital (the students followed you) -And so you were in the delivery room while Isaac, 80 university students and the mansion's resident were waiting outside. -Napoleon was by Isaac's side trying to calm him down while Arthur Theo Dazai leo and le compte were making bets about the baby's gender. -After what felt like hours, the doctor came out of the delivery room and looked at the huge crowd in amazement before saying "Who is the father ?" -Isaac raised his hand and the doctor invited him in the delivery room. -You gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with light brown hair and pink eyes. -After much consideration you named her Cherry (As in cherry blossom) -Cherry was a very innocent and shy child. -She was also a huge crybaby. -One time when she was around 5 Arthur teased her and the second her eyes filled with tears and she started sniffing the whole mansion looked at arthur like he had just committed murder. From that day on she started avoiding him (it broke his hearth) -From when she was very young Isaac often took her to his classes where his student would gush over her and one day when she was 8 she corrected the student who was sitting next to her as he made a mistake in his formula. -That's how you knew she was a genius, her IQ was extremely high. But you guys never forced anything on her as she was more interested in cultures and languages than math's and physics. -By the age of 12 she was fluent in all the languages that were spoke in the mansion, English, French, Japanese and Dutch and of course Latin (her father taught her). -She would spend long hours having a debate about history with Sebastian. -You guys would go on stroll in the city and Isaac would smile as you and cherry would start nerding about some monument and the history behind it. He would thank all the stars and it would not be enough because he knew that he would never feel lonely ever again.

-Jean : A daughter and a son

-Jean didn't want children at all. -He was a monster. He was dirty. what kind of child would come from his genes. -But then he met you and slowly but surely he started loving himself a bit more. -You were his everything. For him you were the most beautiful and pure person. -Nevertheless you two never spoke of having a family. But you dreamed of having a big family. -So one day as you were resting in jean's embrace you decide to try and see what he thinks about it. -"Jean have you ever thought of having a family ?" -Jean thought for few minutes before saying "I never thought i deserved to have a family....but if its with you...." -You started crying and squeezed him in your arms. -And so from that point on the two of you started trying. -Few months later after a visit to your doctor you came in the mansion looking for jean only to find him sparing with napoleon in the training room. -Both of them stopped sparing to look at you as you screamed "I'm pregnant". Jean dropped his rapier and picked you up in a hug. -Both you and napoleon heard a laugh that sounded like it came straight out of an angel's mouth. Jean was laughing. -After that jean became your personal bodyguard. When he was busy he made napoleon keep an eye on you of all time. -Not that you needed any more protection as the whole mansion babied you. -"Guys i am not ill. I'm pregnant" -"But then why did you vomit this morning?" Mozart said -"It's just morning sickness !" you answered back -"Sickness....that mean you're ill. I'm taking you to the doctor right now" jean said as he carried you in his arms. -Anyways days passed and when you were in your 9th month jean had to take a job as a bodyguard with napoleon. Mozart had a concert to prepare for, Isaac was busy with his job as a professor, Sebastian was too busy, Leo Vincent and Theo were away on business, and no way he would leave you to Dazai or Arthur. -Which led him to ask the one and only person who was not busy that day.....Le compte. Truthfully he didn't want to owe him anything but he would throw away his pride for your safety any day. -That day you spend time with le compte drinking Tea and eating cake when your water broke. -Le compte took care of everything and took you to the hospital. He also sent a messenger for jean. -When jean got the message he was few hours away from the city. Napoleon assured him he would take care of the rest and jean took off as fast as he could. -When he arrived you had already given birth and you were sleeping. As he came into the room he saw you with your eyes closed and panicked. He checked your breathing and pulse and relaxed when he saw you were just sleeping. Then he heard the tiniest sound. -He looked toward the direction the sound came from and he saw a crib. He peaked inside the crib and saw the most beautiful dark blue eyes. His baby girl looked at him in curiosity before giving him a smile that reminded him so much of yours. -Now he had one more person who loved him, one more person to protect. -His daughter Louise was shy and timid. She didn't speak much. -She loved her uncle Napoleon the most and admired her uncle Mozart. -She would always listen to Mozart as he played the piano. At first he was awkward with her because he didn't know how to behave with kids but one day when she was 3 he found her sitting on the floor outside his piano room and asked "what are you doing?" -She looked at him with her big eyes and said "music" -From that day on she always came to listen to him playing. She would sit on the sofa in the piano room (it wasn't there before, he bought it just for her) and listen for hours. -When Louise was 6 you got pregnant again. This time Jean refused to leave you for even a second. He wanted to be with you when you gave birth. -"Jean its only the 5th month...I'm not going to give birth any time soon." "I don't care I'm not leaving you". -You would be chilling in Jean's room (that was redecorated to look more homey and less like a prison cell) and both Louise and Jean would have their ears on your tummy trying to hear what was happening inside. -After few hours of listening Louis said "It's a boy". "How can you be so sure darling ?" "I just know. He told me just now." -And she was right. Few months later you gave birth (with jean by your side this time) to a boy who looked like a mini jean. -His name was Orlean. -From his cold deadpan expression, to his androgynous features, to his dark sense of humor he was a copy of jean. -He was so mature for his age and often took care of his bigger sister. -Orlean and Jean looked liked they were awkward when they were together because none of them would say much, but in fact the silence between them was always comfortable. They would understand each other with a single look. -Jean taught Orlean how to use a sword but Orlean preferred reading. He always spent time in the Library with his uncle Leo who would teach him all kind of subjects. -You, Louise and Orlean would come watch jean spare with napoleon and would cheer for him like crazy. -Jean never thought he would have anyone who loved him let alone a family. He would always be thankful to you who showed him love and gave him happiness. You, Louise and Orlean were his treasures.

#Ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikevam #ikemen vampire jean #ikemen vampire isaac #ikemen vampire napoleon #ikemen vampire mozart #ikemen vampire theo #ikemen vampire leonardo #ikevamp jean #ikevamp arthur #ikevamp Isaac #ikemen vampire arthur #ikevamp le compte #ikemen vampire headcanons

209 notes · View notes

jtq1844 · 5 years

Text

One day into this and I’m already behind ...

Where did the day go? So much for taking this opportunity to build in some writing discipline into my life. I actually have a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Antioch University -- Los Angeles, 2017). It started out as “an external goal” in 2015, something to try after we moved as empty-nesters up to Washington State from Santa Cruz. The program is “low residency,” meaning it is mostly online. I had had a few stories published already, so I had reason to think it was doable. I like story-telling. I like writing. What I discovered was that, while I have some writing competency, I don’t exactly have a passion for it.

Here is one of the CNF essays from my official portfolio to amuse you until I compose a more heartfelt and informative post for tomorrow … er, I mean, today … um. You know what I mean.

-=-=-=-

Sister Clorina, Saint Blaise and Doubting Thomas by Jean Tschohl Quinn

It can take years to come to an understanding about something. Alternatively, an understanding can barrel into consciousness like a grand and glorious epiphanic elephant. Sometimes, both happens. I love paradox. I adore the celestial AND. It is in this sort of epiphany, decades in the making, that I found Bahá'u'lláh.

Sister Clorina hated me. No. That’s too strong. She simply did not like any girls not named Mary. She didn’t like me in particular because she had suddenly been “demoted” to second grade from fourth grade where my sister Mary was -- sweet, clever, pious and faithful. How could I compete? My best friend then was named Mary too. Mary Wirhanowicz was also sweet, clever, pious and faithful. I hold no grudge against the average Mary. They’ve got the whole Blessed Virgin Mother expectation thing to deal with and had no choice in the matter because that was their collective given name. It is, apparently, a lot of pressure. There is the occasional exception of the BVM standard when there are multiple Marys in a single classroom. Some of them get an out if they had, say, a younger sibling who called them something else and the teacher approved for clarity’s sake. One of my grandmothers was one of those. There were several Mary’s in her one-room schoolhouse in Nova Scotia. Her younger brothers and sisters called her Mayme already and so she was dubbed in the classroom and life in general. To this day, I consider her the sanest person I’ve ever met. However, in my second grade classroom, Sister Clorina felt she had reason to suspect me as nefarious. First, I was not named Mary. Second, I was “philosophical.”

Her move down to second grade was precipitated by Sister Marie Madison’s hasty withdrawal from the convent life after only a month with our class. We were informed that we had simply “driven her crazy.” Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. (That’s not quite accurate; it was post-Vatican-II. We didn’t actually learn any Latin.) The girls of the class all knew the blame rested solely on the antics of Vince Wederath, Brian Doherty, and Eddie Marx. They were the bad boys. Maybe Tim Relihan too. We were sure of it. Twelve or so years after the fact, I bumped into Eddie on a bus as I headed home from college for a weekend of free laundry and food. He was still proud of his part in the good sister’s loss of faith. We choose our triumphs; this apparently was one of Eddie’s.

Sister Clorina emanated a stern energy. I cannot tell you whether she was tall or short from my second-grader memory, but I do recall her immense energy. Sometimes, she’d fill in on the organ at Mass when the ridiculously cherubic Sister Acquitaine was overwrought or under the weather. Sister Acquitaine was the music teacher. She felt my brother Kevin’s musical talent was extraordinary -- it is – and so she kept him in at recess for violin lessons because we already had a violin that Grampa Hanson had picked up at St. Vinnie’s for $7 in 1967. Kevin did not like missing recess. He abandoned the violin at his earliest possible convenience. I still have and play that violin, mainly because no one else had a use for it. I have always felt that I have a right only to that which is of no use to anyone else. It’s a youngest child thing. In second grade, I even went so far as to claim my favorite color as moss green because I felt sorry for it.

In any case, Sister Clorina as a substitute organist kept the tempo “up” much to the consternation of the older folks. My family liked it that way; it was zippy. She would shout over her shoulder, “Hymn number 8.” Only I thought she was saying “Hit number 8” like Casey Kasem might, so I thought we were going to sing Winchester Cathedral or Last Train to Clarksville depending on the week. I somehow knew never to expect Wild Thing.

I had high hopes as Sister Clorina glowered over us in the hall outside the classroom. I reached for her hand, trying to be the brown-noser I knew myself to be. She sniffed and tucked her arm inside her surplus. Her disdain for me was immediate.

First grade had been a long line of substitute teachers after Mrs. Conti-Morgan left to give birth after an entirely crabby last month. She and Mrs. Lambert, a squat dynamic storyteller, in the fifth grade were the only lay teachers in the school. Second grade looked like the beginning of a whole new world. I was finally going to be close enough to a nun to touch one.

After Sister Marie Madison bailed on us in the second-grade, I suspect Sister Clorina took the move from her already beloved fourth grade class to our clearly evil second grade as a demotion. The smaller four and fifth grade classes would be combined with the incredible Mrs. Lambert at the helm. My sister Mary was immediately named co-chair with Mrs. Lambert of their mutual admiration society. Mary has that mysterious charm that immediately made her teacher’s pet. Every time.

My year with Sister Clorina should have been a good one. She did Science. We studied the classic simple machines: lever, incline plane, screw, pulley, wedge, and wheel and axle. She even pointed out that a screw is really just an incline plane wrapped around a pivot point. This was good stuff. We learned about meteorology and taxonomy. Why wasn’t it working? For one thing, she had no joy once Mary Wirhanowicz got really sick and was gone for weeks. I brought homework to Mary and back to school regularly. Did I get any credit for helping the BVM wannabe? No I did not. Looking for credit is always a sure way to not get any. I was dead last in the rankings of teacher’s pet, even behind Renee Kucze and she NEVER adhered to the dress code.

Mary eventually recovered and returned to class. My only hope was merit by association. No luck. Christmas rolled around and the requisite study of the Nativity. We learned about the Magi, those astrologers from the East. The question was obvious, so I asked it, “If they understood how important Jesus was before He was even born, shouldn’t we be studying their Religion?” Sister Clorina never called on me again.

Second grade crawled on. I was dying to ask about the blessing of the throats on Saint Blaise Day, February 3, but I couldn’t ask Sister Clorina. I thought the hubbub was kind of cool -- how we’d line up and have blest candles criss-crossed about our necks with a little prayer for health offered – but still didn’t understand it. My mom, who was much more informed and cynical than I could have realized then, knew a little about it. One of the miracles attributed to Saint Blaise was miraculously saving someone from choking. His “day” was the day after Candlemas, February 2, when families traditionally brought in all their candles to be sanctified.

“While this is completely pointless in the 20th century,” she postulated, “imagine what candles meant to a family three hundred, five hundred, seven hundred years ago.” Having them blest would be a prudent gesture to Christians throughout Old Europe and the Byzantine Empire, she hoped I would agree. In my limited comprehension, however, I continued to attempt reconciliation of all of this with Groundhog Day. Maybe the flicker of candles cast interesting shadows on any groundhogs popping out of holes on the same day.

By Lent, I knew better than to ask questions. During the required Tuesday-after-school Stations of the Cross, I languished with questions. It’s not three days between the afternoon of Good Friday and dawn of Easter Sunday. It’s two. Much later, I learned that the Jewish day starts at sundown, so it was definitely only two days. I did not dare ask. And the renaming of Simon to Peter, the rock. What was that about? That was a whole lot of palaver over one little verse and the power that Saul/Paul grabbed anyway. I didn’t get it and couldn’t ask.

At Pentecost, I remember sitting amiably in the pew, gently kicking at the kneeler after the Gospel Reading, followed by a rambling homily about Doubting Thomas. He misses a visit from the post-Resurrection Christ and demands physical proof. Christ does come to revisit and offers Thomas a chance to “probe the nail holes.” Thomas believes even though there’s no record of him poking his fingers anywhere – seriously not in a single one of the four Gospels -- just being with Him again is sufficient. Christ then adds “blessed are they that have not seen but still believe.”

Yes, I committed to myself – kick, kick, kick -- I will never be like Doubting Thomas, needing proof like that. To this day, I have never witnessed any firsthand wowza moment. Some friends of mine have hosted these remarkable, spiritual ongoing events where miracles of joy, epiphany and synchronicity are a regular occurrence for years. Long-lost friends reunite. Extraordinary fund-raising. Mysterious healings. You name it. Whenever I show up, it’s invariably an “off night.” My friend who has witnessed it all invariably shrugs and says, “I don’t know what happened this time. Maybe it was the traffic.” I trust their reality. I have to, because I wasn’t there.

I was still mindlessly kicking the kneeler. Why didn’t they recognize Christ as Jesus when meeting Him after the Resurrection? Seriously, they don’t recognize Him at first. Why would that be? What was the big deal about a physical resurrection anyway? The Old Testament was full of them. I could get the importance of a spiritual one – I thought: Peter … Rock … denied Him and the hiding … rock rolled away … blah, blah, blah … Didn’t Jesus call His followers His body? I was not about to ask questions. The symbolism worked so much better than literal story. Don’t ask; don’t tell. Just get through second grade.

By the end of that year, Father Podolak, that gentle, rambling soul who would eventually preside over my wedding years later, announced that the school would be closing at June. My sister and I were devastated. My brothers and older sisters were already going off to junior high and senior high school, mercifully saved from attending more Catholic school by the cost of tuition times six. Mary and I lay in bed with the blankets kicked off, feeling entombed by the muggy heaviness of Wisconsin in the summer bemoaning our fate, a public school education with their loose morals and strange ways. Of this we were sure. No potentially free music lessons from Sister Acquitaine; no exciting tales about WWI in Italy from Mrs. Lambert; no stern preparation for junior high from Sister Rhodelia whose great contribution to our family was her encouragement to my parents that my shy, nervous, older sister Jackie would achieve every regular thing, just in her own time. We were off to public school and weekly Catholic CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. I kid you not).

How wrong we were! At the public school, we got free music lessons on any instrument we chose from hip young musicians; one for band instruments, the other for strings (my choice, obviously). And Mrs. Grossman taught us singing. She really liked how Mary (either one) and I sang together. By the following Christmas, my sister now a fifth grader and I a third grader sang in front of an audience of hundreds a harmonized duet of Mel Torme’s A Christmas Song. Afterwards Brian Doherty spoke directly to me, probably the only time he ever did, “You have guts. Double guts.” Respect. I don’t remember seeing him after that.

We also had a regular dedicated art teacher, Miss Sanford. She got a nose job the following summer and nobody recognized her when she returned. The best part was, my third grade teacher, Miss Nawrocki. She looked like a Barbie doll. She wore wigs of different colors and lengths. She got married halfway through the year and became Mrs. Raniewicz. Dang. We had just conquered spelling capital-N A W R O C K I. She directed a class musical. I had lunch with her a couple of years ago. She is still awesome, although significantly shorter than I thought. Public school was fine. Better than fine. It was great. To heck with you, Sister Clorina.

Around ninth grade, Confirmation rolled around. It was time for me to publicly commit to God and His Church, whatever that meant. Among the somewhat arbitrary options for going through a Catholic Confirmation is taking a new name. It has little or no intrinsic meaning within Western cultures, but the vestigial tradition hangs on. My 15-year-old self was interested in saving the world by becoming a medical doctor – didn’t happen: boys, booze, and a reading disability derailed that vague idea during the first semester of college – so I chose the name “Blaise” as my Confirmation name. I had mistakenly thought he was the patron saint of physicians. I was a piss-poor researcher back then too. So many of his miracles had to do with healing, particularly having to do with throat ailments and choking. Who am I kidding? I claimed the name Blaise because the choice was due the week after the whole Candlemas/Saint Blaise weirdness -- exactly forty days after Christmas. What was this thing with forty days anyway?  Noah in the Ark, Jesus in the desert, Buddha under the Bodi Tree, the Prophet Mohammad in a cave.  There’s Lent.  There are periods of mourning, of fasting or of thanksgiving in most belief systems.  

In any case, my choice of Blaise, a male name, upset a fair few people, so I had to write a couple of letters to some persnickety council of some kind. The request was okayed … with reservations. The actual Confirmation was forgettable other than choir director being in a car accident on the way there, so the choir – which included my mother, my sister Mary, Mary Wirhanowicz and me – had to wing it.

“So why was the name Blaise so important to you?” Father Podolak asked me months later.

“Well, if this spirituality stuff doesn’t work out, ‘Blaze’ is a good name for a stripper.” The words were out of my mouth before I ran them through my brain. I kept walking.

The next time I saw Fr. P, he said, “Jean, do you know how we make holy water?”

“You bless it?” I stammered.

“No, you boil the Hell out of it.” He smiled apologetically and gently clarified, “That was a joke.”

I chatted with a priest at a wedding I was hired to sing for a few years later, I mentioned the parish I grew up in. The priest said, “Ah! Bill Podolak, a kind man.”

“Yes, indeed.” I was running out of things to say.

“… not a dynamic speaker.”

“No, indeed.” We laughed, all too cruelly I believe.

In spite of my bad research skills, Saint Blaise continues to intrigue me. Having been martyred by being beaten to death with iron combs used for wool combing and carding, Saint Blaise has since been associated with any trade having to do with wool since the Middle Ages, not the healing arts. So, after all the hubbub about me picking a male saint’s name, perhaps it works for me. After all, what is my essay-writing but glorified wool-gathering?

The year after my Confirmation, I lived in Tunisia through a foreign exchange program the same summer that Monty Python’s Flying Circus filmed Life of Brian a mere 100 kilometers away. I did not find out until just after my return to the US, by watching an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Eric Idle. His monologue was about the long, sad love songs Tunisians sing with such relish and the ubiquity of jasmine there. Mr. Idle’s monologue went over like a fart in church as the saying goes. My family, however, laughed spasmodically as they recalled the similar stories from my letters home. Dad with his ever-present bowl of popcorn balanced on his chest, fell off the couch chortling. Mr. Idle’s underappreciated monologue notwithstanding, my summer in Tunisia changed my perceptions of just about everything. I had lived with a Moslem family in a Moslem neighborhood in a Moslem village. They valued education and kindness, respect and humor, the individual and the collective. The child peeking out of the doorway to see the American girl may have looked like an advertisement for C.A.R.E., but I came to know that her family loved her abundantly, fed her regularly if frugally, and had dreams and hopes for her. Neshua, the daughter of my host family closest to my age, and I were invited to several homes. Some of those invitations were offered because I was a curiosity to the village. In most of the humbler homes, there was a carpet in the works, a large frame taking up a wall in their main living space. A color plot hung taped to one of the loom’s posts. I learned to knot and trim the wool according to the plot, to shift the heddle and weft shuttle, to tamp work with the kleleh to compact the threads. We sat together, partly in fellowship, partly to contribute to the household. One little girl elbowed her way next to me knotting two to my one and announce that she would teach me the Arabic alphabet. “C’est très important” for me to learn how to read Arabic. I never did, except for “Coca-Cola” which I suspect had more to do with it being on large red billboards.

I was quite full of myself. Eventually the lessons of that summer, about the oneness of Religion, not the Arabic alphabet, sunk in. No longer would the coat of we’re-right/they’re-wrong Christianity fit me properly.

Eventually, I was off to college where at some point I made out with a guy who decided to become a priest. I think there may be something more to process about that. Maybe not. I ended up eventually working in Washington DC and met my future husband Mike at a Trivial Pursuit party in the apartment complex we both lived in. We were both Arabic-speaking (although mine was pretty patchy), left-handed (which has its own complications in Middle Eastern countries), green-eyed Catholics. It was Kismet. Oh, and we both preferred to drink milk with pizza. Like I said, Kismet. We went through all the Catholic wedding hoops and started our family when I got pushed onto a spiritual journey by a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the JW logic never worked for me, I will forever be grateful to Betty and LaVonne for starting me on the journey. Here I will skip chapters full of synchronicities that only Baha’is would find amusing, we attended some meetings referred to as Firesides after moving to San Jose, California a few years later.

The speaker one evening expounded on the subject of Progressive Revelation. In brief, Progressive Revelation encompasses the idea that Religion is unfolding over time as humanity becomes ready for a fuller understanding of the true nature of Reality. The speaker went on to offer examples of how Judaism begot Christianity and primarily affected Europe in its initial reach and development. Likewise, Hinduism begot Buddhism which moved out to Asia. Islam is also Abrahamic but was couched in Zoroastrian customs as well. It spread into North Africa, the Middle East, Oceania. The Baha’i Faith was revealed just as the world needed to start thinking globally, in the mid-19th century. Any corruption of Religion has to do with mankind messing with it, not with the purity of the original Message. This made some sense to me, but I didn’t know anything about Zoroaster. The speaker recognized my raised eyebrow-of-confusion and explained.

The moment the speaker explained that the primary understanding of Zoroastrianism in the West would be the Zodiac. He also mentioned that the priesthood was referred to as the Magi, as in the “astrologers from the East.” In that moment, all the disparate thoughts from the time I was seven onward coalesced in my mind’s eye like a jigsaw puzzle completing itself. I wiggled in my seat in excitement, trying not to disturb the tiny middle-aged woman of Asian descent or the black man next to me who had fallen asleep. He was snoring full out and no one was perturbed by it. His wife, a white woman at least a head taller than he was, later explained that he had had a stroke during brain surgery a few years before and often fell asleep. The oneness of God, the oneness of Humanity, the oneness of Religion all made sense to me. In that blink of an eye, I saw the interlocking of fact and legend, of the Magi and the Baby, of tradition and skepticism. I was back with Sister Clorina, Saint Blaise, and my family in Tunisia.

It was both in an instant and over the course of my lifetime up to that point that I came to this understanding. A few weeks after that night, Mike and I together declared our Faith in Bahá'u'lláh, that is to say, became adherents to the Baha'i Faith. We have found our lives infinitely richer because of that choice, so have our children (so they tell me). It is not easy to always keep in mind that each and every person that exists or did exist or will exist is unique and beloved by God, or that our individual Free Wills can send us in all different directions, or that "This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future" as Bahá'u'lláh says. In fact, it's mostly challenging. Building Heaven on Earth is not for sissies. However, I know it is the right thing for me to pursue.

I still do not get my faith confirmed by fantastical measures. I’d love to see a crowd of people collectively gung their foreheads with the heels of their hands that the oneness of Humanity is a fact and the work it will take for every person to feel loved and beloved as the family we are will be worth the effort and sacrifice. I’d love to see someone healed miraculously. I still get the sense that I won't ever witness events like that first hand.

Occasionally, I do witness people who die with grace or see a smile generated from a purely motivated kindness perpetrated on an unsuspecting grump. It is things like that -- tiny, lovely indications that my spiritual path is worth toddling upon – with which I chose to be satisfied. I promised myself so long ago that it would be enough.

Sister Clorina was only in my life for six months over fifty years ago. She still pops into my head, usually when I am accused of being “too sensitive” about something. I’d love to prove to you that she’s not important to me now, but you’ll just have to take that on faith.

#Tunisia #saintblaise #doubtingthomas #bahai #baha'u'llah #SisterClorina

0 notes