#ALSO SHES JEWISH! VINDICATION

[xclowniex]

I don’t know if it makes me a horrible person but I’m actually kind of glad seeing Yuval (feels very weird saying that seeing as my uncle is called יובל) getting ripped to shreds by his ‘supporters’. Like, not happy, but just sort of satisfied??? I had to unfollow him when I was still on tiktok because he was promoting ahistorical bullshit and demonising Israelis. It’s extra shitty because the first ever video he made on the conflict was actually fairly balanced and recognised Jewish self determination and being indigenous to the levant, and then he deleted it, apologised, and started erasing Jewish history because he thought he could bend to these people’s will. His account prides itself on being informed and factual and fair, and yet he pulls a stunt like that, and I can only imagine how much worse he’s gotten since I deleted tiktok

We all knew that this would happen. The harassers knew it would, at least in their subconscious. It was only him who didn’t. They’ve pushed him to the very edge because now the baseline for being like them is to view the Shoah as a couple thousand people dying for basically being Christians, and it’s made special because they were white, and now that he’s stepped out of line a little they are coming for him. Maybe it’ll snap him out of being an idiot who sells out his own people so that he can be seen as a good person instead of like, actually being a good person. But he’ll probably just try to curry their favour again and fail over and over and over. Idk. It’s a weirdly gratifying but also incredibly depressing thing to see that what you predicted was going to happen was exactly right

(and I know some idiots are going to try to twist this into saying ‘you think fundraising for Palestinians is evil!!!’ because the anons you get are absolutely deranged. That’s not my problem with him or his account, wanting to fundraise for families is great and, as long as they’re verifiably real, it’s a good way to directly help people without their aid being taken away and siphoned off by Hamas. My problem with him is that in an effort to be the token Good Jew tm he completely revises history, spreads propaganda and false info, and vilifies every point of Israel’s life as a state. Plus he can’t even pronounce his own name right lol)

100% with everything you said.

I don't think you are a bad person for having a sense of "I told you so" towards what he is experiencing. It sucks and no jew should experience antisemitism, however two things can be true at once.

Its only natural to feel almost a sense of vindication, a "see look, I told you all this was going to happen and none of you listened to me and now you're suffering too"

I also agree that he will likely bend to their favor. He has shown some backbone in regards to his apology video where he stood behind his original message but apologized if his wording was off and re-worded his statement. This is all my assumption as I am not in his head, but I feel like his backbone on this came from sheer disbelief that face eating leopards ate his face. We may see this end up as a turning point where he stops pandering, or he might continue to pander either out of wanting to be accepted or because of other commitments like Ayame. She might not want to continue to make content with him due to the backlash and boom there goes his biggest series + a potential relationship as I'm unsure if it's just for views or if they are genuinely interested in each other.

[drbased]

Reading Against Our Will has been such an... emotional? vindicating? eye-opener for me. Like, obviously, we all know logically that men rape women on a mass scale, and on tumblr I'm constantly exposed to examples of it. But outside of news stories, horrifying anecdotes and statistics, there's been a sort of... comfort gap, I suppose you could call it, in my brain. I'm not blackpilled by this book or anything, but the sheer sense of scale you get from this book, the complete lack of ambiguity that rape is violence, that it is a terror committed specifically by men against women... it's hard to put it into words but it really kind of puts the pieces all together: What this fight is, what we're fighting for, what we're up against and who we're up against.

Unfortunately, the nature of statistics means that people are inherently dehumanised into numbers. But that's why this book is so powerful - it's is dense with a real human story: anecdote after anecdote, all more or less the exact same story. the exact same type of violence. the exact same trauma. the sameness of it, it's the same same same same same story. And it's all shared by women. This is our history, this is our story, this is what unites us, this is the core feature of our oppression, this is a terror shared by women in the American civil war, in Jewish pogroms, in the average household. It is what unites us, and it is because we are women with women's bodies. After the war in Bengal, there were 25,000 pregnancies.

I know this is tired, I know it's cheap to make every single feminist point we make a jab at gender identity... but there's something so uncomfortably sobering about reading about the history of rape. But where it's sobering, it's also galvanising. If you're a radfem/rad-leaning who's on the fence about whether or not you're supporting 'the right side', I'd wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's not for the faint-hearted, although suprisingly less graphic than you would expect - specifically because these are accounts taken from real people throughout history, and people tend to shield their language when talking about rape.

That is something that she makes a point of addressing: her book sets the story straight once and for all, that rape is something that all women share as a commonality throughout history, but both men and women are curiously unwilling to talk about it - especially men. Make no mistake - this silence is as politically deliberate as the act itself. So, as feminists, we should never shut up about rape. And we should never shut up about it as an act of terror, committed specifically by men against women; by males against females. There is zero ambiguity who is targeted and why: once again, I remind you that after the war in Bengal, there were 25,000 pregnancies. To ignore the biological reality, to ignore the commonality of women, to ignore the purpose and scale of rape, is to be fundamentally anti-feminist.

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

for, ahem, no particular reason, i decided to catch up on brilliant minds today instead of watching… other things. so! have a random assortment of brilliant minds thoughts:

the “outed by my phone’s text-to-speech feature while driving a failing patient to the bronx for treatment while my also gay colleague stabs the patient in the eye with a needle i keep in my car” scene in ep 3 was… a lot. medical drama nonsense, yes, but also a lot of fun for me personally.

(i do think this means the show is setting nichols up as a potential romance for wolf, though i don’t have a good sense for whether they’re going to acknowledge that potential in the text soon vs take the slow burn/will they won’t they path. given oliver sacks’ real life ‘shyness’ i think i’d prefer the slow burn, but i’m up for either option.)*

i need me a gif of that classic zq eyebrow reaction, captioned with “🏳️‍🌈?”

*coming back to this comment after episode 6 and feeling vindicated. i love how self-aware wolf is. saying “i’m not available” and meaning he’s emotionally not in a place to date? not for a lack of interest in this “objectively good-looking guy,” but because he doesn’t want to put a near-stranger through his intimacy issues for a chance at physical intimacy. slow burn, slow burn, slow burn…!

had not noticed the “glory to god” line (in the pilot, when wolf accepts an intern’s offer of half a clonazepam) until i went gifset hunting, and i am a bit :/ about it. are we really taking a real life jewish man and fictionalizing him as christian? like, sure, you’ve also changed the man’s birth year and nation of origin, but those changes were for storytelling convenience. it’s not like zachary quinto is incapable of playing jewish characters.

and the recent flashback with his dad, off his meds, rambling about going out in the woods to protect wolf-the-messiah… yeah, i don’t know about this one, gang.

the flashbacks felt like they were being told out of chronological order the first few episodes, so the more recent ones being a very straightforward linear progression kinda bummed me out… it felt like much blunter storytelling. they also felt increasingly less related to the medical mystery of the week—which, aren’t they supposed to be flashbacks wolf is having during the episode? there should be a connection between the events and the memories—especially in the latest episode, but i acknowledge that a group pregnancy delusion was going to be hard to tie to a single man.

i like the interns quite a bit! the only one i’m still a little uncertain about is jacob (ex-jock); while i think they’re being intentional about him withholding his personal stuff, i still want to learn that personal stuff!! does he really think being a college football player with a death sentence would’ve been a better life than a long-lived doctor? what’s his context that could make that true??

dana (anxious tumblrina) is probably my favorite intern? she’s fun, she’s Very Online, what’s not to like? her panic attack in episode 6 was very well done—this show does a great job of filming to show the subjective perspective in such moments, and her response to the panic attack was even better. felt very real.

i want ericka (‘i’m the real quarterback’) to have more going on than the “i worked so hard for this/never got to have fun” thing. i’m hoping she’s just a private person, and that something more meaty will come up about her eventually.

van (anxious empath) is fine, but i would like for him to stop drawing focus. he’s the only white intern, giving him the potentially big “another neurologist with a neurological condition for wolf to bond with/care for” storyline makes me concerned for this show’s ability to center its characters of color.

also… i do not want intern love triangle. i am worried that either the writing team is trying to build one, or two different writers favor different intern romances and aren’t talking to each other before setting them up with emotional moments. :/ i’m just not into either option. the way both relationships have been written so far feels very much about the guys’ emotions towards ericka, and nothing from ericka herself.

(granted, we haven’t gotten much emotion from ericka in general, see my above comment about her, but even so… this is not a compelling way to introduce a romance. convince me that there is a mutual interest!)

in the “house md but kinder and more diverse” metaphor, carol’s somehow both the wilson “best friend in a different specialty” analog and the cuddy “antagonistic administrator” analog—though she shares the latter role with wolf’s mom. it’s interesting! i don’t know how successfully the show is handling that balance, it’s a bit of a wait-and-see thing right now.

(actually, wait, i may have overlooked this in the pilot: does this fictional hospital have a combined neuro & psych department? is carol wolf’s boss? i guess that would make more sense than a one-man neuro department—and the two specialties do share a medical board in the us…)

i want more of the wolf-carol friendship! i think the weight of their history is well written, their dialogue isn’t written in that clunky “spelling things out for the viewer” way that states things that are obvious to the characters but that are news to the viewers. it’s refreshing. i worry about the “spying for mom” thing, i don’t have a good sense for how seriously the show’s taking it or how much of a betrayal wolf will find it.

[beardedmrbean]

Elise Stefanik’s viral line of questioning of an elite trio of university presidents last week over how to respond to calls for the genocide of Jews didn’t just spark bipartisan outrage and lead to a high-profile resignation. It settled a personal score the congresswoman had with her alma mater, which had all but disowned her in the wake of Jan. 6.

Back then, in 2021, the dean of Harvard University’s school of government said the New York congresswoman’s comments about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election had “no basis in evidence,” and the Harvard Institute of Politics removed Stefanik from its senior advisory committee. Stefanik at the time criticized what she described as “the ivory tower’s march toward a monoculture of like-minded, intolerant liberal views.”

Now, Stefanik’s high-profile turn assailing the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania is a real threat to those institutions. Penn president Liz Magill resigned in the wake of her testimony on Saturday, and Stefanik has made it clear she expects more: “One down. Two to go,” she posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

More than achieving vindication, Stefanik opened a new front in the culture wars — all while scrambling the Democratic Party’s traditional coalition of well-educated voters and their institutions of higher education.

Mitch Daniels, the retired former president of Purdue University and a former Republican governor of Indiana, called it “higher ed’s Bud Light moment” — referring to the beermaker’s divisive ad campaign featuring a transgender influencer — “when people who hang out with only people who adhere to what has become prevailing and dominant ideologies on campuses and suddenly discover there’s a world of people out there who disagrees.”

Republicans, of course, have been the loudest voices defending Stefanik. Daniels, who has also testified before hostile lawmakers on behalf of his university, mocked that the administrators Stefanik questioned retained the white-shoe law firm WilmerHale to prepare.

“Were they unprepared?” Daniels said in an interview. “Yes, they were unprepared by a lifetime of being cloistered in an ideological bubble and groupthink.”

Speaking at an event Monday, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a graduate of Harvard Business School, told Bloomberg the contentious exchange on Capitol Hill marked a “cultural moment.” He added: “There is a tipping point, and we have to be clear on where that tipping point is. And extermination speech is clearly on the wrong side of that tipping point.”

But it is the movement against the university presidents from a chorus of Democrats that suggests a possible realignment of a traditional political alliance, one that could see bipartisan pushback against the elitism of the ivory tower.

“The president believes strongly that this is a moment to put your foot down and to ensure we have moral clarity,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said during a gaggle on Monday, as President Joe Biden headed to Pennsylvania for an unrelated event.

Josh Shapiro, the high-profile Jewish Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, called for Magill’s ouster.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts Democrat and an alum of both Harvard and MIT, said it’s “too soon to tell” whether the bipartisan backlash would become an issue in next year’s election. He attributed the larger cultural conflict to a ��tension between individualism and identitarianism.”

“It’s fundamentally about hypocrisy,” said Auchincloss, whose great-grandparents fled the pogroms, emigrating to the U.S. around World War I. “And, at least for me, what I reacted to viscerally from the testimony was particularly Harvard, which has an abysmal track record on championing and incubating free and open speech — now, [they’re] into the First Amendment, when it’s about antisemitism? That was more striking to me.”

On the presidential campaign trail, the issue was finding new life.

“Finally, the veil has been lifted on the ugly underbelly of what’s going on in our culture, including in our universities and our educational institutions,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who authored “Woke, Inc.,” the 2021 book that railed against social justice, told POLITICO.

Prior to last week’s hearing, many candidates, including Ramaswamy, had largely relegated talk of wokeness to the back burner after finding it did not resonate with primary voters.

But that has changed for now, and Ramaswamy welcomed the new discourse. He called on universities to rewrite their speech codes to include antisemitism and said university presidents should be fired not just for their testimony, but for failing to “actually embrace free speech and open expression, embrace the true purpose of seeking knowledge as opposed to indoctrination.”

At least for now, Stefanik’s criticism has wrenched open whole lines of attack in the campaign.

“I’m gratified that I think people have opened their minds on both sides to the arguments that I was making back then,” Ramaswamy said.

[walkswithmyfather]

John 20:19 (NIV). “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

“What does John 20:19 mean?” By BibleRef.com:

“Verse Commentary: When Jesus was arrested, all the disciples ran away (Matthew 26:56). John and Peter followed the arresting mob at a distance (John 18:15), and John was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was executed (John 19:25–27). Other than that, Jesus' closest followers have apparently been in hiding since His capture. John again uses the term "the Jews" in reference to the religious leaders of Jerusalem and their loyal adherents. It would be reasonable for the disciples to assume that if Jesus' enemies could have Him killed, they might well be looking to get rid of His students, as well.

That Jesus appears in a locked room means that His resurrected body is not blocked by physical barriers. John and Peter saw empty grave clothes in the tomb (John 20:6), but the stone was moved aside (John 20:1). That open tomb, it seems, was a sign for Jesus' followers, not a means for His escape. It allowed them to see what had happened but wasn't done "so that" Jesus could come out.

Jesus' comment here echoes what He said during the Last Supper (John 14:27). It's also the sort of thing a person might say in polite greeting. There's a good chance it was also meant to reduce any sense of fear. When these men had seen Jesus walking on water, they were terrified (John 6:19). They were probably startled to see Him appear, alive and well, in a secured room.

Not long before this moment, Mary Magdalene and other women had come to tell the disciples that they had seen Jesus alive (John 20:18; Luke 24:10–11) and were apparently ignored. One can only imagine the vindication she would have felt when learning that they, too, had encountered Him.

Verse Context: John 20:19–23 is the first time Jesus appears to His disciples after being raised from death. They are hiding behind a locked door in fear when Jesus appears to speak with them. Jesus shows physical evidence of His crucifixion, then gives the men a partial measure of the Holy Spirit. This validates the earlier testimony of Mary Magdalene. Thomas is the only disciple not present, and the next passage shows his resistance to believe what has happened.

Chapter Summary: Peter and John get a report from Mary Magdalene that Jesus' body is gone. They arrive to find an open grave, and empty grave clothes, along with a folded face cloth. When the two men leave, Mary remains and suddenly encounters a resurrected Jesus. Though she tells the others, they resist believing until they see Jesus in person. Thomas is especially stubborn, and Jesus remarks on how blessed they are to have been given so much proof. John points out that his writing is meant to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, arranged to encourage those who read to come to faith.

Chapter Context: Most of Jesus' disciples scattered and hid when He was arrested (Matthew 26:56). Only John and some women were present to see His death and burial (John 19:26–30, 41–42; Matthew 27:60–61). When Jesus' tomb is seen empty, there is further confusion. Jesus appears to His followers, proving that He is alive, and remarking that they are blessed to have so much proof. John will complete his account in the next chapter with another encounter and more reminders about the nature of his writing.

Book Summary: The gospel of John was written by the disciple John, decades later than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls “signs”—in order to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in all of the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.”

[marysittingathisfeet]

When Evil Is Exchanged For Good

We all know the story of Joseph who is sold into slavery by his brother's and eventually becomes second in command to the king. However, Joseph had to go through trials before this was accomplished. One of the trials was due to a beautiful but wicked, promiscuous, and vindicative woman who had Joseph thrown into jail for at least two years.

Genesis 39:6-7- So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me!"

Thus we meet the wife of Potiphar, the Captain of the Guard in Egypt. Egypt was one of the super power countries at that time. Thus Potiphar was a powerful and rich man. Although she is unnamed in the Bible, her name is Zuleika per traditional Jewish literature. Zuleika is of Pashtun origin and means the radiant one or beautiful and lovely. Thus we can assume she was a beautiful woman.

What else can we glean from the passage about her? There is no children mentioned. Does this mean that she was barren or that Potiphar was sterile? Some scholars insist that this was the case. They state that Potiphar was either a eunuch or sterile. According to their theory, Zuleika becomes so desperate to have a child that she was willing to do anything. In a day and age when a woman was held in disdain for not bearing sons, perhaps Zuleika was feeling desperate. However, I do not think this was the case. Eunuch's did not marry. And Just because children are not mentioned, does not mean there were no children. Perhaps Zuleika was just a vain narcisstic woman who was used to getting what she wanted. Joseph was probably not the first man with which she desired, not was he the last most likely.

Genesis tells us that -Joseph was well-built and handsome. This is similar to Genesis 29: 17 tells us that Rachael, Joseph's mother- had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Like mother like son. So did Zuleika look at Joseph and think, "He's got good genes. He'll make handsome babies."

Zuleika says to Joseph- Come to bed with me!" (exclamation point is the Bible's not mine.) This is a command. She is not saying- will you come to bed with me or would you like to sleep with me she is ordering Joseph, a slave to do her bidding. In ancient Egyptian culture as well as other slave cultures female slaves were automatically available to their master's sexually. This is an abuse of power. Perhaps Potiphar had taken advantage of his female slaves a time or two. Zuleika might have thought- what is good for the goose is good for the gander. But in ancient Egypt this is not the case. One set of rules for woman and one set for men. Woman were owned by their husbands and expected to be chaste.

Joseph knows that sleeping with Zuleika would be a sin. Genesis 39:9- "no one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld mothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?"

Joseph was probably also afraid. Sleeping with the wife of your master would certainly result in death and a not so pleasant death as well. Zuleika, was very selfish. Her actions indicated that she cared very little for the fate of Joseph as she will prove later on.

The culture of ancient Egypt had strict religious morals and believed in religious virtue. Adultery was considered a religious crime. In order to prevent the spread of this immorality, the penalty was death for woman. Ancient Egyptians believed that woman were primarily responsible. (Not much has changed in many parts of the world.) Adulterous woman were killed if their husbands did not forgive them. Men on the other hand received a 1000 blows. (I don't think all at once for this would kill a man.) Imagine what would have happened to a slave who violated this religious code. Criminals who received the death penalty in Egypt could be beheaded, bludgeoned to death, impaled, burned, or thrown to the crocodiles. None of those options sound appealing.

Joseph resists Zuleika over and over. We don't know if this was days, weeks, months, or years. Joseph must have done his best to ensure that he was never alone with her, but one day she is able to catch him alone. Zuleika grabs him by the cloak in an effort to force him to sleep with her. Joseph flees leaving his cloak in her hands. In ancient Egypt men typically wore wrap around skirts and left their chest bare. So if she grabbed him by the cloak could this mean she grabbed his skirt? This means that Joseph ran from that room naked.

This final rejection was more than she could bear. She wanted revenge from this man who had repeatedly rejected and disobeyed her. She then accuses Joseph of attempted rape. Usually rapist were executed, but Potiphar did not do this. Why? Was it because he knew his wife was lying? When Zuleika accused Joseph publicly, she selfishly put her husband in an uncomfortable position. Once more she showed a lack of concern about how her actions would affect other people. Potiphar was humiliated. His wife had probably been unfaithful for years, but this had been kept private. But now all the city knew. So Potiphar had to respond to quiet the gossiping tongues. Maybe he just really had become fond of Joseph and couldn't kill him? Or maybe it was just God's intervention. Whatever the reason Joseph ends up in prison. Two years or more later, from prison Joseph meets the pharaoh and becomes second in command. Unlike Zuleika, Joseph does not seek revenge against her or Potiphar because Joseph knew this was God's plan.

Genesis 45: 4-5 “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt. But don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives.”

Like Joseph's brothers, her actions were wicked, but God used them for good. Joseph was not only able to save the Egyptians from starvation during the seven years of famine, but his family was saved as well. In Egypt, the Hebrew descendants were blessed by God and prospered. They grew so numerous that a future Pharaoh became fearful.

Exodus 1:9- (Pharaoh speaking)- "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become far too numerous for us."

This Pharaoh must have been so worried about this that he gave a speech about it to his people. But just like God previously used evil intentions for good, Pharaoh's actions against the Israelites eventually led to their freedom and establishment of their homeland.

Often what appears to be a tragedy, is just one step in God's good plan. So keep your chin up and eyes on God, for His will will be done.

[psychreviews2]

Case Studies: Dora – Sigmund Freud Pt. 3

The cycle of disappointment

Freud was right that communism wouldn't work to eliminate conflict and racism, but he wasn't able to see much further than that. The 2008 economic crash, as bad as it was, proved that a form of democratic socialism was something that people couldn't do without. It prevented the fallout on the poor from being as bad as it was in prior generations, vindicating some of Otto's idealism for a future with more stability. 

Freud's advice, based on his patient's inability to deal with reality, and make healthy changes to the environment, was prophetic with his result with Ida. In Hannah's book, accounts of Ida's outcome identified her as being similar to her mother, with her "excessive cleanliness. She and her mother saw the dirt not only in their surroundings, but also on and within themselves. Both suffered from genital discharges." Richie Robertson in the introduction of the Oxford World Classics version, hints that Ida's mother, instead of having a psychosis of cleaning, was performing a form of revenge, since "you have made me a housewife; very well, I’ll be a perfect housewife and make you suffer for it." Some of these feminist interpretations are quite modern. Another interpretation was that Ida's mother wanted revenge for getting syphilis or gonorrhea from her husband. My interpretation is that the obsession to clean is more about cleaning a person's self-esteem, to avoid rejection from others.

"Nothing is good enough to join us!"

Hannah's book goes further into Dora's Christian conversion, and her, and Freud's escape from the NAZIS. Again the pattern repeated of destroyed hopes for the Jewish. Even when deliberate attempts to imitate the culture of the ruling ethnic groups, her brother Otto said that "assimilated Jews [were] still obviously Jews according to their facial characteristics. Race instincts and race prejudices live on after assimilation." Otto felt that Christian conversion wasn't going to work, and only intermarriage with Christians would solve the problem. This differed at the time with the Zionists who felt that the only solution would ultimately be to live in a Jewish nation.

This is a great lesson for all people who want to immigrate to another country. The lesson is that if you compete with the status and identities that others have already claimed, they will split hairs in every way to put you down. "You're too Jewish! Oh you're Christian now, but you still look Semitic. Not good enough!"  This goes more into my influences from René Girard's Judeo-Christian works, but to enter into any new society, even if you are not that different from the culture you are joining, because you are a HUMAN, you have to be different in a way that is useful to others. This means creating new businesses, new products, and have something new to trade with the established identities of others.

Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781625274496/

If one can't create those situations, then filling positions that are needed as opposed to competing for the most alluring hierarchies everyone else wants, creates the harmony that Otto was so desperately trying to seek. There will always be competition for pride and social rewards that leads to conflict, especially in economic crashes and the resulting scarcity of opportunities. People are forced to step on each other's toes to hold onto an identity in a recession.

Circling around, zeroing in - Thanissaro Bhikkhu: https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/y2018/181116_Circling_Around,_Zeroing_In.mp3

I remember coming out of the Spike Lee movie BlacKkKlansman, and seeing an interracial couple walking out with looks of relief of validation. They were obviously maintaining their identities and going to mind their own business and live their lives, which looks the same as everyone else's lives. 

But a society where people are trading their advantageous differences with each other means people can see value in those differences, and therefore less bigotry, and if there is intermarriage, it's more authentic because the marriage isn't a means to an end, to gain an identity. They have a healthy identity beforehand and appreciate each other's. There's always a commonality that can be found if people are willing to look for it. In my travels, most people are worried about the same things. Getting a good job, having their kids find success in school, and trying to gain a good marriage. After a period of culture shock, people eventually find new cultural habits to graft onto the ones they want to keep. Sometimes this takes a couple of generations, but it happens.

Flexible goals

With the help of her son, Ida was able to move to New York. She lived with the same physical problems as before and died of colon cancer in 1945. One can imagine that Dora would have loved to have lived long enough to see how things had changed for women, or visible minorities, but I think she would still notice the same cycles of dissatisfaction in modern people as in the past. As long as people are struggling with identities that have mutual claims, they will be stuck in the same conflicts, regardless of what their success looks like from afar to those followers outside their milieu. "Control of consciousness determines the quality of life," as Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi reminds. A lot of people at the top of the pyramid feel they don't have as much control over their life as they think they do. Having to make appearances, networking, dealing with politics and keeping allies satisfied, reduces a lot of that sense of control. René Girard, also noticed the intensity of the desire, and how it dissipates when the desired object is obtained, or how it intensifies again when the object is lost. The freedom of knowing this is that I can always look for a new object when there's a rivalry, because ultimately, I will be bored with any possession, because no possession can make you eternally satisfied like an omnipotent God. New objects will always be desired. I can instead look at objects for their actual value, not whether the object will add to social proof that I'm a human deity. I also don't have to worship an idol, like a missing parent, or pretend to be a God and all the effort at impression management that narcissists go through. The great value of this knowledge is that it doesn't have to be hidden. I don't need to hide this knowledge to one-up someone else. The knowledge is flexible, no matter how many people know it, and having more people know this, the better. Much like Galadriel's "I pass the test" speech in Lord of the rings, we have to see this in ourselves. It's not so much the ambition, which can be noble, but how aggressively we look at "Others", as Girard emphasizes, with this ambition. It's actually hard to let go of the sadomasochism of bullying and revenge. But for the one who does, narcissistic neurosis cools off into a beautiful peace and self-acceptance.

Finding personal meaning

Another solution to a lack of personal meaning and identity in life comes from Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning. He emphasized the need for people to actively find their own meanings in their current lives. His message was similar to Freud's of actively using ingenuity and realistic choices and actions that have personal meaning, to reduce that sense of helplessness that makes people neurotic or violent. These negative feelings come from chasing activities to "be somebody important", while at the same time putting oneself down for not being there already. Yet there are many important things in our lives we are doing now that should allow us to be as we are, without shame and envy. We remind ourselves what we are trying to achieve when we are taking care of someone who is sick, or serving a customer, or communicating important values. It doesn't mean we let go of healthy ambitions, but we know that it's okay to just start somewhere, and all these early activities are important stepping stones to where you want to go.

If we can't control our consciousness all the time, if we have to change objects of desire, if we choose to see the meaning and importance of our current mundane activities, they become intrinsically satisfying, and then the self-hatred disappears. This meaning doesn't require imitating a narcissistic idol providing a parental meaning for us. We don't have to gather into the safety of ethnic groups and scapegoat others for our problems. A lot of Viktor's message resonates with me, because meaning is found in those overlooked opportunities that are available to us right now. We shouldn't get locked into objects that we are not ready for or are not available to us.  

A Case of Hysteria - Sigmund Freud: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780199639861/

Freud, Dora, and Vienna 1900 - Hannah S. Decker: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780029072127/

Physiology of Love and Other Writings - Paolo Mantegazza: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781442691728/

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780061339202/

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780671023379/

Ellis, A. W. & Raitmayr, O. & Herbst, C. (2016). The Ks: The Other Couple in the Case of Freud’s “Dora”. Journal of Austrian Studies 48(4), 1-26. University of Nebraska Press.

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning - René Girard: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781570753190/

René Girard and Creative Mimesis - Thomas Ryba: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781498550574/

René Girard and Creative Reconciliation - Thomas Ryba: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780739169001/

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780261103207/

A Survey of the Woman Problem - Rosa Mayreder: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781330999349/

Psychology: http://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/

[ithisatanytime]

Viper - Scalping Da Little Mermaid Tickets (My Hustle Game Strong)

 i guess africa bambaata was rapin dudes? so i went down the hotep rabbit hole (not literally) as i do from time to time, its always entertaining because black dudes make for terrible witnesses in court for instance because well, they lie, but at the same time they will say anything you cant really tell a brotha “dont tell nobody about this” and expect him to listen hes black he dont care, but anyway apparently there are literally tons of people saying p.diddy is gay, basically everyone but one gay specifically says him and p.diddy were lovers and man i felt vindicated, tupac is the most obviously gay dude i have ever seen, gay as hell, gay face dick sucking fag face just total homo phenotype, and ive been saying it for years. also easy - e died of fucking AIDS after making a disstrack pointing out how his former compatriots of NWA were on the DL saying dre was on his almbum cover lookin like a she thang (and he was too) hip hop is fucking gay, its literally the gayest most fucked up black guys jews could find, literally jewish record execs were like “we need to find the worst examples of men to parade as heros in order to fuck the goyim” and thats precisely what they did. all that attention to fashion and shoes and jewelry and motherfuckers still dont know what it is. its FUCKING GAY, its even stupider than it is gay but i feel that pointing that out is even more obvious than pointing out how gay it is for a man to sit down and right an album about clothes shopping.

not you babe (viper)

[quidfree]

oh my GOD judy poovey is based in part on the actual bennington grad who is now succession’s costume designer. this is the best day of my life

[dailyhistoryposts]

Lynn Margulis

DID YOU KNOW? THE MITOCHONDRIA IS THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL! KNOW YOU KNOW!

And Lynn Margulis is the woman who figured out where they came from--and rewrote modern biology in the process.

[Margulis in a greenhouse]

Born Lynn Petra Alexander (1938-2011), Margulis is a woman whose accomplishments were integral to science but who did not get the recognition that was her due. Today she's often known as Carl Sagan's first wife, but Margulis was an academic rebel and a pioneer who fought for multiple scientific theories against the scientific establishment--and was always eventually vindicated.

Margulis was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois. A smart but easily bored child, she was constantly getting in trouble--when she wasn't skipping grades. She earned her bachelor's degree by age 19 and got her master's in genetics and zoology at age 22. She got her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965--at just 27 years old.

In 1966, she wrote "On the Origin of Mitosing Cells", which was rejected by over a dozen journals before being published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and making a lot of people very angry. She argued that complex eukaryotic cells, like the ones humans have, are created by the process of endosymbiosis. This is where two more primitive prokaryotic cells join together and, instead of one dying, they live as a single cell. She faced criticism for this idea for decades before being experimentally validated.

[Mitochondria]

She also fought for the Gaia hypothesis, the scientific idea that living things self-regulate the planet on which they live, as well as supporting the five kingdom classification of life on earth (animals, plants, fungi, protists, and monera). These were also the subject of serious scientific debate, and Margulis defended them ardently.

Not all her ideas ended up proving her right as successfully as did these (in fairness: classification debates are still ongoing, but it's thanks to Margulis that the five kingdoms are still a part of said debates), but these made her a seminal part of 20th-century scientific advancement. Endosymbiosis and the Gaia hypothesis, now accepted and taught in textbooks, are essential to our understanding of how the first life on Earth grew and changed.

[Margulis in a lab]

Margulis was called "Science's Unruly Earth Mother" and one of the 50 most important women in science. She was also told, "Your research is crap. Don't ever bother to apply again." by a grant application response. Changing accepted science doesn't happen right away.

[nerdepic]

was satisfying in a way to see people not well versed in trans rights 'discourse' finally cotton on to what trans ppl have been saying for yrs.

play by play:

women's charity changed logo from three button nosed women silhouette to include a larger nose

Transphobic radicals shit themselves about this, claiming "a man has been added to the logo"

Anyone with more than two braincells to rub together understands this is bullshit as women (especially Jewish and non white women) have a similar nose shape

Said people now see how terf movement is just eugenics repackaged , trans people who have been saying this for years feeling vindicated lol

Someone realises the side profile of the terf who started all this matches that of the big nosed silhouette

Her own followers turn against her and say she's a man in disguise because her nose is large like the logo she just called out (lol)

Also JK Rowling's nose is big like the logo too.

twitter such a fascinating place innit

[shalheretical]

Prinecess Zeisan sucks

CW: Talks of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Not super in depth, but I know how it can ruin one's day to talk about. Also, TW for my rambling. I'm sort of sick and very emotional while writing this & my genuine apologies if I did not explain myself well. Also, I decided not to censor out names so this would stay out of certain tags because I do think it's important to discuss this sort of thing.

So, I'm sure we've all heard about the ATLA-inspired tabletop RPG game. It's a pretty cool project, and I'm glad the creators were able to get their creativity out. Am I tired of Bryke's cashing in on ATLA? Yeah, but I'm also a shill and I enjoy some of the new content that's come from it. I'm also sure that a lot of people have heard about Sozin's sister, Princess Zeisan.

To give you the gist, she's a nonbending Fire Nation princess, who devoted herself to Air Nomad teachings, training under Sister Rioshon, who she grew to have a romantic relationship with, until she decided that Rioshon didn't suit her dynasty-toppling needs. She instead married Khandro, the leader of a renegade Air Nomad group called Guiding Wind. They were able to make an alliance to protect themselves against Sozin and Fire Nation expansionism.

"Sozin could not control his rage when Zeisan proposed to Khandro, and saw the Guiding Wind's beliefs as a threat, which he was willing to stop by any means necessary, and refused to back down from fighting Zeisan now that he was Fire Lord." And he was right to assume they were a threat. Zeisan was certainly conspiring against him, using Khandro's political leverage as a tool, something she could weaponize against her brother.

And whether the creators intended this or not, the Air Genocide is no longer one of just blind hatred, of racism and ethnocentrism, and the belief of an inherent superiority over other nations that they'd wish to "share with the world." Sozin's propaganda is vindicated. There's someone within that ethnic group, actively working against him, and after all - if not her, why not them all? And whether the creators saw this coming or not, there is fans who now say things like, "Oh, so he must have genocided the Air Nomads to get back at her, because he was mad at her betrayal." Again, erasing the actual causes of genocide - dehumanization, hatred, and feelings of superiority.

It's irresponsible to deny this aspects, and yet, it feels like Bryke is always skirting around it. There's very few instances of examples of the genuine racialization of Air Nomad people, and many of them are either played a little too comedically even though these racial stereotypes feel very real (re: the comic talking about air nomads having wings and practising witchcraft, which, as a Jewish person, ring very true, and yet seem to have very little affect on Aang) , or people have taken it as genuine Air Nomad culture (re: "What would you know of fathers? You were raised by monks." Why are we believing what the racist has to say about Air Nomad culture?). That's not to say they never depict those aspects, or that it's entirely the writers' fault for not understanding just how little media literacy some of their fans would have, but here we were, and consequences mean more than intent.

However, it used to be fine. I don't expect ATLA to literally give me a depiction of genocide that my ancestors' feel. I don't expect it to be something you could present to the UN as an example of genocide. I really don't. And things before Princess Zeisan were basically fine. In fact, there were a lot of things that felt very true to me, personally.

But Princess Zeisan isn't respectful. She isn't a genuine defector. She wasn't just incidentally there. And her existence creates more than just a scapegoat, more than just Sozin taking a gamble to blot the Avatar out of existence in one fell swoop. The effect its had on fandom discussion is already palpable, if I'm being honest.

I guess it all comes down to: genocide does not need a motivation. There doesn't need to be some truth to the reason the victims of a genocide are being targeted. In fact, it's actively harmful to do so - it's victim blaming. And sure, it's fictional. I get that. But to a lot of ATLA fans, genocide will probably always feel vaguely fictional to them - something that's real, that they were never be able to empathize with or understand. And that's a good thing; the less genocides there are, the better. But that also means, there is a responsibility to depict it properly or not at all.

[bex-la-get]

You know I'm going to request 2 for Ethan and Nat, its perfect for that grump and queen 🥰

Dearest CJ, I love this prompt! Thank you, love! Hope you’re having a wonderful week! Also this is unedited and I wrote it at 1am so sorry for any mistakes.

From this ask list.

#2 - Person A is singing Christmas songs all the time and Person B is quite annoyed by that at first. But they don't complain anymore when A finds B humming a Christmas song themselves.

“Have a holly, jolly Christmas. It’s the best time of the year. I don’t know if there’ll be snow, but have a cup of cheer.”

Ethan did his best not to groan. Normally he loved hearing Natalie sing; but this was the thousandth Christmas song he’d heard her sing over the course of the last several days and he was convinced his head was about to explode.

“Nat, my darling, my light, love of my life,” he said, fighting the urge to rub his temples.

“Yes, my love?” she asked, looking up at him.

“You know I love hearing you sing. But must you sing every Christmas song under the sun? December barely just started!”

Natalie chuckled. “Don’t be such a grinch, E. Where’s your holiday spirit?”

“Must’ve left it in my other pants,” he replied.

“Well go put them on ‘cause in this house, the minute Thanksgiving’s over, it’s Christmas time. And I will not tolerate Christmas slander!”

“Aren’t you Jewish?”

“Half, technically. And Hanukkah’s not for another few weeks. I’ll celebrate accordingly then but for now: Christmas!” She threw her hands into the air for emphasis and Ethan shook his head.

“This is something I’m just gonna have to get used to, isn’t it?”

She giggled and held up her left hand, her engagement reflecting the light from the nearby lamp. “For the rest of your life, baby.”

He sighed. “Fine. Just, if you must sing Christmas music at all times, can you at least throw a little Sinatra or Crosby in there?”

Nat laughed and nodded. “Deal.”

----------------

As the holiday grew closer and closer, Nat continued to sing Christmas songs at any available opportunity. Ethan’s annoyance had faded over time and now, he had grown used to the sound of Christmas tunes being on constant replay while at home.

One afternoon, while Nat was out finishing her Christmas shopping, Ethan found himself missing the sound of Nat’s singing. Turning on a nearby speaker, he pulled up a Classic Christmas playlist and hit ‘shuffle,’ letting the holiday melodies fill the apartment with Christmas cheer.

Smiling to himself, Ethan got busy making dinner, absent-mindedly singing along to the Bing Crosby song playing.

“I’m dreaming of a White Christmas, with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be white.”

So wrapped up in his task, Ethan didn’t hear the front door lock turn nor did he notice Jenner’s excited whining.

Natalie dropped her shopping bags next to the front door as she entered the apartment, giving Jenner some well deserved scratches behind the ears as she followed the rare sound of Ethan singing. She recognized the song instantly, as White Christmas was both her and Ethan’s favorite Christmas film. But she’d never heard Ethan sing the title song before.

Entering the kitchen, she found Ethan, with his back to her as he chopped vegetables, singing along to Bing Crosby. She smiled; for all his complaining about her nonstop singing of Christmas music, the fact that Ethan was now doing it himself had her feeling extremely vindicated. 

“I knew you couldn’t resist the spirit of Christmas,” she said, making her presence known.

Ethan turned on his heels, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “What? I-- I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh,” she replied, walking towards him. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with the Christmas playlist playing right now. And that totally wasn’t you singing along to a Christmas song either.”

“No, definitely not,” Ethan said, shaking his head. 

Natalie laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Did your heart finally grow three sizes, Mr. Grinch?”

“Shut up,” he replied, smiling. Then, before Natalie could tease him any further, he kissed her soundly, cutting off any snarky rebuttal she had planned. Ethan didn’t complain much about Christmas music after that.

A/N: Hope you liked it! Tagging separately.

[grandhotelabyss]

—Marshall McLuhan, Letter to Eric Voeglin, July 1953

Placing this here for future reference; it’s in an open tag and I don’t remember where I clicked it from, probably some esoteric Twitter shitposter. 

McLuhan’s scholarship is superior to my own, as is his paranoia, but his sense of the big picture matches mine. I backed into it from trying to understand a range of contemporary writers rather than working forward from the classics themselves, the most familiar of which I am now having to reread in maturity with all this in mind. 

If we collate these observations with Harold Bloom’s narrative from the same rough period, we’ll get the sense that this conflict between gnosis and reason—in literary terms Romanticism vs. Classicism—is the hidden subtext of what’s often exoterically cast as a conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism in modern western aesthetics. (Dionysian vs. Apollonian also applies.) 

McLuhan wrote this letter before the explosion of the ‘60s, in which he himself participated, when this esoteric debate spilled into full public view even as its range of reference grew broader with postmodernism and multiculturalism. Speaking of the latter, Voeglin told him right away in the next letter that East vs. West wasn’t a good model. To collapse these concepts onto human groups is pogrom thinking, crusade thinking, which the intellectual and artist should be above.

Such dichotomies left as dichotomies may seem to work in political polemics and pulp fiction. In Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, for example, it’s possible to have so much fun with gnostic vindication as black liberation that we almost don’t notice how all the negatives of the “Western” system gathering at the novel’s opposite pole of value are being subtly stigmatized as Jewish. Then there’s Dune—which, yes, I’ve finally read—where the noble Atreides, implicitly “Western” and Greek, confronts both the bad and good versions of “Eastern” irrationalism—the decadent appetitive Harkonnens, whom he must simply slaughter, and the visionary gnostic Fremen, whose insight he must absorb if he wants to triumph. Enjoyable books, but poison if you take them too seriously, which is to say without a certain irony. And to be fair to Reed and Herbert, each novel in its own way has an ironizing layer of metafiction that holds dogma at bay.

Writers who are themselves supremely serious and ironic see the fault line inside their own souls rather than out there in the world. Cynthia Ozick, for example, seems to be Reed’s direct opposite, and even makes the amusingly casual aside in one of her essays that Christianity and Gnosticism are the same thing. For her, the rational “West” is normative Judaism and the murky “East” the amoral aestheticism of all sects including secular Jewry, an adroit reversal of old stereotypes. Yet how can she get a story or a novel going at all if she doesn’t batten on magic? She can’t, and she knows it. Toni Morrison is the opposite case yet again, taking up Reed’s charge so that magic and gnosis are the other names of black liberation as opposed to the subtle ethical trap of the Hebrew Bible’s chosen people model—this is all worked out in Paradise, which will eventually be recognized as her best novel once people start to understand it better. But for all that, she knows she wouldn’t even be there to write the magical story without the Biblical model, which, not sorcery, broke the house of bondage. Similar inner divisions can be traced in other modern and contemporary writers as diverse as Iris Murdoch, Cormac McCarthy, and Alan Moore.

Finally, the more major a writer is, the more the reason-gnosis conflict can be read within his or her oeuvre. That’s just what being a major writer is. Dante and Joyce are perhaps the largest examples in the old canon, as each designs the most elaborate temple, the highest work of reason, in that shrine to place his gnostic goddess.

[shiraglassman]

f/f book review: “Worthy of Love” by Quinn Ivins

Review originally appeared on The Lesbrary @biandlesbianliterature​

The plot: Closeted political lawyer newly released from prison on a corruption charge and therefore utterly friendless and disgraced, ends up working random retail where she meets an adorable, hospitable Southern femme.

I’ve been in a huge reading slump since the lockdown started, sticking with familiar stories I already knew–to the point where there’s at least one Agatha Christie book I’ve read multiple times now in the same pandemic. Quinn Ivins’ Worthy of Love is one of the first unfamiliar books I’ve been able to get myself to read, which I attribute to two things: the exciting plot and the snappy prose. To put it baldly, the text of this book simply was not work to read. Even though the tone of the first third–specifically–was a gritty and somber hellscape, as both heroines battle hopelessness and microaggressions, I kept wanting to know how it was going to turn out all right and turned page after page of snappy narration. (And that’s unusual for me. I prefer comfort reads.)

I want to be honest that this book has sharp edges. For one thing, one of the heroines is presented right off the bat as the most hated woman in America, and the other heroine fends off sexual assault in the parking lot of her workplace. But then the more upsetting material gives way to the love story and the “solving”, and everything works out in a very complete, satisfying, and vindicating way. One of the reasons I ultimately decided to write this review was a positive plot bombshell I hesitate to telegraph–but it’s there. Another reason is one of the deftest Checkov’s Guns I’ve ever seen fired in a book. In other words, a wonderful “oh I GET HOW THIS IS GOING TO WORK OUT AS A HAPPY ENDING” that you don’t see coming until the page it happens. I tip my giant pink-grapefruit hat to the cleverness with which Ivins set that up.

One of the heroines has undiagnosed ADHD for which she begins to get treatment within the book. This, I believe, is written from the inside and elegantly rendered. The other heroine is Filipina, at the request of the author’s wife who is Filipina. This heroine does experience more microaggressions in that first third of the book than I’m comfortable with reading from a white writer, so that is also something I wanted to be up front about. However, I am white, and I don’t want to speak for Asian readers. Additionally, though this book takes place in a fictionalized America with different presidential candidates, this book will not allow you to live a “45”-free existence (although he’s got a different name and only gets mentioned a few times.) Just in case that’s something you needed to know before diving in.

I wish this book was a movie also. Now that I know how satisfyingly everything works out, I’d love to see it dramatized–and structurally, it hits dramatic “beats” like a movie. Who knows, maybe some day!

Shira Glassman is the author of Knit One Girl Two and other queer Jewish fiction, both fantasy and contemporary.

[pamphletstoinspire]

The Word Was Made Flesh: An Advent Reflection On The Incarnation

Loreto is a small medieval city, perched atop a small moun­tain overlooking the Adriatic Sea on the east coast of Italy. If you look up from the plains below, you see a great wall reminiscent of a fortress, a forbidding citadel; in reality, it is a spiritual doorway, a place of meeting. Within the walls is a great basilica and, beneath the dome of the basilica, a marble chapel within which is an ancient house, simple in its construction but resonant with history. This is the house of Nazareth where the Annunciation took place, where it is believed the Holy Family lived and St. Joseph died — the Holy House that was and is a witness to the mystery of the Incarnation.

Loreto is a place where it is easy to pray. The ancient stones of the Holy House seem to speak, like the stones of Jerusalem that Jesus said would cry out. In this House of Mary, you are an honored guest, and her hospitality is the peace and serenity of encounter with God. Words written over the altar in that little house remind you of the significance of this place: “Here the Word was made flesh.” We believe in the Incarnation, and yet coming to the place where it happened, one encounters the mystery in a new way. Of course, we do not need to go to Loreto to experience this: We need only reflect on the account of the Annunciation and we can enter into the mystery in the Word of God.

The Holy House of Loreto stands as a sign to the world that the mystery of Christ is real. The story of God’s be­coming man is not a myth or a legend, not something esoteric or abstract or beyond our comprehension. The House is also a sign of God’s invitation for us to enter into the mystery of Christ’s life here and now. The mystery of the Incarnation is to be part of our everyday lives, because it was lived in the home of Nazareth and can be lived in every other home, in every other life.

For centuries, the people of Israel waited, hoping that the promised Messiah would come in their lifetime. It is said that every Jewish girl wondered if she would be the one chosen to become his mother. These were not entirely innocent hopes: Many Jews understood the Messiah to be a political and military leader, so the honor of being his mother would have brought with it earthly glory, a vindication of Israel, and the restoration of a downtrodden people. The mother of the Messiah would, without doubt, symbolize these things in her own person. However, who would ever have thought that the Messiah would come in such a quiet, humble way?

Perhaps the House of Nazareth was silent for the few moments following Our Lady’s assent, but no doubt Heaven was ecstatic in praise at the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin, as He took upon Himself the flesh of sinful humanity and transformed it. Who would have ever thought that God would become man and live in our midst? He could have redeemed us from above, but He chose to become one of us, like us in all things but sin, even while being taken for a sinner. This is the mystery of the Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas and prepare for in Advent.

But after those few moments of glory, it was a return to ordinary daily life for the Mother of God; the world was, as yet, unaware. With the Son of God growing within her, this first Christian disciple began the era of the New Covenant as a missionary, setting out immediately to bring the presence of Christ to one who was in need, her cousin Elizabeth. Full of grace, with the God of love within her, Mary shared that love in her act of service.

In those first moments, hours, and days of the Incarna­tion, in Mary’s service we see that the mystery must take effect in our daily lives, ordinary and humdrum as they may be. As God has become man to live His life with us, He asks us to come to Him and live our lives with Him. The Incarnation is a two-way street: God took flesh so we may come to share in His divinity. Our restoration is not to a previous life, but to a new way of living. This is the heroic way of the saints, the spiritual way that is the greatest adventure of all because it is a journey into the life of God, into His mystery, where we will find the full­ness of life. Advent is the time when we prepare for this transformation: Liturgically it is four weeks, but it is really our whole lives, a preparation for the second coming of Christ. This is what our Christian vocation is all about.

The Annunciation was the moment when Mary discov­ered her vocation, and Jesus Christ revealed His. The mys­tery of Christ’s Incarnation, of His vocation in our midst, leads us to reflect on our own vocation. At the Annuncia­tion, Mary echoed what Jesus would say in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Thy will be done.” We are called to make this assent in our lives. God has a plan for us that is firmly situated within His plan for all of humanity; we are to in­carnate Christ in the world through our lives. We have the choice to embrace that plan or to reject it, and we can even pick and choose, doing the bits we like and ignoring those we do not. God has given us the gift of free will, and He allows us to decide. Ultimately, though, our true happiness lies in assenting to God’s will, in saying yes to His plan in its totality and discerning, through prayer, what we are to do in the circumstances He presents us with.

This can be difficult. Most of the time, it seems that God speaks to us indirectly, but the truth is that He is al­ways communicating with us, and we are not always focused enough to listen. It’s usually not obvious, like the angel Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. More often, God asks us simply to turn to listen to Him in prayer.

Pious artists often depict Mary at prayer when Gabriel appears. Whether this reflects a historical reality is less important than that it reflects a spiritual reality: Mary was a woman of profound prayer. When the angel came, she was already tuned in to the voice of the Lord, listening to receive His word. If we wish to discover what God asks us to do at any stage in our lives, we must also be men and women of prayer. And within the context of the relation­ship of prayer, we will discover who we are and what God offers us as our vocation.

A few years ago, a friend of mine, an artist, was discuss­ing his latest project with me. He wanted to do a series of paintings on the Annunciation, and he had been studying the great masters. As an artist, and one with deep faith, he wanted to present the event in a new way, perhaps revealing a dimension that others had neglected. He told me that he was working on the expression on Mary’s face, capturing her awestruck reaction to seeing a heavenly being. I thought about it for a moment and then suggested that he look to the angel: What was the angel’s reaction when meeting Mary? After all, it was an encounter between the heavenly being and the greatest creature God had ever made, His own Mother. How did Gabriel look on Mary?

The Gospel of the Annunciation invites us to gaze on Mary and to pray in our hearts the words of the liturgy: How shall I fittingly praise you? “Blessed are you among women,” St. Elizabeth declares at the Visitation (Luke 1:42): This is humanity’s response. We hear God’s response in the acclamation, “How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are,” from the Song of Songs (1:15), as He has filled her with His grace.

As we gaze on her face, therefore, we see the face of the Lord. In her virtues we see His. As His humanity was formed in her womb, His divinity formed her in holi­ness. In her graciousness and kindness, we see God’s as she imitates the One who made her perfect. No one was ever turned from Mary’s door, which the first Christians discovered while she was with them, and in testament the Church has loved her and praised her in every age as Mother of the Church. She is the one who can guide us to Jesus and to our place within the communion of His disciples.

In these Advent days, we not only accompany the gen­erations who were waiting for the Messiah, but we also accompany Mary in the last weeks of her pregnancy as she waited for the fulfillment of the promise made to her and to the Jewish people. Advent is Mary’s time, during which she prepares us to receive her Son as she received Him in her womb. She must have contemplated His pres­ence within her, immersed herself in His presence. In these days, we can look at her and allow her to take us by the hand and lead us into the midst of the new life Christ offers us, to discover and to live our heavenly vocation.

We are in her womb also, and she seeks to form us in the image of her Son.

Mary, the faithful one, the Mother of God, invites us today, as we ponder the Annunciation, to follow in her footsteps. At the foot of the Cross we were given into her care: We are hers. If we understand Mary’s yes to God as representing that of all men and women, then we can begin to enter into the depths of the Christian life — beginning in that little house where the Word became flesh in her so He could become flesh in us and in our lives.

FR. JOHN S. HOGAN