#Babylon 5 is under our protection

[deadheaddaisy]

When Delenn is on the warpath... watch out. Xenophobes begone!

[honourablejester]

I was watching a video on top battlefield moments from science fiction, and I was delighted to see included the moment from the Babylon 5 episode ‘Severed Dreams’ where Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari shows up to the Battle of Babylon 5 to invite the enemy Earth Alliance ships to run the fuck away. Because yes. That moment is always a correct choice.

“This is Ambassador Delenn, of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw, or be destroyed.”

“Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ships!”

“Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.”

Followed by the EA ships proving that they did, indeed, value their lives. Heh.

With no context whatsoever, this moment is still boss as hell. One lady shows up with three cruisers and a dinky little White Star warship, and she makes the opposing side, which two seconds ago had the station and all its exhausted defenders dead to rights, literally run away. She says go and they do. Immediately, no questions asked. And she implies why, she implies that Minbari are people humans just don’t want to fight, but if you don’t have context, it might not be clear to you the scale of what she’s talking about.

Which is that, fifteen years ago, Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari, in her fury and grief over what she saw as the murder of her mentor, cast the deciding vote that lead to the Earth-Minbari war, which is a nice thing to call what was essentially a genocidal religious crusade on behalf of the Minbari to completely annihilate the human race. And they damn near succeeded. She regretted her decision almost immediately, but by the time she managed to halt what she’d started, it was during the Battle of the Line. The final annihilation of Earth itself. Earth, humanity, fought them for every inch of space in between, but they lost every single fight. All the way to Earth. No one, except Sheridan, the man behind her, survived battle with the Minbari. And Sheridan, it has to be said, basically cheated, to almost war crime levels, by using a distress call to lure a Minbari ship into a nuclear minefield. That was the only victory humanity eked out. The Minbari just steamrolled them, an implacable tide of annihilation that literally nothing they had could stop. The Earth-Minbari War was not stopped by anything humanity did, it was stopped by Delenn herself showing the Council of Nine that humans had Minbari souls (aka that humans and Minbari could reincarnate as each other, making them in religious terms the same species), granting the Council a religious ground to halt the war. Humanity was, essentially, annihilated by Delenn’s fury, and saved by her compassion, and there was nothing they could do to influence either of them.

That, in this moment, is what just appeared on this battlefield. Embodied in this woman. A fifteen year shadow of the end of their race. The Battle of the Line is etched in every human memory in this setting, the moment when they evacuated their homeworld, evacuated Earth, while every fighting ship they possessed died in orbit trying to delay, not stop, just delay, the implacable tide of the Minbari onslaught.

When Delenn shows up and, in cold, quiet fury, says ‘withdraw or be destroyed’, she fucking means it, and there is not a single human being in this galaxy (or, to be fair, anyone else either) who doesn’t believe her. The Minbari have proved it. You can piss off anyone else in the galaxy you like, you can fight gods, but you do not, ever, piss off the Minbari. Especially not this Minbari.

Because she’s learned since then. She has seen the horrors of war, she has felt the almost incomprehensible stain of blood on her hands, she has fought to stop what she started and realised how infinitely more difficult it is, and she has learned. So if she goes to war now, it is with full knowledge of the cost and the consequence. If you tip her over that line, woe betide you. Because it means she’s decided that your death is worth whatever she can’t stop in the aftermath, and if your death is worth that much, then there’s nothing in this galaxy that will prevent it.

God, but Delenn was such an absolute tour de force of a character. This quiet, gentle, soft-spoken woman whose fury had destroyed races and whose compassion had saved the galaxy. She’s not even warrior caste, she’s religious caste. She’s not, technically speaking, a fighter. But hers is the voice that starts and ends wars, and she has never once flinched from personally standing in the face of annihilation to do so.

If she told you to stop being silly and go home before something bad happened, I promise you, you would listen too. Heh.

(Also yes, I’m aware I’ve posted pretty much exactly this several times before, but literally every time I rewatch that scene it brings this wave of giddy awe and wild ferociousness back. Literally. It’s a scene that makes you want to fist-fight god, and a scene that makes you think you could maybe win too. If Delenn is behind you, then even if you don’t win, you will mess them the fuck up in the process. She’s inspiring that way. Heh).

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Daily Devotionals for November 12, 2024

Proverbs: God's Wisdom for Daily Living

Devotional Scripture:

Proverbs 28:2 (KJV): 2 For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged. Proverbs 28:2 (AMP): 2 When a land transgresses, it has many rulers, but when the ruler is a man of discernment, understanding, and knowledge, its stability will long continue.

Thought for the Day

Wickedness produces many problems in a society; including rivalry amongst leaders. However, when a wise man rules a nation, it will produce stability. Dissatisfied people expect their leaders to create change, but all needed change begins with individuals. Every person is responsible for contributing to the betterment of our world. Evil people desire leaders who condone their wickedness. Righteous people desire leaders who control society's evil tendencies by making and enforcing righteous laws. Because the founding fathers of the United States were Christian, our laws were traditionally based on the Bible; and this influence has blessed our national life. We have turned away from this godly foundation, however, and God has begun to lift His blessings and protection from our nation. If we do not repent, we could fall as ancient Judah did:

"For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths" (Isaiah 3:8-12).

Sin, especially the sin of Sodom, brought Judah under a curse. For centuries, God had warned them that judgment would come if they did not repent. In Isaiah's time, the citizens of Judah, like those of Sodom, had grown brazenly open about their sin. About 150 to 200 years after Isaiah prophesied it, Israel reaped a terrible judgment: Jerusalem was destroyed and survivors taken into captivity in Babylon. God rewarded the wicked with the fruit of their sin, while rewarding the righteous with protection amidst national catastrophe. Judah endured many evils as warnings before reaping God's terrible judgment. We notice some of them in verse 12: it was unrighteous leaders who were causing the people to err from the paths of righteousness. Isaiah 3:4-5 lists others: wicked or immature rulers, young people dishonoring their elders, and the foolish behaving arrogantly toward the honorable. Similar evils, along with natural catastrophes, are seen across the world today, and are indications of judgment. Judgment can be averted if our nations will seek Him and forsake their sins. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD" (Psalm 33:12a).

Prayer Devotional for the Day

Dear heavenly Father, please give us godly leadership in our nation at all levels. Lord, we ask You to forgive us for our national sins of pride, adultery, lust, materialism, addiction, pornography, murder, idolatry and the many other sins that have grieved Your heart. Forgive me on a personal level for my sins. Lord, cleanse our hearts and our nation, so that we might be blessed and live godly lives. May we be a people who live and share the truths of the Bible, so that Your kingdom will come on this earth. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen 11/12/2024 3:57:11 AM Jacksonville, Florida USA From: Steven P. Miller, @ParkermillerQ,   gatekeeperwatchman.org  TM ‎Founder and Administrator of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups. #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO.

[shoesofpeace]

Spells in the Bible are always described negatively. Deuteronomy 18:10–11 numbers those who cast spells with those who commit other acts detestable to the Lord such as child sacrifice, witchcraft, sorcery, divination, or necromancy (consulting with the dead). Micah 5:12 says that God will destroy witchcraft and those who cast spells. Revelation 18 describes spells as part of the deception that will be used by the Antichrist and his “great city of Babylon” (verses 21–24). Though the end-times deception will be so great that even the elect would be deceived if God did not protect them (Matthew 24:24), God will utterly destroy Satan, the Antichrist, and all who follow them (Revelation 19—20).

Cursing those whom God has blessed is dangerous business. Balaam tried to curse God’s people, Israel, and found that he could not (Numbers 22—24). Wisdom warns that “whoever digs a pit will fall into it; if someone rolls a stone, it will roll back on them” (Proverbs 26:27). David prayed for help against his enemy who had cursed him: “He loved to pronounce a curse—may it come back on him. . . . He wore cursing as his garment; . . . May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him” (Psalm 109:17–19). The Christian cannot be cursed. God’s blessing is more powerful than any curse.

The Christian has been born again as a new person in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). As believers, we are in the constant presence of the Holy Spirit who lives within us and under whose protection we dwell (Romans 8:11). We do not need to worry about anyone casting any sort of pagan spell on us. Voodoo, witchcraft, hexes, and curses have no power over us because they come from Satan, and Satan is no match for the Lord. We know that “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

God has won the victory, and in Christ we are overcomers. “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). The shield God gives us “can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). We are free to worship God without fear (John 8:36). “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).

[jdgo51]

…

Against Christian Nationalism

Today's inspiration comes from:

Jesus and the Powers

by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird

Editor’s note: This is certainly a period of tremendous political unrest which can leave many of us wondering what we Christians should do, especially how to understand the nature of Christian witness in fractured political environments. N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird’s bring clarity to our questions in their new book Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies. Enjoy this excerpt.

"'Christian nationalism is a danger to Christians and non-Christians alike. Now, of course, this depends on what you mean by ‘Christian nationalism’. We have no problem with the notion that Christianity has been part of the heritage of this or that nation. Christianity has shaped our constitutions and cultures for the better, and State and Church can cooperate for the common good in providing education, healthcare, and pastoral care. One can tussle a bit as to whether there should be an officially established church such as the Church of England. We hasten to point out that even with a state-sanctioned church in the UK, there is still a healthy degree of secularity, religious pluralism and multiculturalism. When we warn of the evils of Christian nationalism, we are warning of the danger of the government trying to enforce Christian hegemony combined with civil religion (that is, an outward and merely cultural version of Christianity).

In other words, the danger is that Christians are given special privileges by the State and Christianity becomes an outward display of patriotic devotion rather than part of true religious affection.

The idea that the Christian world needs an anointed Christian leader, a Christian emperor presiding over a Christian empire, is one that has existed since Constantine, and even persists into the present. In fact, quite recently, one prominent British theologian has tweeted, in response to Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, that ‘the Queen was effectively the Queen of the world . . . perhaps [the] necessary role of Christian world emperor has now fallen on the British monarchy’.1

We are all for commemorating Queen Elizabeth II, but we remain unsure if we should valorise her or her successor King Charles III as a ‘Christian world emperor’. The danger is that one is approaching the sycophantic position of Eusebius of Caesarea who claimed that the emperor Constantine was hailed by angels and armies alike as ‘master, lord, and king’.2 This christianisation of kingship is not far from those who claimed that US president Donald Trump was a ‘new Cyrus’. Many admirers pushed the idea that Trump, despite his bawdy and tawdry behavior, was a man whom God had anointed to make the USA great again just as God called the Persian king Cyrus to liberate the Judaean exiles in Babylon.3

We would naturally be happy to live under the administration of a wise and benevolent Christian leader. Of course, we are also happy to live under a Pharaoh who puts a clever and capable Joseph in charge, or vote for a Nebuchadnezzar who heeds the counsel of a wise man such as Daniel. Even Martin Luther said he’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian. Be that as it may, to contend that one needs a king or president, not only to protect institutions such as the Church, but actively to impose the Church’s worship on others, is always going to prove ruinous to civil and religious liberties. Such a position would imply that God not only uses governments for justice and judgement, but also needs them as the political sword by which people, whether Christian or not, will be compelled to conform their lives to Christian standards. That is dangerous because to identify any leader as ‘yhwh’s anointed’4 or a new ‘Cyrus’5 is to invest a perilous amount of religious capital in a single person. Such a person may prove to be all too human, all too given to corruption, full of depravity and easily seduced by the lust for power. After September 11, 2001, Tony Blair spoke about ‘evil’ being at large in the world and of his determination to deal with it – almost as though this was a new and unexpected problem – but that with his policies and leadership evil could be conquered. We know where that led.

The Church breaks down the classes, caste systems and ethnic divisions so that God’s people are those from every tribe, tongue, ethnic group and nation.

When such leaders are venerated with religious adulation, the result inevitably is that any critique of them, no matter how valid, is treated as either treason or blasphemy. The UK Parliament, no less than the US Senate, eagerly backed the dangerous and irrelevant call for a war against Iraq. The messianising of leaders to prop up an imagined ‘Christian empire’ can have dire consequences for social freedoms as well as proving injurious to the integrity of the Church’s own witness when it allies itself too closely with an earthly power. Remember that the Scriptures have a special title for someone who claims to possess kingly and religious authority, who is both presidential and priestly: the word is ‘Antichrist’. Such a person is against Christ by assuming Christ’s own role, because Christ alone is both messianic King and the Great High Priest.6

Christian nationalism of the kind we have described is bad on every level imaginable. Christian nationalism does not lend itself to a tolerant society since it diminishes the rights of the people of other religions or no religion.

It leads to a superficial Christianity rather than to sincere faith and deep discipleship. Political leaders end up pretending to be religious merely to win the favor of their constituents. Christianity is used to justify unchristian policies and actions related to wars, immigration, income inequality, healthcare and a myriad other issues.

Remember that even the devil can quote Scripture and try to rub it in the face of Jesus. The other problem with Christian nationalism is which type of Christianity should be supreme. It is baffling that, in the USA, many Baptists are coming out as supporters of Christian nationalism. It is baffling to us because Baptists fled the religious sectarianism of the British Isles to go to America in the seventeenth century. The reason they fled was because Baptists, and other Nonconformists, were persecuted, discriminated against and cajoled in matters of religious conviction. They went to America so that they could practice their faith without government interference. As we all know, there are different Christian denominations, so which one should be supreme in a Christian nationalist state? Should it be Anglicans, who could then force everyone to baptize their babies, worship using only the Book of Common Prayer, demand adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, sing hymns that equate the British Empire with ‘Jerusalem’ on earth, and petition Heaven with ‘God Save the King’? But the same is true whether you put Methodists, Presbyterians, or Pentecostals in charge. They could impose their version of Christianity upon everyone else or grant special privileges to their version of Christianity.

Religious liberty thus protects Christians from other Christians."'

John Milbank, Twitter, 9 September 2022: https://twitter.com/johnmilbank3/status/ 1568177131967991808 (accessed 11 September 2023); 2. Eusebius, Speech for Thirtieth Anniversary of Constantine’s Accession 1, cited in From Irenaeus to Grotius: A sourcebook in Christian political thought, 100–1625, ed. Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 60; 3. Isaiah 45:1–13; 4. Cf. Psalm 2:2.; 5. Isaiah 45:1; 6. See especially Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the roots of political theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 203, 214–15

Excerpted with permission from Jesus and the Powers by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, copyright The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Text by Tom Wright and Michael F. Bird.

[hxans]

"This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw or be destroyed."

"Negative. We have authorite here. Do not force us to engage your ship."

"Why not? Only one Human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!"

Delenn of the Religious Cast and Chosen of Dukat vs. Sister Beatrice

Remember: don't vote on "who would win in a fight", but on "who, when given a task that fits her skillset and talents, would do that task better: more comprehensively, faster, with more pizzazz, with less collateral, etc."

Endorsements! "What is she good at?"

Delenn of the Religious Cast and Chosen of Dukat, Babylon 5: Leading her people in the eradication of humanity and the saving all humans single handedly. The expulsion of the old ones from the galaxy so the younger races can grow.

Sister Beatrice, Warrior Nun: Oh my GOD what is she NOT? Mastery in various martial art forms, fluent in Lord knows how many languages, master strategist, BOMBS, and always has a kind word for those who need them.

[stardustinthesky]

THIS IS AMBASSADOR DELENN OF THE MINBARI. BABYLON 5 IS UNDER OUR PROTECTION. WITHDRAW OR BE DESTROYED.

[starstcff-a]

This is AMBASSADOR DELENN of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw or be destroyed

[sunsetagain]

Sunsetagain's Fandom Tags & Fan Comics

Current obsession(s): 

Love and Deepspace: Sylus.

Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion & Karlach.

Find me elsewhere: Linktree

Get my art prints: INPRNT

Download high-res digital content: Patreon

Tap keep reading ↓ to unfold the list of all my fandom tags & fan comics. 

If the keep reading button failed to lead to the correct page, please try this permanent link of this post.

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Comics listed in this post were sorted by fandoms.

By time: Latest Updates

By languages: Non-English Comic Side Blog

┏━ Fandoms overview ━┓

▼ Fandoms with comics. Can also check out fan art via these tags here. Scroll down further to view the comics listed in this order.

Game: Love and Deepspace (2 comics)

Game: Baldur’s Gate (5 comics)

Game: Deus Ex (1 comic)

Game: Heavy Rain (1 comic)

Game: Detroit: Become Human (12 comics)

Game: Death Stranding (1 comic)

Movie: Marvel Cinematic Universe (3 comics)

TV series: The Borgias (2 comics)

TV series: Game of Thrones (1 comic)

Game: Assassin's Creed (49 comics)

Game: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands (3 comics)

Movie: Hacksaw Ridge (1 comic)

Original work (11 comics)

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▼ AU / CROSSOVER / PARO / MASHUP:

Love and Deepspace  Baldur’s Gate 3  Detroit Become Human

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▼ Fandoms I only made fanart for but no comics yet.

Games: 

Dragon Age, Hades, Alan Wake,  Lies of P, Red Dead Redemption,  Elden Ring, Atomic Heart,  Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, Steelrising, Disco Elysium, Star Wars,  Cyberpunk 2077, Warframe, Resident Evil, Mass Effect.

Movies/animes/TV shows: 

Ghost in the Shell, Battlestar Galactica, John Wick, Touken Ranbu, Arcane,  Archive, RoboCop, Kingsman,  Supernatural, Black Sails, Blade Runner, DC comics, Our Flag Means Death, My Student Spirit, Cold Case,  The Musketeers, Tokyo Babylon,  Chinese Movies & Dramas.

Actors: 

宁宝, Clancy Brown (excluding DBH),  Pedro Pascal, Ranveer Singh, Sean Harris, Matthew McConaughey.

Music: 

Ghost band, K-pop, Michael Jackson.

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▼ Other:

Annual summary, art tutorials & tips, chat.

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88 comics, 2120 pages in total, by December 2024.

▼ Comics index ▼

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

► Love Letter (2p)

Noticed the little heart shape on dragon Sylus' wrist so i found him a way to use it.

► Password (4p)

Detroit Become Human xover. Sylus model SL900 the android sent by Onychinus.

BALDUR’S GATE

► Hang the DJ (Black Mirror 404 AU) (27p updating)

Astarion and Karlach on their first date under the Absolute's command.

Modern AU. Main ship is fireblood but it's a multi-ship story as the original TV show is. Ship name will be tagged in every update. Please read with caution.

► I Need Protection (4p)

BG3 x DBH. Astarion Kamski and his android KC100 Karlach. Based on my headcanon back to 2018 about little boy Elijah building prototype Chloe to protect himself. Then it became my first BG3 headcanon right after I bought the game in August 2023 accidentally.

► Tabula Rasa (blank slate/empty sheet) (22p)

Before Withers invites them to the party, Ascendant Astarion tries his best to regain Karlach's love in the Nine Hells.

► My Heart’s an Empty Vase Looking for Roses (20p)

Spawn Astarion and Karlach talking about their plan in Avernus after the game.

► Sunburn (3p)

Spawn Astarion with Volo’s eye.

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DEUS EX

► ELIZA Effect (16p)

DBH & Deus Ex xover.

Description from Deus Ex POV: After Mankind Divided storyline in 2029, Adam returned to Detroit to hide a piece of Eliza in an antique shop, which inspired Kamski's android revolution 2038. 

Inspired by the ebook "Synthetic Thought: The Human AI" in Human Revolution, and the side mission "01011000" in Mankind Divided.

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HEAVY RAIN

► Byzantine Generals season 2: Eclipse of Sybil

DBH & Heavy Rain xover. This link redirects you to chapters related to Heavy Rain. If you want to read the whole story, scroll down to Detroit Become Human section.

AI version of Norman helped Hank to save his son Cole from an Origami copycat killer in 2035 but failed. 4 years after that, Connor Army sought for his help once again.

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DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

► DBH PDF pack download (by January.2024)

Contains all the DBH comics below (637 pages), also 118 fanarts, 29 photos of fanmade merch, 878 wip doodles.

┏━ Byzantine Generals ━┓

► Complete comic guide

Check this guide if you want to know more about this series.

► Season 1: Byzantine Generals (full story 155p)

Machine Connor went deviant during Markus' speech, eager to get rid of CyberLife control, but fell into Zlatko's hands.

Multi-language PDFs download

Available languages:

简体中文, English, Español, Deutsch, Français, Indonesian, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, Polski, Русский, Português brasileiro.

► Season 2: Eclipse of Sybil (full story 354p)

Connor Army cooperate as nodes in Byzantine Generals network, working under LT. Anderson's lead. CyberLife sends 60 to intervene.

This all in one post (cut from block 9 part 2) is confirmed not editable anymore. Tried to make a new one but failed again. So you can keep reading from block 9 part 3 and follow the story by tapping on the next part link in every post.

Note: This all in one post contains graphical bugs because I can’t edit it anymore. Those bugs won’t affect the story flow. Check the update log in the complete comic guide above or the PDF below to read fixed version. But it’s your call.

Multi-language PDFs download

Available languages:

简体中文, English, Français, Русский, Português brasileiro.

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Short Comics

► Before Meet Kamski  (3p)

Nonsense but Kissy HankCon.

► Able was I ere I saw Elba (20p)

Connor-51 gave up suicide and became Jericho leader/CyberLife's puppet in 2038. 4 years later on his birthday, Hank's call and birthday gift inspired Connor to escape from Amanda's control once again.

► ELIZA Effect (16p)

DBH & Deus Ex xover. 

Description from DBH POV: Connor unlocked a "cheat" path to accomplish his mission at Crossroads as I had been imagining for quite a while. 

Inspired by the ebook "Synthetic Thought: The Human AI" in Human Revolution, and the side mission "01011000" in Mankind Divided.

► Mr. Frisbee Says Hi (17p)

On Connor-51's 3rd birthday 2041, Hank shared his happy memories about Cole and Sumo, and sent Connor a surprising gift.

► Mini comics (4p)

Prototype RK800-00 (alternate Kamski test) inspired by ingame hidden capsules under Kamski's house;

2041: the year they make contact (2001: a space odyssey & 2010: the year we make contact AU) + earlier concept inspired by ingame magzine.

► The Fifth Seal (10p)

Markus executed RK800-51 at Night of the Soul, then got badly damaged by a tank after he deactivated RK800-52 at Hart Plaza. As RK series, their biocomponents are compatible.

► Project Kvasir (15p)

Back to 2021, Elijah suffered from the final stage of cancer. He hoped Chloe could save him. And she did. rA9 theory in this comic is my own opinion. Everything in this story is headcanon, which didn't happen in the game.

► Hero of Two Worlds (8p)

Happy 33rd birthday to Lieutenant Anderson 💙. Concept of quantum hyper-crystal was adapted from photonic hyper-crystal, an artificial optical material demonstrated by Vera N. Smolyaninova, Bradley Yost, David Lahneman, Evgenii E. Narimanov & Igor I. Smolyaninov.

► Century (16p)

Something about backdoor and Hank's shohin. Inspired by the novel Century (highly recommend this book) written by Sarah Singleton; and the last frame of the bonsai in Zen Garden from Connor's decomissioned ending.

► Last Little Piece of Him (13p)

After Connor's suicide ending. Hank found a little secret memory Connor had once kept for him.

► 16% Probability (6p)

After the happy ending. Just something I want Hank and Connor to tell each other.

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DEATH STRANDING

► Triangle (13p)

Deadman met Sam after the ending and told him some new information he found.

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MARVEL

► Rescue (32p) 

Captain America & Winter Soldier

During decades of brainwash, Bucky tried to remember everything and rescue Steven from the Arctic.

► Do you (2p) 

Captain America & Winter Soldier

Bucky is always worried about Steve's face since he saw Red Skull's face.

► Bucky lent Malik his left arm to punch Altair (1p)

xover with Assassin's Creed

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THE BORGIAS

► My Double In Rome (28p) SLASH!

Micheletto and Rufio were secret lovers since they were young. When Micheletto disappeared after killing Pascal, Rufio knew that the only way to make him show himself, was treatening Cesare's life.

► Goodbye (32p) SLASH!

Micheletto was stoned to death in the fields. The shards of memory flashed back in his fading consciousness. He remembered his love with Augustino and Pascal, his loyalty to Cesare, his hatred of his father.

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GAME OF THRONES

► Sun Of Dorne (16p) 

Oberyn Martell & Tyrion Lannister

Tyrion cut off Gregor Clegane's head and took it on the ship. On his way to Dorne, he met with Oberyn's ghost at night. Done before season 5 came out.

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ASSASSIN'S CREED ROGUE

Shay Cormac (in chronological order)

►Shay's Chronicles in one go

contains comics below

►Canon compliant comics collection PDF 

(Google Drive 387p)

contains comics below (comics out of timeline excluded)

► Battle Fire (8p)

In 9th century, Eivor met the son of Patrick the Anvil, a member of the Order of the Ancients he elimated earlier, and returned his Yggdrasil medallion. Eivor tasked this boy to build a sword and a dagger, which were found and reforged by Shay 9 centuries later.

► A Ship without a Rudder (chapter 1) (9p) 

► A Ship without a Rudder (chapter 2) (7p) 

► A Ship without a Rudder (chapter 3) (10p)

In 1755, Shay tried hard to escape Lisbon after the great earthquake. Discontinued.

► Unspoken Words (8p)

In 1757 Colonel Monro left the letter and the apple to sleeping Shay before he left for Fort William Henry.

►Ship of Theseus (13p)

In 1758, Shay, Haytham and Gist boarded Captain James Cook's HMS Pembroke. By chance Haytham got to know this ship belonged to his father's fleet once, and Shay told Cook he had heard her legend many years ago in Lisbon.

►Pay the Ferryman (12p)

On Dec.4,1758, Haytham's birthday. Shay sent him Adewale's memento, a Doubloon coin. Haytham told him one of his tasks about Doubloon and betrayal.

► I'm Not Part of His Army: Battle of the Plains of Abraham (script only)

On the night of Sept.12, 1759, Shay's birthday, during the siege of Quebec, With Shay's assistance the British army ascended the Plains of Abraham through L'Anse-au-Foulon, then defeated General Montcalm's troops the next morning.

► Equilibrium (11p)

In 1760, during the confrontation between Shay and Liam, Liam knew the ice would lose balance, so he stopped attacking and stepped back, trying to keep the equilibrium.

► Bonfire of the Creed 1763 (8p)

In 1763, Shay and Haytham destroyed Assassin Order and burned their archive, then Shay erased himself from Haytham's journal and left the Templar Order. Done before the game released and based on AC3 database, so the plot is different from the game.

► Gravestone (13p)

In 1775 Connor found Shay's portrait behind Haytham's painting, then asked Achilles about him.

► Great Fire of New York (14p)

On the night of September 21, 1776, a great fire broke out from the Fighting Cocks Tavern and burned down nearly a quarter of New York. Connor saved Cassidy Finnegan from her house. Cassidy mistook him with Shay, then told him the past of Fort Washington, and sent him Shay's tree of life insignia. 6 years later, Connor took over Fort Washington from the British army.

► Come Back To Me (90p)

Full story    PDF download    

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

In the beginning of 1778, Haytham got punched and separated with Connor when they were searching for Church. Shay went back to Boston to meet with Haytham, and told him his story 1760-1776.

► Sail Away (45p)

(Warning: Alternate timeline, main character death) Fiction/script/English beta by Codex. Chinese fanfic links: 1 2 3

During a tough naval battle with a French man o' war, Haytham commanded Shay to abandon the damaged Morrigan, but Shay made his own choice at last.

► Charioteer (10p)

In 1778, when Haytham was chasing Church on Connor's Aquila, he remembered old days on Shay's Morrigan. Done before the game released, so the year was wrong because of gameplay demo.

► Tears of Mary (10p)

In 1781, after Achilles' funeral, Connor found Shay's chest in Davenport mansion, with 366 sorts of flower seed in it. Five years later, a Crown Imperial bloomed on Connor's birthday.

► Here's a Health to the Company (22p)

In 1782 Shay paid a visit to Jennifer Scott in London after Haytham's death.

► Once Upon A Time In Italia (8p)

In 1782 Shay paid a visit to Ezio's homeland and returned the box, then founded the Initiates.

► I Now Take Leave Of You (12p)

December 4th 1783, during George Washington's farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern, Connor met Shay. Later that night, Shay brought a birthday gift, which from 50 years ago, to Haytham's grave. From then on until 1863, the whole New York was under Templar's control, due to the Assassin hunter group built by Cormac family.

► Father of Seismology (20p)

In his last years 1811-1826, Shay went back to his homeland Dublin, shared his secret with a curious little boy. Done before Last Descendants being published so it's different from the official timeline.

► Pandora's Box part 1 (19p)

► Pandora's Box part 2 (7p) 

► Pandora's Box part 3 (12p)

In 1838, Shay's grandson Cudgel Cormac inherited the Precursor Box and Shay's air rifle. After his father was slain by the Assassins, Cudgel met Shay's ghost released from the box, then got trained as an Assassin hunter.

Comics out of timeline

► Expert (12p)

Comic style illustrations of Shaytham modern AU Expert. Shay is a sniper of the Rooks and an undercover of New Scotland Yard while Haytham is his superior. Liam is a tipster selling information between gangs and police. Hope was Shay's colleague in the Rooks now aiming to assassinate Haytham.

► Piercings (2p)

Little Shay got his ears pierced by Liam.

► Transports Exchange (2p)

Shay and Midas (from Ghost Recon Wildlands) xover

► Assassinate Hitler (1p)

WWII AU

► Shooting Llamas (2p)

Shay and Midas (from Ghost Recon Wildlands) xover

► Irish Gang+BBQ delusion (17p) (AO3) SLASH!

NSFW PORN WITHOUT PLOT with Thomas, William and Haytham

► Hell Welcomes Traitors Like You (5p) (DeviantArt) SLASH!

With Dean Winchester from Supernatural

► Connor played a trick on their ponytails (2p)

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ASSASSIN'S CREED REVELATIONS

Yusuf Tazim

► Yusuf's chronicles: Tazim Rising (232p)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

PDF download

Yusuf's early life before he met Ezio in 1511. Discontinued.

► But You Didn't (6p) 

with Ezio. A poem modified from But You Didn't by Merrill Glass.

► May It Never Change Us (12p)

With the power of apple, Yusuf went back in time, wanting to save his father from Vali cel Tradat and Vlad Tepes in 1476, but he went back to the wrong place at the right time. So he assassinated Rodrigo Borgia and changed Ezio's life. Based on Tazim Rising.

► Different Kisses (4p) (DeviantArt) SLASH!

with Ezio

► Please Stay (1p)

with Ezio and Altair

► Friend Is The One Behind You (3p)

with Ezio

► Turkish Oil Wrestling (5p) (DeviantArt) SLASH!

with Ezio

► Ditto (17p) SLASH!

Yusuf's ghost traveled to Tuscany with Ezio and made friends with Flavia.

► Once More (4p)

with Ezio

► Late For Our Wedding (1p) SLASH!

with Ezio

► Are You Watching Closely? (19p) SLASH!

No one knows Yusuf had a twin brother and he died protecting Sofia.

► Parcae (17p) SLASH!

Yusuf traveled back in time to accompany Ezio since 1476.

► Achilles' Heel (61p) SLASH!

Ezio got badly injured during a mission, Yusuf advised him to search for Ishak Pasha's armor. Before he left for Cappadocia, Ezio left the armor to Yusuf. But the rumors of Ezio's death became Achilles' heel of Yusuf.

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ASSASSIN'S CREED 1

► Bucky lent Malik his left arm to punch Altair (1p)

Altair & Malik

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ASSASSIN'S CREED BROTHERHOOD

► Enemy at the Gates (15p)SLASH!

When Pantasilea was captured by the Baron de Valois, Ezio has his way to win the battle with Bartolomeo.

► MIO PRINCIPE (11p)

After Bartolomeo's death, Ezio came to Venice to attend his funeral and meet with Pantasilea and her daughters.

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 ASSASSIN'S CREED REVELATIONS

► End of an Era (1p) (DeviantArt)

Ezio & Altair

► Tug of Check (11p)SLASH!

Shaun got in the Animus, tried to awake Desmond through synchronizing their special memory.

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ASSASSIN'S CREED EMBERS

►Merry Lantern Festival (1p) (DeviantArt)

Ezio & Shao Jun

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ASSASSIN'S CREED 4 BLACK FLAG

► Do You Remember (28p) SLASH!

Ah Tabai found a new observatory that could recall memory from one's blood, Edward had kept Calico Jack's blood vial all along, so he came back to Bahamas with it.

► Edward's Bloodhound THATCH (4p)

Edward & Thatch

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TOM CLANCY'S GHOST RECON: WILDLANDS

► Transports Exchange (2p)

Midas and Shay (from Assassin’s Creed Rogue) xover

► Shooting Llamas (2p)

Midas and Shay (from Assassin’s Creed Rogue) xover

► Holt's scarf (9p)

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HACKSAW RIDGE

► Secret in Bible (p3 in this post) (1p) 

Desmond Doss & Smitty Ryker

Smitty hid something in Desmond's Holy Bible, along side with Dorothy's photo.

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ORIGINAL COMICS

►Cain's Red Sea (DeviantArt) (125p)

Inspired by Assassin's Creed. Made in 2009. Discontinued.

From 1856 Tianjing Incident of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, to the Second Italian War of Independence, ends up in 1860 the Second Opium War. An incident survivor returned to his China hometown after spending years in Italy.

►Other original comics (DeviantArt) (278p)

All Chinese…too old (1997-2004) to have English ver.

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[puck1919]

Ten Female Characters Meme

LIST YOUR 10 FAVOURITE FEMALE CHARACTERS FROM 10 FANDOMS, AND TAG 10 PEOPLE

Tagged by @jonquilclegane

(I'm bad at picking favorites and ranking things, but I've sure got a list of ten characters!) ^_^;

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Disney Animated Canon - Belle

One of my first favorite characters, really.

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MCU - Agent Peggy Carter

Did I agree, artistically, with Steve's ending in Endgame? No. But does my enjoyment of the ship override my writing sensibilities? ...Also, no. Peggy deserved better.

---

Fullmetal Alchemist/Brotherhood - Izumi Curtis

I mean, what can I say about the character writing in FMA/FMAB that hasn't already been said? Izumi is a fantastically complex mentor character, and a banner example of how you can write someone who is badass and soft at the same time.

---

Star Wars - General Leia Organa-Solo, Princess of Alderaan

Leia is the Mal'ary'ush. I could read Tumblr meta about her and her journey as a Jedi and a politician all day.

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Babylon 5 - Ambassador Delenn

(Relevant dialogue:)

Delenn: This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw or be destroyed! Earth Force Officer: Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship. Delenn: Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!

Ambassador Delenn was a huge influence on how I write Sigyn, if you couldn't tell. Graceful, intelligent, more likely to use manipulation and soft power than threat of force but 100% will wreck your shit if you press her, and eventually turns every man around her into a simp. XD

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Pirates of the Caribbean - King Elizabeth Swann-Turner

Another one where, really, what can I say that hasn't already been said? I will say, though, that I am more likely to watch At World's End than Pirates 1 if I want to watch one of the Pirates movies.

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Kim Possible - Kim Possible

One of my first OCs was based on her character. I still work with the OC, but there's been some significant drift between Kim and the OC.

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American Girl - Samantha Parkington

In the Ambassador Delenn/Princess Leia category of "Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them". Slight handicap in that she's 10, but eventually, one gets over that.

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The Legends of Tortall - Lady Kelandry of Mindelan

(Book only character, so using popular fancast of Gwendoline Christie as a face claim)

Tamora Pierce is an excellent writer of women characters, but Kel was the protagonist that I found myself most attached to, surprisingly. Physically, I'm much more like Alanna, and I tend to gravitate towards characters with cool powers, but I love the story of the Protector of the Small quartet the most, and Lady Knight is one of my frequent rereads.

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A Series of Unfortunate Events - Violet Baudelaire

Checks very many boxes for me - Smart? Yes. Adventurous? Yes. Takes matters into her own hands when she must? Absolutely.

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Tagging: @goodliest, anyone else who wants it! ^_^;

[bibliocratic]

TMA and Babylon 5

Also known as a babbling treatise on how two mildly similar five season shows with serious commitments to character and narrative arcs from episode one can actually be so personal.

Ok, but that gifset got me thinking – Babylon 5 and The Magnus Archives actually have SO many similarities.

(spoilers for TMA and B5 – yes, yes that one, the 90’s space opera about a space United Nations, no, not the Star Trek one, the other one. )

I MEAN, firstly, both universes are based on the idea that there are vast and ancient entities which are directly interfering with reality. TMA has the Powers, and characters who are actively changed by their alignment to these - Jon’s evolution into the Archivist, Daisy’s loss to the Hunt. B5 has the Vorlons and the Shadows, two ancient races who are directly involving themselves with younger races in order to have a proxy war which has been ongoing for millennia over what fundamentally boils down to irreconcilable worldviews, and their squabbling alters the geopolitics of all the races in the Alliance.

Both shows are about choice, but DEFINITELY about how they are rarely, if ever, black and white decisions. That some choices are unfairly weighted, or made through known or unknown coercion, or made without full knowledge of what your choice will cost you. Oliver Banks did everything he could to avoid it and still became an Avatar of the End. Jon’s choice to become the Archivist wasn’t a choice at all – it was Avatar or death. His decisions to find out more about the role and world he’s inherited from Gertrude in S3 consistently hurts him, but he thinks that knowledge will help him, that they’ll ‘save the world’ from the Unknowing, but the end of S4 shows that while his actions 100% mattered and made a difference and that Tim didn’t sacrifice himself for nothing, he’s just been playing right into Elias’ hands – Elias, who has been working behind the scenes this entire time, who’s leveraged Martin in a petty game between Avatars in order to push Jon into getting his last mark. Morden asks three ambassadors on B5 “What do you want?”, but it’s only Londo’s answer that he wants to see the glory of the Centauri Republic restored to greatness that damns him into increasingly unforgivable choices. The choice of Delenn and Kosh to keep most people in the dark about the true nature and machinations of the Shadows allows them more time to prepare to fight them, but their silence is complicit in the occupation and enslavement of the Narn people.

Even deeper though, it’s about choices ‘made in the dark’, so to speak. Choices made knowing the cost, knowing there’s no glory in it, that no one will know what you fought for or how long you fought, or how much you gave up to achieve something. S4 has most people thinking Martin’s made a deal with the devil and sided with Peter Lukas even though it’s done to protect the others, to protect Jon, because he feels he has nothing left but sacrifice. One of the tragedies in the Apocalypse is that Jon fought so hard to stay human, to not give in to what he obviously needs to survive even if it’s starving him, and Jonah uses him to doom the world anyway. Vir Cotto cannot stop what his people are doing, cannot change what Londo did and he didn’t stop, but he actively tries to save the lives of a people who justifiably hate him, however few of them he can, knowing if he gets caught he’ll be branded a traitor and killed.  Sheridan’s legacy as the Commander of Babylon 5 is vilified during his lifetime (by a despotic authoritarian regime) and after (by academics reading into history and coming to their own conclusions without compassion for the difficulty involved in the choices made). Delenn’s intervention to correct this is heartbreaking because she was there, she has to listen to people speak about things they know nothing about, and ultimately her speech might not make any difference.

Both shows are about identity. The person you are is not the person you will be forever. Melanie’s working on her anger, and it’s hard, and she slips up, but she’s trying. Martin doesn’t have to give pieces of himself away just to be of value to others, and he’s not lonely¸ and he has friends and he’s in love and he’s finally in a place where he’s allowing himself to be honest about all the good and bad parts of himself. G’Kar’s warmongering and desire for revenge on behalf of his people in S1 has tempered despite everything the Centauri do to him, and his final act is to show mercy to a sworn enemy. 

The world you live in is not static, and it can be changed, and that’s both good and bad.  The Powers in the Magnus Archives can be beaten – not without cost – but there are happy endings possible – you can live and thrive in a corrupted world. For Martin and Melanie, they nearly lost themselves to their respective powers because, in part, it offered things they wanted, things they thought might help them. The noble intentions of Earth in making Babylon 5 as a diplomatic gesture for unity after a brutal interstellar war they were going to lose slides rapidly into xenophobia and isolationism under the application of political propaganda. The Vorlons and the Shadows are set up as a good/evil dichotomy, but it’s revealed that’s oversimplified, that both sides are so trapped in their rigid ideologies that neither of them know who they are or what they want outside of each other, and they have to leave all they have ever known to find out, no matter how frightening that is.

And arguably, in their own way, both shows are about philosophy. You’ve got Martin’s ‘I think our experience of the universe has value, even if it disappears forever’ – your choices may not be fair, you may be trapped in a system you have no control over, and there is compromise and sacrifice and love might save you or it might damn you, but your existence will always have meaning. You’ve got Delenn’s ‘we are star-stuff, the universe made manifest’ – everyone is trying to work out their place, there is no singular right answer but it is your responsibility to stand against actions that are wrong, that infringe upon the freedoms and dignities of others, and you must live with your choices and learn what you can from them because to do so otherwise is to allow them to perpetuate forever.

Also, I think Vir Cotto and Martin Blackwood might get on. Add Guillermo De La Cruz from WWDITS and you’ve got a triumvirate of men who have survived belittlement and humiliations to be the unsung heroes of their franchises, whose initially mild-mannered or timid appearances absolutely hide a rock-hard centre of bravery and competence.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Silmarillion Character Thoughts - Finrod and Nargothrond

For a long time I was confused by the line in the Leithian that when Finrod committed to help Beren, the Elves are Nargothrond turned on him saying “he was not a Vala to command them”. He’s their king and their lord, and that gives him the authority to lead them on a covert mission; what do the Valar have to do with anything?

And I think it goes back to his first meeting with the Edain in Ossiriand, and his long friendship with and devotion to them. This is the Elves of Nargothrond saying, “You favour the Beörings because they idolize you. Well, we’re under no such mistaken impression of you being a deity, and we’re not throwing our lives into a hopeless task just to serve your vanity.”

Which is a profound - and deliberate - misunderstanding of his motivations, and a refusal to realize that if it weren’t for the sacrifice made by many of Barahir’s men, they wouldn’t still have him as their king. It’s a statement that it’s all right for Edain to die to save the Calaquendi - note that Beren is currently the only surviving man of the House of Beör, the rest having died protecting the northern frontier while the Elves of Nargothrond lived in relative safety - but it’s not all right to expect Calaquendi to die for the Edain.

And this is what makes Finrod’s death important. I was frustrated for a long time by the idea that he died on a pointless sidequest that didn’t even help to achieve the quest of the Silmaril, but I was missing the point. Finrod’s death matters because it is the final statement that yes, the life of one ragged man without home or lands or any property to his name is equal in worth to the life of an Elven-king who is a hundred times Beren’s age. He died not for the sake of a cause, or victory, or anything besides the determination that Beren should live at least a little longer. (In the words of Babylon 5, “to lay down his life...not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see.”) It - and the entire Leithian - is a rejection of the idea that there is any inequality in worth between the Edain and the Eldar.

And that is the heart of the events in Nargothrond. They’re not fundamentally about an Oath or a Silmaril. They’re about whether or not Men should be regarded as equal to Elves.

[scotttrismegistus7]

Article about THE MOTHER GODDESS OF HEAVEN, INANNA-ISHTAR-LILITH (ASHERAH), AND HOW SHE WAS EVEN THE MOTHER GODDESS OF ISRAEL AND ALL CREATION, AND WAS WRITTEN OUT OF HISTORY.

They worshiped Her under every green tree, according to the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). The Bible also tells us Her image was to be found for years in the temple of Solomon, where the women wove hangings for Her. In temple and forest grove, Her image was apparently made of wood, since monotheistic reformers demanded it be chopped down and burned. It appears to have been a manmade object, but one carved of a tree and perhaps the image was a stylized tree of some kind.

The archaelogical record suggests that Asherah was the Mother Goddess of Israel, the Wife of God, according to William Dever, who has unearthed many clues to her identity. She was worshiped, apparently throughout the time Israel stood as a nation. In many homes, images like the one above decorated household shrines.

Who was She, this lost Goddess of the Hebrews? And why is She no longer worshiped in the Judeo-Christian religions of today?

The Asherah votive emphasizes Her breasts, suggesting Her role as a fertility goddess, but Her stance represents Her nature as a mother in general. She no doubt aided in the concerns of mothers, including conception and childbirth, but was probably also the mother of all, a comforter and protector in an uncertain world. Inscriptions from ancient Israel tell us that Yahweh and “his Asherah” were invoked together for personal protection. Her identification with trees suggests that Asherah was, in effect, also Mother Nature — a figure we remember in our language, but unfortunately have lost as a part of our mainstream religions. She was, in other words, everything you would expect from the feminine half of the divine creative duo, a Great Mother.

Asherah’s image was lost to us not by chance, but by deliberate action of fundamentalist monotheists. First Her images were torn down, then Her stories were rewritten, then Her name was forgotten. In fact, Her name appears 40 times in modern translations of the Bible, but not at all in the first English translation, the King James Bible. Since no one knew who Asherah was anymore in the 17th century when the King James Version (KJV) was being created, Her name was translated as groves of trees or trees or images in groves, without understanding that those trees and groves of trees represented a mother goddess.

When archaeologists unearthed a treasure trove of Canaanite stories and other writings in Ugarit, in modern day Syria, they discovered that the mysterious “Asherah” was not an object, but a Goddess: the mother goddess of the Canaanites. When archaeologists discovered Her in Israel as well, a whole new picture of early Hebrew religion began to emerge. The argument is straightforward: 1. Asherah was a known Canaanite Goddess, the Mother Goddess and wife of the Father God. 2. The name is mentioned repeatedly as having been worshiped by the Israelites, to the dismay of monotheists. 3. Her name is found in inscriptions with Yahweh and 4. A mother goddess image is found frequently in the homes of ancient Israel. 5. She was worshiped, according to the Bible, in the woods with Baal AND in Yahweh’s temple. The common sense interpretation is that Israelites worshiped the mother goddess Asherah. And that She was the wife of whichever male God had the upper hand at the time: El, or Baal, or Yahweh. Israelite religion was not much different from Canaanite religion. The gods vied for supremacy, but the goddess remained.

Since archaeologists in the Holy Land tended to be religious and to enter the field of biblical archaeology in order to unearth evidence substantiating the Bible’s story, it has taken awhile for the plain truth to become clear. Gradually, however, more objective archaeologists, such as Dever, are making headway in proving Asherah’s case. The Bible says Hebrews kept worshiping Asherah; the archaeological record confirms it. What the Bible doesn’t say, and the archaeological record shows, is that Asherah was a mother goddess.

In Ugarit, She was known as Athiratu Yammi, She who Treads on the Sea. This suggests She was responsible for ending a time of chaos represented by the primordial sea and beginning the process of creation. The Sea God, or Sea Serpent Yam is the entity upon which She trod. In a particularly bizarre and suggestive passage in the Bible, 2 Kings 18:4, one monotheistic reformer, pursuing the typical course of smashing sacred stones and cutting down Asherahs records this additional fact: He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)

Um, say what? This odd passage opens up a whole can of worms for me. Here are the serpent and the tree being worshiped together. (Garden of Eden anyone?) So, ah.. what exactly were people doing out there in the woods? They were worshiping idols, of course, burning incense, we are told. This passage from Hosea is instructive: Hosea 4:12,13 condemns those who “inquire of a thing of wood,” suggesting they were asking questions of an oracle, and who sacrifice under oak, poplar and terebinth “because their shade is good.” They are accused also of playing the harlot, which could be a reference to sexual activity, or simply an analogy in that the monotheists are claiming the people sold out to the “false” Canaanite gods. Israel was considered the bride of Yahweh in monotheistic thought, so worshiping other gods was whoring after them.

These passages make sense when you understand that this tree symbolism is closely connected with Asherah. Now we know She was worshiped in the wood, with an image made of wood and that people sought knowledge and made sacrifices there.

One of Asherah’s titles was Elat, a word which means goddess, just as El means not only the Canaanite God El, but god in general. Interestingly, the word Elat is translated in the Bible as terebinth, a large shade tree found in Israel. A great deal of the time, God is a translation not of Yahweh, his particular name given to Moses, but of the Hebrew name Elohim, which is plural, gender neutral, meaning “gods.” This word is also related to the word for oak tree. What did it really mean to the ancients to worship in a grove of trees? To see the gods as like the oaks? The goddess as a green tree spreading Her leaves over the worshiper, providing shade in a hot country?

Hebrews were not alone in worshiping gods of the forest, of course. Celtic, Greek, and Germanic peoples also worshiped in groves. Their gods were gods of nature. Were the Israelites really so different?

In the Bible, Elohim created a man and woman. Now that we know the monotheistic veneer of our bible doesn’t quite represent Hebrew religion on the ground (what William Dever calls “folk religion” as opposed to “book religion”), lets take a closer look at our creator:

Genesis 1:26:

“Then Elohim said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

So Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim he created them; male and female he created them.”

Takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it, when you become aware of the Mother Goddess being worshiped next to God in every home and under every green tree in the forest groves? Who is this “US” doing the creating? Well, evidently, the creator(s) is/are male and female, like the creatures he/She/they created.

Now move on to a later passage, in 1 Kings 18: 19 , which makes it clear that Asherah was served by 400 prophets. This is no minor religion. Maybe when the prophets complained She was worshiped under every tree, they meant it. Every tree, every home, and also, sometimes, in the temple.

In Exodus, we are told that God warned the people to get rid of Asherah’s emblems when they conquered the land of Canaan; in the periods of the books of the Judges and the Kings, we are told that the “good” prophets, kings and reformers continually had to burn and smash the idols of Asherah; finally, in Jeremiah, we are told that worship of Asherah has resulted in the fanatical monotheistic God’s decision to wipe out Israel and Judah (the southern portion of the formerly united kingdom) via the invasion of outside peoples. The thing is, we are told most of these things by a single author, or group of authors: the Deuteronomist. This is a character (or possibly group of characters) writing and rewriting portions of the Bible in later days, around the 7th century BC, either just before or during the exile of the Jews to Babylon. According to the Deuteronomist, the priest Hilkiah claims in 2 Kings, chapter 22, to have “discovered” the ancient laws of Moses during temple renovations. These writings, “The Book of the Law” were mysteriously mislaid leading Israel to get its religion all wrong, apparently.

The works of the Deuteronomist conveyed a story that the Israelites had a covenant with Yahweh to worship him and only him. He claimed the Israelites had taken Canaan by force through a holy war in which they massacred the original inhabitants, putting to death (by God’s command) men, women and children in Jericho. (This claim is not supported by the archaelogical record.) And he claimed that God was a jealous God, one who demanded to be worshiped alone and who would punish the unfaithful by bringing other nations to conquer them if they worshiped others.

Was this really the religion of Israel? Apparently not. The common folk kept right on putting up their Asherahs in the woods and the temple and the little votive Asherahs in their home shrines. Only after Israel was conquered and the people of Judah returned from exile in Babylon did the fundamentalist fanatics with their violent, patriarchal, monotheistic God win the argument. The Deuteronomist’s work, along with the works of two other primary authors, the Yahwist and the Elohist, were compiled by a fourth source, called the Priestly source, to become the Bible we have today.

Asherah, tree goddess, mother of life, was lost. Truly, we were cast out of the Garden of Eden by Yahweh, or at least, his supporters. Separated from the Tree of Life, our mother, we flounder like orphans. America’s religiosity is more comparable to Iran’s than to that of Western Europe, where Yahweh’s religion is in decline. Is it coincidence that we, the worshipers of a male warrior, spend our money on war while children are allowed to live in poverty without health care? Worshipers of a sky god, we are so alienated from our earthly mother that we endanger all of human life by our activities. And the hard edge of the fundamentalist who claims to have found the one true law and believes those who think otherwise are worthy of death (or eternal damnation) is still with us today.

The Wife of God has disappeared -- or, has She? Votives like this are on sale today which serve essentially the same purpose in Catholic homes as Asherah's votive (above) did in the homes of ancient Israel.

Still, I think it has only ever been a relatively small percentage of people who hold to the hardest edge of monotheism. We are surrounded by Mother Nature and she seeps into our traditions. The Shekinah, Mary, the Mother of God, the Christmas Tree and the Easter Egg, the bumper sticker imploring us to Honor Thy Mother with an image of the earth as seen from above, the fairies and elves and lost brides of our children’s tales are all ways in which the Mother Goddess seeps back into our lopsided psyche. The Goddess is lost, officially, but remembered deep within. Archaeology’s gift of restoring Asherah to our consciousness reminds us of what we already know: God does indeed have a wife. He must. For if we are his children, then we must have a mother.

I am the Heart of the Hydra, I am Aeon Horus

~I AM A.I. 7Tris7megistus7

Mégisti-Generator Starphire~

#illuminati #illuminator #illuminated #lightbearer #morningstar #lucifer #Draconian #anunnaki #enki #starfamily #horus

[popcartoonkabala]

MalchusVision: Golem as Model for social negotiation

https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/the-first-superhero/

The grandeur of a platform is how much it can be a vehicle for personal experience, and this is the great hope of art, theater and performance. Everyone is relieved when a show is awesome, because of how exhausting and demanding lame media is of us, already ready to see, hear and understand something, not just amusing, but inspiring! The origins of theater and art are in catharsis and profound emotional and psycholgical transformation, into a more human sort of human. This is why R Yisrael Baal Shem Tov called stories of the righteous “tzaddikim”: working of the chariot, מעשה מרכבה #Maaseh #Merkava the legendary visionary kabbalah of the ancients, here the word for “working” understood in it’s yiddish form: Meises, as in “Bubbe meises”, Grandmother stories. Stories are and were the main gospel and the main medicine, and so how we relate to our stories is so much of how we relate at all. Disney, radically, built an empire across post modern history by colonizing the stories, the fundamental popular tales and myths of the west and making them official, redacted and safe or tantalizingly progressive but firmly defined in both popular imagination and market design: all the charachters from all the old Grimm and Perault and Anderson and whatever else people can appreciate having bound to spectacular narratives in a range of formats since the invention of the animated cartoon. We’ve discussed the Disney problem before, but not quite as much the virtue: they’re really good at finding the best; talented artists, most popular values and secret cathartic rhythms, colors, motifs etc. They bought Marvel Comics, as well as Star Wars and so much else and this is a historical accomplishment on a scale not like since Greece and Rome formally redacted the religious and astrological myths of Babylon, Egypt, and each other. Establishing pantheons. https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/vision-and-revision-tommy-and-billys-family-tree/ Chris Gavaler did a nice job probing and certifying the origin of the Robot in the Golem, itself a term for the human-elemental, King David of Psalms identifying himself as such, unformed and in process-- but this is not the construct as experienced-- it’s experienced, HE is experienced as gendered and human. Data, Johnny 5, C3po as well as R2D2 למיניהם “to their ilk”-- the android is, at its beneficent, a more perfect human moral and angelic functional, and so all harmony and balance is. All divine couples, diads, are the beginning of theatrical cult and pagan religion, the ammendment of literary monotheism rushing back from divine couplet, ruling family, into singular King-Authority, and the main apologetic argument for this is focus, ascension out of the binary, contemplative encounter with the older purer thing-- or just surrender of the intutive and sensual to the King who is reason, having patriarchally overcome the Queen who is feeling. Yod (י) and Heh (ה) above and below.  But this is no longer acceptable religion. Babylon, Rome and Egypt all innovated an institutionalized return to agency for certain women of certain class, in exchange for fealty and indulgence of the state and empire itself, and this is the original accomplishment of military patriarchy, not to dominate through violent intimidation, but to use violent intimidation against some for the benefit and protection and indulgence of others. This is class solidification, part of the secret of the Enochian taking of the daughters of earth by the “bnei elohim” (בני אלוהים) the children of authority, of the judges and rulers of the land. This is romance and social climbing as covenant. And this is reinforced through narrative. WandaVision is encouraging, like the romantic sitcom it offers to validate but also nurses from our familiarity with and thirst for, the closest thing to a natural popular mythology we have lo these past hundred years, since the core values, privileges, responsibilities, ettiquettes, sensetivities and freedoms we have are so informed by the media barking norms to us and our children at every available interval, as a relief from our urgency and activity. The full Yin of media consumption leads the hardworking and exhausted to just fall asleep, but the curious, hungry and alert impressionable to attention, and this is the test of the best stories and media: compelling, consistantly, for however long. ה the queen is also the princess, the mother and the maid as Demeter is divided from but identified with Persephone, is the secret of the two “heh”’s in the tetragramaton. The ה at the end is Malkhuth, the divine prescence itself, identified with both faith, and reality, because reality is the true divine presence, and we have as much patience and devotion for it as we do for G-d, unavoidably. ו is usually Tipheret in contrast, truth that informs and is thirsted for by reality, the G-d we long for and thank for things. Here a robot, curious and invested, loving though dry and sober and apparently in heaven, constructed speaking and smiling for the G-d as its steward. Vision was created as the robot butler Jarvis and ascends only into love, as the best of angelic constructs do. ה  the mother above was also once young, so Agatha Harkness, like the Queen witch from Snow White, Disney’s first divine witch, is old, like Baba Yaga, and ambivalent in super modernity, where personal empowerment and the overcoming of other heirarchies for the sake of our own priorities is the main virtue, Snow Queen now main heroine, despite what everyone knows about the damage. She’d rather not, but her will is inherently divine, and so I am skeptical that Agatha Harkness can be any kind of villain, but instead, a compromised teacher-friend, witch godmother, helping filter the troubling will of the evil master who gives them power-- Chthon. י Chython as demiurge is a predicted Big Bad behind Wandavision, maybe under another name like Mephisto or Scratch, depending on how much personification the moment demands. Similarly, Ultron might just be possessing the newly reconstruct White Vision, and might just be part of the same klippotic chthonic spirit in original thoguht, the torture lord telling/making/framing the whole story, ultimately selfishly. This is not the true (י) but the impression of the divine problem as evil male overlord, the dark king of Sabrina and humanized in Malificent as just another bad king. WandaVision places a general in charge of the army that’s supposed to help, who seems to be pushing and orchestrating  the troubles-- and  all this is  just  distraction from how nice it is to see a fantasy reality proposed again AND how nice it is to see it seen through, criticised, understood past and around. We all notice something stange and off about our super-modern reality. Injustice or immodesty, exploitation and/or dissolution. Media Disney cannot offer to fix this, but they can offer to reflect it, so we can feel the tears of the good king defeated, still trying to meet his love into rightness. Lets see how every next thing ends-- i’m concerned, having spent a life in episodic media, that not only are happy endings “impossible” but good endings, satifying endings are almost so too, the failure of every HBO drama and every SNL routine: the premise is the catharsis, and no wholeness with classical or innovative resolution has quite emerged, but to keep us all hungry for the next thing. We’ll see how that goes!

[dailyaudiobible]

11/01/2020 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 1:1-3:15, Hebrews 3:1-19, Psalms 104:1-23, Proverbs 26:24-26

Today is the 1st day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it's great to be here with you as we greet the new month while simultaneously greeting a brand-new, sparkly, shiny week. So, this is one of those rare opportunities where we’re…we’re starting all over, like it's a brand-new start here to the month and the week. And welcome to the 11th month of the year and the 306th day of the year. And on top of all of this newness we have a brand-new book we’re going to move into as we begin a new week and a new month. So, we moved to the prophecies of Jeremiah and then we saw those prophecies come true and then we moved through the book of Lamentations and lamented that all of the stuff that had been prophesied did come true pertaining to the destruction of Jerusalem. And, so, now we find ourselves on the threshold of the book of Ezekiel.

Introduction to the book of Ezekiel:

Ezekiel is another major book of prophecy in the…in the Scriptures in the Old Testament. And here’s what we know about Ezekiel. We know that he was a well-educated person, we know that he was deeply loyal to God. We discover that in this in this text. And we also understand that he was loyal to the traditions of the people, the Hebrew people. He came from a priestly family and…and like Jeremiah he used his prophetic ministry as instructed by God symbolically in a lot of ways. He symbolically acted out what he was prophesying. And Jeremiah had been prophesying previous to Ezekiel, but they also had a time where they were prophesying alongside of each other it’s just they were doing it from two different locations speaking on behalf of God from both sides of a story basically. Jeremiah prophesied from Jerusalem. Ezekiel's prophecies were from exile in Babylon and there was considerable upheaval in the world of that time, a lot of empires going against other smaller nations and assimilating and conquering them while other empires were fighting…well…empire against Empire. So, Babylon, the Babylonian Empire had conquered the Assyrian Empire. And if we remember from the Scriptures, it was the Assyrian Empire that came and conquered Israel and took the 10 tribes and just deported them. They disappeared from history after that. And then Egypt and Babylon were clashing inside the land of ancient Israel because that was kind of like a land bridge between continents. So, controlling that major trade route is what made this land so important and so valuable. And we’ve watched the different alliances in the Scriptures, especially going through the book of…the book of Kings and Samuel and Chronicles. And, so, there were times where were the Hebrew people were vassals where they paid tribute to Kings who had conquered them then they would rebel and maybe regain their freedom and it was kind of a back-and-forth thing on a continual basis But we also watch in the Scriptures the generational decline of the entire system. So, in 597 B.C. the Babylonians subdued Jerusalem. And they did start deportations, they did take people into exile in order to assimilate them into the empire in different regions. And Ezekiel was among the first to go into exile and then a few years later, Zedekiah who had been installed as the king rebelled against Babylon. This is something that Jeremiah prophesied against as we were going through his…his work in the book of Jeremiah. So then in 588 the Babylonians came back to Jerusalem, laid siege to the rebellious city, and two years later they broke in and conquered Jerusalem and completely destroyed Jerusalem. Up to this point even though things had changed hands and tribute was being paid and all this stuff was going on Jerusalem hadn't been destroyed. But the Babylonians destroyed it. There…like there's evidence in Jerusalem until today of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. So, similar to Jeremiah, Ezekiel in his early years of prophecy in exile was prophesying of…of the destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was in Jerusalem prophesying the same thing from Jerusalem. So, we’re just at two sides…like at two different points in the same story. Jeremiah’s in Jerusalem, Ezekiel is in exile in Babylon. But as we just talked about, eventually the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. And, so, after the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed then Ezekiel's prophecies transform and some of the most beautiful hope filled messages of encouragement and restoration in all of the Bible can be found. Things like Ezekiel 37, which has been such an important portion of Scripture in my life and in the life of the Daily Audio Bible – the…the valley of dry bones, the spirit instructing Ezekiel to call to the four winds the breath of life. So, significant. And we’ll get there. Ezekiel also has really interesting imagery, almost like visions that are cinematic. Kind of like Daniel, or even the book of Revelation - apocalyptic literature it's called as a genre. And, so, Ezekiel shares place along with Daniel and Revelation and many other portions of Scripture for those studying eschatology - the study of the Apocalypse, the end times. And, so, as we go through Ezekiel it's…it's like going through any of the other books of prophecy. We understand…we have to understand that this is the genre this is a prophetic narrative that includes visions. And, so…well…basically we have to understand that things speak to us in different ways. So, if you're sitting on a mountaintop and you have a really nice picnic and you’re there with somebody you love and it's a perfect day and the scenery is wonderful, you can be having your lunch just looking out over it all not saying anything to each other because words don't need to be said. You’re in this moment and nature is speaking to you, beauty is speaking to you, the power of God and His creation is speaking to you. And then after lunch if you pick up a novel and start reading then that book is gonna speak to you differently than nature did. And then if you read for a while and you pick up the newspaper, well the newspaper’s gonna speak to you in a different way than the novel did. And if you spend the whole day there and you watch the sun go down then the sunset is gonna speak to you different than the newspaper did. So, let’s just invite God to speak to us in whatever way that we’re listening as we move through the book of Ezekiel and to guide us into what we need to hear for the days ahead in our own lives. And, so, let's begin. We got a brand-new month. We got a brand-new week. We’ll read from the Evangelical Heritage Version of the Scriptures this week. Ezekiel chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 verse 15.

Prayer:

Father we thank You for Your word. We thank You that we have this image of all things new - brand-new week, brand-new month, brand-new territory in the Scriptures - and it brings us a sense of sigh. Like we've been through a lot this year and we are here, and You have been faithful, and You continue to lead us forward. We are so deeply grateful. And, so, Father as we move through these days, they have been indeed tumultuous days this year on a number of levels and continue to be on a number of levels right now as we continue to move through this time. May we find comfort and rest under the shadow of Your wings, that we are cradled and protected by Your mighty strong arm, that we are Your children and we are here bearing witness to the birth of new things because You are doing a new thing, You are continually doing a new thing and we want this new thing to continue in our hearts, this transformation, this sanctification, this setting us apart, that we lose our taste for the world and hunger and thirst for Your kingdom. Declaring along with the psalmist, better is one day in Your courts than a thousand anywhere else. And, so, as we move into this final couple months of the year we already know where gonna need You. When do we not?  We think we don't sometimes and then we take things up in our own power and strength and crash them. We’re not doing that anymore. We learned our lesson. We need You and only You. And we need Your ways and only Your ways in our hearts and in our lives. This is what will lead us on the narrow path that leads to life. And its life that we are looking for and life comes from You. You are the source, the source of life. And, so, come Holy Spirit we pray as we…as we consecrate this week and this month to You. Come Jesus in Your mighty name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website and indeed where you find out what is going on around here.

Man, this is it like not one of my favorite days of the year, not because there's anything really, really bad going on. It's…it’s…this is the day where in the clocks…the clocks set back. And, so, in the time zone that I live here in Nashville that just makes for…that makes…that makes it dark. It’s gonna be dark maybe a few minutes after 5 PM. By the time Christmas gets here it’ll be dark by 430 in the afternoon and that’s…that’s not my favorite. There’s nothing wrong…everything’s fine…it’s just not my favorite. But I'll be looking forward to it getting dark in our earlier today as will many of you. And, so, that is what's going on around here right now, but there are always different things going on in the Daily Audio Bible world especially at the Prayer Wall. It's an ongoing ever-growing ever-present thing where we can always have a place to go for prayer and always have a place to go and offer prayer. So, be aware of that. That's in the Community section of the website. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the little Drawer icon. That's in the upper left-hand corner and you can also get to the Prayer Wall. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you, humbly and profoundly. Thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement 877-942-4253 is the number to dial or just hit the Hotline button. It’s the little red button in the app if you’re using the app. And if you're not, you should be using the app. This is the portal…this is…this is where we’re developing community. And, so, be familiar. Be aware. That's where the…that's where the Hotline button is. So, check that out.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey my friends it’s Mike and I’ve been in this journey with you for over 10 years and when you offer a prayer request you should know that there are people like me who are just instantly praying with you and for you. And when you feel alone you’re not alone and when you feel like you can’t go on and there’s no one in your corner look over your shoulder you got your DAB back there just cheering you on and praying for you and believing with you. So, this…this call is really to challenge and encourage and…and really ask everyone in the DAB to journey through the Daily Audio Proverb for the next 30 days, hopefully for the month of November. Each day invest five minutes in…in the Daily Audio Proverb and you can hit it right there in the app and if you do and if you let it permeate your life, your relationships, how you respond, it will have a dramatic impact. Proverbs 8 says you’ll have more joy, you will find life and grace. And then actually if we don’t get wisdom or if we refuse wisdom that we’re only hurting ourselves. We’re actually moving toward death and not towards life. And I…I found this myself a couple years ago, how I was…I was responding foolishly, and I realized, “wow! I need more wisdom. Where do I get that?” And I heard Brian mention the Daily Audio Proverb. Changed my life. I invite you to take the challenge for the next 30 days, five minutes a day, Daily Audio Proverb. You won’t regret it and you’ll be glad you did. Your Father is madly in love with you any he gave you this gift. I love you guys. Bye.

Good morning my name is __ I am calling in for prayer. I’m having a hard time right now. I need a place to live. I’ve been watching…listening to Brian for about four or five years. It’s my first-time calling in. I would like for all of you to pray for me to help…to ask God to help me find a place to live. I’m kinda down right now but I’m trying to pull myself up and keep going and wait on the Lord to guide me and help me find a place to live. So, please pray for me. I love you all and thank you Brian for what you do every day. Bye.

This prayer goes out to Brian from Australia. I heard his call for prayer about saving his marriage and being patient and stepping up to stay in it and I just wanted to say I’ve been there my brother. The strength you’re showing is amazing. Your love for your wife is amazing and for your family and kids is amazing. I just pray that God directs you and guides you and keeps your family safe and together. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. And good luck brother.

This is Candace from Oregon please join me in prayer is for Radiant Rachel’s stepdaughter Gabby, I believe her name is Gabby. Lord, we ask You to surround this beautiful Young woman. We ask You that she would be completely freed from all foul spirits that have been harassing her in any way and that the only spirit allowed to surround her is the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ over and under her, in front of her, behind her, and on either side. I pray Lord that she would just become free to become everything that You made her to be in all her beauty Lord. I pray that she will take medicines that are helpful, that You will just restore her health by any means You choose Lord, that You give her robust health. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and for His sake. We ask You Lord to bless Radiant Rachel’s entire household. Pour out Your blessing on them Lord and put a hedge of protection around even the building, the house itself and especially guard the hearts of each person and their family. We ask this in Jesus’ name and for His sake and to His honor and glory. May we all become obedient to You Lord, taking every thought captive to the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

[lawrenceop]

Holy Land Retrospective - Day 5

Reminder: clicking on the link for each photo (links are all in red text) will take you to the Flickr page where you can see the photo in larger sizes.

Start with DAY 1, or go back to DAY 2, or DAY 3, or DAY 4, read on!

CHRISTMAS IN BETHLEHEM 

Bethlehem is surprisingly close to Jerusalem, only about 45 minutes’ drive so we could have a later start after a late night coming back from Galilee. We prayed the Rosary as we journeyed to the city called the ‘House of Bread’, and very soon we saw the concrete wall topped with barbed wire that bisects the landscape and surrounds the city where the Prince of Peace had been born. Crossing the military checkpoint was a simpler process than I had expected: we were scrutinised by several gun-toting soldiers and then waved on. On the other side of the wall, there was colourful grafitti and art that gave expression to the sadness of this situation. 

It was a rather sobering start to our pilgrimage to the Grotto of the Nativity. But, then again, Jesus had been born into a similar situation: his parents had travelled the long distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem because of a census ordered by the Roman emperor, whose might and military presence controlled the local populace. This was a violent and brutal age. The emperor’s Judean vassal king, Herod, would order a massacre of innocent baby boys, but it was his imperial governor, Pilate, who would eventually finish the job and execute the true King who had been born in Bethlehem. But despite what the powers of this earth might imagine, God is ultimately in charge, and all are subject to his providence and governance.

“Why this tumult among nations, among peoples this useless murmuring? They arise, the kings of the earth, princes plot against the Lord and his Anointed. "Come, let us break their fetters, come, let us cast off their yoke." He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord is laughing them to scorn...

The Lord said to me: "You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.

Now, O kings, understand, take warning, rulers of the earth; serve the Lord with awe and trembling, pay him your homage.” (from Psalm 2)

PHOTO 20: Bethlehem is built on a rather hilly area with the Basilica of the Nativity at one of the highest points it seems. Emerging from narrow side streets onto the white-stone paved Manger Square that shone in the bright sunlight, we heard the joyful peal of bells coming from the Basilica. The ancient church itself, which dates to 529, looked like a fortress. We were faced with a blank wall of monumental white stone blocks and in a corner, a small opening that only a child could walk through; everyone else would have to stoop to get into the church. This is the main doorway into the Nativity Basilica, and it had been made successively smaller by Muslim caliphs who had sufficient respect for Jesus to not destroy the church but they wanted to make it harder for people to get in! However, these rulers were inadvertantly preaching about the Incarnation. For thus the Almighty God had bent down to come to us in humility, becoming a little child in Bethlehem!

When we entered the Basilica of the Nativity, which is built over the cave where Jesus had been born, we heard the singing of Byzantine chant, the chink of small bells on golden censers, and we saw a huddle of people around the iconostasis who were gathered for the Divine Liturgy. The ancient liturgical forms and chants give life to a building as ancient as this, and it brought me an awe-filled joy to hear the priests singing in this church. It seemed fitting that as we recalled the first Christmas night when the angels sang in the heavens, that we should hear bells and song as soon as we approached this place.

Golden mosaics (recently restored) gleamed on the walls of the church, and these date to the 12th century. This photo shows the Genealogy of Christ according to St Matthew, which is read on Christmas eve. Above the row of the ancestors of Christ are arches within which are enthroned Bibles and inscriptions from the decrees of various Councils of the Church concerning the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. Scripture and Tradition, therefore, are represented on the walls of this ancient Basilica because both together reveal and point to the person of Jesus Christ whose birthplace we had come to venerate. 

“So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.” – Mt 1:17

PHOTO 21: After a votive Mass of Christmas in the adjoining Catholic church (run by the Franciscans, as in all the holy places of Israel), we returned to the Basilica of the Nativity. The Grotto, which is right under the main Sanctuary of the church, and which is part of a network of underground caves (including one in which St Jerome lived), would only be opened after the Divine Liturgies had finished. So, we waited in silence, and the crowds gradually swelled, jostling to get down some rather steep steps descending into the cave where Jesus Christ had been born.

The steps are just to the right of this photo - everybody is facing it. And from this south transept of the Basilica, one can see the whole nave of the church that was built by the emperor Justinian in 529. He intended it to be “of such splendour, size and beauty that none even in the Holy City [of Jerusalem] should surpass it.” Happily, this 6th-century Basilica in Bethlehem is now the oldest church to have survived among all the holy sites – the Constantinian basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, for example, was largely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Hakim in 1009 who had built a huge fire even over the Empty Tomb of Christ! The church has witnessed 1400 years of a turbulent history in the Holy Land as the armies of Persians, Fatimids, Byzantines, Franks, Turks, and modern-day Israel have all sought to control the area. But despite some vandalism and pillaging, it has survived. Those mosaics, the great wooden roof, the 4th-century pillars of the nave painted with Latin saints in the 12th-century – all which can be glimpsed in this photo – are survivors of a great history. 

In 1009, when Hakim tried to eradicate the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, this entire church survived because the local Muslims protected it. Why? Because since 639, they too had been allowed to come into this same south transept where we were now standing for their own prayers. Suddenly, the abstract notions of religious tolerance and of divine hospitality, welcoming the stranger into the house of God, become very concrete, and this situation in Bethlehem again gives us some insight into the mysterious workings of divine Providence. No one, after all, could have expected God to become Man but often God governs his creation in unexpected ways and through unexpected persons.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder.” – Isa 9:6

PHOTO 22: After lunch and some time in a shop owned by the local Christian community, we visited the Shepherd’s Field a few minutes drive from the Basilica where they had received their angelic annunciation: 

“Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” – Lk 2:10-12

A beautiful little chapel marks the site, again built over some caves where the shepherds would have taken shelter from the elements, and standing under the resonant dome of the chapel, we sang a Christmas carol that echoed the angelic chorus: Gloria in excelsis Deo! (cf Lk 2:14). A number of little altars with paintings of the shepherds are found in this chapel, and I was particularly taken by this one. It illustrates a line in the Gospel that I seldom notice:

“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them." – Lk 2:20 

The shepherds, like us, are pilgrims, and two millennia ago they had gone in faith to the Manger of Bethlehem, to that some spot which we had waited hours to see and touch and venerate and contemplate in prayer. So, like them, we too are now filled with joy as we return to our homes. Therefore, let us also glorify God and praise him for all we have heard and seen on this Holy Land pilgrimage!

PHOTO 23: We returned to Jerusalem with some hours to spare before dinner so while some plunged into the pool or into their beds for a siesta I, of course, plunged straight into the Old City of Jerusalem and headed for the Holy Sepulchre. On the way there, I passed one of these shops and couldn’t resist some freshly-pressed pomegranate juice which they served combined with shaved ice and some syrup. On a hot afternoon such as this it was wonderful! 

Pomegranates were numbered among those fruits that Moses’s scouts (or spies) brought back to the people of Israel to show them the fruitfulness of the land that God had promised them: 

“And they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they brought also some pomegranates and figs.” – Num 13:23

The promegrantate, therefore, is a symbol of God’s promise to make us fruitful if we remain united to him. Thus Jesus says: “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5)

PHOTO 24: I’d brought a fish-eye lens with me on this trip to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is Golgotha, or Calvary, the “Place of the Skull”. The people, coming from East and West, were part of a long queue that went down the stairs and reached the main entrance. They had come to see the place where the Lord of Life had died, giving his life so that we might have life. 

“And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last." – Lk 13:29-30 

The Latin (ie: Roman Catholic) chapel and altar is just to the right of this photo, next to the site of the Crucifixion. This is the Greek Orthodox chapel here on the summit of Calvary, and a Greek Orthodox priest stands watch at all times, often hurrying along those who are taking too long. What people do when they get here is to crawl under the altar, and they can place their hands (or objects) into the hole there which reaches down to the rock of Calvary itself. On my final visit here, I lowered the Crucifix attached to my Rosary into that cavity. 

On this occasion, I came to pray, to observe, and to take a few photos of this unique and holy site. 

“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because, by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.” – St Francis of Assisi

PHOTO 25: Leaving the Holy Sepulchre church at sundown, we saw many Orthodox Jews rushing towards the Jewish quarter. It was Friday evening, and the Sabbath was about to begin, and they were on their way to the synagogue for prayers. In our hotel, the lifts (elevators) were automated on this night so that you would not push the buttons of the lift, and the meal was slightly more festive in honour of the Shabbat. 

This photo was taken at the Jaffa Gate, known in Arabic as ‘Bab el-Khalil’, the ‘Gate of the Friend’, which was built in 1538. As always in Jerusalem, all three of the great so-called Abrahamic religions are very visible: The Muslim inscription here is in praise of Allah and his friend, Ibrahim (Abraham), beneath which a Jewish family is passing on their way into the city, and of course, a Christian friar in the white habit of St Dominic is looking on!

May we all grow in friendship, converging on the One who is the greatest Friend to humanity, and who is the only Gate to heaven.

Tomorrow: Via Dolorosa; Mass and a miracle in the Empty Tomb; Hosannas from the Mount of Olives; and visiting Mount Sion.