#G.k Question

[daycourtofficial]

How the kingdom lights shined just for me and you

Pairing: Eris x Rhysand’s sister!reader | WC: 3.2k | warnings: depictions of violence

Summary: Eris tells his sons a story, letting them know how a strong knight defeated an evil dragon and saved the kingdom.

Note: this is a part of my gingerfucker series and mentions events that are detailed in ‘Cold was the steel of my axe to grind’. This is also anplay on the ‘retellings’ prompt for today - thought it’d be fun to have Eris sanitize how Beron died as a fairytale story @erisweekofficial

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” - G.K. Chesterton

The sound of wood clashing rang through the room before being immediately followed by a trio of giggles. Eris stood outside the door, arms crossed debating what to do, listening as the children inside pretended to be knights defeating an evil king. Or was it a dragon they were fighting and they were Peregryn warriors? It was impossible to keep track of Atlas, Nyx, and Leif’s antics. Their interests changed so quickly, it was impossible to keep track of what was the thing to be during their playtimes.

Their games of make believe often took elements of Eris’s life and formed a hodgepodge of stories where most of the time they are brave warriors seeking to defend their lands.

The boys enjoyed it. Eris’s back didn’t whenever he was deemed the bad guy, their small swords leaving bruises that seemed to last for a week.

Early fights between the boys had led to many tears - they all wanted to be the hero, the good guy. They did not know the males their fathers had been before, the males who had done unspeakable things to survive.

Before he could make the decision himself, Leif had made it for him by appearing in the door way and holding onto Eris’s trouser leg. Eris ran his fingers through Leif’s red locks, forcing his son to look up at him.

Leif was incredibly sensitive - an empath like his mother, Leif often became overwhelmed incredibly quickly. Fat tears would begin rolling down his cheeks before anyone could realize what went wrong. Nyx and Atlas, both a few years older than Leif, often became too rambunctious for the smallest Vanserra.

But Leif’s eyes were bright and full of joy, not a hint of upset on his small face.

You and the Archerons had gone to spend the evening in a cabin a few miles away. You weren’t far from the Forest House or from Eris’s mind, but you insisted you needed a weekend before this next babe came to be yourself. Three kids under five was going to be a lot and the two of you wanted to soak up every moment possible before having a newborn again.

Unfortunately, Leif took the separation from his mother much harder than Atlas did, but seemed to be doing surprisingly well. Eris crouched down, getting down to Leif’s level to ask, “are you alright?”

The small boy nodded before a yawn escaped his mouth, betraying his real feelings.

“Are you tired?”

Leif’s nod at that question was more pitiful, as if a full nod were too taxing for the small boy. Eris opened his arms, allowing Leif to wrap his arms around Eris’s neck before he stood back up, walking into the playroom, finding it impossible to find the floor from the toys scattered across it. He got peeks at the green rug beneath, but various plushies and toy armor littered the floor hiding it.

Eris whistled, the two whirlwinds slowing down enough to take form as small boys, their swords going lax at their sides.

“Is this a playroom or a graveyard for lost toys for all of Prythian?”

The two looked to each other as they fell into a mess of giggles, the cousins looking completely unrelated. Atlas so far had inherited no features from his mother, the little boy pale and freckly much like his father, his cheeks often pink from how hot he ran.

Nyx on the other hand was quite tan, a byproduct of the time he spent in the sun this summer. His small wings fluttered in excitement, not quite strong enough to launch him from the ground but enough to produce a decent wind.

Eris had gotten all three of them washed up an hour ago, allowing them to work out the last of their energy in the playroom where he knew they wouldn’t get dirty again. He figured Lucien had crept off to his own rooms to change, his clothes dripping with water after Atlas snuck his hound, Pumpkin, into their bath and Lucien had to chase down the wet beast.

Eris was so amused at the sight he didn’t tell his brother he could simply call for the dog, instead letting him slip and slide across the floors in an attempt to get to him.

The boys stood in their pajamas, all looking up at Eris. He moved his head toward the door, motioning for Atlas and Nyx to follow him.

“Come on. Time for bed.”

The two small boys groaned, but Leif merely nuzzled into Eris’s neck as he carried him into the room down the hall.

Despite the size of the Forest House, Atlas and Leif did much better when sharing a room. The two had been kept separate when Leif was born, until Leif was around eight months old and Atlas woke up just about every night and dragged Leif into his bedroom.

Most mornings Eris found Leif in Pumpkin’s dog bed in the corner of Atlas’s room, curled up with his older brother, Pumpkin sleeping peacefully on his son’s bed.

The first morning it happened caused Eris to spiral. Finding Leif’s crib empty sent him on a hunt throughout the house, waking up everybody in the process until he went to check on Atlas, finding the small babe in his brother’s arms.

It has been several years and the boys fight on occasion, but overall are quite happy to share a room. For tonight they get to have Nyx share their room too.

To prepare for their cousin, the boys grabbed their mattresses, pushing them together on the floor and putting pillows and blankets all over the floor so all three of them could lay together.

Nyx’s wings were still quite small - not big enough to support his weight, they barely stuck out around his shoulders. The sight of Nyx’s wings still sent a twinge of guilt through Eris.

It had been centuries since your wings were taken from you, but Eris still remembers the venom he had spat at you right before you lost them and how incredibly small you looked when Tamlin had showed up with you, your back a bloody mess.

You had made peace with it long ago, but every so often whenever he finds himself with an Illyrian nearby, he wishes you could have those wings back, even if for just a moment. To watch you glide in the air, the winds of Autumn that had pushed him so far holding you up.

Eris lit the candles in the room, dusk casting the room in darkness. Leif’s fingers gripped his collar tighter as he crouched down, failing to put him on the floor.

“Can you tell us a story?”

Atlas perked up at Leif’s sleepy voice, practically vibrating in excitement. “The one with the dragon, please daddy?”

Atlas clutched his hands together in pleading, bouncing up as Eris agreed. He knew what Leif’s question was for - the small boy didn’t want to be set down yet, too content in his father’s arms to be left alone. If only Beron were alive to watch him cave to the demands of toddlers - his heart would stop beating in anger.

Eris stood back up, all attempts of removing Leif forgotten as he moved to the rocking chair in the corner, sitting with Leif curled up to his chest just like he had done hundreds of times before. Atlas and Nyx followed, sitting right in front of Eris on the mattresses that lay across the floor. He rocked for a moment - both to gather his bearings, deciding where to start the story, and because the anticipation killed the little boys before him.

“A long, long time ago, there once lived a knight.”

“What’s his name?”

Atlas was quick to shush his cousin, annoyed at his interruption no matter how many times he had heard the story. Leif began tapping on Eris’s chest, wanting him to keep talking, the sound of his voice soothing.

“We’ll just call him the knight. The knight lived a long time ago in a kingdom that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Why not?”

Eris had no idea where Nyx’s inquisitive nature came from - his father certainly didn’t look too hard at the world outside of his dim perspective. The boy probably spent too much time with Azriel - anytime the spymaster was seen by either of his kids, they both ran rampant with questions of “why” and “how”, partly because Azriel would answer every single one of their questions, and because in their presence, he would also ask why and how and who questions.

“You’ll find out.”

Nyx opened his mouth, but Atlas moved his hand over his cousin’s mouth. “Stop.”

Eris continued with his story. “The knight lived in a land ruled by an evil dragon. He breathed fire at anyone who dared try to overthrow him.”

Nyx’s eyes grew large, excitement filling them as Eris pretended to breathe out fire.

“He was a big, nasty beast. His fangs are the size of a door. He had big red scales that covered his entire body, shielding him.”

Maybe he began embellishing these stories a bit.

“The handsome knight-”

“When’d he become handsome?”

Atlas slapped his hand onto his forehead in aggravation and Eris had to bite his tongue from laughing. The little boy hardly ever stopped talking and to watch his frustrations at his cousin doing the same was very amusing.

“He was always handsome.”

Eris had slowly been telling Atlas and Leif stories of his life in a much more palatable manner. Replacing their grandfather with a dragon, making Amarantha a dragon, making Rhys an evil king who hated him. He’d never admit it to anyone, but it was quite fun.

In one story he made Lucien a donkey just because it amused him. Lucien had been less than thrilled at his fictional depictions, even going so far as to try to tell his own stories to the boys. They didn’t like Lucien’s storytelling, so much so they begged him not to tell any stories.

“The incredibly good looking knight decided he needed to make a plan to kill the dragon,” giggles accompanied his words. “The knight had one issue: he was in love with a princess from a different kingdom.”

Leif gasped as if this were a new story to him - he enjoyed all aspects of Eris’s stories, but Leif was always happiest to hear about the princess. Whether or not Leif knew the princess was his mother, Eris wasn’t sure.

“And her king wouldn’t let her live in the kingdom of the dragon.”

“Why not?”

“Because dragons love the taste of princesses!” Nyx shrieked a little, and for good measure he added, “and the taste of little boys.”

Eris enjoyed riling his brothers up when they were young - one of the traits the centuries haven’t worn down. Once they both stopped screaming, Eris continued his story.

“So, the knight began planning with the other knights of the kingdom. They spent months making a plan to get rid of the dragon. He was killing their crops, even eating some of the people, and hoarding all of the kingdom’s gold. No one had any money or food. They devised a plan and set a date to take down the dragon. On the night before, the knight slipped away to see his princess one last time, to catch a glimpse of her before going to battle.

“She was as beautiful as he remembered, their last meeting was months ago and he thought of it often. Her king didn’t approve of their relationship, but they met secretly without him knowing. She invited him up into her chambers, where he told her the plans for the next day. He wanted to say goodbye, wanted to see her one last time. He gave her a kiss farewell-” giggles filled the room. “And then the knight left once more. It was the hardest thing for him to do.”

“What was?”

“Saying goodbye to his princess.”

The boys were enraptured in the story, paying close attention to every word from Eris.

“Why?”

Atlas didn’t admonish Nyx for his question, wanting to know the answer himself.

“Because he loved her very much.”

He rubbed Leif’s back softly, rocking the chair gently as he continued.

“The knight left the princess’s tower, heading to find a secret weapon.” Nyx’s wings fluttered, the wind brushing over Eris and Leif. “He walked through the kingdom to find a special, magical sword. It had been hidden centuries before, waiting for the rightful person to come find it.”

Atlas pretended to wave a sword in his hand, making sounds that somewhat resembles clashing as he and Nyx pretended to be fighting with swords.

“The knight rode in on his horse, meeting the other knights as they rode in and fought the dragon head on.”

“Did the horses fight?”

“No, they stayed far away as the knights used their swords to pierce and stab the dragon over and over again, but he remained unharmed.”

Atlas and Nyx began acting out the story, Atlas grabbing a pillow and pretending it was the dragon.

“The dragon paid special attention to our knight, his teeth sharp as he kept scratching and biting the knight. He was injured, but he kept fighting on with his magical sword. The dragon hit him with his tail, causing the sword to go flying through the air.”

Eris’s voice rose and fell with the story, his words glossing over the atrocities of the day. He could not figure out a nice way to add in how their mother poisoned at minimum twenty-five of Beron’s closest advisors.

Their mouths were wide open now, desperate to know how the tale ends, Nyx allowing his inquisitive nature to take a backseat to Eris’s storytelling.

“The knight thought it would be over as the dragon snarled at him, opening his mouth so the knight could see his big, nasty teeth. He could even see some of the spinach he had eaten for dinner.”

The boys erupted in giggles, softs echoes of “ewwwww” littered the room.

“The knight had accepted his fate. He knew it was over, and all he could think about was how grateful he was he got to see his princess one last time. He had closed his eyes, preparing to die, but the dragon stopped breathing his nasty breath in the knight’s face.

“The dragon had turned, only to find one of the other knights, Sir Flint, had come from behind. He had picked up the magical sword and slashed the dragon’s neck!”

Tiny gasps came from his audience, but he continued to his favorite part of the story.

“Blood poured out of the dragon as he fell, his big body making a big thunk as he fell. Some say it even caused an earthquake because he was so heavy.”

Eris couldn’t tell them about the extent of Flint’s sacrifice - not yet anyway. But he would make sure they knew his name, even if he were merely a fairytale hero.

“Once the dragon was slain, the knight removed his armor to show that he was secretly a prince the whole time!”

The boys screeched in excitement, jumping up and searching for their swords to start fighting again, disappointed to remember they were left in the playroom. Once they settled back down, Eris continued.

“The other knights gave the prince a crown, making him king of the kingdom. His first act was to go find his princess and bring her to his kingdom, making her the queen.

“The end. Now, I think it’s time for bed.”

The boys groaned in protest, but complied. Grabbing their blankets and settling onto the beds all over the floor. Atlas and Nyx nestled in, hiding themselves amongst the blankets and pillows. Eris stood, Leif’s body having grown heavy with sleep, his steps careful to navigate the various pillows, trying to find a spot for his son.

Leif groaned at the stirring, but Eris was quick to hum softly, soothing something in Leif.

“What happened to the prince?” Nyx’s wings fluttered with anticipation, the blankets moving with his joy, wanting to know what happened to such a brave male.

Eris leaned in conspiratorially, the boys leaning into him as if he were going to tell them a secret.

“His kingdom is long gone, but he’s still alive. He wanders the lands of Prythian. He was last seen in Winter a few years ago. They say he hunts for little boys who stay up past their bedtimes.”

Their small shrieks made Eris want to laugh, but he kept a straight face despite himself. He looked to Leif, his youngest son much more susceptible to these tall tales, only to find him asleep once more. His eyes were closed, his round cheeks pressed into his chest making the freckles on his face scrunch together.

Atlas and Nyx had quickly thrown the blankets over themselves, their voices quiet telling the other to stop talking. He was able to find a spot for Leif next to Atlas, gently moving his head to a new pillow, draping a blanket over him.

“Good night.”

They echoed his sentiment, their voices muffled through the fabric of their blankets. Eris shut the door behind himself, listening to the two cousins bicker back and forth, their voices getting quieter as the dark lulled them to sleep. He started walking down the hallway, only to find Lucien walking his way. His brother changed his stride to walk with Eris, following him through the halls.

Eris and Lucien had agreed to keep the kids for the first night you were gone, and Rhysand would pick them up in the morning and keep them all day and night. His brother in law had been incredibly confident he could handle the three boys on his own, perhaps from some well-placed snark from Eris at how his one child was much different from two, let alone a third.

Eris didn’t have to manipulate people anymore, he could live as he wished to, showing whatever image of himself he wanted. But he’d be damned if he ever stopped tricking the High Lord of the Night Court for his own amusement.

“I was thinking about tomorrow.”

Eris hummed as Lucien spoke, the two moving toward Eris’s sitting room, both in desperate need of alcohol and to not have someone clinging to them.

“I heard from Nesta that Rhys was so smug he could handle the three boys by himself that Azriel and Cassian are going to some sporting event.”

“Hm, wonder where he’d get such ridiculous notions of himself, as if he had something to prove.”

Lucien’s laugh was barking, but he continued. “I think we should give the kids a bunch of sugar before they go to Night. It’ll drive Rhysand up a wall. He may never want to see your kids again, though.”

Divider by @tsunami-of-tears

Permanent taglist: @vanilla-seabass @cyrygher @lees-chaotic-brain @topaz125 @chessebookgirl @fides25 @lady-of-tearshed @ashbatz @fxckmiup @lilah-asteria @justvibbinghere @daughterofthemoons-stuff @mybestfriendmademe @heartless-tate @tsunami-of-tears @idrkwhatthisisimsorry @olive-main @azrielsmate3 @pit-and-the-pen @durgenyx @dee-writes-smut @chairofchaos @thelov3lybookworm @berryzxx @throneofsmut @kennedy-brooke @prythianpages @itsswritten @acotarxreader @milswrites @the-golden-jhope @hannzoaks @secretlyhers @tothestarsandwhateverend @sarawritestories @chxosangxl

Eris taglist: @magicstrengthandcourage @book-obsessed124

Thanks for reading❣️

[inklings-challenge]

The Chesterton Challenge: Official Announcement

G.K. Chesterton was an extremely prolific writer and artist with a vast lifetime output of just about every kind of writing there is--novels, essays, articles, poems, biographies, short stories, etc.

His birthday is in May.

To honor both of these things, the Inklings Challenge blog is going to devote the month of May to hosting the Chesterton Challenge.

The Challenge

The Chesterton Challenge is an event that challenges Christian creatives of all kinds to create something every day of May--be it a story, drawing, poem, doodle, meal, sculpture, sentence, puppet, essay, scribble, portion of a project, whatever. If it involves making something, it counts.

Every day throughout May, there will be a post on the Inklings Challenge blog with a completely optional prompt to inspire creative works. People can then reblog that post either showing us or telling us about what they created that day.

Participants may interact with as many or as few days as they like, and are welcome to join in at any point during the month.

Any questions may be directed to the Inklings Challenge blog via ask or DM.

And that's the Chesterton Challenge! Now go forth and create!

[kaleb-is-definitely-sane]

Hello, hello lovely Kaleb! One of my upcoming writing projects is about a queer Christian who grew up in a very strict Christian family. She is told that God doesn't love her and that she is going to Hell, but this girl has a passionate and loving faith.

If you are comfortable, could you please describe how faith feels to you. I imagine the whole concept must be very powerful and overwhelming at times, but it isn't something I've experienced, so I don't want to inaccurately represent the experience of being Christian. I'd be grateful for any small contribution, but again, if this isn't a question you want to answer don't worry about it at all :)

Thank you so much,

Sage

Xx

Okay. So. For reference. Sage sent me this ask on May 19, 120 days ago. And I thought, "Oh, this'll be easy to answer." But then in June I was proven just how wrong that thought was. It was my best friend's birthday, and I broke down. Crying. Screaming. Shaking. Mad at God (told him to get over it) and asking him to kill me.

He didn't.

He sent me a frog. (This was actually very sweet and personal to me; it makes more sense in context lol).

And then I yelled at him for being kind to me lol. "Stop being kind to me, I am trying to be mad at you!"

What I'm trying to say is it's not easy and I am so, so sorry I ever thought it was.

The thing is tho, many people (queer non christians; straight christians) think it is. "Oh why don't you just stop being Christian?" "Oh why don't you just stop being gay?" As if it's that easy.

To quote G.K. Chesterton, "A religion is not the church a man goes to but the cosmos he lives in". My religion is not my aesthetic or whatever; it's my cosmology. It is the way I understand all of reality and is not separate from any aspect of my life. I cannot stop being Christian or stop believing in Yahweh, the God of the Bible, any sooner than I can change my skin color. Or my sexuality.

That said I should say there are 4 main theological views on this:

Side A: Affirming. Side A is the position that homosexuality is not in conflict with Christianity and that homosexual relationships can be pleasing to God. Sex between homosexual partners is no more sinful than sex between heterosexual partners and gay people should be welcome in the church. Gay marriage is supported.

Side B: Chaste. The idea that being queer is not a sin, but that the bible clearly says that gay sex is iniquity. That said, there is nothing wrong with calling yourself gay; you just couldn't actually be in a relationship with someone ss.

Side X: Orientation Change. This is the "pray the gay away" crowd. Conversion therapy advocates. You need Jesus to fundamentally change you.

Side Y: New Identity. These people also believe that that it's not just homosexual sex that's sinful but any homosexual thoughts or feelings whatsoever, however involuntary. You must live in complete celibacy forever and cannot even call yourself gay.

I'm Side B. I think. I'm side b the way I'm bi which is to say most of the time lol. I have many Side A mutuals and I love and adore all of them. People who are Side B and Side A (in my experience) tend to be some of the best bible readers and the ones most interested in theology. Part of that lies in the fact that we have to constantly justify our faith and identity to practically everyone. Seriously. It is why i avoid talking about my sexuality to Christians, and my faith to nonbelievers.

Side X is literal heresy. Anyone who says that God hates someone is a heretic because God is Love. 1 John 4:8. To say that God hates someone is to say God isn't love which is to change God's identity which is heresy. (You will not find my theology slacking)

I find Side Y ridiculous at least to me personally. I'm gay; you're a Republican. One of those is definitely worse and it's not the former.

As such I also have a firm conviction that no one is going to hell for being gay. First: I don't believe in hell as the word is not even in the mother freaking Bible!!! The word is Gehenna which is an actual physical place south of Jerusalem and that fact has serious theological implications that people need to freaking consider and I could go on an entire rant about this, but I will not for the sake of my mental health. *takes some deep breaths* Where was I? Right. No one is going to hell for being gay; and no one is going to the New Jerusalem for being straight. That is no where in the scriptures. And when someone says I am a sinner who is going to hell for being gay I'm like 1) You obviously don't know me as nothing is more important to me then my faith and 2) I don't trust your exegesis of scripture and am not really interested in your take.

So... I tried and I don't even know if I answered your question well T-T. Summary I guess is:

It's freaking hard but what else am I going to do? My God emptied himself, became a human, and died the torturous death of a slave so *shrugs*

Hamartiology sucks. Not as a concept but as an obsession that some people have. Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly. This should be someone's obsession, not whether some stranger is going to hell or not. No one goes to hell when they die. Please find me a bible verse that says that *rolls eyes*

God is love and to say otherwise is heresy.

Surround yourself with loving and passionate believers from many different backgrounds and learn their thoughts. Nothing has made me a better Christian than that.

So... yeah.

I am going to regret posting this; aren't I?

[hexagr]

G.K. Chesterton waxes poetic about defending seemingly pointless things and lost causes:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.” This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

[apesoformythoughts]

“Speaking as a Catholic, I am very proud and happy to say that I know of no reason, in heaven or earth, why a barmaid should not some time or other be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church. It is simply a question of in what way, with what motives, and in what spirit she minded the bar.”

— G.K. Chesterton: “On Vulgar Abuse,” in G.K.'s Weekly (Oct/06/1928)

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 14

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “You attacked reason. It’s bad theology.”

Number 14 is…Father Brown.

Originally created by author G.K. Chesterton, Father Brown is one of the most famous detectives in English literature. Having said that, I must immediately make a confession: I’m not THAT well-versed (perhaps surprisingly) with the original “Father Brown” short stories Chesterton wrote. I’ve read some of them; specifically, I’ve now read all the ones collected in the book “The Innocence of Father Brown.” (My favorite is “The Invisible Man,” which, for the record, has absolutely nothing to do with anyone named Griffin). However, beyond that, I’m not especially familiar with the original writing. I also have not seen either of the two English-language film versions I know about (one played by Walter Connolly, another by Alec Guinness), both of which were based on the story “The Blue Cross.” And I should also immediately state that I have seen only one episode of the TV series starring Kenneth More from the 1970s, which I know has been highly lauded in years since.

So…since it seems like I am unfamiliar with nearly EVERYTHING that has brought this character into popular culture…how DO I know Father Brown, and why is he so high on the list? Well, because there is one version of the character and his universe that I am VERY familiar with: the most recent TV series adaptation of the stories, which began in 2013 and is still going strong today (with a new season coming this year). This show, simply and appropriately titled “Father Brown,” stars Mark Williams (whom many may recognize for playing Mr. Weasley in the Harry Potter films). While it frequently changes a LOT from the original Chesterton stories, the show is still EXTREMELY good. In my opinion, it modernizes the stories in a way that is pretty decently handled, so that even if you haven’t read the originals, you can still get a lot out of what’s being given to you. The spirit of Chesterton’s work is still intact. Much of what I say here will be informed by Williams’ portrayal of the character, which is why I wanted to make all this clear right off the bat.

Father Brown is an example of what might be called “the busybody detective,” or even more appropriately “the accidental detective.” What I mean by this is that he’s not in any way officially tied to the police; in fact, the police frequently see him as a nuisance, who gets in the way of their work and often makes them look like fools. He also never makes a career or a proper hobby out of his detective work. Being a detective just…kind of happens to him. Father Brown, on the surface, is a simple and humble local priest; a God-fearing, God-loving man of the cloth who is charitable, good-hearted, and at times seems sort of fumbling and shambolic. He’s not someone, therefore, you’d expect would make a great sleuth.

A great sleuth, of course, is exactly what this mild-mannered Catholic priest is. Father Brown’s rather simple demeanor belies a steely will, an even more steely faith, and a very cunning and alert mind. He typically ends up playing detective not so much out of a desire to one-up the police or some obsessive desire, but simply because he notices something amiss and begins to question why that is. His greatest assets as a sleuth can be summed up as two simple attributes: common sense, and, above all, human empathy. Father Brown doesn’t necessarily look for fingerprints or psychoanalyze criminals like a forensic profiler, but simply notices things that don’t make sense and then tries to make sense of them. He uses his understanding of people’s personalities, looks at their character traits and ideals, and uses them to his advantage; if he feels it isn’t in someone’s nature to shoot in cold blood, he follows his instinct, and he’s usually proven correct. If he sees someone showing some weakness or vulnerability, he latches onto that to try and sway them. He tries to redeem his enemies more often than he tries to ruin them. Contrariwise, this man also knows when NOT to trust people. While he’s noble and forgiving, Father Brown isn’t a pushover. In fact, the Williams version is revealed to be a war veteran; he’s seen some action (and horror) in his lifetime. This, combined with his devotion to the confessional booth, means that he knows very well that people are not perfect. With that said, despite being a religious soul, he isn’t superstitious, and tries to be tolerant of others with different beliefs. In short, Father Brown seems to understand that good people are good people, and tries to find the good in everyone, even those he seeks to defeat. Whether you’re spiritual or not, he’s not only a good detective, but arguably a good role model: I think a lot of us wish we had a Father Brown in our lives.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 13!

CLUE: “Are you with me? You might even be way ahead of me.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Megan Gafford

Published: May 9, 2024

There is nothing wrong with constructing our own human meaning, without invoking a god. But the risks involved are captured by a pithy insight attributed to G.K. Chesterton: “When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” As people have argued since at least 1790, when Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, sapping society of traditional religious belief can prepare the way for new ideologies controlled by murderous totalitarians like Robespierre—and later, Stalin and Mao.

In “Our Search for Meaning and the Dangers of Possession,” Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano details how a misplaced religious urge can derail both individuals and societies. She opens with variations on Chesterton’s theme:

“There is no such thing as not worshipping,” wrote novelist David Foster Wallace. “Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” C.G. Jung would have wholeheartedly agreed. He posited that psychic life is motivated by a religious instinct as fundamental as any other, and that this instinct causes us to seek meaning. “The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?” Jung wrote in his autobiography. “That is the telling question of his life.” There is empirical evidence that backs up Jung’s idea of a religious instinct. Researchers have found that the less religious people are, the more likely they are to believe in UFOs. “The Western world is, in theory, becoming increasingly secular—but the religious mind remains active,” writes psychology professor Clay Routledge, in The New York Times. He notes that belief in aliens and UFOs appears to be associated with a need to find meaning.

As the famous UFO poster from The X-Files put it, “I want to believe.”

Maria Popova has described the atheist’s need for meaning as equal parts poetic and tragic:

How do we manufacture this feeling of meaning given we are the product of completely austere impersonal forces and we are transient and we will die and return our borrowed stardust to this cold universe that made it?

Popova is riffing off astronomer Carl Sagan’s famous pronouncement that, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” The original Sagan sentiment is all starry-eyed wonder; Popova’s variation emits the agony of a sentient being balking at mortality. For some of us, having an expiration date imbues the search for meaning with both urgency and desperation. How we choose to cope defines our lives.

Marchiano cautions that worshipping the wrong thing can have dire consequences. She quotes David Foster Wallace:

The compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. Traditional religions do have features that make them less likely to become devouring. They draw on ancient traditions that are often philosophically rich, and they are knitted into the social structure of our society.

Famous atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali heeded this warning when she declared in November 2023 that she is now a Christian—an apostate from apostasy. The first reason she gave for converting to Christianity is her new-found conviction that liberal democratic civilisation depends on the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition:

That legacy consists of an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom, and dignity—from the nation-state and the rule of law to the institutions of science, health, and learning. As Tom Holland has shown in his marvelous book Dominion, all sorts of apparently secular freedoms—of the market, of conscience, and of the press—find their roots in Christianity. And so I have come to realize that [Bertrand] Russell and my atheist friends failed to see the wood for the trees. The wood is the civilization built on the Judeo-Christian tradition; it is the story of the West, warts and all. Russell’s critique of those contradictions in Christian doctrine is serious, but it is also too narrow in scope.

And the second reason Hirsi Ali gave is that she ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable:

Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life? Russell and other activist atheists believed that with the rejection of God, we would enter an age of reason and intelligent humanism. But the “God hole”—the void left by the retreat of the church—has merely been filled by a jumble of irrational, quasi-religious dogma.

Hirsi Ali concludes that “the erosion of our civilization will continue” without “the power of a unifying story.” And in this regard, she pronounces that, “Christianity has it all.” Notably absent from her road to Damascus moment is any profession of belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ—her religious urge is bound up with her distress at the dire consequences of worshipping the wrong thing.

Her friend Richard Dawkins has responded that atheists have many avenues for finding meaning and purpose. First among them, for the evolutionary biologist, is science:

Then there’s human love, there’s the beauty of a child, a tropical swim under the stars, a ravishing sunset, a Schubert quartet. There’s the art and literature of all the world. The warmth of an intimate embrace. But even if all such things leave you cold—and of course they don’t—even if you feel a ravenous need for more, what on Earth does that have to do with the truth claims of Christianity or any other religion? Even if life were intolerably bleak and empty—it isn’t, but even if it were—how could you, how could anyone, twist a need for solace into a belief in scriptural truth claims about the universe, simply because they make you feel good? Intelligent people don’t believe something because it comforts them. They believe it because, and only because, they have seen evidence that supports it. No, Ayaan, you are not a Christian, you are just a decent human being who mistakenly thinks you need a religion in order to remain so.

Marchiano challenges the strength of what Dawkins calls the “poetry of reality” with a series of case studies of individuals under the grip of “psychological possession,” a state in which “the conscious personality comes to identify with a powerful archetypal idea or image, becoming inflated and dangerously out [of] balance.” Those individuals either disregarded the poetry of reality or found it insufficient to satisfy their religious urges.

Marchiano’s first case study concerns Timothy Treadwell, whose life and death among Alaskan grizzly bears is documented in Werner Herzog’s 2005 film Grizzly Man. Treadwell was eaten alive by the bears in 2003. Marchiano writes:

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek meaning “possessed by God,” and Treadwell’s rapture as he describes grizzlies has a religious fervor. … Treadwell developed a distorted sense of mission, believing that his presence in Katmai was necessary to protect the bears from poachers. Protecting bears was his “calling in life,” and he became convinced that he had been singled out to do this work. “I’m the only protection for these animals,” he states emphatically in the film. In fact, there is no evidence that the bears in Katmai were under any threat from poaching. Nevertheless, the sense of mission Treadwell felt in relation to the bears gave him a sense of a special destiny. Bears carry an undeniably numinous energy and have forever been associated with the divine in various traditions. Treadwell had indeed made contact with the infinite. However, he lacked any structure to ground these experiences.

Like Treadwell, the ground-breaking primatologist Jane Goodall lived among the mighty creatures she studied. Defying the scientific community’s norms, Goodall gave the chimpanzees names instead of numbers, and described them in human-like terms, often attributing their behaviours to emotional states and ascribing to them a theory of mind. This was considered insufficiently objective. Her habit of socialising and making physical contact with the apes is also considered improper today.

But unlike Treadwell, Goodall did not become “possessed.” Far from developing delusions of intimacy with the chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, her familiarity taught her how readily they could become violent.

Goodall discovered that chimps are not vegetarian, as had been assumed, but hunt other animals for their meat. She observed a war break out between different chimp factions that dragged on for four years. After a particularly violent chimp assaulted her and almost broke her neck in 1989 (towards the end of her thirty years among the animals), Goodall began travelling through their territory with two bodyguards.

Whereas Treadwell’s psychological possession blinded him to the danger posed by grizzly bears, Goodall retained a lifelong fondness for chimpanzees while fully comprehending their capacity for cruelty.

Her greatest discovery was that chimps could fashion tools—an ability previously believed to be a unique, defining feature of humanity. Goodall showed that chimpanzees are more like humans than people had previously realised. Treadwell believed that grizzlies shared in his humanity (or that he shared in their bear-ness), but lacking Goodall’s ability to love animals as they are rather than as he wished them to be, his obsessive and unrequited love led to a foolish death.

So, was there something that inoculated Jane Goodall against psychological possession? If Marchiano is correct that traditional religious belief can be like a vaccine against “becoming inflated and dangerously out [of] balance,” then it is notable that Goodall professes belief in a higher power. In a 2021 interview, she claimed that “religion entered into me” at the age of 16, and: 

What I love today is how science and religion are coming together and more minds are seeing purpose behind the universe and intelligence. … We don’t live in only a materialistic world. Francis Collins drove home that in every single cell in your body there’s a code of several billion instructions. Could that be chance? No. There’s no actual reason why things should be the way they are, and chance mutations couldn’t possibly lead to the complexity of life on earth. This blurring between science and religion is happening more and more. Scientists are more willing to talk about it.

Dawkins would stridently disagree that the complexity of life on earth could not arise from what Popova called “austere impersonal forces.” Indeed, Goodall argues with Charles Darwin himself, who wrote in On the Origin of Species:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.

How curious that the scientist who discovered the kinship between humans and chimpanzees disagrees with the bedrock idea upon which the entire field of evolutionary biology is built: that the complexity of life on Earth results from an eons-long succession of tiny, incremental changes. Goodall uncovered a biological truth while denying a fundamental biological mechanism.

Darwin’s theories have long been at odds with religious belief. Could it be that by rejecting a fundamental aspect of evolution in order to safeguard her traditional religious belief, Goodall protected herself from psychological possession, thereby enabling her contribution to science?

Marchiano might find that argument compelling. She writes:

How do we worship without being eaten alive? A genuinely religious attitude in the psychological sense is an antidote to inflation. The word religion may come from the Latin religare, which means to bind fast, or place an obligation on. In contrast to puffed-up inflation, a religious attitude binds us to something larger, and puts upon us a sacred obligation to the infinite. An awareness of our dependence upon that which is larger breeds the humility without which wisdom is not possible. It reminds us that our ego is just a small part of us, and is dependent upon—and easily influenced by—irrational, unconscious forces that are beyond our full understanding.

If it is true that few people can safely satisfy their religious urge by simply appreciating the “poetry of reality,” then the pursuit of meaning and the pursuit of truth will sometimes be at odds. Or at least, humanity may come at truth obliquely, or embrace it only partially. Even as we appreciate how religion may safeguard against psychological possession, we should recognise the trade-off: we may have to sacrifice objective truth to the need for psychological or—for people like Hirsi Ali—social stability.

And yet, psychological stability is clearly necessary if we want to pursue truth. It is the difference between a Timothy Treadwell and a Jane Goodall. Some—perhaps many—people may only be able to discover certain truths (the violent behaviour of chimpanzees) by denying others (evolution by natural selection). Atheists will need to swallow that paradoxical and bitter pill. And yet, the religiously minded should not feel too pleased, either. Whatever protection their faith affords them has its limitations.

As Marchiano wisely notes, traditional religions can also become devouring. Conservative intellectual Jonah Goldberg agrees with both her argument and her caveat in his recent essay, “The Messianic Temptation”:

My theory of the case held that believing Christians and other traditional believers are partially immune to such heresies precisely because they don’t have holes in their souls to be filled up by secular idols. The space for God is filled by God. I still believe that. What I failed to fully account for is that the religious can fall for false idols and false prophets, too. After all, that’s the moral of the golden calf in the first place.

Goldberg describes how he once enjoyed poking fun at some American leftists for discussing Barack Obama in messianic terms—only to discover that many on the American right now talk about Trump delivering salvation. Goldberg recognizes that these are merely new incarnations of an old phenomenon:

At the beginning of the 20th century, champions of eugenics, nationalism, socialism, etc., claimed that Jesus was, variously, the first eugenicist, the first nationalist, the first socialist. Now Jesus is MAGA. It’s all very depressing. And annoying. But it isn’t really new. A New York Times correspondent covering the 1912 Progressive Party convention, described it as a “convention of fanatics.” Political speeches were interrupted by the singing of hymns and cries of “Amen!” “It was not a convention at all,” the Times reported. “It was an assemblage of religious enthusiasts. It was such a convention as Peter the Hermit held. It was a Methodist camp meeting done over into political terms.” The delegates sang “We Will Follow Jesus,” but with the name “Roosevelt” replacing Jesus. Roosevelt told the rapturous audience, “Our cause is based on the eternal principles of righteousness. … We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”

Sometimes people think they are serving their god, when they are really making their god serve a politician—a mere mortal in a famously corrupting line of work. Though they didn’t build their own temples from scratch, these people have rearranged the building blocks to incorporate a cause du jour. In such cases, traditional religious belief was an insufficient prophylactic against worshipping the wrong thing.

Nevertheless, Marchiano argues convincingly that traditional religion is one way that people can worship without being eaten alive, because it might inspire humility:

An awareness of our dependence upon that which is larger breeds the humility without which wisdom is not possible. It reminds us that our ego is just a small part of us, and is dependent upon—and easily influenced by—irrational, unconscious forces that are beyond our full understanding.

But Dawkins is right that a sense of wonder is a healthy outlet for atheists with a religious instinct. Scientists like him, as well as laypeople enthralled by what science teaches us, can find humility by studying the natural world. After all, Darwin’s theories were not just an affront to some religious doctrines but also to human pride. People didn’t much care for the idea that humanity was the result of eons of evolutionary nudges rather than divine decree. Believing that we are God’s special creation strokes our ego; believing that we fill an evolutionary niche, neither more nor less successfully than a house fly fills its position in the web of life, does not evoke pride.

Different types of people will be attracted to the theist and atheist options for combatting hubris and the lure of psychological possession. Likewise, there will always be some people who succumb to either the theist or atheist way of being eaten alive. Humility does seem to be the antidote to this, but unfortunately there is no universally guaranteed method for cultivating it.

==

I still wonder myself why I was immune to Critical Social Justice ideology when so many atheists got sucked into the woke cult.

[fictionadventurer]

Question: If you could show a dead author one piece of media (book, movie, tv show, whatever) that was created after their death, which one would it be?

Right now, my top choice is to show G.K. Chesterton It's a Wonderful Life.

[phoenixradiant]

Writer Questionnaire Tag

My thanks to @tildeathiwillwrite and @agirlandherquill for the tags!

When did you start writing?

I was a late talker, according to my parents. Still pretty laconic in person. On the other hand, about the same time I started to talk I started to read, so I've been reading for a long time, and, consequently, writing for a long time. I can remember when I was six wanting to write as a career, and at about 8 I discovered Google Docs and that's when I started to seriously write. Not much came of it for awhile, though, my first WIP to make serious headway started when I was... 13? 14? I got through a skeleton draft and then started to flesh it out. After several years I retired that WIP and started a few others, which I made decent headway on, and then a little over a year and a half ago, I started on my current WIP, Kelovir, which I've stuck with ever since.

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

No. 'Nuff said.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

Not particularly? I read and write nonfiction as well, and in the nonfiction philosophical realm I do my best to emulate (simultaneously, and hence with much difficulty) G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, as I greatly admire them both and find their writing styles exceedingly pleasant to engage with, but in the fiction sphere, no. I read and enjoy many authors, but if I wrote exactly like they do, despite my appreciation of them I would find myself unsatisfied. I'm a perfectionist of a decidedly intrapersonal variety, and to write in any way untrue to myself would not only be imperfection but betrayal.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

When I was younger I wrote while sitting in bed. It was comfortable, and it's very hard to write when I'm uncomfortable. I still do that sometimes, but now I write at a little cluttered desk that is, in actuality, one of those plastic tables with the foldable metal legs. Nothing extravagant, and nothing clean, but it's mine, and that more than anything makes it comfortable.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

I'm not very disciplined at all. When I write, I write, and when the muse strikes, it strikes, but those two things don't often coincide, and unfortunately the best way I've found to snatch the blessings of the muse is to steal it from somewhere else, by attending weddings, funerals, church services, things that themselves have beauty and gravity to them, and letting those things fuel my creativity. Luckily, while I may not have a photographic memory, my linguistic and verbal memory is pretty storming good, so if I think of something while I'm not in a place to write, I can usually hold it for awhile.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Definitely. I grew up in a small suburb as suburb culture died. I was taught to value a community that wasn't really there and to be kind to people who were merely polite, and that only half the time. I remember the last time I played with the neighbor's kids, and I remember why I stopped. All that to say, due to all this plus a few non-place specific factors, I had my angsty "teenage" phase years earlier than most. Cynicism became a core character trait of mine. My family instilled in me an even stronger sense of honor and devotion and idealism, but the question's not about that I suppose.

I grew up in the suburbs as they died. I write a lot about once-noble societies in decay, and societies that only ever pretended to be noble. I write a lot about people who doubt the things they've been told, and sometimes they're right, and sometimes they're wrong. I write about wild places stripped of life by the cruelty of man, but also of animalism and the whims of nature destroying what good humanity has wrought. I don't think those things are entirely unrelated.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Yes and no respectively. I don't write about what I don't care about. This can be attested to by my writing teachers, who had to receive several papers that were more "about" hating the topic than about the topic itself. I write about honor, I write about devotion, I write about betrayal, and despair, and justice. Those are the things I care about. Those are the things the world needs to hear about. I don't think of myself as a stupid person, but I am very simple: I do what needs to be done, and one of the things that needs to be done is aligning my sense of happiness and satisfaction to the things that need to be done. I do what I think is right, and I love what I think is right. So I write about it. Because I care about it. Not to say I'm never wrong but if I find out I'm wrong I repent and try again with just as much fervor.

Your Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

Alright, those of you who have seen me before should be able to guess, based both on which of my characters best aligns with the above and the sheer amount of material I've put out about them, who I'm thinking about.

It's Cellic.

What I love about Cellic is that he reflects how far I've come as a person. In his backstory segments you see him as someone quite similar to the way I was when I was young. He believes strongly in his ideals, and is to be commended for it, but his view of the world is simplistic and his view of himself is prideful. Then the very final scene of his backstory flashbacks marks a sudden change, reinforced by the events at the end of act I, that push him into a mindset of despair and sorrow and hopelessness. He sees a fundamentally unjust world and doesn't know what to do with it. He sees a fundamentally unjust self and has a horrible feeling that he knows exactly what to do with it. He's lost his ability to see the good in anything and anyone, and the only thing keeping him remotely sane is his relentless hatred of evil and resultant stringent sense of honor devoid of the love that once motivated it. I never got as bad as he did, but I definitely would've given enough time. The rest of Kelovir is about the three protagonists- but mostly Cellic because he's my favorite- healing and growing in spite of the injustice, in spite of the pain, in spite of the despair. That's why I decided to call it Kelovir; Hope's Warrant. They push on through the destruction, through the metaphorical desert of war and betrayal and emptiness, in the hope that someday, rain will come. And it does.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

All of the cast on the protagonist's side except Narra and Kar. I don't think I'd get along well with pre-story Kar, though post-story we might be able to be friends. Narra I could deal with, but I don't think she'd get along well with me. I think Cellic, Farric, and Radiaten I would get along with best, maybe with Lycoris as a fourth.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Like I said earlier, pre-story Kar. I cannot abide useless people, and even worse, useless people who don't want to be helped. If all they do is trample on what I and everyone else give them, they can eat sand for all I care.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

Frankly they just kinda happen. Due to the aforementioned cynicism phase, I didn't have any real friends as a kid and so developed a lot of skill creating people from nothing. There's very little process involved, just the fallout of my emotional issues. Some of them develop faster and more unprompted than others. Funnily enough this is the first WIP I've actually tried to plot out beforehand, so a few of these characters had more design than others. Because I came up with the plot before dealing with the characters, Narra originally started as a cardboard cutout of Lyn from FE7, Cellic started as a cardboard cutout of Cecil Harvey from FF4, and Kar started out as a mix between Kelsier from Mistborn, Claude from FE3H, the spy guy from the Belgariad (Silk?), and I remember there was one other guy but I don't remember who it was. If it looks like one of these had more personality right out the gate, you'd be right.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

Yep. The vast majority of them have defining traits that I've seen in myself. Keidor and Radiaten, despite being a youngest sibling turned only child, are channels for two different strands of my older sibling mentoring instincts, whereas Cellic, Lettic, and the Deathguard channel my strong sense of personal and ideological loyalty. Again, Narra and Kar are the exceptions. I've felt some of the things they feel, but they are fundamentally different people from me. There are dozens of real people I know, introverted, extroverted, smart, a bit on the dull side, argumentative, passive, and everything in between, who have more in common with me than they do, which is part of why I have a bit of trouble writing them.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

I have real trouble holding still images in my head, so whenever I picture them, I picture them in motion. I do all sorts of mediums depending on my mood and what media I've been exposed to recently, but I can't picture them standing still without a visual aid like a picrew. Consequently, I have trouble drawing them myself, though I'd love to be able to.

Your Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

Twofold:

I like creating beautiful things, and it just so happens that the art I find most beautiful and the art I enjoy creating the most and the art I'm good at are one and the same.

I've never been good at giving inspiring speeches or winning people over, but I think I've learned some things that would really help a lot of people who are aimless and hopeless, and I want to help them. Stories are a way to do that that I've been told I'm pretty good at.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

I haven't had too many readers for my prose. I sometimes write poetry and put it in group chats, but even then the comments amount to basically "I really liked that one" which I really do appreciate, but doesn't really give me a range of experience from which to answer the question. I guess the one that sticks out in recent memory was that it struck at a situation that was "familiar and ongoing for me as well".

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

Even before the cynicism, I was a storming shy kid. I don't want to be thought of at all. I want my work to be thought of. I want to live my life and help people at the same time. If the stories I use to help people interfere with my living my life, I'll still do it, but it's far from an ideal outcome.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I appreciate the English language. I'm no great plotter, my message is important but hardly unique, but I love my language. It's not formulaic in the scientific sense, but it's structured just enough to build on it without being so stringent as to preclude artistry. I know a lot of words and most of them I love. Not all of them, but most of them. There's an ebb and flow, there's a variety of synonyms that I can use to rhyme or fit syllable counts, it's wonderful.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

As previously mentioned, I don't seek out feedback too often. In addition to that, the way I receive praise or respect is to be left alone. If it doesn't need to be changed, that is commendation and privacy and trust all in one. I don't know why people think I'm good. But it seems they do, and for that I'm grateful.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

Content but unsatisfied. If I never get better than this it won't kill me, but there's always more to learn, more beauty to channel, more truth to reveal, and I want to.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Yes. I write for others, yes, but I also write because the writing is in and of itself valuable.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence

I'm influenced by what my older sister and my parents enjoy reading, because it heavily shaped what I enjoy reading, and therefore what I enjoy writing. But no. If I write to entertain other but neither find enjoyment myself nor communicate anything worthwhile nor create anything beautiful, it's a vain endeavor.

This was pretty fun! NP tagging @the-ellia-west, @paeliae-occasionally, and @illarian-rambling!

[ladyhearthkeeper]

What do you do for a living? Is it your dream job?

This is an interesting question as the answer is in the description of this blog.

My dream job is homemaking.

I believe it's G.K Chesterton who said that homemaking is the most important job for which all other jobs provide for. Or something like this.

It's all about vocation isn't, it?

My vocation has always been to take care of my home, to nurture, to provide good food and a happy home to my family. I also wish to bring people together, knit ties between communities and neighbours...

I also write. I've published a poetry book and I'm hoping to publish more.

As for an occupation to pay the bills? I teach from time to time. For the time being this is what I need to do.

What about you Anon? What makes your heart quiver and bring you joy?

[antis-hero]

"If by household drudgery, you simply mean hard work, then I grant you that woman 'drudges' in the home, even as a great general, a great jurist, or a great bishop drudges at his post. But if you wish to say that the home work is harder because it is dull, colorless, and of small import, then I don't know what you mean. To put it shortly: a woman is shut up in the house with a child at the age when he is asking all the questions there are—and some that there aren't; if she learns all she needs to know to answer those questions intelligently and entertainingly, I understand that she must be a very busy woman, but I should think it strange if she developed any of the narrowness of a specialist…To be Queen Elizabeth, within a given area, deciding banquets, labors, and holidays; to be Whitely, within a given area, providing books, toys, cakes and boots; to be Aristotle, within a given area, teaching manners, morals, theology and hygiene—I understand how all this might exhaust a woman's mind, for my life I can't see how it could narrow it…Why should it be called a large career, to teach other people's children the Rule of Three, and a small career, to tell one's own child about the universe? Why is it considered broad to be one thing to everybody, and narrow, to be everything to some one? Nay, I may pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task, I can never pity her for its smallness."

-G.K. Chesterton

Found in The Eden Sphinx by Annie Riley Hale, 1916. Original quote is from Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World, 1910.

[eternal-echoes]

“All men are always being influenced; for every incident is an influence. The question is, which incident shall we allow to be most influential.”

- G.K. Chesterton

[perpetual-help]

hello :) what resources would you recommend to someone curious about catholicism but not yet ready to go to mass? i would like to read and learn more. i have read the protestant bible years ago but never a catholic one. ive been reading some catholic websites from local churches, but would like ideas for books or articles? i have also been praying but i only know how to pray the protestant way (informal stream of sincere thoughts) and i dont know where to find catholic thoughts on prayer to learn if i could pray differently. thank you for your help!

Even if you’re not comfortable attending Mass yet, I like to recommend RCIA to everyone who asks about resources. Your local Catholic Church should offer (free) RCIA classes; there’s no obligation to convert and it’s an awesome resource for people wanting to learn more about Catholicism.

You should be able to find contact info for RCIA classes on the church website.

In addition to that, I highly recommend Catholic Answers for any questions.

Catholic Answers also has an app where you can tune in to Q and A’s with apologists, priests, etc, etc. If you catch their live talks, you can even call in with a question.

Some good Catholic channels on YouTube are:

One of my favorite apologists:

Great collection of Catholic audiobooks:

Bishop Barron has some interesting shorts that usually cover a wide variety of topics:

Great mix of prayers and Q and A’s:

Another great Catholic apologist:

This channel will post recordings of Mass, prayers, Catholic news, interviews, etc (I especially love Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s talks):

As for books, a good place to start is the Catholic catechism and Bible.

“Rome sweet Home” by Scott and Kimberly Hahn

“The Bible is a Catholic Book” by Jimmy Akin

Lives of the Saints

“Why we’re Catholic” by Trent Horn

“Confessions” by St. Augustine

“Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton

“Catholicism: A Journey to the heart of the faith” by Bishop Robert Barron

“True Devotion to Mary” by St. Louis de Montfort

“Uniformity with God’s Will” by St. Alphonso Liguori

“Interior Castle” by St. Teresa of Avila

As for prayer, sincere streams of thoughts are good and I would never want to discourage you from continuing that practice.

I would like to recommend the rosary:

You can read more about it here:

There’s a lot more I could add here, but I think this is a good start. God bless you on your journey, Anon! I’ll be praying for you.

[ariesluvz]

Hi 💛 I hope u r doing well. I’m here for the free reading.

I have been having lots of really vivid dreams about someone who I don’t know personally. There is no emotional attachment and i am pretty sure the person appearing in my dreams doesn’t even know me. So my question is:

“What are my dreams trying to tell me?”

My initials are G.K.

Thank u so much for this opportunity 💕💫 (i am going berserk trying to figure it out. eternally grateful to u for freeing me 😌✨)

Your ask was really interesting and I wanted to answer it but you didn't send the pin 🤠

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

As to why I don't do it in private, I rather fail to understand your question. The answer is of comparative limpidity. I don't do it in private, because it is funnier to do it in public.

from the Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton

[apesoformythoughts]

“Now, the Carthaginians were a highly civilised and even refined people, whose religion largely consisted of burning alive a large number of children as a sacrifice to Moloch. . . . Moloch is not fallen; Moloch is in his high place, and his furnaces consume mankind; his armies overrun the earth, and his ships threaten our own island. The question on the lips of any living man is not whether some who burn their children may nevertheless love their children, it is whether those who burn their children shall conquer those who don't. The parallel is practically quite justifiable; what we are fighting has all the regularity of a horrible religion. We are not at war with regrettable incidents or sad exceptions, but with a system like the system of sacrificing babies; a system of drowning neutrals, a system of enslaving civilians, a system of attacking hospital services, a system of exterminating chivalry.”

— G.K. Chesterton, in The History of the Family