#Hosannah

[du-bout-de-leurs-ailes]

              samedi 17 juin 2023 : ¤

Emmanuel

   Il faut que fasse ce post aujourd’hui, ce soir. Je viens d’être touchée, en plein cœur. J’ai pleuré, de reconnaissance.

   Il fallait que je fasse ce post sur ce que j’ai vécu durant la campagne du pasteur Dag Heward-Mills à Libreville, jeudi et vendredi. Je repoussais l’écriture de ce post, pour prendre le temps de le faire, au moment venu. Cette campagne s’intitulait “Jésus qui guérit”.

   Je bénis tellement le Seigneur. Je le bénis pour tout ce qu’il fait dans ma vie, pour les endroits dans lesquels il m’amène, je lui rends grâce, parce qu’à chaque prière que je fais, chaque demande que je fais, il répond, à sa manière, avec le temps qui lui correspond. Son plan est parfait. Si je lui demande de me fortifier, il le fait. Si je lui demande de me rassurer, il le fait. Si je lui demande de me confirmer une pensée, il ne se fait pas attendre, il me montre, il m’enseigne, il me guide, je loue le Seigneur, je loue son nom, je rends grâce pour la façon dont il me transforme, et me fait miroiter la joie d’être dans ses commandements.

   Le week-end dernier, je parlais à mon homme de cette campagne. J’avais trouvé la biographie du pasteur sur EMCI, pour moi, ça attestait d’une certaine crédibilité. J’envoyais à No, je lui en parlais, je lui proposais de regarder une vidéo. Il me dit “Non”, assez catégoriquement. Bon. Moi ça m’intriguait quand même. Lundi, alors que j’étais au travail, je demandai à mon chéri les plans de sa soirée car j’avais invité un ami qui venait d’être quitté par sa copine, il me répondit qu’il irait en fait au stade de Nzeng Ayong pour la campagne du pasteur. What. Je lui en parlais depuis des jours ! Je ressentis une certaine irritation. Je lui en fis part. Je lui dis que j’aimerais y aller dans la semaine. Je ne crois pas avoir pensé à y aller en fait auparavant. Je ne sais pas pourquoi je lui ai dit cela. C’est comme si le fait que lui voulait finalement y aller m’avait motivée. Mais j’étais dans l’amertume, seule dans ma salle de classe. J’ai demandé au Saint-Esprit d’apaiser mon cœur, ce qu’il fit. Calmée, je demandai à mon homme s’il avait reçu qu’il devait y seul. Il me dit qu’il le pensait peut-être, que l’idée lui était venue ce jour, après avoir prié et lu la Bible. Avec douceur, je lui fis cette fois part de ma compréhension. Je sais qu’il faut écouter les commandements de Dieu, ce sont les plus importants. Alors je n’eus rien à redire à cela. Je dis à No que j’irais certainement avec mon ami Wilson dans la semaine, que je lui proposerai. Il me dit de venir ce soir, que ça lui serait sûrement profitable. Mais ce soir j’avais envie d’être au calme à discuter. C’était ok pour moi. Mon chéri partit donc pour le stade, tandis que moi je retrouvai chez moi mon ami pour manger et discuter. A 22h mon homme rentra, nous précisant qu’en fait il était arrivé à la fin, mais qu’il y avait de la force là-bas. Il avait cependant marché depuis le stade jusqu’à la maison, faute de taxis disponibles, il était très fatigué, mais il semblait touché aussi. Wilson partit, et je parlai un peu à No. Wilson ne pouvait pas se libérer jeudi, jour durant lequel j’aurais aimé aller écouter le pasteur. Mais je n’ai confiance qu’en Wilson et lui pour faire attention à moi dans le quartier un peu chaud de Nzeng Ayong, avec la foule. “Alors nous irons jeudi.”

   Le lendemain et le surlendemain, trop occupé, il ne put partir. Le mardi soir, il me parla de ce qu’il avait reçu, ce qu’on peut retrouver dans mon post “Abba, Père”.

   Le jeudi après-midi, donc, il vint me chercher au travail, et nous allâmes ensemble au stade. Je ne savais pas trop dans quel esprit j’allais là-bas. C’était la première fois pour moi que j’allais assister à un tel événement, une véritable croisade africaine, campagne d’évangélisation. Le genre d’événement que l’Occident voit d’un très mauvais œil, qui nuit à l’Afrique selon un très grand nombre d’Européens, de Français, même de mon entourage. C’est aussi ce que je pensais je crois, avant. Je n’y allais pas dans cet esprit. Mais j’avais comme une sorte de curiosité. Cependant, j’espérais trouver quelque chose. Quoi ? Je ne savais pas. Je n’allais pas chercher une onction spécifique. J’allais pour constater. Quelque chose.

   Lorsque nous avons posé le pied sur la pelouse, j’ai senti. Le Saint-Esprit. C’était fort, vraiment très fort. Il y avait étrangement peu de monde. En fait, l’horaire avait changé, nous ne le savions pas mais nous avions deux heures d’attente devant nous. Mais comme tout arrive pour une raison, c’est ainsi que nous nous sommes retrouvés assez près de la scène, sur la pelouse. Nous avons pu nous reposer un peu avant le début. Je sentais, je ressentais la présence de Dieu ! Et pourtant, je ne me sentais pas très bien non plus. Je compris qu’il se passait quelque chose à l’intérieur, comme si des démons, le Diable, tentaient désespérément de me dissuader d’être ici, ou à défaut, de croire, de conserver ma foi. C’était très déroutant. 

   Les chants ont commencé. Je me suis placée devant No. Je ne le voyais pas derrière moi. J’avais mis du coton dans mes oreilles car le son était très fort et me faisait mal aux oreilles, encore fragiles de ma dernière otite. Les louanges ont pris de plus en plus d’ampleur, sur scène, dans la foule, et dans mon cœur. La joie a commencé à m’envahir, les doutes et appréhensions, à me quitter. Je dansais un peu, je chantais un peu aussi, puis un peu plus. La joie montait. Je commençais à comprendre que je devais être ici. Soudain, je reçus une forte pensée, je l’entendis clairement, elle n’était pas de moi : “Crois seulement. Le reste, à Dieu. Crois seulement, tu seras sauvée.” Cette pensée m’a atteinte durant toute le temps que nous avons passé sur cette pelouse, parmi ce peuple de Dieu, envahi de grâce, touché par l’Esprit, en communion totale. J’ai senti cette force. 

   Les prières ont commencé, j’ai levé malgré moi les deux mains au-dessus de ma tête, je sais ce que suis venue chercher, je comprends, je vois, je reçois. Le Seigneur m’a déjà annoncé ma guérison, maintenant il est là pour me montrer, il va me guérir, et pas seulement mon corps. En fait, tu peux être rassurée du fait que tu es guérie. Le Seigneur ne te dit pas forcément sur le moment quand tu pourras observer les effets. Mais il t’assure que tu es guérie, parce que tu es en lui, parce que ses promesses sont irrévocables ! Je reçois c’est fort ! Le pasteur Dag Heward-Mills a alors commencé sa prédication.

   Ici j’aimerais à nouveau bénir le Seigneur, me prosterner devant lui pour lui rendre grâce, louer sa grandeur éternelle. Le Seigneur est vivant. Et il était présent au milieu de nous, des milliers de ses disciples.

   Le pasteur nous demande de poser nos mains sur les parties de notre corps qui nous font souffrir. Sans même y penser, je prends mes mains l’une dans l’autre, je ferme les yeux, et je reçois cette onction de guérison vers mon eczéma. Je lève les mains au-dessus de ma tête, je sens comme une vibration à leur niveau, je sens que ça me traverse le corps. Des pensées parasites veulent me faire croire que c’est l’ambiance du lieu, les chants, l’éloquence du pasteur, mon esprit qui est troublé... Mais la brise légère qui traverse le stade, contrastant avec la chaleur qui me remplit le cœur me conforte. Je reçois !

   “La maladie de ton père ne t’atteindra pas”. Oh comme je reçois cette parole. Moi qui parfois vivait dans la crainte des prédispositions à la dépression que mon père pourrait me léguer. Mais non ! Quelle crainte inutile. Jésus a pris cela à la croix. Elle ne me touchera jamais. Jamais !

   Jésus a fait sortir le démon de l’enfant, dans Matthieu, dit le pasteur, mais c’est bien dans Marc 9:18 que la Bible précise que l’enfant grinçait des dents. Il grinçait des dents, le pasteur a rappelé cela. En allant chercher tout de suite la référence de la Bible, je tombe aujourd’hui sur plein de versets de la Bible qui précise ceci : ce sont des démons qui grincent des dents, qui font grincer des dents. Je reçois, même si peut-être ça ne m’était pas destiné, je reçois. Je grince des dents, jour et nuit, et c’est ce qui a prolongé mes inflammations aux oreilles. Je suis stressée, crispée, tendue, et je serre les dents. Depuis que je ne serre plus autant mes dents, cela a bien diminué mais j’avais conservé l’hyperacousie, qui est une forte sensibilité aux sons aigus. D’où le fait que je mette jeudi des cotons dans mes oreilles. Mais je reçois, je reçois qu’un démon en moi me tourmente depuis un moment, je reconnais sa marque.

   On amène des gens qui se roulent par terre, crient, serrent leurs mains, devant le pasteur. Je les vois passer dans les allées, portés par la sécurité. J’entends la pensée “Crois seulement”. Je me rappelle qu’en Afrique plus qu’ailleurs les démons sont présents, la sorcellerie. Je crois. Je commence à prier pour eux, pour tous ceux qui, présents ici, cherchent l’onction de guérison. Les anges de Dieu sont là, ils sont présents, il y en a tellement ! Le Saint-Esprit s’étend sur nous.

   Le pasteur continue, avec foi, et force. “Jésus, restaure et sauve mon âme !” Ah. La guérison n’est pas seulement celle du corps, et c’est fort, Jésus vient toucher notre âme, vient panser nos blessures, et surtout, il vient prendre nos péchés. Nous sortirons justifiés. J’entends, je comprends, et je crois les paroles inspirées du pasteur qui assure que nous n’allons peut-être pas voir de suite les bénédictions du Seigneur ce soir, mais que nous allons être transformés. Je ressens que Jésus touche mon âme de son amour.

   J’entends les “Amen” de No derrière moi. Parfois, je suis tellement concentrée dans ma prière, que j’oublie qu’il est là. Nous sommes venus pour notre bénédiction individuelle. Cependant, le savoir derrière moi me remplit aussi de joie. Nous vivons enfin cela à deux, pour la première fois, nous qui allons vivre toute notre vie ensemble. J’en profite pour rendre grâce d’être là, en couple ce soir. 

   Soudain, quelque chose se passe en moi, physiquement. Je ne me sens pas de l’expliquer dans un post, mais quelque chose m’arrive. Un peu comme des larmes que je n’avais toujours pas versées jusqu’ici, mais de manière différente. J’avais une telle foi à ce moment. Et j’eus une révélation. Jésus a guéri mon corps, a restauré mon âme, à présent, il m’envoyait et me confirmait une promesse. J’en parle dans le post d’aujourd’hui que j’ai écrit tantôt. Une telle promesse. J’entendis aussi que ma place était ici, cette place qui était encore si indécise il y a trois ans ! Il y a trois ans j’ai dit à mon entourage qui me questionnait à ce sujet, que je ne saurais dire à quoi j’aspirerais à trente ans, après mes trois ans au Gabon. Dieu m’envoya que ma place, celle à laquelle il m’avait destinée, aujourd’hui (car selon son plan je serai peut-être amenée plus tard à être ailleurs), ma place était bel et bien ici, auprès de ces gens qui croient, auprès de mon homme, qui a la foi, et qui m’aide spirituellement à faire grandir la mienne, et surtout, auprès de Jésus, qui guérit. Quelques larmes ont coulé, je les ai accueillies avec joie. Jésus n’est pas ému par tes larmes, il est ému par ta foi obéissante, et j’ai senti que véritablement il l’était.

   Nous sommes partis, bénis, remplis, nous sommes montés en voiture, et pendant un certain moment nous n’avons pas trop parlé. Puis, mon homme m’a parlé de certaines choses, des choses saines, saintes, selon l’Esprit. Pas selon certaines conceptions que j’avais pu évoquer dans le passé, par rapport à des relations. J’avais une telle douceur dans le cœur, j’ai reçu ses paroles avec beaucoup de calme, et j’ai expliqué que j’étais en train de changer. Oui. Je change, mais cela ne me fait plus peur car le Saint-Esprit m’indique avec beaucoup de paix la direction. Je l’ai rassuré comme j’ai pu. Il a raison de profiter de ces moments pour me parler, parce que, touchée par l’Esprit, j’entends beaucoup mieux sa parole, plus clairement.

   Vendredi, je suis retournée au stade avec Wilson. J’avais une telle joie d��y retourner. D’abord, le Diable a tenté de m’en empêcher, j’étais épuisée par la semaine de travail. Mais en parlant de l’onction incroyable que j’avais reçue la veille, et de la puissance avec laquelle la communion se fait là-bas, avec le Saint-Esprit, je me suis fortifiée, j’ai donné le goût à Wilson, et nous sommes partis. Les louanges nous ont remplis de joie, la prière nous a touchés, parfois je voyais Wilson qui levait ses mains, priait, il cherchait Jésus. Cela m’a touchée. J’ai vu une amie, puis un autre ami qui vient les dimanches à l’orphelinat. Dieu me montre mes frères et sœurs en Christ. Nous avons dansé sur les louanges, puis, comme j’avais mal aux pieds, nous sommes allés plus loin mais sur la pelouse, car auparavant nous étions sur le béton. Le pasteur a commencé sa prédication. Pour moi, c’était différent d’hier. Comme si je n’étais plus là pour l’onction de guérison, parce que j’avais reçu, j’avais la ferme assurance que j’étais guérie. Cette confirmation m’a remplie de joie. Le pasteur nous a à nouveau demandé de fermer les yeux, de placer nos mains sur une partie du corps qui souffre, et il a prié. Il a commencé par dire “Je sens que quelqu’un qui souffre, au niveau des yeux, va être touché !”, et moi, j’ai ouvert les yeux. A dix mètres, il y avait un homme, en bleu, il avait la main gauche levée, et le pouce et l’index de sa main droite sur les yeux. Quand mon regard s’est posé sur lui, j’ai pleuré. J’ai senti qu’il était guéri, j’ai reçu qu’il était guéri ! Alléluia. J’avais envie d’aller lui dire ! Je n’avais pas besoin. Il est guéri ! Alors je me suis mise à prier pour les autres dans le stade, à prier pour mes proches aussi. Je sentais la paix, la grâce du Seigneur, je me sentais baignée dans le sang du Christ. Inatteignable. J’aurais aimé rester encore, mais Wilson me pressa. L’heure. Il avait raison, il y avait beaucoup de monde qui allait sortir après. En sortant, il me dit qu’il comprenait ce que je disais tout à l’heure, la puissance du lieu, l’onction ! Mais il me demanda presque dans la minute si nous pouvions aller boire une bière. Je n’étais pas du tout disposée à la fête, mais alors pas du tout. Cependant, j’étais aussi dans un état de douceur relatif au Saint-Esprit en moi, alors je lui expliquai donc gentiment. Nous prîmes un taxi, et il continua à parler de choses... du monde. Sauf qu’une femme monta dans le taxi, et alors que nous étions en train de parler de Jésus et de la campagne au stade, elle entama une véritable évangélisation ! Sur la véritable identité des églises, comme au stade, sur Jésus, qui est le Christ pour tous, sans distinction, c’était fort ! Nous sommes descendus et avons marché avec Wilson. Au moment de se quitter, je lui dis : “Essaie quand même de prier sur ce que tu as reçu en rentrant.” Il me répondit “Toujours ! Et le plus important, c’est même de lire la Bible. J’ai dans le sac là un petit ouvrage du Nouveau Testament, et à la maison, la Bible ouverte dans la chambre. C’est important.” Sa parole m’a fortifiée. Il m’a aussi écrit en rentrant “Vraiment merci pour cette sortie vers la voix du Christ”. Je ne sais pas s’il voulait écrire “voix” ou “voie”, peu importe. J’ai alors compris l’importance d’élever vers Christ ses amis, il n’y a pas de plus belle preuve d’amitié que de les sauver, en les aidant à se placer sur son chemin, sa voie, sa vérité. Cela m’a aussi fortifiée.

________________________________

“Il faut que fasse ce post aujourd’hui, ce soir. Je viens d’être touchée, en plein cœur. J’ai pleuré, de reconnaissance.”

   C’est ce que j’ai écrit pour commencer ce post. Je suis devant mon ordinateur, j’étais en train de passer des commandes pour mon retour en France. Dans mon téléphone, j’ai un album, dans mes photos, avec des captures d’écran de certains produits. Un des albums s’appelle “Eczéma”. J’ai cherché certains produits, et, machinalement, j’ai passé toutes les photos de l’album. Je suis tombée sur des photos très dures de ma peau à vif, il y a quelques mois. J’ai regardé mes mains aujourd’hui. J’étais en train d’écouter des louanges, et passait le chant “Emmanuel”. J’avais mis la musique quand même forte. 

La musique.

Forte.

Mais,

Aucune douleur aux oreilles.

Ma peau est presque unie sur mes mains, à peine un peu sèche.

   Je ne dis pas que les épreuves ne reviendront pas, je ne dis pas que le plan de Dieu, si je me refuse encore à lui obéir, ne sera pas à nouveau, par mes péchés, de laisser le Diable agir pour m’éprouver. 

   Mais ce soir, je n’ai aucune crainte, aucune peur, j’ai l’assurance, la joie, la confiance, la foi, que Dieu m’a guérie, je témoigne de ses bienfaits, je rends grâce de sa grandeur, de sa miséricorde, je prouve au monde que je suis guérie. Et si je le suis physiquement, imaginez un peu à l’intérieur !

.

[davedocrogers]

Hosannah - Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday – Hosannah ‭John‬ ‭12:13‬ ‭NKJV‬[They] took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ The King of Israel!” Palm Sunday marks the final week before Passover. Jesus became our salvation and forgiveness as the Lamb of God. Jesus is judged and crucified for our salvation, covering our sin. Hosanna,…

[ladyimaginarium]

Happy Indigenous History Month!

Keep in mind that while most of these introjects are confirmed canonically indigenous characters, some introjects' indigeneity are both headcanons and our& introjects' identities ( which oftentimes are but aren't always interchangeable ) — this is who they& are and we'd& appreciate if you respected their& identities as you would with a singlet's. This was made for our& constellation / system in mind — as plural people. Please don't treat them& like rp muses. Singlets can reblog but don't clown. Okay to reblog as fandom. Do not reblog this as headcanons, roleplay, aesthetics, kins, F/Os, IRL/Me or D/A's. We& are a mixed, multigenic DID system and we& are not your aesthetic.

Tip your local queer native!

[pointless-letters]

Really getting into that whole “Spirit of Christmas” thing there Mark, well done…

[problemeule]

motivated and productive one minute, the next I am curled up on the floor, weeping

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (10/23/22) Simeon Solomon (British, 1840–1905) Hosannah! (from "Dalziels' Bible Gallery")(c. 1863-81) Wood engraving on India paper, mounted on thin card, 16.3 x 12 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

In 1862 the Dalziel Brothers, prominent Victorian wood engravers, approached a group of British artists with plans for a lavishly illustrated Bible. Work began immediately, but the sixty-seven prints of Old Testament themes were not published until 1881. Solomon came from a prominent Jewish family and intended his six designs to celebrate his heritage. Hosannah! shows a temple musician during the Feast of Tabernacles and was inspired by a line in Psalm 149, "Praise for God’s goodness to Israel." Solomon admired Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, and this early work places him in Pre-Raphaelitism’s second wave.

More of this artist's work is included in this MWW exhibit/gallery: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1574253829346647&type=3

[talkativeobserver]

Great Hosannah, Peasants‚ Pigs & Astronauts (1999), Kula Shaker.

[imaginarianhaven]

YAAAAAAAAAY littles & middles tag drop!

[sorcerersandskillusers]

Fyodor and the Devil: Analysis of Fyodor's motives and role in the narrative

Asagiri has stated that he based Fyodor not on Dostoyevsky the author but on a specific scene from one of his books The Brothers Karamazov where Ivan Karamazov confronts “the devil” in his room.

(It's a really good book, you should read it if you have time. Also. fun fact, Fyodor and the devil wear the same hat, “His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with the season.”)

Having read the book and gone over this scene, I realized that this could be used to find out a lot more about Fyodor as a character than we see in the story, including a potential glimpse at his real motivations.

A bit of context for the scene. Ivan Kramazov is a clever but deeply trouble man who has struggling with the concept of God and rationalising him with the cruelty of humanity, at one point while very sick, Ivan starts seeing a man in his room who claims to be “the devil”. Their conversation is a fascinating look at morality and why evil exists in the world, and if you look at it closely it reveals a lot about the role of a “villain” in a story.

This line from “the devil” is really interesting to me, and seems to explain a lot about Fyodor’s character, as well as align perfectly with how Asagiri has described Fyodor in interviews:

Before time was, by some decree which I could never make out, I

was predestined 'to deny' and yet I am genuinely good-hearted and not at all inclined to negation.

'No, you must go and deny, without denial there's no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of criticism?' 

Without criticism it would be nothing but one 'hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't  create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat, they've made me write the column of criticism and so life was made possible.

Basically the devil is saying that he was created because without evil then good means nothing, if everything was perfect then nothing would happen or change, life couldn’t exist, so he was forced to be that evil even though he never wanted to be.

This is so similar to how Fyodor is described in the BSD exposition 2020:

Fyodor is the antagonist, he is the villain of the story, that is the role he plays. This explains why he chooses to commit so many atrocities in the name of  “following God's plan”. It even connects to his line in The Dead Apple, and his ability name. He is both crime and punishment, as “crime” or sin originates with the devil, but it's also the devil who punishes sinners.

(I mean the title of the episode he is introduced in is literally “My Ill Deeds Are the Work of God” by committing evil acts he is fulfilling God's purpose for him.)

And if Fyodor is really based on “the devil” it's very likely he also either does or used to wish for release from this role that was assigned to him, but he knows that he cannot stray from his path or the story will cease to exist. My evidence for Fyodor wanting to be free of his mission is just one interaction, when he kills Karma.

Look at Fyodor's expression here, this is the only time in the entire series where we see him look truly sad. This isn't an act, there is no one there for him to trick, he simply says a quiet prayer for the life of a boy who's only purpose was to suffer and die.

This next part of “the devils” speech actually seems to fit very well for Dazai, it's interesting since he is the narrative foil to Fyodor and clearly is a very similar character.

We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask for annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there'd be nothing without you.

If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. There would be no events without you, and there must be events. So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to.

For all their indisputable intelligence,men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. 

This ties perfectly into Dazai and Fyodor’s debate on the nature of God in the sky casino arc.

Dazai here points out that it's not perfection and harmony that make the world move, it's the irrational, it's the foolishness and stupidity of humans who charges into life making a million mistakes but always finding ways to fight on through it. Here Dazai and Fyodor represent the conflicting sides of “the devil” with Fyodor embodying his mission to drive the world and Dazai embodying his secret love for, and wish to join, humanity.

“I love men genuinely, I've been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay withyou from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and that's what I like most of all. Yousee, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism of earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations! I wander about here dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, on earth I become superstitious. Please don't laugh, that's just what I like, to become superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I've grown fond of going to the public baths, would you believe it?

And I go and steam myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she believes. My ideal is to go to church and offer a candle in simple-hearted faith, upon my word it is. Then there would be an end to my sufferings.”

“"Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto."*

* I am Satan, and deem nothing human alien to me.”

This piece from the devil feels like it could be a description of Dazai’s character, his wish above all else to find happiness and love as a human despite believing he is a demon. Both Dazai and Fyodor have strong ties to the Devil, both of them are often described as demonic or inhuman, with emphasis placed on the darkness of their souls and the isolation they feel due to their minds.

But the difference between them is how they dealt with it, Fyodor chose to embrace it and fully commit to his role in the story as the ultimate evil for the greater good, but Dazai has always shown a fasciation with humans and has spent his life trying to connect to them and find meaning in his existence.

Finally, let's look at what we can learn about Fyodor’s motivation. Fyodor is the villain, he is the final obstacle the protagonist has to overcome, he is the driving force behind so much of Atsushi’s life and the reason so much of the series has played out at all. He sent Shibusawa to torture Atsushi as a child, he was an informant to the guild who put the bounty on Atsushi making the mafia turn on him, he was involved in the guild invasion, and obviously he was the master mind behind cannibalism and Decay of Angles.

If he is aware of his position as the antagonist, then he also is probably aware Atsushi is the protagonist, he knew he was the “envy of all ability users” after all, so he knows Atsushi has some significance to the world as a whole.

Atsushi is also the “guide to the book” which is seemingly Fyodor’s end goal, so even though Fyodor doesn’t seem to be focused on Atsushi, he has been indirectly influencing his whole journey up to this point. This also explains why Fyodor is only moving actively now, because the protagonist has appeared and his role as the villain can finally be fulfilled and he, like “the devil” can finally get the “annihilation” he asked for. Hence, Fyodor’s true goal is to erase himself from the narrative.

There is actually quite a lot of evidence for this. The obvious part is that Fyodor wants to rid the world of ability users while he himself is an ability user, he cannot exist in his perfect world. 

Then there’s the fact that in the Dead Apple, Fyodor calls himself “crime” if Fyodor is “crime” or “sin” then a world free of sin would not contain him at all

Even when Fyodor talks about sin, he says how humans are easily manipulated into killing each other, while he constantly manipulates characters into killing each other, he is the cause of the sin he fights.

A really strong bit of evidence is this interview with Asagiri and Harukawa

Not only does Asagiri reiterate Fyodors role as the person who moves the story, Harukawa specifically mentions that Fyodor might be trying to create a world without ability users because he thought it was a “bad thing to do” aka the action a villain would take that would lead to a hero stopping them.

“Dos-san is the biggest villain in the story so far, but I have continued to draw him with spaced out eyes that are neither righteous nor evil for a long time. The only time I drew his eyes completely white was when he said he would create a world without skill users. It was because, in reality, we would decide what is evil or not by our own scales, but I wasn't sure if he himself was doing it because he thought that was a bad thing to do.”

This also connects to how Fyodor was able to understand Gogol when no one else could, Gogol is chooses to fight against the way the world is to prove to himself that he truly is free. Fyodor, who is bound to play a part in a narrative, would understand that feeling and that longing to be truly free.

To be clear, I don’t think that Fyodor is really a good person whose just been trapped in an awful position against his will, we see many times that Fyodor revels in his cruelty and enjoys killing and torturing others. Its the same with “the devil” in the book, although he hates the job he was given, he tells Ivan stories of the people he’s corrupted and seems very proud of himself for it.

My personal interpretation is that the sadistic zelot personality Fyodor displays is a mixture of a mask and a coping mechanism, kind of similar to Yosano developing a sadistic side to help her deal with the guilt of half killing people in order to heal them. I think it makes sense that after centuries of cruelty and manipulation a person would become detached and stop really caring about the lives he destroys.

This analysis is partially unfinshed but I wanted to post it now and see what other people think of it.

[esmp-i]

hosannah, hosannah, hosannah, amen (redraw)

[image description: a digital comic of last life. at the top is the border, behind mumbos grave, with the text "i see far horizons where the lambs lie with the lions, but, there are poppies growing over where my friends are lying, and-" below that is a drawing of grian, an arrow pointing to him and the words "paul had an old name" and in parentheses "but we never use it" and below that, text that reads "you may call me traitor" a drawing of a weeping tango yells the last word, and below is etho and bdubs, with "but my lover calls me judas" with etho labelled "lover" and bdubs labelled "judas." end id]

[woundgallery]

Doubt by Fanny Howe

Virginia Woolf committed suicide in 1941 when the German bombing campaign against England was at its peak and when she was reading Freud whom she had staved off until then.

Edith Stein, recently and controversially beatified by the Pope, who had successfully worked to transform an existential vocabulary into a theological one, was taken to Auschwitz in August 1942.

Two years later Simone Weil died in a hospital in England—of illness and depression—determined to know what it is to know. She, as much as Woolf and Stein, sought salvation in a  choice of words.

But multiples succumb to the sorrow induced by an inexact vocabulary.

While a whole change in discourse is a sign of conversion, the alteration of a single word only signals a kind of doubt about the value of the surrounding words. Poets tend to hover over words in this troubled state of mind.  What holds them poised in this position is the occasional eruption of happiness.

While we would all like to know if the individual person is a phenomenon either culturally or spiritually conceived and why everyone doesn’t kill everyone else, including themselves, since they can—poets act out the problem with their words.

Why not say “heart-sick” instead of “despairing”? Why not say “despairing” instead of “depressed”?

Is there, perhaps, a quality in each person—hidden like a laugh inside a sob—that loves even more than it loves to live? If there is, can it be expressed in the form of the lyric line?

Dostoevsky defended his later religious belief, saying of his work, “Even in Europe there have never been atheistic expressions of such power.  My hosannah has gone through a great furnace of doubt.”

According to certain friends, Simone Weil would have given everything she wrote to be a poet.  It was an ideal but she was wary of charm and the inauthentic.  She saw herself as stuck in fact with a rational prose line for her surgery on modern thought.  She might be the archetypal doubter but the language of the lyric was perhaps too uncertain.

As far as we know she wrote a play and some poems and one little prose poem called Prologue. Yet Weil could be called a poet, if Wittgenstein could, despite her own estimation of her writing, because of the longing for a conversion that words might produce. In Prologue the narrator is an uprooted seeker who still hopes that a transformation will come to her from the outside.  The desired teacher arrives bearing the best of everything, including delicious wine and bread, affection, tolerance, solidarity (people come and go) and authority.  This is a man who even has faith and loves truth.

She is happy.  Then suddenly, without any cause, he tells her it’s over.  She is out on the streets without direction, without memory.  Indeed she is unable to remember even what he told her without his presence there to repeat it, this amnesia being the ultimate dereliction.

If memory fails, then the mind is air in a skull.

This loss of memory forces her to abandon hope for either rescue or certainty.

And now is the moment where doubt—as an active function—emerges and magnifies the world.  It eliminates memory.  And it turns eyesight so far outwards, the vision expands.  A person feels as if she is the figure inside a mirror, looking outwards for her moves.  She is a forgery.

When all the structures granted by common agreement fall away and that “reliable chain of cause and effect” that Hannah Arendt talks about—breaks—then a person’s inner logic also collapses.  She moves and sees at the same time, which is terrifying.

Yet strangely it is in this moment that doubt shows itself to be the physical double to belief; it is the quality that nourishes willpower, and the one that is the invisible engine behind every step taken. Doubt is what allows a single gesture to have a heart.

In this prose poem Weil’s narrator recovers her balance after a series of reactive revulsions to the surrounding culture by confessing to the most palpable human wish: that whoever he was, he loved her.

Hope seems to resist extermination as much as a roach does.

Hannah Arendt talks about the “abyss of nothingness that opens up before any deed that cannot be accounted for.”  Consciousness of this abyss is the source of belief for most converts.  Weil’s conviction that evil proves the existence of God is cut out of this consciousness.

Her Terrible Prayer—that she be reduced to a paralyzed nobody—desires an obedience to that moment where coming and going intersect before annihilation. And her desire: “To be only an intermediary between the blank page and the poem” is a desire for a whole-heartedness that eliminates personality. Virginia Woolf, a maestro of lyric resistance, was frightened by Freud’s claustrophobic determinism since she had no ground of defense against it.  The hideous vocabulary of mental science crushed her dazzling star-thoughts into powder and brought her latent despair into the open air. Born into a family devoted to skepticism and experiment, she had made a superhuman effort at creating a prose-world where doubt was a mesmerizing and glorious force.

Anyone who tries, as she did, out of a systematic training in secularism, to forge a rhetoric of belief is fighting against the odds.  Disappointments are everywhere waiting to catch you, and an ironic realism is always convincing.

Simone Weil’s family was skeptical too, and secular and attentive to the development of the mind.  Her older brother fed her early sense of inferiority with intellectual put-downs.  Later, her notebooks chart a superhuman effort at conversion to a belief in affliction as a sign of God’s presence.

Her prose itself is tense with effort.  After all, to convert by choice (that is, without a blast of revelation or a personal disaster) requires that you shift the names for things, and force a new language out of your mind onto the page.

You have to make yourself believe.  Is this possible?  Can you turn “void” into “God” by switching the words over and over again? Any act of self-salvation is a problem because of death which always has the last laugh, and if there has been a dramatic and continual despair hanging over childhood, then it may even be impossible. After all, can you call “doubt” “bewilderment” and suddenly be relieved?

Not if your mind has been fatally poisoned. . . . But even then, it seems the dream of having no doubt continues, finding its way into love and work where choices matter exactly as much as they don’t matter—at least when luck is working in your favor.

[barrenclan]

i REALLY like how you made rainhaze seem so desperate and rambly in the way his issue was written. love it when characters povs are just Like That.

when he realized that pinepaw got noticed by defiance and when "oh no my nephew" it made me feel so awful and sad!!! this POOR LITTLE FAMILY !!!!

i also have a music suggestion for the poor wet man — still life by sitcom for rainhaze? i feel like the song itself and the lyrics captures the feeling of rainhaze's situation right now

Rainhaze is in quite a state right now and I was hoping his POV would contribute to that, so I'm glad it came across. As this series is primarily written, I really wanted it to feel different with each character's POV that I wrote from.

That is a very fitting song for him currently!

"As if, as if staring at a gravesite 'Til I become a gravesite Would it make me a still life?"

"How 'bout that I'll walk into the landscape I won't come back"

"Time doesn't respect what doesn't respect it And kind isn't a word I would use for man If everyone's made in "His" image and "He" couldn't perfect it Then what the hell makes anyone think we can?"

Oh yeah, you know it.

"We'll help you pull the trigger, we'll tell you what to say Just leave it all up to us and we'll help you make 'em pay"

"It doesn't matter if you disagree We're making it hand over fist on tragedy The revolution will be televised But just the part that we can monetize"

Oh man, I've never heard of this song but it's TOTALLY perfect for them.

"All my life in the dark, I've been waiting for, One sweet day, not alone, never anymore, All my life, I was blind now we're two of a crime"

"Horror story Now you've come along It was a horror story Now you've come along"

I think I could classify this as a Deepdark song.

"Welcome to your fate End of the line It's just a little explanation of your desperate situation You're a slave to my design"

"You are so dead Dancing with the enemy And you are so dead Fighting with the melody"

LMAO this is such a funny suggestion, but I think I could see it.

Thrasher, I'd say. The lyrics about trying to escape someone but being dragged back in is much more Thrasher, who covets through violence rather than persuasion.

In the human AU, Deepdark would have a lot less kids - maybe 3 or 4. But I think they would all be from different marriages, so let's say - Julian and Henry (Juniper and Hyssop) from their mother Rose (Wild Rose), Winter from his mother Hosannah (Hosta), and Christopher (Chrysanthemum) from his mother Ophelia (Oak). Four sons, three ex-wives.

"You know I'll never disappear Now get me out of here Just trust in me, my dear No cure is coming"

"Hello, my name is Mr. Fear I wish I had a faster therapy I've come to mind control your needs Tonight I'm gonna star all of your leads"

[eggishponts]

gloria, hosannah in excelsis!

[ladyimaginarium]

[empirearchives]

Excerpt from the Memoirs of Heinrich Heine: Heine’s memories of the time he saw Napoleon in person

The Emperor! The Emperor! The Great Emperor! When I think of the Great Emperor then all is summer green and golden in my thoughts; a long avenue of limes blooms forth into my vision, and in the bowers of their branches sit singing nightingales: a waterfall roars, flowers stand in round beds and dreamily nod their lovely heads—and I was in wonderful nearness to it all. The painted tulips greeted me with beggarly pride and condescension; the nerve-sick lilies nodded tender and woe-begone; the drunken red roses greeted me laughing from afar, the night-violets sighed—I was not yet acquainted with the myrtles and laurels, for they lured not with glowing blossoms, but I was on particularly good terms with the mignonette, with whom I now stand so ill—I am speaking of the palace garden at Düsseldorf, where often I lay on the turf and listened eagerly while Monsieur Le Grand told me of the warlike deeds of the great Emperor and, as he told, beat out the marches that had been drummed during the doing of those deeds, so that I saw and heard everything vividly. Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that he well-nigh broke the drum of my ear. . . .

But what it was to me when I saw him, I myself, with thrice blessed eyes, his very self. Hosannah! The Emperor.

It was in the avenue of the Palace garden at Düsseldorf. As I thrust my way through the throng; I thought of the deeds and the battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, and my heart beat the march of the General—and yet at the same time I thought of the police order prohibiting riding through the avenue, penalty five shillings—and the Emperor with his suite rode down the middle of the avenue, and the scared trees bowed as he passed, and the sunbeams trembled in fear and curiosity through the green leaves, and in the blue heavens there swam visibly a golden star. The Emperor was wearing his modest green uniform and his little cocked hat known the world over.

He was riding a little white horse that paced so calmly, so proudly, so securely, and with such an air. . . Listlessly sat the Emperor, almost loosely, and one hand held high the rein, and the other tapped gently on the neck of the little horse. . . The Emperor rode calmly down the middle of the avenue. No agent of the police opposed him; behind him proudly rode his followers on foaming steeds, and they were laden with gold and adornments; the drums rattled, the trumpets blared; near me Aloysius the Fool threaded his way and babbled the names of the Generals; not far off sottish Gumpertz bellowed, and with a thousand thousand voices the people cried: “Long live the Emperor!”

Source: Heinrich Heine's Memoirs, From His Works, Letters, and Conversations; Volume 1

[930am]

also have any of u ever encountered ur roommate using so much toilet paper? we just started a roll fri morning then i went home for rosh hosannah on the weekend and when i come back the roll is almost done! what could she be doing w all that toilet paper…