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saltsicklover · 10 months ago

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To Love, To Die, and Everything In Between

This was a requested work, you can find the request HERE Find my Master List HERE Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader Word Count: 3k+ Rating: R Should I put an old school Wattpad excuse as to why I've been gone so long? Also, I really hope my tag list is right!

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of war and fighting, mentions of death, regular cannon violence (probably less), No use of y/n, the term Sweetheart, Tons and Tons web weaving, credit at the end. This is so fucking angsty.

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They say it's about the journey, the destination itself nothing more than an ending, all the importance found in the steps it takes to get there. But really, it's the destination itself that holds the meaning. After all, if that wasn't the case, the destination wouldn't come with a soul crushing grip, fingers digging into the folds of my lungs just to starve out the capacity for air.

The journey's memories would not be left with inky smears of fingerprints, the clarity nothing more than the orange tinted, overexposed film and the whirring of a projector still clicking though no more film is passing through. Nothing left but the flickering light of the present, the whirring akin to blood rushing over ear drums.

Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom.

And this in and of itself is death. Squinting through the glaring light that is now I can see the curve of his lips, the way they give frame to perfect teeth and a tongue that has done nothing but speak promises that his hands have kept. And his hands are gentle. They are clean. They have guided me, unseeing, through the journey of the last year.

It's been months through screens. Fingers hovering over buttons. The decision of to call or not to call. Messages collecting in inboxes and photos of moments I never had the hope of being a part of. It's better than our mother's had, or their mother's before them. Crackling phone lines and tear soaked stationary from wars past. Though the story has been the same, it has always been the same. And the story is this: man fights for his country, for his love, for his honor, for the women behind them and the men standing at his shoulders. They fight for dignity, out of duty, out of order and for a future they have no hope of seeing. That is not to say that they won't make it out alive, that they won't come home. No, it is to say that they are leaving a legacy, moving pieces of a chest board from which the game was erected at the turn of the first war and shall be played until the end of the last.

Legacy. What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.

And what are we? The women who stand behind them. The women, the families, the love that stands behind them as they fight for dignity, out of duty and out of order as they search for their honor. Tear drops on stationary, kisses pressed to closed envelopes spritzed with perfume. We are crackling voices through barely connected telephone lines. We are the viewers of the photographs and the "likes" on social media, the wish you were here comments and the well wishes from worlds away. We are the same as every woman that has come before us. In love with a Soldier, an Airman, a Seaman, a Marine who's gaze is forward.

You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.

From NAS Pensacola, to just east at NAS Jacksonville. Jacksonville turned to NAS Yorktown which gave way to Miramar in the way the coast gives way to the waves. The letters came in sparser than the phone calls ever did, but maybe that's what did me in. That last letter, an acknowledgement of life in the wake of something horrible having been prevented that now sinks below the horizon, down, down, down.

It's always my own breathing, my own heartbeat. After all, I am still alone, even if he is alive and well. He stands an ocean and a world away. It's always my breathing.

She runs, trips and pitches down the stairs, holding her letter.

She follows the letter down, down...

Blackout. A clatter. Strange sounds—xylophones, brass bands, sounds of falling, sounds of vertigo.

Sounds of breathing.

The Hard Deck on a sunny evening is all rich wood and the stark smell of the ocean, the windows pushed open to invite the fleeting warmth into the bar. I haven't made it further than the front stair case; Jake Seresin's smiles, an invite and a warning all at once though it isn't directed towards me. He doesn't even know I'm here, and I could keep it that way. I could run now, I could leave, deal with everything over the phone and through ink strokes of dying fountain pens in the same way we have been dealing with everything for months.

I can at least be neat. Walk out and be seen as clean.

The thing is this, Jake is home. Here at the Hard Deck, on the beach in Miramar, California surrounded by his squad, his newly minted and now permanent squad. The Daggers, the name fitting the feeling that the news pushes into the space between my ribs. An ache lives there now, unrelenting and dangerous. A reminder that the journey, our journey, has found the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's a train heading straight for us. We stood no chance, not with out feet planted firmly on the tracks.

The shame of being seen consumes me.

I know the look that will streak across his eyes before that smile lands full and glistening on his lips. I know that look of happiness, the one that is unburdened and surviving though it shouldn't. A smile that knows nothing of the pain looming around the corner, the dagger still stuck in my side and the way that I have been tracking blood behind me, droplets splattering crimson sick on the pavement as I limp out from hiding. He's not going to notice the way my skin is still slick with blood or the way the proverbial handle still hangs from it's new sheath between my ribs. It's red ink under his rose colored glasses.

I think I've already lost you. I think you're already gone.

Though it wasn't a choice he made, at least, it hasn't been since he agreed to this job in the first place. The moment that ink dried on his contact, royal blue and officially binding, it hasn't been his choice. Not really. And maybe somewhere along the line I got tangled up in it all. In the kindness of his words that snuck out from his cocky grin and the way his eyes raked over the unbroken skin of my body and claimed it as land to tend. Maybe my heart has always been in my hands; why he has shielded me from the horrors of the world with his own body, even before he had a chance to see them with his own eyes. Maybe he knew my skin was supposed to stay unbroken.

Maybe it wasn't.

But either way, I still bleed now. And Jake still wears the rose colored glasses that come along with survival like this. A second chance at life, he declared proudly over the phone no less than a week ago, a chuckle laced in his voice in a shallow attempt to hide his utter bafflement. He wasn't supposed to make it back from this one, no matter the promises his Captain made. Jake's tone worn thin over the phone like he knew it was the end. He wasn't supposed to make it back. Our story was supposed to end there, my own body on the other side of the railroad crossing while Jake fell gallantly from the sky; a blaze of glory and red hot heat.

But now he's home. Home, home, home.

That's the whistle of the oncoming freight train, a warning call.

It’s not enough nearly to survive. One needs to flourish.

I push into the bar, squaring my shoulders with my chin held high. There is no white flag here, no surrender. If one of us must fall from the sky, all burning red heat and glory, I guess it's going to be me.

To love means to radiate with inexhaustible light.

I know the look that's coming, the look that will dash across his eyes and the smile that will bloom. Worse yet, I know the look that will succeed his smile. That look where he will square his jaw and narrow his eyes, batting down the hatches to make sure no sense of hurt will make it through.

The hurt will make it though his eyes anyway. The cracks in his facade akin to the humanity he wishes he could keep from display. Hangman: a persona to keep emotions at an arms length though they already has a noose securely around his neck. I can see it in the pinprick tears collecting in the corners of his eyes even as he lifts his chin up; a Tarantino tilt of the head.

He spots me, eyes going wide as his smile. "Oh my god, Sweetheart, what are you doing here?" The sight of him in all his blond hair, blue eyed glory gives me pause. God, he is beautiful. He is beautiful, with kind hands that have guided me through these last few months and now, this moment will be the last time I truly get to appreciate it.

Those kind hands are working their way around my frame as he pulls me into his chest. He bleeds warmth, and for a moment I wonder if he can feel how much blood I've already lost, if it's wet against his palm as he grazed over my ribs. I wonder if he can feel it, and if it would still be warm. Warm with the feeling of me, and the love that I have for him. God, I love him so.

There can be no friendship with someone I am not ready to betray.

It's in this moment that I know, with his hands wrapped around me and my cheek pressed against the heat of his chest as his heart beats thickly in my ear, Jake Seresin is my best friend. He is my best friend and he doesn't know I'm bleeding out.

The train is getting impossibly closer, now. It's horn blaring in my ears so loud it's giving me vertigo. I sway a bit in Jake's arms; he grips me impossibly tighter- I begin to hemorrhage.

"Oh, Sweetheart, I am so glad you're here. If I would've known you were coming, I would've picked you up! I can't believe you didn't tell me you were coming! Jeez, I can't believe you are here, Sweetheart, really. God, you feel good," Jake's words come uninterrupted, punctuated with another squeeze of his arms.

"Yeah... I'm," The words come out muffled against his chest, though it sounds like my own voice is a million miles away, "I'm here."

A moment more passes gently, stuck in the confines of his embrace before he pulls back. His eyes meet mine for a moment, stark blue in the way the the flag is, embedded with stars and glory and a weight I can not even imagine- before they are flicking back up to his squad.

And it's in this moment where I realize that Jake Seresin may love me, and I may love him, but there is no blood left in me. I have nothing left to bleed, only words to bare. There is only desperation on my tongue to beg the man before me to love me more than he loves his own glory, his own noble sacrifice, and his country.

Let me be very clear: every version of the story ends with you being slaughtered.

I will be slaughtered too, whether it be from the knife still stuck in my side or the incoming train, I will be flayed open under the hot California sun for the world to see.

I fear I will be ripped open and found unsightly.

And yet, it will be okay, because I will be seen. Jake Seresin will see me, unclean and unkempt, void of blood and tears, the only thing left over will be the ghost of us and all the love that I still have left to give. Atoms cannot cease to be- I think my love for him is one in the same.

I hope death is like being carried to your bedroom when you were a child and fell asleep on the couch during a family party. I hope you can hear the laughter from the next room.

"Can we step outside?" I peer up at him, my chin pressed to his sternum. Truth be told, I look past him, over the prominence of his brow bone and up to the planks of the ceiling. It's easier to take a hostage when you don't have to look them in the eye. For a moment I wonder if I should have feared getting blood on him to begin with, but knowing he himself could not feel it even as it coated his own palms helps me guide him from the audience of his friends. His wrist held loosely in my grasp until we've made it to the sand. For a moment I almost forget to let go.

Of course love is still there. Still, still, still.

There is a sort of sticky sweetness in the cavern of my chest now as I stand next to him. Maybe it's been there this whole time, encasing my heart and thickness of it's beating. Jake wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side with gentle hands. He hums with contentment, fingers brushing over my arm.

"I can't believe you're here," Jake still looks at the sky, the horizon line drawing his eye. "What are you doing here, sweetheart?"

My heart stutters in my chest. What am I doing here? My eyes catch the horizon too, as I pull the proverbial blade from it's place between my ribs. It too is sticky sweet with blood and smeared fingerprints.

I write my own deliverance.

The words are written on my tongue in bile. My hands shake. I shove them into my pockets, eyeline still stuck on the orange of the setting sun. It's warmth accompanies Jake's, sinking into my hollow corpse. Again I threaten to sway under the momentum of the moment. This is it. The ending.

"I came to say goodbye," They are not the correct words, the letters all jumbled up and ill-fitting in my mouth. "I came to wish you well." He turns his chin down to me, eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"Goodbye?" The word rakes itself out of his throat, all gravel and uncertainty. His hold tightens on my shoulders, just a little, pulling me tighter into his side. Heat continues to roll off his frame. My hands form fists in the confines of my pockets, an attempt at clutching this moment before it slips past.

"Yeah, I mean..." There's a pause. Breathing room. A forcing of air in and out of my lungs. Jake doesn't seem to breathe at all. "This is it, isn't it?"

"What could you possibly mean by that?" His gaze meets mine for the first time, steady and unyielding. Suddenly I am aware of just how much blue surrounds me now. From my cheap cardigan, littered with holes that still manages to fight off the chill of the breeze to the royal of the ocean waves. The sky is azure too, melting into orange and pink hues that will give way to the vast deep navy of the night. But there is nothing more royal that of Jake's irises. Still weighty with stars and glory, but reflecting my own strangled feelings back at me. The destination grips my lungs just a little bit harder, the train wheels squealing against the tracks, but it's too late now.

Everything is blue. Everything is blue. Everything is blue. Everything is blue.

I squeeze my eyes shut, too tight, and everything my eyes see is blue then, too. "I came to say goodbye, so you could continue your life, you know,?" I shrug vaguely, hoping he will get the idea, "Like really continue your life here, settle down. This is your home base now, and your family is in there. I'm not really sure what else you'd be expecting to happen right now."

The words pour out of me, not crossing my brain before they leave my tongue. A strangled sound of confusion leave Jake's lips as his arm slips from it's place around my shoulders. The chill gets in after that, right down to my bones.

"I-" The words catch. I hold my breath waiting for a moment, then another, then another. Jake breathes deeply now, forcefully. Taking each beath deep into his lungs like it's painful. I continue to hold my breath.

The spot between my ribs, now void of proverbial blade still aches, but now with more loneliness and finality than strikes of pain. A fact dawns on me in that moment, as my lungs burn for air, watching Jake's jaw stutter with upspoken words. Maybe this wasn't supposed to be an ending. Not like this, maybe not at all.

You are a burning house that I want to live in.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" With Jake's unsure words, I manage an uneasy breathe. My lungs feel aflame with new oxygen. My eyes meet the sand, my dirty sneakers looking out of place next to Jake's nice leather boots. I can't help the almost chuckle that escapes my lips, it comes out as more of a grimace.

It occurs to me that maybe Jake has no idea about just how much I'm falling apart. Just like my mother, and her mother before her. Loving men from afar as they fight- Soldiers, Airman, Seaman, and Marines. The shock of it all ricochets through me; a generational pain that is now mine to hold.

The splendid thing about falling apart silently... is that you can start over as many times as you like.

"If you're saying what I think you're implying here, I need you to say it out loud," Jake breaks through the fog of it all, his voice stern and commanding. It sends a shiver down my spine. I have never seen him like this, burning so fiercely with love and it makes the sticky sweetness of my insides warm. "If you're saying what I think you're saying, I need you to say it. I need you to say the words out loud for both of us to hear, because I need to hear that goodbye if you're going to walk away from me. Oh God, Sweetheart, please don't walk away now,"

"When you were on that ship," I kick some sand with the toe of my shoe, a neat little pile of it forming in front of me, "When you called, I didn't think you were coming back, and now that you're here, you're alive... God, you're alive... I just thought that I'd be holding you back. I mean, if we kept this going, there would always be something dragging you backwards, and I don't want to drag you back, Jake. But, I also can't do it like this anymore. Our relationship has been spent through phone calls and letters and I don't think we've spent more than three days consecutive together, ever,"

"I am so fucking glad that you are alive," I can't help but laugh, the pressure a little less crushing, "But we are both worth more than this,"

When I finally gather the courage to look up, Jake's eyes are already on me, running over my features so slow like he's working on memorizing them. I have so much more to say, so many words that wouldn't fit on the collage ruled paper or in the textbox of a message. All of these words just begging to escape from behind my tongue.

"I love you," I blurt out, eyes linked with his blues, unhindered and unbashful. "God, I fucking love you, and I can't believe I'm saying it for the first time now, not over the goddamn phone, and we are on the periphery of a fucking ending,"

"It's only an ending if you call it as such," Jake reaches for my hand. I extract them from the their denim confines and let them slip into his. "Because I am not fucking walking away. Do you think that I would?"

What a question. What a loaded fucking question.

"No," I answer honestly, "Not on purpose, but I know the fight is always in front of you, and that leaves me in the rearview, and I am not going to ask you to give up that, to give up all of this, for me. You have a family here, now, even if you don't want to use that word. Those folks in there, the people you almost fucking died with, those are your people forever, now. They are who you have to fight with, and fight for."

"Yes, they are my family, but that doesn't mean that you aren't anymore," Jake squeezes my hands, pulling me just a little closer.

"Anymore?" I barely hear my own voice, but I do feel the tears welling up in my eyes. "Have I been your family before now? Before this moment, before you almost died?"

"Of course you have," Jake chokes down a chuckle. "You are my person, my home, and I want you here, here with me,"

"But what about everything that comes next. The next time you have to go somewhere in the middle of the ocean to fight an unknown battle, with enemies who are just trying to do the same thing. Everyone is just fighting to stay alive, to get home, what then?"

"Who do you think I was fighting so hard to get back to?" Tears fall from my eyes at his words, his hands coming up to cup my cheeks. "Who do you think I will continue to fight to get back to? Sweetheart, I will dogfight my way out of anything if that means making it back to you," Thumbs swipe at my tears as he leans in, pressing his lips over mine. A welcome home and a goodbye all in one, but not a goodbye from one another, but from the people we used to be.

Death frees us from the torment of parting.

And so the train passes, I remain un-flayed to the world and Jake didn't go out in a blaze of glory and red hot heat. I may have bled out, but that dagger was never mine to carry- even if we were both fighting to get back to each other. And maybe a part of us died there, on that beach, our lips pressed together as Jake breathed life back into me. It's a death, but not one of finality, because If you're lucky, you die many times before you ever really do.

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QUOTE CREDIT

Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom. - David Wojnarowicz

I can at least be neat. Walk out and be seen as clean. - A burning Hill - Mitski

"She runs, trips and pitches down the stairs, holding her letter.

She follows the letter down, down...

Blackout. A clatter. Strange sounds—xylophones, brass bands, sounds of falling, sounds of vertigo.

Sounds of breathing."

― Sarah Ruhl,

Legacy. What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. - Hamilton

"You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly." - President Eisenhower in April 1954

The shame of being seen consumes me. - Cynthia Cruz from diagnosis, The Glimmering Room

I think I've already lost you. I think you're already gone. - Matchbox 20

There can be no friendship with someone I am not ready to betray. -slavoj zizek

Let me be very clear: every version of the story ends with you being slaughtered. - anecdote of the pig, tory adkisson

I hope death is like being carried to you bedroom when you were a child and fell asleep on the couch during a family party. I hope you can hear the laughter from the next room. - lilies abounded

It’s not enough nearly to survive. One needs to flourish. - Jack Tanner, The Source of Dreams, When Human Imagination Died

To love means to radiate with inexhaustible light - rainer maria rilke

I fear I will be ripped open and found unsightly. - Anne Sexton, A self portrait in letters.

Of course love is still there. Still, still, still. - unknown, tumblr

Everything is blue. Everything is blue. Everything is blue. Everything is blue. - Halsey

You are a burning house that I want to live in. - unknown, tumblr

“The splendid thing about falling apart silently... is that you can start over as many times as you like.” ― Sanober Khan,

If you're lucky, you die many times before you ever really do. - Jake Weasley Rogers.

Death frees us from the torment of parting. lighthousekeeping, jeanette winterson

TAG LIST @its-the-pilot @t4medicroe @inkandarsenic @kmc1989 @inky-sun @harperdoodle @possiblyexisting @eloquentdreamer @ravenwtfbro @jessicab1991 @muddwheelz123

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jowi8597 · 5 months ago

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Hi Jo, a question that always boggles my mind is, why does Yibo let the bjyx rumors grow this much. Why can't he or his team make an official statement that they don't have anything to do with XZ and his team. It will end all this nonsense once and for all

My dear Anon,

Thank you very much for your question and I apologize for the late reply. By the way, to all those who send me questions, I apologize in advance for the delay in responding and ask for your patience.

Returning to the question, I must admit that I have pondered this matter myself on numerous occasions, and I have a few theories I'd like to share. However, the most honest response I can offer is simply, "I don't know." The reality is that, as outsiders, we lack genuine insight into the complexities of what transpires behind the scenes. The world of celebrities is largely unfamiliar to most of us, and even though we might speculate about the unspoken rules that govern it, we will never truly understand all the nuances at play. What we observe may merely be a façade, a carefully crafted performance, and the motivations driving those actions will likely remain a mystery.

That said, I would like to share my perspective on this topic. I want to emphasize that this opinion is inherently subjective, yet it is grounded in information that is publicly accessible and easily verifiable.

1. Contract with Yuehua Entertainment

It’s important to keep in mind that Yibo has been tied to a contract with the parent company, Yuehua, for many years. The specific details of this contract remain unclear, particularly regarding how it governs aspects of his personal life and public image. However, it's evident that Yibo seldom discusses his personal life publicly; instead, those matters are typically addressed by the agency through official statements. This approach applies not only to defamation cases but also to dating rumors that circulate about him.

If this is indeed the case, such contractual clauses may grant the agency significant control over how Yibo presents his personal life, potentially shielding both him and the company from issues that may arise. While it appears that Yibo enjoys considerable freedom in selecting his projects, there seems to be an underlying tension between him and his boss, Du Hua. This friction was noticeably apparent during the recent Yuehua event. The roots of this conflict remain a matter of speculation. It may not stem from being forced into particular work, but rather revolve around personal matters, fan interactions, or perhaps other unspecified issues.

2. Publicity

What Yibo and Yuehua likely want to avoid is any official publicity regarding bjyx. Publicly addressing these rumors would inadvertently confirm their validity as dating rumors, which, in reality, they are not. Such acknowledgment would open the floodgates for public commentary and almost certainly propel the topic to trending status. While it's one thing to recognize bjyx as a fictional concept created by a small group of fans and simply ignore it, it's quite another to lend it credibility through official statements. No Chinese entertainment agency publicly addresses the existence of "ships," as doing so would be seen as trivial and unprofessional. Denying one rumor would necessitate denying others, which would be both absurd and inconsistent with the dignity of the artist and the agency.

It's also crucial to consider Yibo's strong reputation in China. He is viewed as a positive figure and actively participates in numerous promotional efforts for his country, including sports and tourism. Publicly acknowledging "ships," particularly those with homosexual connotations, could severely damage Yibo's reputation and image, jeopardizing his future ambassadorial roles and marketing contracts. It's unlikely that he and his agency would be willing to take such a risk.

3. The futility of opposition

The belief that an official statement opposing bjyx can "end it all" is overly optimistic. The behavior of so-called "tinhats," obsessive fans with conspiracy theories, suggests that even debunking a "ship" by the artists or their representatives won’t shake their convictions. Even the official relationships and children of the "shipped" artists did not deter the "tinhats" from fanatical actions related to their beliefs.

I often draw parallels between bjyx and the Larries (fans who obsessively ship two former One Direction members). Anyone familiar with the Larries knows that despite the artists' firm opposition, these fans persist, even going so far as to claim that one artist's partner and child are fake. It’s hard to imagine anything more disturbing.

A brief investigation reveals that Larries and bjyx operate under similar patterns; the modus operandi of these groups remains consistent.

In conclusion, even strong opposition to a ship might lead to no change at all, and if anything, it could worsen the situation.

4. The hate campaign

While it's true that some shippers might choose to depart from the fandom in response to outright opposition, it is equally likely that an even larger group will perceive this opposition as an affront to their beliefs and identity. Unfortunately, this isn't just idle speculation; we’ve seen similar attacks arise from the bjyx in the past. These incidents range from bjyx's hate comments during the dating rumors and the 88 incident in 2019 to aggressive actions against Yibo’s brands that openly rejected bjyx, culminating when Yibo removing "cql" (untamed) from his bio. This latter action sparked an avalanche of insults and threats directed towards him, including extreme threats to his personal safety. Because Yibo (diplomatically) opposes bjyx, he has become a target for vicious online and offline harassment.

Now, let’s consider the potential fallout if his opposition were to become completely open, official, and public. Such a stance would directly challenge the identity of the bjyx fandom, exposing an amount of deception and, for some, jeopardizing their financial interests. Many would feel betrayed, but rather than channeling their frustration towards the individuals responsible for the deception (namely, influential bjyx accounts and people connected to cql) they would likely redirect their anger towards Yibo himself.

Does Yibo need more haters? Absolutely not. Given that he has weathered previous attacks and is diligently working to bolster his career, he certainly doesn’t require another hate campaign arising from something so trivial.

In conclusion, if remaining silent can achieve the same or even a more favorable and safer outcome than outright denial, then choosing to ignore is certainly the wiser path.

5. Yibo denied bjyx in 2019

In this discussion, we find ourselves questioning why Yibo has not expressed clear opposition to bjyx at the moment. The underlying issue seems to be why he would need to reiterate this opposition once again. After all, during and after the broadcast of cql (untamed) in 2019, Yibo and his agency already addressed bjyx and rejected it.

In an interview promoting the show, when asked about the possibility of the on-screen couple being together in real life, Yibo firmly stated, "Impossible, impossible, really impossible." The impact of his words was heightened by the presence of his co-actor, who also denied the cp.

Shortly thereafter, Yuehua released an official statement confirming that "Wang Yibo is single," which should have put an end to any circulating rumors and speculations.

However, it did not happen. This brings us back to my earlier point about the futility of opposition. No amount of rejection, be it official, unofficial, explicit, or subtle, will sway those who are deeply invested in their beliefs. Thus, if a clear rejection now could jeopardize Yibo’s reputation and career, it might be wiser to maintain the current status quo.

I hope this lengthy explanation has comprehensively addressed your question, dear Anon. If not, please don't hesitate to reach out again.

#wang yibo #wangyibo #bjyx is fake #bjyx are tinhats #tinhats #jo answers

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dandelionh3art · 4 months ago

Text

The Will of Yahya Sinwar:

I am Yahya, the son of the refugee who turned exile into a temporary homeland, and turned the dream into an eternal battle.

As I write these words, I recall every moment that has passed in my life: from my childhood in the alleys, to the long years of imprisonment, to every drop of blood that was shed on the soil of this land.

I was born in Khan Yunis camp in 1962, at a time when Palestine was a torn memory and forgotten maps on the tables of politicians.

I am the man who wove his life between fire and ashes, and realized early on that life under occupation means nothing but permanent imprisonment.

I knew from a young age that life in this land is not ordinary, and that whoever is born here must carry in his heart an unbreakable weapon, and realize that the road to freedom is long.

My will to you begins here, from that child who threw the first stone at the occupier, and who learned that stones are the first words we utter in the face of the world that stands silently in front of our wound.

I learned in the streets of Gaza that a person is not measured by the years of his life, but by what he gives to his country. And that was my life: prisons and battles, pain and hope.

I entered prison for the first time in 1988, and I was sentenced to life imprisonment, but I did not know the way to fear.

In those dark cells, I saw in every wall a window to the distant horizon, and in every bar a light illuminating the path to freedom.

In prison, I learned that patience is not just a virtue, but a weapon.. a bitter weapon, like someone who drinks the sea drop by drop.

My advice to you: Do not fear prisons, for they are only part of our long path to freedom.

Prison taught me that freedom is not just a stolen right, but an idea born from pain and refined by patience. When I was released in the “Wafa al-Ahrar” deal in 2011, I did not leave as I was; I left stronger and my faith increased that what we are doing is not just a passing struggle, but rather our destiny that we carry until the last drop of our blood.

My advice is that you remain committed to the gun, to the dignity that is not compromised, and to the dream that never dies. The enemy wants us to abandon the resistance, to turn our cause into an endless negotiation.

But I tell you: Do not negotiate what is rightfully yours. They fear your steadfastness more than they fear your weapons. Resistance is not just a weapon that we carry, but rather it is our love for Palestine in every breath we take, it is our will to remain, despite the siege and aggression.

My advice is that you remain loyal to the blood of the martyrs, to those who departed and left us this path full of thorns. They are the ones who paved the path of freedom for us with their blood, so do not waste those sacrifices in the calculations of politicians and the games of diplomacy.

We are here to complete what the first ones started, and we will not deviate from this path no matter what it costs us. Gaza was and will remain the capital of steadfastness, and the heart of Palestine that never stops beating, even if the earth becomes too narrow for us.

When I took over the leadership of Hamas in Gaza in 2017, it was not just a transfer of power, but rather a continuation of a resistance that began with stones and continued with guns. Every day, I felt the pain of my people under siege, and I knew that every step we took toward freedom came at a price. But I tell you: the price of surrender is much greater. Therefore, hold on to the land as a root holds on to the soil, for no wind can uproot a people who have decided to live.

In the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa, I was not the leader of a group or movement, but rather the voice of every Palestinian who dreams of liberation. I was led by my belief that resistance is not just a choice, but a duty. I wanted this battle to be a new page in the book of Palestinian struggle, where the factions would unite and everyone would stand in one trench against an enemy that had never differentiated between a child and an old man, or between a stone and a tree.

The Flood of Al-Aqsa was a battle of souls before bodies, and of will before weapons. What I left behind is not a personal legacy, but a collective legacy, for every Palestinian who dreamed of freedom, for every mother who carried her son on her shoulder as a martyr, for every father who cried bitterly over his daughter who was assassinated by a treacherous bullet.

My last will and testament is that you always remember that resistance is not in vain, and it is not just a bullet fired, but rather a life that we live with honor and dignity. Prison and siege taught me that the battle is long, and that the road is difficult, but I also learned that peoples who refuse to surrender create their own miracles with their own hands.

Do not expect the world to do you justice, for I have lived and witnessed how the world remains silent in the face of our pain. Do not expect justice, but be justice. Carry the dream of Palestine in your hearts, and make every wound a weapon, and every tear a source of hope.

This is my will and testament: Do not surrender your weapons, do not throw stones, do not forget your martyrs, and do not compromise on a dream that is your right.

We are here to stay, in our land, in our hearts, and in the future of our children.

I entrust you with Palestine, the land I loved to death, and the dream I carried on my shoulders like an unbending mountain.

If I fall, do not fall with me, but carry for me a banner that has never fallen, and make my blood a bridge for a generation to cross that is born from our ashes stronger.

Do not forget that the homeland is not a story to be told, but rather a reality to be lived, and in every martyr a thousand resistance fighters are born from the womb of this land.

If the flood returns and I am not among you, know that I was the first drop in the waves of freedom, and that I lived to see you complete the journey.

Be a thorn in their throat, a flood that knows no retreat, and will not calm down until the world acknowledges that we are the owners of the right, and that we are not numbers in the news bulletins.

#yahya sinwar #educate yourself #wake up #free palestine

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bobcatmoran · 6 months ago

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As was probably inevitable, Hillary Clinton is speaking next. The crowd goes wild as she comes out, and it's quite some time until she can start talking. I think if I took a drink every time she said, "Thank you, thank you so much," and that just made them cheer louder, I'd be quite hammered by now.

She acknowledges that this excitement is just off the charts, in here and across the country. "First though, let's salute President Biden." He showed what it was to be a true patriot. And wow, this speech really does feel like a send-off for him.

Hillary acknowledges how today is the 104th anniversary of women getting the right to vote. Her own mother remembered getting the right to vote.

And since then, women have been carrying the torch forward. Shirley Chisolm in 1972 ran for president, letting other women dream bigger.

In 1984 Geraldine Ferraro was the first major party woman nominee for VP.

And, of course, in 2016, Hillary's nomination as president. Nearly 66 million voted for her, and "we kept our eyes on the future. Well, my friends, the future is HERE!"

Their mothers, though, would say, "Keep going!" (the audience starts chanting "Keep going! Keep going!") (I am getting the feeling that this audience will chant anything and everything, and it's pretty delightful)

But, progress is not guaranteed. Going forward together or splitting into us vs them. Harris can lead people forward, together.

Hillary draws a parallel between herself and Harris' beginnings as young lawyers and references how Harris worked in Family Court to try and help children. "And yes, she will restore abortion rights nationwide."

Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial and woke up to 37 convictions. (the crowd starts chanting "Lock him up") Meanwhile, Kamala sat in the situation room and looked out for the country's safety.

Hillary mentions that Kamala won't disrespect Medal of Honor honorees (which Trump just did yesterday) or send love letters to dictators. The President's job is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

Kamala cares for the people. Trump only cares about himself. But now he's on the run. But we can't let up now. We have to fight for the truth, and fight for Kamala as she would fight for us.

And omg, it's a "takes a village" reference. What a blast from the past.

"Together we've put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling." And through those cracks, Hillary sees freedom. Freedom to made decisions about our lives, our loves, our families. The freedom to work with dignity and prosper. To worship as we choose or not. To speak our minds freely and honestly. Freedom from chaos and corruption.

(I take back what I said about Hochul's speaking. Hillary is way better)

Don't get distracted or complacent. Be proud champions for the truth and for the country.

"The future is here! It's within our grasp! Let's win it!" she concludes, being played off by Katy Perry's "Fight Song," which was her anthem back in 2016.

#us politics #dem convention

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vaportea · 9 months ago

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for real, fuck charles xavier, magneto was right, and this shit ain't changed since x-men's conception, periodt

for those who have watched the latest episode of X-Men '97 i feel Some Type of Way about what's about to happen and i gotta rant

oh my god this is SO predictable, the timing is too impeccable, maybe it's because i have always valued Erik and his perspective on mutantkind but i thoroughly believe that it is Erik with the mutants' best interests in mind. Has it been a little selfish? Perhaps, I'll even let you say it is sometimes heavyhanded, but it was always in the protection of mutants, he even said it himself, he acts hostile only as a retaliation, not instigation.

And so Charles is "dead' and Erik inherits the X-Men, right, okay. And now Erik "declares war" and who should appear but fuckin Charles Xavier--and you KNOW what's going to happen, he's going to immediately throw himself on the pyre of pacifism for the greater good, he's gonna BEG Erik to reconsider warning that going too far will destroy all the trust that mutants have built up to this point (which for the record has always been WAVERING at best), and Erik is going to look bad and extremist when his reaction to the current world events is completely valid as is his anger! Genosha is in ashes, a country of his people died, Erik has been through this before, you SAW the number on his arm, yall KNOW what that means!

Charles is gonna be so naive to it all, but the fact is Bastion has thrown down the gauntlet, that man is very 'get them before they get us' and hasn't been the only one to do that to mutants, the Mutant Replacement Theory (which...i can't help but look at that and shake my head, like, X-Men has always been meta but god DAMN, y'know?) rhetoric is rampant in this series. The LAST thing we need is Charles spouting the fragility of human-mutant relations and expecting mutantkind, specifically the X-Men, to take some sort of moral high ground when the villains we're dealing with in this series in particular have already shown that it will not work.

I guess it's easy to place myself in the narrative as someone represented by marginalized groups, it's easy to get...angry at this, because you see your own world in it with all it's flaws. But our world has taught us time and time again that no tyrant or oppressor will be convinced of our validity by a handshake, at so many points in history we have had to fight for liberty, dignity, and the freedom to just exist. I just don't want to see the rest of the series devolve into 'oooooo no stop you can fight that hard it'll make us look bad ooooooooo' because like..what would you have them do otherwise, y'know?

#x-men #x men '97 #magneto #professor x

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meramyst18 · 9 days ago

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“You have to calm down” says the white man, “you are over reacting over nothing, your people have to do it the right way”. He claims as I look at him, his eyes are empty just as his empathy.

I can't really blame him, you can't really feel bad for others when you haven't lived the same life.

But this is not simply about different lifestyles, this is about a totally different world. This man that stands in front of me lives on planet Hollywood while I live on planet Earth.

His life is about important businesses and the wife and the kids. After his very well paid job, he goes to the supermarket and buys the food, the fruits, the drinks and stuff that my people “the illegals” make it possible for him to buy.

When he gets home, he says a very dry “hello” to the kids and the wife, and then he sits on the couch, turns on the TV to see the news about some criminals stealing, raping and destroying his so beloved country.

“They don't belong here” says the politician on the TV, “they steal our jobs, they are tearing this country apart.”

And the white man, in shock and awe, sees the brown man as a thief of dignity, the answer of all the things that are wrong in his life.

Here in planet Hollywood, there's no way that people from planet Earth come to take over and colonize their perfect world of commercial wealthy life.

So, while he stands in front of me, how can I blame him? For him, I am an alien, one that should've never existed in the first place. He’s so merged in his own world that he will never know.

You. Will. Never. Know.

You will never know how it feels to see your planet fall apart, and in a desperate attempt to save yourself and your loved ones, you go to planet Hollywood, where hope and freedom are supposedly so abundant.

You will never know what is like to say goodbye to everything you know, even your own language.

You will never know the amount of courage you have to gather to make a decision to leave your comfort zone.

You will never know what it's like to start from zero, to socialize with others not knowing if they see you as an equal or as an invader.

You will never know what it's like to be seen as a criminal, as an alien, as a plague that pollutes everything that touches.

You will never know what it's like to work endlessly to have at least five from the ten opportunities you have.

You will never know what it's like to build something so the ungrateful people can break and break, and then be blamed for the cracks.

You will never know what it's like to take the risk because you are way too comfortable thinking your country is the whole damned continent.

You will never know what it's like to scrap when you only know the little struggles.

You will never understand because you, the white man, will never walk in my shoes for a day. And if we're being frank here, I don't think you will last that whole day.

You think you are the greatness? You think you are the head of your so called “empire”? Well, let me tell you that my people, the illegals, the aliens, the criminals and the misfits are the neck of that empire, we are the ones who make it work, we are the backbone that vertebrae by vertebrae sustain the whole machine.

But go ahead, complain and blame because at the end of the day, you will never know.

#usa #inmigrantes #donald trump #eat the fucking rich #fuck donald trump #united states #poems #activism #inmigration #injustice

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stardustpinkart · 7 months ago

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If there is one thing I've learned from life it's that even if the most Horrendous person was in Trump's spot and almost Assassinated some people still would have defended them even if it was the devil himself people would still defend him it sad but true and I know wishing on people downfall is bad but let's be honest for all we know Trump already has blood on his hands he a rich politician for crying out loud

We don't need his old ass in office I swear I fear for my younger cousin in school I'm still in school but I know right from wrong and trust someone may have failed this time but as we all know the history book on the shelf always repeats itself and I say he going to be alive in the next 2 years i know a dead man walking when I see one and I'll be surprised if he actually makes it to see 2027

Yes, we do. We do know some of the things hes already done. His misogynistic views such as "Grab em" by the you know whats. Trying to build a wall around Mexico, poor children torn from there families stuck in dentention centres. Cots and those weird foil blankets right? No toys no books no one really taking care of them, being treated like criminals if I remmeber right? And I think the Capitol riots? 5 people were killed, and hes still not been punished for his part in that! Yknow I wouldent even be suprised if this was staged? By him himself, hes crazy enough! He only got shot in the ear, other people died. Again, he doesent care who gets hurt, and his followers will do anything he says, but he just sees them as MEATSHIELDS. HECK, if he was arrested and could not do ANYTHING anymore, lose his money, any power, be banned from being able to run from any position of power, I think we'd all sleep safer. BUT politicians and rich men often seem to slip out of it. I dont feel hes really paid at all for his crimes.

A lot of things I support, friends I know, family, these are things that could befall them easily. Even as simple as a womans basic rights that we had to fight for, there trying to drag the world back into the past? And the said thing is it can happen ANYWHERE any country. Thats why we havta stay vigilante when they try to take away our dignity, rights, freedoms and humanity. Its exhuasting, but we havta fight, we havta be brave, we havta stand up when we KNOW something is wrong

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archiveofkloss · 10 months ago

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st. louis public radio: “Fashion icon Karlie Kloss emphasizes Missouri's role in national abortion rights fight” by Jason Rosenbaum

Webster Groves native Karlie Kloss took the modeling world by storm in the 2010s before launching a highly successful effort to connect young women with computer coding and, more recently, helping relaunch Life magazine.

On Monday, Kloss discussed another passion: her advocacy for abortion rights in Missouri and around the Midwest.

“I'm one of four daughters. I grew up here in the Midwest. My father is a physician. The idea of reproductive care was never political in my house,” Kloss said. “It's devastating to me the reality of what is happening and how it has become so politicized. Because to me, this is a conversation that belongs between an individual and their physician and an individual and their loved ones. To me, politicians should not be involved.”

Kloss helped gather signatures in Creve Coeur for the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom initiative, a measure that would legalize the procedure up to what’s known as fetal viability. That’s defined in the initiative as when medical professionals determine that a fetus could survive outside of the womb without extraordinary medical intervention.

Before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Kloss started the Gateway Coalition, which provides financial and logistical assistance to small clinics that provide abortions throughout the Midwest. She said those facilities, particularly the ones in Illinois, have become havens for people in states like Missouri where most abortions are prohibited.

“What I really realized, especially once Roe fell, was about the fragmentation of care across this country, but specifically in the Midwest,” Kloss said. “I wanted to do whatever I could, and initially focused on Illinois of just the infrastructure that exists — the independent clinics, the clinics across Illinois who are really holding up the front line.”

She called the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom initiative “an opportunity to take it to the ballot box and actually have Missourians reinstall protections in our home state.”

“So you don't have to leave Missouri to receive just the vital care that I believe every woman deserves,” Kloss said.

Since rolling out the initiative at the beginning of the year, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom has raised more than $4.5 million in contributions of more than $5,000. That includes a $50,000 donation from Kloss.

She said that the initiative can find support with a wide range of voters — pointing specificallyto polling from SLU/YouGov that showed more than 20% of Republican respondents backed the initiative.

“They see this as a human issue,” Kloss said. “And also, the fact is that the trigger ban that went into effect had no exceptions, which to me is just unacceptable.”

Kloss was referring to how Missouri’s abortion ban that went into effect in June 2022 contained no exceptions for anyone who became pregnant due to rape or incest.

If organizers get roughly 171,000 signatures all over the state, the amendment legalizing abortion could go before voters in either August or November. It’s part of a trend in other states, including Arizona and Florida, of trying to use the initiative petition process to enshrine abortion rights.

Backers have until May 5 to turn in signatures.

Kloss said there’s a reason for people everywhere to care about what’s happening in Missouri and other states with strict abortion bans.

“To me this issue is about dignity,” Kloss said. “It's about respect and an individual's bodily autonomy to decide what is right for them in their life at whatever time they need to be making that choice. And so this ban, I believe, we have a chance to overturn.”

While in town Monday, Kloss participated in a ceremony officially naming a portion of Washington Avenue after her.

#karlie kloss #04012024 #st louis missouri #stlpr interview #interview #article #reproductive rights

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therosielord · 3 months ago

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If you are planning on fleeing a red state, here is my pitch for moving to Chicago

I am a lesbian and a lifelong Chicagoan and I fuckin love it here. I grew up here, went to college here, and now live here as an adult, and I have no plans to leave. Despite being the 3rd biggest city in America, Chicago gets weirdly overlooked a lot and many people have never even been here.

If you are fleeing a red state because you're LGBTQ+, a woman, or an immigrant, here are the reasons I think you should move to Chicago:

We're a super queer-friendly city with several historically queer neighborhoods (that are actually affordable enough to live in).

Illinois has literally never voted red in my entire lifetime. That's the entire 21st century so far, btw.

We have a looooong history of fighting for abortion rights, even helping women get care before it was legal (google the Jane Collective).

Although there are red counties in the more rural part of the states, the blue influence of Chicago spreads far beyond the city's official borders. Chicago has such a large network of sprawling towns around it that still feel like a part of the city that we have a name for it: Chicagoland! So even if you're not a city person, you can find lots of more rural spaces within Chicagoland.

If you can't stand the idea of living too far from nature, never fear: there are tons of gorgeous nature preserves around Chicago! I grew up in a suburb where both the city border AND a forest preserve were a bike ride away.

Illinois has a great governor, J. B. Pritzker, whose response after the recent election was "To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom, opportunity, and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people – you come through me."

We're a very diverse city with a large immigrant population. (Fun fact: the only city with a larger population of Polish people is Warsaw.) We have many localized ethnic neighborhoods all over the city. Which ties into my next point...

We have amazing food! Seriously, Chicago is super overlooked as one of the best eating cities in the country. I can find literally any cuisine from any country somewhere in Chicagoland, and we have everything from 3 Michelin star restaurants to hidden gem counter service spots with the best tacos al pastor you've ever had.

We have very strict gun control laws. Unfortunately, people get around these laws by going to Indiana to buy guns (thanks a LOT, Indiana), but the extra hassle means that there are actually fewer guns here than in red states and no one can open carry.

Chicago has a $15 citywide minimum wage and has plans to phase out tipping in restaurants (replaced with higher salaries).

We have really amazing museums like the Art Institute of Chicago (widely considered to be one of the best museums IN THE WORLD), the Field Museum (home to the most complete T-Rex ever, our beautiful mascot Sue), as well as a great aquarium, modern art museum, planetarium, and so many more I can't list them all. And they all have free days for Illinois residents!

We have great public transit. I don't own a car, most of my friends don't own a car, and we can get around just fine.

We never have hurricanes because we're a LAKE city, baby. We do have tornados but they rarely hit the actual city, they tend to stay out where there's more open space.

Cost of living is lower than other major blue cities like San Francisco and NYC

We have two baseball teams so that's double the baseball

Broadway shows frequently do a premier in Chicago before they open in NYC so we get a lot of huge musicals here. I've gotten free tickets to shows that later went on to tour the country.

Unlike SOME other large blue cities I could mention, we know how to put our trash in DUMPSTERS instead of IN THE STREET.

Giant bean

Your life will change after you've had a juicy Italian beef sandwich with hot giardiniera.

And finally, to address all the stories about Chicago being a crime-ridden warzone, here's the deal: they are simply not true. Where do those stories come from? It's simple: Chicago has a historically large black population and we're a liberal city. Racist republicans have convinced themselves that this means we must be a haven for crime. We have the same amount of crime as any large city, which is to say: far less crime per capita than in rural red areas. Seriously, look it up.

Not only is Chicago not the most dangerous city in America, we don't even make the list of the top 25.

But the thing is, those lies about Chicago actually kind of work in our favor, because it means that Republicans are too scared to come here. My own grandparents haven't visited in 10 years because they're convinced that if they do they'll get shot or something.

Anyway, move to Chicago, it's great here. And it'll probably be one of the safest strongholds for whatever comes in the next 4 years. If you're also from Chicago and have any other points I missed, please add them!

#lgbtq #lgbtqia #chicago #election 2024 #community aid #blah blah blah #abortion rights #abortion

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 1 year ago

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4th February >> Fr. Martin's Homilies / Reflections on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Mark 1:29-39) for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B: ‘Everybody is looking for you’.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Gospel (Except USA) Mark 1:29-39 He cast out devils and cured many who were suffering from disease.

On leaving the synagogue, Jesus went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them.

That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils. The whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another; he also cast out many devils, but he would not allow them to speak, because they knew who he was.

In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.’ And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out devils.

Gospel (USA) Mark 1:29–39 Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases.

On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.

Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.” He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.

Homilies (7)

(i) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sometimes a darkness of spirit can come over us for many reasons. Such an experience can often be generated by some experience of loss. We sense that we are losing our health. We may be losing some friendship or relationship that has been important to us. A loved family member drifts away from us because of ill health. The most painful experience of loss is when a loved one dies. Job who features in today’s first reading is someone who had lost everything - his home, his children, his health, his independence. A great darkness of spirit came over him, powerfully expressed in today’s first reading, ‘Lying in bed, I wonder, “When will it be day?” Risen, I think, “How slowly evening comes!”,,, my eyes will never again see joy’. It is a heartfelt lament, and as you read on beyond our reading, Job brings his heartfelt lament to God in prayer, saying to God, ‘Why have you made me your target? Why am I a burden to you?’ It is a very honest prayer out of the depths of great distress and darkness of spirit.

Sometimes that is the only form our prayer can take. It was the prayer of Jesus as he hung from the cross. He cried to God out of the darkness of his spirit and the brokenness of his body, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ On the cross, Jesus had lost everything. He had lost his disciples, his freedom, his dignity, and he even appears to have lost God. Jesus entered into the darkness of our human condition. He knows it from the inside. His question to God is the question of all of us when we find ourselves in a dark valley that is not of our making, ‘Where is God in my pain, grief and loss?’ Where was God on Calvary? God was with Jesus, his Son, suffering with him, sustaining him. God had not abandoned Jesus but would bring him through the darkness of Calvary into the glorious light of Easter. God had not abandoned Job either, but would go on to speak to him out of the storm. God never abandons us in our own valleys of darkness, but is always there with us, carrying us, sustaining us, leading us through the darkness into the light.

This is the good news that Jesus came to bring by his words and, above all, by his actions. In the gospel reading, Jesus spends a whole day bringing God’s healing and life-giving presence to the broken in body, mind and spirit. He firstly heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in her own home. The gospel says that ‘he helped her up’, literally, ‘he raised her’. He brought the power of the resurrection to bear on her illness. Having just healed a disturbed man in the synagogue, he now heals a seriously ill woman in her home. The risen Lord is with us in our homes as much as when we gather in church to worship. He wants to bring the power of his risen life to bear on our own brokenness of body, mind, or spirit. We don’t have to go on a journey to find the Lord. He is always journeying towards us, and he meets us wherever we are, whether it is in our own home or in some place that could never be called home.

Having healed Simon Peter’s mother in her home, he goes on to heal large numbers from Capernaum at the door of her home. The gospels suggest that Jesus spent a great deal of his time surrounded by suffering, by people who were in desperate need of healing of one kind or another. There must have been many broken people in great darkness of spirit he just couldn’t get to. At the end of the gospel reading, his disciples wanted him to go back to Capernaum to continue his healing work, but he replied that he needed to move on to the neighbouring country towns. How did Jesus cope with all that human suffering that kept coming at him? The gospel reading suggests that one of the ways he coped was by taking time out on his own to pray. After his day’s work, long before dawn, he got up and left the house of Simon’s mother-in-law and went to a lonely place and prayed there. He knew he needed to be alone with God if he was to keep doing God’s work.

Jesus is showing us the importance of being alone with God, of withdrawing to rest in the presence of God. When we find ourselves in some darkness of spirit, we can pray to God in various ways. Like Job, we can give out to God, or, like Jesus, we can just rest in the loving presence of God, the prayer of presence. We become aware of God’s presence to us, and we allow ourselves to become present to God. I came across a statement recently, ‘Whenever there is no way out, there is always a way up’. Like Jesus, we can come quietly before God who suffers with us as he suffered with Jesus on the cross, and who wants to carry us and bring us into a greater light and a fuller life. Like Jesus, in prayer we can find the strength from God to keep journeying on.

And/Or

(ii) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the very sad and tragic features of the time in which we live is the number of people who take their own lives. Men in early adulthood seem to be a particularly vulnerable group. It is difficult to understand the bleakness of spirit that must in some way be at the root of such a drastic step. Bleakness of spirit can afflict us all even if it never leads us to contemplate taking our own life. There can be many reasons for such bleakness of spirit. Our life can take a turn for the worst for one reason or another. Something deeply distressing can happen to us or to someone with whom we are very close. It is at such times that the words of Job in today’s first reading find a ready echo in our hearts: ‘Is not our life on earth nothing more than pressed service, our time no better than hired drudgery… months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief’. These are the words of one who has a sense of hopelessness in the face of the darkness of his experience of life.

What saved Job from total despair is that he was able to express how he felt to God. He addressed God very directly, sometimes in very angry and uncompromising terms. A few verses after our reading, he bellows at God: ‘Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle.’ Job had enough freedom in his relationship with God to speak to God directly out of the darkness of his experience. Job teaches us to speak to God out of the depths. The old Catechism definition of prayer that I learned at primary school was: ‘Prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God’. At one level it may sound a rather rarefied definition of prayer. Yet, when you think about it, this is actually a very earthy understanding of prayer. If prayer is the raising up of the mind and heart to God, then prayer is the raising up of everything that is in our mind and heart to God. If what is in our minds and hearts are the darkest of human sentiments and thoughts, then that is what we must raise up to God. We speak to God out of the reality of our lives, whatever that reality might be. Job shows us that our prayer does not have to be censured in any way. If prayer is not real, it is not really prayer. If our heart is broken, it is the broken heart that we bring to God in prayer.

There is a line in today’s responsorial psalm which states: ‘The Lord heals the broken-hearted’. As Job continued at length to speak to God out of his broken heart, he eventually went on to find healing. There is another line in one of the psalms which simply states: ‘The Lord is close to the broken-hearted’. If this was the conviction of the people of Israel who did not know Jesus, how much more should it be our conviction? Jesus revealed God to be close to the broken, to those who were broken in body, mind or spirit. The gospel reading this morning shows the closeness of Jesus, and, therefore, of God, to the broken. Indeed, in Jesus, God became one of the broken. On the cross Jesus reveals a God who is broken in body and spirit. A well-known German theologian once wrote a book with the title, ‘The Crucified God’. God entered our brokenness in Jesus, and experienced it from the inside. God could not get closer to the broken than that.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul says of himself: ‘For the weak, I made myself weak’. God could say the very same: ‘For the weak I made myself weak; for the broken, I made myself broken’. If that is the God in whom we believe, then we need have no hesitation in bringing our brokenness to God in prayer. If Job who did not know Jesus had this freedom, we should have that same freedom to an even greater degree. Many of us will be familiar with the saying: ‘A burden shared is a burden halved’. Sometimes it can be difficult to share our burden with another, even with the person we are closest to, with whom we may have shared most of our lives. If we cannot share a burden with our closest companion, it is not the case that the only alternative is to keep it to ourselves. We can share that burden with the Lord. The prayer of sharing, the prayer of the open heart, is a very authentic form of prayer. Sharing ourselves with God in this way is not quite the same as asking God for something, petitioning God. We are simply sharing; we are telling our story to God. We are opening up that story to God’s presence, to God’s influence. That is a very valid and worthwhile form of prayer.

In today’s gospel reading, we find Jesus at prayer. He had been ministering to the broken most of the day. Early next morning, he got up and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. Working with the burdened no doubt left him burdened, as is the case for all of us. His prayer was a time when he could share his burden with the Father. In doing so, he found strength to continue. ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns’, he said to his disciples after his prayer. The best teaching is often by example. Jesus is teaching us here by his own example to lift up whatever may be in our hearts and minds to God and in doing that to find new strength.

And/Or

(iii) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

All of us from time to time can experience life as something of a struggle or a burden. This might be because of some difficulty in our family, or our work may be unsatisfying or troublesome, or in these times of recession we may have lost our job, or our own health or the health of someone we love may be deteriorating. Any one of these or similar experiences can take its toll on us. We might find ourselves struggling to get through the day; we feel stressed and, as a result, we overreact to things, getting annoyed at what we would normally take in our stride. We may even find we have little energy for life.

At such times we can identify easily with the sentiments of Job in the first reading, and with his description of life as ‘pressed service’ and ‘hired drudgery’. The temptation when life becomes a burden can be to try harder, to summon up more of our energies, to do more to tackle the problem. In reality, the better path might be to do less, to step back and be still, to open ourselves to the presence of the Lord. During the past week I heard someone say that we are human beings not human doings. We often find it easier to do than to be.

The portrayal of Jesus in today’s gospel reading may have something to teach us in this regard. Because people recognised that God’s healing power was at work through Jesus, they came to him in great numbers in their brokenness, and reached out to him for healing. He certainly had no shortage of work. He was told initially about Simon Peter’s mother-in-law who was sick with a fever. Later on that day the whole town came crowding round the door of Simon Peter’s house looking for healing. That was only in Capernaum. Jesus could have worked day and night in all the towns of Galilee, healing the broken, releasing people from whatever was enslaving them.

Yet, Jesus knew the importance of standing back from what he was doing and being alone with God, even if it meant doing less. In the gospel reading we find him going off to a lonely place early in the morning to pray. When the disciples realized where he had gone, they were clearly puzzled by this behaviour of Jesus - going off on his own like that when there was so much work to be done. ‘Everyone in Capernaum is looking for you’, they said, as much as to say, ‘what are you doing out here on your own, when you could be healing more sick people back in Capernaum?’ But Jesus was not at the mercy of the demands of others, even the demands of those he was closest to. There was an even more important relationship in his life than his relationship with the needy and the sick, and that was his relationship with God, his Father. To do the work of the Father well, he knew that he needed to be with the Father, even though that meant doing less.

Paul in our second reading declares that he has made himself the slave, the servant of everyone. He was very committed to the work of bringing the gospel to others. He knew he was called to this service and he gave himself generously to it. Our own lives as Christians are very much about service too, serving one another in love, just as people served Simon’s mother-in-law by bringing Jesus to her, and people served the sick of Capernaum by bringing them to Jesus. Within our parish, parishioners serve other parishioners in all kinds of ways. People serve family members who are unwell or immobile at home; people look out for neighbours who need support. In a whole variety of ways, people are involved in the work of service of others. We are very dependant on the little services we render each other.

Yet, even more fundamental than the ways we serve each other is the way that God can serve us. God sent his Son not to be served but to serve and to give his life for us. Jesus revealed God to be our Servant. Jesus went away from the demands of others to open himself to the service of God, to be renewed and strengthened by God’s presence. If Jesus needed to be alone before God and to be served by God’s presence, how much more is that true of ourselves. We need to be before God, to come before him in our poverty and to be renewed by God’s presence.

If we can learn to be with God in stillness, then our service of others is more likely to be the kind of service that God wants for them. After spending time alone with God, Jesus did not go straight back to Capernaum, as Simon and the others wanted him to. He went on to other towns, because he knew this was what God wanted. It is not easy to acquire this habit of being alone with God in quietness and stillness, because so much of our culture today tells us that this is a waste of time, that we should be doing this, that or the other. We pray that the example of Jesus in the gospel this morning would inspire us to be with God, regardless of the demands made on us by life.

And/Or

(iv) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We are all familiar with suffering in one shape or form, whether it is physical, emotional, mental or spiritual suffering. There is no getting away from suffering; it comes to us all and it comes in different guises at different times of our lives. To live is to suffer. Regardless of our differences, suffering is something we all have in common. Some people seem to suffer more than others. Yet, it is difficult to measure suffering, especially in others. Some who do not seem to be suffering can be in great pain and others who seem to be suffering greatly can have a deep peace. The cry of Job in this morning’s first reading is one that comes out of deep suffering. He is in a very dark place indeed. Not only has he lost his health, his property and members of his family but he seems to have lost God. He had been living an exemplary life and he cannot understand why God has allowed so much misfortune to befall him. The God whom he worshipped when times were good now seems a complete stranger to him. The God to whom he related as a friend now seems to have become his enemy. The experience of loss, whether it is the loss of health or property or loved ones, can bring on something of a spiritual crisis. Some can be tempted to abandon God, when their prayers out of the depths are not heard. They feel angry at God; they sense that their trust in God has not been vindicated. That is very much the place where Job finds himself in today’s first reading. Job in that sense is every man or woman. The literary figure of Job is a very authentic depiction of the dark side of human experience, indeed, the dark side of faith in God.

The English writer C.S. Lewis was both a great intellectual and a man of great faith. He set out to give a rational explanation for the Christian vision of life. In 1940 he wrote a book called The Problem of Pain in which he brought his intellect and his faith to bear on the problem of suffering. However, twenty one years, in 1961, he wrote a very different book, called, A Grief Observed. In that book he recognizes that his rational, cerebral, faith has taken something of a battering. The book consists of the painful and brutally honest reflections of a man whose wife has died, slowly and in pain, from cancer. The book gives a vivid description of his own reaction, as a man of faith, to his wife’s death. His rational faith fell to pieces when confronted with suffering of a devastatingly personal kind. He writes at one point, ‘Where is God? Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that silence’. The name of Lewis’s wife was Joy. He had earlier written a book called Surprised by Joy in which he wrote about the impact meeting her had on his life. His book A Grief Observed has received a wide readership because of his authentic and moving account of the impact of bereavement. Even though his rational, cerebral faith took something of a battering because of Joy’s death, Lewis did not lose his faith. Through the darkness of this experience he claims to have come to love his wife more truly. He writes that God had helped him to see that because the love he and his wife had for each other had reached its earthly limit, it was ready for its heavenly fulfilment.

Faith has to come to terms with the cross and it is at the foot of the cross that faith can be purified and deepened. Jesus himself entered fully into the darkness of human suffering. In today’s second reading, Paul says of himself, ‘For the weak, I made myself weak’. That is certainly true of Jesus. He entered fully into the weakness of the human condition. Elsewhere, in one of his letters, Paul says of Christ that ‘though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’. On the cross Jesus was at his weakest and poorest; it was on Calvary that, in the words of Lewis, Jesus went to God and found a door slammed in his face, as he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Yet, that cry of desolation is itself an act of faith; it is the language faith uses when confronted with the harrowing darkness of loss. God did not forsake Jesus, but brought through death into the fullness of life. The Jesus who was crucified in weakness is the same risen Lord who is with us in our own experiences of suffering and desolation, just as he was with the suffering and the broken in this morning’s gospel reading. He is with us as one who knows our experience from the inside. Having gone down into the depths and having moved beyond the depths into a fuller life, he can enable us to do the same. He is the good shepherd who, even when we walk through the valley of darkness, is there with his crook and his staff, leading us to springs of living water.

And/Or

(v) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A few weeks ago Pope Frances paid a visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. While in the Philippines, he visited Tacloban. It was there that, on November 8, 2013, the six-metre high waves generated by Super Typhoon Yolanda, the strongest storm ever recorded on earth, smashed into the homes and lives of thousands of people, leaving behind death and destruction. One of the reasons Pope Francis went to the Philippines was to be with the people of this city who had lost so much. He celebrated Mass on the grounds of the airport in Tacloban. Half a million people braved wind and rain to take part in the liturgy. In his homily the Pope departed from his prepared script, and his words touched the hearts of all present. He said, ‘So many of you have lost everything. I don’t know what to say to you, but the Lord does know what to say to you. Some of you have lost part of your families. All I can do is keep silence and walk with you with my silent heart. Many of you have asked the Lord – Why Lord? And to each of you, to your heart, Christ responds with his heart from the cross. I have no more words for you. Let us look to Christ’. The Pope was acknowledging that, in the face of tragedy on such a catastrophic scale, the only adequate response he can make is silence and an invitation to those affected by this tragedy to turn in prayer towards the Lord on the cross and allow him to speak to them.

Today’s first reading is from the book of Job. That book tells the story of a good man who lost everything, his property, the members of his family and, finally, his health. Today’s short reading captures something of Job’s dark mood. His friends gathered round him in his great loss but the words they speak to him only deepen his dark mood and add to his burden. They suggest that all these misfortunes happened to Job because he has displeased God. If he were to repent of his wrongdoing all would be well. Job finds no comfort in these words; they ring hollow. He has been living as good and upright a life as is humanly possible. He is angry with God because of all that has been taken from him, and his friends’ words make him even angrier. A little further on from where our reading ends he turns to God in desperation, ‘Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle?’ Complaining to God like this can be a deep form of faith. Lamenting to God is part of our struggle to find God in our pain and loss.

Some of you may have found yourselves in a dark place because of some deep loss and, perhaps, some of the well-intentioned words that were spoken to you at that time only added to your distress. If we are to be truly present to others in their pain and loss we have to try and enter the darkness with them. We have to somehow suffer with them, which is the meaning of compassion. Saint Paul touches on this when in today’s second reading he says, ‘for the weak, I made myself weak’. This involves a great act of self-emptying on our part, a stepping out of ourselves to be one with the other. Only then will whatever words we speak ring true. When we do try to become one with the other in their pain and loss, we will often get a strong sense, like Pope Francis in Tacloban, that our silence is more appropriate than our words. When we are present to others in this compassionate way, then our presence will be a source of healing for them.

The gospels suggest that this was the way Jesus was present to others. If Paul could say, ‘for the weak I made myself weak’, Jesus could certainly have said the same. On many occasions in the gospels, the emotion of ‘compassion’ is ascribed to Jesus. He suffered with those who suffered and it was out of that identification with their suffering that he could be a source of healing for them. That is why, as we hear in today’s gospel reading, the sick and the broken were drawn to him in such huge numbers. It was above all on the cross that Jesus made himself weak with the weak, identifying with us totally in our brokenness and pain. As the crucified and risen Lord, he is compassionately present to us today as much as he was to those of his own time. That is why, although Pope Francis recognized that words were inadequate, he said to the people of Tacloban, ‘the Lord from the cross is there for you, in everything the same as us. That is why we have a Lord who cries with us and walks with us in the most difficult moments of life’. We too are invited to prayerfully come before the Lord on the cross in our own times of pain and loss. As we do so, we will be empowered to be present to others in their dark valleys, in the compassionate way the Lord is present to us.

And/Or

(vi) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Most of us will have known difficult and dark times at some point in our lives. We often find ourselves in a dark place. It might be brought on by a sudden experience of ill health or some experience of loss. Someone close to us may be in a dark place for a similar reason and it impacts powerfully on us. Job is certainly in a very dark place in today’s first reading. A great sense of despondency comes through his words. He experiences life as ‘hired drudgery’ and ‘pressed service’. A few verses after our reading ends, he exclaims, ‘I loathe my life’. The striking thing about Job is that he articulates his darkness of spirit before God. All the time he is not talking to myself, but to God; he is praying. Having declared ‘I loathe my life’, he immediately cries out to God, ‘Let me alone’. His way of addressing God is very honest and, at times, very angry. This is prayer at its most authentic. He yells at God, shouts at God, wonders where God is, asks God to leave him alone. Yet, by the end of the book, in and through this raw and honest prayer, he comes to some sense of peace and acceptance, some awareness that, in spite of his loss and suffering, he is being held by God who cares for all his creatures.

The experience of suffering in ourselves or in others can often shake our faith to the core. We struggle to reconcile the goodness of God with our own suffering and the suffering of others, especially the suffering of the innocent and most defenceless. The problem of evil and the suffering it produces is not easily resolved intellectually for people of faith. The gospel reading today suggests that Jesus often found himself surrounded by suffering. Having healed a very disturbed man in the synagogue of Capernaum, he is immediately brought to the house of Simon Peter’s mother in law who is in bed with a fever. All the sick of the town, ‘the whole town’, then come crowding around the door of Simon’s house, looking for Jesus to heal them of their various diseases. Jesus might have had his own questions about the endless suffering that surrounded him, day after day. When Jesus himself entered the dark valley of suffering and loss, he had his own questions. As he hung from the cross, he cried aloud, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This is not an intellectual question about the place of suffering in a world created by a good Creator. It is a much more heartfelt and personal question. Jesus was asking, ‘Where are you, God, in my suffering?’ It is the kind of question Job addresses to God throughout his long dialogue with God. Just like Job’s question, Jesus’ question from the cross was prayer. He was addressing God directly in prayer.

Although Jesus surrounded by the endless suffering of others, according to the gospel reading, there comes a time when he needed to go off alone to pray. Before dawn, while everyone else slept, he left the house where so much human suffering had gathered and he went off to a lonely place by himself to pray. It is as if Jesus needed to bring all this suffering and its impact on him to prayer. He somehow opened up this tide of human suffering to God his Father, whom he knew to be the Father also of all those who suffered. While he is at prayer, Simon Peter discovers where he is and says to him, ‘Everyone one is looking for you’. The suffering people of Capernaum are knocking on your door, Peter is saying. Yet, even though everyone is searching for him, Jesus knows that he needs time and space to search for God in prayer. Jesus was very aware of the depth of his need for God. He had to pray, just as he had to eat and drink. We can be much less aware of the depth of our need for God. Yet, our need for God is even greater than Jesus’ need, and our need for God is all the greater when suffering presses in on us. Suffering drove Jesus to pray; it drove Job to prayer; it needs to drive us to prayer too. The temptation can be to allow the experience of suffering to turn us away from God, and, yet, it is above all in such difficult and dark moments that we most need to keep the lines of communication open to God, even if it is only to complain to God and to question God.

I am often struck at how some people who have such great suffering in their lives also have a deep prayer life. Invariably such people are never bitter about their situation. They often have an extraordinary serenity and peace about them. Suffering, whatever form it takes, has the capacity to turn is in on ourselves. Yet, in bringing the experience of suffering to prayer, as Job did, as Jesus did, we open ourselves up to the Lord who is always close to the broken hearted, and we can find the spiritual strength to live through our suffering and loss, even though we may not understand it.

And/Or

(vii) Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I had a friend who died some years ago. She had been confined to her bed for many years because of a debilitating illness. She had a poster on her wall which read, ‘Life is fragile, handle with prayer’. She needed everything done for her. Yet, there was one thing she could do for herself, and that was to pray. She was a woman of deep prayer. I am sure there were times when her prayer echoed the prayer of Job in the first reading. Job’s prayer is one long complaint to God, a prayer of lamentation from the depths of distress. The prayer of lamentation is a very valid form of prayer; it expresses our struggle to find God in the darkest experiences of life. Complaining to God can be a deep form of faith. Prayer can sometimes take the form of just giving vent to the darkness within, opening up our most painful struggles to God. In some ways it is a prayer of trust, because we are only that honest about ourselves with someone we can trust.

If the prayer of this friend of mine resembled at times Job’s prayer of lamentation, it took other forms as well. It certainly took the form of interceding for others. Although she could easily have become completely absorbed by her own suffering, she was always thinking of others and praying for them. She also regularly gave thanks to God. She appreciated every kindness that was shown and gave thanks to God for it. The readings today prompted us to ask, ‘How do I pray?’ and ‘Why do I pray?’ That second question is the more fundamental of the two. Some very good and loving people see little or no value in prayer. Why bother with prayer at all? Surely, there are better ways of spending your time.

Yet, if we have faith, even if it is only the size of a mustard seed, we will invariably find ourselves drawn to prayer of some kind. After all, what is faith only a relationship with the Lord, in response to his relationship with us? Like any relationship we have with someone, we need to give expression to this relationship in some way. We will feel the need to connect, to communicate, with the one we have a relationship with. It is true that when our relationship with someone breaks down, perhaps in a very acrimonious way, we no longer feel the need to communicate with them. On the contrary, we may want to have nothing to do with them. We have nothing more to say to them. Our hurt and anger can become a stone wall between us and them. Our relationship with God, with the Lord, can break down too. Life’s trials and troubles can leave us feeling angry with God and, unlike Job who openly expressed his anger to God, we can express our anger towards God by withdrawing. We stop praying, or we just go through the motions of prayer. Yet, whereas human relationships can break down irretrievably, our relationship with the Lord never breaks down irretrievably, and that is because the Lord keeps knocking on our door. He keeps pursuing us, not to burden us but to heal us. In the words of today’s psalm, the Lord ‘heals the broken-hearted; he binds up all their wounds’. The Lord keeps seeking us out in his love because he wants to do for us what he did for Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in the gospel reading, taking us by the hand and helping us up, empowering us to serve others in love.

The Lord who seeks us out is prepared to wait on our response, just as the father in the parable of the prodigal son was prepared to wait for his rebellious younger son. The Lord’s waiting is not a passive waiting because he is all the time drawing us to himself. He said on one occasion, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself’. ‘Why, then, do I pray?’ I pray in response to the drawing power of the Lord’s love. In the gospel reading, we find Jesus at prayer. He had just healed Peter’s mother-in-law; he then healed many who were sick from various diseases and who had gathered at the door of the house. When Jesus went off to pray, early the following morning, Peter and his companions went looking for him and when they found him they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you’. They were asking, ‘Why are you out here praying when you could be healing more people?’ Jesus was praying in response to the drawing power of God his Father’s love. He came away from that prayer, knowing what he had to do, not go back to Capernaum as his disciples wanted him to do, but go further afield. His time with God in prayer freed him to take the path God wanted him to take. When we turn to prayer, in response to the Lord’s drawing of us, even if it is after a long time of resisting, we will not only experience his healing presence, but we will be helped to take the path the Lord wants us to take. That will always be the path of loving service of others, the path of making ourselves weak for the weak, in the words of Paul in today’s second reading.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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