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lingshanhermit · 6 months ago

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Lingshan Hermit: Letting Him Put Down the Bow and Arrow Doesn't Require Dzogchen

In the summer of 2014, I received empowerments for over a month at Dzongsar Monastery. During breaks, someone mentioned that only a few teachers can now fully teach Dzogchen. This was probably true, and it wasn't the first time I'd heard it. This view has always been widespread. But now, for many people, it seems to imply: "Only Dzogchen and fully enlightened individuals can benefit sentient beings." This, of course, is not true. Although untrue, it has quietly become a common notion. I think this should be blamed on the excessive promotion of Tantra in recent years, which has led many to believe that if they can't obtain Dzogchen teachings, they can't be liberated, can't benefit, and can't even be considered practicing (because others will look down on them). Other Buddhist vehicles seem to have completely disappeared for them. They are not considered, not valued, and not mentioned. In recent years, I've never seen anyone wanting to receive a Kriya Tantra empowerment (they only want Atiyoga empowerments, or at least Anuyoga). I've never seen anyone ask a teacher how they can truly refrain from all evil deeds. No one asks this question, let alone discusses it (they all ask high-end questions). It's as if refraining from evil deeds is a simple thing that everyone can easily accomplish. I don't think this is a good phenomenon.

Many people I've met have been instilled with similar views, and many in Tibet are fueling this trend. As Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Rgya mtsho Rinpoche said, Tibetans in the past lacked understanding of the outside world. They had never seen lions, subways, or drunk green tea, so they easily developed a chauvinistic mindset. I've met many Tibetan practitioners who, despite never having read Zen books or understanding Zen at all, have no qualms about dismissing it. Similarly, they lack understanding and interest in other practice systems. Living in their own circles for a long time inevitably contributes to their chauvinistic mindset. So many of them don't know that there are many practice systems in the world, with enlightened beings of various degrees benefiting sentient beings at different levels. This notion became particularly absurd after being passed on to mainland students by Tibetan teachers at the end of the 20th century, leading to the view we mentioned at the beginning that only Dzogchen and fully enlightened beings can benefit sentient beings. Of course, no one would say this directly, but it gives people this impression and leads to such notions. I know some teachers are not motivated by self-interest, but by responsibility and rigor. However, the absence of other practice systems in their lives undoubtedly limits their perspective and breadth of mind. And not everyone is motivated by responsibility and rigor. Some people simply inherit conservative views from the past and are unwilling to change. The originators of those views lived in the 17th century, having never seen lions or flown in airplanes. Also, many people like to over-interpret. They like to exaggerate. When a teacher says 1, it becomes 3 for them, and when they pass it on to others, it becomes 5. Humans are actually a species that loves monopoly very much. They monopolize mining rights and discourse rights. If possible, they would be willing to monopolize everything, from secular society to Buddhist society, and few can overcome their inner demons. So, it's not surprising to see this phenomenon.

In the past, whenever I heard such notions, I would vaguely feel something was wrong, but I didn't think about what exactly was wrong at the time. This notion sounds as if, except for Dzogchen at the peak of the nine vehicles, and except for fully enlightened Buddhas, the dharma of other vehicles and saints with different levels of realization cannot benefit sentient beings. This is certainly not true. There are many enlightened beings of different levels in this world, and each enlightened being will benefit sentient beings according to their own realization, within their own realm. Even if they are only teaching non-killing and non-stealing, it is supreme dharma and will have a huge impact on many people's lives. I've watched videos of modern Western hunters killing animals. These hunters hide in trees and use the most advanced compound bows to hunt passing black bears and wild boars. After being shot, these animals panic and run around frantically, eventually bleeding to death in nearby bushes. Every time I see such videos, I deeply feel that there are too few people teaching Buddhist dharma and virtuous laws. Letting him put down the bow and arrow doesn't require Dzogchen empowerment and profound tantric explanations. It only needs someone to teach him the consequences of killing, to often talk about it in front of him, to let him hear it. This would be of great help to both parties and would have a profound impact on their lives. So, although some people may not be fully enlightened, it doesn't mean they can't benefit sentient beings. Benefiting sentient beings doesn't only refer to becoming a Buddha. Being able to make someone give up the idea of harming animals is also beneficial. It's not just emptiness that has value; worldly virtuous laws are equally important. There are many different practice systems in this world, with enlightened beings of various degrees. Some people have only experienced a moment of true reality, while others are in a state of non-conceptualization most of the time. Some practice systems only have a partial understanding and experience of emptiness. But no matter what level of enlightenment, as long as they sincerely help sentient beings within their realm to the best of their ability, they are benefiting sentient beings. You can't expect a person to start benefiting sentient beings only after becoming fully enlightened and attaining Buddhahood. There are many bodhisattvas in this world who practice and benefit sentient beings simultaneously, rather than waiting until they are fully enlightened to start benefiting others. I used to think everyone knew this, but now it seems most people don't. That's why I wrote this article.

Written by Lingshan Hermit on June 29, 2024.

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灵山居士：让他放下弓箭并不需要大圆满

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earlgraytay · 3 years ago

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I'm... really uncomfortable with the way that tumblr has decided to minimize the existence of narci//ssistic abuse.

like, no, not everyone with N//P//D is an evil monster. [eta] I think most people with NPD are more likely to be/have been abuse victims themself, and whether or not they treat people like shit, assuming that they will right out of the gate is a special kind of cruel. but being raised by someone who's unwilling or unable to treat you as a person- so incapable of it that they see you as a possession or a toy- can fuck you up in some very specific and extremely damaging ways.

i honestly don't think it's that different from talking about, say, Christian religious abuse. no, not all Christians are abusers, but the ways that Christians abuse their kids often has very specific consequences. For example: a kid raised in a secular abusive family is not going to be afraid that they will be eternally tortured in a nightmare dimension if they disobey their parents. The fear of hell is so corrosive that it really does a number on your psyche, right? you kinda get convinced that having any thoughts or beliefs or desires that the Proper Authorities don't approve of is Bad. and how you react to that differs from person to person, don't get me wrong, but the effects are consistent and pervasive.

similarly, if the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally treat you like you're invisible/worthless unless you're fawning over them? if they come down on you like a load of bricks if you vary an iota from their (incredibly self-serving) mental image of you? that uh. that has aftereffects. bad ones. consistently visible ones. being raised by a small-n narcissist- whether or not they have NPD- can fuck you up. and you need some kind of word to be able to talk about that specific pattern of abuse, and its specific aftereffects.

and like, in the case of religiously-inflected abuse, there is an umbrella term for it, we just call it "spiritual abuse". you can specify "Christian spiritual abuse" if you need to (though in Murica you generally don't), but having the umbrella term does help decrease the specific stigma on Christians (and the amount of internet fights you get into with Rando Drive-by Christians).

I can see the need for a similar umbrella term that doesn't inherently tar people with NPD as OMGWTFBBQMONSTERS!!!111!. I can't think of one off the top of my head, because I'm pissed and triggered, but I don't think y'all are wrong to want it.

but you still need a word for the pattern. Just calling it "abuse" doesn't cover the specific side effects, in the same way that calling spiritual abuse "abuse" doesn't get across the way being measured up to someone's very specific beliefs can warp you, calling [narci//ssistic] abuse "abuse" doesn't get across the way being expected to perform for someone else's benefit can warp you.

#abuse #general malarkey #tumblr malarkey #this is an intersection where the disabled community consistently fails a lot of people #i can understand why you're angry #i can understand why it pisses you off that the name of your disorder is the name of this kind of abuse #but we need a name for the pattern #there's no getting around that.

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balioc · 4 years ago

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I’ve been watching the BBC/HBO His Dark Materials series, which means that I’ve been thinking back on the books.

(Spoilers for the His Dark Materials books follow.)

epistemic status: I’m sure someone else has come up with all of this before, probably many someones, but it’s the thing that’s on my mind

Looking at things with 2020-era discourse eyes, it really is striking how much this fantasy story -- for a supposed anti-Christian polemic -- feels like it’s coming from exactly the same discursive place as the Christian tradcon rhetoric that I read. Pullman feels the same way about his heroes that tradcons feel about themselves; Pullman feels the same way about his [extremely Christian-coded] villains that tradcons feel about their [secular, progressive, “degenerate”] enemies.

It’s a Cult of Strength thing, if you’ll forgive me for returning to my own homebrew terminology. Pullman believes in the Natural Order. He wants people to be what they were born to be, to be healthy, which is the same thing as being both strong and morally good. Which is exactly what all the vociferous Christian ideologues of our age want, only without the cross logo.

A couple of extremely-salient examples:

* His Magisterium is presented as a weird, creepy, head-up-its-own-ass cult that cares about abstractions of its own invention to the exclusion of anything real and valuable. A caricatured Cult of Vision institution, in other words. Its Big Scheme is a mad-science project to -- in directly-analogic local-worldbuilding terms -- castrate the world’s children en masse so that they will never become proper adults and never encounter the features of adulthood (especially sex).

This is not a horror-story version of the Christian self-identity. This is the kind of horror story that tradcons tell about progressives. It is a hubristically utopian scheme to rework human nature in the face of the natural order.

(It’s also worth noting that Magisterium clerics tend to be portrayed in exactly the way that conservative polemicists tend to portray progressives: greasy sallow men-without-chests, pseudo-intellectuals and self-important bureaucrats whose only love is institutional power, perverts whose souls take the form of unpleasant creeping things.)

* Iofur Raknison could be a C.S. Lewis villain.

Actually, wait, I’ll go further than that. Iofur Raknison is basically Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, made suitable for a children’s book.

For all that he’s dangerous and frightening, in the end, he is mostly pathetic and contemptible. The reader is invited to feel scorn for him. And the reason for this is that he is dominated by a perverse desire to traduce the natural order, to be what he cannot be and was not meant to be. This leads to the grotesque spectacle of him parading around as the thing-he-is-not [human], with a cringeworthily unconvincing substitute version of the proper accoutrement [daemon]; this makes him a delusional fool, easily manipulated by anyone promising to help him fulfill his ridiculous impossible desire.

He is unwilling to accept the proper order of things, he insists on fighting it, and that makes him both wicked and weak.

...again, this is how Christian tradcons portray their enemies, when they’re not feeling charitable.

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My takeaway feeling seems to be “Pullman doesn’t actually understand the people at whom he’s mad, or what drives them.” They wouldn’t see themselves, even caricature versions of themselves, in his supposedly so-very-Christian villains. They would see themselves in his heroes, and despise his villains for pretty much the same reasons that he does.

But movements change over time. Certainly Christianity has been countless different things, and they rise and fall in prominence. I don’t know whether the public face of the religion has somehow become much less world-rejectingly Cult-of-Vision-y, and much more natural-order-loving C.S.-Lewis-y, in the time between when the books were written and now -- I don’t see any particular reason to think so, but, well, maybe I’m missing something. I suppose mainstream secular culture has gotten less freewheelingly sex-positive in comparison, which may have something to do with it. (The bit where Christian tradcons have been the ones lamenting the collapse of teen sex rates has, uh, certainly been memorable.)

#his dark materials #media analysis

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years ago

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TLDR: the present sucks, I can’t wait until we get to the future.

[I make a lot of posts by starting with one idea and just following my train of thought wherever it takes me. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you may have noticed I tend to rant and meander and make posts with no real point other than for me to say what I want to say (just look through my “rant” tag), and this one is no different. I have just been seeing a lot of political posts today, and I needed to vent. I don’t know, it’s a fruitless endeavor, I’m just some rando shouting his opinions into a canyon and hoping I hear an echo, but it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something, so by God I’m gonna a keep doing it]

Is anyone else actively waiting for The Revolution™?

Like, I’m operating under the assumption that “shit’s gon go down” in the near future. 2020 was but a taste, a glimpse of the horrors to come. I guarantee you something much, much, MUCH worse will happen in 2024.

I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m waiting for the final straw to break the camel’s back. The country is a glass of grape juice balanced precariously on the edge of a counter right above new white carpet; it’s going to fall, it’s just a matter of when.

I don’t WANT war. I don’t WANT unrest. A lot of people will die in the conflict, I cannot condone it, but I often feel as though we’re otherwise helpless. Staying the course won’t change anything, but last years’ protests demonstrably worked; a lot of the calls for change were just talk, as politicians haven’t committed anywhere near as much as they promised to, but the protestors managed to ensure #45 remained a one-termer. Protests give people agency, they let them have an active role, it gave them some power or at least a feeling of power.

Nothing short of revolution will effect substantive change in this country; politicians aren’t just going to suddenly agree to stop making things worse and start making them better. They will only concede when the personal pressure is too great for them to continue. Change only happens when they let it happen; we can’t change anything unless they’re on board, and the only way to get them on board is to make it impossible for them to be off board. Southern conservatives opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but LBJ strong-armed them into passing it anyway. He put pressure on them, and they relented, not because they had a change of heart and wanted to do right, but because they knew doing wrong would be personally detrimental.

We need to make things expensive for the cops and capitalists and conservatives. We need to make them want to stop investing time and money into opposition. We need to break their spirit, crush their morale. It’s a war of attrition, and we need to push them and push them and push them until they’ve had enough and finally sue for peace.

I’m a 24 year old white kid preaching about La Resistance™, I am the embodiment of entitlement. Who am I to talk? Who am I to ask other people to fight when I’m not willing to do so myself? I don’t think of myself as unwilling, I think that given the opportunity I’d be able to fight, but that’s just it, I’m making excuses not to fight in the moment! I keep insisting that I can’t do anything right now, that maybe I’ll be able to do something later, which proves I’m a hypocrite! If I actually cared, I wouldn’t be posting about it to an echo chamber of a couple dozen users I’ve never met on tumbler dot com. If I actually cared, I’d be radicalized by now. I’d be part of a movement, I’d have used my privilege to put my money where my mouth is (I don’t have A LOT of privilege, but I have enough, more than most people, that I could be using it for good)

I feel like posting about this in a public forum is counterproductive. All it does is paint a target on my back for the NSA or FBI or CIA to monitor my movements. If I really cared, I’d go underground and join an actual group, but the problem is that left-wingers don’t really HAVE any groups! Antifa isn’t an organization, it’s an ideology! There are no left-wing militia groups, no splinter cells, no Resistance! Only right wingers do that sort of shit, and they do it with impunity because the feds will never look into them until it’s too late, whereas the feds will nip any left-wing movement in the bud before it sprouts.

I want to be part of something greater than myself, but I’m a coward. I am disillusioned, but there’s no constructive outlet for me. The last thing I want to do is get recruited by some death cult, as happens to a lot of white men my age. I don’t want the message of this post to be that there should be left-wing versions of all the right-wing terrorist groups we ser, I’m not saying I would want to join a liberal version of the proud boys or whoever else (they don’t exist, and I wouldn’t join even if they did), what I’m saying is I want agency in my life. I want to believe I can be in charge of my own destiny, without living in fear of federal and state and local government hurting people. I’m relatively safe, I’m a cis-het white male, I’m not gonna be targeted by extremist groups, I’m not gonna be assassinated by cops for driving with my hands at 9 and 12 instead of 10 and 2. I’m not afraid for my future, I afraid for the future of others with less privilege than me.

I really don’t want to come across as sounding like a libertarian. Like, I don’t fear the concept of government, I fear THIS government specifically. I don’t fear taxes, the exact opposite, I would increase the marginal tax rates to their pre-Reagan levels, I would raise corporate taxes and then put heavy sanctions on any of them that tried to leave the country to avoid paying them, I’d gladly pay more from my own minimum wage paycheck if it meant other people could have the resources they need. I find myself in the green quadrant, but I am by no means a libertarian by the American definition (fuck the Libertarian party, they’re just secular Republicans)

Most American politicians are in the upper right blue quadrant. Yes, even the Democrats. Even so-called Democratic Socialists like Sanders and Warren are closer to the center than actual left-wingers in any other country. There are still communist parties in Europe, but they will NEVER be anti-capitalist parties in the United States. The best we can hope for from our leaders is to keep them from going up or right. If third-party candidates were viable, I’d be a Green, but they’re not, so I’m begrudgingly a Democrat (derogatory).

I just want people to prosper. I don’t want anyone to suffer, I don’t want people to get hurt, I want people to be safe. That shouldn’t be too much to ask, but over the last 250 years we’ve had to fight tooth and nail just to get to where we are today, and this is nowhere NEAR a good place to be.

For the right, the best society was 50 years ago. For the left, the best society is 50 years from now.

There is no end to history, we’ll never reach some cosmic finish line and be like “we did it, we’re done, we won and everything will be good forever,” no, we will always need to keep fighting to drag ourselves further and further towards progress. I find the carrot-on-a-stick to be a very comforting analogy; sure, we’ll never reach it, but we’ll always be moving forward. The carrot isn’t the goal, the destination is the goal. We need to understand that whatever we’re striving for now will look primitive and backwards in ten or twenty years time, so we need to constantly look towards the future instead. Everything changes with time, and we need to get ahead of it, we need to be ready for it, we need to accept and embrace it. If we pick a goal and reach it, we need new goals, we can’t just celebrate victory in the moment and pretend like we’re done. We kept fighting after 1776, and 1865, and 1964, and 2020; there will always be greater milestones to achieve.

#long rant #long post #long #tldr #tl:dr #too long didn’t read #rant #politics #political

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charliejrogers · 4 years ago

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Klaus (2019) Review & Analysis

I remember recently discussing with my fiancée how, though there have undoubtedly been a number of Christmas movies released in the last twenty years, none have really risen to the level of a “classic” – something you would want to watch every year as part of a tradition. It’s true I have not seen it, but still something tells me that 2008’s Reese Witherspoon vehicle Four Christmases is not on anyone’s annual watchlist… nor 2017’s Mel Gibson-infested Daddy’s Home 2. We concluded that the last “classic” was 2003’s Elf. And, while Christmas movies don’t have to mention Jesus or religion obviously, please don’t try to tell me that Frozen is a Christmas movie… it’s not! In some ways, given how secular things are, I began to wonder if there even was a market for holiday family fun movies, but of course, I’m an idiot because you can just make a whole movie about Santa Claus. Move over, Jesus, we gotta talk about the reason for the season!

Klaus released last holiday season on Netflix and at least in Chicago I saw billboards for it everywhere. Netflix went all in on promoting this as the next big Christmas movie and had some moderate success; they even grabbed an Oscar nom for best animated picture. Unlike most animated films these days, Klaus was made by neither DreamWorks nor Disney, and it shows. It lacks the refined polish of a Disney/Pixar feature, but also has a heart unlike a DreamWorks picture. The animation style can be best described as a hybrid of 2D and 3D (yet not quite 2.5D). At times the character models look like classic hand-drawn 2D models set within a mostly computer-generated 3D environment. But at other times, they look more 3D. It’s confusing to describe, and inconsistent to watch. It often felt like I was watching a compromise between a studio that wanted a distinct animation style but didn’t have the budget to fully realize it. Still, more often the not it’s a pretty movie.

More than the raw visuals, the movie has a fantastic sense of atmosphere… perhaps even too much at the beginning. Klaus is, in one sense, the story about how a lonely woodsman becomes the legendary Santa Claus, but for such a jolly premise, much of the film is shrouded in shadows and dominated by an oppressive, cold, snowy bleakness. In retrospect, this makes sense as the true triumph of Santa and “Christmas spirit” can only be best appreciated when it brings light to the darkest of places and times. Still, upon first viewing, I was quite surprised and shocked by the dark atmosphere and downright violent imagery on display at the beginning of the film, so much so that I was wondering if this really was a Christmas movie!

The darkness stems from the fact that our woodsman Klaus lives deep within the forest on a far north island, far far from the closest village which is a town called Smeerensberg and is famous for its never ending feuding and wickedness. It’s a genuine Nineveh of the North so it seems. The town’s feud centers around two rivalling clans (the film’s equivalent of the Hatfields & McCoys) and every villager belongs to one clan or the other. The two families’ feuds go back longer than anyone can remember (cave paintings exist that depict their feud), implying an original sin of sorts with the town being more born from hatred than spawning it. Hatred is so foundational that it infects every part of society. Unwilling to allow children to interact with the rival clans in classrooms, children just don’t go to school. Instead, they roam the streets playing pranks on old people and stabbing snowmen with carrots.

For the most part, Klaus lives his life separate from and unbothered by these unruly residents of Smeerensberg. What breaks his solitude is the arrival of a new post officer to Smeerensberg. More than a trivial side character, this post officer, Jesper Johansson, is surprisingly the main character of this movie all about the origins of Santa Claus.

Much like the residents of Smeerensberg, we the audience come to the film with a primary misunderstanding, much of what makes Santa famous today (the home invasion via chimney, the responding to letters, the reindeer-pulled sleigh) were the creative inventions of a spoiler-brat-turned-postman. So despite this movie being about the origins of Santa Claus, being a Christmas movie, you should have guessed that this will be some variant on Dickens’ classic tale. Jesper isn’t a classic Scrooge in that he doesn’t abhor Christmas, but he is self-absorbed, materialistic, and all-around not a great guy. He’s the spoiled son of a successful postal worker who controls a postal empire that looks more like an army. (The true fantasy of this movie has nothing do with sleigh bells and stocking stuffers… it’s the idea that the post office is a well-organized, well-respected, successful enterprise.) Anyways, recognizing his own son’s worthlessness, Jesper’s father decides to whip him into shape, ship him off to the God-forsaken land of Smeerensberg with an ultimatum: Jesper must process 6,000 letters from the town of Smeerensberg in a year or else be cut off from his father’s wealth. The problem? With how ugly the feud is in Smeerensberg, no one needs to write a letter to express their feelings when a cold snowball to the face (or worse) will get the point across quite clearly.

So now with the spoiled postal heir longing for silk sheets as he tries to survive out in the cold boonies, the movie gets a hint of the Emperor’s New Groove flavor… sans llama. It is only by sheer “chance” (we’ll get to that) that when Jesper visits the woodsman in a last ditch effort to find one person on the island who wants to send a letter, a piece of paper falls out of Jesper’s bag as he flees in horror of the woodsman (we’ll get to that). This piece of paper contains a drawing that a little boy made of himself locked in a high tower looking sad. In a very humorous scene, we had seen Jesper accidentally stumble across this drawing and then unsuccessfully try to scam the boy into giving him money so that Jesper could “mail” it back to him, rather than just give it back. Regardless, recognizing the little boy’s suffering, the woodsman decides to do something about it and enlists Jesper’s help. Luckily for the children of Smeerensberg, the woodsman has a barn full of toys. Yes, “a barn full of toys” is as creepy as that sounds and the films uses that creepiness to full effect when Jesper first meets the woodsman. The large, imposing, hooded, axe-bearing woodsman is far from the jolly fellow we know he is destined to become. He’s downright scary and given how violent the town of Smeerensberg is (Jesper almost dies when he first arrives because he’s tricked into ringing the war bell which sends the whole town into violent frenzy), we and Jesper are not wrong to assume the woodsman holds only ill-intentions. Essentially, the first meeting with the woodsman is supposed to be something akin to the reveal of the Beast in 1991’s Beauty & the Beast, a film so scary it sent my then two-year-old sister running out of theater in tears. Ultimately, I can’t speak for the mind of a child, but the tension for me here is certainly lessened by the fact that… well… we know the woodsman is Santa Claus. So even though Jesper is scared shitless and flees after meeting the woodsman, we know that there will be more to their story.

Still, even if not necessarily scary, the film does successfully shroud the woodsman in mystery, and his backstory is slowly and beautifully revealed throughout the film. I won’t spoil it here, but the script does a fantastic job of contextualizing the woodman’s stoic and aloof nature and explaining why that barn is so full of toys. The explanations come naturally and speak to a real human pain that I was not expecting from this film. In terms of emotion, the woodsman’s backstory almost reaches the opening montage to Up. ALMOST, I said, so put down the pitchforks!

So Jesper and the woodsman team up to deliver a present to that first child from the drawing. Or more accurately, the woodsman throws Jesper down a chimney to deliver a present while the woodsman looks on. The ensuing scene when the boy opens his present brought tears to my eyes. The woodsman (and we with him) watching the pure joy of a child receiving a present is truly nostalgic in its most literal sense. It hurts to see such joy, remembering that at one time you too could feel such joy from a hunk of plastic, and knowing you will never feel that way again. It’s a joy that few films outside of A Christmas Story with its the red rider BB gun really nail. Anyways, the little boy sees the woodsman through the window and finds his original drawing of himself locked in the tower which the woodsman leaves behind by accident. He surmises that the postman had devliered his drawing to the woodsman, and the woodsman responded with a present.

After that… well the rumor spreads wildly of the mysterious woodsman who comes down chimneys at night to give presents to children in response to letters. Now, the once dormant post office becomes a bustling hub of activity as children from all over flock to send letters to this Mr. Klaus. Kids even beg to go to school so that they can learn to write in order to get presents (much to the dismay of the disilliusioned teacher who long ago gave up on her dreams of teaching in a town where no child goes to school and had turned to being a fishmonger in order to pay the bills and one day afford to leave the town for good).

Gradually the children, who seemingly had no toys prior to Klaus and Jesper’s escapades, now joyously play together, regardless of which clan they belong to. Initially this upsets their parents greatly, but in the end it’s hard to really hate the parents of your children’s friends. The film promotes an age-appropriate and inspiring, if fanciful and naïve, notion that all the world’s problems would be solved if we all thought like children. As by spreading joy throughout the town, Jesper and Klaus inadvertently make the town a better place to live. It’s the theme of the film (not that they’re subtle about it): one act of good-will always begets another (or something like that). Still, all this doesn’t please the village elders, who abhor the change from the town’s hateful origins. They will ultimately serve as villains trying to put an end to all this gift-giving business.

Of course, there’s another villain of sorts, as well. Despite all the good he’s doing, Jesper is ultimately still motivated mostly by the notion of getting back to his old cushioned life. He is essentially using Klaus and preying on his kindness in order to launch himself back to a life of selfishness. It’s here the story feels most Dickensian, particularly in a scene where the school teacher (now love interest) acts functionally the same to the ghost of Christmas present and takes Jesper to the city center to see for himself the love and joy that he has helped bring to the world. But, still his desires to go home are strong, and, of course, he keeps them a secret. So between Jesper’s inner conflict about where he belongs in life and the external conflict of the community trying to fight back against a change in its culture, the film naturally comes to climax when the two conflicts meet and Jesper must confront both challenges at once.

What I’ve realized in writing this review … is that I am very impressed by the plot’s complexity and depth. The film weaves together at least three solid story arcs (Jesper’s coming-of-age/Scrooge-like-change-of-heart, Smeerenberg’s bubbling kindness revolution, and the woodsman’s aged hero who finds redemption and purpose after so many years alone). That all three feel fully supported and without any bloat is a testament to its absolutely solid writing, and for a kid’s film no less! Furthermore, the “origin” story genre can sometimes fall flat as it can just feel like the writers are writing more Wikipedia entries, explaining how every little aspect came to be more than just telling a good story. I call it the Han Solo trap. As for Klaus, the little tidbits about why Klaus uses reindeer and not horses, who the “elves” who work his workshop are, always clever and grow organically from the plot.

Plus, despite my opening doubts regarding whether the dark tone really fit a “Christmas” movie, the film very capably captures the joys of the Christmas season. Like Christians think about Jesus, Klaus/Jesper bring a world of light into a world of darkness. The film teaches about the importance of creating a loving community, of being selfless, and most importantly of respecting the spiritual aspect of the season. Even if this is a decidedly capitalistic/entrepreneurial movie, the film is not without a spiritual side. The previously mentioned “chance” of the woodsman seeing that initial drawing of the boy locked in the tower is no chance at all. Instead, throughout the film we see that the woodsman is “haunted” in a sense by a ghostly wind that points him in the path of righteousness. The film has its own explanation for what the force behind the wind is, but it is not too far of a stretch to point out the similarities between the wind and the Christian idea of the guiding Holy Spirit. Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the woodsman represents God the Father and Jesper God the Son, (or is Klaus more the Christ figure?) because I think this movie is decidedly not Christian, but more I just want to highlight that I enjoyed that the film allowed for the presence of spirituality, which moves this film from the realm of secular kindness to one that recognizes the power and presence of some spiritual goodness, aligning with how many think of the “Christmas spirit.”

Now, let’s be clear, this is a fun, family classic, but it’s not a perfect film. In fact, I downright disliked the first twenty to thirty minutes, for the aforementioned tonal reasons, but also because I really disliked Jason Schwartzmann’s voice acting in the lead role of Jesper. My dislike lessened with the introduction of the woodsman, but it never went away fully. I can’t help but think this movie would be better with a different actor voicing Jesper. Everyone else does an adequate job with the voice work. J.K. Simmons as Klaus takes on an almost Batman-like stoic gruffness, and Rashida Jones as the teacher and love interest is just fine. And, again, I never really fell in love with the art style and it sometimes distracted me, and I found the soundtrack, particularly the main song to be rather lame and too much “of its time” than the typically timeless, more Broadway productions that Disney/Pixar put out. Still, director Sergio Pablos has done something I did not think possible. He and his team created a *new* Christmas classic, one that I’m sure will be played on an annual basis in many households across the world.

***1/4 (Three and a fourth stars out of four)

#klaus #klaus 2019 #jason schwartzman #rashida jones #j.k. simmons #sergio pablos

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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“One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.” — Coriolanus, Act II, Scene VII

This brief excerpt from Coriolanus cuts to the quick of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW), and their exaltation of individualism over tribalism and rationalism over ‘barbarism’. Coriolanus carries a dubious honor Shakespeare’s other works do not. The Roman tragedy was his only play formally banned under a liberal democracy; Its militarism troubled Allied censors in post-war Germany. In the play, Shakespeare elucidates the essential nature of all conflict: “strengths by strengths do fail.” Only a power can overcome another power, only a tribe another tribe.

The IDW can be divided into three principal factions: The New Atheists, led by Sam Harris, are vociferous critics of Islam, ‘Trumpism’, and woke fervor. The ‘Hard Liberals’, flagshipped by Bari Weiss and the Weinstein brothers, share many of the same viewpoints as the ‘wokeists’ they oppose, but seek to advance their position through discourse and persuasion. Finally, there are the Right Liberals, embodied in polemical figures like Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, and to a lesser extent, psychologist Jordan Peterson.

Almost every ‘member’ is concerned with the threats unfettered tribalism pose to civil society. In response to the January 6th Capitol events, Weiss asserted that America’s “liberal consensus is dying because of ideologues on the left and the right who hate the other side more than they love the country.” She goes on to call for respect of “our common identity as Americans.” But Weiss has her diagnosis of American decline backward. There is no ‘America’ as she describes. The liberal consensus scrapped American identity for parts during its sixty-year campaign of deindustrialization and deterritorialization. Regional identities were evacuated for hagiographic narratives of migration. Offshoring hollowed out once-proud cities and towns, annihilating regional elites and common livelihoods. Secularism disintegrated Americans’ shared moral universe, and catapulted cosmopolitans and heartlanders in opposite directions. The issue is not too much identity, or too much ideology, but too little, and of little quality.

As media theorist Marshall McLuhan believed, weak identities produce violence. Without metanarrative frameworks, senses of belonging, and ties to somewhere, man becomes violent to prove to himself he exists. The frontier, the high seas, the contemporary Middle East, are all replete with “people minus identity.” What Weiss sees as overactive tribalism is its obverse: a multitude of weak identities struggling to prove to themselves that they still exist. If you put swathes of the country under spiritual and material siege, they will lash out. The solution, then, is not to embrace a sort of vacuous pluralism or individualism, but to create strong collective identities, and remove the threats to these identities currently provoking violence.

On some level, Weiss knows this is the case. Her hero, Natan Sharansky, chaired a clandestine committee that removed Palestinians from East Jerusalem so Israelis could settle there, and consistently rebuffs taking any actions that may limit Israeli sovereignty. Fair, but the luxury of nationalism isn’t extended to Weiss’ American compatriots, the Trumpists she considers beyond hope. The civil strife and violence of today is, as ever, ‘a quest for identity’, something that civility and moderation themselves can never provide. These are the fruits of strong identities and political order, not its preconditions. There is no middle ground between evangelicalism and transgenderism, nor nationalism and globalism. Not even facts themselves supersede this tribal paradigm, and have themselves all but disappeared.

In honor of Caius Martius’ conquest of Corioli, he is given the name Coriolanus. After being urged to campaign for consul, he is ejected from Rome by envious patrician demagoguery. Rather than retreat into glum hermitage or inglorious sinecure, Coriolanus claims it is he who forsakes Rome and its people: “that do corrupt my air, I banish you!” He throws in his lot with an enemy tribe, the Volscians, and plots to destroy Rome. The IDW, almost entirely liberal to its core, is incapable of following him, because ultimately they’re true believers. Despite their own banishment, their own disdain for BLM and Antifa vulgarity, they’re unwilling to part ways with liberalism. If their cause was noble, or even viable, their antagonism toward political reality would be admirable.

…

The relationship between power and knowledge runs down to the very foundation of every society. At its metanarrative heart, there will always be something beyond criticism, justified by itself alone. Blasphemy laws arise to defend this core from injury, and to protect the people from being led astray. Today, the ‘seamless garment’ of kaleidoscopic minority ‘rights’ are this unquestionable center in American public life. This, the IDW understands — but their response is woefully inadequate. They seek a revival of an open public square, in which they will compete and triumph in a ‘battle of ideas’. Joseph de Maistre saw clearly in his Generative Principle of Constitutions that society’s spiritual core is not determined by elocution or intellectualism. As he writes, “fundamental principles of political constitutions exist prior to all written law.” It is not that a critical mass of Americans was persuaded to support abortion, gay marriage, or Black Lives Matter. These were victories delivered by judicial fiat or mass intimidation. Power inscribes new constitutions in man’s heart, and moves society in its stead. The IDW, an elitist project without elitist influence, can not change society with either podcast or polemic. Only power can do that.

This isn’t to say the IDW is all pacifism and pusillanimity. Sam Harris, for one, is perfectly fine with vituperation against an enemy. The targets of his ire are typically religious yokels, either domestic or foreign. His lengthy defense of torture and belief that “some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them,” show that Harris is, as any other tribal, focused on rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Carl Schmitt’s friend/enemy distinction expresses itself among rationalists as well as zealots. What is different is that erstwhile IDWers are spectacularly bad at discerning ‘friend’ from ‘enemy’.

Brett Weinstein — who was famously forced to flee Evergreen College with his wife after protesting a banishment ritual inflicted on white students — recently waded into a ‘Wokeism’ Clubhouse discussion, brandishing his anti-racist credentials, only to be coerced into a struggle session, silenced, and pressured for Venmo reparations. Weinstein appealed to the purported common moral framework shared by those in the discussion, saying “I’m not a classical liberal, I’m an actual liberal.” Despite his protestations, his on-command affirmations of BLM and transgenderism, he was utterly routed. The Clubhouse coup against him isn’t fantastically unreasonable. Brett is claiming ostensible membership in the tribe, only to object to their victories on the grounds of procedure or politeness. He agrees with the leaders’ underlying premises regarding white supremacy, but refuses to take the radical action which necessarily accompanies that claim, for this tribe. IDW Girondins will proceed to the guillotines apace, in lockstep with the out-groupers.

Coriolanus’ mortal hamartia, his error in judgement, fell along the same lines. On the precipice of conquering Rome, besting his foes, and securing eternal glory, his mother intercedes with him on the city’s behalf. Rather than proceed with the siege, Corioalnus makes peace between Rome and the Volscians, and is promptly sentenced to death for his service. Unlike the IDW, he dies in heroic defiance of his captors. The error, however, is the same. In an attempt to remain tribeless he slights both sects and engineers his own destruction.

…

Postmodernity is a thoroughly haunted epoch. Dead ideologies are revived as kitsch, and past visions of the future hang over popular consciousness and political projects. We are a society in the void between history’s end and its rebeginning. History is idling, waiting to be restarted. The public square is a battleground, and only one tribe will enjoy it as their own in victory. Peterson knows this, though his tyrannophobia prevents him from understanding it fully. While his postmodernization of traditional symbols and stories provides the postliberal right a new means of popular interface, his politics provide neither solace nor solution. For civil society, facts, and ‘normality’ to reemerge, a decisive victory is necessary. Strong collective identities build strong societies, and these identities do not emerge from individualism or rational pursuit.

By and large, the IDW is a spent movement subsisting on podcast sinecures, fractured by Trump, incapable of accepting America’s tribal realities and lacking the understanding to resolve them. In a desperate attempt to escape from ideology, it only tumbles further and further into its maw. As facts themselves fade into ether, its members are left advertising an Enlightenment project long since dissolved. There are no longer any facts, only data flows to be instrumentalized or ignored. Collective identities are in terminal decline, desperately scrambling against deterritorialization through violence. Rights by rights are faltering, and discourse cannot save us.

As we explore our haunted and stagnant era, searching for exit, pining for unity, we see as T. S. Eliot did: “Only at nightfall, aetherial rumors/Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus.” A resurrection of Coriolanus, one who refuses to turn back, will be necessary for America to survive until the Final Resurrection. Those ready to leave the dark will light the way.

#benjamin roberts #im1776 #coriolanus #read the whole thing

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sabrinasgrimoire · 5 years ago

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Beltane Series: Walpurgisnacht

Walpurgisnacht or Hexennacht is celebrated from the eve of April 30th to May 1st. This is a traditional Germanic festival associated with witches. “Hexe” is the German word for “witch”, and “nacht” is the German word for “night”. So, the name translated to “witches night”. It’s more common name, Walpurgisnacht, is associated with the Christian feast of Saint Walpurga. This is a night that has striking similarities to the modern Halloween. On the Wheel of the Year, it falls exactly opposite of Samhain, making it the perfect time to feel the thinning of the veil and celebrate traditions of this time. In this essay, I will be covering both traditions.

It is common knowledge that the early European peoples celebrated the coming of spring. It meant the long winter was over, and abundance and warm weather were soon coming. In German folklore, it is said that witches and warlocks also welcomed the coming of spring by flying around Germany on broomsticks. On the eve of April 30th, they met on the highest peak in the Harz Mountain where bonfires would be lit and a ceremony took place to welcome in the spring. This peak is called Blocksberg Mountain, and has long been associated with witches in Germany. It is more than likely that these “witches” were simply pagans looking for a secluded place to practice their religion in peace, away from the prying eyes of the people and the church.

Over time, these traditions shifted. What once was a ritual to welcome spring, became a ritual to chase away evil spirits. You see, the villagers were afraid of the witches up in the mountains. They believed that witches and evil spirits travelled through the land on this night with ill intent. This is the parallel to the thinning of the veil at Beltane, exactly 6 months away from Samhain when the veil between worlds is the thinnest. In order to chase away these witches and bad spirits, the men of the village would make as much noise as they could to scare them away. This involved shooting shotguns, banging pots and pans together, and any other number of noisy activities. They also lit bonfires to light up the night, and discourage spirits who were sensitive to light from entering their village. Sprigs of foliage were blessed and hung above doorways to block the evil spirits from entering, and traditional bread and honey was left at the edges of town as offerings to the hellhounds.

So why was April 30th such an important night? Well, Pagan and Christian customs seem to have been tangled together. In medieval times, April 30th was an important half-way point that marked exactly 6 months until All Saint’s Day, which is the Christianized version of the pagan sabbat Samhain. This was an extremely important date for pagans, and was called the festival of Beltane. This was not to last, and the Christian church imposed a new holiday over Beltane, which was supposed to help the pagans convert to Christianity. Instead of the ancient Beltane, they honored Saint Walpurga, and called in Walpurgisnacht.

So who was Saint Walpurga, and why was she so important? She was born in Devonshire, England in 770AD. When she was young, she was sent to Germany as a missionary, and quickly became the abbess of the convent in Heidenheim. During her time here, she baptized many pagans into the Christian church. After her death, it is said that a healing oil began seeping between the stones of her tomb. This was the miracle that transformed her into a saint, and her body was subsequently split into many pieces and sent throughout Europe as relics. Because she died on May 1st, this is the day that became her holy day, and the eve of May 1st is when her feast was celebrated. She is known as the patron saint of coughs, sailors, hydrophobia, and storms. Many Christians in the Middle Ages also prayed to her to shield them against witchcraft, which was especially associated with her feast and the traditions of the day.

It is interesting to look at the similarities between Saint Walpurga and pagan traditions as well. Saint Walpurga’s symbols are grain, dogs, and the spindle. These same symbols are found in pagan tradition. Grain is a traditional symbol of the harvest, dogs are considered traditional familiars for Germanic Goddesses, and the spindle is associated with Frau Holda from the famous fairy tale. This made it easy for pagans unwilling to convert to say they were honoring Saint Walpurga, when instead they were honoring the old Germanic Gods. Though the Christian Feast of Saint Walpurga had different beliefs than the pagan traditions, there were other striking similarities. For one, the tradition of hanging sprigs of foliage over doorways was observed by Christians as well as pagans. Though some traditions remained the same, most of the Christian ones were different. People often made pilgrimages to her tomb in Eichstätt, where they would purchase vials of Saint Walpurga’s oil.

Now let’s talk about some of the customs of Walpurgisnacht. These traditions are very similar to those of Beltane. After the long, cold winter, it is only natural that the coming of spring should be celebrated. This was especially important to early Germanic peoples who lived in a cold place in the world, where winter carried with it a serious risk of death. To welcome back the warmer part of the year, they built great bonfires, and partook in a lot of song and dance reminiscent of that around the maypole for May Day. There are however, a few traditions not reflected in those of Beltane. These are the ones I find to be the most interesting! Remember when I said that this was also considered a witches night? Well, it was tradition to ride broomsticks between balefires or jump over them. It was also a time to burn old brooms in the fire. This is possibly the origin of the myth that witches fly on broomsticks. Anything old or broken was also burned in these fires, symbolically and physically cleaning the old energy from the house. Straw likenesses were created and adorned with illness and other bad things and symbolically burned in the fires as well, ridding the person of these bad things in their lives.

Though these were the traditional Walpurgisnacht traditions, they have changed once again with the times, and modern celebrations look different than they once did. The major difference between this celebration and the Christian celebration is that it is secular, and no longer associated with the Catholic Saint Walpurga. The fear of witches has been largely dispersed in modern times. More and more people are embracing witchcraft either through practice, media, or any number of different ways. With this new view, Germany’s celebration of Walpurgisnacht has turned into a sort of second Halloween in Germany. People come to the Harz Mountains dressed as witches, warlocks, or other magick wielders. Here, they dance and celebrate alongside others and large bonfires. The largest celebration is held in the Hexentanzplatz, which is a plateau near the town of Thale. Though this is the largest celebration, Walpurgisnacht is celebrated across Saxony.

Southern Germany sees Walpurgisnacht a little differently. Here it is seen as a night of pranks, kind of like April Fool’s Day in America. In Finland, Walpurgisnacht is called Vappu, and is one of the country’s most important holidays. It was originally celebrated here only by the upper class, but quickly trickled down and became especially popular with university students. In Berlin, Walpurgisnacht is a traditional night to start riots and protests, as it is closely associated with the German Labor Day. These protests usually begin in the Mauerpark where the remains of the Berlin Wall sit on display as a reminder. This is a new association with Walpurgisnacht, but an important cultural association to the German people.

Unfortunately, the negative connotations of Walpurgisnacht are still present in some cases. In the Czech Republic, this night is known as “Paleni Carodejnic”, which translated to “Burning of the Witches”. Though there is no actual burning of witches, the negative connotation remains. It is tradition here to build bonfires as well and burn images of witches throughout the night.

Walpurgisnacht appears many times in famous literature. The first instance introduced the myth of the witches, and was called “The Blocksberg Performance” by Johannes Präetorius. After this first introduction into mainstream entertainment, Walpurgisnacht found its way into other literature and music. The most well known reference is Goethe’s play “Faust”. Walpurgisnacht is the name of a scene in part one of Faust and part two. Other famous examples of Walpurgisnacht in literature include “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” by Edward Albee, and “Dracula’s Guest” by Bram Stoker.

Obviously, there are many traditions associated with Walpurgisnacht. It is especially pertinent to those of us who practice witchcraft due to the rich history of pagan and witch traditions on this night. This is just another way to further celebrate Beltane and the welcoming of spring. Modern witches can use this night to feel more witchy and to connect to their pagan and witch ancestors.

Works Cited:

Melanie Marquis (2018), Beltane: Rituals, Recipes, and Lore for May Day, Llewellyn, Fourth Edition, Print, Pages 39

Raven Grimassi (2001), Beltane: Springtime Rituals, Lore & Celebration, Llewellyn, Print

Various (Various), Walpurgis Night, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night

Karen Anne (April 28th 2017), What is Walpurgisnacht? And How Did an English Nun Become Associated with Witches?, German Girl in America, https://germangirlinamerica.com/what-is-walpurgisnacht/

DHWTY (November 9th 2018), Walpurgis Night: A Saint, Witches, and Pagan Beliefs in Springtime Halloween for Scandinavia, Ancient Origins, https://www.ancient-origins.net/history ... ht-0010965

#walpurgisnacht #beltane #fire #book of shadows #grimoire

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awed-frog · 5 years ago

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As a Bangladeshi Muslim woman, I can confirm that this country and it's society (and frankly, the present Muslim world in general) is utterly, horrifically fucked up. It pains me just as much to witness racism or Islamophobia as it does to see the inherent flaws be overlooked, and even glorified sometimes in the Western world. :(

Thank you for this message. I was wondering why I’d lost so many followers overnight - people come and go, but this seemed strange - and then I saw that post I’d queued weeks ago, and uhm, okay. It’s sad people would be annoyed about something like that, and I only hope that sooner or later they’ll listen to voices like yours.

The problem is, I think people mean well? They don’t want to be racist, they want to be tolerant and open to other cultures, and that’s great. But many forget the best way to do all those things is to truly take the time to learn about other cultures and listen to those who live within them every day - and especially to those who’re marginalized. There’s this worrying tumblr trend that’s slowly spreading inside left-wing parties - the idea that everything bad starts and ends with white men and that non-white cultures are a haven of peace and good things. That’s ridiculous, insulting and - as our societies become increasingly diverse - downright dangerous.

Most people in the West readily accept, for instance, that there are different kinds of Christians and Christianity. Some are good, some are bad, some are batshit insane and some are a serious threat. The fact that we’re so unwilling to look at other religions with the same lens - that’s just ignorance and fear to be biased, but at this point, it’s starting to have serious IRL consequences and we should snap out of it asap.

Personally, I’m very afraid when I see what’s going on. Europe used to have a distinction between Church and State - it wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was there, and it was the foundation of a fair democratic system? And that distinction is still there, but it’s becoming fainter by the day because both left- and right-wing parties are attacking it for wildly different reasons. Meanwhile, many countries abroad are openly dismantling their own path towards secularism and equality for all their citizens - just look at China, intent on wiping out everyone who’s not Han, or at Erdoğan, who’s turning Turkey into a religious theocracy against the will of a majority of Turks, or at Modi and the mess he’s making of the Kashmir issue. These are all big countries - friends and allies we simply can’t do without. With right-wing parties devolving into white supremacy and pretend nationalism, the left - and that includes those white feminists on tumblr who unfollowed me because, what? they were offended to find out Bangladesh is a real country so bad things can happen there? - should show some common sense before it’s too late.

#ask #bangladesh #islam #islamophobia #white feminism #woke culture #purity culture #tumblr problems #the problem is #people can be oppressed #and still be dicks #that's why we need the rule of law #and a firm separation between church and state #religion should be a private matter #where it's not #it's generally bad news for women and minorities #whatever the religion #:P

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years ago

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06/23/2020 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 4:18-5:27, Acts 15:1-35, Psalms 141:1-10, Proverbs 17:23

Today is the 23rd day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is awesome to be here with you today around the Global Campfire as we just kind of exhale, release the stresses and all of the stuff that just builds up and it’s just chaos sometimes…we just release all that for a few minutes and just come into this oasis around the Global campfire and…ahh…exhale and allow God's word to speak to us today. So, in the Old Testament we’re in the book of second Kings and we will spend our time alongside the prophet Elisha and then we will flip over into the New Testament and in the book of Acts today we will be encountering the…the most poignant foundational impactful decision that the early church really needed to face and come to terms with. And the implications are far reaching but we’ll get to that soon enough. First, we’re reading from the New International Version this week. Second Kings 4:18 through 5:27.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we kinda mentioned at the beginning that…that…that what was happening in the book of Acts today was really big, monumental pivotal shift. And this is known as the Council at Jerusalem or the Jerusalem Council or the first church council, like where…where church leaders had to come together and actually consider and even debate and wrestle with and invite God into a decision because they had reached a…a point where they needed the guidance of the Holy Spirit because things were not adding up. Basically, what was happening is what we've alluded to in the past, Jesus the Savior was a Hebrew human being. Although God made flesh, He was a Jew and He grew up Jewish. And, so, when he began His ministry the context for this ministry was Jewish and it was centered around the Hebrew Scriptures and the Hebrew prophets. Like the whole thing was based on the Hebrew story. And, so, that's how He did His ministry and that's mostly who He did His ministry among. So, Hebrew people who had put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Hebrew Messiah, they…it was not in their mind that they were converting to a different religion or like that they were leaving the traditions of their lives that they had grown up immersed in and needed to find completely different ways of doing things. It was just assumed that Jesus is a Hebrew rabbi, He's commenting on the Hebrew Scriptures, He’s attending the Hebrew festivals, He's doing things in synagogues. Like this is…is a Hebrew context. Nothing’s changing here. Then Gentiles began to believe, and God began to affirm the Gentiles belief through the affirmation of the Holy Spirit. I mean we can be like 2000 years in the future right here in 2020 and go like, “man, what does that got to do with me? And why? You know, like, it just doesn't make sense that they would be arguing about this.” But this is huge. Like what we're seeing today changed the complexion of the faith. So, some Hebrew believers that gone to Antioch and they were teaching about Jesus, but the message of conversion or like the good news message was, “convert to Judaism. Follow the Hebrew customs. Be circumcised. And then you can follow Jesus. But until you come in through that gate…like until you come in and are circumcised and the whole thing, you can't follow Christ.” That was very troubling to the Gentile people that wanted to follow Jesus and it was very troubling to Paul and Barnabas to the point that this Jerusalem Council came to be. And the central question was, “are Gentiles permitted to be in this faith in Christ, or is this a Hebrew only thing?” In other words, who gets to be in? So, Peter weighs in and talks about the vision that he had about clean and unclean. He talks about going to Cornelius's house, a Gentile military man of Rome, and how the Holy Spirit fell upon the entire family and affirmed that He was accepting them in the same way that the Holy Spirit moved upon the Hebrew believers while at the same time, there were others in the church, church leaders, arguing, “no. This is a Hebrew thing. Jesus was a Hebrew person and His own commentary was in a Hebrew context. So, that…that's how people have to understand Him. That's how they have to…that's how they have to come in. That's how they get in.” And you see why it would need to be a counsel because these are valid things to consider on both sides. And in the end as they come together, hear all of the different testimony, including the testimony of Paul and Barnabas, it becomes apparent. The decision is made because they can see or sense that it's not them that are making a decision, it's God who has already chosen to accept Gentiles. And why heap upon them the Mosaic law when the Hebrew people have not even been…not been able to figure out or adhere to it pretty much ever. So, then the thought is like, you know, “to a person who hasn't grown up in this or has no understanding of this, why do they need to be saddled with this when Christ has come to make them free?” And, so, they give them a very few basic things that they need to adhere to, like don't eat the meat of sacrificed animals to idols and stay away from blood and…and…and stay away from sexual immorality. But…but other than that, “welcome to the family”, basically. “Welcome. And God is doing a new thing and we…we have to acknowledge and see it. So, welcome.” And they sent two people back to affirm this in word and they sent a letter back which we read today. This shifts things dramatically in the church because now everyone…everyone is welcome, all who call upon the name of the Lord. Everyone can be saved no matter who they are, no matter where they are, no matter how they are. It's a big deal. It's a big deal that's called good news. But this good news, like we’ll see this the rest of the year as we continue through the New Testament, especially as we get into the letters. This decision right here causes monumental problems on a lot of different levels. For starters, just the Roman empire itself. The Roman Empire itself let you at the time worship whatever God you wanted or whatever gods you wanted. Like you had the religious freedom to worship whatever gods you wanted to honor however you wanted to. But you had to revere the gods of Rome, the gods of the Empire. You had to revere the gods who made Rome great. And, you know, especially like observe the national festivals and stuff like this. And if you didn't do that that’s gonna be a problem because the people that you live among, your own nation, your own people would see you unwilling to participate in national celebrations and there's…like this time there’s not something called the separation of church and state. Like sacred and secular weren’t compartmentalized. So, if you're not involved in what's national and even honoring the national well then, it’s very easy to think that you are anti-Empire you are anti-Roman. And I think we’ve…I think we've experienced enough in the Scriptures to get the sense that that's probably not a good idea if you want to stay well and alive. So, the interesting thing is that the Hebrew people were part of the Roman Empire as well, but their worship of the one true God, right, the God of Israel, the one who had chosen them and set them apart, that predated Rome vastly. They were a very, very ancient people with a very ancient religion. And, so they kinda had…they kinda had a pass. Like it was understood what they were doing and why they were doing it even though it was marginalizing them in the Empire. But for the most part they didn’t care about that because they were separatists, they were exclusive other than the fact that the marginalization was oppressing them. So, they were being oppressed by the Romans and that's the environment that Jesus came into. But they didn’t have to do all this Roman God worship and stuff. Up until this point, the Christians, because they…they weren’t really called that, they were followers of Jesus or followers of The Way of Jesus the Hebrew teacher. Up until this point kind of the assumption was, “well…He…Jesus was a Hebrew and He was a rabbi. And, so, like this is part of the Hebrew religion.” And, so, they, the early believers, gotta pass as well. They didn't have to do any of the other worship. But then this decision gets made at the Jerusalem Council, where now Gentiles have completely different rules about coming into the faith and now all the sudden the law of Moses doesn't have to be adhered to in the way that is traditional and the teachings of Paul are kind of contrary and he's being labeled a heretic. And, so, now all the sudden this isn’t under the protection of the Jewish religion anymore. The Jews are rejecting it and are being vocal about it saying they have nothing to do with us. So, now believers in Jesus are kind of out there because it's like this is a new religion. And you gotta be on board with the gods that made the Empire great. You gotta be on board with being Roman if you're gonna be here. If you’re gonna be here you gotta be here and do what we do. So, that makes things difficult because now the Jewish people want to oppress the…the believers in Jesus, the Christians as well as the Empire. So, there's like no place to go. And over time this gets really really difficult and we will read through some of those difficulties as we go through the rest of the New Testament, but because of all of this climate that’s being formed here we’re gonna see a theme. And there's one word that defines this theme, “endure.” It’s not particularly our favorite word. It's probably not particularly our favorite action or posture, but we will see the church to survive, like to survive had to learn to endure. And we will see that that has a role to play in our lives as well.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for all that…all that you teach, all that you reveal, all that you snap into place for us as we move through the Scriptures. And as we continue to learn both in our minds and our brains but also as we continue to grow in our hearts, we invite your Holy Spirit to be ever present and lead us into all truth. This is our kind of perpetual request. We…we ask it a lot but it…it's necessary. We want to walk in the truth, and you are the truth. And, so, we want to walk with you and we are like sheep and we do go astray and we need a shepherd and you have come to comfort and guide us. And, so, we surrender to that. We rest in the flow of that. We allow you to lead us forward. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it's you know, home base, it’s where you find out what's going on around here. There are some things coming up that are going on around here. So, talk a little bit today and…and even more tomorrow about it.

So, two weeks from today is kind of our own Daily Audio Bible family holiday, I guess. It's a tradition that we have had for well over a decade now and we call it “the long walk” and that takes place every 7th of July. And it's something that we do together as a community, even though we’re…we’re doing it alone. And it’s designed to be that way. So, we’re kind of alone together which is so strange because this has been a tradition we’ve had for well over a decade like I said, but in this kind of era of social distancing, yeah, we have this event that is…that fits perfectly. Like we don’t have to modify anything. So, the long walk is self-explanatory, a long walk. Every July 7th we…we try to take the day off if we can and just go somewhere beautiful, whether near or far. Just kind of pick a park or a place or a trail or a region or just wherever, whether you drive for several hours which some people do, or whether you just go down the street. Find somewhere beautiful. Find a place to find stillness and go for a long walk with God. And it's remarkable what that can do to change the entire complexion of the week and really the trajectory of the year. We find ourselves approaching the center of the year in the middle of our journey through the Bible and if you haven't been under a rock, which I assume none of you have, the first half of this year has been exciting and unusual. It's been very very different. And we've had to think about, contemplate and endure things that we never really…that were never categories per se, some of them of long-running things…but there's been unrest, there’s been disruption. This is a time to re-center ourselves to actually take a day and say, “I need to get alone with God. Whatever it takes I need to get quiet and still before God. There's a lot I need to say that I haven't had time to say. And, frankly, I haven’t even been listening that well. And the Lord has a lot to say that I haven't been listening for.” And, so, we just take a day out of the year in the middle of the year to restart the second half of the year and just go for a long walk with God. And just knowing that even though we’re doing it alone, we’re not doing it alone. Our brothers and sisters all over the world are doing it as well. And then we make it kind of a community event by just saying, “wherever you go, whatever you do, wherever you go on your long walk, take a picture.” I mean you’re probably gonna carry your phone with you. Maybe you could put it on do not disturb for a few hours or whatever but take a picture of where you go or take a little video of where you are and what you're doing and then you can kind of post that as a comment to the Daily Audio Bible and then we’ll post it up on the Daily Audio Bible page and all the sudden these windows start opening up. Like we get these glimpses into the beauty of the world all over the world, but also glimpses of the beauty of each other in community just knowing that we’re really doing this and we’re really doing this together. And, so, that's the long walk and that is coming up two weeks from today. So, I mention it now just so we can begin to make preparations and plans because…well…those of you have been on long walks in the past because we’ve been doing this for…I don’t know…I think this is thirteen years, I think. So, many of you have been on…on long walks before and could say, “yeah that is a re-centering, a necessary re-centering of the year. That does make a difference.” In fact, most people I talk with are like, “this needs… you know…this needs to be once a month. Like this needs to be something that we do often.” But here at the Daily Audio Bible we do this together each July 7th. So, make plans for that. And then tomorrow I’m gonna tell you about a new resource that is releasing and coming…becoming available on the 7th of July, tailor made for part of the long walk journey. And I'll explain that tomorrow. We’ve been kind of talking for a long time about the Jerusalem Council and stuff. So, I'll wait and share that more tomorrow. But make plans for the long walk July 7th, two weeks from today.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. I am profoundly humbled and in awe of the community that we have. And we have it because we’re in it together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can dial 877-942-4253 or you can just hit the Hotline button in the app and begin to share from there, the little red button up at the top.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi everybody this is Lawrence in California it is June 17th. I just heard Adrian’s call from June 12th. Adrian is having a hard time focusing on things that she has to study to advance in her work and it’s really driven her downwards is wat it sounds like. Adrian, you said that you were happy that everybody would just listen to you prattle or you hoped that people would be okay with your prattling on. Adrian, it’s fine. I was happy to hear you prattle. These are hard times and I admire your courage. I admire that you have called in to join in with us and I will pray for you that things take a better turn. And don’t think of yourself as an idiot. Okay? Take care. Bye-bye for now.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Denise and this is Ephesians chapter 2 starting with verse 14. Gracious heavenly father I pray over the Daily Audio Bible family. I pray over Asia from Chicago. I pray over Virginia from Dallas. I pray over Kingdom Seeker Daniel and Vincent and Lady a Victory and Father everyone whose voice whether prayed on the prayer line or prayed in silence who is grappling with racism in their heart and their place of being a solution here in Your world Father. I affirm that You are a peace, I affirm that You have made all groups one and that You have torn down the dividing wall of hostility between us for in Your son’s flesh Father He has made no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations that would divide us. Father, I ask that You might create one new people from the dividing parts two resulting in peace Father. And I know that You will do this so that You might reconcile us to You as in one body through the cross that Your son hung on by which He put hostility to death Father. And I ask in this prayer that we are able to proclaim the good news of peace to those who are near and to those who are far. For Father through Jesus we want everyone to know that we have both access in one Spirit to You and that we are no longer foreigners and strangers but brothers and sisters who are in love with each other who pray for each other who respect each other who can hear each other honestly and still love through whatever would make us different Father because difference is beauty. You’ve made us all different. We celebrate that Father. We are citizens with the saints and members of Your household built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Jesus Christ himself as the cornerstone Father. And, so, I ask in this prayer that the whole building being put together be larger grow through this strife and grow into a holy temple for You Father. And I ask this in Your Son’s matchless in mighty name. Amen.

Hi this is Rachel from Pennsylvania. I ask that you guys just lift up my brother and sister Laura and Stephen. I’m praying for their salvation just praying that they find God and that they find a personal relationship with Him. I had some time to talk with them today and I just…I was praying for God to…to help lead me and guide my words but I just felt attacked and I just…they said a lot of things that were hard to hear about religion. And I tried to explain to them that this is not about religion, but they don’t understand because they’re…they haven’t listen to the DAB and they’re not part of the community and they just don’t get it yet. I just pray that they get it one day. So, if you would keep them in prayer I appreciate it. Thanks.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible listeners this is a Elisa Marie from Dinuba. I just finished listening to the podcast for the 16th and I heard Victoria Soldier call in and I love what she said that no matter what they tell us in about what’s going on in our country and in our nation it is righteousness that exalts a nation. And, so, upon that I come in agreement with my sister and everyone else who is praying. We put on father God…we put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. We take up the shield of faith where we can quench all the fiery darts of the evil one and above all we take up the sword of the spirit which is your word. Father your word says in Isaiah 54:15 that whoever comes against us it will not be you’re doing father. Whoever comes against us will surrender to us. And right now, we see the spirit of division, we see the spirit of murder, of gang mentality of mob mentality. We see the spirit of the enemy of hatred of dissension, contention and strife and division. We see you and in the blood of Jesus we say no. You stop. You take your dirty hands off of America right now in the mighty name of Jesus. We plead the blood of Jesus over the doorways of America. The entryways of America and the north and the south of the east and the west and we say no. We take authority over you by the mighty name of Jesus and with the spirit of the living God we say you take your dirty hands off of America right now. We speak peace over America. We speak peace we speak truth. May the truth of the living God came forth each and every every believer and we stand together united in the mighty name of Jesus and we say no more, enough is enough. So, you get your dirty hands off of us and we stand for truth for God’s righteousness and we ask that the peace that passes all understanding will come in and govern our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Hi DAB family this is Nate from Washington. I need your prayers. I’ve been struggling with addiction to pornography for the last 15 years. I got to a point 3 years ago where I was faced with the decision to choose my addiction or my wife and three kids. I chose my family thank God. I believe I got the courage to make the right decision because I prayed about it for the first time. For so long I’d been trying to change on my own. I’ve made some great progress since then, but I still keep falling on my face a lot. I started listening to the DAB in January and I get so encouraged by Brian’s passion and everyone’s prayers and voices. I keep telling everybody all about it. I know that putting this out there would be accepting life on God’s terms and not mine. And your prayers help me learn how to talk to God and the DAB has been a lifeline for me ever since I found it. Thank you everyone.

Hello, my dear Daily Audio Bible family. I love you. We are one in Christ. A shout out to Tony the Narrator that what you said so encouraged me about there being only two races and we get to be family. It’s so awesome. We are not just that counterfeit that the world has for unity, which is uniformity, you know everybody being a whole bunch of clones that trying to force everyone to think a certain way and somehow that’s going to cause us to be one. Even Peter and Paul disagreed on things and in the New Testament we’ll see about John Mark that they had their disagreements the early church you know and the rockiness that…that Brian will point out later on and ask like how much more will we have trouble now. But those very diversities are what brings such glory to God when we all come together in unity in Christ and in love and I love it. It’s one of things I treasure about the Daily Audio Bible. I come here and I’m challenged. I’m not in my little echo chamber because of my background or the church I go to or whatever. I come here and I hear differences of opinion because of denomination because of race because of culture because of all these backgrounds and I go, “oh well maybe I should look at that scripture again. Maybe I haven’t been understanding or right. Maybe it’s just my tradition that has made me look at it that way.” And I love that. I love being a missionary through these almost 15 years that we have here serving in Mexico a lot of co-laborers in the gospel, English, Irish, Mexican and Colombian, Canadian, Venezuelan, Navaho, Guatemala, __, Glax, Australians, Asians, I can’t…there’s too many to name all of the different people that we have been working with and we are one in Christ.

Good morning everyone this is Helen in Durham North Carolina. In today’s reading of Psalm 136 I did what you suggested Brian and joined in saying the response “his faithful love endures forever.” And as I did that I thought throughout the earth thousands of voices are saying, “his faithful love endures forever.” It was a powerful thought to me. It is a powerful action against the forces raging against God and His authority. So, I say yes and Amen to this.

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limabean929 · 5 years ago

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Blog Post #15

When Nasser writes “Not surprisingly, decades of hostility and fighting have resulted in monolithic readings of the problem, whereby each group is uncompromising and unwilling to listen to the other side’s point of view,” he is stating that each side is biased and will not try to understand the other side’s perspective. In America, this is common in politics because we have two main political parties. When a democrat states their opinion on a presidential candidate, a republican may immediately go against their opinion. In 2020, we can see the highest amount of democratic extremists and republican extremists, and thus there is little venue for civil discourse.

Nasser writes that for the people of the Jewish faith, “Jerusalem is the site of the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, of remains of the Second Temple built by Jews following their exile in Babylon, and the holiest site to the Jewish people.” For Christians “it was the scene of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection and the birthplace of the Christian faith.” And “as for Muslims, Jerusalem (known in Arabic as al-Quds, 'the holy') is the home of Haram al-Sharif, or the 'Noble Sanctuary', which includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven” (Nassar, 42).

The first through third stanzas are about the three main religions' different but positive viewpoints of the Holy Land. The tone shifts in stanza four due to “the recurring blasts of the brass from the prelude, echoing the sadness of Jesus and His mother” (Nassar, 45). Stanza four continues, showing how war has disrupted the peace of the Holy Land. Stanza five reaches a state of action; the singer claims they will stop the war through praying and cleansing themselves with holy water. Ultimately, stanza six ends optimistically as it claims that peace is coming to Jerusalem.

When listening to Palestinian popular music, we should listen for the “pure melody performed monophonically with complex vocal ornamentations and strong percussive rhythmic beats.” And because the “rhythm is also enhanced by hand clapping…” (Nasser, 48) we must listen for that element as well. For Israeli popular music, we should listen to “... its base and use of Slavic and Russian melodies as well as in its orchestration.” These are the main musical elements that differ from Palestinian popular songs.

How is this music disseminated? What sort of censorship has been in place? Music is disseminated by the use of tapes. Tapes diffuse so rapidly in Israel that “once a single tape made it across the border, tens of thousands of copies could be made and distributed in a matter of days” (Nasser, 50). This caused there to be many forms of censorship such as secular music being banned. Composing or playing secular music can lead to imprisonment and even torture.

From the verse to the pre-chorus, there is a lot of layering going on: The piano and vocals are layered with the lute and then the drums. In the chorus, the lute fills for the vocals for the measures they aren’t singing in. There is a lot of vocal ornamentation, in this piece they sound like glissandos. In the second chorus, Khaled and Noa sing in harmony. The cadence with the string instruments has a very non-western sound. Overall, this piece does work for the purpose of seeking peace in a divided place. John Lennon intended the song to be used for global peace and Khaled’s and Noa’s version’s use of both eastern and western elements argues how we can be united.

I partially agree with Nasser’s last paragraph. With some music I listen to, the YouTube comment section can be relatively vile as users implement their political views. Although this is true, not everyone gets easily offended and those that don’t end up having a civil argument. Music can bring people together but it can also separate people especially when the song has political undertones.

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sshardassanderson · 5 years ago

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HOLY SHIT IS THAT [ DARREN CRISS ]?! Oh, wait it’s just [ DARIUS ANDERSON ]. Damn, [ HE/HIM ] looks good for [ 23 ], good thing that they’re [ PANSEXU ], I might have a chance. I hear that they call them the [ ASSHAT] of the [ SOUTH SIDE ]. I guess that’s because they’re [ *AGGRESSIVE*] and [ *CONFRONTATIONAL* ]. But I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re also [ *PASSIONATE*] and [ *DARING* ]. Can’t wait to see what kind of trouble [ SALLY/27/CST/NONE ] will bring.

[[MORE]]

Full Name: Darius Michael Anderson

Nickname: Dare, D, DareBear (close friends/family)

Sex/Gender: Male

Birthday: February 14th, 1995

Age: 23

Astrological Sign:

Occupation: Mechanic, second in command Serpent

Spoken Languages: English (fucking barely)

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Birthplace: Riverdale

Relationship status: Single

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Black/an absolute mess

Eye Color: Hazel

Face Claim: Darren Criss

Height: 6’1

Weight: 195lbs

Tattoos: Multiple, one half sleeve, various pictures, most notably a very large ornate rose on his right shoulder for his relationship (now platonic) with Charlie Rose.

Piercings: None

Unique Attributes: Has a foul mouth and a general shitty disposition and attitude. Though he’s innately protective of close friends and is trying to understand what leadership means.

Defining Gestures/Movements: TBD

Posture:

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: People chomping on their fucking food like nobody’s business, liars

Hobbies/Interests: Repairing vehicles, sex

Special Skills/Abilities: Sex

Likes: Sex

Dislikes: Not having sex

Insecurities: People who are bad at sex (hates himself, doesn’t feel like he’s ever good enough or is making the right decisions)

Quirks/Eccentricities: Chain smoking when stressed, fidgeting fingertips, but steady hands when focused

Strengths: Kickin ass (witty, thoughtful, passionate)

Weaknesses: Stubborn, aggressive, confrontational, impulsive (history of suicidal behavior)

Speaking Style: Illiterate

Temperament: Hostile

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family:

How do they feel about their family? Darius understands Blaine’s need for distance from his south side heritage and tries his best to respect that boundary. He thinks his father, Bruce Anderson, is the biggest asshat alive and often feels like he’s walking in his fathers shadow and starting to step into his shoes, which terrifies him.

Don’t even mention Cooper. And their mother abandoned them immediately after birth.

How does their family feel about them? Blaine wants a relationship with Dare but is unsure/unwilling to close that gap if it means getting dragged into Dare’s south side lifestyle.

Bruce sees Darius as his tool to continue his plans within the Serpents. Dare is his “ little soldier” and Bruce has worked hard to make him obedient. He anticipates that if he instructed his son to step in front of a bus, he’d do so without question. Though Darius has constantly rebelled against Bruce, the elder Anderson merely has to drop Blaine’s name before ordering his son into line.

Cooper thinks DareBear is just ADORABLE, all bark and no bite.

Pets: None

Where do they live? Sunnyside

Description of their home: Is a trailer

Description of their bedroom: There’s a bed in it

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert

Optimist or Pessimist? Pessimist on the inside

Leader or Follower? Leader (though he’s got a long way to go)

Confident or Self-Conscious? Confident externally, internally self-deprecating

Cautious or Careless? Careless

Religious or Secular? Secular

Passionate or Apathetic? Passionate

Book Smarts or Street Smarts? Street by far

Compliments or Insults? Insults

Pajamas or Lingerie? Lingerie

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Green

Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: floor clothes

Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: R&B

Favorite Movies: N/A

Favorite Books: N/A

Favorite Foods/Drinks: Whatever is on the Pop’s menu

Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: Hockey

Favorite Time of Day: Night

Favorite Weather/Season: Fall

Favorite Animal: Dogs

07. MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: Drowning

Political Views: Everyone sucks

Addictions: Cigatettes, alcohol, weed

Best School Subject: Gym

Worst School Subject: All others

School Clubs/Sports: NA

How does he get money? Hustling, working at the garage, drug deals

How is he with technology? Good enough, better with electronics than tech.

08. PAST & FUTURE

Fondest Memory: He can’t recall. Had some good moments in his childhood but there’s a haze of hate and anger that just clouds his best memories

Deepest, Darkest Secret: He has come dangerously close to killing someone.

Dream Vacation: NA

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: His brother getting somewhere safe

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Not leaving the Serpents when he had the chance

What do they want to be when they grow up? NA

Perfect Date: NA

#gdhqintro

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myluckzodiac-blog · 6 years ago

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Blood type secret language: Analyze different blood type Sagittarius life passwords

Sagittarius（Nov 23th - Dec 21th）

O-type blood Sagittarius - the most striking Sagittarius

O-type blood Sagittarius: O-type blood Sagittarius friends should be the most typical and most eye-catching Sagittarius, you have a long-term ideal for life, frank and confident, warm and generous, do not like to care about trivial matters. Desire for success, full of competition and ambition, like to appear in the strong posture, even if the heart is uneasy or sad, will try to hide it. Whenever, your face always has a happy smile. When people see your smile, they will feel the mood is clear, and they like to approach you. Falling in love with a person's O-type shooter friend is straightforward and straightforward, and will not cover up your feelings. Because of their cute self-confidence, the probability of success in love is always high! Even if they are rejected, they will be very optimistic and will never be entangled. When in love, the O-type shooter does not like to stick together all day, love to maintain a free space, but the heart of the lover is wholehearted.

Friends: A/O/B type Sagittarius, A/O/B type Aries, A/O/B type Leo, A/O/B type Libra, A/O/B type Aquarius.

The easiest person to fall in love at first sight: A or AB Gemini.

Suitable for girls: B-type Sagittarius, O/B type Aries, O/B type Leo, O/B type Libra, O/B type Aquarius.

Suitable for boys: B-type Sagittarius, A/B type Aries, A/B type Leo, A/B type Libra, A/B type Aquarius.

The most discordant lover: AB type Pisces, AB type Virgo

A-type blood Sagittarius - the most sincere Sagittarius

A-type blood Sagittarius: A-type blood Sagittarius friends you highlight the sincerity and philosophical side of Sagittarius, your moral standards are very high, and often like to fall into all kinds of thinking about life, once everything is decided, Will not easily change their own practices, and carry out the characteristics of the type A blood. You hate to talk about unrealistic people, it will make you feel very ridiculous. Although you may still have the calmness and serious low-key of type A blood on the surface, the optimistic character of Sagittarius will erase the pessimistic side of the blood type A. For frustration or failure, you will not be depressed and only carefully absorb the Lessons and increased experience. Whenever you are, your heart is always optimistic and firm. You like wise people. Once you meet someone you like, you will use your most sincere heart to love him and her, and use inner optimism and strength to infect him (her), single and loyal.

Friends: A/B/AB/O type Sagittarius, A/B/AB/O type Aries, A/B/AB/O type Leo, A/B/AB/O type Libra, A/B/AB /O type Aquarius.

The easiest person to fall in love at first sight: O/B/AB Gemini

Suitable for girls: O/AB/B type shooter, O/AB/B type white sheep, O/AB/B type lion, O/AB/B type scale, O/AB/B type water bottle.

Boys are suitable for lovers: AB/B Sagittarius, AB/B Aries, AB/B Leo, AB/B Libra, AB/B Aquarius.

The most discordant lover: Type A Pisces, Type A Virgo

B-type blood Sagittarius - easy-going optimistic Sagittarius

B-type blood Sagittarius: B-type blood Sagittarius friends are very easy-going, always have optimistic emotions, there is almost nothing to make you unhappy, every day in this world for you, They are full of sunshine and happiness. You don't care whether your career is successful or not. It doesn't matter if you have more money. You won't care much about the worldly material things. I don't like the life of stress and regularity, and the unfettered state is what you want most. However, if you have the ability to communicate with each other like a pistachio, you are very easy to like, and it is easy to attract a lot of peach blossoms. But if you like what you want, you are always unwilling to be tied to a relationship, often in a period of feelings to shuttle and enjoy it.

Friends: A/AB/O type Sagittarius, A/AB/O type Aries, A/AB/O type Leo, A/AB/O type Libra, A/AB/O type Aquarius.

The easiest person to fall in love at first sight: O/A/AB Gemini

Suitable for girls: AB/O Sagittarius, AB/O Aries, AB/O Leo, AB/O Libra, AB/O Aquarius.

Suitable for lovers: O/A/AB Sagittarius, O/A/AB Aries, O/A/AB Leo, O/A/AB Libra, O/A/AB Aquarius.

The most discordant lover: Type B Pisces, Type B Virgo

AB-type blood Sagittarius - changeable Sagittarius

AB-type blood Sagittarius: AB-type Sagittarius friends are changeable, you have both the A-type shooter's obsession and the B-type shooter's easygoing. You are very flexible, intelligent, and old-fashioned. It is often easy to understand the essence of people or things. Compared with other blood type Sagittarius, you are more modest, open-minded, and like to hide your outstanding side, do not like to wave or show the limelight. However, there are always many fresh and unique ideas in the heart, and I hope that one day I can get rid of the secular bondage. No matter how old the AB shooter, it always retains the pure childish side, and it is also the charm of attracting the opposite sex. If the O-type Sagittarius is romantic, behavioral and rational; then the AB-type Sagittarius is intellectual and romantic. In the process of love, your behavior will be very enthusiastic, but the mind will always maintain a calm and rational.

Friends: A/AB/B type Sagittarius, A/AB/B type Aries, A/AB/B type Leo, A/AB/B type Libra, A/AB/B type Aquarius.

The easiest person to fall in love at first sight: O/A/B type Gemini.

Suitable for girls: AB/B Sagittarius, AB/B Aries, AB/B Leo, AB/B Libra, AB/B Aquarius.

Boys are suitable for lovers: AB/A Sagittarius, AB/A Aries, AB/A Leo, AB/A Libra, AB/A Aquarius.

The most discordant lover: O-type Pisces, O-type Virgo

#sagittarius #constellation #zodiac #zodiac signs #astrological #horoscope

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myreluctantsafespace · 6 years ago

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Safe Space

So, I’d say my mental health has been on something of a chronic downward slide. Not terminal, not suicidal or anything, but my worldview has gotten steadily bleaker over the time. I’m not sure how much of this is because of fucked up neurochemistry and how much of it is due to circumstance. Probably both. I can’t imagine having an idiotic, criminal, traitorous, wannabe, authoritarian tyrant has been conducive to a positive outlook on life. Then again, I’m getting older, and fatter, and every time I look in the mirror I’m liking what I see about as much as I did back when I was a teenager, which is to say not very much.

I guess you could call this a journal. Or maybe a place to vent. Or rant. Fuck, I don’t know. I just know that there is a lot, a lot, a LOT going on in my head all the goddamn time, and I’m unable and unwilling to subject the other humans to more of me than they signed up for. I’m extra as the young people say, and if you’re up for adventures in mental illness, you’ve come to the right place.

I might not be sure what this is, and what this is might change over time, but I do know what it’s not. It’s not a cry for help, it’s not an appeal for sympathy, and it’s damn sure not a platform for the kind of bloviating bigoted buffoons I deal with in my day to day life. I am a liberal, atheist, secular, skeptical, science-minded, creative, video game/movie/comic/book-obsessed, fandom-obsessed, kinky, possibly transgender basic bitch, and if you have anything less than positive to say about it, you can go fuck your selfie. And if you get that reference, maybe, just maybe, we’ll get along.

#mental health #vent #journal #liberal #secular #queer #transgender

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xtruss · 3 years ago

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“Shameless War Criminal Bloody British Bastard Blair” Lectures the World on Military Strategy, With No Word of the Deceit He Engineered For an Illegal Assault on Iraq 🇮🇶, Syria 🇸🇾 and Afghanistan 🇦🇫

— 6 September, 2021 | RT

Former War Criminal Bloody British British PM Tony Blair sees himself as a colossus on the world stage – climate hero, peace maker and thinker for our times – seemingly unaware that many people view him as a ‘War Criminal’ who deserves to be put on trial and throw him behind bars to “Stay, Rest, Rot and Burn in Hell Forever.”

Since he left high office in 2007, there really is no subject in the world on which Tony Blair is reluctant to express an opinion on, buoyed by an unsinkable self-belief and an apparently total absence of self-awareness.

He’s convinced that a huge appetite exists for his latest musings, that French President Emmanuel Macron is desperate for his help in tackling the radical Islamist problems of the Sahel, that US President Joe Biden lies awake at night asking himself, ‘What would Tony do?’ and that the British public has forgotten he took the country into a catastrophic war against Iraq that both the United Nations and even his own government inquiry determined was illegal.

His acquiescence to US demands for an attack on Saddam Hussein earned Blair the US Medal of Freedom from George Bush and 20 years of opprobrium from the British public, which has only increased as the years have passed on par with his own immense personal wealth. A poll in 2017 found a third of the British public would like to see Blair put on trial as a war criminal.

But that’s not something the ex-PM likes to dwell upon. So his speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), almost 20 years to the day since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, made no mention of what followed those unforgettable events: dodgy dossiers, suggestions of bunkers full of weapons of mass destruction or of the purposeful lying to the British people.

Rather than learn any lessons from recent history, like when to wage war, Blair’s appetite is clearly undiminished, as he moaned, “Western societies and their political leaders have become quite understandably, deeply averse to casualties amongst our Armed Forces.” This, in his view, had become, “an overwhelming political constraint to any commitment to Western boots on the ground, except for Special Forces.”

It’s all Biden’s fault apparently. Blair said, “It is clear now – if it wasn't before – that America has decided that for the foreseeable future, it has a very limited appetite for military engagement.”

‘First order security threat’ akin to revolutionary communism: Afghan war didn’t solve radical Islam, Tony Blair says. War Criminal Bloody British Bastard don’t like to talk about “Radical Christians Terrorists, Radical Saffron Hindu Terrorists, Radical God’s Fucked-up People Zionist Cunt Terrorists,” because they can give him a deep f*** and stop paying him to propagate spew filth against Muslims.

Well, yes, Mr. Former Prime Minister, it is true that the Americans have made no secret of the fact that they are sick of fighting ‘forever wars’. But us Brits also do not like to see the lives of young men and women who have signed up to serve their country sacrificed at the altar of political self-aggrandisement. We are now a little less gullible, a little less obliging when it comes to fighting unwinnable, neverending battles and somewhat more suspicious of our glory-seeking political leaders. And that’s all largely down to one person. You.

It’s strange Blair doesn’t acknowledge this. One thing’s certain, he knows his geopolitics; hell, he even has his own eponymous ‘global institute’ packed with researchers, academics and leading experts to tell him what to think and say about the key issues of our time. With one exception. Do. Not. Mention. Iraq.

The exclusion of that country’s name from the conversation is obvious. In looking forward, Blair said that Europe – insisting “for these purposes Britain is part of Europe like it or not” – faced an immediate challenge from the destabilisation of the Sahel and was “already facing the fallout from Libya, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.” Err, by ‘elsewhere in the Middle East’ could Blair possibly mean Iraq? Probably, but let’s not risk spoiling a pleasant chat.

And in the face of that perceived threat, which in the Sahel until now has been largely handled by France, Blair asked, “How do Europe and NATO develop the capability to act when America is unwilling?”

Blair clearly sees military action as an imperative – I’m not sure everyone else agrees – but he also thinks the capacity of Western policymakers to think strategically needs to be reinvigorated.

“For me, one of the most alarming developments of recent times has been the sense the West lacks the capacity to formulate strategy,” he said. “That its short term political imperatives have squeezed the space for long term thinking.

It is this sense more than anything else which gives our allies anxiety and our opponents a belief our time is over.”

Now the picture is starting to become clearer. While Western governments are distracted from war by the need to focus on rebuilding economies, fighting worldwide health crises and seemingly perpetual election cycles which inhibit their ability to think long-term, they need big thinkers, top-shelf statesmen and global heavy hitters to work out how to bomb the citizens of far-off places into oblivion through drone strikes, how to convince a sceptical public that it’s a good idea to send servicemen and women to their deaths and – most importantly of all – how to create the right PR buzz around those decisions, so that everyone feels comfortable about falling into line.

Those Western governments need men just like Tony Blair. He’s free most afternoons, if you’d like to schedule a Zoom call. Just don’t mention the war (on Iraq).

“War Criminal, Boak Bollocks Bloody British Bastard Tony Blair” calls US Afghanistan withdrawal ‘imbecilic’ – What, then, was the Bush-Blair invasion of 2001?

— Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66

— August 22, 2021 | RT

War Criminals Bush and Blair met in Washington to discuss the ongoing operations in Afghanistan, November 7, 2001. © REUTERS/Win McNamee

“Serial Warmonger and War Criminal Bloody British Bastard Tony Blair” has blasted the US decision to pull out from Afghanistan, but history tells us the real madness was invading the unconquerable country in the first place.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair –aka ‘The Blair Creature’– is not a happy bunny this Sunday, folks. He has said that the decision to withdraw western forces from Afghanistan was made “in obedience to an imbecilic slogan about ending the ‘forever wars’.”

What he calls the US’ ‘abandonment’ of Afghanistan was “tragic, dangerous and unnecessary.”

In fact we could say the same about Tony Blair himself – and certainly the wars of choice he promoted.

Imbecilic? That’s the perfect word to describe what happened in October 2001 when Afghanistan was invaded in response, we were told, to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, even though none of the terrorists were Afghan nationals.

Had Blair read just a little bit of history, he would have pursued an exclusively diplomatic path to try and get Osama Bin Laden handed over and not have been so keen to send in the troops.

As I wrote in the Daily Express in 2009 in an article entitled ’Afghanistan: History repeats itself,’ “‘That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history,’ said Aldous Huxley. Nowhere is this more applicable than in the case of the many unsuccessful attempts by foreign powers to conquer Afghanistan.”

I went on: “The mighty forces of the British Empire failed three times between 1839 and 1919. The Soviet Union, which at the time had the largest army in the world, tried in 1979: they too were defeated.”

But in 2001, Blair and the then American President George W. Bush thought they would buck the trend. They could topple the Taliban (which they did) and remake Afghanistan – a deeply conservative and very religious country – in the western secular image. Afghanistan would be transformed from a ‘failed terror state’ into a ‘functioning democracy.’ What folly. What imperial arrogance.

Today, Blair is busily trying to spin the invasion of 2001 as a ‘success.’ But, while some things did improve, 'Operation Enduring Freedom' certainly didn’t bring peace to Afghanistan.

According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, 579 civilians were killed in aerial operations between January and September 2019. That’s more than double the amount ten years earlier. Nearly 111,000 civilians have been killed or injured in the country since 2009.

Far from bringing stability, the 2001 western military invasion, just like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was a major cause of instability.

I recall chatting to a friendly Afghan taxi driver a couple of years ago and saying to him how I’d love to visit the country to see its great natural beauty. “Don’t go,” he said. “It‘s far too dangerous. You would be targeted.”

So much for Afghanistan being ‘safe’ post-invasion.

Whenever the US withdrew, we would have had scenes of chaos. But the Americans had to pull-out at some point otherwise its forces would have been in Afghanistan forever. That doesn’t seem to concern ‘The Blair Creature’ too much. ‘Forever wars’ aren’t a great problem to him or indeed the ‘Inside the Tent‘ political and media figures who promote them. They are, though, for the soldiers who die in them, and for their grieving families.

‘But the US and British forces could have stayed in a support role,’ we’re hearing. But, as was pointed out last week, there is a word for countries whose governments only endure because of foreign military support. The word is “colony.”

Blair and his supporters are tacitly admitting that Afghanistan, billed as a ‘sovereign democratic country’, was actually a colony. I thought ‘imperialism’ was supposed to be a bad thing that we’re all supposed to be ashamed of. So why is it ok when it comes to Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is virtually impossible for foreign powers to subjugate. There’s its hostile terrain, its harsh weather, its fiercely independent people who are very brave, very tough and are highly skilled in mountain warfare. But anyone who’d read the history books would have known all this and not intervened in the first place.

Tony Blair, with his Messiah complex, thought he’d be different. He could succeed in Afghanistan where other, lesser mortals had failed. But the ‘new’ neocon empire met with exactly the same result as the old empire did. Wasn’t it ‘imbecilic’ to think it would be any different?

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