#and the way they incorporated enemy retreating + retribution??? not the way most people do it AND it gives such a nice touch

[wist-eri]

okay so this track is so good what if i went insane

[apothecarywormcrud]

11 and 13 for Masato? 👀 i wanna say all of them for Masato but.

oh i am DOING all of them i wanna talk about masato

or. well. most of them. 

1. Does your insert have a name that’s different from yours? Does the name reflect their character in any way, or is it just because it sounds nice? How did you come up with it?

I’ve talked about this before, but Masato’s name is very specifically spelled 眞人, (the kanji for “real” and “human,” respectively.) I sorta knew from the start that I wanted to give them a name with 人 in it; something deliberately ironic, because Mayuri is a dick who loves a bad joke. 

(It’s a particularly cruel joke in the context of Masato’s original backstory, where they were meant to be an experiment in what happens when you let someone think they’re a real person and then strip that assumption away. But I wanted to give them sick powers, so that was shunted to the sidelines.) 

2. Does your insert have a very strong relationship with a f/o, maybe more than one? 

I talk about Szayel enough on here so I’m gonna talk about Nnoitra instead. In my version of canon, his mask is cracked open by Kenpachi, reducing him to a state similar to Nel’s. (That’s karmic retribution, bitch!) Suffice to say he’s pretty upset about this, and proceeds to skulk about Las Noches refusing to let anyone see him until Szayel gets back to fix things. 

Masato meets him by chance when their powers are still sealed up post-jailbreak (this one’s seal 2: electric boogaloo) and is all like, what’s with this sassy lost pre-teen? Eventually they become sparring partners, since while Nnoitra’s regaining his powers, Masato is the only person in Las Noches capable of fighting at such a low level; and once he’s got them back, they can go hog-wild without worrying about fucking him up too much. Their relationship doesn’t have the same...belligerent romantic tension that Masato and Szayel’s does, but Nnoitra is fond of Masato, even if he’s horrible at admitting it. They’re friends and they suck! 

More abt. Nnoitra actually bc I love this song: nerfing him puts him in a position where he’s forced to rely on other people, and despite feeling totally worthless and vulnerable and having to undergo the humiliation of being protected, there’s also the experience of being told, “So what if you don’t have any power? That doesn’t make me respect you any less.” So he has the opportunity to build his self-worth back up based on something less subjective, and now he can actually interact with other people on the same level, which is great news for Tesla, who gets to strengthen his spine and be truly up front about his feelings, because Nnoitra no longer has any power over him. 

I think, for relationships like these, finding a level playing field is super important! And I’ve always been fascinated by characters who develop in opposition to one another and eventually meet in the middle. Masato and Szayel are also that way, in that they round out some of his edges, and he sharpens some of theirs, and the actual feelings proper don’t start developing until a ways in, and they’re not even admitted until post-canon, because in order to even consider that sort of relationship, the two of them have to come to respect each other first. Enemies-to-lovers is a fucking ART. 

3. Who in their canon are they closest to? 

Kurosaki fam and by extension, Ichigo’s friends. Masato has commissioned at least one custom jacket from Uryu. Also Arrancar Squad and my friend Percy’s insert Juro, who’s a creepy little goth weirdo and a visored.  

4. Does your insert have a backstory? Tell us about it! How does their backstory, if any, define who they are? 

Masato is a mod-soul based off of Mayuri’s quincy research. They’re designed to passively absorb reishi until at max capacity (which is quite large), at which point they can be forcefully “detonated,” destroying them in the process and causing a significant amount of damage to the surrounding area as the stored reishi is released. As a weapon, they’re highly experimental—meant as a last resort rather than something put to regular use. 

Mayuri dumped them in the human world, where their reishi absorption wouldn’t negatively impact the Seireitei, and planned to let them simmer there for about ten years. There’s a seal incorporated into their gigai that not only blocks them from accessing the reishi inside of them, but prevents any outside force (such as hollows) from sensing it. 

Once they become aware of what they are, Masato gets big anxious about anything that implies they’re not a real person. I’d love to salvage Kon’s original personality from before he was relegated to pervy comic relief because I think there’s the potential for some interesting interactions there. 

5. Does your insert have any magical talents or otherwise special abilities? 

Passive reishi absorption, and after Uruhara modifies their gigai so they can access their power reserves, they can vent it from their body and use the force to blast themselves around or add more power to their blows. Their body is about as resilient as a normal human’s, but the only way they can truly “die” is if their soul candy is crushed, which means that injuries that would normally be fatal are just excruciatingly painful. This definitely isn’t just an excuse for me to fuck them up beyond all belief. 

Due to Szayel’s tinkering, they eventually end up as what’s effectively an artificial Quincy. 

6. Do they fight? What’s their weapon of choice? What’s the motivation for them to fight, or to stay OUT of a fight?

They prefer not to fight if they can avoid it, but if shit gets real then they won’t hesitate, bitch. They’re reasonably proficient with a blade after several years of kendo training, and like to bring a practice sword into dangerous situations. It’s not going to do much good against the likes of shinigami or hollows, but it makes them feel more secure, and it’s a good misdirection tactic. 

Due to the whole “functionally unkillable” thing, they’re also far more likely to take risks in battle, and have a tendency to rush in without thinking when one of their comrades is hurt. 

7. What kind of clothing style do they like? What would they never be caught dead wearing? 

It’s all cropped jackets and harem pants up in this bitch. I drew them in that sort of outfit once and now it’s all I give them. They don’t particularly care for their arrancar clothes, but it makes them less conspicuous and also, Szayel insisted on it. Can’t have your prized experiment running around looking like some sort of ragamuffin, after all. I keep meaning to write something where they visit Sastre for a fitting, because what good is having other arrancar OCs if I don’t do anything with them? 

8. How do they fit into their canon world?

A side character who tags along with the main cast but ultimately doesn’t impact events too much. They have their own wholly separate plot going for them and it involves self-actualization and kissing arrancar. 

9. Their favorite foods? Colors? Activities? What do they enjoy in life? 

Kendo, gardening, bike rides through the countryside.

11. How easy is it to make your insert angry? Sad? How easy is it to twist their emotions into negative things? 

Masato’s actually pretty difficult to rile up, unless you’re pushing some Very Specific buttons (personhood is the big one), at which point they become incredibly easy to mess with. Szayel is...uncomfortably good at making them upset. 

13. What are your insert’s goals? 

Up to a certain point, they were happy to live a normal life and protect the people around them when called for. Then they wind up back in Mayuri’s lab and proceed to jailbreak Szayelaporro, retreat to Hueco Mundo, and strike a deal with him in order to gain more power and get mutual revenge on Mayuri. 

Post-canon...they start coming to terms with the fact that their body will never age and grow like a normal human’s, and that if/when they die, their soul will effectively be destroyed, and they decide, hey, fuck that shit, actually, and do a bunch of crazy science until they’ve got that shit sorted out (ultimately becoming like Nemu, if not something that improves on her design). 

14. Does your insert have any family relations? 

Isshin was the one who found them shortly after they were dumped on Earth, and kept them around for a number of reasons (the majority of which involved his Soul Reaper Senses tingling). So Masato’s got what’s effectively an adoptive dad and three younger siblings, who they dote on and bully interchangeably (and whose last name they may or may not have borrowed) (Isshin insisted on it, actually, since it’d make the documentation easier). They have temporary solidarity with Yuzu over not being able to see spirits. 

Mayuri is....arguably family but also like, fuck that. Masato does consider Nemu to be something like a sister, though, and feels particularly protective of her the more they interact. They have just as much a desire to help Nemu escape Mayuri’s influence as they do themselves. 

15. Does your insert have any enemies? What’s that dynamic like? Why are they enemies? Did they ever get along in the past? Is patching up differences out of the question for the future?

Fuck Mayuri me and my homies all hate Mayuri. I shouldn’t really need to explain this one. He treats Masato solely as an experiment and tool for his use. Unlike with Nemu, the fact that Masato is developing on their own is more of an inconvenience than anything, and before they broke out with Szayel, Mayuri was fully intending to wipe their memories and start over from square one. There is some good news, however, which is that Masato does get their revenge and uses their shiny new Quincy powers to seal up Mayuri’s reishi and get him kicked out of the captain’s seat. 

Szayel starts off as an enemy, since you can’t really have an enemies-to-lovers plot without one. He’s done some pretty atrocious things to Masato, but he treats them significantly more like a person than Mayuri ever did. Masato has very little respect for him, and the only reason they start working with him to begin with is because he represents a means to an end. Of course, the more time they spend together, the more tolerant they become of each other...among other things. 

[threewaysdivided]

Idea for an Age-swap AU

We’ve recently seen some age-swap and role-swap AUs floating around the DP fandom.  The most common of these are the direct reversals, where Vlad is the teenage protagonist and Danny is the adult villain.   Now, I’m not the hugest fan of the straight-swap versions because it’s not particularly interesting or in-keeping with the canon characters.  If Danny becomes the amoral villain and Vlad the plucky protagonist then you basically just have the original Danny Phantom again, except with the characters wearing each other’s skins.

However, a version of the age-swap that keeps the characters closer to their canon personalities has great comedy potential.

Imagine this:

Young!Vlad is a disaffected but highly intelligent freshman whose ‘genius’ is seemingly unrecognised by everyone in town.  Pretty much everything sucks for him - he’s bored at home because his parents are always away on work, he’s bored in class because he finds the material too easy, the school’s head jock and posse make a policy of ruining his day, the student body president is ‘inept’, and - despite Vlad’s intelligence and apparent ability to analyse people - he never seems to make it into the spheres of the influential or popular classmates.    He’s aloof and vaguely disdainful towards everyone around him, except for his two best friends; the naive and eccentric but occasionally brilliant Young!Jack, and the beautiful and sharply intelligent Young!Maddie.  He hangs out with them partly due to their mutual interest in the paranormal, but also because Maddie is the only person in town he sees as an equal and he really wants to date her (too bad she’s always making eyes at Jack).   [If you’re looking for a reference he’s basically a cross between Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole and Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated]

Like in the original series, the three of them attempt to build a proto-ghost portal as a step in their research.  This one goes even worse (after all, it was built by teenagers) and Jack rushing to activate it gets Vlad blasted with way more ectoplasm than in canon.  Just like the original it lands him in hospital for a bit - but in this case only a few months.  On coming back to school he is very resentful (mostly towards Jack though he’s a bit miffed that Maddie didn’t come to visit his room while he was awake) both for the accident and the Danny-like power-problems he’s experiencing.  Although in Vlad’s case he hides them from his friends and outwardly acts like everything’s been forgiven.

As he gains controls of his powers, Vlad decides to put them to use ‘correcting’ some of the ‘wrongs’ in his life; serving disproportionate comeuppance to the jocks, subtly embarrassing Jack in from of Maddie, scheming and manipulating his way through the school’s systems, and generally messing with people to alleviate his boredom.

It basically turns into a Deathnote-like moral situation, in which Vlad is a nominal ‘hero’ on the best days and an entitled, arrogant person at worst.  He may be the protagonist but he’s sure not the ‘good guy’ of this story. (He still makes himself a vampire-style suit and goes by Plasmius in ghost-mode because despite being highly intelligent he’s also a dumb 14-year-old who unironically thinks it looks cool.)

How does Danny get involved?

While Vlad is still in the nominally-heroic part of the story (dishing out retributions to people who actually had it coming, chasing away some minor ghosts that were attracted by the portal explosion, manipulating outcomes that fix genuine problems etc.) he starts to notice an older person hanging around and following him. At first Vlad’s concerned - has someone caught on?  Is it an enemy ghost?  A rival trying to take out the competition? - until Phantom introduces himself.  Danny’s a lot of things but subtle is not one of them.

Older!Danny is in his early 30s.  His parents were some of the first modern ecto-scientists and successfully built a working portal (the source of the accident that gave him his powers) but because the hauntings stayed localised near the portal (never spreading beyond his own hometown) their ecto-research didn’t reach mainstream science beyond a few ‘professional ghost-hunters’, paranormal aficionados and an obscure branch of government that mostly just makes messes bigger in their attempts to ‘contain and study all unauthorised ectoplasmic entities’.

Despite his unease, Danny is honestly happy to meet another half-ghost. He might have reservations about actual teaching (“I’ve got an Engineering degree, not a Dip. Ed.”) but he genuinely wants to help this new kid through what he remembers being a tough period of power-adjustment and guide him to use his abilities productively.   Unfortunately, Vlad is having none of it - who is this condescending fool to tell him what to do?  In his eyes Phantom is either trying to recruit him so that he can use his power (after all, that’s what Vlad would do) or he’s an idiot for wasting such potential. Actually, he must be an idiot either way because who else would try to manipulate someone of Vlad’s intelligence?

Eventually this devolves into a cat-and-mouse game in which Young!Vlad uses his brains and abilities in attempts to manipulate his way into Maddie’s affections, positions of influence and possession of powerful items, with Phantom having to step in and ‘defeat Plasmius’ before someone gets hurt.  Unlike in canon, where Vlad mostly toys with Danny to demonstrate his superiority, Young!Vlad learning techniques from their fights is intentional on Older!Phantom’s part. Phantom really wants to give this kid a chance to turn things around, and figures that letting Plasmius experiment with his powers in a relatively safe space might help Vlad get under control and avoid the temptation to do something truly stupid.  Unfortunately, all this actually does is teach his accidental-arch-rival to be a more competent villain.

Shenanigans ensue:

Vlad deliberately creating dangerous situations so that he can impress Maddie by ‘dramatically rescuing’ her from the ‘evil Plasmius’.  What he forgets is that, under her pretty face, Maddie is a top-tier asskicker - at least a third of the time the love of his life hands his ecto-hide to him long before Phantom can intervene. He’d find it attractive if it wasn’t so humiliating.

Jack also proves disturbingly competent with his ‘anti-creep stick’.  It’s literally just a baseball bat with a cross-stitched handle and the club logo sprayed on the side but Vlad still makes a point of stealing and destroying them whenever Jack makes a new one.

Maddie concludes that Plasmius and Phantom are both evil and working together.  

Vlad: “Of course, but as the older and stronger, Phantom is clearly in charge.  If we get rid of him then surely Plasmius will leave.”

This results in Vlad doing a very careful dance whenever he and Danny are in ghost mode while Maddie and/or Jack can see them.

In attempt to ‘eliminate the competition’ Vlad considers alerting the Guys in White to Phantom’s status.

Danny: “Look, kid. Vlad. If you go to them with that intel they’re going to wonder how you got it.  I might survive - my company holds the patents for a lot of their tech - but you’re a high-schooler.  You really want to risk outing both of us?”

This is one of the few things they eventually agree on: Under no circumstances is anyone to intentionally involve the GIW.

Vlad tries to recruit other ghosts in attempt to keep Phantom distracted.

This mostly consists of him failing to intimidate Skulker with his scrawny teen stature, then flattering him into it because “surely as the first and strongest of his kind Phantom would be a much worthier prize for such a skilled hunter.”

He has more luck with the resentful Yiddish vultures, although they can’t do much beyond being a nuisance.

The Box Ghost offers his services.  Repeatedly.

Vlad travels to Amity Park in attempt to steal ecto-tech from Fentonworks.  On arrival he is horrified to see just how haunted the town is due to its permanently active portal.  He beats a fast retreat after getting cornered and resolves to come back with better plans.

Vlad returns to Amity Park in attempt to recruit more minions from the thronging masses. This is somewhat successful, but a few rogue ghosts follow him home - forcing him to try to contain the situation while hiding it from Maddie and Jack.

Youngblood starts messing with Vlad’s schoolmates (interfering with some of his social schemes in the process).  As an adult Danny is incapable of seeing him, and Maddie and Vlad’s tendency to act older than their age means that Jack is the only one with a real handle on the situation.  Eventually (to his intense horror) Vlad has to do things Jack’s way to solve the problem

Jack: “You know what V-Man, I’m glad to have you back.  You’ve been so serious these last few months, I was worried you’d forgotten how to have fun!”

Vlad: *audible teeth-grinding*

Vlad refuses to swear because he thinks it’s a sign of inferior intellect and therefore beneath him.  Danny doesn’t swear because he’s desperately trying not to teach this kid any more bad habits.

Vlad makes a deal with Technus to steal some software for use in a financial scheme. Too bad that they make this arrangement in the same week that local Information Technology rising-star Tucker Foley is invited to speak at the school’s career day.

Vlad’s plans failing because his ‘superior intellect’ leads him to over-engineer excessively complex schemes.

Danny: “You know you could just have done this, right?”

Plasmius later tries Phantom’s suggestion and Danny is kicking himself because darn it I was trying to get him to knock it off, not give him pointers.

Vlad attempting subtler social schemes (e.g. overshadowing staff and student council members to make changes).  These sometimes work but other times Jack messes up the plan with his overenthusiastic support for his ‘best friend’.

Danny eventually recruiting one of Vlad’s classmates Red-Huntress-style because look, I’m running my parents company, volunteering at the observatory and trying to keep the ghosts under control.  I can’t be constantly flying to another town to make sure Plasmius isn’t bringing on the ecto-apocalypse.

Out of respect for Vlad’s privacy Danny doesn’t reveal the secret identity thing. Instead he asks them to keep Plasmius under control and also look out for Vlad Masters because the ghost might be interested in him.

What Danny didn’t notice was that this kid really doesn’t like Masters and has a pretty big grudge against Plasmius after being on the receiving end of one of his schemes.  What should have been a simple recon job instead ends up with them aggressively pursuing an intense rivalry with both of Vlad’s halves.  They also get overzealous in their ecto-hunter task and start going after Phantom as well.  So now Danny has two problems.

Jazz Fenton (a qualified and practicing psychologist in this AU) takes a job as the school’s councillor.

While there she works to convince Vlad of the benefits of altruism, tries to wheedle him into confessing his connection to Plasmius (Danny told her everything) and attempts to foil his social manipulations.  The first two aren’t met with much success but she does get in the way of the third a few times.

For his part Vlad tries different schemes to get her fired or make her leave so that he can continue plotting without interference.

Vlad sneaks into the Ghost Zone in attempt to steal a powerful item (Ring of Rage, Pandora’s box, the Fright Knights Soul Shredder etc.).  This goes about as badly you’d expect.  Unlike in canon, where Vlad bails and makes Danny deal with it, Older!Phantom drags Young!Plasmius back by the ear because you made this mess so now you’re going to help clean it up.

Phantom: “So, did we learn anything today?”

Plasmius: “I should do more research before handling powerful objects.”

Phantom: *aggrieved sigh* “You know kid, I honestly thought you were smarter than this.”

Whether Young!Vlad eventually learns his lesson or keeps spiralling until he becomes a canon!Vlad level criminal chessmaster is something that could go either way.  

What I’m getting at is:  Can someone please do a version of the age-swap AU where Vlad Masters/Plasmius is an intellectually snobbish, overly theatrical, entitled adolescent ‘mastermind’ (who isn’t quite as bright as he thinks) and Danny Fenton/Phantom is the well-intentioned and experienced adult hero (but poor teacher) who really wants to give this kid a second chance but is getting more and more done with all the villainy nonsense.

[pamphletstoinspire]

In the Belly of Lent: Jonah and Us

Story with image:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/belly-lent-jonah-us-harold-baines/

One of my favorite features on the television show Sesame Street when I was growing up was a game entitled, “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.” As the song played in the background, we were challenged to find the one object out of the four that was different: an orange, an apple, a pear and a spoon, for example. Tucked in among the apples-and-oranges books of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible is a spoon!

The prophet Jonah is that oddball piece of Scripture. Written several centuries after the latest of the other prophetic books, this little book is short on prophecy but long on a narrative that satirizes a number of sacred cows and provides genuine insight into what following a call from God really means.

From the opening verses of the Book of Jonah it becomes clear that we’re dealing with an unusual hero. In response to God’s call to head out for the city of Nineveh (located at the center of the Assyrian Empire that encompassed parts of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia) and preach a call for repentance to its inhabitants, Jonah jumps aboard the nearest ship and gets moving — but not to Nineveh. He boards a ship heading for a place called Tarshish. While no one is sure exactly where Tarshish was located, the consensus is that it was somewhere along the southwest coast of Spain, the ends of the earth as far as the ancient Mediterranean world was concerned. According to the scriptural text, Jonah was on the lam, running “away from the Lord” (Jonah 1:3).

Your Assignment, Should You Choose…

It’s not hard for me to sympathize with this reluctant prophet. The Assyrians are notorious in the annals of the ancient Middle East because of their power and the atrocities attributed to them during their conquests. Assyrian stone carvings that have been uncovered in modern times proudly display corpses of defeated soldiers that have been decapitated or otherwise mutilated. In the background the ruins of the conquered city can be seen in flames.

How much of this was a form of propaganda designed to intimidate enemies and how much was based on reality is unknown, but as far as Israel was concerned the legend became a nightmare in 721 B.C. The Assyrian invasion of the Jewish homeland in that year resulted in the total obliteration of the 10 northern tribes of Israel, plus a prolonged siege of the city of Jerusalem that would have resulted in the city’s total destruction had the Assyrian army not retreated for unexplained reasons.

By the time the Book of Jonah was written, probably in the fifth century B.C., the now extinct city of Nineveh would have remained a symbol of the greatest abomination to God on the face of the earth in the eyes of the Jews. How could God possibly want to save those people?

Save Who?

Jonah’s flight from God is rooted in the basic human sin of pride, something with which I am all too familiar. Mystified by the ways of God that may seem totally irrational and unfair, Jonah presumes to know better, takes matters into his own hands and leaves God behind — or tries to.

As the psalmist expresses most eloquently in Psalm 139 (“Where can I go from your spirit… if I go up to the heavens you are there”), you can’t outrun God. As Jonah’s ship makes its way through the waters of the Mediterranean, a great storm hits. The captain and crew try everything to keep the ship afloat. Cargo is thrown overboard, prayers to any and all deities are attempted, but nothing works.

Finally, as the very destruction of the ship and loss of all hands seem imminent, Jonah ‘fesses up. As the sailors listen with horror, Jonah informs them that he is in the process of fleeing the God of the Hebrews and that the storm is the manifestation of the divine wrath. There’s an interesting bit of satire at work here, I suspect.

The attitudes of the sailors and, to some extent, Jonah himself, reflect the essence of ancient pagan approaches toward the gods and goddesses. Generally speaking, the various deities of pagan religions were seen as apathetic if not openly hostile to humankind and were to be more feared than respected, and certainly not loved. Crossing a god meant signing your own death warrant.

But we should know better, the author of this book seems to be reminding his Jewish audience. For when Jonah resigns himself to his apparent fate and allows himself to be thrown overboard in an effort to save the rest, this apparent capitulation to the vengeance of the gods becomes something very different. Jonah does not experience divine retribution. Instead, he undergoes the groaning and pain of a rebirth.

It’s a process that begins in the belly of the fish that God sends to swallow him. (That’s an anonymous sea creature, by the way. Never is it referred to as a whale!) The idea of the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish as the turning point of his life and the beginning of his true destiny was not lost on the Jewish Christians whose preaching formed the basis of the gospel tradition. You’ll find the comparisons of Jonah’s adventure and the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and in Paul’s writings.

Hollywood Climax

What can one do when he or she is in the belly of the fish? In those lucid and transcendent moments of our lives, moments often brought into being during times of trial and struggle, when the vision of another way of living and a closeness with God we didn’t realize was possible just begin to crest over the horizon, all we really can do is what Jonah does: Pray. The bulk of Chapter Two consists of Jonah’s prayer of thanksgiving to God.

In some beautifully scripted verses that mostly incorporate verses from the Psalms, Jonah thanks God for sparing him. Once and for all, he denounces everything in his life which he has allowed to get in the way of hearing God’s call. “Those who worship vain idols/ forsake their source of mercy./But I, with resounding praise,/ will sacrifice to you;/ What I have vowed I will pay:/ deliverance is from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9-10).

Jonah leaves the whale belly (Caption for linked image)

In the context of the time period when this book was written, these words are perhaps the author’s clearest condemnation of the polytheistic practices which continually threatened to swallow up the monotheism of Judaism. Even though our idols are different, the words of Jonah continue to ring true through the centuries.

The true price of our relentless pursuit of money, power and popularity, for example, is to cut ourselves off from the source of our own lives. The way out of the belly of the beast is to acknowledge that only God can get us out.

With this prayer, the reorientation of Jonah’s life is complete. Having placed himself fully in God’s camp, Jonah is now open to being the instrument God intends him to be. Jonah finds himself on the shore — a wonderful image for the beginning of life and of Lent — having been spewed out by the fish.

As Chapter Three begins, Jonah sets off for the huge metropolis of Nineveh. And a miracle happens.

Jonah just begins to preach his warning to the people of the city when everyone, from the king right on down to the most humble peasant, listens and responds. Every person (and animal!) dons sackcloth, an ancient symbol in both Judaism and the early Church of a person who is in the midst of performing a genuine act of repentance. God sees all, and forgives.

From a Jewish point of view, Jonah has marched into the very pit of hell and God’s power has triumphed. Any Broadway or Hollywood production of this story could end right here, complete with a dancing chorus of Assyrians and appropriately joyous music in the background. But real life tends not to be so tidy.

Satirical Anticlimax

As we enter into the fourth and final chapter of the book, the focus shifts back to Jonah and what he thinks of the act of salvation demonstrated before his very eyes, an act he has played an integral part in achieving. Does he fall on his knees in thanksgiving once again? Stand silent and awestruck at the incredible beauty of God’s love? Settle down among the folks he has helped?

Actually, he’s not too happy about things. In exposing the logic behind the unhappiness Jonah expresses to God, the author of this book reaches the height of his skills as a satirist. Probably aimed at his own community’s ultranationalist feelings, the words still speak powerfully to any one of us “good” people who in our hearts have closed off the possibility of redemption for someone or some group.

“This is why I fled at first to Tarshish,” Jonah tells the Almighty. “I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God…” (Jonah 4:2). In other words, Jonah simply could not bear the thought that God might forgive these murderous wretches.

When I read these words, I think about how lukewarm or downright ambivalent my own prayers and actions toward the more “unlikable” members of my own community can be — a difficult student or colleague, for example — and begin to feel the hard edges of the boundary lines I’ve erected within my efforts to forgive without limits as Jesus did. What is most amazing about this insight is that the author is writing about 400 years before Jesus, at a time when a thought such as this would cross the line into heresy. Perhaps it still does.

So Jonah’s journey continues into a new and more difficult stage. It is tough to let go of our own self-centered desires and goals and consciously allow God into the business of daily living. But it is much tougher, I think, when we begin to see that the work God has set us to do is not what we expected it would be, when the results seem hard to find or even appear counter to what we thought holiness and goodness were all about.

The Gospels suggest, for example, a similar experience among the first women and men who followed Jesus. All of the Gospels include stories early in the ministry of Jesus which demonstrate the apostles’ decision to leave their former ways of life and adopt radically new life-styles in following Jesus.

But this initial commitment, important as it is, is merely the first chapter of their faith lives. The deeper understanding and openness to what it really means to be a follower of Jesus come only after their divinely aided struggle through the terrible reality of the crucifixion.

In Jonah’s case, we never learn whether or not his transformation is complete. This may be the most meaningful thought of all we can take away from this book as we each work through our own Lenten journey toward the ultimate celebration of the Resurrection beyond this all-too-limited physical existence.

God hears Jonah out and responds, not with flashing thunder and lightning or celestial visions designed to dazzle and overwhelm, but in a simple way. “Have you reason to be angry?” God asks Jonah (Jonah 4:4). Jonah does not respond.

Teachable Moment

God has sent a sign. As Jonah sits, brooding, on a hill overlooking the city that he helped save, baked in the hot Middle Eastern sun, God sends him a plant with large, shady leaves. For a moment, Jonah is comforted. But then, just as suddenly, God takes the plant away. When Jonah (inevitably) complains, God seizes the “teachable moment.” If you can feel such anguish over the loss of a plant, God says, can’t you find it in your heart to feel something for your fellow human beings?

We leave the reluctant prophet on the hill, bereft of shade and easy answers, pondering the questions God has posed. Struggling to free himself from his reluctance, egocentrism and pride, fundamentally determined to do as God wills but not fully understanding what that means, Jonah stands as a model for every one of us.

In what is perhaps the greatest irony of the story, the least prophetic of all of the prophets emerges as the most human. In the midst of all his ambivalence, Jonah is a most effective instrument of God. His struggle to come to terms with the power and love of God within his limited horizons of being is our struggle — during Lent and during life.

Story written by: James Philipps