#because of how relieved seeing non-jews

[mobulidae]

Thank you

A particularly nasty side to antisemitism — it’s been part of Ye’s message recently though it is by no means unique to him — is this implication that they’re just the ones saying out loud what the rest of us are thinking. And I just want to say, unequivocally, fuck you. You don’t get to claim me. You don’t get to use me as a bullet against people I care about. It’s not what I think, and I’m confident it’s not what any of my friends think because if I wasn’t confident, they wouldn’t be my friends. I’m not silently agreeing with you — I’m VOCALLY disagreeing with you. Your beliefs are pathetic. Go fuck yourself.

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

Results are in for poll #2

I’m honestly not too shocked by the answers that were given and, let’s just say relieved that others weren’t given is an understatement.

I figured the best way to respond would be to go one by one and explain more to help educate:

1. “I love the actress, no matter the role, so her taking a Jewish role was fine”

Unfortunately no matter how talented someone is, they can’t change their ethnicity on screen. It would be like saying that you love Angelina Jolie no matter what and it was fine that she played an Afro-Latino in Pearl, or if they had Tom Holland play a Latino character. Loving someone doesn’t make it okay to erase a minority.

2. “I didn’t know “Jewish” was an ethnicity and not just tied to a religion.”

This having a lot of votes didn’t surprise me at all. Jewish is very much an ethnicity, and actually there are a few different Jewish backgrounds. There’s Ashkenazic (Eastern Europe), Sephardic (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Iberia), Mizrahi (Oriental), Ethiopia (and I’m assuming the rest of Africa?). So not only is Jewish itself an ethnicity, but further than that, depending on what Jewish background you have, everything could be different. Judaism is the religion and a Jew is a part of the ethnoreligion. Meaning that the two are intertwined. A Jew may not be religious, but they may keep traditions that are a part of the culture or they may do absolutely nothing and are still just as Jewish as someone who goes to services every week. You’re a part of a tiny little (but strong) tribe of people, being Jewish is literally in your blood (yes, that includes you converts, you have Jewish blood and soul too).

But the biggest reason why this answer doesn’t surprise me, is that on TV or in movies, Jewish characters are never allowed to just exist. It always has to be tied into a Jewish plot. Sometimes that’s playing them for a joke, other times they’re a WW2 victim, other times they’re extremely religious. Jews are so rarely ever shown just being people without the religious aspects tied in. So it’s not surprising that non-Jews don’t know that a lot of Jews aren’t even religious, hell there are a shit ton of Jews who are outspokenly Atheist but super duper Jewish. If films or shows had Jewish characters that didn’t have any sort of religious connection, it would show that Jews are more than a bagel, a Torah, a lawyer/doctor/banker, Orthodox, etc.

That’s why RWRB erasing a Jewish character who was accidentally an amazing example of a 22 year old explicitly Jewish girl who was just Jewish without being overtly religious in any way would’ve been groundbreaking.

3. “Other answer, I’ll explain more…” Please do!!

4. “I didn’t know “Jew-Face” and Jew-erasure in the media was a big deal.”

Sarah Silverman coined the term Jew-face to give a name to when a non-Jewish actor is cast to play a Jewish actor, based on their physical features. Take Rachel Sennott in Shiva Baby or Patti LuPone in like 5 different things. They’re both Italian. But the term has evolved to cover any non-Jew playing a Jew. Much like Black-face, Yellow-face, and Red-face, this is something that is clearly not okay. That’s why performers don’t do any of the latter 3 any more, yet because many don’t understand that Jewish is an ethnicity or why it’s bad to erase Jews, it continues. 9/10 a Jewish character you see on TV or in a movie isn’t a Jewish actor. Most of the Marvelous Mrs Maisel cast— not Jewish. Most of The Goldbergs cast— not Jewish. Most of the Transparent cast— Not Jewish. The new Spielberg movie— Not Jewish. You see what I’m getting at? There may be a few Jews here and there, mainly in comedies or just by happenstance that the actor was Jewish and they ran with it, but explicitly Jewish roles are normally always given to non-Jewish actors. That would never be the case with any other ethnicity in 2023.

5. “I like Nora being a POC and I didn’t know Jews could be Black (or any race).”

Another answer that really didn’t surprise me. This is because on TV and in movies 1: you rarely see any actual Jews, and 2: You definitely never see Jews of more diverse colors and backgrounds. Jews can be Asian, Black, Hispanic, literally anything you can imagine. Some by conversion, but a lotttttttt were just born Jewish. I don’t want to speak over any Jew of color, but I can make the likely true assumption that it probably fucking sucks for people to assume they aren’t Jewish simply because of what they look like. I’m grateful I was raised Reform, so I grew up surrounded by diverse Jews as far as the eye could see, but unfortunately since Jews are a minority anyway and Jews of color are only a small fraction of an already small fraction… It’s not shocking that people think they don’t exist. What RWRB could’ve done, if they wanted Nora to be played by an African-American actress, is they could have found a girl who was Jewish and Black. I promise, they exist.

6. “I understand that it’s wrong! Changing my mind! RWRB did something bad!”

Amazing! So glad! Please post about it or reblog any of my posts. What they did was really not okay and we can’t let this slide.

7. “I didn’t know the rest of the cast was accurately portraying their ethnicities.”

To the absolute best of my knowledge, every other actor cast in the film who has a character with a minority background is of that background. South East Asian playing South East Asian. Mexican-American playing Mexican-American. Etc. It seems that the only character not portrayed accurately is the only character with a Jewish ethnicity, and even if she wasn’t the only one, hopefully you understand why it would be wrong in any production.

As always, if you have questions, comments, or concerns… DM, Anon, Comment, or leave ‘em in the tags

[strangesmallbard]

Correct Answer: No Role At All

Jesus does not play a role in Judaism. That includes both the Tanach, which is arguably our primary religious text, and the daily religious/cultural practice of Judaism. He certainly plays a role in Jewish history—largely a negative one, as his followers have persecuted Jews for multiple centuries. There is evidence that he may appear briefly in the Talmud, which is a compilation of Jewish legal commentaries and teachings that modern Jewish scholars study throughout their lives. However, this is not a commonly-known fact amongst Jews (I myself didn't know this beforehand), nor do regular practicioners ever discuss him in Torah Study or services. (If any Talmudic scholars want to comment on this, absolutely feel free to!)

Nothing described above constitutes a role in Judaism. One trend I saw in tags was the assumption that, since Jews often engage in scholarly and/or religious debate, we likely discuss Jesus amongst ourselves. We don't lol; if there's a consensus about anything in Judaism, it's probably the Jesus thing. There is slight variance amongst individual Jews; for example, some consider him a wise rabbi/teacher with good ideas, while for others he's just some Jewish guy who probably existed and caused problems.

For every non-Jew who believed he had a role, I urge you to reflect on this assumption. Where did it come from? Who gave you this information initially—a Jew or a gentile? Why might a Christian source want you to believe we accept Jesus as a prophet or prominent figure? I also urge anyone who grew up Christian (or in a Christian culture) to reflect on any emotional reaction you had to learning this information. Were you shocked or uncomfortable? What do you feel about Jews who don't like Jesus at all, no matter how "good" his ideas might be?

While Jesus doesn't play a role in Judaism, Christianity does play a large role in antisemitism. This may also be new information to you. If you feel shame or guilt about your reaction and/or not knowing, I gently urge you to unpack that before engaging in any more conversations—if either emotion is the driving force of your allyship, you will burn out. And here's me talking specifically, because I can't speak for all Jews lmao: you don't need to confess or repent. You just need to show up and trust the perspectives of Jewish people about both our religion/culture and experiences with antisemitism. (You'll notice that all the sources I've included above and below are from Jewish organizations!) That's the first step, and I appreciate any non-Jews who take that step and keep going afterwards.

Results/Quick Analysis:

Thank you to everyone who participated! I was actually blown away by how seriously folks took this question; I've been joking to friends that I haven't ever seen this many goyim be normal towards Jews LMAO + genuinely curious to learn more about our religion, culture, and history. The bar is wildly low, but it's still cool to see it surpassed, and to see an absolute Torah Study happening in those tags.

Very Quick Analysis: the results were both relieving and worrying. Relieving because most people got the right answer! Worrying because, well, nearly half of the respondents did not. This isn't a verifiably solid sample size by any means, but that's still roughly 44% of 44,027 respondents, not including everyone who voted "something else." (Some of those answers veered from "very wrong" to "techically right," so it'd take a bit to accurately quantify).

That being said, the three primary wrong answers are not equally wrong. There are some important and interesting nuances to oberve here, and I plan to do so in a much longer post (hopefully) later this week. However, if you're interested in a quick explanation/breakdown of the wrong answers, click the read more below.

Wrong Answer One: Jesus is a Jewish Prophet

Jesus is not considered a Jewish prophet by any major sects or traditions. There are approximately 48 recorded prophets in the Tanach, none of whom are the guy known to Christians as Jesus. (I say approximately because the number has been contested before in the Talmud). There may be individual Jews who believe that Jesus should be a prophet or a significant religious teacher in Judaism, such as this guy I found in a 1971 New York Times article.

Here's the definition of a Jewish prophet, according to JewFaqs:

A prophet is basically a spokesman for G‑d, a person chosen by G‑d to speak to people on G‑d's behalf and convey a message or teaching. Prophets were role models of holiness, scholarship and closeness to G‑d. They set the standards for the entire community.

In very simple terms, Jesus is not a prophet because we don't believe he spoke on G-d's behalf. I was very tickled by the description of Jesus as a "good Jew" in some tags, because, well. No he ain't, according to most commonly accepted definitions of a Jew who practices Judaism and participates in Jewish culture. (Some disagree with this, however! That is where debates can happen between Jews. Just not in Torah Study).

There are also Messianic Jews/"Jews for Jesus", who have alternative beliefs about Jesus' role in Judaism, to put it mildly. However, Messianic Jews do not reflect the beliefs of anyone but themselves. Many Jews (myself included) do not count Messianic Jews as Jews. To learn why, please read that article I've linked there.

According to the tags, there appears to be two main reasons for this assumption. The first is the one I expected: While Jesus is not a prophet in Judaism, he is a prophet in Islam. This conflation is somewhat understandable, especially for Muslims/those who grew up Muslim, plus anyone who only knows a few facts about either Judaism or Islam.

The second one is honestly shocking to me: some Christian schools (including day schools and extracurricular programs) are apparently teaching y'all that Jews believe Jesus is a prophet!!! Hello lmao. They are Blatantly lying to you! This is fascinating. And it explains so much about Christian assumptions of Judaism and our relationship to JC. But what the fuck. Anyway, I plan to analyze Why I think they're teaching y'all that in the future Big Post. In the meantime: feel free to toss that lesson out. garbage

Wrong Answer Two: Jesus Appears in the Torah

Nope! The Torah's historical timeline is complicated, especially when you consider both the oral traditions and the written text. However, Jesus definitely doesn't appear in there. In general, the Torah describes the first five books in the Tanach, which consists of three major sections: the Chumash (the Torah), the Prophets (Neviim), and the Writings (Ketuvim). The Tanach roughly correlates to the Christian Old Testament; there are some key differences in which texts are included in the latter versus the former.

Anyway, as many have pointed out in the tags, the Torah was written way before Jesus was born. There's no full consensus on when the written Torah (as Jews know it today) was completed, but it was definitely before the birth of JC. He missed the whole party and we're not giving him any party favors.

According to the tags, I believe there are also two main reasons for this assumption. The first is plain and simple ignorance. Many gentiles don't know what the Torah is; in fact, many assume that it's the full Old Testament. Others don't know that Jesus only appears in the new one, especially if they weren't raised Christian/only know stuff about Christianity through osmosis. And it's okay to not know things! But now you know. Woe! Google Scholar be upon ye

The second is a bit more complicated: according to Christian theology, Jesus' birth was predicted in the Old Testament, aka the Tanach, aka the Torah. In this context, it makes sense why Christians/anyone raised vaguely Christian might misremember that Jesus himself shows up. Or they might count these predictions as him "showing up." But this is only true of Christianity. Jews do not believe that Jesus shows up in the Torah. Theologically speaking, that would be as absurd as the Buddha showing up in the Torah.

"Wrong" Answer Three: Jesus is a Rejected Messiah/Religous Figure

Actually, this answer isn't technically wrong. Anyone who voted this answer gets the metaphorical consolation prize. Put simply, Jews very much do reject Jesus as the prophecied Messiah in Judaism. (Someone in the poll reblogs wrote a great explanation as well - I'll either link it here or reblog it after posting this!) Furthermore, some Jews classify him as a "false Messiah" - belonging to a wider group of other Jews who claimed to be a Messiah and were rejected for various reasons.

The reason why I included this answer is because I was interested in how gentiles would intepret it. Some definitely questioned whether this answer should be separated from "no role at all," and others wanted to know my intended meaning first. For the sake of simplicity, my interpretation is this: Jesus can only be a "Rejected Messiah" figure in Judaism if that rejection is active—something we do as a part of everyday Judaism.

However, our rejection of Jesus is ultimately very, very passive. To actively reject Jesus, we'd have to seriously consider him as a contender. His divinity and/or importance would need to be a subject of debate. And he isn't. For the majority of Jews, rejecting Jesus has the same theological relevance as rejecting any major religious figure from a different religion. To use a common phrase from the tags: to us, Jesus is very much just some guy.

In any case, I do think my original hypothesis holds true: selecting this answer over "no role" shows that you approached the question from a Christian perspective, rather than a Jewish one. To be clear, I don't expect you to have that Jewish perspective ready to go. However, the Christians don't only believe we rejected Jesus; many believe that Jews killed him. (Jews did not kill Jesus. If Jesus existed, the Romans killed Jesus). This antisemitic canard is the basis for other antisemitic canards, including blood libel, which has led to multiple pogroms. (Also: many of these pogroms have historically occurred during Passover).

To put it even more bluntly: the Christian belief that Jews reject Jesus gets us killed. That's why it's important to consider the Jewish perspective over the Christian perspective. That's also why it's important to separate the two religions in your mind. Judaism is not incomplete Christianity, nor a proto-Christianity. It's an expansive tradition spanning thousands of years with multiple sects and diverse histories. And Jesus plays no significant role in that tradition.

Concluding Thoughts (Where's the Long Analysis?)

Thanks for reading the short version (haha) of the analysis! I hope to have a longer one out sometime this week, but it may be longer, as I'm hoping to get imput from other Jewish folks before publishing. Everything I described above is within my wheelhouse of knowledge, but the Longer Version requires a research journey and more in-depth sourcing. (That being said, @ Jews, please feel free to offer corrections or alternative perspectives!)

If anyone has any questions about the poll or what I wrote above, feel free to shoot me an ask or dm! (Anon is unfortunately off because I get nervous every time one of my Jewish posts makes the rounds). If I don't know the answer, I'll either provide a source you can check out, consult another Jew who's up for answering questions, or point you in the general direction of where to find the right answer.

[mightyflamethrower]

Our Three Blind Mice – Victor Davis Hanson’s latest piece

(A dismantling of the poisonous woke ideology)

​​​​​​“Three blind mice. Three blind mice. See how they run. See how they run…” The recent testimonies of the three university presidents (Claudine Gay of Harvard, Sally Kornbluth of MIT, and [soon to be departed?] University of Pennsylvania’s Liz McGill) concerning their inaction about endemic anti-Semitism on their campuses have probably done more damage to higher education than any recent event in memory. (And note there was not a white, male, heterosexual supposed oppressor to be found among the enlightened). We know they know they failed because two at least clumsily tried damage repair over the next few days that only confirmed their initial stupidity. And a herd of other scared university presidents suddenly have now issued their own memoranda professing their supposed zero tolerance politics for anti-Semitism on campus.

Still, do not believe that any are too sincere given they remain for now still more afraid of their DEI/woke/hard left faculty and students than they are of alumni, donors, or us the taxpayers. But note the following: 1) The three blind mice could not even lie well. Like nearly all contemporary university presidents, they have long revoked admissions, suspended students, or relieved faculty from teaching for any language, expression, or advocacy they considered incorrect, which translates as anything not compatible with wokism or DEI. Invoking ‘freedom of speech’ to disguise their moral cowardice is pathetic when they have never on their campuses believed in freedom of speech. One incorrect word about someone trans, a misplaced pronoun, or a clumsy reference to a non-white student, and the offender would be punished immediately—followed by the usual performance-art, virtue-signaling, “this is not who we are”/“there is no place for such hatred on this campus” memo from a careerist dean or bully provost. Instead, they have excused their censorship by arguing that in their campus enclaves, as in a corporation, they have the right to set their own codes of behavior—without taxpayers subsidies. But the issue is not so much “free speech”, but the equal application of rules and laws.  

Continued below the clip

These presidents adhere to systemic prejudice, in which free speech and rules of behavior are predicated on ideology as well as race and ethnicity. Worse still, they cloak such neanderthal reactionaryism in gobbledygook progressive platitudes. In their ridiculous white-oppressor/non-, white-oppressed reductionist world, advocating the destruction of Israel, and the Jewish people with it, is no big deal. Indeed, it pays dividends among their DEI and foreign student constituencies. So they are upset not that they have de facto institutionalized anti-Semitism to such a degree that it is now inviting physical assaults on their own students, but that they have been caught and called out on it. Bottom line: the nation learned that these people don’t care about their own campuses cheering on mass rape, mutilation, and beheading or calling for the extinction of Israel and all the Jews in it, because Jews as whites are on the wrong side of their victim/victimizer DEI binary, and suffer the additional wage of anti-Semitism.

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There is no career upside in their twisted worlds in defending Jews in Israel—or anywhere—from precivilizational barbarism. 2) All of these elite university presidents supposedly were once top scholars, seasoned faculty, and experienced deans and provosts. In other words, they are the purported best and brightest of what academia now has to offer us. And it turns out to be not much at all. Note in minutes they were utterly eviscerated by Republican congressional representatives with no such academic credentials, but with plenty of intelligence, logic, street smarts and common sense acquired from politics or business or non-academic experience. When the president of Harvard or MIT is rendered a moral pygmy and intellectual lightweight by our local congressional representatives, it warns us of what higher education has become and perhaps reminds why academics should be kept as far away from governance as possible. (Professors—e.g., a Woodrow Wilson or Barack Obama—usually have proved poor if not dangerous presidents). After such skilled grilling, we owe a great deal of respect for the abilities and moral sense of these Republican House members. 3) The only reason the three showed any remorse or the next day tried to reset, was transitory fear of financial consequences, as in being blamed for a temporary drop-off in donations.

But that reality underscores that we the people do have power over even our elite and private universities and can rescue them from themselves, if we understand that those who feign a supposed disdain for money are the most eager to acquire it, as we saw with the Bankman-Fried trio. In other words, the taxpayer can reign in a Harvard or MIT—should the U.S. government condition billions of dollars in annual subsidies to campuses on non-discriminatory policies, reconsider tax-exemptions for university giving, tax their endowment income until higher education is truly disinterested and non-partisan, and remove the government from the $2 trillion student loan racket that ensures tuition inflation, administrative bloat, and generations of youth suffering from arrested development. – Victor Davis Hanson

[worldofsufis]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞

The painful events that are occurring in Palestine right now will eventually come to an end just as previous iterations of these events have also come to an end. But as we pay attention to the details of the issues taking place, we must not forget the root cause, because it was the cause for all the problems of the past and it will remain so into the future.

The root of everything that is happening in Palestine now is that radical groups professing the ideology of Zionism aggressed upon a land in which Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Samaritans were living in peace. They perpetrated massacres and evicted much of those populations, after which they announced the creation of a new state in 1948, the leaders of which were from those groups. The world community recognised this new state at the time, and in 1967 it expanded its territorial occupation to encroach further into Palestinian land. Today, the world community is a mere spectator to this occupation despite officially recognising it as illegitimate. The fact that we are now in the third millennium and there still exists a state in the world that is incessant in committing the crime of occupation without a care for the Declaration of Human Rights and UN Conventions, and without receiving a real reaction from the UN and the so-called civilised world that may deter the occupier from its occupation, is evidence enough of the spectator status of the world community.

The occupiers are persecuting the people of Palestine and hampering their capacity to have a livelihood. Over 80% of the people of East Jerusalem live in a state of poverty and destitution that has been imposed on them. They are denied the basic rights of freedom to worship and living a dignified life. Their homes and farms are usurped from them. Their general rights are denied to them. Those Palestinians who hold the occupier’s nationality are treated with discrimination. The Gaza Strip is sealed off. Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth with a population density of approximately 5000 people per square kilometre. It has been under a blockade for 15 years and has a 60% unemployment rate. Settlements have and continue to be built in the West Bank for the benefit of usurpers with no connection to the land and who have been imported in from around the world on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. Women and children are killed and houses are razed to the ground. Extremist rabbis justify the killing of Palestinian women and children yet there is no criminalisation of their terrorist rhetoric. Palestinian refugees are denied the possibility of ever returning.

The occupier has been complicit in desecrating the sacred symbols of two billion Muslims. In 1969, Al-Aqsa was burnt. Affronts to its sanctity continue until today and are too numerous to list.

All of this occurs under the sight and support of the self-proclaimed “civilised” world and “advanced” countries; the same countries who peddle the slogan of “human” rights and use it to look down upon us every so often by delivering lectures to our countries about respecting “human” rights!

There are many other issues that result from the simple fact of the occupation’s existence:

• The impulsive and aggressive actions of the heads of the occupying state towards the Palestinians, as and when their political life requires it;

• the bias of many of the world’s most powerful states towards the occupation and the submissiveness of others to powerful lobbies that are supportive of the occupation;

• the exploitation by some of these states of the events that occur as a result of the occupation for their own power play;

• the attempts by some of the states in the Arab region to use the resistance as a tool for their own political and expansionist ambitions;

• the deviation of some of the Palestinian factions from a correct path of resistance and them dragging internal political conflicts, regional struggles, and international politics into the issue and thereby clouding the real essence of the Palestinian cause.

All of these issues are merely outcomes of the fact of occupation and the acceptability of its continued existence. Without occupation, these issues would not exist.

We may also add that the existence of disorganised Palestinian factions, some classified as “terrorist”, are merely a symptom among the many symptoms of the occupation. In the event of there being a real, independent, capable, and stable state, non-state actors could have no recourse to leadership. The experience of countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan (among others) testify to this, for in the face of many destabilising attempts of organisations and movements, aided by monetary, media, and even weapons’ support, as well as the attempts of regional and global states to apply pressure to them politically, economically, and under the pretext of human rights, these states have managed to maintain their stability.

If we continue to deal only with the outcomes of the occupation while neglecting the root and essence of the issue then we simply return back to the same problems that repeat themselves. In the end, it is Palestinian lives that pay the price.

Some people and groups exploit the plight of the Palestinian people and use it to support their own agenda of bringing down governments in the Arab region through inciting and provoking the masses against the state in the name of supporting Al-Aqsa. This not only betrays the Palestinian cause but deals a fatal blow to the dwindling attachment and empathy our people feel towards the issue, weakens the capacity that regional states have in standing in solidarity with Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and confounds the role these states play in dealing with the greater crises that have been occurring in recent years. At the end of this all, it is the Palestinian who will pay the price with his blood, shelter, and ability.

In closing: Allah’s promise is true, whether much time passes or little. A day will come in which Al-Aqsa and the blessed land of Palestine will be liberated. The question, however, is how each one of us fulfils our present duty: first, by maintaining steadfastness on obedience to Allah, repenting from sin, standing at His door, increasing in our realisation of certainty, and then by taking the means. These include:

• Developing our countries, healing their fractures, lifting them from being in a state of want and helplessness, and fulfilling the communal obligation of making them self-sufficient in terms of their farming, industry, education, economics, defence, and innovation. We all must work towards these ends from the place that Allah has placed us in.

• Strengthening our children’s connection to their identity, language, faith, nationality, and culture, and acquainting them with the issue of Al-Aqsa and planting the seeds of love, connection, and support for its cause in their hearts.

• Working earnestly to disseminate the truth about the root cause of the Palestinian issue, in all languages and all media platforms, and to document this truth as much as we can, for this is something that is within the realm of our capacity and it is the duty of our time.

• Donating financially to help our brothers and sisters in Palestine for those who are able to do so, making sure they use non-partisan and reputable charities and organisations such as the UNWRA.

• Travelling to Al-Aqsa and increasing the awareness of people to do so. Such visitations should be “guided” - that is, visitors should arrange their tours with Palestinian groups and companies, enter Palestine through Jordan, use Palestinian owned transport, stay in Palestinian owned hotels, eat in Palestinian owned restaurants, and shop in Palestinian owned shops. If masses did this regularly, a year would not pass except the grounds of Al-Aqsa would be bustling with visitors from all over the world just as the two holy sanctuaries of Makka and Madina are. The occupier will have little room to intrude on Al-Aqsa and all factions of the occupation will see for themselves that aggression against the sanctity of Al-Aqsa is an affront to two billion Muslims and not just the Palestinians.

And before all of this and after it: we plead to Allah in prayer, having certainty in our hearts that prayer has an effect, and knowing that prayer is what we depend on to change our state of affairs.

“Those whose faith only increased when people said, ‘Fear your enemy: they have amassed a great army against you,’ and who replied, ‘Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector (HasbunAllah wa ni’ma-l Wakil).” (Al-Imran: 173)

Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector.

Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector.

Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector,

May Allah protect Masjid Al-Aqsa, extend support to the guardians who are stationed on its blessed grounds, relieve the Palestinian people of their plight, and awaken the umma from being heedless of the duty it bears to give it assistance and aid, Ya Hayyu Ya Qayyum.

— Habib Ali Al-Jifri

#savesheikhjarrah

#Gaza_Under_Attack

#PalestineUnderAttack

#humanity

#AlAqsa

#SaveGaza

#savepalestine

#FreePalestine

#Alquds

#الاقصى

#GazaUnderAttack

#Palestine

#Gaza

#PalestinianLivesMatter

[a-queer-seminarian]

we are taught to interpret Esau’s trading of his birthright for a bowl of stew as impulsiveness, even (in Christian language) as a ‘weakness of the flesh.’ He chooses instant gratification over the farther off but far more valuable thing, and thus proves himself unworthy of his firstborn status and all it entails -- Abraham’s wealth and social power, but also Abraham’s relationship with God.

i don’t believe that.

Esau gave in to Jacob’s demand because he knew that Jacob would never have the means to compel Esau to make good on his word.

Jacob was physically weaker. Jacob was set to inherit the tiniest fragment of the wealth and resources that Esau would inherit. how on earth would Jacob ever wrest the birthright and the blessing he was owed from Esau?

Esau’s ‘crime’ here is less impulsiveness, and more a trust in the status quo. his world of patriarchy and primogeniture promised him his inheritance, whether he was a good man or bad, an honest man or a liar. he could tell his younger brother whatever Jacob wanted to hear, but down the road he could trust that their father would bestow the blessing on Esau anyway.

his reliance on the status quo is what allows Esau to hand over his birthright so easily -- because he knows that merely saying it’s Jacob’s now does not make it so.

Esau’s great failing is that he assumes that his culture’s will is God’s will.

the problem for Esau is that God does not play by human rules.

____________

in the Book of Genesis and throughout the rest of scripture, we see God working within the bounds of cultural assumptions and norms, rolling with the binary systems that human societies construct -- right up to the point where Xe doesn’t.

In The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, Jewish scholar Joy Ladin focuses on the elements of gender inherent to the system of primogeniture that places the firstborn Esau over the secondborn Jacob in every way. To her, biblical maleness comes in different “flavors” -- the roles expected of a firstborn son are different from those assigned to non-firstborn sons. She says,

“Jacob and Esau are both male and are born almost simultaneously, but they are assigned at birth to very different gender roles. Because Esau emerges from the womb first, he is considered the firstborn, heir not only to Isaac’s worldly possessions but also to the relationship with God that Isaac inherited from his father, Abraham. Though Jacob is born holding onto his brother’s heel, he is considered the second-born, expected to accept the authority of his older brother, who, after their father’s death, will be the head of the family. Like the gender binary, this law of inheritance, called ‘primogeniture,’ creates a lifelong, life-determining binary division between males who are and those who aren’t firstborn sons. And like the gender binary, primogeniture turns biology, in this case birth order, into destiny. The way male children are raised, the roles they are assigned, and the futures toward which they are steered are determined by whether they are or aren’t firstborn sons.” (p. 36)

Esau has grown up understanding that his inheritance is his destiny. It’s what he’s been born for, what he’s been raised for, what he is entitled to. Why would he believe that he would ever have to make good on his silly promise to Jacob to hand over that destiny? It’s set in stone, inviolable.

at least it is in the eyes of men. but not to God.

“If God were committed to the gender binary idea that people are unchangeably defined by the gender roles we are assigned at birth, then either Esau would have been destined to inherit Isaac’s relationship with God, or Jacob would have been born first. But as God reveals to Rebekah before the twins are born, God intends for the younger brother to usurp the elder, prenatally linking God’s blessing to trans experience. (Ladin, pp. 37-38)

in the ancient past and in the present day, countless roles get assigned to us as soon as -- or even before -- we exist the womb. biology is presumed destiny in so many ways: our gender, our race, the class and geopolitical location and family into which we are born, supposedly map out what our personalities will be, how our lives will go. and certainly these things do shape us, both by nature and nurture -- generational traumas come packed into our very cells, while our environment and how others treat us based on our assigned roles impact how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.

but even so, even so, biology is not destiny. especially not if God has any say in the matter.

for God is the great binary breaker, no respecter of persons or prejudices, unbeholden to the status quo. indeed, God almost seems to delight in upending our assumptions about who is blessed. secondborn sons and eunuchs, women and disabled persons, impoverished persons and disenfranchised peoples -- these are the ones whom God selects, again and again, to be recipients and agents of divine blessing. “blessed are the poor;” “the last shall be first.”

Esau assumes that biology, his status assigned based on birth order, is destiny. he does not fear his younger brother, who is rendered powerless by their culture to claim what he is promised in a moment of hunger. and probably this is safer for Jacob -- because when Esau does finally realize, too late, that Jacob is a real threat, Esau becomes murderously angry.

when Isaac is duped into giving Jacob his blessing after all, Jacob cannot stick around to claim the wealth and status that comes with it -- he must flee, or die under Esau’s hand.

i wonder if some of the violence we see in our time, and across every time and place, stems from the same kind of rage and fear that Esau experiences:

the rage of the ones who are raised to believe the world belongs to them, that they are entitled to certain blessings and privileges, only for the truth to pounce on them unexpectedly -- the shocking truth that biology is not destiny, that they are not inherently superior, that what they thought would be theirs without question might could be snatched from them after all.

the divine right to rule. manifest destiny. the ‘white man’s burden.’

white men who assume they are entitled to white women, so that the mere thought of a Black man winning a woman’s heart is enough to incite them to brutality.

white women who understand that the police are their personal body guards, to call down upon the bodies of Black adults and even Black children on a whim -- and are indignant in the rare circumstance that they are told otherwise.

men and white people who expect the best jobs and properties to go to them, so that anyone else advancing over them seems an appalling injustice.

cis women who perceive trans women as “invading their spaces;” cishet couples who think LGBTQ/queer couples ruin “the sanctity of marriage;” persons who are accustomed to being accommodated without even realizing it sneering at “safe spaces” and trigger warnings....

and on and on.

Esau had every reason to assume that his biology determined his destiny -- that he could make an impulsive promise, make a big mistake, and everything would still turn out in his favor. he was born into a world that told him so every day -- even that God sanctioned these human assumptions and systems. But God does not.

“God’s disruptions of gender in these stories make it clear that even the gender roles that matter most to human beings are not sacred to God. ...God in the Torah uses gender, but is not bound by it. On the one hand, God depends on gender to transmit the covenant across time and space, so that even after hundreds of generations, Jews will still see themselves as children of Abraham. On the other hand, God disrupts gender as a way of making God’s power and presence known. ...In these stories, faithfulness to gender has little to do with faithfulness to God. In fact, God counts on the fact that people are not bound by gender roles. The covenant with Abraham is founded on Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob’s embrace of trans experience: their willingness to live outside the gender roles they were born to and become the kinds of people they are not supposed to be.” (Ladin, pp. 57-58)

Faithfulness to human constructs has little to do with faithfulness to God. God blesses us when we can imagine beyond the narrative we are assigned -- as Jacob does in this story where he demands a birthright the world does not intend for him....and as Esau eventually does.

In Genesis 33, Esau catches up to Jacob after decades apart -- and Jacob expects violence. He sends gifts of livestock to Esau and conceals his most cherished family at the back of his huge household. But to his bewilderment, Esau is no longer murderously angry at having “lost” what he grew up assuming he was entitled to -- he rushes to his brother, throws his arms around Jacob’s neck, and weeps.

Esau was raised believing that he would own everything, and his brother nothing -- that Jacob would be one of many members of Esau’s household, subservient to him. But now, he does not even feel entitled to the livestock that Jacob offers him: “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what’s yours.”

Jacob is relieved by this unexpected reconciliation, exclaiming to Esau that “Seeing your face is like seeing God’s face, since you’ve accepted me so warmly!” He never expected Esau to accept what Jacob has known all along -- that biology is not destiny; that neither of them are bound to human constructs like birthright; that they can live a different way than the way prescribed to them, one in which both of them thrive.

___________

now, this story is by no means perfect. Jacob was able to imagine bigger for himself, to escape the destiny assigned to him -- but he does not imagine big enough. he does not use his new station to liberate others.

he becomes a patriarch -- assimilates into patriarchy and the power to own other human beings, to rule over every member of his household, rather than challenging the whole system that once oppressed him. i am reminded of trans persons, persons of color, women, who once they manage to acquire power for themselves never use it to help their fellow marginalized persons up. they land positions of power and use that power to oppress others as they were once oppressed, rather than using it to try to forge a new, better system for all.

Jacob the second-born becomes Jacob the patriarch. his household will be fraught with all the woes that come with this system that stifles all within it. his wives will hate each other and battle each other for what little power they can grasp. his sons will do the same, subjecting the younger Joseph to violence when, like Jacob, this little sibling dares to dream of being something greater than what his society assigns him.

what if Jacob could have imagined bigger? what if he had used his one fragment of shining clarity about how patriarchy and primogeniture stifled his true self to empower others, not only himself?

what if we could imagine bigger? what new and beautiful world could we build?

[dailyaudiobible]

05/19/2021 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 24:1-25:44, John 10:22-42, Psalm 116:1-19, Proverbs 15:20-21

Today is the 19th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and an honor, like every day of life that we can come to this oasis, this little place around the Global Campfire and let the Scriptures speak to us no matter what else is going on in our lives. And that is a joy. So, let’s dive in. No matter what else is going on in life, probably we’re not facing the kinds of things that this guy, this young man David, who’s become a national celebrity for killing a giant, and now the king wants him dead and is hunting him down like a fugitive, relentlessly, he probably has it a little more difficult today than we do. So, let’s dive in. 1 Samuel chapters 24 and 25 today.

Commentary:

Ok, as we continue our journey through 1st Samuel, we had like one sentence informing us that Samuel has died and, you know, we’ll get a little more into this as this story goes forward but, yeah, that’s the announcement. Samuel the prophet, the last judge of Israel, the person that brought the tribes to the place of the monarchy, to the place of their first king has died. Now David has no…no one to really run to and counsel with and he’s just on the run from Saul and we’ve been watching Saul and we see his insecurities and we see that his paranoia and insecurity has gotten the best of him and he’s…he’s acting irrationally and erratically. He wants David dead because he sees David as a threat, a threat to his kingdom, but also a threat to his family because if David ascends to the throne and he’s still alive or…or his family’s still alive then it would not be uncommon for that new King to…to completely wipe out every known relative in the house of the former king, in this case the house of Saul, to destroy from the earth or the memory of anybody who was related to Saul and wipe it from the earth, which is a terrible dishonor. And, so, Saul has all this going on in his mind. He's listening to the voices of those who are around him who are…who are feeding into this conspiracy that David wants to harm the king. Can we just pause there and say that what Saul was thinking about David, at least from the narrative in first Samuel, he's completely incorrect about his assumptions about David. He's listening to things that are being told to him about David or David's words or character are being interpreted back to Saul in a way that is incorrect and Saul's believing it. So, it's Saul's conviction that, as erratic as it might be or as irrational as might be, David needs to be killed as quickly as possible. And then we have this scene where the king is searching for David in the caves of Engedi. And Engedi is a very non-place. It’s an oasis in the wilderness running freshwater down into the…the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea. And there are caves all around that entire area. Qumran is around that area not too far. There all kinds of caves in their Qumran is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves. So, David’s hiding out in all these caves and he’s near Engedi the oasis where there’s fresh water when Saul goes into relieve himself to go to the bathroom. And, yeah, he needs a little privacy. So, he's with his army and if, you know, if he just needed to pee, like he probably would have just done so, but you need a little privacy. So, this is how David could sneak up and cut off the edge of his robe. Saul's busy taking care of business and so David can get the edge of his robe. As it turns out David comes out of the cave and Saul is confronted with the truth. So, this whole formulation, this whole belief that Saul has that David is his enemy and that is being reinforced by other voices in his life, now Saul has to face the truth because he's facing David who’s holding the edge of his kingly rope. And David feels terrible about just cutting off the edge of his robe. But he’s demonstrating to the king, “what you think about me is not true. Can you not see the works that I'm doing? Can you not see that I could've killed you right now? Can you not see that I would not lay my hand on the Lord's anointed? Can you not see that I've been running from you, not fighting you? Look at what I am doing and stop listening to what other people are saying or interpreting about me. Look at what I am doing.” And Saul is confronted with the truth and repents in this story. Of course, it’s the end, but in this moment, Saul is confronted with the truth and he repents.

When we flip the page, and we move ourselves into the gospel of John we see Jesus and a confrontation. They’re just…I mean the Jews are gathering around Jesus saying, “tell us the truth. Like, tell us plainly. Are s you the Messiah.” And then He basically told them, “I have told you plainly. You don't believe me. So, therefore the things that I'm doing should bear witness and answer your questions since you don't believe me.” Then all the sudden we've got a very, very similar story in the New Testament to the one that we were looking at with David and Saul. The religious leaders, the devout Jewish people have an interpretation of what they are expecting. They have theology and dogma written around it. And Jesus almost fits the bill. He's almost the right recipe, but He won't play the game. He keeps disrupting things. And, so, they have their way of what…of believing what they expect and what has been interpreted for them and they are trying to overlay what they are expecting and what has been interpreted for them onto Jesus. And then Jesus tells them plainly, “I and the Father are one.” And they immediately pick up stones to…to stone Him for blasphemy for comparing Himself to God, for elevating Himself to the level of God. Jesus actually uses the Scriptures and speaks from the Psalms, a Psalm of Asaph. He uses the Scriptures to defend what He has said. So, that’s Psalm 82, which reads, “the gods know nothing. They understand nothing. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said you are God's. You are all sons of the most-high but you will die like mere mortals. You will fall like every other ruler.” That's the context, that’s the Scripture Jesus is quoting back to them in response to their accusation of blasphemy and then He says, “if I am not doing the works of My Father then do not believe Me but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father.” So, in so many ways Jesus is saying, “stop listening to every voice that you are hearing about me and see what I am actually doing and let these works speak louder than what you are hearing.” The hard part about this is that we…we can look into these stories and see clarity until we have to put ourselves in different positions, like the nonbelieving Jewish devout in this particular story. Because we put a premium on trying to get people to believe the way that we believe and trying to continually adjust and…and tweak out and refine what we believe so that we’re believing the right thing. And a lot of this comes from our…our understanding that we are saved by faith, it is by grace alone. Like, there's nothing we could do to earn it so why try to earn it. And yet the Bible is explicit in a number of cases where faith without works is dead, where if the action of your life is not congruent with the sayings of your life, then it's a mismatch and you’re not being true. And then there's this assumption that God is…like that Jesus isn't really still upon this earth doing things…significant…like we hear rumors of it, we know that spiritually He’s doing these things, but it's not the same so we’re not talking apples for apples. But we are though. We are talking apples for apples because the Spirit of the risen Christ indwells us. Like we’re the ones that are supposed to be out there doing the things that Jesus did, that like that's how Jesus is supposed to continue His work in this world is that we open our eyes to see and stop just listening to what we’re told and actually look, open our eyes to see and look and find where God is at work in this world. And we will find Him at work in this world wherever the brokenhearted are being comforted and wherever the…those in bondage are being set free. It’s like we have this deep, deep longing for shalom, for things to be right, for things to be the way they were supposed to be, for things to…to be refined and perfected and we think that that is an eventuality, that is an eventuality when Christ is on the throne on planet Earth. Christ is on planet Earth in you, in me, in us. We have to open our eyes to see that the shalom we keep waiting for Him to someday eventually bring when He comes on a white horse and splits the eastern sky. He’s here in us. We’re supposed to be collaborating and bringing shalom. We can barely maintain that for an hour with in ourselves, much less spreading it to the world. Again, one of the primary...one…one gauge that is so amazing is to just go back and review the last few months of the things we’ve been posting on social media. That will tell us what we’re putting out into the world. So often what was said…what those posts are filled with is our defense of God, our defense of what we’ve been told, our defense of what we think we know, our statements of what God will and will not do and with whom He will do it and with whom He will not do it. And we could find ourselves in either one of these kinds of situations, whether from first Samuel or from John today where we have these assumptions, we believe this certain thing and what we’re seeing, although it seems like God is at work it doesn't fit our mold and so we can reject it on some sort of technicality. If we’re gonna do that, if we’re gonna keep doing that, friends we’re never going to get anywhere. I keep thinking to myself, at least once a week, at least once a week. This is my 16th year that I’ve been reading the Bible every single day of my life. I've been studying this book diligently. I know it's in this book. I know that every time I move through a revolution around the sun and a whole journey through this book I'm changed again and things that I thought last time are modified or corrected or refined and I know more because I've lived another year and I've seen more. And there are times that I think does this…does this matter, like what moves the needle here? Like, what actually makes significant profound change among the body of Christ to the point that we wake up to understand that it is Christ within that is going to matter and that we have to die to ourselves. And all of these things that we keep fighting about and fighting each other over and all we’re really doing is giving voice to our fears and how we want it and how God better want it because that's how we want it. But the truth of the gospel….and we’re reading John and I’m like trying to be as serious as I can here because this is the last gospel and then we’re gonna move into the church era. God came in the flesh and disrupted what everybody thought, what everybody was expecting. That's what we read when we read the Gospels. We see people's hearts come alive in a way that has never happened before and then we see people that are confused by it and go like, “no. That does not overlay with what I think. God certainly wouldn't do that with him. We know he is a sinner. We know that God wouldn't heal on the Sabbath day. So, this is not of God.” That's what they're saying and God's standing in front of them showing them with signs and wonders and words that awaken deep things that have been slumbering for so long. And still they killed Him. And they killed Him over their interpretation of the Scriptures. God was present in the person of Jesus modeling what He meant, revealing a kingdom and demonstrating what humanities supposed to look like. And still they missed it. And still we’re missing it. It really isn't about our understanding. It is totally about our surrender. And I guarantee that when we begin to walk the pathway of faith it is going to be the adventure of a lifetime and so much of what we think we know will fall away as we actually walk with God. So, some things for us to think about.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit it is always…it is after we read the Scriptures and talk about anything we invite You because we need You to lead us into all truth. You are the truth. Jesus, You are the way, the truth, and the life. Of course, I’m not telling You something You don’t already know. I’m just repeating what You told us. You are the way the truth and the life. And, so, there is no one else to follow that’s gonna lead us there besides You. We can look at any hero, any example, any other human being on this planet, anybody that we throw up and…and…and say, “yeah there's a model of…of somebody doing it right “and they’re still…like…they’re…we are all broken. You are whole. There is no wholeness without You. Shalom is not possible without You. And yet we have spent all of these thousands and thousands and thousands of years with all of our knowledge of good and evil trying to re-create an approximation of shalom all by ourselves on this world fighting out our political agendas, fighting each other's nations, taking over, moving things around. We keep trying to re-create this sort of utopia, some kind of shalom without You. It'll never happen and we’re guilty. As Your people we’re guilty. Thankfully, we can see examples from thousands and thousands of years ago in the Scriptures and know we’re not the only ones. But at some point, things have to change and may that change begin in us in our lifetimes. Come Holy Spirit we pray. Lead us into all truth, we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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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, my name is Noah and I started listening to the Daily Audio Bible maybe a few months ago and it’s just been really great and I’m extremely grateful to Brian and all the…the whole team that helps this come out every day, I’m sure it’s a lot of work. But anyway, I am here to…to share a prayer request that I don’t hear on here a lot. But the Holy Spirits kind of put it on my heart to reach out to you guys because I do need…I need prayer for strength and…and perseverance. God…God saved my life from a…a drug abuse problem and it was really ruining my life and…and I’m now almost 9 months sober, praise God for that. But I’d like to prayer for…I’d like to request prayer for a struggle that has been ongoing with sexually purity in the form of pornography. And I know that’s really taboo and…and people don’t like to talk about it a lot but it’s something that I and I know that other men also struggle with, but I know that I’ve heard some crazy miracles that have happened as a result of this community and I know God delivered me from drugs and I know that God can deliver me from this too. So, thank you guys, that’s all I got.

Good morning DAB family this is George calling from Michigan. I’m reaching out because I got a friend who has a 19-month-old niece her name is Kia and Kia has been battling cancer her…her entire life, her short life. She recently went through surgery back in January. Things seemed to be on the right road to recovery and now things have gone and gotten really dire. I just…I know this community is filled with love and hope and faith and just to ask you all to…to please lift Kia up in prayer. Just ask that God wrap His loving arms around her and just if it be His will that He heal her and bring her to complete and total healing. And also ask that God wrap His arms around the family and give them strength and courage just to know that…that He’s there with them through all of this. Thank you DAB family I appreciate it. God be with you all. Amen.

Hi DAB family this is Mom Tri’s from Texas. I am a first-time caller and have been listening for…this is my second year now. Love this community, love everything, it’s so encouraging. I…I’m calling for a prayer request that’s a little bit silly because I’m perfectly healthy and my kids and my family…everything is going great, but I could use some prayers of encouragement and strength as I’m a professional triathlete as of this year anyway. I turned professional this year and I have my first big race of the year coming up on Sunday, May 23rd. So, I’m a little nervous but I race for the glory of God and have the cross on my jersey. So, no matter if I come in first or last everyone knows that I race for God’s glory. I truly feel like this is His calling on my life and how I can reach others through this sport. So, if you would just give me some prayers of strength and perseverance when it gets tough, it’s a full Iron Man so it’s a long day, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Good morning DAB family this is Steadfast Stacy in Arizona calling on May 17th to pray for Jonathan and his pregnant wife. Lord in heaven thank you for Jonathan’s courage to call in and share with us his prayer request for his wife whose 7 months pregnant and has COVID pneumonia. Thank you that he knows you and that you work out…that you work out of time and space and that he’s asked us to pray for her healing for their situation with a one-year-old at home and a baby on the way. And Lord, I just remember those days when I was pregnant with our second and we didn’t have the COVID complication at all and it was overwhelming to me and I just pray that You would be with his wife to show her Your presence so strongly that she’s not overwhelmed and that You would continue to give Jonathan the perspective that You have these things under control and that Your presence would be strong and…and practical to them. Lord, that You would bring people into their lives, remember…remind them of scripture through Your Holy Spirit, that everywhere they turn that they would see You and that they would be comforted in You. I pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hi everyone, this is Sherrie I’m in Canada and I’ve been part of DAB for…since January and it’s been wonderful. I’m just calling asking for prayer. I have a lot of stuff going on right now but what I’m mostly asking for is I’ve had long-standing issues with my left eye. First diagnosed 45 years ago. I had a corneal transplant last July and it took well but I’ve also had glaucoma in that eye and just two weeks ago my ophthalmologist told me that the medication wasn’t controlling it anymore and I had basically exhausted my options because of an allergic reaction to other medications. She did put me on an oral medication, but the reaction was so bad in my stomach that I kind of haven’t eaten…eaten much for the last three weeks, so, I’ve had to go off of that. She’s referred me to a glaucoma surgeon, not sure if she will do anything for me because of the corneal graft, risk to it. So, I’m asking for prayer…I’m asking for prayer for ultimate healing. I believe in God’s healing. I’ve received His healing in the past. I have seen people be instantly healed when I pray for them, but quite honestly guys I’m…I’m kind of afraid. I’m afraid of losing my eyesight in that eye and my eyesight isn’t great in the other one. So, I’m just asking for prayer mostly for healing, but that also medical options would be open for me. And bless you all. Thank you so much, take care.

[arcticdementor]

Debt is a huge issue, a big part of what’s wrong with the fabric of modernity, a big factor of what’s driving modern civilization into collapse. And yet it has remained largely underdiscussed in these circles. Moldbug, who to the end still remained something of a libertarian, did have a keen interest in finance, and after the great crisis of 2008 made a series of long posts on financial crises and how to design a properly sound banking system. His “favorite topic” he even called it. Well it’s certainly not my favorite topic, nor I’m sure it’s Mr. Land’s, but it’s nonetheless a fascinating issue, and more importantly, a critical one.

Again, my approach to all intellectual issues is to think about its history, and the one thing that strikes one when thinking about debt is how easy-going the ancients were about them. Sovereign bankruptcies were routine, and nothing really happened. But most importantly, debt jubilees were *very* common. Mr. Land here seems to think it’s a horrible idea, and he may be right, but I can’t be faulted for liking something that Chinese emperors did every few years as part of general amnesties. New emperor? Cancel the people’s debt. Emperor has a change of mood and sets a new regnal era? Cancel the debt. Cute imperial baby is born? Out with the debt. Some Emperors had general amnesties almost every year. It’s interesting to note that the Song Dynasty, famous for its fabulous wealth, commercial mindset and urban culture, and thus a polity which you would expect to have more care about enforcing contracts, had over 200 debt jubilees over its 318 year history. That’s one every eighteen months.

Again, you could say that the one thing that ensured the Great Divergence, the Rise of the West, the Industrial Revolutions and basically everything that’s nice and productive about the modern world (and there’s plenty of that, I do like fast transport, air conditioning and modern hygiene, thank you very much), was the establishment of the Sanctity of Contracts as an important part of Western culture. There’s certainly something to that. A non-negligible part of reactionary authors will spit on Libertarianism a dozen times a day, but they will stay give you a 2 hour speech in praise of the Joint Stock Corporation as the fundamental basis of the modern economy and Western Civilization as we know it. By that line of reasoning, the only reason we ever got away of the Malthusian trap was when we stopped forgiving damn debtors and we used state authority to enforce commercial contracts.

…

Why did the kings and emperors of yore issue decree debt jubilees so often? Why at all? Not just to get debt out of their own shoulders, obviously, they had the power to do that and just that, and do not relieve the commoners from their own debt obligations. And yet they did that, all the time: have commoners be free of paying back their debts. Again this sounds outrageous to our modern sensibilities, and yet it was routinely done for millennia, and everybody thought it perfectly natural. Part of that is because anything the Sovereign did was perfectly natural. The whole point of being king is that you get to do things like issue debt jubilees and screw the merchants royally. Pun intended. There’s such a thing as different sorts of power, and economic power, the power that arises from having massive amounts of wealth, is very real. And yet, all that power is good for nothing in front of the King’s authority, who on a whim can wipe out all your claims of debt collection. The merchants cry, and the indebted peasants rejoice. That’s just good politics for the king: gains him popular favor, and signals his power.

But was that all? Just the King, sticking it to the merchants because he can? The whole frequency of the measure seems to hint there’s something more going on. Maybe debt jubilees were an actual tool of governance. A good tool, a necessary tool, in order to achieve some positive outcome. Surely in terms of political stability, the most immediate concern of kings. And maybe something more. Maybe debt relief just actually fixes something in society, corrects some imbalances which lead to not just more safety for the king, but actually a better society, in terms of economics, natality and just general happiness and prosperity.

If you have read Peter Turchin’s book War and Peace and War, and if you haven’t you should stop right here and just go read it right now (if you have time for my blog you really should be going and read that book), you might recall Chapter 10, which Turchin titled “The Matthew Principle”. That’s a rather forced coinage from a quote of the evangelist. The idea is basically that the rich always get richer and the poor always get poorer. That’s a historical reality and there’s plenty of evidence for it in premodern times, those very times I’m referring to as having frequent amnesties and debt jubilees, canceling everybody’s debt and starting over, screwing with creditors every few years.

…

Turchin, who may be right or wrong but is nonetheless a great writer, describes his argument with a very easy example. In any competition, he notes, the poor are at a disadvantage against the rich, having fewer resources, and so overtime tend to lose ground. Think of land, the almost only source of wealth in civilized societies until very recently. Assume an initially completely equal distribution of land. And that’s, by the way, not an absurdity. There’s actually a very good example in China’s Tang Dynasty, which adopted an “equal-field” system. All land was owned by the state, which allotted equal sized fields to individual peasant families.

What happened afterwards? Concentration. Little by little, some peasants were thriftier, others more prone to spend. Some were luckier, some more unfortunate with weather, or disease, or family issues. Some peasants started mortgaging away their fields to other peasants who again, due to thrift or luck had money available to spend. Those latter peasants then ended up with more land. Rince and repeat the process for several decades, and you get some very rich guys and a lot of landless vagrants. Keep the process going for even longer and you’d get even more inequality.

…

But that seldom happened, as eventually some ambitious man always found a way of organizing those landless vagrants into a rebel army and started a big fat war. Chinese dynasties tended to all last exactly 250 years, with a big rebellion in the middle. Two secular cycles. And the Chinese historians always agree in the culprit. 土地兼并, land concentration. Every single time. Europe had less obvious closure but also plenty of wars to stir things up. And eventually, of course, the Age of Revolutions.

Things are of course different now in our incredibly diversified economies; even landless peasants or the equivalent today can work their way up some corporate ladder or find some new economic niche and start a successful business. But the fact that poor people, on average, are at a disadvantage in resource competition against the rich. The rich just have less to lose. As Half Sigma, unsuccessful candid Jew always says, talk of “risk-taking entrepreneurs” is just bullshit. Rich people have enough money stashed away to live comfortably all their lives. They are investing their spare wealth, and yes, there’s always a risk there. But big deal. They’re covered.

…

Back to the beginning of the post, you can now see what debt jubilees were meant to achieve. Interestingly, Turchin’s book doesn’t mention the word “jubilee” even once. He probably didn’t think them important, as economic inequality historically did grow anyway. But surely periodic legal debt relief made the process slower. Eased societal contradictions to a more manageable level for the court. But it was never enough, it was barely a stopgap to the inexorable trend. But at least it served to lower the gas boiling the frog.

I just realized that I started this post with the intention of arguing in favor of debt relief, of learning from the ancients how to pacify society. But given the limited power it historically had, and given the trends we are seeing now, the complete obliteration of Western Civilization down the road to becoming Brazil, then South Africa and ultimately Haiti, maybe the proper accelerationist position is to make the fire stronger and make the damned frog jump from the pot once and for all. No jubilee. No peace. Let’s just observe the coming of the age of the oligarchs, and hope it breaks down fast.

[sojourneronearth]

Gentle and Lowly - Dane Ortland

A book in search to know Jesus’ heart for me (not just what he’s done/says/looks like..)

1. Mt 11 I am gentle and lowly in heart

Jesus’ heart is gentle and lowly, those eligible to come to him are those who are weary and burdened. His yoke is kind, it’s a ‘non yoke’, the irony. Only those who are unrepentant, are not eligible

2. Mt 14 And he had compassion on them

Jesus doesn’t just love. He is love, it actually deeply comes from his heart

Wrath& mercy are directly proportionate

We might not be heretical, but we might be particularly drawn to parts of Jesus

“Better to be biblical than artificially balanced”

Miracles aren’t an interruption to natural order, but a restoration

3. He 12 For the joy that was set before Him

Jesus rejoices that troubled, distressed sinners&sufferers come to him

When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish&perplexity&sinfulness, you are going with the flow of His deepest wishes, not against them

4. He 4 We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses

v15 grounds v14 (hold firmly to faith) & v16 (approach God’s throne of grace)

Sympathise=suffer with

Jesus was/is sinless. Hence he know temptations even more deeply than us

5. He 5 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray

He is kind

“What illicits Jesus’ tenderness isn’t the severity of the sin but whether the sinner comes to him”

“The fact that JC hasn’t yet cast us off proves that his deepest impulse&delight is patience&gentleness”

“The deeper into suffering&testing &weakness we go, the deeper Christ’s solidarity with us”

“As long as you fix your attention on your sin, you will fail to see how you can be safe. But as long as you look to this high priest you will fail to see how you can be in danger”

6. Jn 6 All those the Father gives me will come to me, & whoever comes to me I will never drive away

“We don’t come to a set of doctrines, we don’t come to a church, we don’t even come to the gospel. All these are vital. But most truly we come to a person. Jesus himself”

“But I am a great sinner say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I am an old sinner say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I’m a hard hearted sinner say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I am a backsliding sinner say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I’ve served satan all my days say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I have sinned against the light say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I have sinned against mercy say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ

But I have no good thing to bring with me say you

I will in no wise cast out says Christ”

7. Hos 11 My heart recoils within me

God is even more horrified about our sin than ourselves. He wants to help us, to relieve, comfort us

8. He 7 because he always lives to intercede for them

Atonement accomplished our salvation. Intercession applies it.

Intercession is the constant “refresh” of justification. It shows Jesus’ warm heart

He saves us to the uttermost Because he always lives to intercede.

What if you heard Jesus praying for you in the room next door..

9. 1 Jn 2 We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous

More active than an intercessory

“If anyone does sin..” sometimes. Unlike interceding, which is always

Who is Jesus in the midst of my sinning. He is advocating. Not only when I’ve conquered it. He advocates to encourage me not to throw in the towel at the time.

Who is He in those dark moments. Not who is he when I’ve conquered that sin.

Naturally we all advocate for ourselves. But we have no need to. Jesus does so, perfectly, justicely, righteously. We can leave our case to be made by Christ. He is the most righteous one.

10. Mt 10 Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me..

Consider the beauty & loveliness of Jesus’ heart

11. Jn 11 When Jesus saw her weeping & the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit & troubled

Jesus was & is truly human, fully emotional, without sin’s tainted restraints.

Our use of the word “emotional” is imbalanced, reactionary. Jesus’ emotions, his compassion, his anger.. are controlled & very emotional

Fallen emotions not only underreact, but also overreacts

Jesus not only showed compassion, he deeply felt it

Compassion & anger rise & fall simultaneously

The more anger there is, it shows how much he loves

Don’t be too quick to dismiss your anger. Ask yourself why.

12. Mt 11 a friend of tax collectors & sinners

Jesus is my closest central friend

He has shared his deepest purposes & heart with us

Friend is mutual, 2 way, not 1 way like a king& subject or parent&child

13. Jn 14 And I will ask the Father & he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever

The Spirit makes the heart of Christ real to us, not just heard but seen, not just seen but felt, not just felt but enjoyed. From theory to reality, from doctrine to experience.

1 Co 2:12 that we may understand

14. 2 Co 1 the Father of compassion & the God of all comfort

My most gentleness to myself is less than God’s tenderness

15. La 3 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone

We see 2 things: God does bring affliction, but it’s not from his heart

“When he exercises acts of justice, it is for a higher end it’s not simply for the thing itself, there is always something in his heart against it. But when he comes to show mercy to manifest that it’s his nature & disposition

Acts of justice are his strange work. Grace/mercy are his natural works

God is every attribute perfectly. Not the sum total of a number of attributes

16. Ex 34 The Lord the Lord merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love

The glory of God is his goodness Ex 33:19

God is slow to anger, needs provoking, but his mercy is always ready to overflow. As Christians we are the other way round. We need provoking to love.

Our Christian life is constantly renewing our minds from who we think God is, to who he reveals himself to be

Perhaps Satan’s greatest stronghold on you is the wrong views you have about God, not the sings you keep falling into, it’s the off views that lead you there in the first place.

17. Is 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways..

In context: God’s saying we don’t understand how much he desires to show us mercy. It’s a surprise of God’s compassion, not God’s providence

18. Je 31 therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him

God isn’t the cold & calculating one, we are

God’s love remembers rather than forsakes

A love in which even the very best human romance is the faintest of whispers

repent of your small thoughts of God’s heart& let him love you

19. Eph 2 But God being rich in mercy

He’s not poor in mercy, but RICH

We can be immorally dead people / morally dead people

As invincible Jesus is, is as invincable God’s love to you is

His mercy to you is not your life. But his life

20. Ga 2 The son of God who loved me

Live life for the love of Christ or from the love of Christ

21. Ro 5 God shows His love for us

Mostly we think God’s love is a disappointed love. But it’s not!

If back then while enemies God reconciled us. Much more he has secured our future

22. Jn 13 Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end

We love until we’re forsaken, Jesus loves through forsakenness. We love up until a limit, Jesus loves till the end

Our Lord though he died on the cross, yet died not of the cross, but of a broken heart

Every “my God my God why have you forsaken me” cried out was culminated in Jesus’ cry

23. Eph 2 In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus

God made the world, so that his son’s heart had an outlet

The one thing (sin) which we think will keep us out of heaven is the thing that will highlight God’s grace & kindness. Also..those ‘squeaky clean’ will realise how sinful we actually are. And be in awe at his grace & kindness

Non-Christian: this life is best it’ll ever get. But for Christians: this is worst it’ll ever get

Epilogue

1 thing to do: obey Jesus’ “come to me” Mt 11. Step 1: go to Jesus. Step 2: see step 1

He is more glad of us than we can be of Him

[pamphletstoinspire]

THE BOOK OF TOBIAS Or Tobit* - From The Douay-Rheims Bible - Latin Vulgate

Chapter 12

INTRODUCTION.

This Book takes its name from the holy man Tobias, whose wonderful virtues are herein recorded. It contains most excellent documents of great piety, extraordinary patience, and of perfect resignation to the will of God. His humble prayer was heard, and the angel Raphael was sent to relieve him: he is thankful, and praises the Lord, calling on the children of Israel to do the same. Having lived to the age of one hundred and two years, he exhorts his son and grandsons to piety, foretells the destruction of Ninive, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem: he dies happily. Ch. --- The Jews themselves have a great regard for the book of Tobias; (Grot. Sixtus Senens. viii.) which Origen (ad Afric.) says they "read in Hebrew," meaning probably the Chaldee, (C.) out of which language S. Jerom translated it, preferring to displease the Pharisaical Jews, rather than not to satisfy the desires of the holy bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus. Ep. t. iii. W. --- The Greek version seems to have been taken from another copy, or it has been executed with greater liberty by the Hellenist Jews, between the times of the Sept. and of Theodotion. C. --- Huet and Prideaux esteem it more original; and Houbigant has translated it in his Bible, as the Council of Trent only spoke of the Latin editions then extant; and S. Jerom followed in his version the Hebrew one of a Jew, as he did not understand the Chaldee. H. --- The Syriac and the modern Hebrew edition of Fagius, agree mostly with the Greek, as that of Munster and another Heb. copy of Huet, and the Arabic version, both unpublished, are more conformable to the Vulgate. The most ancient Latin version used before S. Jerom, was taken from the Greek; and the Fathers who lived in those ages, speak of it when they call the book of Tobias canonical. S. Aug. leaves it, however, to adopt S. Jerom's version, in his Mirrour. The copies of all these versions vary greatly, (C.) though the substance of the history is still the same; and in all we discover the virtues of a good parent, of a dutiful son, and virtuous husband, beautifully described. H. --- "The servant of God, holy Tobias, is given to us after the law for an example, that we might know how to practise what we read; and that if temptations assail us, we may not depart from the fear of God, nor expect help from any other." S. Aug. q. 119. ex utroque Test. --- The four first chapters exhibit the holy life of old Tobias, and the eight following, the journey and affairs of his son, directed by Raphael. In the two last chapters they praise God, and the elder Tobias foretells the better state of the commonwealth. W. --- It is probable that both left records, from which this work has been compiled, with a few additional observations. It was written during (C.) or after the captivity of Babylon. E. --- The Jews had then little communication with each other, in different kingdoms. Tobias was not allowed to go into Media, under Sennacherib; and it is probable that the captives at Babylon would be under similar restrictions; so that we do not need to wonder that they were unacquainted with this history of a private family, the records of which seem to have been kept at Ecbatana. The original Chaldee is entirely lost, so that it is impossible to ascertain whether the Greek or the Vulg. be more conformable to it. The chronology of the latter seems however more accurate, as the elder Tobias foretold the destruction of Ninive, twenty-three years before the event, which his son just beheld verified, dying in the 18th year of king Josias. The accounts which appear to sectaries to be fabulous, may easily be explained. Houbigant. --- Josephus and Philo omit this history. C.

* One of the seven Deutero-Canonical books, missing from most non-Catholic Bibles.

The additional Notes in this Edition of the New Testament will be marked with the letter A. Such as are taken from various Interpreters and Commentators, will be marked as in the Old Testament. B. Bristow, C. Calmet, Ch. Challoner, D. Du Hamel, E. Estius, J. Jansenius, M. Menochius, Po. Polus, P. Pastorini, T. Tirinus, V. Bible de Vence, W. Worthington, Wi. Witham. — The names of other authors, who may be occasionally consulted, will be given at full length.

Verses are in English and Latin. HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY

This Catholic commentary on the Old Testament, following the Douay-Rheims Bible text, was originally compiled by Catholic priest and biblical scholar Rev. George Leo Haydock (1774-1849). This transcription is based on Haydock's notes as they appear in the 1859 edition of Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary printed by Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Changes made to the original text for this transcription include the following:

Greek letters. The original text sometimes includes Greek expressions spelled out in Greek letters. In this transcription, those expressions have been transliterated from Greek letters to English letters, put in italics, and underlined. The following substitution scheme has been used: A for Alpha; B for Beta; G for Gamma; D for Delta; E for Epsilon; Z for Zeta; E for Eta; Th for Theta; I for Iota; K for Kappa; L for Lamda; M for Mu; N for Nu; X for Xi; O for Omicron; P for Pi; R for Rho; S for Sigma; T for Tau; U for Upsilon; Ph for Phi; Ch for Chi; Ps for Psi; O for Omega. For example, where the name, Jesus, is spelled out in the original text in Greek letters, Iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma, it is transliterated in this transcription as, Iesous. Greek diacritical marks have not been represented in this transcription.

Footnotes. The original text indicates footnotes with special characters, including the astrisk (*) and printers' marks, such as the dagger mark, the double dagger mark, the section mark, the parallels mark, and the paragraph mark. In this transcription all these special characters have been replaced by numbers in square brackets, such as [1], [2], [3], etc.

Accent marks. The original text contains some English letters represented with accent marks. In this transcription, those letters have been rendered in this transcription without their accent marks.

Other special characters.

Solid horizontal lines of various lengths that appear in the original text have been represented as a series of consecutive hyphens of approximately the same length, such as ---.

Ligatures, single characters containing two letters united, in the original text in some Latin expressions have been represented in this transcription as separate letters. The ligature formed by uniting A and E is represented as Ae, that of a and e as ae, that of O and E as Oe, and that of o and e as oe.

Monetary sums in the original text represented with a preceding British pound sterling symbol (a stylized L, transected by a short horizontal line) are represented in this transcription with a following pound symbol, l.

The half symbol (1/2) and three-quarters symbol (3/4) in the original text have been represented in this transcription with their decimal equivalent, (.5) and (.75) respectively.

Unreadable text. Places where the transcriber's copy of the original text is unreadable have been indicated in this transcription by an empty set of square brackets, [].

Chapter 12

Raphael maketh himself known.

[1] Then Tobias called to him his son, and said to him: What can we give to this holy man, that is come with thee?

Tunc vocavit ad se Tobias filium suum, dixitque ei : Quid possumus dare viro isti sancto, qui venit tecum?

[2] Tobias answering, said to his father: Father, what wages shall we give him? or what can be worthy of his benefits?

Respondens Tobias, dixit patri suo : Pater, quam mercedem dabimus ei? aut quid dignum poterit esse beneficiis ejus?

[3] He conducted me and brought me safe again, he received the money of Gabelus, he caused me to have my wife, and he chased from her the evil spirit, he gave joy to her parents, myself he delivered from being devoured by the fish, thee also he hath made to see the light of heaven, and we are filled with all good things through him. What can we give him sufficient for these things?

Me duxit et reduxit sanum, pecuniam a Gabelo ipse recepit, uxorem ipse me habere fecit, et daemonium ab ea ipse compescuit : gaudium parentibus ejus fecit, meipsum a devoratione piscis eripuit, te quoque videre fecit lumen caeli, et bonis omnibus per eum repleti sumus. Quid illi ad haec poterimus dignum dare?

[4] But I beseech thee, my father, to desire him, that he would vouchsafe to accept one half of all things that have been brought.

Sed peto te, pater mi, ut roges eum, si forte dignabitur medietatem de omnibus, quae allata sunt, sibi assumere.

[5] So the father and the son, calling him, took him aside: and began to desire him that he would vouchsafe to accept of half of all things that they had brought.

Et vocantes eum, pater scilicet et filius, tulerunt eum in partem : et rogare coeperunt ut dignaretur dimidiam partem omnium, quae attulerant, acceptam habere.

[6] Then he said to them secretly: Bless ye the God of heaven, give glory to him in the sight of all that live, because he hath shewn his mercy to you.

Tunc dixit eis occulte : Benedicite Deum caeli, et coram omnibus viventibus confitemini ei, quia fecit vobiscum misericordiam suam.

[7] For it is good to hide the secret of a king: but honourable to reveal and confess the works of God.

Etenim sacramentum regis abscondere bonum est : opera autem Dei revelare et confiteri honorificum est.

[8] Prayer is good with fasting and alms more than to lay up treasures of gold:

Bona est oratio cum jejunio, et eleemosyna magis quam thesauros auri recondere :

[9] For alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting.

quoniam eleemosyna a morte liberat, et ipsa est, quae purgat peccata, et facit invenire misericordiam et viam aeternam.

[10] But they that commit sin and iniquity, are enemies to their own soul.

Qui autem faciunt peccatum, et iniquitatem, hostes sunt animae suae.

[11] I discover then the truth unto you, and I will not hide the secret from you.

Manifesto ergo vobis veritatem, et non abscondam a vobis occultum sermonem.

[12] When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord.

Quando orabas cum lacrimis, et sepeliebas mortuos, et derelinquebas prandium tuum, et mortuos abscondebas per diem in domo tua, et nocte sepeliebas eos, ego obtuli orationem tuam Domino.

[13] And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee.

Et quia acceptus eras Deo, necesse fuit ut tentatio probaret te.

[14] And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara thy son's wife from the devil.

Et nunc misit me Dominus ut curarem te, et Saram uxorem filii tui a daemonio liberarem.

[15] For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord.

Ego enim sum Raphael angelus, unus ex septem, qui adstamus ante Dominum.

[16] And when they had heard these things, they were troubled, and being seized with fear they fell upon the ground on their face.

Cumque haec audissent, turbati sunt, et trementes ceciderunt super terram in faciem suam.

[17] And the angel said to them: Peace be to you, fear not.

Dixitque eis angelus : Pax vobis : nolite timere.

[18] For when I was with you, I was there by the will of God: bless ye him, and sing praises to him.

Etenim cum essem vobiscum, per voluntatem Dei eram : ipsum benedicite, et cantate illi.

[19] I seemed indeed to eat and to drink with you: but I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men.

Videbar quidem vobiscum manducare et bibere : sed ego cibo invisibili, et potu qui ab hominibus videri non potest, utor.

[20] It is time therefore that I return to him that sent me: but bless ye God, and publish all his wonderful works.

Tempus est ergo ut revertar ad eum, qui me misit : vos autem benedicite Deum, et narrate omnia mirabilia ejus.

[21] And when he had said these things, he was taken from their sight, and they could see him no more.

Et cum haec dixisset, ab aspectu eorum ablatus est, et ultra eum videre non potuerunt.

[22] Then they lying prostrate for three hours upon their face, blessed God: and rising up, they told all his wonderful works.

Tunc prostrati per horas tres in faciem, benedixerunt Deum : et exsurgentes narraverunt omnia mirabilia ejus.

Commentary:

Ver. 1. What. Gr. Heb. and Syr. C. "See thou give the man who has come with thee his hire, and something must be added to it;" (H.) as he had promised (C. vii. 19.) a drachm a day, (C.) and more if they returned safe. H.

Ver. 2. Said. Gr. "Father, I shall not be hurt if I give him half of what I have brought, since he has conducted me safe back to thee, and has healed my wife, and brought my money, and likewise has cured thee. And the old man said, he justly deserves it. And he called the angel, and said to him, Take half of what you have brought, and depart in health. Then," v. 6.

Ver. 6. Said. Gr. "Calling the two, in private, he said to them."

Ver. 7. Hide. Gr. "To bless God, and to extol his name, exposing with honour the words of God, and delay not to confess unto him. For," &c. H. --- The Old Vulg. greatly abridges the remainder of this book, having only, "Then Raphael having called the two Tobies, said to them, Since thou hast not delayed to arise, and to leave thy meals to bury the dead, I have been sent to try thee to heal thee, and to deliver thy daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the angels who assist and appear before the brightness of God. Hereupon the two Tobies were startled, and fell prostrate on the ground, and were seized with fear. And Raphael said, Fear not, Peace be with you. Bless the Lord all the days of your life, and sing his praises. You thought that I eat when I was at table with you. But you saw with your eyes; (H. only a vision. C.) wherefore bless the Lord upon the earth, and praise his goodness. As for me, I return to him who sent me. Write down all that has happened. The angel having spoken thus to Tobias, the latter wrote this prayer as a monument of his joy, and said, Blessed be the Lord, who is great in eternity, because his reign endures for ever. It is He who strikes, and who shews I mercy, who conducts to the grave, and who, by his majesty, rescues from the greatest miseries; and no one can withdraw himself from his hands. End of Tobias the just." H. --- King. Secrecy is the soul of human councils, to prevent an enemy from thwarting our designs: but nothing can withstand the divine power. It is therefore proper to testify our gratitude for favours received, as the ancient saints have done by their canticles. C.

Ver. 8. Alms. Gr. adds, "and justice. Better is a little with justice, than much with iniquity." H. --- Fasting and alms are like the wings of prayer. W. See C. iv. 11.

Ver. 9. Everlasting. This word is not found in Greek, though sufficiently implied; as liberality does not always secure a person's life, or temporal happiness. C. --- Gr. "Those who perform alms-deeds and justice, shall be filled with life. But sinners are enemies," &c.

Ver. 10. Soul. If this were understood of the present life, nothing could be less accurate, as the wicked often prosper. See Ps. x. 6. Jo. xii. 25. C.

Ver. 11. I. Gr. "I will not hide from you any word or thing. I said then, It is good to conceal the mystery of the king, but glorious to manifest the works of God. And now, when thou and thy daughter-in-law, Sarra, did pray, I brought forward the memorial of your prayer before the holy one." H. --- The angels are represented as God's ministers, offering our prayers to him. Apoc. viii. 3. C. S. Aug. W. --- Philo styles them ambassadors. Socrates says, "every demon (or good spirit) is between God and mortals." Plutarch. --- Inter homines cælicolasque, vectores hinc precum, inde donorum. Apuleius de Deo Socrat. C. --- Gr. continues, "and when thou didst bury the dead, in like manner, I was present with thee; when thou didst not delay to rise and leave thy dinner, that going thou mightest cover the dead; in thy good work, thou wast not hidden from me: but I was with thee. And," &c. v. 14. H.

Ver. 13. Thee. This rule is invariable, that the good may advance in virtue, and set a pattern to the world, (Heb. ii. 18. and xii. 6. Acts xiv. 21. C.) and cancel their smallest faults.

Ver. 14. From the devil, is not in Greek. H. --- In this history, as well as in other parts of Scripture, we have convincing proofs of the good which each one receives from his angel guardian, and from the other blessed spirits. See S. Luke xv. and xvi. S. Chrys. in col. hom. 3. S. Aug. de Civ. Dei. xi. 31. &c. W.

Ver. 15. Raphael. We know also the names of Michael and Gabriel. All others are apocryphal; such as Uriel, Saltiel, Jeadriel Barachiel, &c. --- Seven. This number is clearly specified by S. John, Apoc. i. 4. A mass in their honour was approved by Pius IV. It is supposed that the seven deacons in the Church of Rome, and of Jerusalem, were instituted in imitation of them. The kings, Assuerus, &c. had seven chief officers. Est. i. 10. C. --- Lord, ready to fulfil his orders, as innumerable other angels, of inferior degree, are likewise. M. Dan. vii. 10. --- These were the princes of the heavenly court. S. Jerom (con. Jovin.) admits only seven orders of angels. C. --- Gr. "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who offer up the prayers of the saints, and go out before the glory of the Holy One. And they were both troubled," &c. (H.) at so unusual a thing, (M.) and filled with reverential awe. H. --- They might also suspect that death would shortly follow. C. Gen. xvi. 13.

Ver. 17. Be. Gr. "shall be with you. But praise God: for I came not of my own accord, but by the will of our God. Wherefore praise him for ever."

Ver. 19. I. Gr. "I appeared to you all the days; yet I did not eat nor drink. But you beheld a vision." H. --- Having an aerial body, he made the provisions disappear, as the sun melts snow. Gen. xviii. 9. C. --- He might swallow, though he had no need of meat, (S. Aug. de Civ. Dei. xiii. 22.) or digestion, (Grotius) so as to convert it into his substance. M. --- Men. I constantly enjoy the beatific vision. Mat. xviii. 10. C.

Ver. 20. It. Gr. "And now confess to God, because I ascend to him who sent me. Write ye all these occurrences in a book. And they arose, and beheld him no longer; and they proclaimed the great and wonderful works of God, and how the angel of the Lord had appeared to them." H. - Almost all interpreters infer from this injunction, (C.) that the work before us was originally composed by these holy men. H.

[hotelconcierge]

HYPOCRISY IS BAD, BUT YOU’RE WORSE

“I like the Walrus best," said Alice, "because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.” “He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” said Tweedledee. “You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise.” “That was mean!” Alice said indignantly. “Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus.” “But he ate as many as he could get,” said Tweedledum. This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, “Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—” (Through the Looking-Glass)

This is a moviepost—extensive spoilers follow for Death Proof, Jackie Brown, and Inglourious Basterds—and I wrote it mostly because I wanted to talk about some movies. But first, a topical tie-in:

There is always an outside that a person considers unworthy of life...The individual progressive or racist may never say that the outside is unworthy of rights, but they feel it. This is what is meant by that line from Inglorious Bastards when the character of Lt. Aldo Raine says; the "Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a jew-hating, mass-murdering maniac and they need to be de-stroyed!"

Here we have a thirst to destroy the perceived inferior, except instead of a racist seeking the end of Jews it is the progressive liberal seeking the genocide of racists. That's irony.

And understand what is happening here. Aldo Raine is really a proxy for Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino is the one speaking, not Brad Pitt. The man is very left-wing and he wrote the script. That move is essentially an exposition of the directors [sic] politics.

The above quote is taken from The Anti-Puritan. Exactly what it sounds like: dude read three Moldbug posts and now thinks he can write. The specifics of this guy’s bad opinions are not that interesting—would you believe that even the videogame industry has been corrupted by cultural Marxism?—but perhaps something can be learned from the framing:

A climate scientist drives to an important summit on global warming. On the way there, he fills up his tank with gas. The only reason oil companies are in business and climate change is occurring is because of people like him who fill up their tanks with gas. Their payments make climate change possible. The payments are the reason Exxon, Shell and BP exist.

A feminist complains about the cis het patriarchy. Her boyfriend, whom she spreads her legs for, is tall, strong, confident, manly, and "dominant" in every way. Fucking dominant men is the reason they exist, the reason they will continue to exist, and the cultural incentive to become dominant...She and billions of other women perpetuate "the patriarchy" with their sexual choices. Patriarchy exists because of them.

A college professor complains about McDonald's. She has eaten fast food from a burger restaurant recently. She, and millions [of] others, are the reason McDonald's exists. (Source)

Let’s accept that there’s a lot to unpack here and move on. Focus instead on the form of the argument: tu quoque, again and again. The feebler the discourse the more accusations of hypocrisy (Bush Lied, Barack Hussein’d) because hypocrisy doesn’t require knowledge of anything but pre-algebra logic. Even a child can identify a contradiction: “But mom! You said—!”

This is precisely the skull malformation that has constricted discussion of the protestors who identify as “Antifascist Action” and are derided as the “alt-left.” Antifa has already become a perennial non-issue where all opinions are based on anecdote and there are plenty of anecdotes to go around; no one has skin in the game, anyone can upvote, and measurable achievements are dwarfed by spikes of indignation like hypertensive hemorrhages into America’s brain. If you don’t believe me, you haven’t been watching the stock prices of PP, NRA, PETA, and BLM.

Antifa now faces the two attacks that were long ago formulated against other activist groups. One: antifa is composed of violent morons who carry upon them body and pubic lice species yet to be classified by science. Two: antifa is counterproductive to their stated goal, e.g. getting to whack-a-mole pamphleteers is actually a powerful incentive to suffer for fashion.

I suspect both criticisms are true, but whatever—does the first imply the second? Is violence bad even when it is effective? Because if it isn’t, then claiming that “antifa are thugs too!” is worse than useless. Your opponent can simply reply, “So what? Nazi ain't got no humanity.” And now that you’ve cried wolf, that guy won’t listen when you claim that, in this instance, violence might not work. So you better be damn sure about your answer: what price should be paid for the sin of hypocrisy?

There is always an outside that a person considers unworthy of life...

Quentin Tarantino has dedicated his career to answering this question. 

QT has seen too many movies for it to be any other way. If you consume enough art across epoch and genre, you can’t help arrive at the Susan Sontag #redpill that content doesn’t matter all that much. All art is genre fiction no matter the pretensions and our lizard brain judges accordingly. Sure, thematic analysis is fun to play with after the fact, but if a movie has the right tropes in the right places—femme fatales, tough muchachos, pretty pictures, happy ending—well, you can convince yourself of just about anything.

Take, for example, Death Proof. Genre: exploitation/slasher. Synopsis: hot babes go for a night out, ex-stuntman stalks and runs ‘em down in a death-proof car; stuntman rinses and repeats with another girl gang except they turn the tables and Mortal Kombat his thoracic spine. Rating: extremely badass, you should check it out, anyone who tells you different is a pleb.

Namely: some people complain that the movie has too many scenes of girls talking and that their QT-isms are an unrealistic depiction of an actual group chat. The characters bicker lewdly, if that’s a thing, alternating between weirdly masculine sex-as-status teasing and pledges of undying affection, the verbal equivalent of a catfight, which is maybe how a creepy foot fetishist would imagine female dialogue, but...

Nope, still pleb. Tarantino wasn’t the first guy to invoke this trope, it’s part of the DNA of the slasher genre, as old as Jamie Lee Curtis getting razzed for her virginity in Halloween. Misogyny, maybe, but also content is a spook. Slasher movies have to fill 70 minutes before the eponymous slashing, and they also have to make you care about the outcome of said slashing without humanizing the characters so much that you get all Marley and Me when they die. 

What’s the secret? Status games, the less nuance the better. Boys would watch paint dry if you said it was a grudge match. Catfighting is no different than the elaboration of powers in a shonen manga or the suspicious glares exchanged between heist movie protagonists: it creates tension. Different value systems have been described, there can only be one, now you’re rooting for process of elimination to reveal the truth. No—you identify with that process. Hail Gnon. You could make a movie with men playing status games and being killed off by women and men would still find it hot; I know this because of female horrorcore rappers but also because this movie is called Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and it’s 10/10. Incidentally:

This is referenced again in the final scene of the film, in which the viewer cheers on our group of heroines as they beat to death a pleading, injured man.

Here’s the hot take: tote bag feminists are wrong to think that drawing boobs on Powergirl is a male attempt to diminish her power. On the contrary, the more vampire slaying the better. Sexualization is an attempt to gain access to female power: if she wants The Phallus badly enough, she might just lend her power to you. Obverse: men are idiots for thinking that the existence of rape fantasies means that women secretly want to be raped. There’s an image floating around the manosphere about that terrorist with a heart of gold, Ted Kaczynski, who was gauche with ladies in the free world but deluged in love letters upon his incarceration. Before you can say medium = message, someone tragically rendered celibate by their 23andMe results will point to this as proof that women “only want serial killers.” Newsflash: Kaczynski is serving eight life sentences without possibility of parole. Do you think the fangirls didn’t know that? Rape fantasies (theoretically “hot”) are qualitatively different than being raped (“unimaginably horrific”) because you construct the former, can turn it off at any time. The fantasy victim is assaulted by a terrible power, but the person who selects and controls that power is...

Of course it is, cough, problematic, that slasher movie girls display power through HPV vaccinations while male zombie apocalypse survivors soliloquize on whether suicide is inevitable in the absence of God. But once you sexistly set up that women should be valued by their sin, the wages = death equation is not in and of itself misogynistic. No, it’s just inevitable: sex-as-status tension can only be relieved in two ways and one of them is frowned upon in theaters. Film crit cliché and Kraftwerk song, I know, but: watching a movie renders you impotent—you can’t interact with the sexy image on the screen—except through what the camera will allow.

That’s why you are complicit in the murders that occur in the first half of Death Proof. The ex-stuntman—old, a teetotaler, star of TV shows long forgotten (and played by once-famous Kurt Russell)—is as impotent as you are, capable of getting a deleted scene lap dance but zero penetration, and when he gets in his car to commit vehicular homicide x4, he looks at the camera and smiles. Because you’re right there with him, waiting for the money shot. It would be nice to fuck, but you’ll settle for a murder. Except when it actually happens, played four times for your amusement, it’s horrible—a face melted off by a tire, a wet leg flapping in the street. Throw in a Wilhelm scream. Wasn’t that what you wanted? Are you not entertained?

It’s all perspective, my man. For all the short shorts and naughty words, the girls plan and backup plan ways to prevent unwanted sexual advances; two of them have boyfriends and one is texting a crush trying to seal the deal; they discuss and decide against inviting the opposite sex to their lakeside vacation. But that’s not what you see from the outside. That’s not where your attention is drawn, wandering the club and editing your .jpg of grievances. For you, dancefloor means sex, choker necklace means slut, and being a slut means she would never sleep with you. That’s a personal insult. And that means that nothing else matters.

Which is insane. This isn’t an argument for or against promiscuity, the point is you don’t even know promiscuity looks like. You know symbols, and for that matter, why those symbols, where did you learn those? Brazzers? If you’re gonna be mad at a thing you should at least be mad at the thing itself, not at whatever fucked up fetish you’ve imposed on reality.

There’s a scene midway through the movie where QT tips his hand. The second girl gang is lounging in a car, one of them dangling her feet out the window. The ex-stuntman approaches, you assume his perspective, and maybe because it’s an old grindhouse film...

...but the color goes out, and everything is black and white.

Which, speaking of:

Jackie Brown is first and foremost a movie about being extremely cool all the time (you should watch it). The plot is an excuse: briefly, Pam Grier (airline stewardess), Robert Forster (bail bondsman), Samuel L Jackson (arms dealer), Robert De Niro (ex-convict), Bridget Fonda (stoner surfer chick) and a couple Feds each try to nab a briefcase holding $500K.

Jackie Brown is secondarily a movie about how race shapes each and every human interaction, but that description makes it sound like a Very Special Episode, and that couldn’t be more wrong. The movie is gleefully amoral, in fact lapses from pure MacGuffinism are treated as intolerable weakness, e.g. Jackson to De Niro:

ORDELL: You know what your problem is, Louis?

Louis doesn't say anything, he just puts his hands in his pockets.

ORDELL: You think you're a good guy. When you go into a deal you don't go in prepared to take that motherfucker all the way. You go in looking for a way out. And it ain't cause you're scared neither. It's cause you think you're a good guy, and you think there's certain things a good guy won't do. That's where we're different, me and you. Cause me, once I decide I want something, ain’t a goddam motherfuckin' thing gonna stop me from gittin' it. I gotta use a gun get what I want, I'm gonna use a gun. Nigga gets in my way, nigga gonna get removed. Understand what I'm saying?

Apparently not, because De Niro later makes this mistake and gets popped.

For these characters, race is just another weapon. When Jackson meets Forster for the first time, he lights a cigarette, puts his feet up on the desk, and taps out the ash in a partly full coffee cup. Then he points out a photo of Forster with a black employee. “Y’all tight?” “Yeah.” “But you his boss though, right?” “Yeah.” “Bet it was your idea to take that picture too, wasn’t it...?” In their second encounter, Jackson, trying to get bail for Grier, pulls the same trick:

ORDELL: Man, you know I'm good for it. Thousand bucks ain't shit. 

MAX: If I don't see it in front of me, you're right. It ain't shit. 

ORDELL: Man, you need to look at this with a little compassion. Jackie ain't no criminal. She ain't used to this kinda treatment. I mean, gangsters don't give a fuck - but for the average citizen, coupla nights in County fuck with your mind. 

MAX: Ordell, this isn't a bar, an you don't have a tab. 

ORDELL: Just listen for a second. We got a forty-year-old, gainfully employed black woman, falsely accused - 

MAX: Falsely accused? She didn't come back from Mexico with cocaine on her?

ORDELL: Falsely accused of Intent. If she had that shit - and mind you, I said "if" - it was just her shit to get high with. 

MAX: Is white guilt supposed to make me forget I'm running a business?

But Forster—male lead, the “good guy”—plays his version of the race card and flips the script.

Example 2: Bridget Fonda, surfer gal, plots to betray Jackson, who “moves his lips when he reads,” "let's say he's streetwise, I'll give him that.” But Jackson knows that she sees him that way, it makes her predictable, which is why he can keep her around: “You can’t trust Melanie, but you can always trust Melanie to be Melanie.”

That’s not the half of it. Jackson talks a soon-dead man into getting in the trunk of an Oldsmobile, houses a homeless addict in Compton and tells her it’s Hollywood; he lies effortlessly, and when drafting your fantasy friend group you should be aware that people who lie effortlessly do it because it’s fun. Threatening someone gets you an automaton who will system 2 your demands and nothing more. Deceiving someone gives you control over that person’s soul. So Fonda’s stoned delusions of manipulating him—which in fact make her easier to manipulate—are part of her appeal. Translated: “She ain't as pretty as she used to be, and she bitch a whole lot more than she used to...But she white.”

Except Fonda is manipulating him. She’s spent her adulthood as the side piece for Dubai businessmen and Japanese industrialists who—though she doesn’t even speak the language—get off on the fact that she’s a haughty blonde who thinks she’s better than them, thinks she can manipulate them. But since they’re paying for rent and weed, doesn’t that mean...?

Example 3: Pam Grier as Jackie Brown.

From more Sam Jackson than Sam Jackson to mumblecore for Medicare, Jackie outsmarts everyone and it’s not even close. The Feds lean into their uniforms but she doesn’t miss a beat: urbane dinner guest in one scene, “panicked, defensive, unreasonable black woman��� in another. Of course the movie ends the way it does, of course. Jackson steps into a dark room. Jackie screams “he’s got a gun!” And a cop pulls the trigger. You can’t always beat the system, but if you try sometimes, it just might beat who you need.

Why does Jackie win? The canon explanation is that she’s an airline stewardess: her job is to tell people of all origins what they want to hear. The meta explanation is she’s played by blaxploitation star Pam Grier. The gimmick of Grier movies like Coffy and Foxy Brown is their exaggeration of the audience’s favored tropes re: sex and race—say, hypersexuality and fashionable/wearable blackness. But the punchline of these films is that on-screen, Pam Grier with an afro is disguising herself as an high-class escort to fool the baddies: “The gentlemen you’ll be meeting this evening have a preference for…your type.” And then she kills them.

So it’s true that these films let you "exploit” a caricature, but the flip side is that anyone who can turn that caricature on and off gets to exploit you. And that seems to be Jackie Brown’s realist take: not that racism is the Original Sin for which Thou Must Atone—because everyone sees race and is selfish besides—but rather that it makes you a sucker. And the flip side: by capitalism or by meme magic, the world will always conspire to show you what you want to see. Choose wisely.

If Jackie Brown accepts that racism is inevitable, Inglourious Basterds sets out to prove that it’s also kind of fun.

It’s telling that Inglourious Basterds posters are push-pinned on the walls of fraternity houses right next to Scarface and The Wolf of Wall Street. Three movies, three sets of protagonists who happen to be amoral, masculine, and white. Sounds like a diss, but who are creatine-chugging white boys supposed to look up to? Chris Pratt? You can just tell that guy was grown in a test tube. There’s a reason Tarantino movies are popular and there’s a reason I’m talking about them instead of Buñuel or Tarkovsky and it has something to do with “making intensive use of a major language” and the twenty-somethings desperate to identify with a character named “Bear Jew.” And the above scene is indeed, “sick af.” Goes off without a hitch except when the Nazi says that he got his medals for bravery, and then there’s a split-second of—what, annoyance? Like, stick to the script, asshole. You’re sure as hell gonna get it now.

But I’m sure you’re aware that’s the joke, that once you got Ennio Morricone in the background you can justify anything. The Basterds “ain’t in the prisoner taking business”; they scalp the dead and maim the witnesses they leave alive. There’s no panorama of concentration camp horrors, no humanizing backstory, no evidence of any softness save boyish joy in the art of cruelty. Halfway through the film a young man celebrating the birth of his son is shot dead after surrendering in a Mexican standoff; the Basterds shrug and move on. At the climax of the film, a movie theatre full of Germans is exploded, shot, and burned to death. The modern viewer can’t help but cheer.

The opening chapter, Colonel Hans Landa vs. the outgroup under the floorboards, sways your sympathies in the opposite direction. No, it doesn’t make you hate the French or the Jews. But the tension—the silence and the ticking and the mounting requests and insinuations—is so unbearable that you can’t help but wish for someone to pull the Band-Aid. And the camera can’t do that. Only characters can. Only the character driving the action, and Landa drives the action in his every appearance. Something has to happen—and like the man onscreen, you cave.

Hans Landa alone seems to understand that he’s in a movie, which is perhaps why he’s so polite, so witty, so manically overacted. Perhaps this is how he sees through the Allies’ tricks and disguises: he assumes everyone else is an actor as well. And perhaps this is the apologia for his crimes: he’s just playing a role. The Basterds loathe the Nazis, but Landa bears no animosity towards the Jews, can empathize with them quite easily—it’s just, he likes to play detective and the Nazis were hiring. Is that really worse? Didn’t both the Walrus and the Carpenter eat as many as they could get?

And so, near the end of the film, when Landa cuts a deal to exchange his Hugo Boss for Levi Strauss, he asks of his prisoners the one question that would matter to a character in a period piece: “What shall the history books read?”

Landa’s argument, of course, is a load of shit.

In Inglourious Basterds, every disguise fails. The British film critic-turned-agent is unable to play the Nazi he’s seen on-screen. The German actress is revealed to be an Allied spy. The vengeful Shosanna is revealed as a sweet Jewish girl; the baby-faced Nazi lusting after her is shown to be a monster. The propaganda film burns. Only Lieutenant Aldo Raine and one Basterd make it out alive, and that’s because they’re American, i.e. monolingual.

Perception is a slave to narrative, but narrative has zip zero zilch nada to do with reality. The author is dead. Was Triumph of the Will a “good movie,” technically proficient and even emotionally moving? Absolutely. Could the director’s intentions have been “good,” apolitical, an attempt at beauty but nothing more? Unlikely in this case, but possible. But was Triumph of the Will “good”?

This is the obvious yet unswallowable truth: sometimes good people do bad things. “Nazi ain't got no humanity”? How many films have Nazis with wives, mistresses, children, pub games, medals for bravery? And yet Lieutenant Raine’s opening polemic is correct: the foot soldiers of the Third Reich worked for a Jew-hating, mass-murdering maniac: they needed to be destroyed. Reality isn’t Disney, where internal beauty works its way external. Reality isn’t even so kind as to match intentions with consequences. The American (Union) soldiers fighting against the Nazis (Confederacy) may have been motivated by every bit as much hatred and bloodlust, and yet they were necessary, they were the good guys. FYI—that’s irony.

“So you’re saying we should punch the alt-right?” Are you an idiot? The Nazis weren’t bad because they were Nazis, they were bad because of the things they did. If you actually think that punching a teenage Kekistani is going to bring down the New World Order, go ahead, but stop pushing the pillow of identity over the mouth of reality.

The goal of the System, the sum of vectors going both left and right, is to keep people arguing about abstractions of violence so they won’t deign to consider the ugliness of pragmatism. The radical left will asseverate that violence is justified, refusing to question whether their particular brand of protest is effective; the alt-right will keep rallying against cropped image lunatics, the finest examples of white genocide the media has to offer, never seriously considering that sometimes people lie on the internet; and “““centrists””” will deduce that since violence is never okay, since everyone is so irrational, nothing can be done. But that’s still a perspective: it’s the perspective of the camera.

Fuck that. This essay is a condemnation of anyone who thinks that the hypocrisy of the outgroup disproves their complaint, of anyone who thinks that good intentions are enough to absolve you from sin:

You don’t get to forget what you are.

[dfroza]

there is opposition to God’s truth.

even when God as Man walked the earth and shared it Himself. and so it is now as well. and there are people attempting to change it. to rewrite its sacredness. to disregard the good conscience of the Spirit. to spread lies into earth. and lies seek to steal the Temple treasure of the heart.

even in ancient times, and among believers, there was opposition in belief. such as in Today’s reading from the book of Acts when some wanted new believers in the new covenant to be circumcised as the Jews were under Mosaic law, which was protested by Paul and Barnabas and they ended up sending a letter to instruct others with these basics: to not have anything to do with activities involving idols, to guard the morality of sex and marriage, and to avoid eating blood.

and things did change in the new covenant because the Lord came to fulfill Mosaic law, of which consisted many symbols, such as the Temple service and its sacrifices involving animals, that all pointed to the consummation on the cross, thus cancelling any further sacrifice. but the laws of morality still exist. the law of Love according to God’s truth as our Creator.

[Acts 15]

It wasn’t long before some Jews showed up from Judea insisting that everyone be circumcised: “If you’re not circumcised in the Mosaic fashion, you can’t be saved.” Paul and Barnabas were up on their feet at once in fierce protest. The church decided to resolve the matter by sending Paul, Barnabas, and a few others to put it before the apostles and leaders in Jerusalem.

After they were sent off and on their way, they told everyone they met as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria about the breakthrough to the non-Jewish outsiders. Everyone who heard the news cheered—it was terrific news!

When they got to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were graciously received by the whole church, including the apostles and leaders. They reported on their recent journey and how God had used them to open things up to the outsiders. Some Pharisees stood up to say their piece. They had become believers, but continued to hold to the hard party line of the Pharisees. “You have to circumcise the pagan converts,” they said. “You must make them keep the Law of Moses.”

The apostles and leaders called a special meeting to consider the matter. The arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated. Then Peter took the floor: “Friends, you well know that from early on God made it quite plain that he wanted the pagans to hear the Message of this good news and embrace it—and not in any secondhand or roundabout way, but firsthand, straight from my mouth. And God, who can’t be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person’s thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as he gave him to us. He treated the outsiders exactly as he treated us, beginning at the very center of who they were and working from that center outward, cleaning up their lives as they trusted and believed him.

“So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don’t we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?”

There was dead silence. No one said a word. With the room quiet, Barnabas and Paul reported matter-of-factly on the miracles and wonders God had done among the other nations through their ministry. The silence deepened; you could hear a pin drop.

James broke the silence. “Friends, listen. Simeon has told us the story of how God at the very outset made sure that racial outsiders were included. This is in perfect agreement with the words of the prophets:

After this, I’m coming back;

I’ll rebuild David’s ruined house;

I’ll put all the pieces together again;

I’ll make it look like new

So outsiders who seek will find,

so they’ll have a place to come to,

All the pagan peoples

included in what I’m doing.

“God said it and now he’s doing it. It’s no afterthought; he’s always known he would do this.

“So here is my decision: We’re not going to unnecessarily burden non-Jewish people who turn to the Master. We’ll write them a letter and tell them, ‘Be careful to not get involved in activities connected with idols, to guard the morality of sex and marriage, to not serve food offensive to Jewish Christians—blood, for instance.’ This is basic wisdom from Moses, preached and honored for centuries now in city after city as we have met and kept the Sabbath.”

Everyone agreed: apostles, leaders, all the people. They picked Judas (nicknamed Barsabbas) and Silas—they both carried considerable weight in the church—and sent them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas with this letter:

From the apostles and leaders, your friends, to our friends in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:

Hello!

We heard that some men from our church went to you and said things that confused and upset you. Mind you, they had no authority from us; we didn’t send them. We have agreed unanimously to pick representatives and send them to you with our good friends Barnabas and Paul. We picked men we knew you could trust, Judas and Silas—they’ve looked death in the face time and again for the sake of our Master Jesus Christ. We’ve sent them to confirm in a face-to-face meeting with you what we’ve written.

It seemed to the Holy Spirit and to us that you should not be saddled with any crushing burden, but be responsible only for these bare necessities: Be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians (blood, for instance); and guard the morality of sex and marriage.

These guidelines are sufficient to keep relations congenial between us. And God be with you!

And so off they went to Antioch. On arrival, they gathered the church and read the letter. The people were greatly relieved and pleased. Judas and Silas, good preachers both of them, strengthened their new friends with many words of courage and hope. Then it was time to go home. They were sent off by their new friends with laughter and embraces all around to report back to those who had sent them.

Paul and Barnabas stayed on in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Word of God. But they weren’t alone. There were a number of teachers and preachers at that time in Antioch.

After a few days of this, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go back and visit all our friends in each of the towns where we preached the Word of God. Let’s see how they’re doing.”

Barnabas wanted to take John along, the John nicknamed Mark. But Paul wouldn’t have him; he wasn’t about to take along a quitter who, as soon as the going got tough, had jumped ship on them in Pamphylia. Tempers flared, and they ended up going their separate ways: Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus; Paul chose Silas and, offered up by their friends to the grace of the Master, went to Syria and Cilicia to build up muscle and sinew in those congregations.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 15 (The Message)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is chapter 8 in 1st Samuel when the people demanded a king rather than choosing God as their King:

When Samuel got to be an old man, he set his sons up as judges in Israel. His firstborn son was named Joel, the name of his second, Abijah. They were assigned duty in Beersheba. But his sons didn’t take after him; they were out for what they could get for themselves, taking bribes, corrupting justice.

Fed up, all the elders of Israel got together and confronted Samuel at Ramah. They presented their case: “Look, you’re an old man, and your sons aren’t following in your footsteps. Here’s what we want you to do: Appoint a king to rule us, just like everybody else.”

When Samuel heard their demand—“Give us a king to rule us!”—he was crushed. How awful! Samuel prayed to God.

God answered Samuel, “Go ahead and do what they’re asking. They are not rejecting you. They’ve rejected me as their King. From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they’ve been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they’re doing it to you. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they’re in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they’re likely to get from a king.”

So Samuel told them, delivered God’s warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king. He said, “This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves. But don’t expect God to answer.”

But the people wouldn’t listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We will have a king to rule us! Then we’ll be just like all the other nations. Our king will rule us and lead us and fight our battles.”

Samuel took in what they said and rehearsed it with God. God told Samuel, “Do what they say. Make them a king.”

Then Samuel dismissed the men of Israel: “Go home, each of you to your own city.”

The Book of 1st Samuel, Chapter 8 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Sunday, September 27 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s message by the Institute for Creation Research:

September 27, 2020

The Discerner

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

The Word of God (both the written Word and the living Word, Jesus Christ) is “living and energizing” and is the double-edged sword of the Spirit, piercing into the deepest recesses of body, soul, and spirit, where it “discerns” even the very thoughts and intents of our hearts.

This discernment, however, is more than just understanding or insight. The Greek word for “discerner” is kritikos and is used only this one time in the Bible. Our word “critic” is derived from it, and this is an important dimension of its meaning. Its discernment is a critical, judging discernment—one that convicts and corrects, as well as one that understands.

It is paradoxical that people today presume to become critics of the Bible when it should really be the other way around. There are textual critics who sort through the various ancient manuscripts of the Bible, trying to arrive at the original text; there are the “higher critics” who critique vocabularies and concepts, trying to show that the traditional authors did not actually write the books attributed to them; and then there are many other purely destructive critics who criticize the Bible’s miracles, morals, and everything else, hoping thereby to justify their rebellion against the Word.

But the Bible still stands! It stands in judgment on our lives and our subconscious motives. It will have the final word when “the books [are] opened...and the dead [are] judged out of those things which were written in the books” (Revelation 20:12). It is far better to heed the constructive criticism of the Word now than to hear its condemnation later. HMM

[quranreadalong]

#6, Surah 2

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 6

Brace yourselves: we are going to be halfway done with surah two after today. The light is at the end of the tunnel. We’re getting there. Let’s begin the day with 2:118, another complaint about The Disbelievers:

And those who have no knowledge say: Why doth not Allah speak unto us, or some sign come unto us? Even thus, as they now speak, spake those (who were) before them. Their hearts are all alike. We have made clear the revelations for people who are sure.

All people who ask Mohammed for a damned shred of proof of what he’s saying are the same, and are also going to hell. At least the people who wrote the stories of Moses, Jesus, etc had the decency to stick some actual miracles in there. The best we’ll get from Mohammed, as we’ll see much later, is 1) a ride on a magic donkey in the middle of the night (really) and 2) the rather embarrassing time that Mohammed supposedly split the moon in half, which many modern-day Muslims have understandably tried to turn into a metaphor rather than a real event.

We are told once more that Jews and Christians want to mislead Muslims, and Mohammed adds that Allah will hate them if they allow themselves to be misled by the disbelievers. Also the disbelievers are losers. A rare quadruple bad-der to start the day.

In 2:122, we shift again to Mohammed directly addressing "the Children of Israel”; this is almost an exact repetition of an earlier ayah (2:40) in which they’re commanded to remember Allah’s favor etc. 2:123 is likewise a rant about how no one will be able to help the doomed on the Day of Judgement, etc, identical to 2:48. Earlier I labeled those neutral and bad respectively, so I’ll do that again here.

Now then. The next verse marks our first mention of Abraham (or Ibrahim) in the Quran. The key ayah to note here is 2:125:

And when We made the House (at Makka) a resort for mankind and sanctuary, (saying): Take as your place of worship the place where Abraham stood (to pray).

The house in Mecca is, of course, the Kaaba--the big black square thing you’ve probably seen in pictures, for those of you who were not raised Muslim, though its appearance has changed a lot over the centuries. The Kaaba was a major part of the Arabian polytheistic religion; it was filled with idols. Because of its sacred importance, no violence was allowed within the area, so as to not offend the gods. It was tended to by the Quraysh, the tribe that Mohammed and his close friends were all part of. Once a year, pilgrims would come to the city to circle around the structure in a massive event called the hajj, though people could go to it whenever they wanted (called umrah).

The Kaaba in Mecca was not the only such temple--there were multiple similar structures in different parts of Arabia. All but the one in Mecca were destroyed by Mohammed’s armies, though. One mentioned in a sahih hadith was in what is now northern Yemen:

There was a house called Dhul-Khalasa in the Pre-lslamic Period and it was also called Al-Ka'ba Al-Yamaniya or Al-Ka'ba Ash-Shamiya. Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said to me, "Will you relieve me from Dhul-Khalasa?" So I left for it with 150 cavalrymen from the tribe of Ahmas and then we destroyed it and killed whoever we found there. Then we came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and informed him about it. He invoked good upon us and upon the tribe of Ahmas.

Regardless of the polytheistic origins of the structures, as other religions developed in the region, they seem to have been incorporated into the tradition. Idols of Abraham and Ishmael were in the Kaaba before Mohammed took them out, as Arabs had adopted the two of them as patriarchs from the Jews already. A hadith says that Christian imagery was also in the Kaaba. Obviously this process would be reversed after the rise of Islam, as the hajj became a Muslim-only event and Mohammed purged the Kaaba of non-Islamic imagery. (More on that happy event in surah 9.)

The basis for this was his claim that, rather than being a polytheistic site, the Kaaba was really a structure made at Allah’s behest by Abraham and his son Ishmael, who were Muslims (all the Jewish/Christian prophets were “Muslim”, as we will see) and prophesied Mohammed’s existence. Since they were Muslims, Mohammed reasoned, no non-Muslims should be allowed anywhere near the Kaaba. Tolerance!

Anyway, we’ll get back to the conquest of Mecca. I would classify most of the above as neutral, though 2:130 is at least intolerant (“who forsaketh the religion of Abraham save him who befooleth himself?”). 2:126 is bad and today’s entry on the kuffar hell counter (1):

As for him who disbelieveth, I shall leave him in contentment for a while, then I shall compel him to the doom of Fire - a hapless journey's end!

2:133-141 is more whining about Jews and Christians, and claiming that Muslims (unlike Jews and Christians) follow the “real” religion of patriarchs like Abraham, Jacob, and Moses. Christians and Jews are liars when they claim otherwise. That’s literally all this section is. It’s neutral, I guess, though again intolerant and also culturally appropriating! Mohammed: PROBLEMATIC.

Following that are our last neutral ayat for the day, and again very interesting ones. Let’s look at the ayat first:

The foolish of the people will say: What hath turned them from the qiblah which they formerly observed?

We appointed the qiblah which ye formerly observed only that We might know him who followeth the messenger, from him who turneth on his heels. In truth it was a hard (test) save for those whom Allah guided.

And now verily We shall make thee turn (in prayer) toward a qiblah which is dear to thee. So turn thy face toward the Inviolable Place of Worship, and ye (O Muslims), wheresoever ye may be, turn your faces (when ye pray) toward it.

Okay, so what’s going on here is this: in the early days of Islam, Mohammed instructed his followers to pray in the direction (that’s what qiblah means) of Jerusalem. This was a custom of the Jews, based on the Talmud; while still in the early days of creating his new religion, Mohammed based many of its rules on what the Jews did. But a couple of years after the Muslim community moved from Mecca to Medina (and remember, this is a Medina surah), Mohammed told them to instead pray towards the Kaaba at Mecca.

When Mohammed changed the qiblah, non-Muslims understandably made fun of Muslims suddenly changing one of their “sacred rites”. Mohammed’s excuse for this? Allah was just testing them. Allah wanted to know who would blindly follow Mohammed no matter what, using the whole pray-towards-Jerusalem thing as the test. Those who passed the test by demonstrating the appropriate brainwashing were then let in on “the truth”, which was that Allah really wanted them to pray towards Mecca.

The real reason why Mohammed changed the direction is, of course, because he didn’t want to share a prayer direction with the Jews anymore, since they weren’t quite as accepting of him as he’d once believed. After some gentle prodding by his buddy Umar, he switched the qiblah, firmly separating Muslim and Jewish prayer rituals. Thus 2:145, which chastises any Muslims who would continue to pray towards Jerusalem (the “evil-doers” being Jews):

And if thou shouldst follow their desires after the knowledge which hath come unto thee, then surely wert thou of the evil-doers.

I mean..................... bad.

A second reason for the changing of the qiblah was probably just to center Islam more in Arabia (and specifically Mo’s hometown) and establish a clear Muslim claim to the Kaaba, both of which would be quite useful for the community later.

And with that historical tidbit, we are now more than halfway through surah 2. Give yourselves a pat on the back for making it this far.

NEXT TIME: “I am the Relenting, the Merciful ... Those who disbelieve, and die while they are disbelievers; on them is the curse of Allah”

The Quran Read-Along: Day 6

Ayat: 28

Good: 0

Neutral: 16 (2:122, 2:124-25, 2:127-41)

Bad: 10 (2:118-121, 2:123, 2:126, 2:142-145)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (2:126)

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[pope-francis-quotes]

10th April >> (@RomeReports) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis Way of the Cross reflections for Good Friday. STATIONS OF THE CROSS 2020.

Introduction

The meditations on the Stations of the Cross this year were prepared by the chaplaincy of the “Due Palazzi” House of Detention in Padua. Fourteen people were invited by Pope Francis to meditate on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, bringing it to bear on their own situations. Those invited included five prisoners, a family that was the victim of a murder, the daughter of a man given a life sentence, a prison teacher, a civil magistrate, the mother of a prisoner, a catechist, a volunteer religious brother, a prison guard and a priest who was accused and then finally acquitted after eight years in the justice system.

Accompanying Christ on the Way of the Cross, with the raw voices of those who live behind the walls of a prison, is an opportunity to view the great battle between life and death, to discover how the threads of good and evil inevitably intertwine. Contemplating Calvary from behind bars is to believe that an entire life can be played out in a few moments, as happened to the good thief. All it takes is to fill those moments with truth: contrition for sins committed, the realization that death is not for ever, the certainty that Christ is the innocent man unjustly mocked. Everything is possible for those who believe, because even in the darkness of prison there resounds the proclamation full of hope: “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Lk 1:37). If someone holds out to them a hand, those capable of the most horrendous crimes can undergo the most unexpected resurrection. We can be certain that “even when we tell of evil, we can learn to leave room for redemption; in the midst of evil, we can also recognize the working of goodness and give it space” (Message of Pope Francis for World Communications Day 2020).

In this way, the Via Crucis becomes a Via Lucis.

The texts, compiled by the chaplain, Father Marco Pozza and volunteer Tatiana Mario, were written in the first person, but it was decided not to attribute names, for those who took part in this meditation wanted to lend their voice to all those throughout the world who are in the same situation. This evening, in the silence of prison, the voice of one wishes to become the voice of all.

Let us pray.

O God, Almighty Father,

in Jesus Christ your Son

you assumed the wounds and sufferings of humanity.

Today I have the courage to beseech you, like the good thief: “Remember me!”

I am here, alone before you, in the dark of this prison: poor, naked, hungry and despised, and I ask you to pour out upon my wounds the balm of forgiveness and consolation, and the wine of a solidarity that strengthens the heart.

Heal me with your grace and teach me hope in the midst of despair.

My Lord and my God, I believe; help my unbelief.

Merciful Father, continue to trust in me, to give me fresh opportunities,

to embrace me in your infinite love.

With your help and by the gift of the Holy Spirit, I too will be able to recognize you and serve you in my brothers and sisters.

Amen.

First Station

Jesus is condemned to death

(Meditation by a prisoner serving a life sentence)

Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus; but they shouted out, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no crime deserving death; I will therefore chastise him and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave sentence that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, whom they asked for; but Jesus he delivered up to their will(Lk 23:20-25).

Many times that cry, “Crucify him, crucify him!” is shouted out in court-rooms and in newspapers. It is a cry I even heard against me: I was condemned, together with my father, to a life sentence. My crucifixion began when I was a child: when I think back I see myself curled up on the bus that took me to school, sidelined because of my stutter, with no friends. I started to work when I was small, without having a chance to study: ignorance prevailed over innocence. Then bullying stole what was left of childhood from this boy born in Calabria during the 1970s. I am more like Barabbas than Christ, yet the harshest condemnation remains that of my own conscience: at night I open my eyes and I desperately search for a light that will shine upon my story.

Alone in my cell, when I re-read the pages of the Passion of Christ, I burst into tears: after 29 years in prison I have not yet lost the capacity to cry, to feel ashamed of my past history and of the evil I did. I feel like Barabbas, Peter and Judas in one single person. I am repelled by my past, even though I know it is my story. I have lived for years under the restrictive conditions of Article 41b of the Prison Administration Act and my father died under the same conditions. Many times at night I heard him crying in his cell. He tried to hide it, but I knew. We were both plunged into deep darkness. In that non-life, however, I was always searching for something that would be life: strange to say, prison was my salvation. If, for some, I am still Barabbas, that does not make me angry: I know in my heart that the Innocent One, condemned like me, came to find me in prison to teach me about life.

Lord Jesus, despite the uproar, we glimpse you among the crowds shouting for you to be crucified; perhaps we too are among them, blind to the evil of which we are capable. From our cells we want to pray to your Father for all those who, like you, are condemned to death and for all those who would substitute their own for your supreme judgment.

Let us pray.

O God, lover of life, in the sacrament of Reconciliation, you always give us a new opportunity to experience your infinite mercy. We ask you to grant us the gift of wisdom so that we can see every man and woman as a temple of your Spirit and respect their inviolable dignity. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Second Station

Jesus takes up his Cross

(Meditation by two parents whose daughter was murdered)

The soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the praetorium); and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck his head with a reed, and spat upon him, and they knelt down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him(Mk 15:16-20).

During that horrible summer our life as parents died together with that of our two daughters. One of them was murdered along with her closest friend by the blind violence of a ruthless man; the other, who miraculously survived, was forever deprived of her smile. Ours was a life of sacrifices based on work and family. We taught our children to respect others and to value serving the poor. We often ask ourselves: “Why did it happen to us, this evil which engulfed us?”. We find no peace. Nor is justice, in which we had always trusted, able to relieve these deep wounds: our condemnation to suffering will never end.

Time has not eased the weight of the cross placed upon our shoulders: we are unable to forget our daughter who is no longer with us. We are elderly, more and more vulnerable and victims of the worst pain that can exist: surviving the death of a daughter.

This is difficult to say, but at the moment in which despair seems to take over, the Lord in different ways comes to meet us, giving us the grace to love one another as spouses, and to support one another, hard as it is. He invites us to keep the door of our home open to the poor and the despairing, welcoming whoever knocks, even if only for a bowl of soup. The commandment to perform acts of charity is for us a kind of salvation: we do not want to surrender to evil. God’s love is truly capable of renewing life because, before us, his Son Jesus underwent human suffering so as to experience true compassion.

Lord Jesus, it pains us to see you struck, mocked and stripped, an innocent victim of inhumane cruelty. On this night of sorrow, we plead with your Father and entrust to him all those who have endured violence and evil.

Let us pray.

O God, our justice and our redemption, who gave us your only Son and glorified him on the throne of the cross, instil your hope in our hearts so that we can recognize you present in the dark moments of our life. Comfort us in every affliction and support us in our trials as we await the coming of your kingdom. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Third Station

Jesus falls for the first time

(Meditation by a prisoner)

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all(Is 53:4-6).

It was the first time that I fell, but for me that fall was death: I took someone’s life. It only takes a day to pass from a blameless life to committing an act which encompasses the violation of all the commandments. I feel like a modern version of that thief who implored Christ with the words “Remember me!”. I imagine him less a penitent than someone conscious of being on the wrong path. From my childhood I remember the cold and hostile environment in which I grew up. All it took was for me to figure out someone’s weakness in order to transform it into a kind of entertainment. I was looking for real friends, I wanted to be accepted for who I was, but I was unable. I resented the happiness of others, I felt hamstrung, they asked of me only sacrifices and to obey the rules: I felt like a stranger to everyone and I sought revenge at all costs.

I hadn’t realized that evil was slowly growing inside me. Until, one evening, my own hour of darkness struck: in a second, like an avalanche, the memories of all the injustices I had suffered in life exploded. Anger killed my kindness, I committed an evil immensely greater than any of those that I had received. Then, in prison the ill-treatment by others led me to self-hatred: I was close to ending it all, I had reached the limit. I had also ruined my family: because of me they lost their name and respectability; they had become merely the family of a murderer. I make no excuses and seek no reductions, I will serve my sentence to the end because in prison I have found people who have given me back the faith I had lost.

My first fall was failing to realize that goodness exists in this world. My second, the murder, was really its consequence, for I was already dead inside.

Lord Jesus, you, too, fell to the ground. Perhaps your first fall was the hardest because it was entirely new: the impact was hard and left you shaken. We entrust to your Father all those who are so caught up in themselves that they are unable to acknowledge the sins they have committed.

Let us pray.

O God, you raised mankind up when we had fallen. We ask you to come to help us in our weakness and to grant us eyes to see the signs of your love everywhere in our daily lives. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fourth Station

Jesus meets his Mother

(Meditation by the mother of a prisoner)

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home(Jn 19:25-27).

Not for a moment was I tempted to abandon my son in the face of his sentence. The day he was arrested changed our entire life: the whole family went into prison with him. Today people’s judgment remains implacable: like a sharp knife, fingers pointed are against all of us, increasing the suffering we already bear in our hearts.

The wounds grow with each passing day, they take our breath away.

I feel Mother Mary close to me: she helps me not to give into despair and to cope with the pain. I’ve entrusted my son to her: only to Mary can I confide my fears, since she herself experienced them on the way to Calvary. In her heart she knew that her Son would not escape human evil, yet she did not abandon him. She stood there sharing in his suffering, keeping him company by her presence. I think of Jesus looking up, seeing those eyes so full of love, and not feeling alone.

I would like to do the same.

I blamed myself for my son’s sins. I asked forgiveness also for my own responsibility. I beg for the mercy that only a mother is able to experience, so that my son can return to life after having paid for his crime. I pray constantly for him, so that day by day he can grow into a different man, capable once more of loving himself and others.

Lord Jesus, meeting your mother on the way of the cross is perhaps the most moving and most sorrowful of all.

Between your eyes and hers, we place all families and friends who feel pained and helpless before the fate of their loved ones.

Let us pray.

O Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, faithful disciple of your Son, we turn to you and entrust to your loving gaze and to the care of your maternal heart the cry of all humanity which awaits with anguish the day when every tear will be wiped away from their faces. Amen.

Fifth Station

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross

(Meditation by a prisoner)

As they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus (Lk 23:26).

With my job I helped generations of children to believe in themselves. Then one day I found myself lying on the ground. It was as if they broke my back: my job was the pretext for a shameful conviction. I entered prison: prison entered my home. Since then I have become an outcast in the city: I have lost my name, I am now known by the crime of which I have been charged, I am no longer the master of my life. When I think about it, that child with worn-out shoes, wet feet, secondhand clothes comes to mind: that child was me, I was once that child. Then, one day, my arrest: three men in uniform, a rigid protocol, the prison that swallowed me alive in its concrete maw.

The cross they placed on my shoulders is a heavy one. Over time I have learned to live with it, to look it in the face, to call it by name: we spend many nights keeping each other company. Inside prisons, Simon of Cyrene is known by everyone: it is the second name of volunteers, of those who mount this Calvary to help carry a cross; they are people who reject the law of the pack and listen to their conscience. Simon of Cyrene, too, is my cellmate: I met him my first night in prison. He was a man who had lived on a bench for years, without affection or income. His only wealth was a box of candies. He has a sweet tooth, but he insisted that I bring it to my wife the first time she visited me: she burst into tears at that unexpected and thoughtful gesture.

I’m growing old in prison: I dream that one day, I will be able to trust others.

To become a Cyrenean, bringing joy to someone.

Lord Jesus, from the moment of your birth to the time you met a stranger who helped you carry your cross, you wanted to depend on our help. We too, like the Cyrenean, desire to be close to our brothers and sisters and to help in offering the Father’s mercy that breaks the yoke that oppresses them.

Let us pray.

O God, defender of the poor and comforter of the afflicted, strengthen us with your presence and help us to bear each day the easy yoke of your commandment of love. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sixth Station

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

(Meditation by a catechist)

My heart says to you,“Your face, Lord, do I seek”. Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Cast me not off, forsake me not, O God of my salvation! (Ps 27:8-9).

As a catechist, I wipe away many tears, letting them flow: they flood uncontrollably from hearts that are broken. Many times I meet despairing souls who, in the darkness of prison, try to find a reason for the evil that to them seems infinite. Their tears are those of defeat and loneliness, of remorse and lack of understanding. I often imagine Jesus here in prison in my stead: how would he wipe away the tears? How would he ease the anguish of these men who feel trapped by what they have become in yielding to evil?

Coming up with an answer is hard, often impossible within the limits of our petty human logic. The way pointed out to me by Christ is to contemplate, without fear, those faces marred by suffering. I am asked to remain there with them, respecting their silence, listening to their pain, and seeking to look beyond prejudice. In the same way that Christ looks at our own weaknesses and limitations with eyes full of love. Everyone, including those in prison, has an opportunity each day to become a new person, thanks to Christ’s look which does not judge, but gives life and hope.

In this way, the tears that fall can become the seed of a beauty that was difficult even to imagine.

Lord Jesus, Veronica had pity on you: she encountered a suffering person and discovered the face of God. In prayer we entrust to your Father the men and women of our times who seek to wipe away the tears of so many of our brothers and sisters.

Let us pray.

O God, true light and source of all light, in weakness you reveal the power and radicalism of love. Imprint your face in our hearts, so that we can recognize you in all human suffering. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Seventh Station

Jesus falls for the second time

(Meditation by a prisoner)

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. And they cast lots to divide his garments (Lk 23:34).

In the past, whenever I walked past a prison, I looked the other way: “I will never end up in there”, I said to myself. The times I did look, I felt sadness and darkness: I felt like I was walking past a cemetery of the living dead. Then one day, I ended up behind bars, together with my brother. As if that wasn’t enough, I also brought my father and mother in there. From the foreign country it had been, the prison is now our home: we men were in one cell, our mother in another. I looked at them and I felt ashamed of myself. I no longer feel like I am a man. They are growing old in prison because of me.

I fell twice. The first time was when evil attracted me and I gave in: peddling drugs, in my eyes, was worth more than the work of my father, who was breaking his back ten hours a day. The second was when, after ruining the family, I began to ask myself: “Who am I that Christ should die for me?”. The cry of Jesus – “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” – I saw reflected in my mother’s eyes: she took on the shame of all the men of the house to save the family. And I saw it in the face of my father, as he secretly despaired in his cell. Only today can I admit it: in those years I didn’t know what I was doing. Now that I know, I am trying to rebuild my life with the help of God. I owe it to my parents: years ago, they sold all that we had of value because they didn’t want me to live on the street. I owe it above all to myself: the idea that evil can continue to guide my life is intolerable. This is what has become my way of the cross.

Lord Jesus, once again you have fallen to the ground: crushed by my attachment to evil, by my fear of not being able to become a better person. In faith we turn to your Father and pray for all those not yet able to break free from the power of Satan, from all his allurements and his manifold seductions.

Let us pray.

O God, you do not leave us in the darkness and shadow of death. Strengthen us in our weakness, free us from the bonds of evil and shield us by your power, so that we may forever sing of your mercy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eighth Station

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

(Meditation by the daughter of a man sentenced to life imprisonment)

There followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us’” (Lk 23:27-30).

How many times, as the daughter of someone in prison, have I been asked: “You love your father: do you ever think about the pain he inflicted on his victims?”. Over these years I have never failed to answer: “Of course, it is impossible for me not to think about it”. But then I ask them this question: “Have you ever thought that, of all the victims of my father’s action, I was the first? For twenty-eight years I have been serving the sentence of growing up without a father”. For all these years I have lived with anger, restlessness, sadness: his absence is a heavy burden to bear. I have travelled throughout Italy, from south to north, to stay with him: I know its cities not for their monuments but for the prisons I have visited. I seem to be like Telemachus when he went in search of his father Odysseus: my journey takes me to Italian prisons and loved ones.

Years ago, I missed love because I am the daughter of a prisoner, my mother fell prey to depression, the family collapsed. I was left, with my small salary, to bear the weight of this sorry story. Life forced me to become an adult without ever being a child. In my home, everything is a via crucis: Dad is one of those sentenced to life imprisonment. The day I got married, I dreamed of having him beside me: even then he was thinking of me, though hundreds of kilometres away. “Such is life!”, I say, to encourage myself. It’s true: there are parents who, out of love, learn to wait for their children to grow up. In my own case, for love, I wait for my Dad’s return.For people like us, hope is a duty.

Lord Jesus, we see your words to the women of Jerusalem as a warning to each of us. Those words invite us to conversion, to pass from a sentimental religiosity to a faith rooted in your word. We pray for those who are forced to bear the burden of shame, the suffering of abandonment, the lack of a presence. And for each of us, that the sins of parents may not fall on their children.

Let us pray.

O God, Father of all kindness, you do not abandon your children in the trials of life. Give us the grace to be able to rest in your love and to enjoy forever the consolation of your presence. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Ninth Station

Jesus falls for the third time

(Meditation by a prisoner)

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust – there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love (Lam 3:27-32).

Falling down is never pleasant; but beyond the fact that it is unpleasant, falling over and over again becomes itself a kind of condemnation, as if one is no longer capable of remaining standing. As a man, I have fallen all too many times: I have also gotten up many times. In prison I often think about how many times a child falls to the ground before learning to walk: I am coming to think that these are preparations for all the times when we will fall as adults. As a child, my home was like a prison: I lived in fear of punishment, alternating between the melancholy of adults and the carefreeness of children. Of those years I remember Sister Gabriella, the only happy image: she was the only one who saw the best in me. Like Peter, I have sought and found many excuses for my mistakes: the strange fact is that a fragment of goodness always remained alive in me.

I became a grandfather in prison: I didn’t experience my daughter’s pregnancy. One day, I will tell my granddaughter the story of only the goodness I have found and not the evil I have done. I will tell her about the one who, when I lay fallen on the ground, brought me the mercy of God. In prison, the worst form of despair is to think that life no longer has meaning. It is the greatest suffering: of all the lonely people in the world, you feel like the loneliest. It is true that my life was shattered into a thousand pieces, but the wonderful thing is that those pieces can still be put together. It is not easy, but it is the only thing that still makes sense here.

Lord Jesus, you fall a third time to the ground and, when everyone thinks that this is the end, once again you get up. We confidently put ourselves in the hands of your Father and entrust to him all those who feel imprisoned in the abyss of their errors, so that they may be granted the strength to get up and the courage to let themselves be helped.

Let us pray.

O God, strength of those who hope in you, you give peace to those who follow your teachings. Sustain our staggering steps, raise us when we fall through our unfaithfulness. Pour the balm of consolation and the wine of hope on our wounds. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Tenth Station

Jesus is stripped of his garments

(Meditation by a prison teacher)

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture, “They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Jn 19:23-24).

As a teacher in a prison, I see people entering jail deprived of everything: stripped of all dignity because of the crimes they have committed, stripped of all respect for themselves and for others. Every day I see how they become more and more dependent behind bars: they need me even to help write a letter. These are the unsettled lives entrusted to my care: helpless, frustrated by their weakness, frequently deprived of even the ability to understand the wrong they have done. At times, however, they are like newborn babies who can still be formed. I sense that their lives can start over in another direction, definitively turning away from evil.

My strength, however, is fading day by day. Encountering daily all this anger, pain and hidden malice ends up wearing down even the most experienced of us. I chose this work after my mother was killed in a head-on collision by a young drug addict: I decided to respond immediately to that evil with good. But even though I love this job, I sometimes struggle to find the strength to carry on.

In so sensitive a service, we need to feel that we are not abandoned, in order to be able to support the many lives entrusted to us, lives that each day run the risk of ruin.

Lord Jesus, when we gaze at you stripped of your garments we feel embarrassed and ashamed. Beginning with the first man, in the face of the naked truth we started to run away. We hide behind masks of respectability and clothe ourselves with lies, frequently with the threadbare rags of the poor, exploited by our greedy thirst for money and power. May the Father have mercy on us and patiently help us to become more simple, more transparent, more authentic: ready to abandon definitively the weapons of hypocrisy.

Let us pray.

O God, you set us free by your truth. Strip us of our interior resistance and clothe us with your light, that we may be the reflection of your glory in the world. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Eleventh Station

Jesus is nailed to the Cross

(Meditation by a priest accused and later acquitted)

When they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews”. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong”. And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power”. And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”(Lk 23:33-43).

Christ nailed to the Cross. How often, as a priest, have I meditated on this page of the Gospel. When later, one day, they put me on a cross, I felt the full weight of that wood: the accusation was made in words as hard as nails, the ascent became steep, suffering weighed me down. The darkest moment was seeing my name pasted outside the courtroom: at that moment I realized that I was a guiltless man forced to prove his innocence. I hung on the cross for ten years: my Way of the Cross was populated with dossiers, suspicions, accusations, insults. Each time I was in the courtroom, I looked for the crucifix: I kept my eyes fixed on it as the law investigated my story.

For a moment, shame led me to think that it would be better to end it all. But then I decided to remain the priest I always was. I never thought of lessening my cross, even when the law permitted it. I chose to submit myself to a regular trial: I owed it to myself, to the young men I taught during the years at the seminary, to their families. While I was climbing my Calvary, I found them all along the way: they became my Cyreneans, they bore the weight of the cross with me, they dried my many tears. Together with me, many of them prayed for the young man who accused me: they never stopped. The day on which I was fully acquitted, I found myself happier than I had been ten years before: I experienced first-hand God working in my life. Hanging on the cross, I discovered the meaning of my priesthood.

[catholiccom-blog]

Conversion Is Not for Convenience

I subscribe to email updates from a Jewish website, and one such update, advertising a recent article, caught my attention. The writer, a Jewish woman living in an area of the Midwest with few Jews and no synagogues, asked herself: “Wouldn’t it be easier to just accept Jesus as the son of God?”

This question occurred to the writer when she was working at a Catholic church as a musician during Holy Week. While playing the music for a Mass on Palm Sunday, she started reflecting on how difficult it could be to be a non-Christian in a small town filled with Christians:

All of my friends are Christian here. I have been handed countless books. I have been encouraged, and shamed, and excluded, and judged—and at that moment at the piano, I was damn tired of it all.

I wrestled with these thoughts privately, of course. I knew better than to share my confusion with my Evangelical friends. No fewer than three local Protestant pastors invited me to Good Friday services. I was relieved to be playing for the Catholics. The parish priest was kind and respectful, and I thought the music was beautiful.

She was strongly considering talking to the priest about conversion to Catholicism when a passage from the Gospel read that day at Mass stopped her cold. In Matthew’s account of the Passion, the crowd—incited by the chief priests and elders who wanted Jesus dead (Matt. 27:20)—demanded Jesus’ crucifixion and told Pontius Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt. 27:25).

The writer shared her reaction:

I wanted to get up and run out of the church. My mind was alive with thoughts about blood libel, and the persecution of my people, and the fact that I was sitting in a church, listening to a justification said to come from the Jewish people, as if we deserved what has happened to us over the millennia.

We don’t have space here to address the question of whether this controversial passage in Matthew’s Gospel actually is anti-Semitic or in any way justifies anti-Semitic acts. The short answer is that it isn’t and it doesn’t.[1] Here instead I want to look at the question, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just accept Jesus as the son of God?”

Conversions happen for many reasons, and some of those reasons are better than others. My initial interest in Catholicism was sparked by a desire to rebel against my upbringing. My family was Seventh-day Adventist, although my branch of the family was mostly non-practicing, and Seventh-day Adventism is historically anti-Catholic. As this writer considered doing, I separated myself from my family’s religious tradition. In my case though, it wasn’t to assimilate into a larger society but to assert individuality.

I was under no illusion though that following through on that flawed spark of interest would be easy. Again, as happened to this writer, my spark of interest happened around Holy Week, in 1995. I had to call a local parish three times over a period of a couple of months before I finally got in to see the pastor. It turned out that Holy Week is a really bad time to try to pigeonhole a priest with questions about conversion!

The need for persistence turned out to be an occasion of grace. Having to work hard to get a priest’s attention made me all the more determined to become Catholic. It sparked my desire to learn the Faith, not just through the RCIA program but through personal study. When confronted with questions about Catholic beliefs and practices that rubbed against the grain of my culturally Protestant background, I took those questions to Catholics for answers. By that time, I was disposed to accept the answers I was given.

But the questions don’t magically stop the moment the chrism dries on the new convert’s forehead. Many converts experience periods of difficulty, of doubt, following conversion. Acclimation to the Catholic faith—as distinguished from assimilation—can take years. A few years ago I wrote:

I firmly believe that, sooner or later, each and every convert to the Catholic faith—whether that person chose to become Catholic as an adult or was brought into the faith as a baby by his parents—is going to have to face the scandal that the Church is not what he believed it to be when he signed up. The test will be whether he will persevere because he knows it to be the Church Christ founded, or whether he will fall away because he decides it is merely a human institution that has disappointed him.

The writer of the essay I read came to the conclusion that her experience at that Palm Sunday Mass had in fact been an epiphany that strengthened her identity as a Jew and her commitment to Judaism. Perhaps it was.

If that incident strengthened her to stand up to occasions on which she had been “shamed, and excluded, and judged” in her community because she was not Christian, if it kept her from becoming Christian for the wrong reasons (such as to make her life easier), then perhaps that was how God chose to act in her life at that moment. Perhaps it will be an important step on her journey to where God is leading her.

What we can say for sure, though, is that no one should become Christian to make his life easier. Those who want to follow Christ will be called upon to do exactly as Christ did in the Palm Sunday Gospel. They will be called to take up their cross and follow him, all the way to Calvary (Matt. 16:24). Or, as C.S. Lewis wryly noted:

I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.

[1] Those who are interested in the long answer are invited to read Are the Gospels Anti-Semitic? by David Currie and The New Testament and Anti-Semitism by Jimmy Akin. If non-Christian readers prefer a Jewish perspective, I recommend The Misunderstood Jew by Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of the New Testament.

[newstfionline]

I wanted to understand why racists hated me. So I befriended Klansmen.

By Daryl Davis, Washington Post, September 29, 2017

Daryl Davis, author of “Klan-Destine Relationships,” and subject of the documentary “Accidental Courtesy,” is an award-winning musician, actor, lecturer and race relations expert.

One night in 1983, I found myself playing in a country band at a truck stop lounge. I was the only black person in the joint. Taking a break after the first set of music, I was headed to sit at a table with my bandmates when a white gentleman approached from behind and put his arm around my shoulders. “I really enjoy y’all’s music,” he said. I shook his hand and thanked him. “This is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis,” he continued.

I told him that Lewis was a friend of mine and that he had learned his style from watching and listening to black blues and boogie-woogie pianists. My new fan didn’t buy it, but he did want to buy me a drink. While we sipped, he clinked my glass and said, “This is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man.”

Why? “I’m a member of the Ku Klux Klan,” he said. I burst out laughing. Then he handed me his KKK membership card, and I recognized the Klan’s symbols. In that moment, I was overcome by a question: How could anybody hate me when they didn’t even know me?

I was no stranger to racism. Having grown up a black person in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I knew that prejudice was common. But I had never understood why. Sitting in that lounge with my new friend, I decided to figure it out in the only way that made sense: By getting to know those who felt hostility toward black people without ever having known any.

Several years later, I recruited that man, whose name was Frank James, to put me in contact with the grand dragon of the Maryland Klan. He tried to deter me, warning that the leader would kill me. But eventually, after I promised not to reveal how I’d gotten the grand dragon’s contact information, James gave it to me. (I reveal it now, because James has since died.)

By then, I had decided to travel around the country and interview KKK leaders and members from various chapters and factions to get the answer to my question: How can you hate someone you’ve never met? I was planning to write a book detailing my interviews, experiences and encounters with these Ku Klux Klan members. (The book, “Klan-Destine Relationships,” was published in 1998.)

I had my white secretary, who typically booked my band and assisted me with my music business, set up a meeting with the Maryland grand dragon, Roger Kelly, explaining that her boss was writing a book on the Klan and would like his input. Per my instructions, she did not reveal the color of my skin.

Kelly agreed to participate, and we secured a room at a Frederick, Md., motel, where my secretary filled an ice bucket with cans of soda so I could offer my guest a drink. Regardless of how and what he felt about me, if he entered my room after seeing the color of my skin, I was going to treat him with hospitality.

Punctual to the minute, there was a knock on the door. The grand nighthawk (the grand dragon’s bodyguard) entered first, and then the dragon himself. “Hello,” I began, “I’m Daryl Davis.” I offered my palm, and Kelly shook my hand as he and the nighthawk introduced themselves. He sat in the chair I had set out, and the nighthawk stood at attention beside him.

We were both apprehensive of the other, and the interview started haltingly. We discussed what he had hoped to achieve by joining the Klan; what his thoughts were on blacks, Asians, Jews and Hispanics; and whether he thought it would ever be possible for different races to get along. A little while later, we heard an inexplicable crackling noise and we both tensed. The dragon and I stared each other in the eye, silently asking, “What did you just do?” The nighthawk reached for his gun. Nobody spoke. I barely breathed.

Seated atop the dresser, my secretary realized what had happened: The ice in the bucket had started to melt, causing the soda cans to shift. It happened again, and we all began laughing. From there, the interview went on without a hitch.

It was a perfect illustration that ignorance breeds fear and possibly violence. An unknown noise in an ice bucket could’ve led to gunfire, had we not taken a moment to understand what we were encountering.

Even though Kelly had told me he knew that white people were superior to blacks, our dialogue continued over the years. He would visit me in my home, and I would eventually be a guest in his. We would share many meals together, even though he thought I was inferior. Within a couple of years, he rose to the rank of imperial wizard, the top national leadership position in the Klan.

Over the past 30 years, I have come to know hundreds of white supremacists, from KKK members, neo-Nazis and white nationalists to those who call themselves alt-right. Some were good people with wrong beliefs, and others were bad people hellbent on violence and the destruction of those who were non-Aryan.

There was Bob White, a grand dragon for Maryland who served four years in prison for conspiring to bomb a synagogue in Baltimore, where he had been a police officer. When he got out, he returned to the Klan and later went back to prison for three more years for assaulting two black men with a shotgun, evidently intent on murder. But after I reached out to him with a letter while he was in prison for the second time, Bob became a very good friend, renounced the Klan and attended my wedding.

Frank Ancona, who headed a Missouri Klan chapter, would also become a very close friend. When Ancona was killed this year (his wife and stepson have been charged with his murder), one of his Klan members, knowing how close we had been, called me and told me before notifying the police. I accepted the Klan’s invitation to participate in his funeral service.

Three weeks after this summer’s violent clash in Charlottesville, I was invited by the leaders of the Tennessee and Kentucky chapters of Ancona’s branch of the Klan to speak at their national Konvocation. I accepted, spoke and took audience questions after the lecture. Whether or not anyone there immediately changed their minds, we talked as people--and we all benefitted from that.

I am not so naive as to think everyone will change. There are certainly those who will go to their graves as hateful, violent racists. I never set out certain that I would convert anyone. I just wanted to have a conversation and ask, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” What I’ve learned is that whether or not I’ve changed minds, talking can still relieve tensions. I’ve seen firsthand that when two enemies are talking, they are not fighting. They may be yelling and beating their fists on the table, but at least they are talking. Violence happens only when talking has stopped.

And sometimes, people do change. One day in 1999, after having been in the Ku Klux Klan for about 20 years, Kelly, who had risen from grand dragon to imperial wizard, called me, said he was leaving the Klan and apologized for having been a member. He told me he could no longer hate people. I had not turned out to be what he had always thought of black people. He went on to become one of my best friends, and today I own his robe and hood--one set of many in my collection of garments donated to me by apostate Klansmen and Klanswomen, which is always growing.