#faithfulness in suffering

[thinkingonscripture]

When Hiding is Wise

Sometimes hiding from others is a valid response to avoid unnecessary persecution. The believer who operates on wisdom and faith will make the right choice at the right time. Solomon wrote, “The prudent sees the evil and hides himself, but the naïve go on, and are punished for it” (Prov 22:3; cf., Prov 27:12). In this verse, the prudent man is shrewd and sees evil ahead, and by wisdom “hides…

[hussyknee]

Trying to explain what the fuck just happened in Lankan politics today.

The leftist party has won 159 seats out of 218 in the Parliamentary elections. The single biggest landslide win since we broke from the British and achieved universal franchise in 1948.

Any party achieving a super majority in the executive and legislative is, objectively speaking, bad. It disables checks and balances, which is a catastrophic thing for any democracy, and the only two other times it's happened for us has irrevocably eroded the fabric of civic rights and democratic freedom. Also, the reason the NPP won the North and East is that the colonized, genocided and subjugated people there have no faith in electoralism anymore. The way this government has engaged minority issues has been utterly abysmal and now they've been rewarded for it.

On the other hand:

The winners. Are all. Grassroots. Candidates.¹

We have voted out every single career criminal that's been barnacled into the Lankan political arena since before I've been alive. The fascist party has only three seats.² The other fascists didn't win a single seat. The neoliberal legacy party won none. There are only forty people in Parliament that represent any sort of dynastic political legacy. After 76 solid years of nothing but political dynasties.

This is barely five years after the Rajapaksas swept in and absolutely glutted the Parliament with their family members and cronies end to end.

This is the illegitimate interim government we had for most of the last 18 months. We literally, physically, chased the Rajapaksas out of the country and this fucking demon set up a puppet government just so he could finally sit in that goddamn chair and be the despot he'd always dreamed of in exchange for letting them all come back. He's now gone. His entire circle is gone.

THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GONE.

In US terms, just imagine that, five years from now, when Trump's GOP has control of everything, the entire GOP and the worst of the Dems are all purged from Congress and Senate, the Green Party in control of all three branches of government under a pro-union left-wing President and an unmarried female LGBT rights activist Vice President, and the Dems reduced to barely 20% of the House.

This is my anthropology professor. She joined politics from the small nascent leftist coalition to help keep the government accountable. She's now the Prime Minister and the most popular Parliamentary candidate in the nation's history. (Edit: She was knocked off first place by a dude in the final result. Boo.)

(On the other hand— the woman who helped make me a radical anarchist and literally helped write a book on political dissent and resistance...now is the state. Uh.)

But there are so many women in Parliament! We had the lowest female representation in a South Asian Parliament and some of them were from the list of seats reserved for parties rather than elected ones. Most were either anti-feminist conservative embarrassments, widows and daughters of elite politicians and neoliberal shills. It's still only an increase of a few percentage points (Edit: from the previous 5% to 10% in the final result!) but now we have elected academics, feminist advocates, activists! There Is a representative for Malaiyaha Tamils in the Central Province for the first time in history and it's a young woman! (Edit: now it's two female Malaiyaha MPS!!) This is the plantation community that still live in conditions closest to the slavery the British forced upon them two hundred years ago!

I'm like. Completely mindfucked. To be very very clear, the NPP coalition formed around the nucleus of the JVP that used to be communist but haven't been in 30 years, they're now just social democrats who are left of places like the US and UK, whose "left" is now center-right. They're only threatening to the Western mainstream media for some reason who can't stop bleating about how we have a "Marxist" government now. In reality, the actual chances for radical reform are still quite low, and the opportunity for further erosion is quite high with a super majority government regardless of affiliation.

On the other hand:

What the fuck.

Sometimes living through historical events is really damn amazing.

---

¹ Well, nearly. There are a few career politicians and a nepo baby but they aren't so bad either.

² Goddamn it, Baby Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka's answer to JD Vance have wormed their way in using the list of Constitutionally reserved party seats for non-elected members. FUCK the National List.

[mindofserenity]

“Death is no longer terrifying, this life is.”

[donutfloats]

Gabriel’s flock is the closest you’re gonna get to a cult that actually isn’t a cult due to their mostly pacifistic ways

This does cause problems however when dissenters or spies start causing problems

Gabriel is a little backwards with how they deal with people like this, as they simply just kick them out instead of forcing them to to change their ways

Granted if they cause actual problems, like stealing, damage to property, or hurting others: they will get sent to jail

For the most part it’s these individuals choice if they want to stay, Gabriel isn’t forcing them

Doesn’t mean Gabriel can’t get frustrated tho and contemplate “what if I just said fuck it and murdered these people”

[nukbody]

Jeckole I've never posted cause....uhhhh.....UHHH

[disciplesofjehovah]

[thehungarythrophy]

if i was a real poet i would talk about landoscar leading mclaren back to glory being written in the stars, and destiny and the prophecy of their racing numbers, but i am tired so i can only offer this :

[shortnotsweet]

[ “SOMEBODY TOLD ME”]:

BREAKING MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME. SEVENTEEN TRACKS AND I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS GAME. A BREAKIN’ MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME—BUT HEAVEN AIN’T CLOSE IN A PLACE LIKE THIS.

— The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)

Princess Rhaenyra’s insolence is wearing her stepmother’s patience thin. Queen Alicent is not ten years her senior, but even during her own sixteenth year, she cannot recall herself behaving so brazenly. She would never burst into courtly discussions in nothing but gilded armor and the underskirts of her riding leathers, awash in blood. (She would never be spotted in blood that was not her own, anyway. Alicent has never picked up a sword, not one that belonged to her.) Nevermind that Rhaenyra is attending to diplomatic affairs with bared teeth and scales, no—the crux of the matter is just that, her affairs. Rhaenyra is the Realm’s Delight, a beauty incomparable to any fair maiden, Alicent included. She indulges herself with appetite of a spoiled child, the confidence of man, and the pickings befitting only to her royal blood. Criston Cole. Daemon Targaryen. Harwin Strong. Laena Velaryon. She’s full of love, isn’t she? That selfish, foolish girl. What does Rhaenyra Targaryen know of love, of duty? She is a child in so many ways—she thinks killing makes her a man, thinks the throne is hers despite being a woman, thinks she can have her knight and her uncle and her protector and Laena Velaryon in one fail swoop. She’s wrong. She doesn’t know herself half as well as Alicent does. Alicent, who sees her for what she truly is, who wants to see all of her and more of her and none of her. Alicent has been stolen into the Keep by her own father—both of their fathers—but Rhaenyra is the key to this place, is the window to everything barred. Rhaenyra Targaryen has a dragon. Rhaenyra can fly.

That’s what Rhaenyra had promised her once, with her lips pulled back in a grin, exposing the white of her teeth like the violently radiant creature she was. “Perhaps when you grow tired of plotting against me, we shall ride on dragonback together,” she had said. The tease.

Alicent had yanked her into an empty corridor by the silk of her sleeve, ready to chastise her for her ill behavior. Conversing with the lords and ladies of the court at a feast was one thing, but chattering about her bloody encounters in battle over the pudding tureen were another. The lord at her elbow was going green. Alicent’s own face was likely red; her heart raced whenever Rhaenyra got like this. Alicent had never seen the battlefield—only seen battered men in dented armor and the slumps of corpses lined along dirt roads in the aftermath of war—but her own imagination terrified her like nothing else.

(Rhaenyra is better with a sword than half of the knights in Westeros, and more lovely than the lot. Her reign has not yet begun, but already the commoners flock to her—lured in by tales of her beauty and fine hair—and soldiers would follow her into battle. Alicent would not follow, but she would watch and bite her nails down to the quick.

She thinks of the figure Rhaenyra cuts in full armor, the heat in her gaze underneath the slots of her helmet. Alicent remembers the weight of her own hand in Rhaenyra’s—which was gloved—when the princess rode up to the spectators box and grasped it in her own, bringing Alicent’s knuckles to her lips. She thinks of Rhaenyra murdered in the sky, skewered with another man’s sword, plummeting to the ground, torn in half, streaking crimson across the clouds. Alicent would scream, or cry. She might laugh. She would throw herself from the window of her tower. Rhaenyra’s bloody exploits terrified Alicent for reasons she could not identify, and excited her for reasons she refused to.)

“I’d sooner be confined to the castle for the rest of my days than get on the back of that bloody lizard,” Alicent scoffed. Rhaenyra only tucked her hand over Alicent’s, where it was resting on her forearm. She flexed her fingers, moving to release her grip on the dark fabric, but Rhaenyra intertwined their fingers and held them fast.

“You’re confined already. You are already accustomed to such a thing. I know you. But—”

“But you forget yourself. You think you’re invulnerable, Rhaenyra. You don’t know who you are.” Alicent intends for it to be a sneer, but instead it comes out quietly, and too gentle for disdain. She can’t know. Rhaenyra is as trapped as she is, but they’re trapped together. They belong together. She belongs with Alicent.

“I am Rhaenyra Targaryen, Heir to the Iron Throne and all of Westeros. I am a dragonrider. I am—I am your daughter. In a way. Your sister, too. Your enemy. Your sword, your shield.”

“And what am I?” What else is left for me? Alicent wonders.

“My Queen. For now.” Rhaenyra cocks her head, and the gleam in her eyes burns like fire raining down. “When I am Queen, you will be my lady.”

[serenity-the-firefly]

i think carpenter and hayward should have some kind of ghost hunting youtube channel but for unlicensed gods. they go around snarking at each other and arguing over what kind of god this is and how best to deal with it. hayward ALWAYS thinks its an old harvest god and they have NEVER once made a situation better

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Broken Roofs and Fixed Perspectives

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[scumvillainess]

honestly i never really agreed with the popular shen qingqiu had a good shizun headcanon because if shen qingqiu actually had someone who he knew cared about him, he definitely wouldn’t have turned out the way he did in canon.

[ricky-mortis]

Spies Are Forever but with Mariah Rose Faith Casillas as Curt and Bryce Charles as Owen

Massive shout out to @ghostface-knight for the idea :D

[thepatristictradition]

Suffering is not What You Think

(The Penitent Magdalene)

So often you hear, when people leave their churches, their gripes surround suffering. Why would God allow suffering? Why would God allow babies to be murdered and die of cancer? Why would He allow war and cannibalism and pedophilia? Why did God allow me to see my mother die? Why did he allow this or that?

What I cannot help but notice is that the people saying this are never talking about their own suffering.

"Why does God allow war?" said a cowardly young man who has never seen bloodshed. "Why does God allow cancer?" said a woman who is perfectly healthy. "Why does God allow abuse?" said a man who had the privilege of watching the sex abuse crisis of the RCC play out on the TV screen and not in the sacristy. "Why did God allow my mother do die?" said a daughter who is still alive.

We may mourn, and we ought to mourn, the sorrows and the fallenness of this world, but witnessing suffering is not the same as suffering.

(Just Take Them and Leave Me Alone)

This was never more clear to me than when I spent a summer arguing with my anti-natalist, atheist sister. She would spend hours berating my poor mother and father for the heinous crime of having children. During one of these spats, my sister turned to me and said, "How can you support natalism?" which she said like a slur, "your grandmother abused you from the moment you were born."

Now, this is true. Truer than she knew, or, if I have it my way, will ever know. My grandmother (who was my and my sister's primary caregiver) always despised me because I was born with a deformity. Her hatred only intensified when my sister was born. My sister was, in her eyes, perfect. As a child, my sister would ask for me to be abused in front of her, for her amusement, by my grandmother.

My sister witnessed plenty of my suffering, but she experienced not an iota of it. And yet, she used my suffering as a way to say that all of human life is suffering. She used it to discredit the worth of all human life.

(Ophelia)

I find this is always the case. When I was an atheist, I was confused by people who brought up the "problem of suffering". I never viewed my suffering as something that made my life worse. Even as an atheist and a child, I saw clearly how the suffering I experienced and was experiencing was driving me toward a larger purpose. This pattern of thought followed me into the sexual abuse I experienced in middle school and into my conversion.

My atheist associates, whose suffering I know well, likewise never cite their suffering as a reason for their disbelief. When you really get down to it, "God is a big meanie" is not a reason to reject His existence, say these associates of mine.

It is only being a witness to suffering-- usually an impotent witness-- that causes this specific kind of apostasy. Even if my sister had stopped encouraging it, I still would have been abused. Her behavior would have made little difference. It is the same for the sufferings I listed earlier. Regardless of what we tell ourselves, no boycotting, no Instagram post, and not even tax evasion or immolation will stop the Genocide Israel is purporting against the Palestinians. We, far removed, poor, and powerless foreigners, are impotent. We can do nothing to help someone with a terminal illness not die-- it's terminal. We can do nothing to help the kidnapped children we see on the news, taken from their homes halfway across the country. We cannot bilocate, live forever, or have infinite money.

When these people say, "Why does God allow suffering?" they are actually asking, "Why does God allow my impotence?" The implication is that, of course, they would solve these sufferings if only they were not impotent. Is this the case? I don't know; who am I to judge the heart of another man?

Whatever the case, it is clear to me that witnessing suffering is of some different metaphysical nature than the actual experience of suffering. I've written a little about this privately, so I will get around to expanding upon it in further posts.

[dreamyintersexouppy]

idk i do like hearing peoples perspectives and arguments about transfeminism, but i believe what i believe about it because the arguments for it are effective and the evidence we have supports their conclusions. yea they also help me conceptualize events in my life through a transfeminist lens but that is what theoretical frameworks are For, they begin with the evidence and describe the experience.

i think semantic arguments and talk of empty unity and dismissing through sexualization are just as much tactics of argumentation and to me they're are highly ineffective in doing anything but making the people using them look good to an uninformed observer. its the reason we say a lot that some people here have a "vibes based politics" because it's clear from their arguments and rhetoric that they think of these arguments as a way to display an image rather than to actually have a discussion.

thats why im pissy and get upset and block people, they're just wasting peoples time for their own egos rather engaging with any of these concepts or acknowledging that what they know might not be totalizing. the desperation to have a perfect unsullied and intelligent image is why posts like mine pointing out a subtle dogwhistle will get backlash that amounts to telling me i'm making it up. i am communicating to them that there is a piece of knowledge that they might not have considered or even known is offensive to them so they reach for reactionary defenses instead of treating the trans woman in front of them like a person

[fairylando]

don't ask me why, but me and my friend were talking about how carlos is going to be free from fraudrrari in less than 20 days and we ended up comparing him to the virgin mary (i swear it will make sense and we both grew up in christian italian families as atheists) and... how her given festivities actually add up with some of his important dates ??? buckle up!

‧˚

⭒ "Festa dell'Assunzione di Maria" — august 15 she was raised to eternal life without bodily death, and very close to it carlos announced he signed with williams.

⭒ "La Natività della Beata Vergine Maria" — she was born on september 8th, he was born on september 1st (BOTH VIRGOS)!

⭒ "L'Immacolata Concezione" — december 8th, "from the first moment of her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of Mankind, kept free from all stain of original sin."... and what happens on december 8th? his last race in fraudrrari, exactly.

she was the lightly brushed by melancholy blue print after all!

[shvmblr]

// Flash warning!

Drawing John with a smile feels criminal </3