#for one thing it's a pretty serious step theologically

[asinglesock]

when starchild from ghost quartet said "when I was a baby, I was blessed by a stranger / in waters I didn't understand / and now I'm infected with disbelief and blasphemy / I'll never have a holy land / I am a ghost in the eyes of my God" that felt targeted :/

[maxwell-grant]

Have you read the short story Norvell Page wrote as a wedding present for a Big Name Fan about Dick and Nita's first meeting? Any thoughts on it? My main is that Page does not go where you expect him to based on that description.

I did! Actually it was one of the first Spider stories I read. And yeah, to an extent, it's absolutely not what you'd expect from something set in The Spider's world. And on the other hand, it's absolutely what makes the most sense for these two characters. Because, yeah, Norvell Page could have done what he usually does, and written some over-the-top action where Dick and Nita happen to meet during it.

But no, that wouldn't work. Because, for all the turmoil and chaos in The Spider, for everything that he and Nita go through, there are many times when, sturdier even than Dick's resolve is their love for each other, the deep understanding and affection that carries them through hell itself time and time again.

And so, when it was time to showcase how such a romance started, Page wisely deviated from his usual narrative style, and instead told a very, very intimate and personal story, a long and extended conversation between the two, and more importantly, between Page and the reader. Between The Spider, and You, peering into The Spider through the eyes of Nita van Sloan.

I think for a start, it's an interesting coincidence that this meeting takes place on a cruise ship, and it involves Dick rescuing Nita from suicide. I say this because Margo Lane's first meeting with Lamont Cranston, in the pulps, was stated to have taken place on a cruise ship, and of course, the first time we see The Shadow in the pulps, he's rescuing Harry Vincent from suicide, and both Harry and Margo are The Shadow's main supporting characters. I'm not saying it was intentional, but it's an interesting fact. And more so because Dick doesn't really rescue Nita.

Her scarf whipped in the wind on deck, and it blinded her... and a hand touched her arm, and a voice spoke to her.

"If it's intentional, don't let me stop you," the voice said, "but you're heading straight for suicide."

Nita looked then at the stop toward which, blindly, she was going, and it was a chain barrier beyond which was the sea. And she looked at the man who had stopped her and it was Richard Wentworth. And his words had been a shock to her.

"You wouldn't try to dissuade me from suicide?" she asked.

Wentworth's brows were tilted whit a hint of mockery, but his eyes were very grave. "Every man is master of his own soul, and hence of his body," he said. "And your eyes are wide open and awake. So it would be a considered action. I'm not sure, under those circumstances, that I would have a right to meddle in another's business."

Nita said, "I think you can help me."

Wentworth shook his head. "Only you can help yourself," he said, "but it may be that someone else could help you find the way."

The whole text is a great example of how wonderfully realized of a character Nita van Sloan is in ways so unlike the typical pulp or superhero girlfriends at the time, because the text is written from her perspective, and half of the text reads like an extended character breakdown of who Nita is as a character and person. And the other half of the text is almost entirely comprised of Dick Wentworth spouting philosophy and talking in-depth about his reading of her and what's upsetting her, talking about God and fate and so on. And like so many other attempts to explore serious theological/psychological/philosophical/etc concepts explored through pulp fiction, half of it is bullshit, and half of it is fascinatingly disturbing and thought-provoking bullshit.

"Self-contempt," Wentworth's words were very quiet now. "Is second only to self-pity among the greater sins. Self-analysis is a dangersous thing. You need so much charity. And any person who is advanced enough to think about himself at all is apt to be over-stern in his judgment of himself."

He said to her, "If you don't honor youself, who will honor you?" And, a few moments later, "There is conceit in ruling others, but none in mastering yourself." And, "There is no arrogance so great as self-righteousness."

Nita clashed with him violently, "You are being self-righteous in judging me!"

Wentworth laughed. "I am speaking only truism. It is you who judge yourself, not I." He was serious, then. "My dear," he said, "I would be presumptuous to try to teach you. No man can teach another. But one who has been along that same trail would be less than a man if he failed to mark certain signposts and certain places where there is water to drink so that another, traveling that same road, may know where another struggled and what he has learned. But, as no man can travel a road for another, so no man can teach another. You must work out your own salvation."

"That sense of separation between the inner and outer self," Nita rushed on, "between yourself and the world ... while you were talking, I could almost feel that difference disappearing. The feeling is gone now, but ..."

"All progress is three steps forward and two back," Wentworth said, slowly, "and this is good because thus all ground is three-times covered and triply learned."

And I should probably clarify by this point that, it's not so much Dick Wentworth talking in this story, as it's Norvell Page himself. In fact, he admits as much in another letter he had sent to his readers that he was prone to talking philosophy by this point.

There was a time when the burden of writing just one more Spider seemed too much to undertake. (After all, the magazine is in it's ninth year!) But I never feel that way any more. I know now that the Spider actually does help people; that there are those who appreciate his idealism even though it is expressed in violence.

Especially in the last half dozen Spiders, beginning with the 100th I believe, I have tried very earnestly to teach a little of the philosophy and faith, of which we all need so much in these days.

Here's the thing about The Spider: It's not that the character is mad. Well, okay, he IS mad, I don't pull these over-the-top maniacal cartoon meme descriptions out of thin air, but that's because he lives in a batshit insane disaster horror world where there IS no sane response other than joining the carnage to overcome it. It's not just that Wentworth who is a madman. It's that Norvell Page was a mad man, and Dick Wentworth was Norvell's Page alter-ego, by the man's own admission.

Friends have informed me that I moved about the company as one in a trance: there were some who were concerned about my health, so oddly did I behave. Of course, only my body attended that occasion. My mind was entirely engrossed in Dick Wentworth's big problem - back in my study on a sheet of paper stuck in my typewriter

I did not dream that night; in the morning I restlessly paced my floor thinking, thinking, thinking. I sat down at the typewriter, stared at the words and the keys. Suddenly, as if by magic, Dick Wentworth seemed to move of his own volition. My hands raised, my fingers literally flew over the keyboard.

No matter how ridiculous it seems, I will always feel that Dick Wentworth, creature of my own fabrication, guided me through that tough scene.

No two people can live together without being influenced by each other to some extent. So constantly has Wentworth been in my mind, it is as if we were roommates - partners in everything.

Page has talked about how close of a connection he feels to the character, about many ways he's emulated his mannerisms, even some pretty embarassing anectodes where he claims to have "accidentally" used the character's "indomitable will" to scare waiters or drawing connections between The Spider's cast and real people he's met. Others who met him remarked that he talked of the "Spider" characters as though they were members of his family, or drinking companions.

Even before I got into The Spider, I had heard of rumors that he used to present or discuss stories in his office by putting on a cape and jumping from desk to desk, swinging a yard stick in his hand, and I can't find any source that confirms it, but I don't doubt it in the slightest. A lot of pulp writers had really weird lives, and Page was no exception. He was a journalist who frequently dug into his newspaper clippings for grisly stories to incorporate into narratives. I mean, just look at the dude's eyes, he's seen some shit.

When he was 3, his mother fell down a manhole while they were walking down a Chicago sidewalk. Norvell, terrified, thought she had dissappeared and never quite got over the experience.

When he was a little older, according to some family members, his parents had tickets for the Titanic and escaped disaster when Norvell begged them to cancel the trip for reasons unknown.

Norvell again played a hand in the family's escaping disaster when, one Christmas the family home caught on fire. Candles on the tree had been left burning. He quite arguably saved everyone's life. Waking first, he threw his mattress out of his window, grabbed his infant brother and sister and ran screaming through the hall as he went back to jump to safety. His screams woke his parents who then jumped to the mattress themselves.

Norvell lied about his age and experience to the Norfolk "Observer", claiming to have been writing for Richmond's "Times Dispatch" and was hired there.

His father managed Thomas Edison & Hugo Wurlitzer's ad accounts, and had always encouraged him to write, envisioning him as another Poe, whom his Great-Uncle had worked with as an editor

It is rumored that, in NYC, while at the "World Telegram", he became involved in fellow editor Varion Fry's effort to rescue artists and scientists from occupied Europe. President of the American Fiction Guild, he edited their newsletter for some time. Among his closest friends were fellow writers Ted Tinsley and L. Ron Hubbard and Surrealist painter Max Ernst.

WRITER'S REVIEW 35.08: Norvell W. Page, whose bloodthirsty Spider novels would do justice to Ghengis Khan, demonstrated his bloodlust the other day by accidentally killing a sparrow.

He wrote until 1943, when he abruptly stopped without warning. He dissappeared, for all intents and purposes, from both New York, the arts world and the pulp world for good.

His wife of 20 years, Audrey, had died and this, along with the U.S. involvment in WWII, led to his returning to VA where he would go on to be an intelligence worker in the Truman, Kennedy and Eisenhower Administrations.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in August of 1961.

Surviving family members do not know where he is buried.

I think this is a story that Page might have told differently had he written it earlier in his career, before he got tired, before he underwent his depression and loss of weight that caused him to briefly stop writing pulps all together, in a time period before the World War had cast an oppressive miasma on the world. In a time period where most of the horrifying nightmares he infused into the stories were really just that, nightmares, that he didn't live long enough to see turn into prophecies.

Because that's another thing about The Spider that makes the character more than just a batshit vigilante: As over-the-top as the stories were, a lot of them also inevitably turned out to predict some form of catastrophe in real life.

Written with an eye to the horrors festering in Germany at the time, The Mayor of Hell now reads as an infernal vision of the Homeland Security Act.

The poisoned products found in The Red Death Rain and The Pain Emperor call to mind the Tylenol killings of the summer of 1982, and the hundreds of poisoned products cases that followed.

Bio-terrorism plays large in the Spider mythos, with bubonic plague in Wings of the Black Death, rabies in The Mad Horde, and cholera in The Cholera King foreshadowing the Anthrax scare of 2001. The same could be said of the terror gases from Kingdom of Doom and Green Globes of Death and the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subways in March of 1995.

Masters of the Death Madness unfolds as a nightmare meditation upon suicide, which has become one of the principal weapons of modern terrorists. One scene involves suicide bombers.

Another scene chillingly presages the Jonestown massacre of 1978: a grand procession lines up to drink from a bowl of poisoned wine while surrounding gunmen pick off anyone who refuses to drink.

The modern reader will recognize the psychological and sociological effects of a citizenry living under the threat of terrorism, so chillingly evoked by Page: the grating loss of safety, the imminent threats lurking in familiar objects, the way security can no longer be taken for granted, the kind of skittishness that empties a building at the first sign of an unknown white powder.

The eeriest of all the modern terrorist parallels appears in a novel called The City Destroyer, originally published in 1936. It features a set piece involving the collapse of a fictitious gigantic building, supposedly the tallest in New York City, called “The Sky Building.” When it fell, it wiped out five city blocks and claimed 1,000 lives. And perhaps it’s worth noting a further parallel that occurred in the 1970’s, when Pocket Books tried to revive the Spider; they repackaged him in a paperback series, striving for an image of what was then cool and thrusting Richard Wentworth into a contemporary setting.

When Pocket Books reprinted and updated The City Destroyer in 1975, the collapse of the Sky Building was replaced with the collapse of the World Trade Center - Stuart Hopen's essay on The Spider

Regardless of how much reality Page was infusing into his stories (because, again, he took a lot of his material from newspapers) or how much he foresaw intentionally or not, writing The Spider definitely took it's toll on him, and as the magazine neared it's final stretch with him on the helm, certain parts did began taking a more philosophical or religious tone, as more of Page's own beliefs, more of Page's attempts to use it as a vehicle to do good, began to bleed through the page.

And ultimately I think that's also what the story of Dick and Nita's first meeting is about, sort of an extended analysis not just of Nita, who Page himself said was a character he conceived as "the epitome of womanhood" and everything he thought admirable about it, but also of Wentworth's own character, and the things Page wanted to get through in his time.

Religion crept deeper into the series with each succeeding year. By all accounts, Norvell Page was a man of deep faith and spirituality who just happened to be writing the exploits of a hero whose idea of mercy was a bullet in the brain instead of the stomach.

In the 100th novel, Death and The Spider, Wentworth battles Death itself - or so it seems - and on Christmas Eve, he is shot so badly while protecting the President from assassination that everyone believes he's dead - including himself.

Dead or not, he forces himself to fight on, sustained only by reciting the 23rd Psalm over and over again.

Nita laughed and accepted a cigarette. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't," Wentworth's voice was sharp. "I told you I am only a channel. Don't confuse me with the Source."

It stopped words on Nita's lips, and it gave here a new respect and a new and sudden attitude toward this man beside her, this man who could laugh and jest with everyone about him, and who could teach like a very oracle ... and who carried about him such a sense of dedication to high purpose. He might seem apart from the world, but he was utterly and completely of it.

Nita said, half-laughing, half-serious, "May I like you? And may I admire your ... adjustment?"

"Don't envy my adjustment," he grinned at her. "Have one yourself." He snapped flame to her cigarette with his lighter, and his lean, strong hand was steady and sure as his eyes, as his voice. He was speaking to her but he was looking at the lighter. "I have found my mission," he said quietly.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

September Reading Roundup

It's time for this month's reading roundup, but first, a little announcement that no one but me will care about: I'm staying off the internet until the election. Well, mostly. I'll still post to Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram when the mood strikes me or when I have a writing update. I'll still post Rant Rave Reviews on here and Youtube (the theme this month is spooky stories, of course). But I won't be interacting much (ie, I won't be spending hours reading through Twitter and Tumblr and watching random Youtube videos I've already seen). If you @ me or retweet or reblog a post, I'll probably respond in a day or two, but other than that, I'm becoming a recluse.

The reason for this is twofold. First, I'm offering it up. For those of you who aren't Catholic, "offering it up" is sort of like giving up something for Lent. You discipline yourself by enduring some deprivation (either natural, like pain, or of your own choosing, like not watching hours of Youtube). At the same time, you offer up your (albeit, in this case, slight) suffering as a sacrifice for some good. I'm offering it up for America. Not the election, America. Because, not to get political or anything, but no matter who wins the garbage fire that is the 2020 election, America is doomed unless our culture changes. As I said to a friend recently, if this was the 90s, we could weather whatever storm Trump or Biden brings, but people hate each other so much right now that our country is pretty much over. Unless...

I don't know what I'm praying for, but I'm praying, praying that come what may, God in his Providence will drag something good out of all of it, kicking and screaming if need be. I will also be doing a rosary novena with my diocese October 14th through October 22, and then another one with the USCCB October 26th to November 3rd. Join me if you would like.

On a lighter note, I'm a volunteer writer-in-residence again at my hometown library, so I'm obligated to focus on writing this month, and need write, research, and workshop without distraction. I have two Forensics and Fiction books all tabbed and ready to read, plus a book about army nurses in the Vietnam War. The plot of book one in the alternate-history/fantasy/mystery trilogy is fast congealing, and I want to strike while the iron is hot. I need to focus! My ultimate goal is to be ready to write a little each day in November, returning to my heretical NaNoWriMo ways.

I'll let you know how it all turns out in my first Novemebr post, which will be a reading roundup of October. Until then, let's take a look at what I read this month:

Two Six Shooters Beat Four Aces: Stories of a Young Arizona by Barbara Marriott Ph.D

Genre: History - Anecdotes

Why I read it: Arizona book club pic

What I thought of it: While it's clear that Marriott is an excellent researcher, she is either a bad writer or in serious need of an editor. Individual paragraphs proved internally repetitive, and the overall structure of each chapter was slapdash. It needed smoother transitions from anecdote to anecdote or more section breaks and section headers.

Would I recommend it: No, everyone in my book club, including myself, hated it.

7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Genre: Supernatural Mystery

Why I read it: I'd been wanting to for a while; the premise caught my eye

What I thought of it: The body-hopping time-loop stuff was brilliant, the characters likable, and the story delightfully twisty. The last twist and conclusion were unsatisfying, though.

Would I recommend it: Yes!! Despite it's flaws, it was an exciting, fun, and original book. I will definitely be reading Turton's next book (which involves a closed circle of suspects and, possibly, demons!?).

The Exorcist by William Blatty

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: I'd been meaning to for a while, and writing research gave me an excuse to do so

What I thought of it: I like that it doesn't pull it's punches; I'm kind of shocked that it's only been censored a couple times, actually. It presents demons as they are: hateful, grotesque jerks who get off on picking on humans. I also liked that there was a murder mystery subplot. I'm not sure I approve 100% of the ending, theologically speaking, but that's a pretty minor quibble.

Would I recommend it: Yes, but it is not for the feint of heart. Trigger warnings for child sexual abuse, adult sexual abuse, language, violence, the works.

How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps by Ben Shapiro

Genre: Nonfiction - politics

Why I read it: It's a long story that I shall tell about in my memoir of library life, but not here. Also the cover is 10/10

What I thought of it: It was ok. I already knew most of what he said. I disagreed with some of it, like seeing the constant moving of people from town to town in 1950s as a positive thing; in actuality, "company men" in the 50s were moved around so they wouldn't have community ties but instead ties to the company, which is anti-human to the extreme. I did think it was interesting that he combatted the idea of America's greatness being built off the backs of slaves by pointing out that slavery was actually terrible for the south, as reliance on slavery retarded their economic system well after the Civil War.

Would I recommend it: If you're into political books, sure.

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson

Genre: True Crime - forensic history

Why I read it: I love historical true crime

What I thought of it: It was ok, but kind of didn't make the case for him being "The American Sherlock Holmes" (even though people really did call him that back in the day), in that a lot of his conclusions ended up being a little dubious. Still, from a research perspective, it did establish when various forensic practices started being used in the USA.

Would I recommend it: Maybe? I personally liked Father of Forensics more. I'd say this book is, like, 3/5 stars, just because it could have been tightened up a bit.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: It's spooky season!

What I thought of it: Having already seen the movie, I knew pretty much what was going to happen, but I love Gaiman's turn of phrase.

Would I recommend it: Yes, especially for children who are too young for scarier fair but still want a creepy story.

The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: It's still spooky season!

What I thought of it: I honestly liked this a lot more than the Cthulhu mythos stuff. Rather than vague demoniac blasphemies or black cyclopean gulfs, there's a real tangible cult that sacrifices (reanimated?) corpses to a pale, dancing, snickering Thing on a golden pedestal. I dig it.

Would I recommend it: Yes. Just... ignore the racism. That goes for all of Lovecraft's stuff, by the by.

Herbert West: Reanimator by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: Turns out I like HP Lovecraft. Who knew?

What I thought of it: You gotta love mad scientists who try to reanimate the dead, right? I think this one would make an excellent mini-series.

Would I recommend it: Yes.

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

Genre: Essay - illustration/comics

Why I read it: I loved Hyperbole and a Half, and was excited when I saw Brosh was coming out with another book.

What I thought of it: It was okay. Not as good as her first book, but for an understandable reason: medical complications and her sister's suicide (that's not a spoiler, as the book is dedicated to her sister). Thus, the book had a heaviness to it that the first one didn't. Still there were some parts that made me laugh so hard I cried.

Would I recommend it: Maybe? I'd say borrow it from the library, but don't buy it, unless you are also suffering a loss. It might be really relatable and cathartic in that case.

The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: I like HP Lovecraft

What I thought of it: Not as scary as I had been led to believe by my brother, but still a good story. I plan on reading Lovecraft Country at some point, which supposedly flips Lovecraft's racism on it's head, and so help me, if it doesn't make reference to this story and chattel slavery, I'll throw a fit.

Would I recommend it: Yes. I like that the cat didn't die. :)

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: I just... I just really like Lovecraft, okay?

What I thought of it: I find the sea inherently creepy, so when you have a decrepit backwater filled with a fishy stench and secrets, it's gotta be good.

Would I recommend it: Yes, especially if you liked the Fishing Hamlet part of the Bloodborne DLC (which I could not help but think of the whole time reading this novella).

The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: You know why.

What I thought of it: So if you've read enough Lovecraft, especially Dunwich Horror and Shadow Over Innsmouth, you already know what's coming... or do you? Right away, HP establishes that there is a special knock the guy uses with his friend, so I assumed the twist end would involve the Thing appearing in the guy's body but not using the knock, thus revealing itself to be (redacted for slight spoilers). I was wrong. That's not how it played out, and the way it played out was so much creepier!!!

Would I recommend it: Yeah! I really liked this one!

Haunter of the Dark by H.P. Lovecraft

Genre: Horror

Why I read it: Yup

What I thought of it: Same ol', same ol, but what I thought was cool in this one was that the supposedly superstitious Italian Catholic immigrants totally know what's up and spend their stormy nights keeping the Haunter at bay with nothing but candles and flashlights. What a neat detail!

Would I recommend it: Yup. :)

[dailyaudiobible]

06/02/2020 DAB Transcript

2 Samuel 19:11-20:13, John 21:1-25, Psalms 120:1-7, Proverbs 16:16-17

Today is the second day of June welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it's great to be here with you today as we get ourselves moved in and settled into this brand-new 6th month of the year. And, so, as we’re getting settled into this new month let's take the next step forward on our journey through the Scriptures this year. We’re reading from the God's Word Translation this week and we are certainly continuing with the journey through the life of King David in second Samuel. But today is a day of importance, a day to recognize. Today we will complete the book of John, which means that we will conclude the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John today - which means we will be leaving the stories that center around Jesus ministry in his earthly life and moving toward what comes next, what came next. So, we’ll kind of be leaving a whole category in the Scriptures, the Gospels and moving forward, which also means that if you’ve been kind of checking off your days using the Daily Audio Bible app and you’ve kind of listened through from the beginning of the year and they're all checked off, that when we check off today we will achieve the Gospels badge. But let’s…let’s talk about that later. Let's get into the Scriptures and let's pick up the story of David. Second Samuel chapter 19 verse 11 through 20 first 13.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we concluded the gospel of John today even as we watched kind of topsy-turvy way that the king was restored to the kingdom, King David in second Samuel. But we watched the very last conversation that is written down in the Gospels today and it is a picture of Jesus cooking breakfast for his friends who were on the Sea of Galilee fishing. It’s like the story is coming to a conclusion at the same place in the same kind of setting that it began. It was Jesus who was walking along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, right, saying, “come follow me” to these men who left everything and followed him. And now here they are back on the sea. Jesus is back in the Galilee making some breakfast telling them to cast their net on the other side. And they…they begin to become fully aware of who they're interacting with because of that. And they catch all those fish. And you remember those fish, all those fish that they caught when Jesus told them to cast their nets on the other side the first time? They left those according to the Scriptures. They dragged them on shore, and they left them and followed Him. So, almost poetic, almost beautiful, that after the resurrection He comes back and gives them a big catch of fish that they can pull onto shore. And, of course, then at breakfast Jesus is talking to Peter and he asks him three different times if Peter loves Him, if Peter loves Jesus. And each time Peter's like, “you know I love you.” So, there's, you know, a theological understanding here or a parallel here as well. Peter denied Jesus three times. And, so, over the centuries many theologians have seen this parallel. Maybe Jesus is pressing into that, into those betrayals, going after his heart, healing him, restoring him and inviting him into his destiny to “feed my sheep.” And that scene there, it…I mean the whole thing is really, really beautiful, but that scene there is the one that usually gets the attention, Jesus pressing in on Peter, maybe restoring him from the denials back in Jerusalem. But what comes next is like one of the most compelling things in the whole Bible to me. Like, so I can't go by it any time we pass this particular territory. I can't go by it without mentioning it because it's riveting to me. Like it…it's personally challenging to me. It's something that I ask myself throughout the rest of the year. Like, all of the time. So, basically Jesus is talking to Peter and telling him, you know, “when you were young you could go wherever you wanted to go but when you’re old, you’re gonna…you’re gonna go somewhere you don't want to go. And the gospel then unpacks the fact that Jesus is telling Peter in advance that you will die a martyr's death. Peter's reaction to that news is to turn around and look at John, the beloved disciple, at least that's the way it seems to be depicted here and then look back to Jesus and go, “what about him? Lord, what about him?” Jesus response to Peter is, “if I want him to live until I come again, how does that concern you? Follow me.” In other translations Jesus says something similar, “what is that to you?” Right? “How does that concern you?” So, let's pause. How does that concern you? I ask myself that all year long. “What is that to you? How does that concern you?” And its good exercise to get into because, you know, the offenses that we take, the slights that we are given, the things that happen that set us off, “what is that to you? How does that concern you? You follow me.” Those are the last words of Jesus depicted in the Gospels, “follow me.” That's the last thing that Jesus says that’s recorded in the Gospels. “How does that concern you? You follow me.” If we could…if we could take that little piece at the very, very last sentences of the gospel of John and remember that, remember that beautiful scene of Jesus cooking breakfast for his friends, of restoring them, of loving them and then speaking directly to the comparison game that we all play because that's what's happening here, Jesus is telling Peter about his…his life and Peter just wants to compare to…to the other disciple, “what about him?” Let’s remember Jesus words, “how does that concern you?” Does that concern you? Does that have anything to do with you? If it does what is it and why? “As for you, you follow me”

Prayer:

Jesus it is wonderful to reach this point in the year. It is wonderful to know that we've made progress and that we've progressed through the Gospels, but it’s also a little bit of bittersweet moment to get here because we’ve been walking with You since we began this journey. And it's not as if we’re leaving it's just that we’re moving into the things that began to occur after Your resurrection. And, so, we’re not walking through stories that tell of Your humanity and Your life, Your earthly life. We’re moving into the stories where Your Spirit flows upon the earth and begins to change things dramatically. So, that is exciting, but we mark it. We mark the moment here on this day that we conclude the Gospels. And, so, we thank You for all that You have spoken to us through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as we've gotten to know Your personality, as we've gotten to know Your ways. And we can see them in human form in ways that we can fully comprehend, even though comprehending You is beyond our capacity, So, we thank You for all that You have shown us and we invite You into the days ahead. Come Holy Spirit. And that is exactly what we will be reading about in the days ahead. Come Holy Spirit and lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask, Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find what's going on around here. There’s always something or another going on around here, but today is a special day because we concluded the Gospels today. So, if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app and you’re checking off the days that you listened to and you’ve listened to everyday up till now then you should get the pop-up that tells you you have completed the Gospels and have been awarded the Gospels badge for this year. You can always go look at these in the achievement section. So, you push that little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner of the app and look for achievements. And clicking into there shows you kind of the progress that you personally are making through the Scriptures this year and where you are in the different categories or sections of the Bible. Like for example, we’ve concluded the Pentateuch, so we've achieved that badge a while ago, but today we achieve the Gospels. And we just continue to go forward until we have achieved the entire Bible. So, that's exciting. It was exciting to achieve my badge. It was particularly exciting because I've drew…like these badges, like this progress, this has been on drawing board and dreaming board for years. And, so, it’s just very, very complicated because everybody has a different journey. And, so, to have individual journeys like this…there’s a lot of computation going on. But, yeah, such a joy to reach the end of the Gospels and achieve the Gospels badge for this year. So, make sure you check into that. Check it out. If you don't have the app yet make sure you download it and get involved.

And now we need to talk about something a little more serious. And this is such a strange year, isn’t it? Yeah, I’ve never seen a year like this one so far in my lifetime and I think that's true. And we've had some really, really horrible things happen in the United States over the last week. And I find myself for the second time in only a couple months saying things about what's going on because I’m really, really trying to maintain a space for us that God's word speaks, we listen and then we go back into the world refreshed because there's no shortage of places to find bad things to focus upon. But the…the unrest that has been happening throughout our cities, like you're in those cities, we’re in those cities. It's in my city. It's in all of our cities. So, we’re all aware and it's bothering us all on many many levels. I'm pretty sure it's not a secret that I'm a white guy, but I'm a white guy that was never raised to consider skin color to be anything of importance in terms of…in terms of eternity, in terms of spirituality because we all need Jesus. And I'm not sure but I don't think…I don't think our spirits have color. And for me, it was a black man who took a 16-year-old kid who was bound and determined to find some way into the music business, it was a black man who took me under his wing and brought me into his studio and let me figure things out for free at nighttime. I was the white kid going into the black community to learn. I can remember…I mean this is the time when gangsta rap was like starting to happen. And, so, I can remember working in one studio trying to work on Christian music while gangsta raps happening in the other studio and guys would come and get me because I'm the only white person around to come listen to what they're saying and offer opinions. So, I’ve been seeing all this stuff that's going on like everybody else and I'm shaking my head like most everybody else going like, “I don't think this is how it's supposed to go. In fact, I know this is not how it's supposed to go.” And I’ve been thinking about it a lot. We probably all have. It’s kind of wall-to-wall in the news. You can't escape it. So, you think about it. And, so, I just wonder if I could just tell us a little story, a true one, that happened…that happened a long time ago.

Once upon a time there was an empire and its capital was Rome and it was known as the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire continued to expand until in the first century there was a province called Syria. And within that province there were many many cities and millions of people, but there was a city called Jerusalem. There was also a region known as the Galilee, and there were people there. They had previously been there for a long time. In fact, they even ruled the land for a time, but they were conquered and carried away. And, so, the land kind of changed hands over time. And when we get to the first century this is a part of the Roman Empire and these people who were kind of living in the land, it had previously been theirs, but that….and they believed it was their ancestral homeland and…but it was occupied by this empire. And the people of this empire, they were pagan, they believed very, very differently than the original people, the Hebrew people, the Jewish people. But Rome was in control and this was a part of the Empire. And, so, Roman people were all throughout the land and Roman soldiers were all throughout the land. In fact, they policed the land. And the Hebrew people felt oppressed by the Roman people. They felt marginalized by these people. There was brutality toward these Hebrew people. And these Hebrew people were afraid, and they were crying out to God, but some of them, they would…they would kind of ambush and cause harm and mayhem and burn things and they would attack things. And, so, that escalated things. And, so, there was this incredible amount of tension percolating just waiting to boil over. And into that environment, a little baby boy was born and His name was Jesus and He grew up around it all. And when He became a man, He began to teach and speak to His people who were oppressed and marginalized and pushed to the side and were unheard. They were at an economic disadvantage and they felt like they had no voice. And the forces set against them, if they stepped out of line was brutal. And, so, they were simmering in their culture. You might say that if they had the chance, they would have held up a sign that said, “Jewish lives matter”, but they had it bad. They weren't even allowed to be citizens of Rome. They were truly a people occupied or truly a people living in and among another people with no real way forward. After this little kid Jesus grew up and did His ministry, He ended up being killed by these Romans on a cross. Of course, He was given up and betrayed by His own people. So, this little kid, Jesus who grew up and was killed, was executed unjustly. And these tensions, they kept happening until one day these people completely revolted and they took over for a while but then the Empire came and crushed them and destroyed Jerusalem altogether.

But this Jesus, He ministered to these people who were feeling the way that they were feeling. He knew how they were feeling because He was feeling it too. He was raised in it. It was His ethnicity. And He came to them and they came to Him and He had words for their situation. And He said, “blessed are those who are poor and realize their need for God, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. Blessed are those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing what's right, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” Certainly, I say the story as a way of bringing comfort even to my own self. But I say the story because the gospel is no less relevant right this minute.

Jesus told us to open our eyes and see. May we do that, my brothers and sisters, may we open our eyes and see. And rather than engaging in useless rhetoric and…and fighting on the Internet and binge watching the news, maybe we could open our eyes and see because we can add to the noise and there's plenty of it, there's no shortage or we could reveal this kingdom. Is this real or not? I mean, like are we here believing this is real or are we here because it's just a calming place to go every day to have a few minutes to catch our breath so we can face the rest of the day? Like do we believe this? If we believe this, then we must open our eyes and see. What that means for you may be totally different than what that means for me and that is okay. We are part of the same body. And friends, we are the body of Christ. That means black people, white people, Asian people, Hispanic people, all people are in the body of Christ. Believers all over the world have all kinds of skin colors and somehow Jesus lets us all in as His body, right? Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His site. Jesus loves the little children of the world and the gospel is as relevant now as when it was forming under the ministry of Jesus Christ in the first century in Roman Syria. And they didn't have eyes to see or ears to hear, but do we?

And, so, you know, the way things usually go around here is that I'm gonna tell you I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow. And that's true. I love you. I don't care what color you are. I care what color you are, as it relates to the story that you have but it doesn't change anything for me. I don't care if you’re green although that would be unusual. So, I am telling you I love you and I will be waiting for you here tomorrow. And this is the time that the voices come, and we hear each other's voices and we pray for each. We’re not gonna do that today. I'm just gonna let the music play for the next few minutes. This is the time to be silent. This is the time to pray for the mercy of Christ. So, use this time however you want. Shut it off and move into your day or linger here for a moment and listen for the leading of the Holy Spirit. We just observed and celebrated Pentecost the day before yesterday. We are told in the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is here, is here to be our comforter, the one who will lead us into all truth. We need that now more than ever and at least as bad as they needed it when it fell upon them in the upper room in Jerusalem on Pentecost. Use this time to invite the Holy Spirit to lead you forward in the way that you should go. And may the Lord bless you and keep you. Amen.

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

[glowing-disciple]

Yesterday I remarked that one of the things that, in my opinion, can help pull someone out of their cozy JW cult mindset is to challenge their doctrine by using their doctrine. I thought I’d go in more depth about it today, using an example where the NWT seems to be contradicting the Watchtower.

This is going to be a long post, so I’ll spare your dashboards and put the bulk of it under a cut.

Relevant Doctrines

First off, let’s go over the various doctrines that are about to be challenged. This way, everybody is on a level playing field; this is what the Watchtower teaches, and what you’re expected to believe as a Witness.

Jesus is not God While nobody believes that Jesus and His Father are the same Person, most branches of Christianity believe in the Trinity, and thus believe that the Son and the Father are both God, yet separate Persons. Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the Trinity, instead teaching that Jesus is a created being of exceptionally high rank. An important part of this teaching is that Jesus cannot perform miracles using His own power -- Jehovah acts through Jesus, but Jesus is only a conduit.

The dead no longer exist You may have heard of the Protestant doctrine of “soul sleep”; ie, the doctrine that says a person’s soul enters a temporary dormancy until it’s reawakened at the Last Judgement. Jehovah’s Witnesses take this one step further: they teach that a person ceases to exist when they die. They don’t believe in “souls” like most Christians; to them, it is merely an active force that powers the mind, like the electricity that powers the device you’re reading this on. When you die, the power “goes out” and that’s it. This also means that resurrections aren’t just a matter of stapling the soul back onto the body it belongs with; instead, they involve re-creating the person as they were just prior to death, much like Star Trek’s transporter reintegrating someone.

Jehovah does not share His Glory This is fairly consistent with mainstream Christian doctrine, as there are many verses that make this rather clear. Isaiah 42:8 is one such example. Put bluntly, it’s a serious sin to claim credit for something God has done.

Scripture is inerrant This is another common belief among Christians, as we generally believe that the Bible cannot be wrong or contradict itself. We can narrow this belief down further if we want, as many Christians, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believe this is only true of the original manuscripts; translations are effectively under some degree of suspicion. Special Bibles exist to help interested people read the original text for themselves; these are known as “interlinear Bibles”, and the Watchtower does provides one: the Kingdom Interlinear. Now I have an issue with this work, but that issue doesn’t apply to what we’re going to be looking at in this post, so we can freely ignore that problem and its implications for now.

The Challenge

Okay, so now that the preliminaries are out of the way, so how is the New World Translation of the Bible challenging the above doctrines?

The passage to look at is John 2:18-22. The NWT’s translation of this passage reads thusly:

Therefore, in answer, the Jews said to him: “What sign have you to show us, since you are doing these things?” In answer Jesus said to them: “Break down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Therefore the Jews said: “This temple was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was talking about the temple of his body. When, though, he was raised up from the dead, his disciples called to mind that he used to say this; and they believed the Scripture and the saying that Jesus said.

I’d prefer more paragraph breaks, but overall this rendering is the same as you’d find in any English language Bible. This means that the problem I’m seeing is either something wrong with how every Bible translates this passage, or something wrong with what the Watchtower teaches. The idea that every translator, including the people who created the NWT, would make the exact same mistakes when translating a passage strikes me as pretty far fetched, but that’s just my opinion.

Why this is an issue

Let’s break the problems down.

The first problem is Jesus’ use of the word “I” in verse 19. He is saying that the Jews will kill him, and three days later, “I will raise it [his body] up”. Think carefully about what’s being said here.

To begin with, Jesus is claiming that He will perform an action while dead. If the dead do not exist anymore, then how would Jesus be capable of doing anything? Without resorting to special pleading ( a logical fallacy that says the rules can be ignored this one time “just because” ), there is no theological explanation for how this is possible.

Also, by saying He will raise Himself, Jesus is actively taking credit for something Jehovah has done. There are a lot of verses that state Jehovah performed the resurrection itself, but we only need to cite Acts 5:30 to make this point. Jesus needed to be sinless in order to pay the Ransom, but how He have been sinless if He so openly gave Himself credit for Jehovah’s work? Keep in mind that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept that Jesus and Jehovah are one in the Trinity, so Jesus could not have been using “I” to refer to the Trinity here.

The third problem comes in verse 22. The disciples remembered what Jesus had said, and believed that Jesus had been telling the truth in verse 19. In other words, Scripture (which cannot contradict itself or be in error) is explicitly saying that Jesus did not lie when He took credit for His resurrection. This essentially creates a trap made of circular logic: if Jesus’ words in verse 19 were false in any way, then the Scriptures and teachings of the Apostles are also false and worthless. But if Jesus’ words were true, then He must have somehow taken an action while dead and somehow shared the credit with Jehovah, both of which are directly at odds with what the Watchtower teaches.

How can you rationalize this away and still claim to follow the Bible rather than men?

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I saw your post about how Xianity is not essential to Judaism and and I don't want to derail it it but one particular thing really struck me while reading it; the concept of teshuva compared to Xian forgiveness, particularly how those differences really reflect how I've seen both religious cultures (???) handle person-to-person forgiveness. Judaism (at least from what I've seen) has actual steps for apologising, and they're all really good common-sense rules like 'don't do it again'. (1/3)

(cont.) The burden is on the offender to make things right, they’re the active party. In contrast, in Xianity you don’t have to do anything to make it up to the person you hurt. In fact, in Xian communities there’s usually a burden on the /hurt/ party to forgive and it’s seen as really cruel and a sign of moral weakness that you won’t let them feel better about what they did, even (sometimes /especially/) when they’re not sorry and intend to keep hurting you. (2/3)

(cont.) To me these two things feel like extensions of the attitude towards divine forgiveness and repentance. In Xianity receiving forgiveness feels like a very passive thing that’s all centred on your own guilt, your own inherent sin, and an attitude of ‘I said sorry so my hands are clean and now you have to make it up to me for making me feel bad for what I did’, etc. Judaism, on the other hand, seems to take a very pro-active, balanced approach of doing better for yourself and others. (3/3)

Hi Sarahsyna, 

The differences between xian and Jewish understandings of what forgiveness is and how we should go about it are interesting, no? 

I would say this is a pretty accurate analysis of the differences and where they come from. However, I would like to expand on this and add a bit of nuance to it, if I may. 

There are different levels and types of wrongs to be forgiven, and the responses to them should be different. 

Wrongs that are relatively minor, are fixable, and/or that are relatively common amongst otherwise decent people; 

Wrongs that major, unfixable, and/or that are criminal/violent in nature; 

Wrongs committed against oneself

Wrongs committed against others (usually in your sphere of influence, such as to your family members, but not necessarily) 

In my experience, Judaism does a much better job of making these distinctions than xianity. 

Minor Wrongs vs. Major Wrongs

Xian forgiveness is really appropriate for minor wrongs (with proportionately minor consequences.) Things like: someone took your lunch once, which creates an annoying but temporary problem. We shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, and as frustrating as that situation is, it’s not worth holding a grudge against someone forever because of a dumb prank. 

Judaism similarly holds that we shouldn’t hang onto a grudge over this, and encourages people to let it go. Give the offender ample chance to apologize, but if they don’t, don’t waste your energy being mad at them. (Have you forgiven them? No. Should you still move on with your life? Yes.) 

Of course, if by taking your lunch, they caused you to be unable to take a vital medicine, which consequently put you in the hospital, it should change the equation, no? 

In xianity as I experienced it (**please insert that caveat throughout this discussion), it actually doesn’t change the equation. The intent of the offender was a dumb prank and so the forgiveness should be equally straightforward, even if the consequences to you are more severe than that person realized they would be when they did it. You should try to put yourself in the prankster’s shoes and imagine how awful you’d feel and how badly you’d want to be forgiven if it were you. 

In Judaism, that person would need to do a lot more to make it right before asking for forgiveness. That might involve helping you pay your hospital bills, picking up your slack at work and/or otherwise trying to help in concrete ways because while their intent was minor, the effect on you was major. They must cope with that reality in the same way that you must. Might their intent factor into how inclined you are to forgive them afterwards? Sure! But they need to show that they realize how serious the consequences of their actions are and seek to remedy it first. 

Fixable vs. Unfixable Wrongs

The consequences of some wrongs are fixable to varying degrees; others are not. If you take five dollars from my bag and then feel bad about it an hour later and put the money back? You’ve totally rectified the situation. 

On the other extreme? While I have put in many, many hours of therapy and self-reflection and healing and therefore have gotten it under control, I will never not have trauma from having been raped and abused. Even if the perps spent the rest of their lives truly regretting what they did and doing hard work on behalf of survivors, they could never undo the damage they caused, even if they subsequently changed their behavior 180 degrees. (Editorial note: unsurprisingly, none of them have actually done any of that.) 

Growing up, I felt an unbearable need to magnanimously forgive the perp despite his refusal to admit to what he did or apologize, and even as a culturally xian adult, I still felt a compulsory need to forgive subsequent offenders at least for my own sake in order to move on. 

Judaism relieved me of any responsibility to forgive any of them, ever, because they have never apologized. I’m not even allowed to forgive them since they’ve never asked for it, but I don’t have to do so in order to heal because nothing they could do could heal me anyway. Them apologizing wouldn’t change the reality of their acts and me forgiving them wouldn’t change their future behavior. My healing is (for better or worse) my problem, and their becoming better people is their problem. 

In a better world where they did hold themselves accountable? That would be stellar, but even in that world my remedy comes from the peace of mind in knowing that they aren’t hurting other people, from them still staying the hell away from me, and the justice in knowing that they have to live with what they did and are truly reckoning with it. 

As a side note, it’s worth noting that this is why lashon hara is compared to murder by the rabbis. Lashon hara literally means “evil speech,” but refers to true statements that did not need to be made for any serious purpose and are malicious in nature. As an example, “Alex has gotten really overweight this year, huh?” might strictly speaking be true, but is nevertheless clearly intended to be mean and gossipy. Why is lashon hara taken so seriously? Because you can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube. You can’t unring that bell. Once those words have left your lips, they’re out there, forever. You can apologize, but you can’t unsay what you already said. 

Grace vs. Accountability

Ultimately, I believe that the foundational difference between how xianity approaches forgiveness and how Judaism approaches forgiveness are how it is defined in each. 

In xianity, forgiveness flows, as you said from the idea that humans were forgiven for our sins by Jesus on his own initiative, and therefore we should replicate that kind of forgiveness in our own lives. Sin is inevitable, and the work of repairing it can be done by the person who was wronged, the same way that Jesus repaired humanity’s relationship with God through his sacrifice. This creates a model that centers grace given by the wronged person. Deservingness on the part of the wrongdoer does not factor into the equation. 

At its best, this gives the person who was wronged the agency to address the problem themselves without waiting around for the wrongdoer to get it together. It has the potential to allow people with pain to let go of that pain. At its worst, it creates a system where victims are pressured (by their communities, spiritual leaders, and/or themselves) to forgive at great cost to themselves with zero accountability on the part of the offender. 

However. 

That assumes, as a baseline, that forgiveness is a prerequisite to moving on with your life. In the same way that forgiveness by God/salvation is a prerequisite to eternal life in xianity, so too is forgiveness between individuals a prerequisite to living the rest of your life without that baggage. 

Judaism makes no such assumption. In fact, it comes to rather the opposite conclusion: forgiveness may be necessary for the wrongdoer to move on, but you, the wronged person, should feel no need to provide it unless and until the person has actually rectified the situation and asked for forgiveness. (And even under those circumstances, while forgiving is the morally correct thing to do, you aren’t always actually obligated to do so.) 

Judaism operates on an accountability model that says that if you harm another person, it’s on you to fix it to that person’s satisfaction. If you are harmed by another person, you should do whatever you need to in order to move forward, but you don’t have to say that they’ve met their burden unless and until they actually do. In this view, forgiveness is not defined as grace, but rather as recognition that the person has actually held themselves accountable for their actions. 

This, too, flows from a theological perspective: G-d expects us to constantly be striving to better ourselves, which we can only do by holding ourselves fully accountable for our actions. We are moral creatures, capable of making an active choice between good and evil. While mistakes are inevitable, we elevate ourselves spiritually, not by the grace of G-d or others, but by evaluating and reflecting on our own behavior and then taking active steps towards long-lasting change. 

All of that, however, refers to direct wrongs between the wrongdoer and the wronged. I would be extremely remiss if I didn’t address … … 

Wrongs Committed Against You vs. Wrongs Committed Against Others in Your Vicinity

One of the most serious problems I have with xian theology is the fact that the concept of grace doesn’t just apply between the wrongdoer and the wronged. It also applies between bystanders and the wronged. 

Here is a great example of this: 

Many of you may not know that one of my four children has Down syndrome. Her name is Bekah, and today she is 25. Bekah went to public school in elementary and middle school and was in normal classes and had lots of friends. Later, she attended college.

Many years ago, Bekah wanted to try out for cheer leading. My wife and I were amazed at how she learned the routines – jumping in the air, doing splits, and yelling out the cheers. Unfortunately, she did not make the team which was very disappointing for her and us. She had a really hard time understanding that she could no longer cheer with the other girls.

Soon afterwards, we received a letter from the coach explaining Bekah was not cut from the team because of her disability but because…she kicked, hit, yelled and cussed while in line with the other girls. We were stunned, no shocked, because Bekah had never exhibited any of those behaviors ever in any situation.

At a sleepover a few weeks later, which Bekah hosted in our home, several of the girls who had made the team asked my wife why Bekah had not made the team. My wife gently told them about the letter. They all immediately cried out, “Ms. Ellen, that’s not true at all. Bekah didn’t do any of those things. In fact, she did great in the tryouts.” Ellen called for me and asked me to come hear what the girls were saying. They repeated it all again.

This person had not only lied but had impugned Bekah’s character and we were angry! What had been done to our daughter was dastardly. The question afterwards was, “What are we going to do about this?” We knew we could not pull these girls into a dispute with this coach. So, we had no recourse. This coach had hurt a person who could not speak up for herself due to her disability and there was nothing we could do about it…except forgive.

Did this person deserve to be forgiven? Absolutely not. But we were not going to allow a root of bitterness to grow within us that Hebrews 12:15 warns about. We were not about to give this person power over our lives. We were not about to give Satan power over us. Was it easy? No! Everything in us cried out for justice but there was none to be had.

So, we trusted Christ in us, the greatest “forgiver” of all time, to live through us so we could forgive. We wanted to live like who we are in Christ, “forgivers”, in obedience from the love in our hearts for our Father. We wanted to “forgive one another just as God had forgiven us in Christ” (Ephesians 4:32) So, we sat before the Lord and poured out to Him our anger, our hurt, and our desire for justice. Then, because God had forgiven us for all our sins we did not deserve to be forgiven for, we forgave this person; meaning, we released the person from the debt we believe they owed us. In this case, the debt would have been an admission to us and especially to Bekah of the wrong they had done.

A few weeks later, would you believe that we saw this person at a church we were visiting? We were both so glad we had been honest with God about the hurts we received from the offense and then chose to forgive. We live free today from bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness. Praise God!

[Source: x] 

Okay, so we don’t have time to unpack all of that, but just… sit with the fact, for a moment, that Bekah is utterly silenced by this approach. Did her parents have any right to forgive the coach? No, no they did not. That was Bekah’s right, and Bekah’s alone. 

Compare that to what Rabbi Telushkin relays in his Code of Jewish Ethics: 

”The differing attitudes of Jews and Christians on granting forgiveness for serious, particularly violent, crimes is reflected in an incident that Dr. Solomon Schimmel, a psychologist and a religious Jew, relates in his book, Wounds Not Healed, concerning a Christian woman who nursed back to life a man who had murdered her parents and raped her. The man, shocked by her behavior, asked the woman, “Why didn’t you kill me?” She replied, “I am a follower of him [i.e., Jesus] who says, ‘Love your enemy.’ “A remarkable story, but as Schimmel, writing from a Jewish perspective, asks, “Why, however, is it noble to love and take care of evil people?”

“In contrast to this woman’s attitude, when the Jewish writer Cynthia Ozick was asked if it was morally appropriate to forgive a penitent Nazi SS officer who had participated in the murder of a Jewish community in Poland, she responded: “‘I forgive you,’ we say to the child who has muddied the carpet, ‘but next time don’t do it again.’ Next time, she will leave the muddy boots outside the door; forgiveness, with its enlarging capacity, will have taught her. Forgiveness is an effective teacher. Meanwhile, the spots can be washed away. But murder is irrevocable. Murder is irreversible…. Even if forgiveness restrains one from perpetrating a new batch of corpses, will the last batch come alive again?…Forgiveness is pitiless. It forgets the victim. It cultivates sensitiveness toward the murderer at the price of insensitiveness toward the victim.”

“And what of the penitent SS officer? “Let the SS man die unshriven. Let him go to hell.”

“The Jewish view can be summed up as follows: Forgiveness is almost always a virtue, but the taking of an innocent life is an unforgivable offense.”

[Source: x] 

[sternerstufftoys]

[Jaws pun]

Chaps, we ought to talk about the forgotten. The ones left behind. Those Transformers who made their name not as part of one of the kerzillions of G1 permutations, but from other lines. Those that can stand their ground as part of a CHUG collection, but have no significant presence within G1. Yesterday’s Barricade had started from the Bayverse and been officially imported via Siege. This week we'll look at a few more Decepticons with varying amounts of canonicity.

I mean, I absolutely hate the idea of using canon as a rigidly defined gospel anyway (ugh, mixing my theological metaphors). Do what you like, you don't need the word of a Hasbro employee to make your collection choices more or less legitimate. Case in point: Sky-Byte. Sure, he was brought into the IDW universe partway through, which technically makes him canon, but come on. His comic appearances mostly coincided with his Thrilling 30 toy's presence on shop shelves, and the moment they vanished, so did he, outside of a few scant cameos.

Far more importantly, Sky-Byte was pretty much the most memorable of the 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon, mostly by virtue of being one of only a few genuinely original characters in the whole thing. Sideburn was Cheetor, X-Brawn was Ironhide, you know the drill. But an insecure warrior poet on the villain team was something new, so older fans who were finding the show otherwise snoozeworthy in how utterly bland and familiar it all was could perk up whenever Sky-Byte came on screen.

Let's be honest, RID was not a good show. Most of the criticisms of the following year's Armada cartoon could be laid at RID's feet as well. It's usually more fondly remembered though, which is probably due to the way that Armada's huge launch (a massive reboot of the franchise as a whole) was heavily hyped, and the resulting dreary mess of an anime was a huge letdown. Conversely, RID had relatively little hype, and with expectations still low after the poor reception of Beast Machines, RID could just sail through on a cloud of indifference.

Still, Sky-Byte just about earns his place as breakout character, being a huge pileup of weirdness wrapped in a suspiciously fishy shell. His original toy was a redeco of the Beast Wars Transmetal 2 character Cybershark, and by all accounts it's a toy which still more or less stands up these days. But simply rereleasing an old toy would look suspiciously lazy, so a new T30 toy was designed. All well and good, and all they had to do was find a way to improve on that 15 year-old design. And...

...and that's the problem. While T30 Sky-Byte is a decent enough toy, it needed to blow its predecessor clean out of the water to make it's own mark, but it really struggles in that regard. There's just too many ways to criticise it, most notably the utterly lacklustre robot limbs. It's easy to see the problem, and how the design tried to solve it. Like with a number of Prime toys, Sky-Byte tries to minimise his shellformer nature by folding kibble up into the limbs... but it never really works. The right bicep and both shins reveal an absolute lack of substance within, the kibble forming armour plating on top of nothing whatsoever. The right hand is particularly poor, unable to properly hold any 5mm accessories and showing up the fact that the elbow is orientated wrong, curving inward rather than upward. Great for shaking your fist at the sky or calling Scourge a wanker, but rubbish for everything else.

He makes much more sense in shark mode, but best of luck getting him there. The transformation is a right faff, not quite to the level of Straxus, but not far off. Unsurprisingly it essentially involves wrapping the shark bits around the remaining shards of robot skeleton, but the finished effect is something of a looker. But the problem here is that Sky-Byte's permanently fused into an arcing pose, as if leaping out of the water to grab some poor sod out of the air or something. Put him flat on a surface then, and it looses all that dynamism, and just looks a bit naff. What you need is a 3mm figure stand to plug up the tiny shark bumhole and show off his mighty leap. So I did, only to have the end of the stand break off inside said bumhole and become permanently lodged in there. With no way of pushing it out from the other side it got stuck in a vaccuum, which is a problem I know the designers are aware of because every other joint on every other toy since 1995 has had slits and holes to let air through when disconnecting them.

So to recap: the one and only Transformer to specifically require a flight stand does not come with one, and is in serious danger of breaking such a stand if you try and use it. That really isn't okay.

Again, this is not an upgrade from the 2001 toy. It is at best a side-step, replacing one fun but flawed toy with an entirely different fun and flawed toy. But at least the old one didn't have a bumhole that ate everything it came into contact with.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume Five, Number 11

Cold rain, dead leaves, political corruption, diplomatic betrayal…it’s been a bleak couple of weeks on the home front, but at least the music is good. This time out, we check in with the estimable Ezra Furman (pictured above) and his blistering punk rock album, as well as a smattering of shoegaze, a low frequency trio, a black metal endurance test, acoustic entropy and the sound of black holes colliding.  You know, same old, same old.  Our contributors include Andrew Forell, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw and Ian Mathers.

Blushing — Blushing (Wallflower Records)

Blushing by Blushing

Blasting out of Austin, Texas come Blushing (married couples Michelle and Jacob Soto on guitar/vocals and drums, Christina and Noe Carmona on vocals/bass and guitar) with their self-titled debut album, an impressively sophisticated addition to the shoegaze landscape. Blushing displays finely tuned dynamics, a keen sense of melody and joyous rushes of controlled noise. The interplay of twin vocals adds an ethereal Cocteau Twins sheen to the songs but Blushing aren’t afraid to let rip with layers of guitar. Producer Elliott Frazier of Ringo Deathstarr achieves space and separation in the mix that elevates this album above the basic quiet-loud-quiet formula. Underpinning all this is simply terrific songwriting and musicianship. Opener “So Many” starts with whispered vocals over strums and washes of guitar before the rhythm section enters, there’s a slow build before the track blossoms into a widescreen squall of almost psychedelic guitars and pounding drums then wanes into a feedback outro. Highlights “Dream Merchants” and “The Truth” bring classic shoegaze tropes and add a dreamy panoramic depth. Blushing is a band to watch and this is a gem of a debut.

Andrew Forell

 CARL — Solid Bottom (Astral Spirits)

Solid Bottom by CARL

“Bass, how low can you go?” CARL’s flow differs drastically from Mike D’s, but the question is undeniably pertinent. The Houston-based trio comprises three low end instruments — Damon Smith (since departed) on double bass, Andrew Durham on electric bass and radio, and bandleader Danny Kamins on baritone saxophone — hitting sonorities that range from ankle high to sub-sub-basement. But bulbous pitches can still be nimble, and so it is here. The interaction pits genre against genre, bow thrust against amp buzz, melancholy phrase against floor-rattling rumble, resulting in music that never feels at ease. Hey, Texas needs some opposition, and these folks are ready to show the way.

Bill Meyer

 Ezra Furman—Twelve Nudes (Bella Union)

Twelve Nudes by Ezra Furman

It was about the time that Ezra Furman started expressing his distinct identity—queer, cross-dressed, devoutly Jewish—that he turned into one of rock’s great songwriters. Today, freed of the need for self-abnegation, his songs balance a razor-stropped wit with sharp, assaultive hooks; he is not afraid to tell you his story, though he’s too literate and clever to deliver it unadulterated. His songs have a shape and a sting at the end like a good short story, but a punch that is considerably more visceral. “The kids are just getting started/they’ve only just learned to howl, and most of them throw in the towel/by the time that they turn 23,” he shouts raspily in “Evening Prayer aka Justice” and it leads into the kind of stirring, anthemic chorus that Titus Andronicus used to be so good at. “What Can You Do But Rock and Roll” rampages in a short-circuiting stop-start attack, like Green Day before they got so serious about themselves. In short, it’s a rock and roll of the sort that the culture has mostly abandoned, the kind that large men push to the front of Hold Steady concerts for, that causes Japandroids fans to punch the air. And yet it is not wholly of this man-centric tradition, simply because of who Ezra Furman is – lipsticked, cocktail dressed, smarter than you and willing to talk Torah. In short, here is a songwriter who has been killing it since Day of the Dog and Twelve Nudes, his latest, punk-est album (inspired equally by Jay Reatard and the Canadian poet Anne Carson) may just be his best. He is of the zeitgeist and also not, and you kind of wish more people were paying attention.

Jennifer Kelly

 Great Grandpa—Four of Arrows (Double Double Whammy)

Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa

“That’s why I hate you-ou,” cries Alex Menne in “Digger,” their voice catching in a hiccupping way that invites intimacy even at high volume. Her confidences are couched in an explosive swirl of country rocking countercurrents, concocted by the band’s two main songwriters, bassist and singer Carrie Goodwin and guitarist Pat Goodwin and executed alongside Dylan Hanwright (also guitar) and Cam LaFlam (drummer). The Seattle band’s second full-length is less brash and rock-centric than the 2017 debut Plastic Cough, which, perhaps because of their northwestern roots, elicited the term “grunge” from critics. This one is fuller, more elaborate and entirely devoid of Soundgarden references. It is decorated with lush, multi-voiced singing and baroque instrumental counterparts, and critically, uses a warmer more organic palette of instruments. That’s a violin and a banjo building out “English Garden,” not the buzz saw guitars of “Teen Challenge.” This rich, tuneful, grounded experiment might remind you of Ohmme, Hop Along or the Moondoggies, sleek but vulnerable, blown out but in control.

Jennifer Kelly

  Hatchie — Keepsake (Double Double Whammy/Ivy League/Heavenly Recordings)

Could it somehow be the fact that Harriette Pilbeam (late of Aussie indie rock band Babaganouj and here aka Hatchie, a family nickname) plays bass instead of the more standard frontwoman guitar that makes the singer-songwriter’s debut LP of new wave dream pop confections so singularly striking? Probably not, but Keepsake is assured and ingratiating enough it does leave one looking for the secret ingredient. Whether it’s the swooning likes of “Without a Blush” or “Secret” or the rougher emotional and sonic texture of “Unwanted Guest,” whether it’s playing against a sampled loop of her own voice on the chorus of “Obsessed” or achieving a particular kind of downward gazing transcendence through drum machine and synthesizer on “Stay With Me,” all of the songs here manage to hit on just the right combination of genre-appropriate beauty in texture with genuinely impressive melodic songcraft that whether Pilbeam sticks with this sound or not, she’s one to watch.  

Ian Mathers  

 Imperial Cult — Spasm of Light (Amor Fati/Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Spasm of Light by Imperial Cult

This record consists of a single, 34-minute, largely improvised track, captured live in the studio. It’s all about endurance: the band’s, who must gamely thrash and bash at their instruments, with all of black metal’s requisite speed and intensity; and the listener’s, who has to commit a fairly significant amount of attention to the thing. Hailing from Holland, Imperial Cult are a new band, subscribing to the minimal web-presence policy of some other hyper-obscure acts, so it’s tough to say if they are of the “Satanists-and-we-really-mean-it” variety of continental black metal. If they are, the record’s grandiose gesture makes a certain sense. “Spasm of Light” may thematize the notion of eternal hellfire and torment. That, in turn, would raise other theological questions (do these guys imagine that declaring themselves devil worshippers and making this sort of music is their ticket out of forever in Bedlam? or are they looking forward to it?) that this reviewer isn’t all that interested in. More immediately concerning is the music. It’s pretty good, though to these ears, it’s more evocative of the epically inclined USBM bands of the Cascadian school — especially the early records of Ash Borer — than purposefully underground European occult acts like Novae Militiae (yes please) or Deathspell Omega (no thanks). Musically, that’s a good thing. Ideologically, who knows? Do these dudes wear cowls and sacrifice small mammals? Do you really want to know? Jonathan Shaw

  Minor Pieces — The Heavy Steps of Dreaming (FatCat)

Just gorgeous. Tape hiss master Ian William Craig and a Vancouver-based songwriter named Missy Donaldson join forces in an album that hangs right in the spectral other-space between conventional song and ambient soundscape. Craig, who is a classically-trained singer, sings lead most of the time. His clear, vibrato-laced tones with clouds and miasmas of electronic wash, mass-y harmonies and fragmented bits of guitar and piano. The effect in opener “Rothko” is both luminously polished and dream-like. “Bravagallata” reaches further up the register, twining Craig’s androgynous, unearthly tenor with the warmth of nestling, caressing harmonies; it shimmers in the interstices between icy modernity and comforting folk song. “The Way We Are in Song,” arises out of glowing, shifting electronic tones, yet feels wholly natural and unaffected. The way we are in this song is beautiful, touchingly human, but more so.

Jennifer Kelly

 The Pheromoans — County Lines (ALTER)

County Lines by The Pheromoans

The Pheromoans look at the world sideways, buttressing a workman-like rock and roll sound with murky embellishments of violin and synths. With a wobbly, wavery flavor of post-punk that might remind you, a little, of Blue Orchids, they match up dense woozy riffs with literate mumbles. They are the sort of band to ask “Sharia or Sheeran” and leave you shrugging, what’s the difference? This is the Pheromoans’ fifth full-length; their diaspora previously landed them on Upset! The Rhythm; but here the edges aren’t sharp enough, the punches not hard enough to evoke that label’s other bands. Yet there’s a disconsolate appeal to these wandering tracks. “Troll Attack” eviscerates electronic interaction against a Casio beat; both the music and the lyrics poke at unsatisfactory surfaces to find darker, truer muck underneath.

Jennifer Kelly

 Matthew Revert — The Inpatient (Round Bale)

The Inpatient by Matthew Revert

Some people get ready for surgery by making a bowl of Jell-o and making sure that the Hulu bill is paid up. Not Matthew Revert. His preparation for a date with the surgeon involved pitching himself into a new creative endeavor. None of his recordings to date, which have mostly involved acoustic entropy and electro-acoustic construction, will prepare you for The Inpatient. The album comprises ten improvised but structurally sound songs, all sung in nakedly emotional Spanish. Imagine Alan Bishop adopting a persona that is not immune to shame, and you’ve got an idea where this stuff goes. Prepare to be bemused.

Bill Meyer                        

 Marcus Schmickler — Particle/Matter–Wave/Energy (Kompakt)

Space is a place that has been exercising the minds of composers of late with recent releases by William Basinski (On Time Out of Time) and The Kronos Quartet (Terry Riley: Sun Rings) being two examples that use recordings from the deep cosmos. German experimental producer Marcus Schmickler, best known for his work as Pluramon, imagines the sound of galaxies colliding on his new piece Particle/Matter-Wave/Energy, a 37-minute block of immersive ambience based on Schmickler’s use of an algorithm to model gravitational data as a tool for sonification, a process that translates information into sound. The result is huge waves of tones that rumble, whistle and bleep like a swarm fleeing a storm. Through headphones this is an almost vertigo inducing experience as Schmickler evokes the sense of plummeting through a vast endless expanse of darkness. A fascinating and often unsettling piece, Particle/Matter-Wave/Energy works as a soundscape experiment rather than a casual listen, perhaps more to admire than enjoy, but it has a fluid physicality that rescues it from mere abstraction.

Andrew Forell

 Stein Urheim — Simple Pieces & Paper Cut-outs (Hubro)

Simple Pieces & Paper Cut-Outs by Stein Urheim

John Fahey barely made it into the 21st century, but his influence looms as large as ever. Stein Urheim, a guitarist from Bergen, Norway, is merely the latest to commit his confrontation with Fahey’s legacy to wax. He tips his hat to The Yellow Princess and other recordings of that vintage in this album’s accompanying book of tablature, but even if he hadn’t put it down in writing, you could hear it in his playing. Urhein is no rooky. He’s been recording with various bands since around 2004, working with singers and playing jazz, but this is the first time he’s anything quite like this. Urheim seems to be drawn to Fahey’s most virtuosic and lyrical work, and he has the chops to back it up, but also the performative confidence to let the music develop in its own time rather than chase after it. One has to put a bit of yourself into the music if you want to transcend the “sounds like Fahey” blanket that covers so many American Primitive guitar LPs. Urheim gets this, and he doesn’t take the easy way out by, say, applying his bluesy, acoustic picking to rustic themes or folkloric sources. Nor does he go for Fahey-esque textual obfuscation or faux-mythologizing. Instead he incorporates some samba gestures into the tunes, keeps them pithy and presses them on vinyl (by no means an assured thing on Hubro, which usually markets music via CDs and the internet). The album title proclaims this music’s simplicity, but Urheim’s is not simplistic so much as clear.

Bill Meyer

[jcdevinejr]

A Peek into the Future

Take a step back and think about what’s ahead for our kids and grandkids... This one ran in the Aiken Standard on July 25th. jcd

Family milestones inevitably cause us to pause for a bit and think about what’s really important.

Last week, my wife Peggy and I celebrated our 50thwedding anniversary. It occasioned happy conversations with our sons, grandkids and assorted other friends and family. And it also prompted a bit of serious reflection. We’re on the down slope of life, but what kind of world are we leaving for the next generations?

I’m no visionary. But I do pay attention to what’s happening all around us, and I’m old and grey enough to have a sense of where we’re headed. So with no hard knowledge but lots of opinion let me posit my views as to what’s ahead, in four critical areas:

On climate change and the environment: Planet earth is a tough old bird. It will keep hurtling through space, just as it has for the past four billion years, pretty much ignoring its human riders. Earth’s climate will continue to change. Mankind won’t alter those changes to any perceptible degree, regardless of how many Kyoto or Paris agreements are signed or scrapped – but we will adapt, as all flora and fauna constantly adapts, and our ability to foresee and adapt to climate changes will improve steadily with advancing technology.

Our much more impactful environmental problems will be primarily population related. Conservation of natural resources, waste management and prevention of pollution will become dominant factors in the economy and lifestyle of people everywhere. Failure to be true environmentalists in that sense will be hugely consequential. We’d better get on with it.

On world peace and nuclear weapons: The depressing view: mankind has been at one another’s throats since time immemorial, and I don’t see anything that’s likely to change that. Worse, man’s capability for mass destruction continues to grow.

Which brings us to nuclear weapons. It is truly astonishing that since 1945 not a single nuclear weapon has been deployed in anger. Nevertheless, there are thousands of nuclear warheads in existence today, and it would take only one to trigger massive, perhaps irreversible, global catastrophe. Nuclear technology is now fully mastered – the genie’s not going back in the bottle.

Those grim facts lead inexorably to two conclusions: (1) nations must maintain close, transparent and mutually supportive relationships, however difficult and distasteful, and (2) our nation must maintain a robust, world-class defense capability, indefinitely.

On the USA: Survival of our beloved nation is by no means assured. The USA is already pushing the envelope in terms of life span of democracies worldwide. In my view, today’s extreme partisanship is crippling our ability to achieve enduring progress on anything. Absent collaborative, constructive interaction among elected officials and public, the wheels will come off for sure.

The encouraging news is that what’s wrong with our internal governance is becoming obvious to all. We can – and must – correct it.

There are two corollaries. First, It is imperative that we exercise reasonable controls on immigration, so that we can grow without imperiling the very aspects of our nation that have enabled our prosperity thus far. Remember that we are barely four percent of the world’s population. For each American on earth there are about twenty others, many of whom would happily come here. To protect today’s and future citizens, we must be careful about who we admit.

Secondly, our Constitution is a fundamentally sound roadmap and it’s taken us this far. We need to stick with it, not reengineer it.

On religion and morality:  Fifty years ago, Time Magazine raised the question “Is God Dead?” – prematurely, it seems. But there are many indications that organized religion is dying out, with corresponding decline of morality and ethics. In my view – practical, not theological – that’s a devastating problem.

There is hope. Over decades, we’ve seen cyclic shifts in social mores, probably due to the stubborn reality of the consequences of bad choices. Perhaps we can look ahead to a time when the unquestionable benefit of traditional marriage and the nuclear family asserts itself once again. And I’ve always believed that the day will come when society looks back at the era of unrestricted abortion and wonders ‘how could they kill their young?’

________

The above is conjecture. But the certain lesson for the leaders of tomorrow is that gadgets, computers, smart-things and brilliant programs won’t save you.  We’ve already learned that these both solve problems and create new ones (e.g., Facebook, smart phones). It will be human interaction and ethical behavior that carries the day.

We’re passing the torch. Godspeed to its next keepers!

Jack DeVine

July 2018

[cumbersomelift]

Spiritual First Aid (Resources Pt. 1)

When I was deconverting at university, I spent months poring over sacred texts, spiritual commentary, and works of philosophy to try to find what’s true. I thought what I needed was a theological rehab – to detox from harmful ideas and to replace them with healthier ones. But what I really needed was more like spiritual first aid – something to immediately address the frustration and guilt I was experiencing right then and there. I mourned the death of God even as I rejected him, and I felt tangled up in this ambiguous sense of loss.

Apart from a few close friends, I deconstructed privately. I thought the more open I was about my questions the less social support would be available from my community. (This was only half true.) I had also internalized the idea that I was responsible for the spiritual well-being of those around me, so I should keep these potentially destabilizing questions to myself because to do otherwise would be morally irresponsible. I would have said that it’s like throwing the biblically inexperienced into the theological deep end (which is patronizing and ridiculous). So, I often felt alone. Years of immersion in evangelical culture made me blind to the shame-loops that fed that sense of isolation and deaf to the language I needed to describe my own experience.

Even years later I’m still figuring that out. But I’ve found the trick to unlocking that language is just tuning in to the right conversation. These days, they are happening all around us in podcasts, books, and other media. Some of the best advice to those deconstructing—and in general— is simply to keep reading.

So here are some of the resources that I had (or wish I had) when I was deconstructing, and a map to show how they meet different needs. After all, someone reshaping their faith (deconstructing) needs something different than a someone dropping it entirely (deconverting). Those of us who are hurting need something different than those who are rebuilding. So, here’s the chart I’ve used to help catalog the books I’ve found most useful.

The reverent/irreverent x-axis describes whether the author sees religion as sacred and useful or delusional and hurtful. So, on the reverent side, you have secular pluralists who see religion as a force for good and Christians boldly asking the hard questions in an authentic attempt to deepen their faith. On the irreverent side, you have secular thinkers who say organized religion is mostly just harmful, but it’s normalized in ways that make this hard to see. If you’re deconstructing as a Christian – because you think the earth maybe wasn’t created in 7 days or because the Bible is hard to make sense of – then I’d point you to the reverent side of this map. For those deconverted or deconverting, you might find the irreverent items more relatable.

The processing/structuring y-axis captures whether the writer is exploring the personal experience or writing about the structure of beliefs that follow. Writers who are “processing” are often those who have abandoned a formerly cherished belief and are working through that change out loud with friends. “Structuring” writers are a few steps removed from the tension but can help answer the question "What am I supposed to believe now?" These writers can help us replace bad theology with a healthier, coherent alternative.

For brevity, this post is focused solely on the processing quadrants – I’ll pick up the structuring quadrants another time. These are a handful of resources that I’d describe as being Spiritual First Aid because they help make sense of pain and can even provide community for those struggling. I have a few books listed, but many of these are literal conversations in the form of podcasts. As you’re reading these consider adding them to your Facebook feed, Spotify rotation, or Amazon wishlist.

Oh. And one last thing: the point of this series is to encapsulate for the church what it’s like to deconstruct and how that impacts relationships. If you’re a person of faith reading this, I encourage you to listen in on some of these podcasts yourself – not because I think they’ll deconvert you but because they’re a primer for bigger conversations. They can be immensely helpful if you want to know reasons people leave the faith, why they might harbor resentment toward the church, and whether your church is participating in these harmful practices (I know that I was). So, even if the quadrant is “for you” it can offer a sense of what experiences others are up against.

Irreverent and Processing 

These are conversations where people explore personal experiences of religious trauma syndrome, process the emotional damage of belief, and reject their spiritual upbringing with varying degrees of force. These can be useful for knowing you are not alone when you feel betrayed or hurt by religion in ways that are hard to express. They may even supply language to better articulate those experiences. Everything I listed here is produced by deconverted Christians who have firsthand experiences deconstructing their faith and fishing out the toxic ideas they once accepted.

The Life After (Podcast)

Here, two deconverted pastors interview courageous people about their journey of faith deconstruction, unraveling religious indoctrination, spiritual abuse experiences, religious trauma, mourning the death of God, and what it's like rebuilding a community after leaving Christian fundamentalism. Their trauma-informed approach and irreverent humor add levity to a series of heavy topics. (If this paragraph is the first time you've ever heard of spiritual abuse or religious trauma then you can read a short blurb about religious trauma syndrome (RTS) from one of the lead researchers on the topic, here.)

I found two episodes on purity culture and RTS with sex therapist Jamie Lee Finch to be especially illuminating. These are the episodes "Unbuckling the Bible Belt" and then “You Are Your Own.” The best introduction to this podcast might be the episode called “Born Again Again” with Katie and Joe Bauer who talk about deconstructing as a couple and what it’s like for spiritual leaders to leave the faith.

The Life After also has a Facebook group that began as a trauma-informed home base for listeners to relate their deconversion experiences, but now it hosts book clubs, a mentor network, and a stream of blasphemous insights from those who have deconstructed into non-Christian spirituality or secular humanism. They even have affinity groups focused on specific challenges like how to be body-positive after living in purity culture or deconverting in a marriage where one partner stays a believer. 

Born Again Again (Podcast)

Two former worship leaders talk through their own deconstruction experiences and how they make sense of their spiritual upbringing as secular adults. They have some fascinating stories about their experiences with Campus Crusade for Christ and the Hillsong movement. In fact, in "This Is Your Brain on Worship" the hosts share how they had a formula to help congregants speak in tongues based on hypnosis. Wild!

Another is "A Personal (or Abusive) Relationships with Jesus?" where the hosts show the dark side of trading religion for a "relationship with Jesus.” They start with the descriptions provided by Campus Crusade for Christ, John Piper, and Billy Graham to define what a relationship with Jesus means, then they break down how these definitions in any other context are textbook cases of abuse that are just normalized through false consensus. They also talk about what it did to them to buy into this relational framework themselves, and how Cru’s organizational structure can pressure young college students to do the same.

r/exvangelical, r/exChristian, e/TrueAtheism (Reddit Boards)

r/exvangelical and r/exchristian are moderated communities of post-fundamentalist Redditors. This might be of use for those who describe themselves as something like "culturally Christian but theologically agnostic.” It’s a moderated group of individuals that works like the Life After Facebook group. People share their experiences, seek advice, and connect on the process of deconversion. It’s a very welcoming, affirming community where pretty much every trepidatious Redditor is met with a chorus of supportive replies. 

r/TrueAtheism is similar but not specifically made up of post fundamentalists. It was recommended from the Born Again Again hosts. This particular thread of “honest questions from an atheist” is an incredibly exhaustive list of troubling bible verses and hard-ball questions about the faith that many of us may find relatable or articulate a dissonance we’ve experienced before.

Reverent and Processing 

These may be good resources for people who grew up Christian and have an active personal faith but aren't sure where they fit anymore. After all, the church has changed a lot in the last ten years. Maybe you describe yourself as a Christian mystic, agnostic, or just a believer trying to find your place. If the phrase "spiritual nomadism" resonates with you, you might feel at most at home exploring questions of faith with these spiritual thinkers. 

The Liturgists Podcast (Podcast)

Michael Gungor and Co. are believers in the in-between talking about faith issues and modern events in this podcast. Sometimes we conflate deconstruction with deconversion and overlook the ocean of gray area between Christian fundamentalism and secular humanism. This podcast is hosted by a community of believers that live in that space. 

In "Is Deconstruction Bad?" they talk about the emotions felt in deconstruction, the social cost (especially for spiritual leaders), and how to embrace a healthy outlook in the midst of it. It's a serious look into what is lost when we challenge our assumptions about faith and why it becomes hard to stop. A similar episode is called "Does Being Good Mean My Beliefs Shouldn't Change?" 

Among my favorites, though, is "Swapping Fundamentalisms.” Sometimes we move from one restrictive, dogmatic set of beliefs to another because we've internalized fundamentalism so thoroughly that we take it with us wherever we go next.

Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (Book)

Chris Stedman was raised in a staunchly homophobic faith community when he began to realize he was gay. His memoir is a story about his unconventional deconversion experience. Stedman would say that the hostility expressed by his church toward the LGBTQ community is hard to too similar to what new atheists express toward the church today. Stedman rejects militant atheism for a more pluralistic approach to interfaith relationships. He believes that mutually incompatible religions can exist in harmony and not just competition.

He's an atheist committed to interfaith organizing and believes that rallying faith groups on the common ground of our humanist ethics can help us create a better world together. If you think the new atheists are too harsh on religion or overlook the good that religion has does for the world, then you might be sympathetic to his approach. 

The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (Book)

David Dark a Christian writer who thinks that if you read the Bible and don't have any questions then you weren't reading very closely. "The God of the Bible not only encourages questions; the God of the Bible demands them." In The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, Dark talks through why interrogating our belief is a spiritual discipline and what believers fall prey to once they stop. 

Importantly, Dark shows how deconstruction isn't just for the deconverting. Instead, it's an act of theological hygiene. If the God we believe can’t accept protest, interrogation, or dissent, then we’re in trouble. In fact, without the right questions, our conception of God can exist strictly to keep us in line and keep our heads down so we don't get burned. Dark is a Christian who wants to disabuse Christians of that narrow conception of God and show why questions are essential for spiritual growth. 

Conclusion 

So there’s my spiritual first aid kit. Hopefully at least one or two of these resources will resonate with you. I can say that at different points in my life, each of these things provided an insight that made deconstruction less shameful and more clear. If you have other books, podcasts, or communities that have helped you process in deconstruction, then don’t hesitate to add them in the comments.

[historians]

are you religious? if yes, have you always been?

my dad has more followers than me on twitter and tumblr combined running an atheist blog so... you could say i grew up without that influence. 

my mom is an ex-baptist and really bitter about christianity in general and my dad, who grew up in a spiritually uninvolved mixed jewish/catholic house, is just a stringent nihilist at this point in his life. i never stepped foot inside a church of any denomination for anything other than to sing until i was 20. i flirted with christianity for a bit (quite literally, my last serious relationship was with a minister) thinking maybe i was missing out on that community and faith, but it’s definitively not for me. my first and only experience with any church structure in general were with said ex-boyfriend, so. 

personally, i think i’ve always believed in god in the sense that there is a governing force of our universe that is infinite and absolute, but not necessarily one that is primarily 'personal’ in a humanlike sense. (humanizing god is, in my opinion, a necessary but incomplete way to grapple with the inconceivable.) philosophically, i’ve found that i tend to find myself most closely aligned with the jewish concept of monotheism and have for quite a while (about a decade, at this point). now that i’m on my own, i want to look into understanding and delving into that more seriously and challenging myself to be less private with this part of my life. theologically, i enjoy exploring and analyzing different arguments with an open mind, but because i grew up without the structure of religion i feel i’ll always be fine feeling like i don’t have a definitive Answer to a lot of these questions outside of what i feel makes sense and helps structure the idea of things much larger than myself. 

so, the long answer is... yes, though i am private about it and don’t claim to hold any key to definitive truth. i’m wary of most organized religion and especially wary of those who are have unwavering faith in everything they say and believe. i simply lack religious and spiritual socialization in a way that is pretty abnormal compared to most people, so the way i go about it is predictably a little strange. 

[scurvgirl]

Queen of the Stone, Part 5

Read on AO3, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.

A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!

Master of Tides

They return to Kal-Sharok.

Unfortunately, unlike in the other stories of grand adventuring, there were no secret passages back to Kal-Sharok that would make the return trip easier. All of those passages had been purposefully collapsed after the Blights, which meant that the group had to return the way they came. The Sha-Brytol didn’t attack them this time, thankfully, but there were still spiders, and Elodie needed rest.

She had just been cured of the Blight.

She was still covered in lyrium burns.

She was free of the taint.

It was reflex to think ‘Thank the Maker’ for such a miracle, but it wasn’t the Maker who had cured her.

…

Or was it?

No. She pushed the thought from her mind, the thought was too…odd and blasphemous, too inconsistent and she really did not have the energy for deep theological thinking and work arounds.

Though if the Titans did make the dwarves, that would make them a Maker of a sort.

They made it back to the Shaperate in another week, and she practically collapsed into the bed as soon as she saw it, only sparing time to change out of her traveling robes and into a clean sleeping set.

She slept for fourteen hours, waking only to relieve herself and to eat. Her stomach growled in distress and she set upon the platter of lichen and bread. The food disappeared quickly and she expected the hunger to continue as it always had done for the past decade. But it didn’t, the hunger abated and she actually felt remarkably full. Like a normal person.

Still amazed, Elodie rose from her cot once again, tying her hair back into a braid. A new set of robes were laid out for her on the table beside the bed, robes that mysteriously looked like those Effir and Pritte had worn before setting out with them.

Her heart warmed, they had made her special garments just so that she wouldn’t have to don her now tattered, torn, and still smelling-like-spider robes. That being said, the new clothes were…very different from what she was used to. It took her several minutes to just figure out how they were to be wrapped and tied and secured about her frame.

She eventually figured it out, wrapping herself securely up in the garment that…whoa.

It was…warm. And buzzing with lyrium and magic. That…was certainly different, even for mage’s robes. Did…did the dwarves of Kal-Sharok create lyrium infused cloth that they stitched into runes on normal clothes?

She opened the inside of a sleeve to behold a tiny stitched in rune pattern. An amazed gasp left her. That was incredible, lyrium was the backbone for their way of life, stitched, literally, into their everyday lives.

She emerged into the main living area of the Shaperate to find Pritte reviewing his notes with a steaming mug of…something.

“Hello, Pritte,” Elodie said in the little Kal-Sharok dwarven she had picked up. Pritte stopped and looked up, smiling broadly.

“El-o-die! What a lovely surprise, and wearing our traditional clothes as well, I see! Effir had been very insistent on acquiring those for you, you know.” He hopped off the bench and walked over to her, inspecting the garment, nodding and smiling at the craftsmanship. Her heart warmed at Effir insisting her having these robes, it was a kind gesture, even if they would most likely shrug it off as practical for her to not stink up the city with spider gore. Effir, the softy, who knew?

“How is transcribing our adventure into a tale for the memories going?” She asked and Pritte rubbed his hands together, launching into a long monologue on the transcribing process and how much work he had to get done because everything was significant in some form! Not a detail could be left to chance, and that was why he had her sit down and recount her side of the story to him.

He took notes in a furious pace, nodding, and scratching things out when appropriate. It took most of the day, or work-time, and at one point a servant brought them a tray of lichen and cheeses to nibble on.

About an hour after the tray of food was brought, a servant ran up to them, bowing low before snapping back up.

“The Paragon-Elect is searching for the Grey Warden.”

“Ah, it was nice speaking with you, Pritte. Can you take me to her?” Elodie asked. The servant nodded and lead her out from the Shaperate and out to the apparently repaired lift system. The dwarves were quick to guide the lift back to the palace where she was led down the hall to a large room. Karega was done up in her finery, cleaned and pressed and beautifully fierce. The far side of the room was open to gaze down at the city below her, and Karega stood just before it, watching.

“Dwarves do not dream. I have been told that our connection to whatever magic allows dreaming is different from elves or humans, qunari. We are connected to the Stone.” She strode across the length of the ledge, her face drawn in serious contemplation.

Elodie bowed her head and took a step into the room.

“I am aware, though even this has not stopped dwarves from being fascinated by or even studying magic,” she said, thinking of the dwarven girl she sent out to the Circle only to see her once again in the Inquisition, putting her knowledge to good use.

Karega turned away from Elodie to stare more intensely at the city below.

“So you must be aware how strange it must have been when last night I…had a vision? A dream?”

Elodie tilted her head to the side and sighed. She could think of how odd that could be, exactly so. Oghren’s flailing at suddenly being in the Fade in the Blackmarsh floated into her head and she winced.

“Those of us who regularly dream often experience unpleasant ones. Many of us find that speaking of the unpleasant dreams helps.”

Karega paused before glancing behind her at Elodie.

“It was not unpleasant. Merely odd. I…was with Gurendar, and it was almost like it had been, but he spoke like he did when we were in the deep.” Karega’s voice was softer, reminiscent and careful. Elodie realized that she did not quite know what to make of the dreams.

“The lyrium induced visions were…trials on my body. The nightmares from the Blight were a scourge, and the nightmares because of the demons due to my mage heritage have been…harrowing, quite literally. But the dreams between are not always easy, they are not always good or perfect, and no one can really tell you what dreams mean. If someone does, then they are lying to convince you to do something they want you to do. Only you can decide for yourself what your dream means. Dreams are often…mirrors, reflecting the world and our own feelings. Examine those and you can discern their meanings from there,” Elodie replied, joining Karega at the ledge.

The queen straightened her back and nodded once, “I miss my husband, but as he said, he is not truly my husband anymore. He belongs to the Stone, to the Titan. I must move on.”

Well, that was quick.

Elodie looked out to the city below them and she wondered as to why Karega was suddenly dreaming…though it sounded less like a dream and more like one of her lyrium visions. A final goodbye, closure. But closure like that…it never comes, not really. Love does not move on so easily, and the heart holds onto memories longer than the head.

Alistair’s face flitted into her mind and she exhaled.

“Your majesty?”

“Fool top-sider, didn’t I tell you to call me Karega?”

Elodie laughed, “You did! I’d do well to remember that, wouldn’t I?”

Karega grunted and rolled her eyes, but she smiled.

“The Titan has granted me a significant boon –

“It’s also got you trapped in a pretty sweet situation with defense.”

“True, but a boon it still is. I am…free of the taint, something I never thought I would ever say.” She rolled the sleeve of her robe up and examined the now blemish free skin. No darkness, no taint, not even a scar….

The lyrium had sunk deep into her and blasted whatever impurity was left.

It did not make much sense to her, but it had worked. Her head was clear, her blood pure, and she felt her body sing with magic and a wholeness that she had not felt in…more than a decade.

And beneath it all was a deep longing to go home. A happier exhaustion shrouded her and she was eager to return to Denerim to the family and life she had someone created for herself. Karega lifted her head up in pride as she gazed out at her city, at her sons sparring down in the circle below.

“My husband is gone.”

“But your family and city remain.”

“They do, and I will protect them all. So I trust that you will not hold much of a grudge if we blind you while we lead you out of the city and to the surface.” All of that said with a straight face.

“Of course not, Karega. Though I would hope you would consider a…loose alliance of sorts.” Nothing brings people together better than sharing a unique, trying experience, something that others will not believe or even ever empathize with correctly. She bonded with Karega…but that did not necessarily translate into a political alliance.

“Kal-Sharok has been independent for…ages,” Karega mused.

“We have survived fine without the interference of anyone…but times are perhaps changing. If we are to create an alliance, it would first be with you and your people, I assure you, Long Legs.” And then the Paragon-Elect of Kal-Sharok extended her hand to Elodie. She took it gladly, smiling and bowing her head in gratitude.

“Now, before you leave, we drink and be merry! Celebrate the repairs to the city and Kal-Sharok’s first foreign friend.” Karega turned from the window and grinned triumphantly up at Elodie who returned the smile and laughed.

“And here I was thinking that we skipped the party!”

“Never! A good Kal-Sharok dwarf NEVER skips the party!” She laughed, clapping Elodie on the back. She left the room, laughing and joyously shouting requests for the party that night. The palace erupted into a loud clamor in preparation, but Elodie remained at the window, staring down at the city.

The dwarves of Kal-Sharok had survived the Blights, protected by the Titan, a cure…not so far from the Anderfels.

The image of the elf standing over the ledge and down at the other Titan filled her mind, blood spilling down her hand….

Whatever happened to the other Titans…was it because of her? And was this the cause of the Blight? Was it reversible, whatever she did? These were questions that needed to be answered and as much as she wanted to make her way to Alistair as quickly as possible…she supposed she could wait another month to revisit Skyhold and report her findings, ask the red lyrium experts there if there are any ties to this.

Skyhold was along the way home, she could report her findings to at least Dagna and then establish communication with the red lyrium experts with herself and potentially even Kal-Sharok. Though who knows how likely that set would be, Karega was hesitant to ally with Ferelden even after everything they had just gone through.

And as she watched the people below her mill about, she thought of her life. It hit her, sometimes, how…extraordinary her life had been, and she was only in her early thirties. Thirty-one, to be exact. A newly hallowed mage turned Grey-Warden at nineteen, and Hero of Ferelden at twenty, then followed quickly by court mage and mistress to the King of Ferelden. She had united kingdoms, fought a Blight, killed an Archdemon, and now…now it felt like her life could truly begin, not as a collection of labels thrust upon her of what the world required of her, but of Elodie. Simply, Elodie. Not even touched by her surname, by the family that had forsaken her for just what she was.

She was finally free to be like the people down in the street.

Well…not entirely free, she still was all those things but they were now past things, past titles and deeds and people.

Elodie turned from the window and asked the guards if she could go to the Market district to shop. They acquiesced and insisted on accompanying her as she shopped.

They took the lift down and around to the markets where people were quick to stare. Elodie was not a short woman by any meaning of the word, and she tried not to tower over the dwarves, but there was only so much she could do. She avoided low-hanging shop signs and got used to bending herself down to buy things. She bought for herself jewelry, large rings and necklaces that glowed with faint lyrium etching, subtle power humming quickly in the pieces. She bought a wheel of lichen cheese for Alistair, and a few other odds and ends for the people she cared about. But Elodie mostly just walked around, watching the people live their lives, musing happily on whether if this would eventually be her life.

Able to walk down a street and just happily purchase something, without fear of the Templars, without fear of the guards, without being bombarded by people who recognized her.

Several hours later and the little shopping party returned to the palace where apparently the feast was just beginning.  Loud music drifted down the hall and suddenly several young dwarves appeared, all bearing some similarities to Karega.

Eight. Karega had eight children.

They strolled through the halls, laughing and carousing as they headed down to the main hall. Elodie smiled and jogged after them, ready to celebrate her newfound freedom and friends.

**

The next day, Elodie woke to a sensation she had not experienced in the last twelve years – a hangover. An actual hangover. Grey Warden stamina often meant that her body handled the alcohol faster and more efficiently than non-Wardens, whatever hangover she sustained she usually slept through.

But it seemed that with the taint gone, so was her ability to drink like a qunari. She scrubbed at her face, finding her cheeks sticky with…something. What…happened? Maybe she didn’t want to know. She ate the meal of bread and lichen quickly again, finding it easier to palate after drinking…Maker, how much did she drink last night? After eating, she dressed and left, her things gathered and prepared for her long trek back to Denerim. Karega found her, somehow without a hangover and wearing a great grin.

“There she is! HA! Woman you should have told me your people liked to party!” She shouted and Elodie winced, murmuring a healing spell that helped somewhat.

“Oh, yes, we are very fond of the drink.”

“You’ve got good stamina, Long Legs. Oh, that your secret then? Something with long legs?” Karega narrowed her eyes and Elodie rolled hers.

“Hardly, I am just fond of ales and tend to drink them more frequently than is most likely healthy,” she chuckled but Karega smiled and began to guide Elodie down the corridors.

“But now you’re leaving, we get it, you made it very clear last night, you have to get back to the king,” at that Karega bumped Elodie’s hip and winked. Elodie flushed and placed a self-conscious hand over her chest. What…what did she say?

“Oh…yes, well, hmm.”

“HAHA! No need to be ashamed! If I had a man as young and handsome as him, I don’t know if we’d ever leave the bed.”

Well…that’s certainly…something, Elodie thought.

“That being said, I think I’m going to miss you, Long Legs. Pritte will miss you as well…and Effir will too, even if they won’t admit it.”

“They got me these robes, that is communication enough, honestly,” she answered, still impressed by the gift.

“Just don’t let your human spinners and weavers and whatnot go sniffing up the fabric, we can’t have your people discovering all our secrets,” Karega warned, her face serious for a moment.

“Don’t worry, I will keep your secrets close,” Elodie promised. They were at the entrance to the palace now, and as they made their way to the…loading zone or something, Elodie wasn’t entirely sure where they were going, though she suspected it had something to do with her leaving Kal-Sharok.

“I am sure you will, but we have to be certain about some things, as I am sure you understand.”

They turned away from the palace and down a long winding stone staircase that led them into a courtyard full of…

“Are those…giant nugs?” Elodie asked in awe. Karega blinked at her and leaned back.

“Never seen a Nugalope have ya’? Well, here are some of our finest, though the one at the head is a War Nug, we call her Toeril. My sons Rogar and Vulthun will be escorting you through the Deep Roads to the surface. You will be blindfolded until you reach the roads, the boys will know when to allow you sight.” Karega walked around the space, allowing Elodie to get accustomed to being around the…Nugalopes.

It was a small company of dwarves, five in total with what Elodie was guessing was the elder son perched regally atop Toeril. He watched Elodie with a wary eye that reminded her of his mother and wondered if this was the heir to Kal-Sharok.

But there was something off…she counted everything again and lifted a brow. Five dwarves, six Nugalopes. It seemed that she would be riding her own Nugalope…blindfolded. Apparently adventures do not stop simply because she is no longer a Grey Warden.

“Your nug will be tied to mine, don’t worry, Warden,” one of the dwarves said as he walked to her nug and attached a long rope to its saddle.

“That eases some concern then,” Elodie replied dryly, “and I’m not a warden anymore, you can call me Elodie. Or Lady Amell if you require some formality.”

“Very well, Lady Amell,” the man replied before hurrying to his Nugalope, quickly climbing atop it. The rest of her party began to mount their nugs and she supposed that it was getting time to leave the city.

“It’s a good thing you came, Long Legs. It helped Kal-Sharok, and more importantly – you are helping the Titan,” Karega said, putting her hands behind her back as she watches her people ready for the journey.

Elodie glanced back down at Karega and let out a breath before bending down quickly and wrapping her arms around her. Karega stiffened in shock but patted Elodie’s back.

“I am going to miss you too, Karega. Thank you,” Elodie said softly, holding her close. Karega sighed and returned the hug more firmly.

“Stone guide you, Long Legs,” Karega whispered before murmuring something in her dwarven language.

“Stone keep you, Karega,” Elodie replied as she pulled away, placing a hand over her heart. Karega grinned and her eyes shone a bit more brightly.

“Until we meet again.”

Elodie nodded and headed toward her Nugalope. Karega helped her up and showed her the basics of riding the beast. Karega patted Elodie’s leg and handed her the handkerchief to blindfold herself. Elodie accepted it and tied it willingly around her eyes, breathing deeply to accustom herself to the lack of sight.

“Get her to the surface! We can’t have her dying now, not after everything that has happened, now can we?” Karega ordered.

“No worries, mother, we’ll get her to her safe surface in no time,” one of the sons said, and from his cavalier attitude, she suspected it was the younger son.

“Wait! You must wait!” A loud familiar voice called.

“Pritte? Is that you?” Elodie turned in her saddle out of habit

“Yes! Yes, we’re here!”

“We? Is Effir there?”

“For some reason,” they groused making her laugh.

“Oh Effir, you softy,” she teased, unable to stop the wide grin from spreading on her face.

“Thank the Stone we caught you in time! It isn’t right we wouldn’t get to say our pieces properly,” Pritte said before Effir could contradict Elodie’s comment.

“The Stone had nothing to do with you finishing your duties at an inadvisable speed to come here,” Effir protested anyway.

“Well, then how did you manage to finish your own duties to come here?” Elodie asked and she could feel their scowl.

“I did not rush, I finished in a timely and well-structured manner –

“Oh they shucked off duties for tomorrow,” Pritte explained making Elodie laugh again.

“I’m going to miss you too, Effir. You are a good friend,” Elodie nodded her head in their direction and they shifted their feet in the dirt.

“You did not destroy the city and have proven to be a reliable ally.”

Everyone fell silent at that until a low whistle sounded.

“Shit that is high praise coming from them,” Karega marveled.

“They are right, E-lo, you have been good to the city and to the Titan, you have been recorded in the memories and I am sure it is not the last of you that will appear in there. Thank you, I am grateful to have met a Grey Warden, a former one at that. Now go home to your king, tell your country of the greatness of Kal-Sharok!” Pritte exclaimed, making Elodie lean towards their voice, silently asking for a hug. They reached up and embraced her briefly before letting her return to her seat.

“I will do that. Thank you Pritte, Effir, Karega – thank you so very much.” It was truly incredible to find such kindness to a stranger in a place that had been sealed off for so long and she was intensely grateful for it. Pritte sniffled and she was pretty sure that Effir rolled their eyes even if she couldn’t see them.

Karega scoffed, “Surfacers, so soft. Careful you don’t get yourself killed with that softness, Long Legs. Now get going, you’re losing all your time.”

She slapped the behind of Elodie’s Nugalope, though the real thing that got the thing going was the low whistle from the older prince. The animal lurched forward and Elodie had to catch herself from falling as they began their journey. Her heart ached a bit; she was going to miss her new friends and this beautiful city, but she was…. It was time to go home and to live the life she had dreamed of for so long.

The next several days were an odd mixture of blind travel, only being able to see when camp was made, and the brief formation of new friendships. She got to know the dwarves escorting her, all of whom knew of the Inquisition because they had apparently interacted with its agents when the Venatori had somehow kidnapped several Kal-Sharok dwarves and turned them into slaves. They had fought together and had apparently been collecting information for the Inquisition about the Venatori in whatever ways they could.

They were apparently not as closed off as they had led everyone to believe.

After the third day of travel, they stopped requiring her to wear a blindfold and on the fourth day, they began to fight the darkspawn. For the first time in more than a decade, Elodie could not sense them coming. There was no tickle at the back of her skull, no heating of blood or a sense of foreboding – they just descended upon her and the party. She was about to cast a spell that would essentially explode one of the darkspawn when she remembered that she had to be careful about their blood now. She was…vulnerable. She reigned the spell back and instead blasted the darkspawn with searing energy, frying the creature from the inside.

The darkspawn were terrifying once again and she felt normal. Well, as normal as she could as she healed everyone around her with a single spell.

The dwarves were more than a little unsettled by her magic but they did not fight her or yell, just grumbled at the tingling in their bodies.

They guided her all the way to the surface and told her that she could keep the Nugalope as an official gift from Kal-Sharok. She placed a hand over her heart and thanked them for everything they had done. The told her if she ever wanted to get in contact with them to simply send a letter to the closest village, River Rock, and have the trader Ugra Batt get the letter and the rest will be taken care of. Their goodbyes were full of smiles and well-wishes. The princes bowed and she returned the gesture gladly.

“You have been more than kind and hospitable to me, my thanks cannot be deep or sincere enough to convey what I feel,” she said.

“Flowery surfacer, but we thank you, as does the Titan. Now go, be well! Live well with the life that Titan has gifted you,” the way the eldest prince spoke she almost believed him to be making a threat. But she understood and nodded. Elodie watched their forms disappear back into the darkness of the Deep Roads. She turned to the exit of the roads, the light spilling in from the trench she had entered. It was time to greet her life as Elodie. Just Elodie.

[jerryadler-blog]

The Second Coming, brought to you by — who else? Donald Trump

Orthodox Jews from the Temple Mount Institute dressed like cohen (priests) pray during the reenactment of the passover aacrifice ceremony in Jerusalem, Israel on April 10, 2014. (Photo: Abir Sultan/Epa/REX/Shutterstock)

Anyone happen to know where I can get hold of 13 young bullocks, two rams and 14 yearling lambs without blemish?

I’m asking in order to prepare for the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem, as prophesied in the Bible, a precondition for the end times and the Rapture and the Second Coming, all set in motion by a proclamation from Donald Trump.

A lot has been written in the past week about the geopolitical implications of Trump’s announcement that the United States, departing from most of the rest of the world, would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and begin the process of relocating its embassy there. Most of the Israeli political establishment — from the far-right parties to the center-left — greeted it enthusiastically; the Palestinians, who want Jerusalem, or some of it, for the capital of their own future state, were angry, warning it could spark another uprising, or intifada. But few were as excited by the news as Trump’s own evangelical supporters in America, who greeted the announcement, I think one can say, rapturously.

“Now, I don’t know about you, but when I heard about Jerusalem, where the King of Kings — where our soon-coming king — is coming back to Jerusalem, it is because President Trump declared Jerusalem to be capital of Israel.” That was a Florida state senator named Doug Broxson, introducing Trump at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., Friday night, cheered by a large crowd of believers eager to get on with the thousand-year reign of Jesus they were promised in Sunday school.

And who doubts that this is within Trump’s power? Not Trump himself, who had boasted a few days earlier that under his administration, “Christmas is back, bigger and better than ever before.” Most Christians, I imagine, think that it would be pretty hard to improve on the first one, but Trump has never been one to refrain from blowing his own trumpet.

In the days after Trump’s announcement, Diana Butler Bass, a historian and authority on evangelical Christianity in America, sent out a series of tweets that laid out in simple terms what all this means to the tens of millions of his most ardent followers:

https://twitter.com/dianabutlerbass/status/938425601035329536

  https://twitter.com/dianabutlerbass/status/938426138438848512

  https://twitter.com/dianabutlerbass/status/938428151876681733

  The thing to bear in mind, Bass told me, is that this is not regarded by evangelicals as a metaphor or a distant prophecy subject to revision or reinterpretation: It is a literal prediction of what must happen, as real and reliable as a forecast that says it will snow in Duluth. Only the exact date is in question, but it is not far off.

Admittedly, it has been not far off many times before.

This is all conveniently, if somewhat cryptically, discussed in the Book of Revelation, or in more palatable form in the “Left Behind” series of apocalyptic novels. There are some minor theological quibbles about the exact sequence in which all this will play out, but the prevailing theory, according to Bass, holds that rebuilding the temple that was destroyed by the Romans in the year A.D. 70 is a precondition for it to occur. And because America, to Christian evangelicals, stands in a special relationship to Israel — and therefore to God — establishing an American Embassy in Jerusalem is an important first step.

Temple of Solomon (Photo: Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

There are a few details to be worked out, of course. One is exactly where to locate the temple, which must be on the site of the original Temple of Solomon, dating from around the 10th century B.C. Inconveniently, the predominant view is that this is exactly where the Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest of Muslim shrines, now stands. The area, known as the Temple Mount, is so sensitive that Israel prohibits Jews and other non-Muslims from praying there; just by setting foot there in 2000 the hard-line Israeli politician Ariel Sharon touched off an escalating series of riots, the second intifada, that went on for years.

And although the Old Testament goes into mind-numbing detail about the specifications of the temple and its furnishings, it gives the dimensions in cubits, the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, a somewhat ambiguous unit of measure for a project that must be built precisely to God’s own blueprint. And there are some ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe that the whole enterprise has to be put off until the arrival of the Messiah, which would make moving the American Embassy theologically pointless. Nevertheless, there is a growing, if still small, movement in Israel that believes it’s time to move ahead on the temple project now, and Trump’s announcement was a shot in the arm to them too.

“The prophets’ words of prophecy are coming forth from the Bible and becoming facts right before our eyes,” said the American-born rabbi Yehuda Glick, a member of Israel’s Parliament from the ruling Likud party who is active in the movement to restore the temple. An organization called the Temple Institute is meticulously reconstructing ritual artifacts for use there, and has a project underway to breed a perfect red calf, to be killed and burned and its ashes mixed with pure spring water to perform a ritual purification that is a necessary precondition to occupying the temple.

And then what? Well, here there is a polite divergence between the Jewish Third Temple movement and its allies among evangelical Christians. To Jews, rebuilding the temple is a sacred commandment and an end in itself, allowing the resumption of biblical forms of worship that have been on hold for nearly 2,000 years. Jews will resume animal sacrifice under the direction of the Cohanim — a priestly caste among Jews, to which I just so happen to belong. Cohanim are directly descended along the male line (no females need apply) from the original high priest, Aaron, the brother of Moses, or, as I think of him, “Uncle Moses.” A “Cohanim Training Academy” has been established to school the prospective priests in the correct ritual. It’s a bloody job, but someone has to do it, because God wants it that way.

Orthodox Jews From the Temple Mount Institute dressed like a cohen (priest), spills the blood of lamb that was slaughtered on the altar during the reenactment of the passover sacrifice ceremony in Jerusalem, Israel on April 14, 2014. (Photo: Abir Sultan/Epa/REX/Shutterstock)

But if evangelical Christians are correct, history will take a very different course, as Bass explains: The Antichrist will arise to desecrate the rebuilt temple, which will cause the Jews to finally realize that Jesus was the real Messiah, triggering a mass conversion. There will be seven years of tribulation, the Ten Plagues times ten thousand, the worst thing that the Jews have ever gone through. (“When I explained this to my husband, he said, ‘Worse than the Holocaust?’ And I said, Yes! Worse than that!”) And at the end of those seven years, there will be Armageddon, and in the middle of that battle, Jesus will return with all of the righteous from heaven and defeat the forces of evil and institute the millennial kingdom, the thousand-year reign of Christ. That’s probably not quite what Rabbi Glick has in mind to happen, but for now they are working together to get the process underway.

And it was all set in motion by Donald Trump. In the current climate in Washington, with talk of impeachment swirling, it is fashionable among progressives to say that the stakes have never been higher.  They have no idea how high.  As Bass put it in a tweet: “Regular Christians — Orthodox, Catholic, mainline — can raise a fit about how [Trump’s] action will undermine world peace. But that doesn’t matter. Because peace in this world doesn’t matter.”

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:

Now I Get It: Houston, we have a space junk problem

In Israel, even the left backs Trump on Jerusalem

Japanese defense in the age of North Korean missile successes

Divided by symbols, Americans see a ‘serious threat’ across the aisle

Photos: Wildfires in Southern California force thousands to flee

Photos: Trump visits Mississippi’s Civil Rights Museum amid protests

[dailyaudiobible]

07/02/2019 DAB Transcript

2 Kings 20:1-22:2, Acts 21:18-36, Psalms 150:1-6, Proverbs 18:9-10

Today is the 2nd day of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It's great to be here with you. I guess we are through threshold and we are squarely in the month of July. We’re in the seventh month of the year and there's no going back. There's only going forward. And, so, that's what we’ll do. We’ll continue taking steps forward as we move our way through the Scriptures. And just to kind of get a lay of the land, we have a couple of days left in the book of second Kings and then we will have completed first and second Kings and before this month is out we will have read the entirety of first Chronicles and gotten our way into second Chronicles and then in the New Testament for the month of August we will complete the book Acts and then begin to move our way through the book of Romans, which will be the first of Paul's writings that we encounter. But that's a bit over a week from now. So, let's settle into where we are. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Today, second Kings chapter 20 verse 1 through 22 verse 2.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Acts, right, we first followed along with the apostle Peter then we got to know Saul who became Paul and we’ve been traveling on these missionary journeys with the apostle Paul who was instructed to go back to Jerusalem and we went along with him as he went port to port on his way back to Jerusalem, visiting with the believers who had nurtured. And pretty much they all told him the same thing, “don't go back to Jerusalem. It's gonna be bad news”. Of course, Paul was aware of this through the Holy Spirit's counsel, He kind of had an idea of what was coming and yet he…it was important that he obey God, right, not the Council of everybody else. So, he went to Jerusalem. And that is what we got to experience today, Paul arriving back in Jerusalem. And the reason that I'm recapping again is because we are touching up against serious, serious, issues in the early church, issues that are still with us today, issues that will and should challenge us, issues that people are spouting off everywhere all of the time on a continual basis. And that is fundamentally this, “who gets to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ? Who gets to do that? Who gets to be in?” So, let's explore this. As we read in the book of Acts today, when Paul arrived back to Jerusalem and the church leaders met with him they essentially said, “look, thousands of Jewish people are now following the Lord Jesus Christ. They are following The Way. They have embraced the teachings of Jesus and found a more comprehensive way of obeying the Mosaic Law and living into their faith. But they are devout about their faith and they and we are hearing things coming back here to Jerusalem that you are out all over the world saying you don't have to observe circumcision, you don't have to obey the Mosaic law in order to follow Jesus.” So, two very different viewpoints and we’re gonna talk about this as we continue our way all the way through the New Testament because there's no avoiding it if you're looking for it. And the issues are so fundamental that they affect us until today. So, on one hand you have Jesus who is Jewish, who ministered under…inside…within the Jewish context. And, so, of course, Jewish people began to follow the Rabbi. They began to follow Jesus and obey His teachings and even put their faith in Him and believe in Him, but they never ever considered the idea that they would be leaving their Jewish heritage and faith. Jesus never called them to leave their Hebrew roots. And He said with his own mouth, “I didn’t come to abolish the law I came to fulfill the law.” So, that's where they're coming from. At the same time, the apostles, including Peter and obviously the apostle Paul is now become the apostle to the Gentiles, they saw with their own eyes, they witnessed in their own ministry the Holy Spirit coming upon Gentiles. They saw Jesus come into the lives of households who had never heard anything about Jesus or Judaism. So, I mean, this caused dissonance for them. This is something to figure out because on the one hand the Hebrew religion, Judaism had always been very exclusive. These were God’s chosen people. Like this is a very exclusive people with a very exclusive religion. And yet then this rabbi comes, so Jesus comes, the son of God comes, but they’re all…all of those things are what people are thinking about Jesus. Like not everyone is like, “oh…of the Virgin Mary…yeah…of course…He's the son of God”. Like, some people dismissed Jesus completely outright. Some people believed He was a wise and beyond His years, rabbi. Other people were following Him because His teachings made more sense while other people were following Him because they believed He was the son of the living God, the Messiah, but they all recognize that He was Hebrew and that was the context that He was in. So, for the Holy Spirit to begin falling upon Gentiles the world over, like, this is kind of a problem because the exclusivity is going away and everyone is universally welcome into this new thing that God is doing in the world. So, for many, especially the Jewish people, this is really hard to wrap their minds around. And, so, the way that, for the most part they could reason this through, is that a Gentile would need to convert to Judaism and then begin to follow the rabbi, Jesus, the Messiah. And we watched an entire church counsel, the first church council, like, this was the first and big issue that they needed to have a meeting about. And they took the witness and they realized, “okay, we thought we understood one way. We can see that God is doing something different that we haven't seen before. We can't deny what God is doing among the Gentiles, but we can't deny who Jesus was, and the context that he taught in.” Right? So, it becomes the central question, who gets to be in? Who gets to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus? Who gets to be saved. In other words, and as we will see, this was always a disagreement. So, when we get to the writings of Paul and as we start moving through the different letters that he is sending to specific churches we will notice that the argument was an intense one because people were coming in behind Paul and telling people, “Gentile or not, you gotta get circumcised. Gentile or not you basically have to become Hebrew and follow the Hebrew customs.” This caused a tremendous amount of confusion but also seriously, seriously, made Paul angry. So, there were these conflicts about who gets to walk with Jesus. And if we’re honest and we look throughout our world today, we’re still fighting the same battle. We certainly aren't these days, for the most part, trying to get people to convert to Judaism in order to follow Jesus. As it turned out, and we’ll see why as this story continues, the Jewish people mostly abandoned the idea of Jesus the Messiah, the son of God, who died to take away the sins of the world. It largely, as time went on, became something that was predominantly Gentile. And that is the way of the world today. But we’re still arguing about who gets to be in and sort of creating these grids in our minds about how much tolerance we can take for a person who doesn't believe the way that we do. Like, do we say, “well…you don't believe the same theological points on the Trinity, so you must not be a Christian” or “you don't see the doctrine of original sin the same way that I do so you must be going to hell.” On the one hand, we could say, “well…this kind of vigorous debate has always been a part of our faith journey and the story of our faith in Jesus.” And yet it was Jesus. Like, whether you’re Jew or Gentile, it was Jesus who told us that the world would know us by our love for one another. Our disdain and disregard and dislike for one another are what's most easy to see in the world today. I mean, troll the Internet for five minutes and you can find it. Vigorous debates among believers who seem to be convinced that it is their job to inform other believers that they will be cast into outer darkness. It’s not helping. I’ve actually had many conversations with people who love to do that kind of debate. Ad they’re like, “well…we do this kind of debate, we do this vigorous kind of debate so that the world won't be deceived by the inaccuracies of everybody else.” And I'm like, “the world doesn't care at all what you have to say.” They don't want any part of this.” Sometimes I wish, as believers, we were forced to have a bumper sticker on our car. You know how you're driving along in their delivery trucks…it’s like or our school buses…like, “how's my driving? If there’s a problem call 1-800, you know, 123-4567.” I wish we had all have those bumper stickers, maybe on our four heads even sometimes. “How am I loving? If there's a problem, call 1-800-123-4567.” How would that go for you on any given day? Because you will be known by your love. At least if you believe in Jesus, if you believe the words of Jesus then we will be known as disciples of Jesus by our love for one another. The early church had to deal with these kinds of issues. It's been a part of our story and yet Jesus couldn't have been more clear about the posture of God's kingdom and the importance of actually loving those around us. So, I don't know if I can plant something in your mind, but I wish that when you wake up in the morning you would think, “how am I going to be known by my love today?” And when you put your head on your pillow at night and you're saying your night night prayers, I wish you would think was I known by my love today?

Prayer:

Jesus, obviously as we read the stories of Your life and ministry You were known by Your love and You were known because You were true, there was nothing false in You. It seems like every day we’re like juggling the false and the true, right, the shadow and the light. We can even think that we’re shining the light when we’re actually spreading the darkness. We so easily forget the fact that we will be known by our love for one another. So, come Holy Spirit and help us be known today by our love in every way we. We ask this in Your name. We ask Holy Spirit that You would come because we don’t…we can’t navigate…we can’t do this on our own. Like, we forget. We don't have the discipline, we get too angry, we get pulled in so many directions we forget. So, the next thing You know we find ourselves condemning one another instead of loving each other and we can get ourselves twisted so backward so quickly. Holy Spirit come, that we be known by our love. Love is the currency of Your kingdom, not being right, not dogma, not doctrine, not being the sheriff at the gate of who gets to be in and who doesn't. You are the judge. You will be known by our love. Let us love today we ask in Your precious name. Amen.

Song:

We are one in the spirit we are one in the Lord We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord And we pray that our unity will one day be restored And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love Yeah they'll know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side We will work with each other, we will work side by side And we'll guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love Yeah, they'll know we are Christians by our love.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING OFFICE

In a job there is much more damping. Now when I do office hours I have to focus on what customers want? So this relationship has to be finite, and the resumes of the founders than their ability.1 The needs of customers and the means of satisfying them are all in one head? You're going to have to think about other things. Sex I believe they conceal because they'd be frightening, not because they want to keep them innocent. The eminent feel like everyone wants to take a shot at it. And yet someone always decides to try anyway, and it used cheap, off-the-flies schools and bureaucratic companies are both the default.

Apparently Apple's attitude is that developers should be more variability in the VC business.2 But most of those weren't truly smart, so our third test was largely a restatement of the first things they try is a line drawing of a face. I couldn't was sharp. Working on small things, and since they were all aiming at the middle of the century our two big forces driving change in startup funding: it's becoming cheaper to start startups is or should be very cautious about hiring.3 And in the mid 20th century gave their employees was job security, and this consumes less energy. It just seemed a very good sign to me that these guys were actually on the ground in NYC hunting down and understanding their users. Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. But because adults conceal their flaws from children.4 A stage. The first step in clearing your head is to focus on these users. The top level of service was $300 a month, which is the ability to recognize it. What they all have in common is that a good chunk of the company away from all the existing shareholders just as you did.5

If you're really getting a constant number of new customers, but the people who want it, but this is actually good news for you. The upper bound is obviously the total amount the founders want to start a company?6 It seemed possible to start a company.7 Which is to say that is, some of each. That's one connection between startup ideas and technology. Either it won't help your kid get into Harvard, or if the domain was interesting and none of the companies in it were hacker-centric cultures.8 For example, I doubt it would be Fred.9 If you look at the famous 1984 ad now, it's easier to imagine Apple as the dictator on the screen than the woman with the hammer.

Notes

Progressive tax rates have had a house built a couple years.

Economically, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is caring what random people thought of them. We have no trouble getting hired by these companies when you see what the attitude of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. Common Lisp for, but economically that's how they choose between the government, it was raise after Demo Day, there was a kind of business you should avoid raising money in order to provoke a bidding war between 3 pet supply startups for the ad sales department. Even in Confucius's time it filters down to zero.

Parents move to suburbs to raise the next round.

Algorithms that use it are called naive Bayesian. Don't believe a domain where you have to negotiate in real time, serious writing meant theological discourses, not just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's random; but random is pretty bad. One way to avoid using it out of ArsDigita, he tried to preserve optionality.

There was no more willing to provide this service, and everyone's used to say hello on her way out. Steve in the comment sorting algorithm. Every pilot knows about this problem, if the founders don't have the determination myself.

But that doesn't exist. I explained in How to Make Wealth when I switch in mid-sentence, but you should be working on Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college is much smaller commitment than a product of some power shift due to the hour Google was founded, wouldn't offer to be about 200 to send a million dollars out of school.

And while this sort of things economists usually think about so-called lifestyle business, it's because of some logical reason e. Wisdom is useful in solving problems too, but essentially a startup.

Is what we measure worth measuring? Odds are people who should quit their day job might actually be bad if the similarity extended to returns. This is an interesting sort of things you waste your time working on Y Combinator never negotiates valuations is that coming into office hours, they've already made it over a hundred years ago. For example, I was writing this, I mean forum in the Neolithic period.

What you're too busy to feel like a VC means they'll look bad if that means service companies are run like Communist states. All you need but a big company. In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other Lisp features like lexical closures and rest parameters.

[dailyaudiobible]

05/11/2018 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 10:1-11:15, John 6:43-71, Psalms 107:1-43, Proverbs 15:1-3

Today is the 11th day of May. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is my honor and pleasure to have these minutes together as we take the next step forward, moving our way through the Scriptures. So, we've been reading from 1 Samuel in our Old Testament reading and we are entering the territory that will lead us into a new era with the Israelites as kingship is about to be introduced into their culture. And Samuel plays a pivotal role in that story. So we'll pick up where we left off yesterday. This week were reading from the New International Version. We'll read 1 Samuel chapters 10 and 11 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we covered a bunch of territory in our reading today. In the Old Testament, we now have a king. Israel has its first king, Saul. So, we have entered a new era and we need to watch as this unfolds. We're gonna learn a lot about ourselves from King Saul, or for that matter, from many of the kings. But this next patch that we're gonna move through in the Scriptures, we're (getting) an intimate look at King Saul and then we're gonna meet this guy named David. And we're gonna learn a lot about ourselves from him as well because he's gonna grow up to be king, too. And they are starkly contrasted, Saul and David. But their stories are deeply intertwined. And one of the first clues that we get about Saul, we see today in his coronation when God is selecting the person to be king from the different tribes and the different family clans. And once Saul is selected, he's nowhere to be found. He's hiding. In the New International Version that we're reading from this week, he's hiding in the supplies. Other translations have him hiding in the baggage. They essentially mean the same thing. They're the things that everyone who has come to this coronation have brought. But it gives us the opportunity to consider what baggage exactly it is that we are hiding in and are we able to rise up and be who we are created to be if we're gonna continue to hide in the baggage?

And then we get into the book of John. And we encounter what some would call the bread of life discourse. I always smile when we come through this territory cause to me, it's kind of like Jesus vampire monologue, where he tells everybody who's listening that they can't have hope in eternal life if they don't eat his flesh and drink his blood. And we see the people's reaction. They're a little freaked out about it, a little agitated about it. A lot of the people who had been following Jesus deserted him after that. So, he's willing to not grandstand. We see that in Jesus constantly. He's not trying to build an empire for himself by saying the things that people wanna hear. But it is curious enough for us to go, like what is he talking about? How can we eat his flesh and drink his blood? And are we talking about cannibalism here? Are we talking about...what are we dealing with? But because you'd think that some disturbed person, and there were plenty of disturbed people around Jesus. He set a lot of disturbed people free. But if you think about it in those terms, some disturbed person who would believe that literally would try to kill Jesus and eat him. And you can only imagine how he would defend himself in court and how that would play out on national television if it were in this day and age, right? So, if something like that were spoken in this day and age it would seem bizarre at best, which is how it appeared to the people Jesus was talking to. He was speaking primarily to a Jewish audience who had been taught by the Mosaic law not to drink blood and not to eat meat with blood in it, right? And, so, it's like Jesus is telling them to do exactly that, only to a human body. So, you can imagine why they're a little freaked out. But interpreting what Jesus actually means leads us to divergent theological schools of thought. And I have worked tirelessly, really really hard over the years, to not try to tell you what you are supposed to believe and do.  I believe that is the work of the Holy Spirit.  But when we do come to historically divergent things in the faith, we talk about them. So, for many over the centuries, this has referred to the Lord's table, to the eucharist or communion. And billions of people over thousands of years have held to that idea that in taking the eucharist, the elements become the flesh and blood of Jesus. They go inside and transform us spiritually and make us have eternal life. Other schools of thought equally as old, just as longstanding, have said, essentially, Jesus is not talking about the Lord's table or communion here. It hasn't even been instituted yet in the book of John. Jesus hasn't had his last supper yet. He hasn't passed the cup or the bread. He is speaking metaphorically about a spiritual reality in the same way with the woman at the well he talked about eternal water flowing from within to eternal life. And in the same passage that we read, Jesus seems to illuminate that by saying, the spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you they are full of the spirit and life. So, this has been wrestled with for a long time, going all the way back to the early church fathers. So, for example, St. Augustin of Hippo was very influential in some of the doctrines that we believe as Christians. Things like original sin, things like the doctrine of the trinity, he had a voice in all of that. Regarding this passage he summed it up by saying Believe and you have eaten. And this is because when we believe in Jesus, we enter into life with Jesus. And the apostle Paul would say it's no longer me who's living, it's Christ who lives in me, which would parallel what Jesus said.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. So, there's a couple of ways of looking at this passage. And I think we would pretty much agree that Jesus isn't inviting us to become cannibals or vampires. Although, this is exactly what the early church got accused of. And what brought a lot of marginalization to early Christians in the societies that they lived in and what brought on persecution.

And then we get to Proverbs. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And that would submit that that's pretty self-explanatory, but pretty deeply penetrating into the ways that we interact. That proverb is worth committing to memory. It's worth remembering and calling to mind before any conversation is going to take place. Because knowing this verse after the fact, right? After things have already blown up and world war 3 is raging, well, it's a little late.  But walking into a situation knowing a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.  Knowing that going in changes how you communicate.  So we've covered some serious ground today.

Prayer:

And, Father, we invite you into it. It touches on a lot of different things.  It touches us theologically, it touches us practically, it touches us historically. All these things that they keep churning as we continue to move through your Word and you keep touching every part of our lives.  And that's what we want.  We want all of you, all that you have for us. And in return we give all that we are to you, which is such a lopsided trade. But it's what we have. We give our hearts, our minds our wills, our bodies, our spirits to you and invite your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. And we ask expectantly, knowing that you will. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, it's home base, it's certainly where you find out what's going on around here, so be sure to check in and check it out.

Check the resources that are available in the shop. Visit the prayer wall while you're there and stay connected.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, that can be done at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link right on the homepage. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the give button in the upper right-hand corner. Or if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee, 37174. And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

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 everyone, it’s Karen in St. Louis. Hey, I just wanted to celebrate with Terry. It was so great to hear you calling him and also hearing all the others who have called in. And we have all been praying for you brother. And I totally agree with what Bob from Michigan said today and loved how we talked about doing the kill and fill. I try to pray for the Holy Spirit to fill me each day before I get out of bed but I never thought about killing that flesh. And, so, I just wanted to say thank you for that. And also, I want to lift up Hopeful. I heard your prayer request for a child and I will be praying for you. And God can do it. My best friend got pregnant when she was 42 years old after many years trying. And, so, I pray that you will just have peace in the waiting. And, oh gosh Brian, once again your commentary on Proverbs 14:30-31. I unplug from social media from time to time and as you all know the desire in my heart for having a husband and a family has never happened. And, so, as the years have gone on, I mean, I’ve celebrated with friends and family who’ve gotten married and had kids but, gosh, I just find it harder and harder. And envy has been an issue that I continually have to write down even had at our Good Friday service at church. We had to give a funeral and pick up flowers for one besetting sin. The one that I picked out was envy. And, so, I would just ask that you would all pray that the peace that surpasses all understanding would just fill my heart, every square inch of it, and that the Lord would take away this desire if it’s not his. But, anyway, thanks again Brian and I love you all. Bye-bye.

Hey, this is Blessed Like Me coming to you with a message of knowing who God is. Now, we all have our own idea who God is but one thing we can all agree on - denomination to denomination, reverend to layman - we can all agree that God is sovereign but sometimes we forget this and sometimes we try to play the position of God. We try to pull the strings that God does. We try to do the things that God does. That’s not the thing that we are to do. God has given us, gave us commandments and things to do. We are to love God with all our heart all our soul all our mind, but we are to know that God is sovereign. And when we know that God is sovereign there are certain things we don’t do, there are certain things we don’t do. And we don’t try to manipulate or try to change things that God has already ordained and put into place. Now, one thing He has placed for us to do is to go. And don’t want us to sit on our hands and be Christians that can’t do anything, but He also wants us to know that God is in control. He is in control. Our God is in control. Somebody needed this today. Somebody needed to know that God is in control. No matter how much you worry. No matter how much you contemplate. No matter how much you try to design and change things, God is in control, and know that your life will go so much easier in your Christian walk with Him. Remember you’re not walking in front of Him you’re walking with Him. And God wants us to be his children. And one thing children do is they know their father, they know their parents. So, He wants us to know Him and to know what He wants from us. Blessed Like Me coming to you from __ knowing God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign. He’s all sovereign. Love you guys. Miss you DAB family. I Love you so much. Thank you, Jill, and Brian for this ministry. Love you guys.

Hey DAB family. This is Jordan from Texas, first time caller. Been listening since the end of Deuteronomy. Anyways, just wanted to introduce myself and let you guys know how blessed I am by this ministry and all of you guys prayers, poems, singing, it’s awesome. I just wanted to encourage a couple people that I’ve heard lately. Terry the truck driver, a lot of people been praying for you and giving you words of encouragement. Just wanted to say, aw man, you mentioned that you feel like God has given up on you and I just want to remind you about Jesus saying, you know, I want you…to His disciples saying...saying, you know, forgive those who sin against you 70×7 times in a day. And, you know, He did mean 490. He meant however many it took. And, so, if He required that of us, how much more is God willing to forgive you then. And, you know, it’s just a big fat lie that He has given up on you. So, be encouraged brother. I hope you are. I’m praying for you. Last person, if I have time here, Hopeful, just listened to yours, May 8th, desperately wanting children and the doctors saying you’re too old, 40, turning this year. I met a woman last year, she’s on her 12th child and she’s 50. So, it’s not too late for you and I just want to encourage you and let you know that I’m praying for you daily. So, all right, love you guys. It’s a blessing. So, have a good day.

Hi Fam. My name is Leah E. This is my second call. My first call was spoke so quickly and nervously I don’t think it was understandable. That was about a year ago. I’m calling today because 14 years ago the Lord found it fitting for me to leave a life of substance abuse and isolation. And over the last six years things got kind of rough. I lost my mother, my father, two close friends and my brother all in separate tragic incidents, incidents most of which I witnessed firsthand. Despite this, I stayed the course of sobriety. And I know now that’s because of prayers that begotten more prayers that begotten more prayers all started by a friend of mine who I love very dearly. Now that friend is struggling with substance abuse and depression and terrible seizures and that often terrify her children. Of course, she’s decided to call herself an atheist. The prayer chain she began reached thousands of people and blessed me with comfort and healing when I needed it the most. Also, another dear friend checked herself into the hospital today to keep from committing suicide. It’s a regular pattern that she can’t break alone. I know what that feels like and I know that God lifted these feelings from me as easily as He did the substance abuse, like peeling a glove off and exposing a clean hand. I know that with all of you out there praying my friend’s illnesses don’t stand a chance. Prayers are miracles and I can’t wait to see the miracles that He puts in place through you all. My friend’s names are Stacey M. and Mayly L. Thank you, family. Also, shout out to Slave of Jesus. Everything you do inspires me man. Thank you, guys. Bye.