#i heard a story from my seminary teacher about how she had a really strong feeling her husband would die young

[elishasbaldhead]

my theory on why mormons have so many kids

coming from a mormon family of 11 kids, people always ask if it's an actual part of the religion and i never really know what to say

but here's my theory: now, mormons are pushed to get married and start families as soon as they can, like early twenties (especially because you have to get married in order to go to the highest level of heaven). here's the problem with that- you're not allowed to start dating until you're 16, and even then you can only go on double dates and according to the old youth handbook you shouldn't date the same person for too long or you'll get too attached. that's why a lot of mormons get engaged/married in college.

another thing is that when you get married in the mormon church (specifically in the temple) you'll be sealed to your partner for all eternity. which is why divorce is very taboo in the church.

my theory is that the couples just have so much sex to make up for not actually knowing each other!

here's another little problem though: the church says not to take birth control because it's practically abortion of potential life, so when mormon couples have sex there's a higher chance of getting pregnant. (real quick- not taking birth control isn't a super strict part of the church, people still do, but it's advised against)

and there you have it folks, my theory of why mormon families have so many kids.

[notbemoved-blog]

Dorothy Day and her Hope-filled “Revolution of the Heart”

What a time we’re in! I’ve put my blog on hold while working on my next book, but feel the need to come back with a few pieces to “Keep Hope Alive” in these dark times. And just in time for a Dorothy Day revival!  Dorothy Day, the enterprising journalist and social activist (and perhaps soon to be saint of the Catholic Church) is having something of a revival of her reputation. A new biography (Dorothy Day by John Loughery and Blythe Randolph) and a new documentary (“Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story” by Martin Doblmeier) have put Day back in the limelight where she belongs. She’s recently appeared in the New York Times Book Review (written by prominent religion historian Karen Armstrong, no less), for an extensive New Yorker profile, and even today in the REVIEW section of the Wall Street Journal! Day’s renaissance couldn’t come at a better time, when, thanks to the pandemic, the fragility of our safety net for the poor shows itself for what it really is: benign neglect, if not downright abuse.

I’ve been an admirer of Dorothy Day’s for decades, dating back to my time as a Catholic seminarian in Baltimore in the 1970s when we were encouraged to think a lot about the poor and about social conditions and how best to put our social consciences to work to improve things. After leaving the seminary and trying to find my way throughout the rest of the ‘70s, I enrolled in The American University’s School of Communications and set about trying to improve my skills as a writer. While pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in Communications (the first, from St. Mary’s Seminary College, was in Philosophy), I happened upon a wonderful journalist/teacher Joe Tinkelman, who taught some of my earliest writing classes and whose consistent encouragement caused me to believe I might have a career as a writer someday.

For his “American Newspapers” class, Tinkelman pushed us to write a long-form journalistic piece profiling a newspaper of our choice. My mind immediately went to The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day’s creation from the 1930s that was still going strong in the 1980s. I thought a 50-year retrospective was in order, so I set about to research this little-known gem and report back to Tinkelman and the class. The research I did (mostly at Catholic University) put me in deeper touch with Dorothy Day, her philosophy, her writing, and her work with the poor of New York City.

For the next four weeks, I’m posting a serialized version of the paper I did for Professor Tinkelman as a tribute to his inspiring teaching and to Dorothy Day herself and her incredible work. Read with caution: You may just get radicalized!

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The Catholic Worker—The Voice of American Catholic Radicalism Since the 1930’s (Part I)

By Michael J. O’Brien, 12/8/81 – American Newspapers, American University, Professor Joe Tinkelman

 On a piercingly cold night in December of 1978, I stepped from the sub-compact I had so comfortably been traveling in with a former seminarian classmate of mine onto the curb of Second Avenue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We were on our way to Maryhouse, the Catholic Worker’s House of Hospitality for homeless women, to attend one of the C.W.’s Friday night meetings. It was my first visit to the Catholic Worker Headquarters. Before I could even close the car door, a middle-aged Black man with the smell of whiskey on his breath and of urine on his clothes—the smell of the destitute in any city—asked me for some money “for a cup of coffee.” I remember looking into this man’s half-dazed eyes, seeing behind him the lights of Second Avenue—the bars and novelty shops, the cafes and movie houses that give the street a feeling of one continuous cabaret—and wondering how to tell him on this of all nights that I could not give him a penny. [Part of our seminary training was to decline to give money to alcoholics. “They’ll only use if to further their illness,” we were told.]

 I was already late for the C.W. meeting, so instead of inviting him for a bite to eat at one of those cafes, I asked him to join me at Maryhouse. I knew he would at least be warm there and perhaps could even get a cup of hot coffee. He refused, and as my friend and I dashed across the street to get to the meeting, I heard him cursing us. I can’t think, now, of a more appropriate greeting for my first visit to the Catholic Worker—a group that has served the poor and the dispossessed of the Bowery for almost 50 years.

At the time, however, I was only thinking of our lateness! As we opened the doors to Maryhouse and rushed up the stairs of this seemingly ancient tenement, I was awed by the thought that Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker—“both a newspaper and a movement”—graced these steps daily. For all I knew, she was there that very night, this being her primary residence in the City. I didn’t know much about Dorothy Day then, but I knew she had chosen to live her life among the poor and to serve them as if they were Christ. That was enough to spark my interest in her and in her work.

 My friend and I entered the doors of the auditorium to a standing-room only crowd. More than two hundred people were packed into this tiny hall that serves as a distribution center for the newspaper and the meeting hall for “the clarification of thought,” as Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker’s other founder, put it.

We took our places among those standing in the back and I caught a glimpse of Daniel Berrigan, the radical Jesuit pacifist, who was speaking to the throng. Berrigan was scheduled to talk that night—I guess that’s why so many people showed up—on the poetry of Thomas Merton, a well-known Catholic monk and author who died in the late 1960s. Berrigan read to us some of Merton’s poems concerning war, peace, death, and nuclear armaments. After each poem, he gave us his own interpretation of what he believed Merton was trying to convey; they had been good friends.

Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and Daniel Berrigan: Three pillars of radical Catholic thought in the 1960s.

The entire evening had an aura of unreality about it for me. Here I was in Dorothy Day’s house listening to Daniel Berrigan speaking on Thomas Merton—three pillars of radical Catholic thought represented under one roof! The history of modern Catholic radicalism came alive for me that night. It is some of that history, particularly  the Catholic Worker’s singular role in its development, that I will attempt to relate in the text that follows.

The Young Radical Journalist

One could say Dorothy Day was a journalist from birth. Her father was a sports writer for the New York Morning Telegraph; her brothers became newspaper editors. Journalism was in her blood.

She became involved in questions of social justice at an early age. She read Upton Sinclair’s  The Jungle and Jack London’s essay on class struggle while still in high school. One of her brothers worked on a Chicago paper (where the family lived during Day’s adolescence) called The Day Book, an experiment by Scripps-Howard that reported on the ups and downs of the Labor Movement. The paper’s accounts of the the struggles of the poor and of the workers stirred Dorothy deeply. She began to feel that her life was linked to theirs, that she had received “a call, a vocation, a direction” for her life.

Dorothy Day began her career as a journalist in 1916 at the age of 18 by taking a job at a newspaper coincidentally named The New York Call—a socialist daily that was heavily involved in the labor issues of the day. Later she worked on The Masses, a monthly Communist magazine. After the periodical’s suppression by the Attorney General during the post-World War II “Red Scare”, Day worked for The Liberator, the successor to The Masses.

Her assignments took her to all kinds of strike meetings, picket lines, and peace rallies. She interviewed Leon Trotsky while he was living in New York and writing for a Russian socialist newspaper. She picketed the White House and went to jail for a month with a group of suffragists. She counted as her friends Eugene O’Neill, the great American playwright; Max Eastman, editor of The Masses; and John Reed, author of Ten Days That Shook the World, a journalists’s account of the Russian Revolution. (The new movie REDS explores aspects of the lives of all three of these men.)

A 1917 photo of Dorothy Day (center, holding a copy of The New York Call) urging the U.S. NOT to enter WWI. 

An Unlikely Convert

Although her early years as a journalist were spent advocating for causes and movements that were considered godless (Communism, after all, considers religion as an opiate), Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism in 1927 at the age of 30. She saw the Catholic Church as the church of the poor and of the worker, and she wanted to be one with them in every way. Also, she had given birth to a little girl through a common-law marriage, and the overwhelming love she experienced for both her lover and her daughter made her believe that there must be a God. 

Day’s conversion caused her much suffering; she had to leave the man she loved because he would not condone her religious leanings. But she put principle before personal comfort, as she would so many times in the future. 

After her Baptism, Day found she was no longer one with her comrades. They could not understand her religious convictions and she found it difficult as a Catholic to participate in demonstrations and meetings that were organized by Communists. She continued to report on the plight of the working man for Catholic periodicals—she even did a series of articles for the Catholic press explaining Marxist-Leninism!—but she felt far removed from her earlier radical involvement. She was at a loss as to how to reconcile her two great loves—her newfound love for God and her continued love for the working man and the poor.

 An Answered Prayer

Dorothy Day often warned people to be careful how they prayed. “God takes you at your word,” she would say. It was through just such a prayer that she found a solution to her dilemma and that The Catholic Worker came to be. 

In early December 1932, Day was covering a march on Washington, D.C., by the Communist-led Unemployment Councils. The march was an attempt by the Depression’s unemployed workers to bring their grievances to Congress. Day was reporting on the march for two Catholic periodicals, America and Commonweal. She became distressed by the march’s lack of Catholic leadership and felt she could no longer sit by and watch as others, especially Communists, took the lead in fighting for the working man. She had to find a way to get involved in the struggle as a Catholic.

On December 8, just after the worker’s march and, coincidentally a Catholic Holy Day, Dorothy Day went to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception—still under construction in Washington—and prayed fervently that God would show her the way out of the box she was in. Remarkably, God took her at her word. When she returned home to New York, Peter Maurin, the man who was to teach her the way out, was waiting for her in her apartment. 

Peter Maurin

Maurin had been sent to Day by the editor of Commonweal because they “thought alike.” He was a French peasant and was deeply rooted in Catholic social tradition. He had studied Aquinas, Augustine, and the socialy encyclicals of the Popes, as well as the many contemporary Catholic social writers, including Hillaire Belloc, Emmanuel Mounier, and the Russian activist and social theorist Peter Kropotkin.

Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin sitting for a group Catholic Worker photo in the early 1940s.

Maurin had a plan for the reconstruction of the then-crumbling American society. His plan had four planks: (1) houses of hospitality for the immediate relief of those in need; (2) farming communes to relieve the wretched unemployment brought about by urban industrialization; (3) round table discussion “for the clarification of thought” on social issues; and, (4) a newspaper to get these ideas to the man and woman in the street. Maurin’s entire plan was aimed at “creating a new society within the shell of the old” where it would be “easier for men to be good.” 

The Birth of a Newspaper

Dorothy Day didn’t immediately comprehend the breadth of Maurin’s thought, but she jumped at the idea of publishing her own newspaper. She found out that the Paulist Press—a Catholic publishing outlet—would print 2,500 copies of an eight-page tabloid (originally 9”X12”) for fifty-seven dollars. Day feverishly began writing articles for the fledgling paper—articles on the plight of sharecroppers, child labor, the hourly wage for factory workers, and racial injustice. These, along with Maurin’s “Easy Essays”—short, free-flowing verse for quick and easy consumption of ideas by the man in the street—made up the copy for the papers first edition. 

Maurin wanted to call the paper The Catholic Radical, but because of her knowledge of Communist periodicals in the U.S., Day insisted on calling it The Catholic Worker—a direct challenge to the then-popular Communist paper The Daily Worker. “Man proposes, woman disposes,” Maurin jokingly demurred. And so, The Catholic Worker was born. 

They didn’t seek permission from the Church to use the word “Catholic.” Day wondered about this, but a priest friend of hers wisely advised, “Never ask permission.”

 The enduring Catholic Worker masthead

The first issue of The Catholic Worker was ready for distribution on May Day—May first, the great Communist holiday celebrating the working masses—of 1933. In a short column entitled To Our Reader, Day dedicated the paper: 

For those who are sitting on park benches in the warm spring sunlight. For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain. For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work. For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition  of their plight—this little paper is addressed. It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church  has a social program—to let them know that there are men of God who  are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare.

Dorothy Day was determined to make her stand along with others involved in the workers’ struggle, so in typical in-your-face radical fashion, she along with three of her Catholic supporters went to hock the paper in Union Square, where 50,000 workers had gathered for a massive show of support for Communism. They were scoffed at and they sold few papers, but Day and her friends were satisfied with their results. The paper had been launched. In addition, Day and Maurin had embarked on the great pilgrimage that would consume the rest of their lives. 

(To Be Continued)

[humansofhds]

Jeremy Jones

"There are a lot of good ways that the church can engage the world but they don't. Instead they focus on other things, or worse yet, themselves. You see it a lot in Africa, especially with the prosperity gospel, where the focus is on wealth and health. The world needs a good church now more than ever."

Jeremy is a first-year ThM candidate at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Before coming to Boston, he spent three years pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Africa International University in Nairobi, Kenya. He participated in the “Theological German” course during the 2018 Summer Language Program at HDS, and is now currently applying to doctoral programs.

Availability of Vast Resources 

My experience at the Summer Language Program was really fantastic. It was also a great segue into life here in Boston for me. I chose to come to Boston for programs like this, and also because of the BTI. It's really great that so many students can take advantage of the many resources that are available in the area through cross-registration. And our teacher, Karin Grundler-Whitacre, was just wonderful. Despite the compressed format of the SLP, she made learning German quickly both manageable and rewarding.

My time at the SLP is already paying off in my research and writing. It has also been helpful in applying for PhD programs and ultimately makes me more connected to global scholarship. The chance to connect with other students outside of my school during the summer session was also invaluable. I can't thank Dr. Grundler-Whitacre and HDS enough for opening the doors to this program to non-HDS students. It's a great benefit to the academic community here.

Hearing the Message

I grew up in an Episcopal church (kind of). I don’t think my parents were really strong believers, but we went, because that’s what people do on Christmas and Easter and stuff. So I was involved in the church somewhat but never really understood it or believed what they had to say. Long after my childhood, before I graduated from my undergraduate program, a friend of mine invited me to play bass guitar at a little church plant in Aurora, CO. It was like their first or second service and I went and I heard the message and I felt like I’d never heard anything like it before, even though I had been in church quite a bit. From that day, I believed the message and my life has been different ever since.

Time went on and I was in the church playing music most of the time—guitar, bass, piano, singing sometimes and doing some short-term mission work here and there. Eventually I got to a point where I wanted something deeper. There’s a verse in the Bible that talks about the difference between spiritual “milk” and “solid food.” There’s a point where you get tired of drinking milk and you want something a bit stronger and heartier. I realized I just wasn’t getting what I needed spiritually from the church experience.

I felt there was a big gap between what you learn at church and what a seminary can do for you. This is one thing I would like to help bridge at some point. There are some people in the church who want to learn more and go deeper in their studies but it feels like they can’t do that without getting into a big program. There are many resources available but in many ways there is still a disconnect between the seminary and the church.

For me, the best option was to make that leap. I decided I wanted to go to seminary and learn more about the word of God and about ministry. I was at a point where I was considering the possibility of doing ministerial work full time. It was quite a big transition for me. I hadn’t been in school for a few years and the program I had done previously was in music. Going from a career in music to pursuing a degree heavy in reading and writing was a big change. But I’m really glad I did it—and I’m here now, and I’m going to continue on!

Making the Leap

People in Kenya used to ask me how I found the school, and they always thought it was a weird answer that I found it online, but that’s a whole other story for another time. But really, I was just looking for schools, and I was interested in serving in Africa because I had done some short-term mission work there before. I really wanted to learn more about the people and the culture and what ministry was like there. So I was searching for schools online and I found a Wikipedia page with a list of all the seminaries in Africa. I saw that there was one in Nairobi. I didn’t think much about it at first and thought I’d continue searching for something more realistic, or at least something closer to home. But then I ended up returning to Kenya a few months later and I was able to visit that school and see the campus and talk with the administration.

One of the people I was with said, “You know, you can stay in the U.S., study the books and then come back to Kenya and learn the culture. Or you can just come here now and learn the books and the culture at the same time.” That was a deciding insight for me. It made a lot of sense—we read the same books, and they have good teachers there from all over the world and it is a really cool intercultural environment with people from all over Africa so I thought, “Yeah, let’s do that.”

I was there for three years. I did come back to the States twice during my program, but only briefly. Now that I’m back here to stay indefinitely, America kind of feels like a whole new country again for me in some ways. When I was there in Kenya I was really trying to immerse myself in the culture and with the people as much as I could, probably to a fault, actually. When it came down to it, I would prefer to spend time with the local people rather than engage with other Americans. But ultimately that's why I wanted to be there. I didn’t just go move to Kenya to spend time with other Americans, I moved there to understand African life, from Africans.

I started to get comfortable with the life there, living as an American can live in Nairobi. So when I came back here, it was kind of a big shock, to be honest. I had always experienced some reverse culture shock after leaving Africa on my previous trips, but this time things were a little different because now I am with my wife, who is from Ethiopia. The first time she ever left East Africa was when we came to visit the States with me last year, for only a couple of months. So the permanent move has been a bit tough in some ways. We had a wonderful community in Kenya who we grew together with for the few years we were there. And my wife had lived in Kenya longer than I, a total of seven years, so she really felt like it was home. It’s a whole different world over there, and coming here we had to adapt to a whole other way of life again. But we just rely on God and we pray a lot and we trust that He has a plan for us. We have met some wonderful people here that have been helpful in our transition, and we thank God for that.

At the same time that it's tough, it's also exciting. Especially watching my wife, and seeing America through her perspective has been really neat. She sees things that you and I would take for granted. In a weird way, I almost feel like I’m growing up again, experiencing this transition with her.

The More You Learn

It’s hard to describe how different it is from the States unless you’ve been to Africa. Even though Kenya is probably one of the more Westernized countries, that’s only on the surface level. Everything “Western” you do, you still have to add the African culture to it, especially in seminary, I think. There’s someone who said that Africans are notoriously religious. Before and after just about every class, we would pray. Sometimes we would hear testimonies, or maybe a student had a specific need and the class would talk about it for the first half hour, and finally maybe an offering would be taken in class to help them out. I was there for three years and it seems like the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know and how different some things really are. I can’t really do justice to the culture as a whole, but at least this one example from my experience may shed some light.

It was really interesting because they use the American system of education, with lectures, discussions, the semester system, and everything. But being in courses with others who were so very different from myself, hearing all their stories and their points of view, just left me amazed at how although we were studying the same topics, in the same systems, the underlying processes were very different, and yet we were still able to make lasting connections with one another through our studies.

A lot of the learning happens outside of the classroom. When I first moved there I lived with a pastor from Cameroon. We bonded immediately. He helped me learn how things operated at the school. He was a wonderful guy and I learned a lot from him. He tried to show me how Africans engage in things differently than Westerners do. People there are very hospitable, even to the point of being extreme about it. He was explaining to me once that when people come over to your house randomly and unannounced it’s not that they’re trying to interrupt your day or anything. It’s just that they have something burning in their heart and they need to come and see you and say “Hi,” and be in your house and welcome you, especially if you are new to the area. People are really welcoming and talkative and communal and engaging with one another. That’s what is most important for most people, and that is what comes through in just about everything you do there. Here, I think people tend to be very competitive and individualistic. Of course you see that in Nairobi, too, but in the more traditional cultures the focus is not just on achieving, it is achieving together that matters.

This experience definitely changed my spiritual life. And that's what I wanted but I didn't really know that before I went. My relationship with God has been deepened and strengthened. There were ways that I had to rely on God like I never had before, living in a new place, a new culture, with people I didn’t know, and not having any Western things to grab onto. I dove in headfirst and challenged myself not to hold onto things that were comfortable for me. Finally that became one of the biggest lessons I learned from my experience, to not reach out to things that were easy and comfortable but to make a shift to reaching out to God when times were tough, or even not that tough, but just the day-to-day issues that can get us down. In all of those moments I learned to reach out to God and find comfort. It took going to the extreme to get there, but now my spiritual life has been forever strengthened because of this experience.

My relationship with the church is more thoughtful now, too. I expect more of the church. Before, I think I was just frustrated. But now I expect a lot from it. In some ways I think the church has been lagging behind. There are a lot of good ways that the church can engage the world but they don't. Instead they focus on other things, or worse yet, themselves. You see it a lot in Africa, especially with the prosperity gospel, where the focus is on wealth and health. The world needs a good church now more than ever.

Interview and photos by Anaïs Garvanian

[ellstra]

Here’s another fic rec because why the hell not

I posted my first fic rec exactly six months ago, so why not celebrate with another of these? They’re in no particular order (or rather, in the order I read them in, which is very unimportant), please check the ratings and warnings on each of them.

Hey baby, can you bleed like me? by @kyluxtrashpit, 11.5k, E; Kylo is no stranger to being a fuck up, but he never expected to fuck up killing himself. Trapped in a mental health ward with the full belief that there's nothing they can do for him, he finds unexpected solace in his asshole roommate.  Heed the warnings if you get triggered by such topics but oh dear lord, it’s so therapeutic and calming to me? There’s a quite complex, vivid backstory to it and I love it.

Observations on Treachery, In Which The Charge Against Maj. Armitage Hux is Fully Refuted, Written by Himself. by @irisparry, 5.5k, M; The charge against me is a connection with one Luke Skywalker, for the purposes of delivering classified First Order intelligence. My real crime is an amorous connection with his apprentice, for a considerable time while our true identities were concealed.

Major Armitage Hux writes his way out of hell. Hux's hilarious proclamation that he wasn't guilty of selling information to the enemy, because he was busy having sex with Ben. The language alone is wonderful, and Hux's is so spot on convinced of his own brilliance, it's hilarious.

I tell you miserable things after you are asleep by @huxes, 7.5k, T; Hux and Ben are falling apart. Modern AU. They hurt each other so much and yet they keep getting back together, and it's all fucking beautiful. And sad. Not to be read when you're feeling down.

Swipe Right for Slow Burn Regret by @jinxedambitions, 55.5k, WIP, E; Workaholic Hux doesn’t have time for relationships. He barely has time to grade all of his assignments while also ensuring that his students are the highest achieving in the school. When his friend and fellow teacher, Ms. Phasma, suggests he just needs to get laid, he’s skeptical. She decides some no-strings-attached sex is just what he needs, and no better place to find it than the internet. It’s all fine until he accidentally swipes right on Ben “Call me Kylo” Solo, and they’re a match. With more tattoos than teeth and a profile proclaiming him a "seminary dropout," what could possibly go wrong? Hux is certainly going to find out.A romance about awkward dates, bad sex, miscommunication, and finding love despite one’s better judgment. This fic is...messy. They keep trying to have sex, and something always goes wrong. And it’s as frustrating as it is hilarious, but of course there’s the side-dish of them being perfect for each other oh no. A delightful read.

Laeti Vescimur Nos Subacturis by @generallyhuxurious, 69.5k, E; In order to complete his training, Kylo Ren has been absent from the Finalizer for over a year. Hux considers their relationship to have ended as a result of this separation. When he receives his first direct communication from Snoke since the Starkiller debacle, he expects to be informed of Kylo's return and his own impending execution for daring to touch the Supreme Leader apprentice. Sadly, Hux' life is never simple or straightforward. Snoke ships it. Hard. This is a rather lovely fic that I would categorize as a fairy tale with explicit sex, although there's so much more to it. I recommend this fic if you're in need of some good old fluff with a side-dish of humour and a dessert of smut. Best served with a cup of cocoa snuggled in a blanket fort.

Effective Human Copulation: A Perspective by @moonwalkingcrab, 23k, E; Trying to start a new relationship with your hated coworker is hard at the best of times, nevermind when your slightly senile alien boss seems to take it as his personal science project. You've heard of Snoke's fascinating research log, now get ready to hear the story from Kylo and Hux's POV! This is one of the healthiest kyluxes I read, if I may say so. They even go on actual dates, you won't believe it. Truly enjoyable read that works even better if consulted with Snoke's research.

Mr. June by @nerdherderette, 4k, E; A fill for this Kylux hardkinks prompt: The First Order releases an annual spicy pinup calendar featuring stormtroopers, officers, pilots etc. Hux thinks it's stupid until he hears that Ren is going to be featured in it (bonus points if Hux has never seen Kylo without his mask and robes) [excerpt]:A simple loincloth barely covers the outline of his mouth-watering length, his stomach ripples with muscles Hux never knew even existed, and his chest and biceps are deliciously thick.  His hands are enormous and strong—meat hooks that look like they could span Hux’s waist.  A simple gold collar encircles the man’s neck, connected to a thin, gold chain. In short, Mr. June looks like someone who had stepped out of a holoporn, and into Hux’s wet dream. Hot, hilarious and a tad bit cute. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't tell you what the best bit is but trust me, you'll not regret reading this. It has Hux so horny he can't function and there are parts written like a really bad erotica, and I don't know why the cringeworthy words sound so great but they do. A delight. 

Summer by @eralkfang, 2k, E; It still feels like summer outside.Still is summer, technically. But to Hux, summer is home and London and holding himself carefully above the fray, not letting his father’s moods or his mother’s drinking or the people he went to secondary with grab him by the ankle and drag him down. Whereas here, in America, in September, he lets his metaphorical ankles dangle, low enough for American boys to grab at.Although Ben Solo’s the only one who’s managed to grab them and pull him down, like an anchor. Very sweet short College AU smut with nipples and cigarettes and open window and longing. A+ for atmosphere

Ex Machina by sual, 32.5k, E; An AU inspired by Ex Machina where Ben Solo never became Kylo Ren, General Hux is a droid that used to be human, and they might just be what the other needs.Warning for a whole lot of robophilia and cruel and unusual uses for droids. Ben never becomes Kylo, deciding to give his Force training and it's so beautiful. He's friends with Rey and their relationship is so very sweet. And then there's Hux with a marvelous tragic backstory. There’s also a great podfic for it if that’s your thing.

Off Limits by @verybadhedgehog, 4.5k, E; Military man of twinky appearance, previously stereotyped as a bottom, meets annoying xeno-experienced frot evangelist telepath, is persuaded to be less sexually self-denying. Jizz everywhere, job’s a good ‘un.A fill for the Kylux Hard Kinks blog prompt: “For medical reasons Hux can't engage in anal sex but his build always seems to attract guys who expect to fuck him. He's pretty much given up on dating when Kylo is transferred to the Finalizer. Years of interspecies experience has proven to Kylo that there's so much more to sex. Now he just has to bring Hux around to his way of thinking” Hux has given up hope for sex and then Kylo comes and is so considerate and so sweet and so generous. It's about sex, but there's an underlying level of affection and care and it's so beautiful. 

Sunny Side Up by @longstoryshortikilledhim, 7k, M; It was supposed to be a fun chef AU but then things escalated. Chef!AU with so many feelings I can't begin to list them. It's Johanna's impeccable sense of humour mixed up very thoughtfully with drama and I'm here for that. Let it be known I needed three comments to fit all my screaming, so you definitely should go check this out. I really can’t rec this fic enough.

Falling in Reverse by @slashedface, 4k, E;  Hux and Kylo awake in a pitch black cell. They have a choice on how they meet their fate...but not much of a choice. MCD. Kylo and Hux get trapped in a cold small cell and it's just as angsty as you'd expect, with the delicious side meal of regretful late love confessions.

I Write Siths Not Trajedis by xXDarksideXx (I’m sorry, I have no idea who’s behind it lol), 3k, WIP, M; Hi my name is Kylo Ren I'm 1.9m tall and have an eight-pack (I’m shredded). I always wear all black, usually goth robes with a ripped cape that I got from Hoth Topic and I always wear a mask to obscure my face and voice because otherwise everyone would be distracted by my beauty. Original fanfic about my OC Kylo Ren set after the Original Trilogy!!!1 My Immortal kind of fic, that will make you hate yourself for liking silly things. And laugh. No knowledge of My Immortal necessary but it will make it better.

Starfucker by @agent-nemesis, 2k, E; Kylo Ren follows a suspicious noise and finds a secret room. When he makes it inside, he can't quite believe his eyes. Short but very intense porn. Kylo is not nice at all.

Darkest Temptations by @solohux, 4.5k, E; A vision sends Kylo to see a troubled Ben Solo, and things become complicated. Selfcest fic that is surprisingly...eh, spiritual? It's sweet and gentle and hot and dark and it shows the difference between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren and blurs it by accentuating it. I'm not making sense because the feeling is indescribable, you'll have to go read it yourselves.

[lovestructionworld]

“Power Trip” LFM #35 December 14, 2017

As a preface to the forthcoming message, I want to share a testimony to the love and power of the Holy Spirit. Sometime in 2016 I met a determined salesman at Best Buy in Cool Springs while my oldest son Reid and I were shopping for a sound bar. During the first thirty minutes of sound bar discussion, I had been asking the Holy Spirit for the "in" with my salesman to discuss his soul condition and relationship with Jesus Christ. I don't pursue everyone. I only do it as the Lord leads. And then I saw the opening (it was just a knowing of "now") and asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God? His thoughtful and immediate first response was, "I'm an atheist". And quite frankly I can't even remember all the fine details to the conversation. But at the end, I asked if I could pray for him right there in the store. And I could tell the Holy Spirit had moved him while I was praying. But he rejected the first call to Jesus. We then agreed to meeting for breakfast. This man needed to see the non=religious love of Christ. Over the next year, one breakfast turned into between 5 to 10 breakfasts (I can remember the total). There were several more calls to Jesus, which he kindly rejected, but he had moved to "conviction/considering Jesus". I found out that the young man was the son of Seminary Founder in Australia who was also a Pastor. He was also a grandson of a Pastor and he was a nephew of a Pastor. Those breakfasts turned into, honestly, a fairly lame deliverance meeting that I shut down because of his bitter and unfounded anger toward his parents. The demons had twisted him into believing his parents were responsible for his rebellion. The Holy Spirit unraveled that lie. But he still really didn't want to forgive them. But what I did find out from the move of the Spirit in this deliverance meeting was his bitter anger and rebellion had been the open door to the attack of the demon named atheist. One perfectly timed very strong personal difficulty, upon another very strong personal difficulty began to break him of his stubborn anger to the point he gave his life to Jesus literally on his knees with his elbows on the back bumper of my Toyota truck in the Cool Springs Cracker Barrel parking lot. He was so desperate cars were driving by us both with him on his knees and he could have cared less. Tears were flowing from his eyes. He immediately began setting things right with his parents and wife. Life started coming back together in a powerful way. And this last July this man and his wife made a public confession of Christ and I baptized them both in water at Belmont Church. Today, his once broken and teetering on divorce marriage with two children attached is thriving and his wife is pregnant with their third child. And he knows he has heard from the Lord that he is supposed to follow in his father's footsteps as Preacher, Teacher and Pastor. After his baptism, I heard the Lord say to me "Pass him off to your new Pastor". My Pastor is discipling and counseling him for his coming journey.

I didn't do this. I just had love in my heart and obeyed what I heard the Holy Spirit said do. Praise to the living God!!! The impact on this country and our world is tremendous with any soul newly coming to Christ. But what blood might be on our hands if we don't share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

"If I say to the wicked person, 'You will surely die,' but you do not warn him--you don't speak out to warn about his wicked way in order to save his life--that person will die for his iniquity. Yet I will hold you personally responsible for his blood." Ezekiel 3:18

“Power Trip”

I would rather retake the country for Christ with Christ's love and power, than through the Fox channel, gunning up and Civil War.

If you are a Christian, you have to be aware that those who are unbelievers view you as a fool, simple-minded and irrational. So from the outset of someone finding out you are a Christian, you'll be somewhat repulsive to them. How do we reach those people who have so much disdain for everything "Christ".

I'm not against the next self-help, Christian Republican, Twitter celebrity with a new book and TV show that unbelievers won't watch and might even gag to as they fast flip through big hair, 700 club type channels on the Comcast box. Yeah, that sentence was too long. It's true though! But I'm inclined to think we have to get outside our personal issue spaces and conference mentality through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have to begin implementing what we learn in those conferences by soul winning. To do this we need the power of the Holy Spirit.

Think about the ways in which God dealt with those in the Old Testament who, in whatever shape or form, didn't believe in or avoided Him. He always used "power". Power equals "proof".

Moses staff, Angelic visitation, Prophetic insight and foreknowledge all made the rebellious kings and the common man aware that there is a real God. I'm thinking of rebellious King Nebuchadnezzar, Joseph's and Moses' Pharaohs and Elijah's false prophets and Ahab. Give pause to the incredible spectacle within scripture of God's power in those stories we all know.

In the New Testament, It seems that Jesus was more targeted toward the common man and even teaching the common man how to do what he did, which was to take spiritual ground for His Father. Jesus himself said, "unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe". So what did He do? He performed with power, signs and wonders. Would it be any different today?

And Jesus didn't point to himself at the ascension. He pointed to the Holy Spirit so that we could do what he did. And I ask you, why would God operate with power through his prophets in the Age of His Temple presence and then with power through His disciples during the Savior presence of Christ and then somehow not want us to operate with His power now that the Holy Spirit is """"""literally"""""" inside of us. Makes zero sense! .

This probably seems simplistic. But the demonstrated power of God reeks havoc on the strongholds of unbelief and rebellion and is why Paul said, "I would rather you prophesy". Even the gifts of the Holy Spirit...the Word of Wisdom, the Word of Knowledge, Faith, Gifts of Healing, Working of Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of Spirits, Different kinds of Tongues, Interpretation of Tongues (there are others), are here with us to bless and grow the body of Christ into an ever larger force going into all the nations. Yet many Christians have been trained that the power went out and down with the last Apostle who saw Christ. And today the bride of Christ more than lags in its growth across the country because of rebellion and false teaching toward the Power of the Holy Spirit. How many souls off the street and from the marketplace have been saved within your church this year in 2017? Many will have to answer honestly..."zero".

Wake up. I say this kindly and humbly. You Christian secessionists, that don't believe in Divine power for today, should stop blaspheming the Holy Spirit. You are in the USA minority and it isn't because of immigration. I curse anything that Jesus cursed and He cursed the fruitless tree and fruitless religion. I read where the Southern Baptists are losing people in droves. I've heard of zero revival in Nashville. There was a little outbreak of revival in Hendersonville, Tennessee twenty years ago. But nothing since. I could be wrong.

Christians cut off their noses to spite their face by devaluing the very weapons of the invisible spiritual war the Holy Spirit has made available to us..."they have Divine power to demolish strongholds"!!!

We all have gifts from God when we become believers. I became a believer as an 18 year old Senior in High School. Over the early years, I would call out things that would happen soon afterward. It would seem "coincidental" to me. Like me telling my x-girlfriend who was weeping over us breaking up that she would meet her future husband within a month to comfort her. She met her future husband two weeks later and they have been married for thirty years. This type of thing would happen to me pretty regularly, but I always chalked it up to a coincidence because of my mentors and minister's teachings. Later on after my Baptism of Spirit, I had a gift of faith to believe for the truth of God's power regarding prophesy. And I simply knew I had a prophetic gift.

Here is another example. I believe I've spoken this in a past LFM. Jesus loves unbelievers, which means I love unbelievers. Once I was at a New Orleans casino with business associates. Voodoo central!...Bourbon Street a few blocks away. Never had been to a casino and to make a long story short, I gave a Word to a mafia sounding man who had lost $20,000+ at a craps table and had been with two prostitutes in the last 3 days. He wanted to teach me how to play craps because he wanted "what I had". At the table he said, "I'm a bad person" and "Youse different". Seriously. Cracks me up! Through my sweat, The Word was that he was going to begin winning at the craps table. He had lost for 2 straight days. He immediately began winning over and over without a loss and the Word cut down the bob-wire to his strongholds of greed, sexual perversion and anger. He gave his life to Jesus in the casino bar. If I had carried a Bible into the casino and thumped him with it, he may have shot me. Ha! Who knows. But the Holy Spirit's power was released by Him. There is so much more to that story. But it really happened. It shocked my lukewarm Christian and Catholic business associates. They saw me bringing this man into the Kingdom of Heaven in this seedy bar.

Do you get how much love Jesus has for gnarly sinners like this Mafia guy. There are so many more true and "praise God He's powerful" stories I could tell you. And I have always said that I have many other Normal Christian friends who have these same kinds of stories. I just want you to read testimony. No bragging intended. But just like Jesus would perform a miracle right in front of the religiously minded, yet they still would't believe, many won't believe the story about which I just testified.

Muslims need to see the power of Jesus and they are, believe me. You may have heard the testimonies coming out the Middle East of many now having night dreams and day visions of this "man in a white robe" speaking to them like he did to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road.

Convicts need to see His power. Greedy CEOs need to see the Power of God. The Jews need to see God's power. Unbelieving Gangsters, Accountants and Scientists need to see something called out in there life that only Jesus on His throne could know. The common man and woman need to see their children healed and their strongholds dealt with by God's power. The power is the proof of God's existence and drives them to love Jesus Christ. Oh my God. This makes me so happy!!!!!!!

Many say "the Word of God is the power". Yeah and in the Word of God he says "I would rather you prophesy". Let's go ahead and dumb down "prophesy" with "that means just quote scripture to them". These testimonies and the 10,000 power moves across the earth today by power gifted Christians cannot be denied! Do you really want to be in the camp of "having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof".

Maybe I'm only speaking to a few people reading this. But I pray the Holy Spirit's power move on you now for your healing and Baptism of Spirit, if this is you. Once you make a move toward the Holy Spirit like what I'm talkin' bout, you'll be on His power trip of a lifetime. Remember there are souls out there that are desperate for you to get what I'm speaking right now. See to it that the blood of Jesus flows over them as opposed to their blood being on your hands.

As always, much love intended.

Brian