#it took me 12 minutes after surgery to start questioning religion

[thehellsystem]

”I’m so worried what I’ll say when I get my wisdom teeth out :(“ girl I bit off a large chunk off my lip and then told my mom my lips were unkissable whilst looking DEEPLY in love

[dextersjournal]

Death and Consequences

Thursday, 11 June 2020

My cousins’ grandmother passed away last week.

Given the nature of our relation, one might expect Ma Audrey to not have been very close to our family. On the contrary; she lived in the same building as my cousins, who live just across the park opposite my house. So she was like a second grandmother to me growing up. She would look after my cousins while their parents were at work, so when I would go visit in my youth, we were all in her care.

When I continued to visit my cousins as we got older, she wouldn’t be as present because we no longer needed a babysitter. Still, we (my brother and I) would always make a point of greeting her as we passed the stable-door at the back of her house.

Sadly, the visits became less frequent, due to our lives just generally becoming less busy, but also due to family politics, which I shan’t go into.

Guilt and Memories

My cousin sent me a message on WhatsApp on Thursday, 4 June, to let me know Ma Audrey had passed. I can’t remember what I was busy with, but I was out of the house. I responded with my sympathies when I found the time.

I acknowledged the sadness, but I didn’t feel particularly sad. People might put it down to shock, but I’m not sure that’s what it is. I didn’t like this. Ma Audrey deserves to be mourned, I felt.

I hadn’t seen Ma Audrey very often in recent years. We would usually see each other at family events at least, but those were few and far between as of late. The last time I saw her was Christmas 2019, where she remarked that she doesn’t really see our family anymore. The last time I was in her house was to store some of the desserts in her fridge.

The problem, I think, is that I don’t have many memories of Ma Audrey, not that I can think of offhand, anyway. Not that she or my interactions with her weren’t memorable, but I actually don’t remember much of that period in my life without prompting. To think I would spend so much time there. I feel awful about it.

That’s why I ultimately decided to attend the funeral. I was hesitant at first, given that it would be a gathering of people, but I decided that I would regret it if I didn’t. (Also, thankfully, the physical distancing went pretty well.) I wanted to hear others’ reflections, hoping it would prompt some residual memories. Thankfully, it did.

The Funeral

This was the first funeral I’d attended since my great-aunt Gwen passed away in 2005. I was 10. That was my first funeral where I was cognizant of the events (my paternal grandfather passed away when I was 3). Aunty Gwen’s funeral made me hyper-aware of mortality and I was so afraid of losing my biological grandmother for at least a year after that. Thankfully, my grandmother is alive and well having lived 15 more years, despite a heart problem for which he had successful surgery in 2012.

At the time of writing, South Africa is in Level 3 Lockdown, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Places of worship have been given governmental permission to reopen, a decision I’ve been very critical of.  But thankfully it meant we could host a funeral. Unlike a standard church service, it would be a more controlled environment as people had to stipulate beforehand whether they would be attending.

When I was told of Ma Audrey’s passing, I wasn’t sure that there would be a funeral. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there hadn’t been one, given the circumstances. If there hadn’t been a funeral, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it; given my worldview (read: atheism), I don’t think it’s necessary. Funerals are for the living, not for the dead.

But Ma Audrey was a Catholic woman. We used to go to the same church, back when I did go to church (more on that later). So it is fitting that she would be ‘sent off’ in that way.

At the door of the church, we had our temperatures taken, our hands sanitised, and we were asked via individual questions whether we had any COVID-19 symptoms. The casket was in the foyer; closed. I’d had a slight hope that it would be open so I could see her face in person one last time. (My eyes started welling up during that last sentence.)

The funeral was essentially a standard Catholic Mass, but with the priest testifying about Ma Audrey instead of the usual sermon, and a Wikipedia-esque eulogy read by my older cousin. I admittedly haven’t been to many funerals, but it felt a bit…impersonal. Almost cursory.

The Church

I’m going to go off on a slight tangent here. The funeral was the first time I stepped foot in my old church since Christmas 2008, almost 12 years ago. It was slightly smaller than I remember. Some things had changed; some things had stayed the same.

The PA speakers were the same set that I remember, but the mezzanine where the “Music Ministry” were usually stationed had been extended. No longer did they have an overhead projector; they now had a projector overhead.

The Stations of the Cross portraits detailing the Passion of Jesus were still in the same place. The Seven Sacraments were depicted high on the church walls behind the altar. My eyes traced the path form Jesus’ fingers turning into wheat stalks and then rejoining his body as my mind wandered away from the Bible readings much as it had done in my youth.

It was interesting that being in this building did not evoke any nostalgia. For people who only know me since I became a heathen, that might make sense, but I was actually very involved in the church; I was a reader and a singer in the aforementioned Music Ministry. My departure from the church actually had nothing to do with unbelief; that only came years later.

The Death                                  

Ma Audrey had suffered from cancer. She had been diagnosed with bowel/rectal cancer years ago, but then eventually went into remission. She was later diagnosed with lymphoma as well.

My mother called my uncle, Ma Audrey’s son, on the day of her passing to give her condolences.  According to him, Ma Audrey looked and seemed fine, but she requested to go to the hospice.  He said she refused to continue to take her medication and that she had told him she wanted to die.

When I first heard this, I was glad. I was glad she died on her own terms. It felt like a boss move, like in S02E12 of Grace and Frankie. “Good for Audrey,” I’d said. My younger cousin, who was with her when she died, explained to me after the funeral that it had been more a case that she was tired of suffering and tired of having to rely on others just to live. Being given better context on the circumstances of her decision made it more heart breaking, but no less dignified.

She passed with her remaining child and youngest granddaughter by her side.

Suspension of Disbelief

After the gospel reading, the priest testified about how the church was Ma Audrey’s second home. She had been a part of the soup kitchen, and the Music Ministry at some point as well. She had been part of the committee that would volunteer to clean the church on Fridays for the weekend Masses. Even when she was unable to participate, she would still go to the church on Fridays for the company.

When my family would still attend church, we would offer Ma Audrey lifts. After we’d stopped going to church, we’d still see her making her way across the field on her way to Mass. Like when passing her stable door, we’d be sure to greet her, shouting and waving from our front porch. She was persistent in trying to get us to go back to church, even after my own (Anglican) grandmother had long given up.

Being away from church for so long, I no longer knew the hymns, nor the recitations or responses. From an outsider perspective, the ceremony seems very cult-y; people dressed in robes; mass recitations; ceremonial eating (even if you don’t consider the supposed transubstantiation, which is another story); and the additional pomp and circumstance of altar servicers carrying large candles and a wooded cross on a large stick.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to participate in the recitations. I decided not to, for the most part. Only at the end of the priest’s testimony where he blessed Ma Audrey (in spirit) and her casket, did I join in saying “Amen”.

But still – sitting, standing, kneeling in that church – the jaded, cynical atheist in me was at the forefront at the beginning of the procession, internally scoffing at the same rituals in which I once partook.

But during the priest’s testimony, I thought less of the church and more of what the church meant to Ma Audrey; I felt I should reserve my cynicism out of respect for her, not the church.

During one of the hymns, I decided to interpret the lyrics to be about her instead of God.

But you are always close to me Following all my ways May I be always close to you Following all your ways, Lord

Strange thing to do for someone who doesn’t believe in an afterlife, huh? The thing is, I know one of the purposes of religion is consolation. So no, when it comes down to it, I don’t believe Ma Audrey – or anyone – is up there or out there, but sometimes it’s nice to think that she is.

There was a moment, whilst the priest was blessing the casket, that I actually wished God existed – not the god of the Bible, but a god worthy of Audrey and her worship.

The Dénoument

After the funeral, my brother and I went over to speak to our cousins. It was here my younger cousin explained to me the afore-mentioned circumstances around her grandmother’s decision to die. This conversation only took a couple of minutes until it was interrupted by a flash of lightning then, a few seconds later, a mighty crack of thunder.

We all parted ways and, almost as soon as my brother and I got into his car, so began the hardest hail storm any one of us could remember. Almost like a fanfare from God Himself, if you believe in such things.

[dekierey153]

....The particular case involves a 33-year-old man from Eritrea, S., who came before Reese last year without an attorney. After converting to Pentecostal Christianity, a religion outlawed by the government, S. was arrested by the military in early 2005 for failing to show up for military service because it conflicted with his religious beliefs. “They gave me an option either to hold a gun and kill people … or be in prison,” he told Reese, citing Matthew 5:39. During the hearing, which took place on February 27, 2018, Reese asked S. to quote the passage. “Jesus ordered me that whoever slaps me on my face, I have to give him the other face, too; whoever takes my jacket, I have to give him my sweater, too,” S. said. “So those are the directions that I was given from Jesus, so I cannot kill people.” S. explained that he was taken to Karshali prison, in the Eritrean capital of Asmara, where he was beaten daily for six months. Reese asked if he had suffered any other harm. While detained at Pine Prairie, S. had disclosed to a doctor that he had been sexually molested at Karshali. “I’m embarrassed to tell this. It’s very hard for me,” S. told Reese. The court took a break and went off the record. When the hearing resumed, S. explained that two soldiers at Karshali had taken him into a cell and “covered my nose with plastic, and they inserted their genital organ in my mouth.” As they did so, he told Reese, they said, “Where is Jesus to save you?” He said guards did this on three separate occasions, and also inserted a stick into his anus. Reese asked if he had ever told anyone about this before revealing it to the doctor at Pine Prairie. “I did not,” he said. “This is very shameful for me to tell.” Later, S. said that, despite daily beatings, he refused to convert to Orthodox Christianity. “And every time you said no?” asked Reese. “Yes, based on Matthew 10:22,” he replied. “I didn’t—sir, I’m not asking you to quote scripture,” said Reese. “Jesus is asking me to talk for him.” Reese snapped. “And when you lied to the asylum officers or failed to disclose your sexual abuse, what do you think Jesus thought about that?” The judge followed that up with a lengthy diatribe, chastising S. for not revealing the abuse earlier. S. testified that he then spent 12 years at a forced-labor camp near the Sudanese border until he escaped. He didn’t know the name of the prison, only that it was near a military base called Sawa. Reese found his lack of knowledge of the prison’s name implausible, though if she had looked at a map of secret prisons in Eritrea published by Amnesty International, she would have found one at Sawa, which is reported to hold religious prisoners of conscience. Though he continued to refuse to renounce his faith, S. explained he began to pray aloud to various saints, as Orthodox Christians in Eritrea do, instead of directly to Jesus, so as to lessen the attention guards paid him. “Well, wasn’t that a lie?” Reese interjected. S. answered that after a good friend died in prison, he had begun to lose hope. “Do you know what Corinthians 15 and 54 says?” Reese asked, now asking him to quote scripture. S. apologized to Reese, saying that he didn’t remember. “It says to be steadfast and unmovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord. So starting to pray to the saints, which you said you no longer believe in, that doesn’t sound steadfast. Does it?” I read the transcript three times. I try to imagine being in S.’s situation, struggling to recall a particular passage of the Bible and then being lectured about my lack of faith. What bearing does such a line of questioning have on an asylum claim? What other purpose does it serve Reese than to assert her dominance over another, in a tiny courtroom with no observers? My thoughts turn to Trump, who has ridiculed asylum seekers, and to former attorney general Jeff Sessions, who has described the asylum system as “subject to rampant abuse and fraud.” Both men would no doubt consider Reese’s record a model for judges across the country. And in a judicial system controlled by the executive branch, I wonder how many more judges will be installed who harbor an instinctive belief that asylum seekers, rather than seeking safety, have arrived to game the system, and who, after too many years of misplaced mercy, need to be put in their place. As I was finishing up my reporting for this story, I learned that on June 21, 2019, after serving on the bench at Oakdale for more than two decades, Judge Reese retired. I reached out to her to seek an interview—as a retired judge, she’s allowed to speak to the media—but didn’t hear back. When I asked López whether her retirement might improve the chances of his clients, he wasn’t particularly optimistic. He said that as far as he knows, the newest Oakdale judge, Scott Laragy, a former military lawyer and federal prosecutor who was appointed last summer by Sessions, hasn’t approved a single asylum case. “The best I can say is that it can’t get any worse,” he said. Even with the departure of Reese, López will continue representing clients whom she has denied. That includes S., from Eritrea. Reese denied his asylum on April 25, 2018. She found that S. lacked credibility when it came to the date he went into hiding to avoid military conscription—at first he said it was in 2005, at the beginning of the year—but under questioning by Reese, he acknowledged it might have been September of 2004, a difference of several months. She also faulted him because he hadn’t previously disclosed the sexual abuse he claimed he suffered. When I asked López whether Reese’s retirement might improve the chances of his clients, he wasn’t particularly optimistic. “The best I can say is that it can’t get any worse.” Even if Reese had found S. credible, she wrote that she would have still denied his application because she couldn’t be certain of his identity. S. only had a baptismal certificate—he testified that his birth certificate was destroyed during the 1991 war for Eritrean independence from Ethiopia—and the US government was unable to determine the certificate’s authenticity. Reese determined that S.’s decision to not join the military was based on personal beliefs, not his religion. She concluded: “Respondent relocated to the US to avoid harm; there is no indication he cannot do the same within Eritrea.” S. appealed the case, but last October the appeal was denied. He spent more than a year at Pine Prairie and is now being held at the Etowah County Detention Center, in Alabama, where I reached him by phone in early May. He told me that during the break in the transcript, when the court went off the record, he spent ten minutes in the bathroom, crying and praying for guidance. A month after the hearing, he had surgery for internal bleeding, which he attributes to stress. “I came from darkness,” S. says in a shaky voice. “I was a young boy seeing all of this horrible stuff. She asked me, ‘Why did it take you so long to run away [from prison]?’ I was scared! I was scared to have a bullet in my head.” Back in Eritrea, his parents were overjoyed when they learned he had arrived in the US. Now they struggle to understand why he’s back in prison. ICE wants to deport him but can’t, because Eritrea isn’t accepting deportees. At Etowah, about 300 migrants are held in the county jail, sometimes for years. López has filed for S.’s release, hoping to prevent his indefinite detention. (I learn later that S. has since been released and can live and work legally in the US, but if conditions in Eritrea change and ICE is able to send him back, he will be deported.) For now S. spends 23 hours a day in his cell, with an hour of recreation inside an indoor cage. He tells me he hasn’t seen the sun for two months...

“Your Judge Is Your Destiny”

Agnelis L. Reese has presided over more than 200 hearings during the past five years as an immigration judge. Unique among her peers, she has rejected every single case.

Words by Gabriel Thompson Illustrated by Leonardo Santamaria

[boothanita]

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[global-news-station]

CHRISTCHURCH/WELLINGTON: Accounts emerged on Sunday of heroic attempts to tackle a gunman who slaughtered 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand, as authorities prepared to begin releasing the bodies of victims to their families for burial.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges.

Friday’s attack in the city of Christchurch, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labeled terrorism, was the worst ever peacetime mass killing in New Zealand.

Ardern also said she wanted to talk to Facebook, as footage of the attack on one of the mosques was broadcast live on Facebook, and a “manifesto” denouncing immigrants as “invaders” was posted online via links to related social media accounts minutes before the violence began.

Amid the shock, outrage and recriminations that have consumed New Zealand over the past two days, tales of heroism and self-sacrifice emerged.

Abdul Aziz, 48, was hailed for confronting the shooter at the second mosque and preventing more deaths.

Aziz, originally from Afghanistan, ran outside after the shooting started and picked up a shotgun that the gunman had dropped. The gun had no shells in it, he said.

Read More: This is how Afghan man stopped terrorist from more bloodshed

“I chased him,” Aziz said. “He sat in his car and with the shotgun in my hands, I threw it through his window like an arrow. He just swore at me and took off.”

Another man, Naeem Rashid from Pakistan, was seen on the gunman’s video confronting the shooter before he was killed, the BBC reported. Rashid’s 21-year-old son, Talha, was also killed.

The death toll climbed to 50 when police found another body at the Al Noor mosque, where more than 40 people died after a gunman burst in and opened fire on worshippers with a semi-automatic rifle with high-capacity magazines, driving to attack a second mosque.

Police rammed the suspect’s vehicle and arrested him as he drove away from the second mosque in the suburb of Linwood.

Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the man was apprehended 36 minutes after police were alerted and he was the only person charged in connection with the shootings. Three people detained earlier were not involved, he said.

‘INCOMPREHENSIBLE’

Huge piles of flowers were laid at sites near the mosques and crowds of people of all faiths gathered to pay respects. Some played guitar, sang and lit candles as darkness fell.

Members of a Maori motorbike gang performed a haka war-dance at one site.

Church services for the victims were held, including at Christchurch’s “Cardboard Cathedral”, a temporary structure built after a 2011 earthquake.

But the priority for grieving family and friends on Sunday was laying their loved ones to rest. It is customary in Islam to bury the dead within 24 hours but no bodies have been released because of the investigation, police said.

Ardern said victims would be handed over to families from Sunday evening.

“It is likely, however, to be a small number to begin with,” she told a media briefing, adding that all should be returned by Wednesday.

Wearing a black scarf, Ardern hugged members of the Muslim community at a refugee center on Saturday, saying she would ensure freedom of religion.

Thirty-four people were in Christchurch Hospital, with 12 in intensive care, while a child was moved to a children’s hospital in Auckland.

Greg Robertson, head of surgery at Christchurch Hospital said staff were used to gunshots and other severe injuries, but the scale and nature of the attacks was different.

“The magnitude of this is the thing that is the most significant issue for people. It’s just comprehending what is the incomprehensible.”

The majority of victims were migrants or refugees from countries such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

The youngest was a three year old boy, according to an unofficial list of the dead.

Pakistan’s high commissioner said six citizens had been killed and three were missing. Five Indians were killed, its High Commission said.

GUN LAW ‘WILL CHANGE’

Tarrant did not have a criminal history and was not on any watchlists in New Zealand or Australia.

Ardern said a “manifesto” was emailed to more than 30 recipients including her office, nine minutes before the attack but it gave no location or specific details. She said her office sent it to parliamentary security two minutes after getting it.

In the manifesto, which was also posted online, Tarrant described himself as “Just a ordinary White man, 28 years old” who used profits from cryptocurrency trading to finance travels through Europe from 2016-2018.

The shootings have raised new questions about violence being disseminated online. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours, and it was also removing all edited versions, even those without graphic content.

Ardern told the briefing that she had been contacted by Facebook operations chief Sheryl Sandberg who had acknowledged what had happened.

“This is an issue that I will look to be discussing directly with Facebook,” Ardern said.

The violence has also shone a new light on gun control.

Ardern said Tarrant was a licensed gun owner who allegedly used five weapons, including two semi-automatic weapons and two shotguns, which had been modified. She said a ban on semi-automatic weapons would be considered.

“We cannot be deterred from the work that we need to do on our gun laws,” Ardern said. “They will change.”

Media has reported a rush to buy guns before any ban is brought in.

New Zealand has tried to tighten laws before but a strong gun lobby and culture of hunting has stymied efforts.

There are an estimated 1.5 million firearms in New Zealand, which has a population of only 5 million, but it has had low levels of gun violence.

The post Accounts emerge of heroism in New Zealand mosques; bodies to be released appeared first on ARYNEWS.

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