#leaps of faith

[thesargasmicgoddess]

I'm pretty sure she'll take ALL the blessings because she can't bring herself to say "No" to amazing, new, yet positively crazy adventures....

[thesorcererpoet]

A meditation on the nature of miracles

Hello friends. Lately I have been deeply considering the nature of miracles. As a practicing magician, I have seen and been a part of many things I do consider to be miraculous but I am a rational person with both a creative and analytical mind. I need to know what makes a miracle, what constitutes a miracle, and how a miracle can be performed. I want to understand this in a rational and useful sense.

The first thing that always comes to my attention, as a person living in the 21st century, is the scientific method. How can something be understood? The greatest tool we can leverage for our understanding is Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is usually the best one.

To give context to what I am about to reveal, I need to first explain what brought this discussion to the forefront of my mind. At the moment I am working on researching The Queen of Cups tarot card to come to an understanding of something I am going through. This card talks about the nature of illusions (although in a very specific way). I am also undergoing some financial hardship, and I have been hoping and praying for something to come through for me to make things better.

Among the many events that have led up to this writing, I also had a dream about being on a tropical island, which turned out to be a real island that I have never even conceived of visiting because I am far from wealthy enough to spend my money like that. I had a dream which followed where a Goddess spoke to me and told me to make offerings to her. I later discovered a large region of this island was named after her. As a result of this dream, I came to believe that it might be possible for me to come into a fortune when I need it most. The rational part of me however, needs to work out the real world method of digging myself out of this hole. Nevertheless, I made the offerings and I bought a lottery ticket just in case.

In lieu of actually being able to perform a miracle, I have gone in search of answers which will help towards solving my problems. The answer pointed to the parable of Jesus turning water into wine.

To understand this we need to look at the source of this idea, however I do not speak Aramaic or Coptic Greek so I cannot review the material at it's source checking for mistranslations, if such a thing is even available but I do have access to the Holy Bible, which is the first English translation of the bible.

So what does the bible say about this miracle? For this we need to look to John, Chapter 2, verses 1-12.

"And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: 2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. 6 And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, 10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. 11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him. 12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days."

To begin with, we have a pressing need. Jesus was told there was no wine. He expressed in verse 4, "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come". This looks a lot like him saying, "what am I going to do with you?", and "mine hour is not yet come" as in, this is not the time.

In a pinch, Jesus had the servants bring him water vessels that were for bathing, specifically for spiritual purification. He sent the servants out with water in these spiritual vessels and sent them first to the governor of the feast. Two things here are apparent to me, firstly, the governor is influential, people usually fall in line when they see what their leader is doing; the second thing is that these are spiritual vessels.

Since the governor of the feast didn't know who sent them, it could perhaps be implied that these vessels were a reminder not to overindulge, of a religious nature. The water then being superior to wine, would suggest that they valued spiritual purity over indulgence, especially since most people there had clearly partaken of plenty of wine already. The water may even have come as a relief, as it would help the guests at the wedding feast to sober up and thus not have to tackle the next day with a headache.

In my opinion, the miracle here was that Jesus took a leap of faith. He did hide that it was he who did it, which suggests he feared a harsh rebuke, but equally implies that whoever sent the wine anonymously could have potentially been a spiritual leader who wanted to be spared embarrassment at outright stating what he wanted of the governor and of the guests. A spiritual leader would have been someone that no one would have dared to rebuke. The miracle then was a leap of faith that Jesus would pull this off.

So how does this apply to me?

One of the things I can actually do about my difficulties is to stop indulging. I smoke and I do occasionally (but not problematically) drink. Simply put, I must stop doing these things, I have to give up smoking altogether and I have to try to make cuts to the comforts in my life and take a leap of faith that doing so will help me manage things better.

With this in mind, if you have enjoyed my work and you wish to help me out, any donations made will help me out dramatically at this stage. If you want to help out, please donate to paypal.me/thesorcererpoet

All proceeds will go towards clearing my debts.

A giant thank you to everybody who has spent the time to read.

[erinwantstowrite]

timbernkon halloween au

guys help i can't stop

[dwuerch-blog]

He Believed in Me

He Believed in MeLet me tell you about this man. If He hadn’t believed in me….I would have thrown in the towel during rough patches in my life. Those patches when I was shy, lacking confidence, and weak in faith and hope. If He hadn’t believed in me…I wouldn’t have followed His call on my heart to be a writer of blogs every day. If He hadn’t believed in me …I would have never had the courage to…

[jq37]

And again, Adaine, the hard facts and arcana "I don't have to believe in gods if I know they factually exist" wizard, being the one to tell Ankarna she actually has six followers already in the Bad Kids is so touching.

[kadrii-art]

They live free in my head

Fanart for @erinwantstowrite from the itsy bitsy one shot idea

Sorry is the hype!!! xD

[quietsphere]

What's Up Danger?

[riverlarking]

Steve Martin in Leap of Faith (1992)

[eon-ku]

Another wip, this time of leap of faith Peter Parker!!! I love this fic sooo much totally recommend

The fic is “Leap of Faith ( Catch me, if you can)” by alighterwood and erinwantstowrite

[formulanni]

Oscar Piastri as The Fool (redraw):

The Fool represents new beginnings, having faith in the future, being inexperienced, not knowing what to expect, having beginner's luck, improvisation and believing in the universe.

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls

[pru-dle]

So I read a fic that I’m totally normal about and did not hyper fixate on at all nah 💀 but I’ll be damned it’s so good and it’s so well written, it mixes humor and angst near seamlessly I’m in awe. Anyways belated (?)happy birthday @erinwantstowrite you legend and happy birthday Peter 💪🏽💪🏽

Yes I did learn blender just for this

[c-art00nish]

LoF breaking a, years long, traditional art block in 4k (≧▽≦)

Thanks @erinwantstowrite and ur awesome, awesome, fic

Vers. with and without filter

[starofthesea37]

Finished the first two books!!! @erinwantstowrite

For the title page etc I tried to find the font that was closest to Erin’s handwriting, and I think I did pretty good! I’m really happy with these, and can’t wait till arc 3 is finished so I can bind it :))

Time for a reread!

This was done entirely by hand and I am making no profit from it, it’s for personal use only.

Fic is Leap of Faith (Catch Me, If You Can) by alighterwood and ErinWantsToWrite on ao3

[erinwantstowrite]

Halloween AU!!!

hey so. i put SOOOOO much effort into this au and for what? at least it ended up looking cool? anyways Halloween is my favorite holiday and i just HAD to make something for them!

i had a LOT of ideas for what everyone would be, but i really wanted to stick to a certain theme cause it's based around Halloween. i knew i had to have a vampire, werewolf, and a witch. cause like... obviously. iconic Halloween stuff!! but i took some liberties with everyone else and i think they turned out pretty cool!!

Jason was originally a fox shifter (which i still love and might draw art for some day) but i went with a bear in the end. is that because i thought about tiny bear cub Jaybin and wanted to cry? yeah. yeah it is. i KNEW Steph was going to be my werewolf though i started doubting myself when i went to draw her. turned out to be my favorite drawing on here which makes sense cause she is my light my love my daughter my will to live and all that jazz

Tim was actually gonna be a harpy but thank god i didn't go for that in the end. Duke was the one that was a bitch and a half trying to figure out BUT!! comments on the post asking what y'all thought led me towards Psychic so THANK YOUUUU everybody that commented!! (specifically those who thought of ghost!! Duke and Tim ended up being a perfect duo in this au)

Babs was pretty easy to figure out what I wanted for her. I read somewhere that they are seen as protectors of forests/ are considered spiritual authority figures and also.... she looks cool as fuck. Did not expect how easy it was to find a ref for a deer in a wheelchair though? I can never find the right hand or face angle reference but that was super easy???

For Bruce there was literally no question he HAD to be human. it's literally so funny that everyone who knows Batman thinks he's a spooky vampire but he's human. his first son, however?????? THAT'S the vampire. I knew Dick had to be a vampire too. A little nod towards that one comic run but in my au nothing bad happens ever 🥰 Damian also being a bat shifter is very on purpose because how funny is it that he's a bat man. Literally not a single person in the League thinks that Bruce is telling the truth about being human. Bruce you are NOT beating the secretly a vampire allegations.

adding in Jay's hilarious joke it's so fucking funny:

Alfred is actually a demon. I CAN NOT remember who made this post so if someone can help me find it, it would be appreciated!! because this was inspired by them!!! but somewhere i saw someone talk about Alfred being a demon that Thomas and Martha made a deal with (i think it was for an au idea?) and I just HAD to put it here. Alfred looks so human and everyone expects it, but he's definitely not. I put the ??? because it's so fucking funny. see if you can spot the 1 hint i put on his drawing that something is amiss!!

Peter is from an alternate dimension still, but it is not a world of creatures like him, it's just the same as LoF canon except Peter grew some extra limbs and eyes. He finds that it's actually pretty easy to fit in with the Waynes. Hard to feel like a freak when a guy can turn into a fucking bear, or your dad is a vampire, and the teenagers in the family are trying to summon ghosts or make potions.

additional doodles for this au:

i am still debating whether i am going to draw something for this au or write a oneshot, but i DO want to do something with these for Halloween

[spyderschaos]

Fanart for Leap of Faith (Catch Me, If You Can) by @erinwantstowrite !!! I’ve been wanting to draw this scene since that chapter came out and just now got to it lol

[mockingjaylad]

I’m gonna explode someone actually