#one of these days i might need to ask The Rabbi what the hell is up with these people

[awkwardpenguinproductions]

I return with more Hanukkah stuff! This time it's a billboard on my commute home. I've been trying to get this picture for days and there was finally enough traffic the bus was going slow enough to get it. Sorry it's still blury, I had the zoom pushed to the max but the board was still a ways off.

…

…

what…

what the fuck….?

…

… this has got to be some kind of messianic bullshit… Jews don’t proselytize… like we specifically don’t proselytize… and we certainly wouldn’t just tell random goyim to perform our rituals without any context…

…

…

I went to the website.

It’s absolutely Messianic bullshit 😑

[lailau7904]

So y'all have seen the Williams F1 Logo before, yeah?

well get ready, becaues I am about to ruin your day!

where does one even begin with this. i am sorry in advance. -just a poor learning graphic design student, who simply tried to enjoy their saturday evening

The Logo

For anyone that doesn't know, here's the Williams F1 Logo. Entirely unedited, copied straight from Wikipedia:

Now like many fans, I actually quite enjoy this logo. I like the modern, sharp edges of it and it's simple yet intriguiging design. It's memorable, while also easily recognizable as a W. I also really enjoy the colour choice (this, however, is entirely a personal preference.)

(entire rant under the cut. please keep reading this took years off my life span.)

How did we even get here?

Let's start at the beginning. How did we even get here? Well I, a poor poor learning graphic designer, was watching this lovely video from Mr. V's Garage about bad F1 Logo's over the past 35 or so seasons. Very interesting, I can only recommend it (but you don't need to watch the video to understand this post)!

Now, to cleanse the palette at the end of the video, Mr. V included a top 10 GOOD logos from this time span, it was very kind of him.

On P4 of this "Good List," Mr. V placed the current Williams F1 Logo, as pictured above. At first I vaguely agreed with this, believing that he probably simply hadn't noticed one of the things that's been bothering me about that Logo since the first time I saw it up close.

The first sign of Trouble

So, what is this mystery issue, you might ask?

It's simple really. You don't necessarily notice it at a first glance, but something about that logo seems off. Taking a second longer, you may notice it yourself.

No, I mean it, take a minute and go look at the logo. It looks wonky as hell, doesn't it?

Well I can tell you the first thing that I personally noticed. The arms of the W aren't in line with the bottom half, see:

(Graphic by @girlrussell who was so kind to let me use it, as it is way prettier than the one I made)

It's a crooked W. There is no good explanation for this. The rest of the font is perfectly fine, geometrical shapes.

Anyway, the good person that I am I went to point this out to my partner ( @leftneb ) who proceeded to inform me that he, infact, was not aware about this and was, quote, "never going to unsee that."

Now, the good FRIEND that I am, I, of course, proceeded to rush into our broader F1 friendgroup to make them suffer for eternity.

What's the logical next step to take? Of course, fix the logo in Adobe Photoshop, you know, as a joke.

(Disclaimer at this point, I am not necessarily the biggest fan of Williams Management Team. I enjoy ALL their drivers this season. I do NOT enjoy James Vowels. Be warned.)(Also I am aware that he probably did not have an influence on the logo)

Trying to fix it. Oh god, I was so innocent back then

Trying to fix the logo in Photoshop is the worst mistake I could've made. THE worst path to take. I could've just giggled about making my friends suffer (which I succeeded in, by the way) and moved on. Instead I ruined a perfectly good Saturday evening, and for what? I don't know anymore.

Anyway, how was I gonna go about fixing the logo in the simplest way possible? Simplest way I could come up with: slap the thing in Photoshop and put two, mirrored boxes at each side to make the sides line up. Small issue, how do I make the thing actually even? Fix: line them up at the intersecting point with the bottom tips of the W.

Here's the result:

Hey, anyone care to explain to me why in THE LORDS NAME the arms are different sized? I mean, surely they weren't before. Surely, certainly, I must've messed up.

I double, I tripple checked. I made sure everything was lined up and made sense. But no.

It just couldn't be. Something was uneven in this logo, something even deeper. Something I could not have predicted when first taking a closer look. It was at this point I realized I had messed up. What rabbit hole had I stumbled across? Certainly, it couldn't get much worse.

And that's when I noticed.

(pictured above; my genuine reaction)

There's MORE? (oh god, the top isn't lined up)

I couldn't believe my eyes. This is the PINNACLE of the sport, and THIS was the logo of one of the competing teams? I mean, yeah, we have a Visa Cash App RB or a Kick Sauber or even a MoneyGram Haas which are all terrible logos, but at least they're CLEAN. (this has not been checked. If anyone wishes to ruin a nice Saturday evening, feel free to check them and tell me how wrong I was in the previous statement!)

But you can see that there is no end in sight for this post. I'm sure you're as scared as I was at this point. By now we were sitting in VC, discussing the horribleness of this logo. I had long informed my irl's about this, who take said design classes with me. And it was one of them who pointed out the next thing that had been bothering me, but I had not been able to put a finger on up to this point.

thE DISTANCE, HOW DID THEY FUCK IT?

I'm afraid I have to confirm your fears.

Yes, those lines are the same length. According to Photoshop, they're on the same level as well, so no flunking with angles.

The gaps of the arms to the main W are not the same. They're differently sized gaps.

It was clear to us, this logo is inherintely flawed. They're subtle issues, but once you pay attention you start to notice things. It all looks slightly wonky and off centre. And eventually, you get paranoid, and start comparing other angles and sizes. And you will keep finding things. This has ruined my life.

HOOOOOW

Honestly, I don't even know what to say. Yes, yes sadly those lines, too, are the same length. Just copied over from one side to the other and layed over on the same height. I admit, they're not layed over perfectly. I was honestly holding back tears at this point. But the point still stands, you can clearly see a difference in width.

Honestly, the only way I can explain it is that at some point there was a mess up of distance or proportions and whoever was designing the logo couldn't pin it down and tried to restore the visual balance by making manual adjustments. And in all honesty? They kinda did a good job, if that's what's happened. I mean, you notice the crookedness of the arms, and then maybe the difference in height, but the rest you probably will not notice if you don't spend too much time staring at it. (like some of us) And even those issues clearly aren't noticeable to the vast majority, considering I had to go point it out to a group chat for my friends at least to notice.

what the fuck is THAT?

Now, the thing about doing this investigative work of prooving a team you dislike is worse in more aspects than you previously thought, is that you do a lot of zooming in. And zooming in means you might notice bits that yours eyes simply overlooked before, because they were too small.

Here you can witness the top of the middle point, that, for whatever reason, really wants to touch the top border of the Logo. I'm relatively certain that's the highest few pixel in the entire graphic, considering earlier chapter "There's MORE?" I have no idea why it looks like that or why they thought it was necessary for it to not end in a clean point.

I just actually have no idea how to even describe what is going on on the top of the left arm. That left hand side, again, touches the side and is therefore the most-left-pixel in the graphic. I, once again, have no idea the purpose of this. However the RIGHT hand side also makes no sense, as it is the most prominent corner in the whole logo. There's pointed corners, and rounded OF corners, but nothing that is trying to form it's own colony in a distant land that hopefully isn't this god awful logo. I hope that blob gets away. I really do. You go king.

i'm loosing my mind

Anyway, the only reason I could come UP with those weird "reachy-outy-bits" was to establish the dimensions of the logo? But if that was the case, I don't understand why they managed to keep all the other potentially border touching corners clean?

Like, look. Those are clean, sharp corners with some clearance off the borders. I have no clue why they managed it here but not with the others.

guys. please.

Backtrackig a little bit, going back to the positioning of the arms.

Do I need to mention that those lines are both the same length and the same (mirrored) angle? I really hope I don't, because I don't think I could be making this shit up. Like, once you roughly know what you need to look for it just kinda becomes easy to find.

As said before, I genuinely do think that most of these issues happened in a chain-reaction. For example, the distances between the main part and the W wouldn't be as noticeable (and they do get noticeable once you start looking at it) if the angle wasn't fucked. And guess what, there's more fucked angles here! Which ALSO influence this specific area of the logo!

this is just embarrasing for you.

something something same line copied over and mirrored etc etc

It's not as visible but the angles defintely don't line up here as well. As mentioned before, these issues for the most part all influence each other. It doesn't really excuse the issues, in my opinion as a designer, because a big company like this shouldn't have these sort of issues in their logo.

So let's review;

to sum it up,

i cannot even BEGIN to explain to you how big of a fucking JOKE this FUCKING logo is. because, i thought to myself, to round the post out, hey, why not show ALL the issues i pointed out in one picture? that would round it out quite nicely, wouldn't it?

Yeah well, this logo sent STRAIGHT FROM HELL just could NOT let me rest. I had only done the lines visualizing the crooked arms in PAINT up until this point, i.e. I had only pulled both up individually. To make a nice "rounding out" picture I still had to add them into PHOTOSHOP. so i did. i pulled up the line. i mirrored the line.

THE ANGLE IS FUCKING DIFFERENT

none. and i mean NONE of my friends had noticed this before. i need you to understand that we looked at this thing with FIVE pair of eyes, and NONE of us noticed that until i thought to myself "Oh I still need to add these specific lines to have ALL the issues I pointed out in my SILLY TUMBLR POST in ONE image" and i get THAT FUCKING SURPRISE

I was PLANNING to round the post out with a statement on how obviously this isn't a serious post. Here, I even had it all written out already because I accidentally started writing it in the last paragraph:

Of course, this is nitpicking, and it's not that serious. I'm aware of that. AS MENTIONED most of these would not be noticeable if we hadn't gone specifically looking for them.

yeah, well, fuck that. i just spent two hours seething about this logo. i'm ending the post on this instead.

[foone]

The fundamental problem with comedy is that the highest form is improv. Not "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" style formalized improv, where you ask the audience for suggestions and build a comedic scene around that, but the basic skill of "something just happened, make a joke about that". This got long, so it'll be after a readmore

It's a life skill, not a type of art you produce. Jokes like this don't make it into movies and shows and blogs, it just happens. You're with a friend or two and something funny happens and you make a joke about it, everyone laughs. It's personal, you tell the best joke because you know your audience, you have shared history.

And you can see how we try to capture this in produced comedy: it's why we have comedy movies and sitcoms, literally "situation comedy". It's not just half an hour of stand-up, telling joke after joke, it's about setup and putting the protagonists into situations, and having it be funny, usually with them making a joke about the situation they're now in.

But there's an artificiality to it: the same people writing the situations are the ones writing the witty jokes. They set up the dominoes and they're the one who knocked them over.

And hell, even stand-up is rarely as simple as just "setup->punchline, rinse lather repeat". There are some comedians who can pull that off, but it seems far more comedians are "observational comedians", meaning they're making jokes about the absurdity of the world and modern life. They'll tell a story, even if it's as simple as "so I went to the post office and it was annoying and people were mean and I made jokes about it!". They're doing storytelling: here's the situation, and here's what I said in response, either in the moment, later during this retelling, or some combination of both. (Ed Byrne has a bit where he says "yes I was very witty that day, almost like I had several weeks to come up with the perfect response!")

And maybe the closest we can get to this "in the wild" (meaning in a produced media form) is MST3K and similar riffing. The people making the jokes didn't make the story, so they have plausible deniability. And even if they've seen the movie several times and written out jokes ahead of time, they can feel like they're reacting in the moment.

But the funniest jokes will never be made this way. No sitcom or comedy film will be the funniest, no stand-up one liner or knock knock joke, not even an improv scene that makes you nearly piss yourself in laugher.

The funniest jokes are when you and an old friend are getting ice cream and the person in front of you asks for vanilla with extra sprinkles then sends it back because there's "too many sprinkles" and you turn to them and say "I thought my ex-wife moved back to Chicago!" and you have to leave the establishment because you're crying with laughter and can't get it under control enough to actually make your order. It's something that'll probably only ever make sense to you and your friends, and in that particular moment. You could sit down and explain the situation and the back story but that would never capture one tenth of the humor, and even if they understood, so much of why it's funny is that it happened in that moment and without the setup.

Because even if you are truthfully recounting what happened to someone else later, and don't need to explain all the back story, you're still implicitly telling a story that sets up a situation. This is now a joke, and you might as well start it with "so an Irishman and a Rabbi walk into a bar..."

You're setting then up for all the expectations of comedy. And that inherently ruins some of the comedy! Because comedy, in a way, is an error message. It's a mis-prediction. It's your huge brain trying to do what it does and predict what will happen and what you'll say next and understand the situation and figure out how it'll go, and realizing it's wrong, and fundamentally wrong. It made assumptions that were reasonable to make, but it had those assumptions proven very wrong.

Like, one way this has been described is the idea that jokes are telling two stories: the one you assume, then at the last moment they pull the rug out from under you and reveal there was a second story, and you have to mentally backtrack and retrace your steps to see how the second story is the correct one.

Like, simple example, and I'm sorry to ruin the joke (as someone said, explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: no one's that interested, and the frog dies)

Doctor: I'm sorry, we had to remove your colon

Me Why?

See, the humor comes from how the setup primes you to think that "colon" means the body part, but then the punchline reveals it's talking about the punctuation. The way the first line is interpreted is totally changed by the second, and the humor is how your brain handles to "whoops made a big mistake in how I understood/predicted that!"

And that's why it's never going to be the same level of comedy when telling jokes as just improv'ing a joke while out in the world. You tell someone a joke, they know a joke is coming. They have heard jokes before. Their brain is in joke mode. They are trying to imagine how things could be taken different ways, how the joke could work, what the punchline is.

This is why "a comedian's comedian" is a thing. Your Milton Jones style comedy ("My grandfather invented the cold air balloon but it never really took off"), where it's very absurdist and includes a lot of anti-jokes. It's why simple jokes like the above are often called "dad jokes", because they're the kind of jokes you tell kids. Not just because they're not raunchy or anything, but because they're lessons in how jokes work. They're jokes that only work on people who don't yet know how jokes work.

Whereas absurdist comedy and anti-jokes can work amazingly on people who know how jokes work, if you're aiming for that audience. You basically write your jokes so that the audience expects the joke, predicts the punchline, but SURPRISE! the punchline is completely different or not a joke at all. For example:

I'm not like other dads

I’m a 19 yo woman with no kids

The comedy is your brain going into joke-mode and getting ready to figure out all the ways this joke could go and then WHOOPS the joke is that there isn't one and this is a straightforward statement that you got mislead into thinking was going to be a joke.

So, having said all that, hopefully you can understand what I mean. The best jokes are the ones that come out of nowhere because you are 120% not in joke mode. You're out somewhere with a friend trying to do something serious, something happens, then BAM! one of you comes up with something that just perfectly fits the situation and references some shared background/history you have together, and you were not at all expecting it. All your brains predictions were taken up with sensible boring things, and then suddenly BOOM! IN THE COMEDY!

And I think in a way, all produced, scripted (or hell, even unscripted) comedy is about trying to recapture that perfect moment. It's setting up situations for funny punchlines to exist in. It's making the setup so that the punchline works. But it can never fully match that unexpected moment, that perfection, because at its core its always artifical, or at least staged (as there's an expectation for this to be comedy). No one goes to an improv show expecting it to be Macbeth, but a production of The Scottish Play that turned into a comedy could be unexpectedly hilarious, if the audience wasn't expecting it.

But at the same time, even staying in the area of Shakespeare, there's clear differences between, say, Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet. The former sets up a bunch of elements that are clearly going to be used for comedy: identical twins, crossdressing, recursive crossdressing, metacrossdressing, unknowing homosexual relationships, disguises, and mistaken identities... All are clearly set ups for comedy. Even at the time, nearly half a millenia ago, these were old, well known tropes in comedy. Shakespeare sets up all the cans knowing he can knock them over later. These things exist in the story so they can lead to comedy, and they do. Maybe not in the ways the audience expects, but they'll lead to hilarity.

And even if there's not a specific punchline, the two-stories thing can be the joke, even when the audience is on it. Like, in the scenes where Olivia is professing her love for "Cesario" (who is actually not a man, but Viola dressed as one).

The audience knows Viola is a woman (and they presume a straight one), but Olivia doesn't (and she's also presumed to be straight). Even without a punchline about this situation, there's inherent comedy in the two separate understandings of the situation. Olivia thinks she loves this nice young man, and wants to woo him. Viola is stuck trying to politely reject her advances, without revealing her disguise. That's uncomfortable (for her) and amusing (for the audience) enough, but then Shakespeare goes one step further and has Viola asked to woo Oliva for her employer, Duke Orsino. That would really twist the screws and make the situation more awkward as Viola has to attempt to woo the woman who is already in love with her, but under false pretenses... Except Shakespeare goes ONE FURTHER and has Viola fall in love with Duke Orsino herself! While Viola can't herself express this love, because as far as Duke Orsino knows, she's a man named Cesario.

And then Viola's identical twin brother shows up and marries Oliva, who thinks he's Cesario, and IT JUST GETS WACKIER. There's plenty of jokes to be had at this absurd situation (and many of them are made!) , but the "first joke" of the whole situation is the way different characters have completely different understandings of what's going on. Olivia thinks she's just in love with a nice young man, Duke Orsino thinks his page is wooing Olivia for him (and definitely his page isn't in love with him), while Viola is stuck in the middle, having to balance maintaining her disguise with not offending Olivia, not failing her master, and then her own love for the Duke just makes everything more complicated.

It's an old story. Literally and figuratively. You set up a weird situation so that it's inherently somewhat funny, then you can put jokes in the moutha of the characters, and you can make the audience laugh at how you took a bunch of people stuck in this absurd situation and then made it weirder.

Anyway, so the reason I wrote this was because I was leaving my house this morning to go grab a coffee, and I saw a truck for a local construction company, "Tech Line". I immediately shouted "Tech L9ne! Cha!" which would have been the funniest thing in the world except no one else was there to hear it, and explaining it ruins the joke.

So instead I just rambled on about the nature of comedy and the truest form of it for 28 paragraphs. This is called a "Shaggy Dog Story". It's also called "ADHD".

[thesugarhole]

hey, hi. sorry for sending this ask. I know it’s inappropriate, but we badly needed some help right and i hope you’d consider .. its for our elder cat who needs immediate care, you can find the post here. i pinned it also in my blog btw. Hoping you’d be so kind to boost/share to help us alleviate the cost as it would tremendously help us a lot. if you can, pls try to answer this privately as some people might i pressure you to do so.. i know its weird, just wanted to avoid it if possible. Thanks a lot, and sorry again for being so direct. 🙏

you people genuinely fucking disgust me. its always the same scam, its ALMOST always the same cat, its always the same method of finding people to send this shit to- like i almost have it down to a T, with how patternized i get these asks. usually i dont have to look into it more than 2 minutes before blocking and reporting, but you happen to catch my ire specifically because ive been having a very shit couple of months lately.

make a blog

reblog some fandom and pets shit to make it look well lived (yall been severely slacking on it, you barely have 50 posts

first ever reblog from staff being one day ago

compose the bait post (poorly done everytime by the way. what fucking wednesday??? next week? next month? you sent this to me on a friday)

make sure you cycle your sick cat images, lest you send the exact same one to the same person within the span of two months!

go to popular cat image of the week

scroll through every note, follow, send ask

uwuu im so sorry to bother but pls reblog or donate my cat is very sick and im on disability and i have paper skin and the cat has glass bones please please please please. ANSWER PRIVATELY RAWWWWUGHR

people who you catch in their first ever sick cat scam give you a buck

seasoned users block and report

eventually some speak out, scam dedicated blogs share it

grift over before the week ends (seriously, ive never seen you guys stick for more than a week to this crap, its either you find a lot of newbies giving you a dollar fast enough, or you get caught fast enough.

no idea if its the same dumbass trying it everytime, changing names to 'emily' to 'sherri' to whatever, but you people are nuts to not give up on this scheme in particular because you manage to snag a couple bucks from the notoriously non fact-checking tumblr userbase.

i dont even know where yall grab the fake vet bills because at this point the same sick cats images/videos have been using the same five animals. hell, HERE'S ONE reblogged just five days ago (currently: 28/10/2023) from the person im reblogging from! and heres YOUR post i guess, for comparison. youre welcome for my reblog. at least you switch out language and disability points and vet bills with more frequency that you switch the cats. sick cats in a vet environment are harder to come by, i'll asume.

the literal audacity one of you had some months ago to grab an actual sick pet from an actual tumblr user looking to pay their vet bills for your grift is nothing short of vile, and im happy other people including the actual cat owner got to document it. and i can also hope the cat itself is fine and recovered, or at least in a better place.

fucking grow up and get out of my inbox with your rabbie dee ass posts (man, remember that one? geesh.)

[the-unofficial-village-idiot]

Zombie by the Cranberries by Andrew Jackson Jihad by AJJ by [deadname]

by Mike [Redacted]

“... I don’t believe in anything / And I- I wanna be someone to believe / to believe…” You may recognize that as a line from Mr. Jones by Counting Crows, a band that I don’t even listen to, but I think about that lyric fairly regularly. I think about it because I don’t believe in anything, but I do want to believe. It’s like that cheesy alien t-shirt: “I want to believe.”

If this was a coming-of-age movie, this would be the record-scratch/freeze-frame, “Yeah, that’s me, you’re probably wondering how I got into this situation.” Well, I’ll tell you. I was a practicing Christian until the age of four. I know, I know, just enough time to get sprinkled with holy water but not enough time to eat the wafers. So, needless to say, I didn’t grow up believing in God.

I wanted to, though. I tried praying in fifth grade, but I’m impatient and nothing happened, so I decided not to put too much money on the whole omnipotent-being thing. In sixth grade I got really into Greek mythology. How many of you have read Percy Jackson? Yeah, that was my starting point too. But I told my mom I believed in the Greek gods and she asked me if I actually thought they were real—not in judgment, just in curiosity—and I came to the conclusion that I didn't. I just wanted to believe so bad I could almost feel it.

Like the line from Lies About Sea Creatures by Ada Limón: “Sometimes, you just want / something so hard you have to lie about it, so you can hold it in your mouth for a minute.” That’s what I want, a belief I can hold in my mouth. Something to chew on, to consider. I guess that’s why I’m agnostic. 

I considered believing in something, but I’m uncertain. I don’t like to count my eggs before I put them in the basket, much less before they hatch. What if I’m wrong? I have the guilt of a Catholic with none of the belief; if they’re to be believed, I’ll burn in hell for being queer. My partner recommended I convert to Judaism. I went as far as contacting a rabbi, but I didn’t go through with it. I couldn’t. I can’t cement myself with one singular belief. I’m indecisive.

You might say “Mike, you don’t need religion to have a belief,” and I know that. I know I don’t need religion to have a belief. But I don't have a leg to stand on regardless. I always think about the line from The Great Gatsby, “conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes.” I have nothing but wet marshes beneath my conduct and by extension beneath my beliefs.

I’d like to believe humanity is inherently good, but it’s hard not to fall into misanthropy with the daily live-stream of death and destruction, beamed straight to my phone. People are being slaughtered on the news. How can I watch that and think “yeah, humanity is inherently good.” I’ll throw another quote at you, this one from the novel Good Omens: “most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused… by people being fundamentally people.” That I can put some money on; people are people. It’s a bit hard to argue with; people are, by definition, people. The reflexive property, for those of you that know geometry.

You may wonder why I’m throwing quotes at you left-and-right. It’s because I’m no artist. I hear things and I incorporate them into the haphazardly assembled quilt of my worldview. I’m just a kid—I am eighteen years old—and I’m supposed to have a solid worldview? It’s nothing but wet marshes. These quotes are a log I can stand on in the marsh. It isn’t solid, but it’s something.

Maybe I should’ve said that I’m a socialist, but I’ve never read Marx. I’m a lazy socialist, driven by the radical idea that everyone should be given the basic necessities unconditionally. Maybe I’m not a misanthrope. Maybe that’s just a cool word I heard in a Days N Daze song. That’s a band I do listen to, if anyone’s taking notes.

I will call myself a nihilist though. The one thing I’m sure of is that none of this matters. I only bother to keep trying out of perfectionism and a need to make someone��anyone—proud.

I'll even say I believe in Punxsutawney Phil, and in the symbolism of different numbers of crows. Not really, but for the bit. I'm more committed to the bit than to any belief. It's easier if it's a joke. I know the groundhog isn't immortal and can't really predict the weather. I know one crow doesn't foretell sorrow, two don't foretell joy. I pretend to believe for the bit. That's all it's ever been, I pretend to believe to be funny. I pretend to believe in hopes I'll feel something. 

Give me a revelation! Please! If there is a god, strike me down! I know you want to! I'm a queer agnostic! A perfect example! Give me a sign! Please give me a sign.

So, to conclude, I’m a fourteen-years-lapsed Christian with no solid worldview and a patchwork of quotes to hold onto in hopes of someday coming up with something. Something that lets me say “this I believe…” without feeling like a liar.

Just gave a speech called "Zombie by the Cranberries by Andrew Jackson Jihad by AJJ by [my deadname]" about my beliefs and I'm feeling sooooo menatlly ill <3

[tzipporahssong]

hi! I'm a sort-of-xtian follower. I've been considering converting to Judaism for about 6 months now, and I love your posts and your account.

I'm sorry if this is too personal, but I was wondering if you'd be comfortable talking about what (if any) meaning xtian holidays and seasons have for you.

It's Advent on the xtian liturgical calendar, and I'm feeling really conflicted. This season has always been really important to me spiritually, and even though I'm not tied to the same beliefs, there's still the feeling of expectation? Growing closer to God as we wait for his miracles. I don't know what to do with this season or with Christmas coming up.

I feel like I have one foot in each world. Like, I was raised xtian, my family is xtian, and I have always practiced my faith deeply, but i've never believed in hell or an afterlife at all really, and i've never believed you have to follow Jesus to have a relationship with God (i've been a heretic by xtian standards for a long time, haha. very anti-evangelical for sure).

I loved (love?) Christianity for the closeness I felt (feel?) it offers me to God, because I didn't know where else to find that. As I've been exploring Judaism, I honestly feel it even more there, and what's more -- I feel close to other people, too. It doesn't feel lonely the way being xtian so often has, maybe in part because it's less queerphobic and I don't have to fight all the time just to exist in those spaces. My Jewish friends have been incredible about this whole thing, but none of them are converts. They've never had any other religions.

I thought maybe xtianity was a crutch I wouldn't need if I could find my place in Judaism, but I still feel something for these holidays and traditions. I'm sure I'll probably want to fast during Lent, and that feels like a betrayal. Like, maybe I'm not doing this for the right reasons or not sure enough in my belief and will to convert. Is it a betrayal of Judaism to want to celebrate these days -- with my family, yes, but also for myself, outside the context of Jesus?? Is that even possible?????

Sorry -- I know you're not a rabbi, so I'm not asking for scriptural or spiritual guidance. Just, as someone who was raised xtian and converted, did this ever happen to you? What do you do with all that xtian shit?

This might be a controversial statement, and I ask people to hang on with me.

Christian holidays are always going to have some bearing on my life.

I'm very lucky in that I have a good, strong relationship with my parents, and they were incredibly supportive of my conversion. They've worked to make their home safe and accessible for me to exist Jewishly in their Catholic home, and I am forever grateful for that. Part of our having a strong relationship is that I celebrate holidays with them, Christmas included. This year, my partner who has been Jewish for their entire life, is going to be joining us for the holiday.

Does the holiday have the same weight it did for me when I was a young adult considering life in a convent? Not even a little bit. My Jewish beliefs are steady and firm and I can do without the "Birth of the Messiah" narrative, but it's important to my parents so I want them to be able to enjoy it. So I'll wear the hat and bake cookies and wear matching pajamas on christmas morning, but I'll skip midnight mass in favor of lighting shabbos candles the night before. I'll go to their house and exchange gifts, just like I did with my partner's family for Chanukah. The difference is that Chanukah and not christmas actually carries meaning for me now.

For the first few years it does take some effort to push back against the practices we grew up with. There's a lot of ingrained guilt and routine and yes, even joy that has to be un-learned. But after a while? Eventually you start to revel in your Jewish practices and don't need the ones you grew up with anymore. I grew up an incredibly devout catholic. Every day of every liturgical season had meaning for me, I knew every prayer, I said my rosary every day because those were the ways I connected with Gd. I reveled in advent and lent as ways to restart my life and take steps towards bettering myself. Now I have the same in my morning shacharit, in my Elul meditations, in my Yom Kippur fasting. They are similar and yet much more meaningful practices that bring me that closeness and connection.

When I was working through my conversion, there was a moment where I nearly had a panic attack because I hadn't been to mass on ash wednesday. This past year, I had a moment of incredible confusion because all of the shops in town were closed, and it took me longer than I care to admit to realize that it was Easter. It's going to come, it's just gonna take time.

Your Jewish friends can absolutely be supportive and lovely, but you're right. It's a perspective and an experience that they just can't relate to. Their Judaism has always been part of who they are, and they didn't have to un-learn anything to get there. For them there is no division between their Judaism and their family or their childhood because the two are intrinsically bound together. And that's a beautiful thing and I can't wait for my children to have it. But I think converting makes Judaism even more powerful and more beautiful, because it makes every action a conscious choice. And taking the effort to work through the struggle of un-learning your past faith will make your new one all the stronger.

In the meantime, don't beat yourself up if you help your mom make sugar cookies or you have to think twice about the words to a carol.

I hope this answered your question and assuaged some of your fears. Please feel free to come talk about this further if you'd like. 💙💙💙

[pleasereadmeok]

Matthew Scene by Scene - A Discovery of Witches Season 2 - Episode 7  #11 The Rabbi

Spoilers if you haven’t seen ADOW season 2 episode 7 + book spoilers

Still squealing a bit coz I’ve been to where these scenes were filmed!  

After last night’s encounter with Kelley, you’d think that the next scene would be a debrief with Diana on the days events.  In the book Matthew got totally freaked out coz he smelt the scents of all of the people Diana had met that day - including a certain Heir Fuchs.  But no - it isn’t discussed on screen.  Maybe it was cut out?  Not sure.  Diana must have told Matthew about her meeting with the goode Rabbi coz they are both off to see him today.

Diana has been invited but Matthew is tagging along.  Rabbi Loew was brought here by Rudolf specifically to decipher books, so he must know about the Book of Life.  

NOW Matthew decides to disclose some info’ about Kelley. 

Diana, Kelley was raving.  Rudolf has him as his prisoner.  Just be careful what you say.

OH NO.  Diana can be be so stubborn - she thinks that Matthew is just being overprotective.  Rudolf has been kind to her so she doesn’t get why he is concerned.  I dunno.  I get that Diana is kicking against Matthew’s need to protect her but maybe she should give the situation a tad more thought? Rudy has IMPRISONED someone who he thinks can interpret the book and give him the secret to eternal life.  What the hell would happen if Rudy found out about Diana’s power and her link to the book???  Seriously, Diana - no wonder Matthew is being protective. You could end up as Rudy’s prisoner.  

Diana insists that the Rabbi can be trusted. Let’s hope so. 

And there’s Anton Lesser - quality casting.  

The goode Rabbi knows Matthew immediately - Matthew son of Philippe.  In the book these two were old friends.  And of course Matthew obviously recognises him from ‘The Crown’ and ‘Allied’. 😉

The Rabbi comments - A witch, a vampire and a Jew meeting in secret ... would set Christian tongues wagging for miles around.    Yes indeed it would. This is a risky meeting. 

Sidenote.  So vampires and other creatures are supposed to conceal their true nature from humans and hide in plain sight.  But how many people know what Matthew and Diana are???  Everyone they meet is like - Hi I know you are a Vamp /Witch.  It’s not a bloody secret if literally everyone you meet knows about it!  

Diana notices the Rabbi’s yellow circle badge.   The Rabbi explains that it is to mark out his people.   OK Diana, a bit of empathy about being feared because you are ‘different’ might be goode here but NOooo.  Coz Diana wants to get straight to the point - the book.  

Matthew is doing that side-eyes OMG what did I just say about being careful?!   He knows how dangerous this is.  If the Rabbi says one word to Rudy they are truly f***ed.

The clever Rabbi sees Matthew’s unease and advises him to unleash his wife if he wants a happy marriage.  Not helping, Rabbi!  Diana could get herself killed. 

Matthew suddenly decides that the Rabbi can be trusted -   ?

Let us be honest with each other Maharal.  We are looking for a very particular alchemical book. 

The Rabbi knows exactly what book they are talking about.

Diana wants to know how the Rabbi convinced the Emperor to let him see the book.  Rabbi Loew said Rudy chose him but unfortunately he can’t decipher the book. Diana asks -  Why not just tell Rudy that?   Seriously, Diana.  Are you SO naive?    

The goode Rabbi’s reply is chilling.  

To disappoint the Emperor is dangerous.  But to refuse him can be deadly. 

Matthew is worried.  He sees the danger that for some inexplicable reason Diana does not.   Matthew is stuck between a rock and a hard place yet again.  His efforts to protect Diana from what Rudolf could do to her are being dismissed by everyone as that’s just Matthew being overprotective.  If he pushes it then Diana will push back and do what she wants anyway.  But if he eases up - Diana could be in real trouble here.  

Yep Matthew is VERY worried and for goode reasons.  

[Pic - ADOW S2:07 unedited screenshots]

[flyinghome-againstthewind]

the best by far is you: chapter 12

Read on AO3

Previous Chapter

For all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you -  Cecilia and the satellite

————

Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Special thank you to Michaela for just the most beautiful moodboard! I’m obsessed with this one!

Chapter 12

The 1st of May

Three days hadn’t been much time to plan, but she had planned carefully with what time she had, and with only Mrs. Graham to help her. Once the option had been laid out before her, she knew what to do. If she couldn’t find her family in the 20th century, might it be easier to return and search from there? 

Mrs. Graham drove her in the early hours of the morning, just before dawn. Claire waited, watching the dance of the druids from her same hiding spot three years ago, only this time she was prepared. Her dress had been sequestered out to Mrs. Graham’s car and Claire had changed in the near-dark when they arrived, too scared to try and sneak out of the house with it on. Claire felt a tinge of regret for how she was leaving things with Frank ‒ a letter left out for him, explaining where she’d gone and why ‒ but the need to find her family overpowered that regret. 

It had been a brief goodbye and when Claire thanked the older woman for all she’d done, she still felt as though it wasn’t enough to convey her gratitude.

“I’ll look for ye,” Mrs. Graham had winked. “I dinna ken how, but I’ll try. Now, go and find yer wee lass, my dear.”     

The journey through the stones was as awful as her recent memory of it and when she came to on the grass, she laid there for several minutes, waiting for the world to settle. 

But it hadn’t felt real, on top of that hill, that she was back in Jamie’s time again. And the fifteen days she’d spent in 1948 had seemed to last a whole lot longer than that. 

Even when she’d gathered herself up and trekked into Inverness, seeing once again the horses and muddy paths for roads and other signs that confirmed she’d made it back, the listless feeling never quelled. 

She hadn’t been able to bring much with her, but she’d planned for her way home, and that included valuables intended for bartering. With that, she’d secured herself a horse and made for Lallybroch. 

It was a day’s ride from Inverness. She knew the way by now and if the horse didn’t fail on her, she could make it before nightfall. 

The hopeful wish rose in her chest like a soap bubble that they might all be at Lallybroch, in hiding. Or that perhaps Jamie had managed to sneak Faith back, safe and sound, and that Jenny and Ian would know where to find Jamie.  

Maybe they’d taken on different names and that was why Claire hadn’t been able to find them. But the possibility that they might all be there waiting for her was almost too much for her heart to hold, a real possibility and almost within reach if she could just make it home. 

The days were long this time of year, and by the time Claire crested over a hill and saw Lallybroch in sight, she knew it was late in the evening, well-past supper even though the sun still hung low at the horizon, casting the estate in a golden glow. 

She was tired and beyond hungry, having burned through her small stash of food a few hours ago, but seeing the stone farmhouse again banished any nagging physical needs from her mind for the moment. 

She urged her horse forward, closing the distance as fast as she could, until she crossed under the stone archway and slid off of the horse, her feet landing on Lallybroch soil. 

“Milady!” 

She heard Fergus before she saw him flying towards her as fast as his feet could manage. Her throat constricted with a sudden, choked cry, and she stumbled forward to meet him. 

He made it home. 

Fergus collided with her, head hitting her breastbone, and she staggered on unsteady feet, clutching him to her. 

They collapsed onto the ground, still holding each other, as the relief of finding the other alive overwhelmed them both to the point of tears. Fergus began to speak, muffling his words against her shoulder as he cried, and some part of her brain registered he was speaking in French, though she couldn’t in that moment understand a word of it. For the first time since she’d returned through the stones… it felt real. 

Real and wonderful and wholly overwhelming. She squeezed Fergus tighter.  

There was a flurry of movement beyond them that followed. A door opened somewhere and footfall followed it. 

“It’s Claire!”

More footsteps, frantic voices. 

Her face was buried in Fergus’s curls until she felt someone drop down beside her, and she looked up to lock eyes with Jenny. 

The question formed on her tongue ‒ are they here? ‒ and instead, what escaped her lips was a single, anguished cry. Because in Jenny’s eyes, she saw the same thinly-veiled hope for answers reflected back at her. 

Jamie and Faith weren’t here. They hadn’t been here at all. 

Something seemed to break inside Jenny as she registered Claire’s own disappointment. “Are ye alone then, Claire?”

“Yes.” Her voice cracked on the single word. Fergus’s arms constricted around her waist.  

She was vaguely aware of Ian’s presence and the children being pulled back inside by Mrs. Crook, but her focus had stayed on the way Fergus still clung to her in that moment,  and she realized that all of them here had been as in the dark as she was these last few weeks. 

“Come on, then.” Jenny’s hand was at her elbow, trying to pull Claire to her feet. “Fergus, you too. Come on.” 

The desperate wave of panic was returning as the shock of being at Lallybroch again subsided. Claire turned back to Jenny, hoping this was all just a strange dream. “...nothing?” She asked. 

Jenny looked just as lost, shaking her head. “What happened, Claire?” 

It was at that moment that Claire registered the presence of another, just joining them. 

Murtagh, who had been the last one to see all three of them on that day. Who had been instrumental in Jamie’s plan and fetched Faith from Lallybroch a few days before. Who had been the last person besides Claire to talk to Jamie and who knew more than anyone else here the truth of Claire’s history. 

He must’ve known, whether Jamie told him or not, what the plan was for Claire and Faith that day. Because he looked rightly horrified and confused as he stared at Claire. “Where’s Faith? Is Jamie alright?”

She felt something snap inside her and went almost feral with anger. In a swift move that shocked everyone in attendance, Claire rose up and struck Murtagh across the face.  “WHERE THE HELL IS MY BABY?” She screamed, only vaguely aware of someone’s arms around her waist, pulling her back, and Jenny’s sharp voice in her ear. “You stole her from the safety of this home, from her family, and ferried her away to a fucking battlefield! She’s missing because of it. Because of you!” 

Murtagh only stood to his full height, shoulders squared, and didn’t retaliate. “I did only as Jamie asked,” he said evenly, but there was a look of hurt in his eyes that cut Claire down before anything else could be said.   

She crumbled then, struck dizzy from her outburst, from exhaustion and hunger. “Claire!” Jenny reached for her, but it was Murtagh who was able to save her from falling. She held tight to him like a lifeline as everything swayed about her. 

“Oh, lass...” He said suddenly and full of pity. Claire didn’t look up right away, too focused on trying not to faint, but she felt that everyone’s attention had slowly shifted back to Murtagh. 

“What is it?” Jenny asked. 

Murtagh didn’t answer Jenny directly, but waited until Claire’s gaze met his again and asked, “Ye’re wi’ child again, aren’t ye?” 

The courtyard, which had only moments before been filled with shouting, was now quiet enough to hear a leaf fall.  

“She looks dead on her feet, mebbe we should bring her inside and let her rest.” 

It was Ian who spoke up, and the rest seemed to come to the same conclusion that while each of them was dying to press questions, emotions running hot, perhaps it was best to let the dust settle around Claire’s sudden reappearance first. 

And so Rabbie was called to bring Claire’s horse into the stables while Claire was brought inside. Jenny sent one of the servants to put together a fresh plate of food. 

Murtagh stayed by her side and as the others got a few steps ahead of them, Claire froze in her steps in the hallway, unable to quell the immediate regret for how she’d treated him. “Murtagh, I’m so terribly sorry. I‒” 

He made a dismissive sound low in the throat. “Dinna fash about that now,” he said as he led her on to the dining hall. 

Supper for Claire was a quiet affair. Though wee Jamie had greeted her enthusiastically, the girls had given her shy, blank stares, not unlike Faith had when Claire saw her again, and Jenny had asked Mrs. Crook to put the children to bed soon after. 

So it was only their solemn group of five, spread out around the table, watching Claire eat while occasionally Ian tried to lighten the mood with bits of conversation that had nothing to do with anything. 

Jenny seemed to thrum with a nervous energy the longer they sat, and when Claire had at last finished eating, Jenny took a deep breath and spoke up. “I’ve no’ had a day of peace since Murtagh showed up here and said he was taking Faith to Jamie. And I need to know how it came to be that it’s you showing up on our doorstep expecting Jamie and Faith to be here.” 

Claire reached for Jenny’s hand and squeezed it. “I will tell you what happened.” Her gaze swung to Murtagh, the only other person in the room who knew her story. He nodded once in agreement. Yes, they should know, too. “But there’s a lot more to it than just what happened on the day of Culloden and we’ll need somewhere private for all of us to talk.”

 “Me too, Milady?” 

“Yes.” Claire gave him a small smile. “This concerns you, too.” 

Jenny sequestered them to the study and closed the door behind them. No servants in the room or even in earshot, just Claire and four sets of eager eyes. Claire settled on the sofa, Fergus at her side, and Jenny took an armchair adjacent to them. Murtagh stood by the small hearth and after tending to the fire, Ian took a seat near Jenny. 

“Murtagh knows most of what I’m about to share. Jamie and I told him when we were in Paris, before Faith was born…” 

And so she launched into her story, which got a little easier to share with each retelling, though it looked different this time. They knew of her life once she’d arrived here so there was no need to relive most of those moments, they needed only to know how she came to be here and why she knew things that hadn’t yet come to pass.

They were quiet listeners and Claire tried not to read into their range of expressions while she spoke. She just needed to get it all out. On occasion, her gaze slid over to Murtagh and found his presence reassuring. She already had one person in the room who believed her, and that made it easier to push ahead.  

And then she told them of Culloden and why Jamie had risked bringing Faith to Culloden Moor that day. She told them about what happened that morning on the hill, and waking up alone on the other side. She shared about the two weeks she spent in 1948 trying desperately to find them and how she made the decision to come back. 

“Faith couldn’t come with me when I left here. And as we searched and nothing came of it, I couldn’t bear not knowing what became of them. I started to fear that if I stayed and had the baby… well what if he or she couldn’t travel either, like Faith? And once I had that thought, I knew I needed to act quickly. Mrs. Graham had provided the means for me to travel through the stones again, and I thought if I couldn’t find them in the future, perhaps I could find some trace of them here.” 

The room fell quiet when she had finished. She studied the three faces around her, but found their expressions unreadable. At last, Jenny broke the silence by turning to Murtagh. “And ye believe all this to be true?” she asked. 

Murtagh gave a solemn nod. “Jamie believed it. That was enough for me. And he wouldna have sent me to fetch Faith from here if it was only a story. That I believe.” 

“I know it’s a lot to swallow,” Claire added. “It’s alright if you can’t accept it or if you need more time to sort through it.”  

Ian surprised her by being the first to respond. “I’ve known Jamie all my life, and I know you, Claire. It’s hard to fathom being from another time, but if you say it’s true, I believe you.” 

She felt the vice grip of fear around her heart loosen just a bit at her brother-in-law’s words. These folks gathered in this room with her weren’t just Jamie’s family, but her own. Her gaze flitted to Jenny and she held her breath, waiting. 

“Well, I ken fine well ye wouldna choose to be separated from Faith,” Jenny said plainly. “O’ course I believe ye, but why didna ye just tell us before?” 

She let out a surprised chuckle, not really finding the situation funny so much as she needed the release of her pent-up nervous energy. “We only told Murtagh because he was about to actively partake in an effort to sabotage a war that hadn’t started yet. After I was tried for witchcraft, Jamie was protective about who we told, not as a matter of trust for who we told, but more so that he only wanted to tell if it was absolutely necessary to do so.” 

 A lull settled over them again, each absorbing what they’d heard and what it meant. 

“I canna understand‒ Of all the pig-heided things my brother has done, this may be the worst,” Jenny said at length.  

“Jenny,” Ian said gently. 

“No. I mean it. What on God’s green earth possessed him to drag his own wee bairn to a battlefield and‒ and to try and send her and Claire away? As if that was the only choice he had?” 

“He thought he was doomed to die, no matter what happened that day, with the British hunting him,” Claire explained softly, though the more they discussed Jamie’s plan, the more she hated it. But regardless of her thoughts on the matter, there was no denying the strength of Jamie’s love for others, or the lengths he would go to protect his family. 

“Aye, he meant to fight in the battle. Meant to die. Told me so himself when last we spoke,” Murtagh chimed in. “So when we had no word on whether he’d survived or been captured, I assumed he had succeeded in seeing ye and the lass to safety and then in fighting… ‘til it was done. But seeing you here, Claire… does make me wonder what happened to them and why we havena seen them.” 

“What exactly did he tell you?” Claire asked suddenly. “The last time you spoke, before we left for the stones, I saw you two talking.” 

“Aye,” Murtagh said softly. “He instructed me to gather up the men from Lallybroch and lead them home, away from the battlefield. He said it wouldna be hard to escape in the chaos o’ the morning. And he was right about that, all the men did make it home safely…”

 Murtagh walked with Jamie out into the bitter cold of that spring morning, watching Fergus’s back as he slipped away without notice. 

“Gather the Frasers of Lallybroch together and get them out of here. There’ll be pell-mell on the moor wi’ troops and horses moving to and fro. Nobody will try and stop you wi’ the British in sight and the battle about to begin. Tell them the order comes from me, and they’ll follow without question. Lead them off the moor and away from the battle. Set them on the road to Lallybroch and home.”

“Are ye sure?” Murtagh asked.  

“Aye. This battle is already lost. No matter how righteous, it was doomed from the start. We’ve done all we could, but now it’s over. I’ll not have my kin die for nothing.”

“And what are you to do?”

“I’ll take Claire and Faith to safety, and then I’ll turn back. Back to Culloden, and fight ‘til it’s done.”

 “I’ll guide yer men to safety and set them on the path home. But ken this: when ye return, I’ll be waiting here to fight by yer side.” 

“No. No, I said I’ll not have ye dying for nothing.”

“I won’t be. I’ll be dying with you.”

“No,” Jamie shook his head. “No, ye willna be dying at all because ye willna return to the battle.” 

“Have ye forgotten the oath I swore to yer mother? Ye’re like a son to me, a balaich…” The words slipped out before Murtagh could refrain and his eyes widened slightly. An admission he’d never made, but something he’d always felt about Jamie. His godson nodded curtly, seeming to struggle for a moment with this unshakable front he presented. “I‒ I canna leave ye.”

“I ken, a ghoistidh.” Jamie’s voice was low, almost drowned out by the ruckus around them. He clapped Murtagh on the shoulder and his gaze swung over to where he had last seen Fergus. “But Fergus is a son to me, as I am to you, and with what’s about to happen, I canna give him my protection as I would like to. I’ve had to make peace wi’ the choices I made in this war, and I’m no’ afraid to die, but Fergus is only a lad. Please… lead my son home. Swear an oath to me as ye did to my mother that you will watch his back always, for as long as you live. Ye kept me safe until I became a man and then ye fought beside me, no matter the consequences, no matter what trouble I dragged ye into. I wouldna have Claire in my life if not for you, a ghoistidh, and now that we’re here, I need to see that my family will be safe.”

 “I didna want to leave him,” Murtagh said quietly. “I’d spent the better part of his life defending him. But I couldna deny his request either, if it was to be the last thing he ever asked of me.” He smirked slightly, finding Fergus’s gaze in that moment. “Ye didna realize ye were stuck wi’ me, did ye?” he said wryly. “I’m bound to protect you by an oath now, my laddie.”

Claire looked over at Fergus and saw he was close to tears. Her arm went about his shoulders, drawing him against her side. 

“He was protecting you too, then,” Claire spoke up, her gaze flitting back to Murtagh. “If you were protecting Fergus, you couldn’t be on the battlefield.” 

“Aye,” he murmured. “Stubborn lad had it all worked out.”

“Except for the part where the fool wanted tae sacrifice himself on the battlefield,” Jenny fumed. “And where is he now? If Faith didna go through the stones with ye, and he was left with her at Craigh na Dun, why in god’s name didn’t he just come home?” 

Claire drew in a deep breath. “Well, I… I did tell him what would happen in the Highlands if the British won the battle and put down the rebellion. Perhaps he felt there was a safer option. Perhaps he knew this would be the first place the Redcoats would look for him.” 

“Oh, aye, they’ve been here already. But we could’ve hid him. We could’ve kept him safe.” 

“They’ve been here?” 

“Aye, about a week ago.” 

She felt as though a weight had lifted off her shoulders at those words. “Then he got away with Faith. He did it. If the Redcoats are looking for him, it means they don’t have him.” 

“Yes, but where?” Jenny asked again.    

“Aye, that’s the question,” Murtagh agreed. 

“We’ll need to puzzle it out, but I doubt we’ll come to an answer tonight,” Ian spoke up. 

Jenny looked exhausted and at the same time, too worked up to sleep, and Claire knew her sister-in-law had lost as much sleep as she had these last few weeks, plagued with not knowing what became of her family. Still, there was nothing they could do at this very moment, as Ian had pointed out. 

“I had one of the maids freshen up your room,” Jenny said suddenly and Claire startled. 

“Not our… not the Laird’s room?” She saw the flash of confusion in Jenny’s eyes as she spoke. “I only mean that I don’t think I can sleep in there by myself.”  

She felt silly admitting that, but Jenny’s gaze softened and she gave a quick nod. “I’ll have another room prepared.” 

Ian and Murtagh had both cleared out the study, sensing all the talk was done for the evening, but Fergus lingered at Claire’s side as Jenny dismissed herself to make arrangements for Claire’s room for the night. 

Claire turned to Fergus and brushed a hand gently over his curls. “How are you holding up? Do you… do you have any questions for me? About what I shared earlier? About where I’m from?”

Fergus only shook his head, and Claire understood ‒ it was a bit much to drop in everyone’s laps tonight ‒ but she wished for some sort of insight into what he was thinking. 

She studied his profile as he stared ahead at the fire. “I… I have something for you.”  She dug into her pocket and wriggled out the wooden horse, the rigid legs catching in the fabric of her skirt until it was free. “I saw this after I went back to my time, and I thought of you.” She held it out to him and watched as he took it into his hands and studied it, just as she had when she found it. 

“Donas,” Fergus said softly. 

She felt the tug of a smile and the burn of tears at the same time. Had it only been mere days ago where she’d carried the fear of never seeing him again? “I thought so, too.” 

“This is mine?” He checked. 

“Yes, that’s for you.” 

She worried that he might find it juvenile, but he smiled then, ever so slightly. “Thank you, Milady.” His gaze fell back to the toy horse. “He reminds me of Milord’s sawny snake.” 

“I hadn’t even thought of that. Well… I didn’t carve it myself but now you have something of your own like sawny snake.” 

Fergus swallowed roughly as his thumbs moved over the smooth carving of the horse. She heard him hiccup slightly as he tried to stifle a cry. 

“Come here,” she murmured, pulling him into her arms and tucking his head under her chin. “I miss him, too.” 

“It’s not only that,” he said quietly. 

“Then what? You can tell me.” 

“I didn’t know if I would see you again. Murtagh told me you and Faith had gone away.” 

She squeezed him tighter and felt her throat clog with emotion. “I missed you. Every day.” 

“And Milord…” Fergus continued, his voice shaky. “Milord didn’t want me with him. H-h-he doesn’t trust me.” 

She pulled back just far enough to look him in the eye. “No, that’s not true, Fergus.” 

He stood abruptly and hurled the wooden horse as hard as he could at the floor. Something splintered off from it and the piece skittered across the floor. “Yes it is!” He screamed. “Whenever Milord would have to leave you, he always put me in charge of your care. He trusted me. Now he- he sends me away!” 

“Fergus,” Claire whispered tightly. He stood rigidly with his chest still heaving and she reached a hand tentatively for his, expecting that he might pull away. But with his outburst over, Fergus’s anger seemed to give way to the grief it had tried to mask, and he burst into tears and gripped Claire’s hand. “Come here,” she cried. “Oh, I’m so sorry, darling.”

She pulled him back down next to her on the sofa and cradled his head against her shoulder. There were things she wanted to say to him ‒ things she realized in her time apart and also wanted to have Jamie present for when they were said. But Fergus was suffering under choices they’d made for him and some clarity was needed. 

“It’s not because he didn’t trust you with protecting me and Faith,” she murmured as she stroked his hair. “I know my story earlier might sound hard to believe, but every word of it was true. And if… if we knew if you could travel through the stones, I have no doubt Jamie would’ve tried to send you with us. And if we knew Faith couldn’t travel, we would’ve thought of something else. It was a mistake, Fergus. One we’re all having to live with now, and you’re allowed to feel upset and hurt about it. You are. But it wasn’t because Jamie didn’t trust you or didn’t want you with him.” 

“Then why?” Fergus’s voice was flat when he spoke, still choked with tears. Claire breathed in soberly and took his face in her hands so she could look him in the eye again. 

“Well, it’s like Murtagh said earlier ‒ Jamie thought he would die at Culloden and he wanted to ensure every member of his family was safe before he did so. He loves you, Fergus, and he wanted you to be protected here, at his home… as his son.” 

Fergus set his jaw, but Claire still caught the slight quiver of his lip before he spoke. “I’m not a baby. I don’t need protection.” 

She drew in a breath, her mind scrambling for the right words.  

“And I’ve never been apart from Milord, except when Faith was born,” he added. The crux of his pain was in the separation from Jamie, and no matter how well-intentioned the decision was, there would be no erasing that sorrow for Fergus. 

Claire sighed heavily and leaned in to kiss his forehead. “You’re not a baby, you’re right. But even Jamie has needed protecting from time to time. It doesn’t mean you’re weak when you have someone protecting you, Fergus; it means you’re loved.” 

His brows furrowed together and he looked away, a few more tears spilling silently down his cheeks. “Will he come back?” 

“I don’t know that he will come back, if he thinks it’s safer for everyone if he stays hidden,” Claire told him honestly. “But we’re going to look for them. And we’re going to find them, Fergus. We will.” 

“I’m coming with you?” 

She framed his face in her hands and wiped at the tear tracks with her thumbs. “From now on, we stick together.” She caught the flicker of movement in the doorway and looked up to find Murtagh hanging back. “Though we’ll have to bring Murtagh with us,” she added wryly, smiling at him. “On account of his oath to Jamie.” 

Fergus glanced over his shoulder and nodded once. “I suppose you can make yourself useful.” 

“Oh, aye?” Murtagh took that as an invitation to enter and gave Fergus’s head a playful push into the back of the sofa. “I suppose so.” 

He bent down and retrieved the small horse and handed it over to Fergus, who accepted it with a sudden flush in his cheeks, his smile disappearing. 

“I broke one of his legs,” he pointed out regretfully. 

“Dinna fash, I can fix it,” Murtagh said easily, scouring the floor for the missing piece, and upon finding it, he asked for the horse back, to see what could be done about it tomorrow. 

“It’ll be alright, Fergus,” Claire said gently, hoping he understood she meant more than just the toy horse.

“I know, Milady.” 

“Good,” she exhaled, feeling the smallest tug of a smile at her lips.   

Jenny reappeared to tell Claire which room she’d be staying in and to usher both her and Fergus up to bed. Claire gave in easily, feeling bone-weary after the emotional toll of the day, but she’d said goodnight to Jenny at the top of the stairs so she might have a moment alone. 

She then stood at the threshold of the bedroom that had belonged to her and Jamie ‒ off and on ‒ over the course of almost 3 years. Altogether, their time here likely only amounted to a year or so, but some of their most precious memories lived in these walls. From their earlier days here, married only a few months and learning what it was to give their heart and soul to another, to their days as a small family, navigating parenthood and building the life they thought they would always have here.

Even though she wouldn’t sleep there tonight ‒ she’d meant what she said to Jenny ‒ some part of her had a morbid need to still see the room before she could sleep.  

She pushed into the room and sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers over the bedding. She’d committed a serious mistake in the days leading up to this one and on her hours-long horseback ride through the spread of land that she knew so well: she’d allowed herself to imagine a homecoming. 

Claire had pictured rushing into the farmhouse and finding Jamie there in the parlor, and how it would feel to behold him once more and feel his strong embrace, to hear his voice and cradle his face in her hands before she kissed him senseless. 

And then there would be Faith to take into her arms and hold close to her heart and promise to never let go of her again. 

She had let herself hope that if she could only make the journey ‒ travel 200 hundred years through time and then 25 miles through the Highlands ‒ then maybe they might just be here waiting for her, and she would at last be able to breathe. 

As she sat there on the bed, Claire felt the pressure of tears building behind her eyes. The piercing blow amidst all of this sorrow was that it was Jamie’s birthday. Last year had been sweet and brimming with joy, and the soft memories of it seemed to belong to a different person entirely after the year she had lived. 

What was he doing now, wherever he had ended up? She had no way to tell him that she had come back to this time, to their first home. Wherever he was, he would still think of her as lost to him forever, unless she found him. 

“You promised you would find me,” she found herself murmuring into the silent room. “Even if it took 200 years. But we’ve gone and turned everything on its head now, haven’t we?” Her eyes glanced about the dark room and settled on Faith’s old cradle, still tucked away in the corner, now collecting dust. “Neither one of us is where we’re supposed to be, but considering that means you’re still alive somewhere, I’ll take it. Keep her safe, love. I’ll keep looking…” Her hand slipped down to rest over the barely noticeable swell of the child she carried. “No matter how long it takes. Even if I’m having to carry this one around with me. And I’ll have help, with Murtagh and Fergus with me.” 

She stood slowly and slipped quietly from the room, pausing to turn back at the threshold for one last look before closing the door on that room and what had been a wonderful chapter in their life together. 

It wasn’t done, their life together ‒ she refused to believe it was ‒ but with the deed of sasine and the hunt ahead of them for Jamie and Faith, she was keenly aware that the dreams of being Laird and Lady of Lallybroch had died that morning of the Battle of Culloden. What came next would be a different life than they had envisioned, but if she could find them… 

Her hand rested over the door to the Laird’s room in a parting gesture. 

If she could find Jamie and Faith, she’d gladly embrace the sorting out of new dreams. But saying goodbye to this one so unexpectedly left a hole in her already-battered heart. 

--------------

author’s note: I know I’ve kept you in suspense... Jamie and Faith will be back in the next chapter for their side of the story! :)

[walker-journal]

Seeking Sanctuary (Bex + Adam)

Participants: Bexley Ochsenstein (Spellcaster by Envy), Adam Walker (Hunter by Tapir)

Context: Two very unlike people encounter each other at the temple, and voice mutual doubts in a discussion about the nature of faith and identity. 

Content Warnings: Religious Idealization, Discussions of Sexism and Transphobia (civil discussion), Mentions of post-traumatic stress and military conflict

Faith for Adam was a complicated subject. You’d think that knowing for certain that demons, life after death, magic, and souls existing would make faith easy. Adam technically knew the answers to alot of questions your average believer struggled with. There was no dread mystique to supernatural evil when your parents had taught you which tentaclely organs the laser beams came from. But that was exactly the problem.

Adam had grown up with Hell and all your worst nightmares simply being objective fact, an everyday reality that needed to be fought with tactics, technology, and sacrifice.

But although Adam was well acquainted with the forces of darkness, the supposed other side of the equation was very noticeably absent. Where was the Light in all of this? 

Being a practical dude, Adam would’ve normally just dismissed tangential stuff that didn’t help you in the trenches, as Dad had...except...Adam had also warded off plenty of spooks with sacred symbols and watched with his own eyes as holy water burned undead killing machines to sterile dust.

What was the creator smoking? Fuck if Adam knew.

Adam turned his gaze from absently contemplating The Ark whose displayed scriptural scrolls dominated the front of the synagogue. There weren’t alot of people here today, but Adam found a familiar face in the pews nonetheless.

“How goes it Odelia?”

Prayer was something Bexley had never really gotten the hang of. She knew all the prayers to recite during Yom Kippur and Passover. She had memorized the passages for her bat mitzvah, and she had memorized enough to get through Temple. But when it came to personal prayer, when it came to sitting in Temple alone and staring up at the alter and around the pews, Bexley had no idea what to do. She hadn’t figured it out in her twenty years of life, the disconnect from her faith a struggle. It was something her parents had noticed, but never pointed out, because Bexley tried-- oh did she try-- to connect with the world the way she knew they wanted her to. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want to or couldn’t, but, rather, that she felt so outside of it.

She was not born in the right body. Though the Torah made no mentions of people like her, the bittersweetness of it still tunneled her vision of it. How was she supposed to connect with something that wanted to pretend she didn’t exist?

But she wasn’t here today about that part of her. She was here today about the part of her that kept exploding things. Breaking them. Nell’s pot still sat heavy on her mind. It was a ridiculous thing to be kneeling in a pew about, but here she was. She wanted whatever it was to stop. She wanted to have some sort of control over it. She was practically begging for the help when a voice cut through her mind.

“Adam?” She turned to look over at him, startled slightly. “I-- sorry. What’re you doing here? N-not that you can’t be here! I just...you don’t really seem the type to just...come to temple... “

Adam was generally inclined to agree with that assessment. Between dating a woman who had a Beanie Baby collection of demons and committing more degrees of murder than existed in any legal code, the Hunter was pretty sure Bex was being overgenerous with his being allowed in here.

“Last night’s DIE party was the kind you need to get sanctified after,” Adam asserted as he plopped down unceremoniously in the pew in front of Bex. “You should come sometime.” he wheedled playfully. “Make sure you have plenty to repent for on Saturday.”

But after a moment Adam paused, the mischief of flirting with a lawyer-dude’s girlfriend fading. Dark brown eyes looked over Bex again, this time without lewdness or jest.

“How’re you holding up Bex,” Adam asked quietly with more intentionality than the previous address.

As Bex looked at Adam, she tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that Nell saw in him. Maybe it was something she couldn’t see, because all she saw was a rather lewd frat boy, who sometimes had that far away sad look in his eyes. Maybe that was really just the persona he wanted others to see-- Bex could relate to that. The happy, chipper girl she pretended to be in public for her parents wasn’t who she was at all, and her being here right now sort of proved that. She had to look away from him, furrowing her brow and smoothing her palms down the front of her dress. She always tried to look nice when coming to Temple.

“I don’t think those kinds of parties are really my style,” she answered quietly. Took a moment to look around to make sure there wasn’t anyone too familiar in here with them. But it was relatively empty today, with only a few people milling about and the Rabbi making rounds before disappearing back into his office. Her eyes settled back on Adam and he had that sad look again. He even used her right name.

“I’m fine,” she said curtly, “just...getting used to being back in White Crest. Kind of a whole different world out there than it is here, you know?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What’s the real reason you’re here, Adam? Repentance also doesn’t seem up your alley.”

While Adam had been trained to deceive and achieve invisibility by fulfilling others assumptions, he wasn’t so far gone that Bex’s directness couldn’t still get a rise from him. Adam blinked and his face became briefly uncertain, as if the Hunter had flubbed a line in a script and broken character in front of an audience of one. “I’ve gotten in over my head,” the murderer admitted after a time.

“I’ve been trying to just tough it out,” the Hunter continued, referring to the abuse and torments of a demonic cult in the tone someone else might’ve used for minor health difficulties. “But I’ve running on fumes for so long now that like...eventually you’ve got nothing left. No more second winds, no just pushing on through,” the athlete explained.

“I’ve never like been close to really hitting that wall one other time before,” admitted Adam in memory of when his power and faith had shattered on Lyssa’s peak. “I’m uh, not liking my chances here.”

Adam encompassed the synagogue’s interior with a vague sweeping gesture that implied that perhaps the soldier wasn’t so much seeking redemption as reaching anything to keep from plummeting off a cliff.

“Do you prefer the world out there Bex?”

Bex looked at Adam and listened to his words. Whatever he was going through, it seemed rough on him, like it was wearing him down. Sands blasting down his walls and carving them away, smoothing them away. Eventually, they would become nothing. Just like hers. She felt a pull at her heart and she had to look away to not totally give up her shiny exterior. Cleared her throat and rubbed her eyes.

“Don’t you have like, people to help you?” she asked. “You know you don’t have to go it alone. That’s sorta the point of community.” She gestured to the area around them. There were so many other people he could’ve gone to bother, why did he have to choose her? Still, a sense of curiosity pulled at her. And empathy. She knew what it felt like to be at the end of your rope. Her hands wrung together.

“What, um-- what happened? If you don’t mind me asking. Are you okay?” Was he dying? Did Nell know? She paused at his question. “I...prefer the world that I know I can interact with. It’s easy to...pretend to be something there.”

“There is someone helping me”, Adam admitted, “and I’m thankful I’ve got her help on this, but uh... “ The Hunter ran a hand across the back of his neck. “That’s kinna the problem y’know? Worried I’m just going to drag her down with me.”

Bex seemed to genuinely inquire about his welfare, which was kinna touching. As always, Adam had to weigh the difference between the necessary lies and giving the other people enough of the truth as he could. “There is a group in town that I think are into some really dangerous stuff,” was definitely a criminal level of understatement. “But I need evidence and to catch them in the act to make a citizen’s arrest,” Adam concluded. It was technically a lie, but as closest to the spirit of the truth as he could manage without going straight into Twilight Zone territory.

It was dangerous to say out loud. But as much as Adam hated to admit it, against an adversary like Ma’al these hallowed walls were probably studier than any military bunker.

“Why do you wanna pretend Bex? What makes this place hard to interact with,” Adam asked slowly, kinna intuiting what she might mean in his gut, but not wanting to jump to conclusions here.

“Is it Nell?” Bex asked, blurting the words before she could stop them. She paused, recoiled and bit the inside of her cheek. “Sorry. Not to sound weird, but I met Nell on campus and then we got talking and she sort of told me about you guys.” She burned to ask Adam if he knew that his girlfriend claimed to be a witch, and wondered what his faith-- their faith-- would have to say about that. She wondered a lot of things about Adam, actually, and Nell was one of those things.

“I think...if she didn’t want to be helping, she would say so. I think worrying about that is pointless.” Not that Bex knew Nell super well, but from what she’d seen of her, Nell didn’t seem the sort to do something out of obligation. She shifted, and leaned back.

“Whatever you’re up to, it sounds illegal and dangerous, and I’m studying law, so maybe don’t tell me what you’re doing,” she pointed out quietly, giving another wary glance around. She scratched her knees awkwardly.

“That’s...complicated, I guess,” she mumbled, furrowing her brows. “I want to pretend because...maybe one day I can’t stop pretending and it’ll be real. I know this might seem strange, Adam, but the world isn’t kind to people like me. Out there, in here--” she gestured around them, “it’s all kind of the same.”

“Oh,” Adam mouthed, feeling like a dumbass. Adam was typically immune to embarrassment or society anxiety, one of those side benefits of being conditioned to ignore fear and pain that might trouble therapists. Normally Adam would only grin and make lewd implications at the prospect of women talking in private about him. It’d never bothered him before, but for some reason the thought of Nell specifically doing so brought on a precarious uncertainty. “Yeah you’re right, I know you're right,” Adam repeated, “but still…” Knowing something doesn’t mean it can’t fuck you head anyway.

“Don’t you think we need to do illegal and dangerous stuff sometimes?” pointed out the vigilante.

Adam watched Bex’s face as she explained, his expression softened by a touch of awkward compassion but not comprehension. “Look I uh...can’t pretend to know what it's like,” he admitted. “This world is pretty dickish to women and I’m definitely not innocent of that, but there’s gotta be somewhere, or somebody, that can feel like a safe place y’know?”

“But still...what?” Bex prodded. She didn’t mean to pry, but she was curious by nature. And she began to develop a sort of friendship with Nell, so concern wrought itself through her face as she watched Adam. He always seemed so typical, but for some reason, up close like this with him, he seemed somewhat...different. There was something mysterious about him, about the way he talked. The things he hinted at. The casualness of his attitude, and the ruffling of his brow at the mention of Nell. Bex looked back down.

“No, I don’t,” Bex said, repeating the mantra in her head that her parents always told her. Be good, be polite, be strong. She tried her best to follow those, but she didn’t get them all the time. “My family is pretty strict about that stuff.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle hollowly. “I was kinda hoping that’s what I’d find here,” she admitted quietly, “but no one ever answers me.”

Adam let out a long exhale between his lips as he tried to scrape together some words to describe a gut feeling. Visceral stuff didn’t tend to lend itself to explanation very well, but here goes: “I’ve mostly ever done casual relationships,” Adam began. “I can’t do halfway stuff like...I’m not wired that way,” admitted the young fanatic. “Either it’s just a fuck.” Adam put a hand on one side of the pew’s back. “Or you care enough about them to give up everything,” Adam’s hand shifted to the other side of pew, perhaps indicating that the Hunter’s conception of intimacy was either a roll in the sheets or devotion to the point of self-sacrifice.

“Nell and I are trying something new for both of us,” Adam posited,”I care about her, but also don’t want to go so all in we can’t find a way out,” the Hunter said, perhaps talking about two things at once. “But as I said, not so great at halfway.”

Bex’s desolate mirth at divine silence gave Adam pause. His dark brown eyes flicked up to the synagogue's arched ceiling, as if checking to see if any angels happened to be fluttering about the eves.

“When I was on tour in Saudi Arabia,” the young soldier began after a while, eyes still contemplating the interlacing triangle mosaics. “One of my squaddies was this dude named Hasan. I was a dumass...ok dumbasser.. teenager and didn’t know shit about Islam and my Arabic was terrible,” Adam continued. “But like, we were on patrol together alot so we talked about stuff. One day we were looking at this camp full of bodies all ripped apart and shit,” the Hunter continued with conversational casualness, neglecting to mention that he and Hasan were not patrolling the wastelands against their fellow men.

“Hasan prayed over them before we bared what was left and I asked him later how he could possibly feel close to God out here, with all the blood and fucking torn up meat all over the sand. I was kinna messed up and lost my cool,” the Hunter confessed numbly, as if assuming that Bex would rightly judge him for this unacceptable lapse of composure on the battlefield. “Hasan just said that even here, even in this, Allah is not absent, We are no farther from his presence, evil is just distracting us from it.”

Adam’s lips creased into a rueful smile, “we talked more after that, he told me about this sage Rabia who was like this zero-wave feminist who went into the desert to chill with God and do survivalism.” The Hunter’s tone indicated that he himself might have considered going full wilderness anarchist on multiple occasions. “She was super smart and kind to the people who went out there to learn from her, unless they were offering marriage in which case she told them to fuck off,”

Scholars might’ve contested this summary, but Adam had learned about Sufi mysticism from Hasan in between filling hordes of Alghouls full of silver buckshot, so perhaps parsimony was forgivable.  

“Anyway, Rabia’s whole deal I guess was that she found that like..mosques, patriarchy, the state and all that shit pulled her farther away from God,” Adam continued in the manner of someone who’d emotionally connected with what his brother in arms had described, even if neither of the young warriors really had a handle on the deeper theology. “Love was where she felt God. Love for herself, love even for the sand and all the scorpions, the joy of just being alive.”

Adam’s eyes finally left the ceiling and found Bex’s face. The young man scratched his temple in a sudden fit of bashfulness in the wake of reminiscence. “Ok uh, I dunno where I was going with that but...I’m shit at this...but I guess uh.. like ...maybe a temple is wherever you feel closer to God, even if that's a desert or even just a state of mind.”

“I’m still trying to find my temple,” the fallen Hunter admitted.

As Adam talked, Bex listened. Really listened. She’d had no idea he was a soldier, or that he’d been on tour. She’d gone to Jerusalem once with her parents, and her mother had looked down at her and told her to be on her best behavior, because she was already wrong for being in the temple of their God. She remembered the harsh look her father had given her as they’d entered and she was wearing a dress and her favorite shoes and he’d scoffed. Maybe that was where her disconnect had spawned from.

Adam’s story broke her heart a little.

Bex couldn’t even imagine the pain of seeing so much carnage. Her sheltered life had let her grow up in relative peace. Death was not a part of her life. Shame was, though. Shame and guilt. She could relate to him on those things, even if it pained her to admit that.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” she finally said quietly, “that you went through all that.” She’d judged him preemptively, but he was perhaps suffering more than most anyone else in this Temple. “You know, for a frat guy, you’re pretty wise,” seh tacked on quietly with a tease. Perhaps now she could see why Nell liked him so much.

“I don’t know Nell that well yet, but it sounds like you really care about her. I definitely can’t give relationship advice, I’ve never even been in a real one--” she gave pause, stuttering over her words. Frank, her current “boyfriend” was a cover, and she’d just given that up, “--until now! But...what I’m trying to say is, I think it’s okay to not know. I think figuring it out together is kinda like...the point, you know? Of being with someone like that. Of trying new things.” Things she only wished she could try, could have. He was looking at her with those bashful, knowing eyes and she had to look away.

“This place scares me,” she admitted quietly, “White Crest.” She rubbed her arm, pulling into herself. “My parents always kept me so locked away, even when I lived here. And now I’ve been back for almost two months and already I feel like this place is trying to change me, take me away from the person I’m supposed to be.” She looked up at the ceiling, mirroring his movements from moments ago. “I guess I just wanted answers.” The ceiling told her nothing, and she looked down to meet his eyes again.

“You and me both, then,” she answered his last statement, the same sort of broken admittance ringing in her voice, “Guess we’ll just have to keep searching, huh?” Because there had to be something better than this, for both of them.

Adam stared at Bex for a moment at her condolence, stunned, as if genuinely not understanding why a story of battlefield carnage had elicited that reaction.

“Well uh,” a red blush crept up Adam’s neck as if Bex’s compassion had unmanned him more then any debauchery or public streaking ever had. “It’s not ...I didn’t mean it like..” the Hunter insisted as if associating the long war with suffering was something unthinkable. Perhaps it was even literally unthinkable, an emotional descent Adam didn’t think he could survive.

“It’s an honor to serve,” Adam insisted quietly. Even disgraced, powerless, and at the edge breaking, the Hunter couldn’t abandon what was killing him.

“You’re pretty understanding for a church girl,” Adam answered back to the praise he didn’t deserve, the crease at the edge of his soft smile hinting at a deeper more serious compliment underneath the playful plaudit.

If Adam intuited something off about how abruptly and awkwardly Frank entered and left the conversation, he kept his peace.

There were things Adam wished he could tell Bex about White Crest, about why her fears were valid and his gut feeling that this city was in a liminal space between Earth and the fathomless unknown. But preserving supernatural secrecy was one of the sacred charges his ancestors had passed down, and Adam couldn’t bring himself to break it even when it seemed they’d abandoned him.

Besides, Bex seemed worried about White Crest killing her spiritually, while Adam had his hands full trying to prevent much more literal death in vamp infested graveyards.

“Yeah guess so…” Adam stood as if he were about to go, but paused, mulling over Bex’s words again. Locked up? Take her away from who she was meant to be? Aw shit. Uneasy vibes compelled Adam to speak even when his brain warned he should stay the hell outta this. “Hey Bex, like if its ever too much,” he began slowly, “I know people you stay with. On the other side of the country, or the Holy Land even.” Mom never turned away guests in need...well, human ones.

“Sorry if that’s pushy,” Adam ameliorated, “and you can tell me to fuck off. But like...offer open.”

His embarrassment was almost immediate and Bex couldn’t help but roll her eyes a little. He might’ve had a seeming heart of gold, but he still tried to apply certain standards of masculinity to himself. She supposed some things would never really change. Still, it didn’t discredit anything else he’d said, or that he’d done. “Well I did,” she answered, “mean it like that.”

At that, Bex snorted. “Church girl?” she chuckled, shaking her head. “Seriously? That’s what you think of me? Geez, I kinda hate that. Maybe I was right before, pretending I could solve my problems myself instead of coming here.” She was mostly teasing, but there was some truth to it. She hadn’t entirely found her purpose or sense of self within her faith yet, even as hard as she’d tried to. She had books about Jewish spiritualism-- Kabbalah as it were-- but after her parents had found the first one, their anger had made her never want to open one again, despite her curiosity for them. Despite what little she had read about it giving her a connection she’d never felt before.

His offer, however, was sudden and abrupt and not at all what she’d expected him to say. She blinked, confused, before softening her expression and shaking her head. “That’s real sweet of you to offer, Adam, but I could never take you up on that.” Her parents would never allow it. They’d brought her back here specifically to keep her close, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be let out of their grasp for a long time now.

Her expression fell again, as he stood and started to make his way out. “You know, Adam,” she said, a bit quieter now, “you’re a good guy. I can’t tell you what to do, but I think maybe letting people see this side of you more often might be nice.” She gave a gentle smile. “I’ll see you around. Tell Nell hi for me.”

[let-the-dream-begin]

A Place to Belong Chapter 26: Telling Stories

Chapter 25

Read on AO3

In late February, the Redcoats came back.

They were evidently not satisfied that Claire was who Jenny said she was the last time they were here, when Jenny had shown off the potato-baby.

Claire was in the middle of changing Brianna’s diaper in her bedroom when the front door burst open. Claire’s heart leapt into her throat and her hands froze for a moment. She carefully continued tying off the diaper as she listened to the hushed voices from behind her slightly ajar bedroom door.

“...rumors in the village…”

“...a healer that lives here…”

“How is your cousin, Madame Murray?”

Claire swallowed, feeling like prickly sand was running down her throat as she did so. Her bedroom was no priest hole, but she felt it would be wise if she and Brianna stayed hidden. If they decided to search the house, well...she’d worry about that when the time came.

“Kitty play!” Brianna shouted.

“Shh!” Claire hushed. “We must be very quiet, Brianna.”

In deliberate defiance, Brianna gave a loud shriek, and Claire thought she might vomit. Brianna dissolved into a fit of giggles, quite amused with herself.

The voices downstairs stopped briefly, and Claire’s pulse only returned to normal when she heard Jenny’s voice again:

“One of the bairns. Ye ken how they are.”

Once Brianna was dressed again, Claire rushed to the windowsill, where Lambert had been left.

“Let’s play with Lamb, darling. How does that — ”

She turned around and Brianna was no longer sitting on the bed, and the door was slightly more open than before.

Fucking hell.

Claire dropped the lamb and sprinted out of the bedroom and down the hall after Brianna, toddling with impressive speed toward the stairs. Claire hiked up her skirts and reached her in four quick strides, scooping her into her arms, eliciting a shrill yell from the toddler that halted conversation at the bottom of the stairs again.

Claire looked over the banister at the three Redcoats cornering Jenny, who remained calm and level-headed as ever. All four of them were now staring upward. Claire wet her lips, her heart bruising her ribcage. She forced a pleasant smile and curtsied slightly before quickly turning around with the intention of slipping back into her bedroom and keeping Brianna occupied until they were gone.

“Madame.”

Fuck.

“Do come downstairs, if you don’t mind.”

That is not a request.

Claire took a shuddering breath, and her chin began to tremble.

“Brianna, love, we’re going to play a game, alright?”

“Play game?”“Shh...yes, a game.” Claire was whispering into her hair, quiet enough that she barely heard herself. “A quiet game. You must not make any noise. If you win the game and stay quiet, you may have as many biscuits as you want.”

“Biscuit!”

“Shh...quiet, lovie. Yes?”

Brianna nodded silently, pursing her lips together absurdly. Claire slowly made her way to the stairs and descended, clutching Brianna tightly. No doubt the soldiers had heard Brianna’s half of the conversation, but thankfully what she’d said could pass as a child making unprompted requests.

The other children were likely in the nursery with Mrs. Crook, aside from wee Jamie, who was likely outside with Rabbie and Fergus. If only Claire had changed her diaper faster, had been able to get her to the nursery before they were noticed…

“Good day, Madame,” the captain greeted. Claire smiled woodenly.

“This is the very same babe ye saw the last time ye were here, Captain,” Jenny interjected before he could prompt Claire to speak. She stretched out her arms, smiling brightly as she took Brianna in her arms. “My wee Brianna Murray.”

“How very charming,” the captain said dryly.

“Lizzie is her godmother,” Jenny continued, flashing a secret look at Claire. “Ye remember my cousin.”

Elizabeth. Jenny’s cousin, Brianna’s godmother. The role I’m playing right now.

“Indeed,” the captain said, eyeing Claire suspiciously.

“Mistress Fraser is visiting us again just now,” Jenny went on, rocking Brianna gently, keeping her smile wide.

Thank God Brianna would do anything for a biscuit. If I hadn’t pulled the quiet game out of my arse she’d have called me Mummy eight times already.

“And does Mistress Fraser have any healing abilities?” he pressed.

“Oh, aye,” Jenny said warmly. “Whenever she visits she offers what help she can to our tenants. We’re very grateful to her.”

“Tell me, Mistress Fraser,” the Captain said, turning to address Claire directly. “Where did you learn such abilities? Family trade?”

“She — ”

“I’d like to hear her myself, Madame Murray,” the captain said, clipped and aggravated. “Go on, Miss.”

Claire was trembling head to toe. She cleared her throat and answered in a raspy whisper: “Aye, Sir.” She took care to emphasize the ‘r’ the best she could.

“Do speak up, please.”

Claire exaggeratedly cleared her throat again, then touched her throat before forcing herself into a coughing fit. Jenny immediately caught on.

“Apologies, Captain. My cousin has caught something from one of our tenants, and she’s been having trouble wi’ her voice lately, ye ken.”

Claire carried on with her coughing, and the three soldiers unconsciously stepped back a few paces.

“Collins. Get the lady some water, for God’s sake,” the Captain ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Dangerous for the child, is it not?” The Captain said. “Having a sick woman hold it so close?”

Claire finally let her coughing subside, and she allowed herself to start panting.

“Och, the bairns have all had the sickness already. Canna catch it again,” Jenny said offhandedly, and despite the situation, Claire swelled with pride.

She’s been paying attention when I speak of these things.

“Ah. I see.” The captain took a step forward, unclasping his hands from behind his back. “Such a...vibrant color.” He reached a hand toward Brianna, and wrapped a curl around his finger. Claire’s stomach lurched. “Quite...red.”

Red Jamie.

“Aye, my mother’s color,” Jenny said with pride, though Claire could see the fear in her eyes. 

“None of your other children have it,” the Captain said, amused. “It’s astonishing, really.”

Collins returned then with a glass of water, and Claire accepted it with a polite nod, having to concentrate very hard to keep the water from sloshing out with the force of her trembling.

“My wee Maggie has a bit of it as well,” Jenny said dismissively. “Bits of red woven in wi’ blonde — ”

“Remarkable isn’t it,” the Captain went on. “The resemblance. Don’t you think, Collins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Resemblance, Captain?” Jenny asked uneasily.

“To her...uncle.”

“Och,” Jenny said quickly. “Unfortunate that the traitor inherited much of our mother’s beauty as well. Suits the bairn much better, don’t ye think?”

“Indeed.” The Captain’s finger was still woven into Brianna’s hair, and Claire had never before felt such a deep urge to kill somebody.

Jamie would cut his bloody hand off.

“Are you a widow, Mistress Fraser?” The Captain said, abruptly turning his head to face her, his hand still touching Brianna. “And a mother, perhaps?”

Claire shook her head.

“Lizzie’s never been marrit,” Jenny said lightly. “I often tease her about it.”

Jenny made a move to shift Brianna, to inadvertently get her away from his grip, but he very abruptly seized a fistful of her curls and held on tightly, forcing Jenny to cause Brianna pain by pulling against his hand. Brianna yelped and began wailing. Jenny’s face turned white, and Claire’s vision went red, pressure building between her temples.

“Are you quite sure, Mistress Fraser?”

“Captain, please, ye’re hurting her — ”

“I’d like the truth, please, from Mistress Fraser’s tongue.”

Brianna shrieked again.

Claire forced herself to start coughing again, using all the breath in her lungs to create as realistic a hacking sound as she could manage.

“For Heaven’s sake, Madame. Enough.”

Claire let the glass slip from her grip and shatter at her feet, then rolled her eyes to the back of her head and dropped to the ground.

“Lizzie?” Jenny called. “Captain, please, she needs help, she’s ill — ”

“Get her up onto the sofa!” The Captain barked, beyond irritated.

Brianna’s shrieking was growing louder and louder, likely distraught to see her mother topple over. Claire’s heart was in her throat, tears gathering behind her closed eyelids, her arms aching to press Brianna into her.

Claire was roughly lifted by the two soldiers and laid out on the sofa. Jenny called for Laura and ordered her to take Brianna into the nursery with the other children. Claire bit her lip to stifle her sigh of relief; this meant that the bastard no longer had his hands on her daughter.

Jenny began fretting over Claire, putting a rag on her head, dabbing at her neck.

“She’s burning up,” Jenny cried, distraught.

In a different century, Jenny would make quite the actress.

“Captain, I’m heart sorry, I’ll be happy to answer any questions ye have, but my cousin is no’ well, as ye can clearly see.”

A heavy, tangible silence followed, and Claire could hear the Captain sigh heavily, almost giving way to a growl.

“Very well. When she wakes, offer her my well wishes and a fast recovery.” His voice was thin and tight.

Three sets of footsteps retreated, and then there was a great crashing noise that made Claire jump on the sofa. The footsteps continued and the front door opened and slammed shut.

Claire immediately shot up off the sofa, and Jenny firmly grabbed her shoulders. Claire vaguely registered that the contents of the mantle had been swept onto the floor, creating a mess in the parlor in the Captain’s rage.

“Stay, sister. In case they return.”

“Brianna...I need her…” Claire’s eyes were wide and frantic, her breathing shallow and panicked.

“She’s alright, Claire. She’s wi’ Mrs. Crook. He didna hurt her.”

“I could kill him...disgusting, loathsome man…” Claire spat, her entire body trembling under Jenny’s hands.

“I ken. It’s over now, sister. It’s alright.” Jenny wrapped her arms around her, and despite the urge to run, to kill, to scream, Claire simply melted in her arms, weeping bitterly.

“That was...horrible, Jenny…”

“I ken, mo ghraidh. It’s over now. Ye did well.”

“Her screams…Oh God…”

“I can bear pain myself, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.”

I cannot bear her pain.

“She’s alright, Claire. She willna even remember this.”

Claire nodded against Jenny’s shoulder, sniffling. At least there was that one small comfort.

“I think it’s been long enough, now. Let’s go,” Jenny said, smiling weakly. “I feel I must hold my own bairns just now, as well.”

That night, and every night thereafter, Claire wondered how much longer they’d be able to keep up this act.

——

March 19th, 1749

It was one of those rare moments of peace, a crackling fire accompanied by the glowing moonlight. Claire was knitting new arm warmers for Maggie, as she’d outgrown her old ones yet again, passing them down to Kitty, who passed her old ones down to Brianna. Brianna was restless beside Claire in bed, tossing and turning back and forth, Lamb tucked under her arm.“Mummy,” Brianna blurted.

“Shh...quiet darling,” Claire whispered. “It’s time to sleep.”

“Story, Mummy.” Brianna sat up and began tugging on the sleeve of Claire’s nightgown. “Story, Mummy.”

“Story, Mummy...what?” Claire looked up from her knitting, cocking an eyebrow at the demanding toddler.

“Story Mummy please?” Brianna said, her ocean-eyes widening, and her bottom lip sticking out in that irresistible pout.

“Well, alright,” Claire grinned, setting aside her knitting on the side table. “Since you asked so nicely.”

Brianna grinned a crooked, toothy smile and clapped her hands.

“Come here, lovie.” Claire opened her arms, and Brianna crawled into her lap, nuzzling herself into Claire’s breast, resting a pudgy palm on the soft flesh at the top of her nightgown, the latching instinct apparently not having left her just yet despite being recently weaned.

Claire hummed with contentment, feeling her little girl settling into her, safe and protected in her mother’s arms, where she belonged.

“Which story do you want to hear, darling? The one about the little princess, and the seven dwarves?”

Claire was not brought up on fairytales at all; any tales told to her by Uncle Lamb were folklore of whatever land they were currently occupying, based in culture, religion, or scientific fact. She hadn’t been raised on princes and princesses like other girls had. She hadn’t gone to see Snow White in 1938 for any reason other than curiosity at its novelty: the first full-length animated motion picture. She’d enjoyed it, and teared up more than she’d liked to admit during the dwarves’ funeral for the princess, mostly because Uncle Lamb had been openly weeping, surely remembering the funeral that Claire was too young to be affected by, a funeral of matching coffins.

It was a fond memory she kept tucked away, something she stopped speaking about after Uncle Lamb had passed. She found herself speaking of it again, telling Brianna the little fairytale as best as she could remember from her one viewing of it. It was simple enough: little princess runs away from an evil queen, lives with seven little men, is saved by her prince, and off they go to happily-ever-after. Brianna enjoyed it well enough, and it made Claire smile to think of telling her about motion pictures someday, and revealing that her favorite of Mummy’s stories was actually created by a man named Walt Disney, each frame individually drawn and painted with as much care as the portraits done by her Grannie Ellen and her Auntie Jenny.

“No Princess. No dw-avs,” Brianna says simply. “Queen, Mummy.”

Claire smiled wistfully, a quiet sadness settling in her chest.

The tale of Laird and Lady Lallybroch was another one of her favorites.

“Alright, lovie.” Claire kissed the crown of her head. 

“Once upon a time, there was a brave, dashing warrior.” Claire felt her little girl smile against her breast. “He had hair like flames and eyes like deep water. Just like yours, baby. He called himself Laird Broch Tuarach, and he lived with his Lady.”

“Lady Bock Too-wack,” Brianna cooed, and Claire gave a watery chuckle.

“That’s right, sweetheart. Lady Broch Tuaroch. She was the most important thing in the world to the Laird. She was…”

“Queen!” Brianna said.

“And he was…”

“King!”

“That’s right, lovie. Their own little kingdom. They loved each other very, very much.” Her voice got tight, and she wound her arms tighter around Brianna. “So very much, that they decided to bring a little princess into the world.” Brianna gave a little giggle. The more she heard the story, the more she began to process that the little princess in question was her.

“The Laird had to go away, leave his Lady and their little princess. But, he left behind a special gift before he had to go away. Special for his little girl.”

Brianna proudly held up the little lamb, and Claire chuckled again.

“That’s right, darling. Fraser colors, so that your father will always be with you.” She pressed a fervent kiss to the top of Brianna’s head.

“The end,” Brianna said contentedly, pressing Lamb back into her chest.

Claire didn’t say anything for a moment. She rocked Brianna silently, her chin resting atop her wild curls, feeling her squishy cheek pressed into the crook of her neck.

“Brianna?” She broke the silence. “Do you know that the warrior, the Laird, the King...do you know that he’s...he’s your Da?”

Brianna had heard the word before. Her cousins said it every day to Ian, about Ian. She wondered if her little brain could grasp it yet, what it meant to have a Da. Or to not have one.

She didn’t expect Brianna to say anything, didn’t expect her to understand well enough. This story was Claire’s way of telling her daughter that she had a father that loved her, even before she would understand. Someday she’d understand.

Claire thought she was hearing things again when Brianna’s little voice said:

“Da.”

She’s just parroting. She’s only two-and-a-half years old. She doesn’t understand.

But logic was powerless to stop the raw emotion that slammed into Claire at the sound of Jamie’s daughter calling out to him.

“That’s right, baby,” she croaked, squeezing her as tightly as she dared. “Da loves you.”

“Da…” Brianna cooed once more, before the sound morphed into a little snore, and she was fast asleep against her.

Claire allowed the tiniest of sobs to escape her lips before she clenched her entire body to silence herself. With the greatest care, Claire laid Brianna on the mattress beside her and then clamped a hand over her mouth, feeling hot tears run over her fingers.

How many tears must I cry? How many nights must I burn alive with this pain?

And yet...how blessed have I been…?

She took a shuddering breath, running her fingers lightly over Brianna’s downy soft curls.

How blessed am I to have you here still? How blessed am I to raise her in your honor, to teach her to love your memory as much as I loved your flesh and blood?

Could she? Could Brianna ever understand the depth of her father’s love for her, the depth of her mother’s love for him?

I’ll do my damndest, Jamie.

I will never stop telling our story.

[flowerfan2]

All Vows

A/N:  Given that this is the second year in a row I’ve been inspired (compelled?) to write a Good Omens fic on Yom Kippur, I’m inclined to think there’s something to it.  But who knows.

See below for more info and author’s notes.  L’shana tova, everyone.

All Vows, A03

It's Yom Kippur again, and Crowley can't stop watching you tube videos of the Kol Nidrei service.  It's hard to know where he fits, but Aziraphale is there to help.

Crowley hit pause on the video he was watching and shifted on the couch, pulling out his earbuds when it became clear that Aziraphale was talking to him (he could hear him either way, of course, but Aziraphale said it was rude to keep them in during a conversation).

“Are you still listening to Kol Nidrei services?”  Aziraphale asked.  “I don’t think you’re actually required to do it multiple times.”  There was a soft smile tugging at his face, but Crowley didn’t mind the gentle teasing.  He knew he was being a little, well, obsessive.

“I’m not required to do it at all,” he reminded Aziraphale.  Demons didn’t need to go to temple.  Crowley was aiming for a casual tone, but he kind of ruined it by swiping at his eyes, which were leaking rather annoyingly. Traitors.

“Being able to remotely watch Yom Kippur services from all over the world is a silver-”

“Do not say that again, Aziraphale,” Crowley grumbled, returning to more familiar territory. Aziraphale continued to find the “silver lining” in the COVID disaster in everything from less crowded roads to the months and months he’d had to try out different variations on his macaron recipe (Crowley had drawn the line at lobster maracons with buttercream and crabmeat filling), and every time, it grated on his nerves.  No “rain bow” was going to make up for this disaster.

 “I’m sorry, dear,” Aziraphale said, sliding over and taking Crowley’s hand.  “I don’t mean to downplay your concern.  But it is long past sundown here, and presumably in…”  Aziraphale craned his neck to see what Crowley had been watching on his tablet, “New York City, and I think you can take a break now.”

 Crowley let out a long breath, and laid his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder.  “Kol Nidrei means ‘all vows’ in Aramaic,” he said.

 “Hmm, yes,” Aziraphale agreed.

 “Do you remember, then – when it got started… medieval times, all those persecuted Jews, forced to convert to other religions, wanted to return to their own community.”  …”

 “But they were worried that the oath they had sworn to God to follow another religion would get in the way. So the congregations developed the Kol Nidrei prayer to absolve them of the oaths they had made.”

 Crowley digs his chin into Aziraphale’s warm shoulder, and Aziraphale gives his hand a squeeze.  Of course Aziraphale knows all about it, they were both there, bearing witness to the many ways humans have wronged each other year after year in the name of religion.  But something about this particular religious ritual, a legal formula recited every fall to address each person’s own relationship with their god, has hit him hard tonight.

 “D’ya think it worksss for me?” Crowley asked quietly, his voice rebelling against him as surely as his eyes had earlier.  “Can I be forgiven, for the vows I sssshouldn’t have made? Or does it not work, since She threw me out in the first place?”  Was it still a vow against God if God pretty much forced him into it?

 “Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, unclasping his hand from Crowley’s and enveloping him in a tight hug instead.  “It works for everyone.  Vah-yoe-mare Adonai, sah-lach-tee kid’vorecha.”

 “And Adonai said, ‘I have pardoned them as you have asked,’” Crowley repeated, roughly translating the end of the prayer he had heard so many times.

 They sat there in silence for a few minutes, Aziraphale adjusting his hold on Crowley to something more comfortable. Crowley snuggled against Aziraphale’s chest, rubbing his cheek along the worn velvet of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, a feeling of safety and warmth spreading through his body.

 “So, which one was your favorite?” Aziraphale asked after a while, shifting so that he could reclaim his tea from where he had abandoned it at the other end of the couch.  It was still at the perfect temperature, of course, despite the fact that he hadn’t taken a sip of it for quite a while.

 “My favorite…?”

 “Your favorite service.  You must have watched a dozen of them tonight.”

 It had been more than that, actually, if you counted all of the ones Crowley just checked out on you tube for a few minutes and then noped out of if it wasn’t particularly interesting.

 “I always found that fancy congregation in Manhattan a bit too stuffy,” Aziraphale said, referring to the last one Crowley had viewed, and Crowley huffed out a laugh.  Anything too stuffy for Aziraphale was, let’s say, more than a bit behind the times.

 “Newt and Anathema had a good service in their backyard, actually,” Crowley said, grabbing his phone and swiping around until he found what he was looking for, then playing a snippet of the recording for Aziraphale.  There were less traditional instruments playing along with the traditional prayers, and Aziraphale smiled as they heard what sounded like a ukulele.

 “Anathema will really do anything for Newt, won’t she?” Aziraphale murmured approvingly.  Anathema wasn’t Jewish, at least not by birth.

 “Well, she thinks the cantor might be under some sort of spell, given how long she can hold out those high notes without breathing, so she’s taking a professional interest.”

 Crowley showed Aziraphale a few pictures Anathema had sent him that afternoon, of Newt and Anathema’s yard, set up for a small group of neighbors with chairs spread out at least six feet apart.  Their guests were all bringing their own prayer books, or using their phones to access the texts.  Even some communities who usually wouldn’t allow the use of technology on the holidays had made exceptions for a variety of practices given the need to stay safe during the pandemic, although Crowley was pretty sure Newt and Anathema weren’t so conservative in their observance anyway.  

 “Things really are different this year,” Aziraphale said.

 Crowley nodded.  “Yup.  Tomorrow someone is coming by to play the shofar for them.  Apparently the guy is just going to go from house to house, if you want him to come play it for you, you just have to let him know and he’ll stop by.  Home-delivery shofar blowing.  But,” Crowley broke off, swiping until he found another photograph, and then turning his phone so Aziraphale could see the image of the long, curved ram’s horn with a mask somehow attached to the end,  “it has to wear a mask too.  It could be a super-spreader.”

 Aziraphale stared at the photo of the shofar with a mask on it and started to giggle.  Crowley harrumphed, but then Aziraphale did that little wiggle that meant he was truly endeared, and Crowley started giggling too.

 “Humans are endlessly creative,” Aziraphale said into Crowley’s neck, when the giggles had subsided and they were once more curled up around each other.  “They will rise to this challenge, as they have before.”

 “Do you really think so, angel?” Crowley asked.  

 “I do, Crowley. I really do. And we’ll be here to watch them.”

 “Together,” Crowley said shyly, hiding his blush in the soft fluff of Aziraphale’s hair.  Because no matter what vows Crowley had made, no matter what heaven or hell had required of him, somehow, Aziraphale was still here.

 “Yes, of course, dear boy,” Aziraphale replied, nuzzling a delicate kiss into the spot just behind Crowley’s ear, fond and steady and true.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

_____

Note:  Here I am again, for some crazy reason, writing another Yom Kippur fic.  Yom Kippur is the traditional Jewish day of atonement, and the Kol Nidrei prayer is thought to have originated as a result of Jews being forced to convert to Christianity or Islam upon pain of death.  Afterwards, many of the forced converts wanted to return to Judaism, but this was complicated by the fact that they had been forced to swear vows to another religion.  The Kol Nidrei legal formula was developed to enable them to return, and is recited each year at the beginning of Yom Kippur to absolve them of their vows to God made under duress.  The melody of the Kol Nidrei prayer, which became standardized in the 1800’s, is particularly haunting.  To hear and see the Kol Nidrei sung by Cantor Angela Buchdahl, the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi and cantor and an amazing person, go here.

 Jewish communities around the world, large and small, have been conducting remotely accessible services this year, and finding numerous ways to allow people to come together for high holiday observance in one form or another while still following social distancing guidelines and keeping each other safe.  As just one of many examples, Temple Emanu-El of New York has made its high holiday services available online to everyone; you can find the Kol Nidrei service here.  (As described on Wikipedia,Temple Emanu-El is the first Reform Jewish congregation in New York City and, because of its size and prominence, has served as a flagship congregation in the Reform branch of Judaism since its founding in 1845. Its landmark Romanesque Revival building on Fifth Avenue is one of the largest synagogues in the world. I was there once for a wedding - it blew me away, and honestly, most Jewish synagogues don’t look anything like it, but it is a very lovely place to have visited).

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

28th February >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Mark 9:2-10 for the Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle B: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him’.

Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

Gospel (Except USA)

Mark 9:2-10

This is my Son, the Beloved

Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter spoke to Jesus: ‘Rabbi,’ he said ‘it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say; they were so frightened. And a cloud came, covering them in shadow; and there came a voice from the cloud, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’ Then suddenly, when they looked round, they saw no one with them any more but only Jesus.    As they came down from the mountain he warned them to tell no one what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They observed the warning faithfully, though among themselves they discussed what ‘rising from the dead’ could mean.

Gospel (USA)

Mark 9:2–10

This is my beloved Son.

Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.    As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.

Reflections (5)

(i) Second Sunday of Lent

Life has been very difficult for people in the last twelve months or so. It has been particularly difficult for people working in our hospitals, for our older people living alone, or in nursing homes. These months have been a real way of the cross for many. Many of you may have experienced a kind of darkness coming over you. At such times, we appreciate all the more some gift that unexpectedly comes our way to lift our spirits. I have heard people say to me how good it was just to get out for a walk. When times are dark, we appreciate all the more the small pleasures of life. We begin to realize that they are not so small after all. There is something truly special about these little pleasures, something of God even. In dark times we can find ourselves giving thanks to God for gifts that we might have taken for granted when times were better.

Today’s gospel reading is the story of a special gift that unexpectedly came to Peter, James and John,. It was an experience of light they badly needed. Just before this scene in Mark’s gospel, Jesus had begun to talk to his disciples about how he would have to undergo great suffering, experience rejection by the religious leaders, and be put to death by the political leaders. This information horrified the disciples, and Peter rebuked Jesus for expressing such dark thoughts about the future. For this, Peter earned the strongest rebuke of anyone in all of the gospels, ‘Get behind me Satan!’ Far from stepping back from his dark announcement, Jesus went on to declare to his disciploes that faithfully following him would entail the way of the cross for them too. The disciples found themselves in a much darker place at this moment than they ever would have anticipated when they left their fishing nets to follow Jesus. According to Mark’s gospel, it was six days later that Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain by themselves. He needed to show them that beyond the coming darkness there was a great light, beyond the trauma of suffering and death there would be a new and glorious life, for him and for all who believed in him. Suffering and death would not have the last word.

The disciples’ experience of Jesus transfigured did not only points to a light beyond the darkness, it was itself a light within their darkness. The disciples saw the light of God’s presence shining through Jesus’ humanity in a way they had never seen it before, and would never see again until Jesus appeared to them as risen Lord. The unexpected gift of this heavenly light would sustain them during the difficult times ahead. We believe that we are all on a journey towards the eternal light of God’s loving presence. We are on a pilgrimage towards an eternal Easter where suffering and death are no more. We can also be assured that in the course of this pilgrimage we will be given glimpses of our eternal destiny, just as the disciples were given such a glimpse on the mount of transfiguration. Like the first disciples, we need God’s reassuring light here and now to strengthen and guide us as we make our pilgrim journey. The Lord will grace us with our own little transfiguration moments. According to Saint Paul, our ultimate destiny is to be transfigured. He says in his letter to the Romans that we are destined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. In our course of our earthly lives, the Lord will give us fleeting glimpses of our final transfiguration. These are moments when we are touched in a special way by the Lord’s loving and life-giving presence. We come away from such moments renewed or transfigured, if only in some small way. At such moments, we can find ourselves asking the hopeful question Paul asks at the beginning of our second reading, ‘With God on our side, who can be against us?’ The settings for such transfiguration moments can be anywhere and anytime. We just need to be open to them, ready to respond when the Lord leads us up some mount of transfiguration, as he led Peter, James and John.

Such experiences will always be passing moments in this earthly life. We will have to let them go and come back to earth. In the gospel reading, Peter was reluctant to let go of this transfiguration moment, ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’, he said, ‘let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’. He wanted to freeze the moment, to hold on to the glory. He soon had to come down the mountain and face towards Jerusalem with Jesus. Yet, he was given a message on the mountain for the journey ahead, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him’. It is a message that is addressed to us all. We may not have transfiguration moments every day, but we can listen to the Lord every day. He alone is the beloved Son of God; his is the only word to which we must listen. If we really listen to his word, allowing it to shape our lives, then we will experience the light of the Lord’s presence, and the light of his word will bring us to our own final transfiguration.

And/Or

(ii) Second Sunday of Lent

  When I was a child growing up in Cabra, my father bought a little car, a Mini, as it was known at the time. This was in the early 60s when cars were just beginning to be bought in numbers. It was a great thrill to have a car, even if a very small one. On a Sunday, certainly in the summer, my father would take my mother, myself and my two brothers out for a drive. When we were in the car, before we headed out, he would turn towards us in the back seat and say, ‘Will it be the sea or the mountains?’ The sea was anywhere from Dollymount to Rush. The mountains were really the Dublin hills, but we used to call them the mountains. At the time I always had a preference for the mountains, and I was always glad when we headed south, rather than east or north. There was something about being on a height which I found exhilarating and exciting. It felt different up there. You were somehow above it all. You had a different perspective. The city looked better from a height, more beautiful, spreading inland from that natural horseshoe that is Dublin Bay.

 Peter, James and John made their living from the sea. They were fishermen. They must have spent long hours on the sea of Galilee or by its shores. In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus takes them away from the sea, up a high mountain. There, on that mountain, they were given a new perspective on Jesus. They saw him as they had never seen him before, transfigured, his clothes dazzling white. In an earlier chapter of his gospel, Mark had described Jesus and his disciples in a storm at sea, the boat battling against the wind and waves. Now on the mountain, the storm must have seemed a distant memory as they were absorbed by an experience of Jesus that made Peter cry out, ‘it is wonderful for us to be here’. The hell of the storm had given way to this heavenly experience on the mountain. Yet, an even more hellish storm lay ahead for the disciples. They would soon come down the mountain and continue the journey towards Jerusalem, the city where they would experience suffering and loss and failure.

 In our own lives we will probably have experienced both the storm at sea and the peace of the mountain top. When we look back on our lives, the darker and more painful experiences can stand out for us. Hopefully, we can also remember times when, like Peter, we said, ‘it is wonderful to be here’. These were times when we felt deeply happy and at peace, when we felt alive. The gospel reading this morning invites us to remember those moments, to relive them, and to continue to draw life from them.

 I am struck by that little word ‘here’ in Peter’s statement. So often we can find ourselves wishing that we were somewhere else, not ‘here’, but ‘there’. We image that we would be happier if we were in a different place, or with different people, or doing different things. In some instances that can be the case. It can be important at times for people to move, because where they are is anything but wonderful. But at other times, our wishing to be somewhere else can come from our failure to appreciate what we have, where we are, the people around us now. Maybe if we saw more deeply, we would appreciate more fully the here and the now, and we might find ourselves saying more often, ‘it is good to be here, here in this place, with these people’. On the mountain top, Peter, James and John were helped to see Jesus more deeply than they had ever seen him before. They were captivated by the mystery of his identity, ‘This is my Son, the beloved’. They saw that there was more to him than they had realized. So often, there is more to the place we are in, and to the people we are with, than we realize. Our way of seeing where we are and who we are with can be very restricted. We can miss something important about the ‘here’ and the ‘now’. In one of our acclamations at Mass, we say or sing, ‘Heaven and earth are full of your glory’. We acknowledge in that acclamation how the created world is charged with God’s presence. That is even truer of the human person who is made in the image of God. God could say of each person we meet, ‘This is my beloved’. As God invited the disciples on the mountain to see Jesus more deeply, he invites us to see each other more deeply, to relate to each other in a way that acknowledges the wonder of our being.

 We can fail to appreciate what is all around us; we can devalue what is really worthwhile. We can even be tempted to destroy what is deserving of our love and appreciation. Abraham in the first reading climbed a mountain to destroy his son, believing this was what God was asking of him. Sacrificing children to the gods was part of the pagan religious culture in which Abraham lived. Abraham had to learn that this was not what God was asking of him. God’s words, ‘Do not harm him’, stopped Abraham in his tracks. On the mountain, God was calling Abraham to cherish life not to destroy it. In a similar way, God calls us to cherish life, to celebrate the wonder of life in all its forms, as the disciples celebrated the wonder of Jesus on the mountain. Then we might find ourselves saying more often, ‘it is wonderful to be here’.

And/Or

(iii) Second Sunday of Lent

 Most of us would be aware of times in our lives when we did not really do ourselves justice. The way we spoke or acted, the way we related to someone, did not really express our better self. We can look back at such moments and recognize that we fell short of the person we are called to be. We can show different faces to others, not all of them faces we would be proud of. Yet, even when we fall short of our better self, we know that we always have the capacity to make amends. We can set out again and make a new effort to let our best self shine through, the self that is made in the image and likeness of God.

 We would all like people to judge us not on the basis of our off days but on the basis of our good days, the days that do us justice. You may have had the experience of forming a judgement of someone on the basis of some negative experience you had of them. Subsequently, you had a very different experience of them, you saw a different face of them, and you found that you had to revise your opinion of them for the better. You came to realize that the negative experience you had of them was not a fair reflection of them; there was much more to them that you had initially realized. We need to be open to seeing people with new eyes.

 Unlike ourselves, Jesus did not show different faces to people. He always showed the same face, the face of God, because he was God in human form. He had no bad days, in that sense. Yet, many people perceived Jesus in ways that did not do him justice. Some of his opponents saw him in such a negative light that they considered him to be in league with Satan, ‘By the ruler of the demons, he casts out demons’, they said. They were blind to his true identity and completely distorted it, because they experienced what he said and did as threatening to their own position. Even Jesus’ own followers had difficulty in seeing Jesus as he really was. At times they wanted him to be someone different to the person he really was. At Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus declared himself to be the Son of Man who would suffer and die, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. One of the faces of God that Jesus showed was the face of a suffering God. This was a face that Peter and the other disciples were very uncomfortable with.

 According to Mark’s gospel, it was immediately after this clash between Jesus and his disciples at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus took them up the mount of the transfiguration. There, Jesus revealed another face of God, the glorious face of God, and Jesus himself was declared to be the Son of God. His disciples saw Jesus in a way they had never seen him before. They saw him with new eyes. The glorious face of God was a face that Peter was very much at home with. Indeed, Peter wanted to prolong this moment as much as possible. ‘It is wonderful for us to be here’, he exclaimed, ‘let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’. However, Peter had to learn that the glorious Son of God who so enthralled him was also the suffering Son of Man who so repelled him. That is the significance of the word from the mountain addressed to Peter and the other disciples, ‘Listen to him’, listen to Jesus when he speaks of himself as the Son of Man who has to suffer and die. The two faces of God that Jesus displays, the suffering face and the glorious face have to be held together.

 Fundamentally, Jesus only reveals one face of God, the face of love. God’s love for us, God’s loyalty to us, was such that God was prepared to allow his Son to die for our sakes. Paul declares in today’s second reading, ‘God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to benefit us all’. In today’s first reading, Abraham’s loyalty to God was so great that he was prepared to sacrifice his son to God. Even though God did not ask this of Abraham in the end, the incident reveals human loyalty to God at its most complete. Abraham’s loyalty to God is a sign of God’s loyalty to us. God is so loyal, so faithful, to us that God is prepared to give us his Son, even though that entailed his cruel and untimely death. Jesus declared that no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Jesus’ death on the cross revealed the face of God to be the face of a greater love. As Paul reminds us in that second reading, God revealed his greater love for us also in raising his Son from the dead, in giving his Son back to us, the Son who now stands at the right hand of God pleading for us. Here indeed is a love that is beyond any human love, a love that prompts Paul to ask his triumphant question at the beginning of today’s second reading: ‘With God on our side, who can be against us?’

 Our calling as people who have been so loved by God in this way is to show the face of Christ to others. It is that face alone that will do us justice as people who have been baptized into the body of Christ and who have received the Spirit of Christ. Our ultimate destiny in heaven is to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. Our calling is to show forth something of that image here and now.

And/Or

(iv) Second Sunday of Lent

 I came across a sentence in a book I was reading recently which struck me very forcibly: ‘all love relationships flourish only when there is freedom to let go of what is precious, so as to receive it back as a gift’. It is not easy to let go of what is precious. The more precious someone is to us, the harder it is to let go of that person. The more attractive someone is to us, the more we feel inclined to possess that person. Yet, in the effort to possess someone we can easily lose them. At the heart of all loving relationships is the freedom to let go of the other, and in letting go to receive the other back as a gift. Parents know that there comes a time when they have to let go of their sons or daughters, even though they are more precious to them than anything else. They may have to let them go to another country or to the person whom they have chosen as their future spouse. Yet, in letting go of their children, parents invariably discover that they receive them back as a gift. Single people too have to learn the freedom of letting go what is precious so as to receive it back as a gift. In any good and healthy friendship, people need to give each other plenty of space.

 In this morning’s first reading Abraham is portrayed as being willing to let go of what was most precious to him, the only son of his old age. In being willing to let his son go to God, he went on to receive him back as a gift. Many people find it a very disturbing story, because it portrays God as asking Abraham to sacrifice his only beloved son as a burnt offering to God. We are rightly shocked by the image of God asking a father to sacrifice his son in this way. Abraham lived about a thousand years before Christ. In the religious culture of that time it was not uncommon for people to sacrifice their children to various gods. The point of the story seems to be that the God of Israel is not like the pagan gods. If Abraham thought that God was asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac like the people who worshipped other gods, he was wrong. God was not asking this of Abraham. Yet, the willingness of Abraham to let go of what was most precious to him if that was what God was asking remained an inspiration to the people of Israel. He had already shown a willingness to let go of his family and his homeland as he set out towards an unknown land in response to God’s call.

 The early church came to understand the relationship between Abraham and Isaac as pointing ahead to the relationship between God the Father and Jesus. Like Abraham, God was prepared to let go of what was most precious to him, his one and only Son, out of love for humanity. God was prepared to let his Son go to humanity, with all the dangers that entailed for his Son. Saint Paul was very struck by this extraordinary generosity of God on our behalf, as he says in this morning’s second reading, ‘God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to benefit us all’. God let his precious Son go to humanity even though the consequences of that were the rejection of his Son and, ultimately, his crucifixion. Even after Jesus was crucified, God continued to give him to us as risen Lord. When Paul contemplates this self-emptying love of God for us, he asks aloud, in the opening line of that second reading, ‘With God on our side who can be against us?’ Paul is declaring that if God’s love for us is this complete, then we have nothing to fear from anyone. Here is a love that has no trace of possessiveness, a love that makes us lovable.

 In this morning’s gospel reading, Peter, James and John are taken up a high mountain by Jesus, and there they have an experience of Jesus which took their breath away. It was an experience that was so precious that Peter could not let it go. He wanted to prolong it indefinitely and so he says to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is wonderful for us to be here, so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’. He and the other two disciples had a fleeting glimpse of the heavenly beauty of Christ, and did not want to let go of it. Beauty always attracts; it calls out to us. Yet, Peter and the others had to let go of this precious experience; it was only ever intended to be momentary. They would receive it back in the next life as a gift. For now, their task was to listen to Jesus, ‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him’. That is our task too. We spend our lives listening to the Lord as he speaks to us in his word and in the circumstances of our lives; we listen to him as a preparation for that wonderful moment when we see him face to face in eternity and we can finally say, ‘it is wonderful to be here’, without the need to let go.

And/Or

(v) Second Sunday of Lent

  When I was a child, my father bought a little car, a Mini, as it was known at the time. This was in the early 60s when cars were just beginning to be bought in numbers. It was a great thrill to have a car, even if a very small one. On a Sunday, certainly in the summer, my father would take my mother, myself and my two brothers out for a drive. When we were in the car, before we headed out, he would turn towards us in the back seat and say, ‘Will it be the sea or the mountains?’ At the time I always had a preference for the mountains, and I was always glad when we headed south to the hills, rather than east to the sea. There was something about being on a height which I found exhilarating and exciting. It felt different up there. You were somehow above it all. You had a different perspective. Everything looked better from a height.

 Peter, James and John made their living from the sea. They were fishermen. They must have spent long hours on the sea of Galilee or by its shores. In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus takes them away from the sea, up a high mountain. There, on that mountain, they were given a new perspective on Jesus. They saw him as they had never seen him before, transfigured, his clothes dazzling white. In an earlier chapter of his gospel, Mark had described Jesus and his disciples in a storm at sea, the boat battling against the wind and waves. Now on the mountain, the storm must have seemed a distant memory as they were absorbed by an experience of Jesus that made Peter cry out, ‘it is wonderful for us to be here’. The hell of the storm had given way to this heavenly experience on the mountain. Yet, an even more hellish storm lay ahead for the disciples. They would soon come down the mountain and continue the journey towards Jerusalem, the city where they would experience suffering and loss and failure.

 In our own lives we will probably have experienced both the storm at sea and the peace of the mountain top. When we look back on our lives, the darker and more painful experiences can stand out for us. Hopefully, we can also remember times when, like Peter, we said, ‘it is wonderful to be here’. These were times when we felt deeply happy and at peace, when we felt alive. The gospel reading this morning invites us to remember those moments, to relive them, and to continue to draw life from them.

 I am struck by that little word ‘here’ in Peter’s statement: ‘It is wonderful to be here’. So often we can find ourselves wishing that we were somewhere else, not ‘here’, but ‘there’. We image that we would be happier if we were in a different place, or with different people, or doing different things. In some instances that can be the case. It can be important at times for people to move, because where they are is anything but wonderful. But at other times, our wishing to be somewhere else can come from our failure to appreciate what we have, where we are, the people around us now. Maybe if we saw more deeply, we would appreciate more fully the ‘here’ and the ‘now’, and we might find ourselves saying more often, ‘it is good to be here, here in this place, with these people’.

 On the mountain top, Peter, James and John were helped to see Jesus more deeply than they had ever seen him before. They were captivated by the mystery of his identity, ‘This is my Son, the beloved’. They saw that there was more to him than they had realized. So often, there is more to the place we are in, and to the people we are with, than we realize. Our way of seeing where we are and who we are with can be very restricted. We can miss something important about the ‘here’ and the ‘now’. In one of our acclamations at Mass, we say or sing, ‘Heaven and earth are full of your glory’. We acknowledge in that acclamation how the created world is charged with God’s presence. That is even truer of the human person who is made in the image of God. God could say of each person we meet, ‘This is my beloved’. As God invited the disciples on the mountain to see Jesus more deeply, he invites us to see each other more deeply, to relate to each other in a way that acknowledges the wonder of our being.

 We can fail to appreciate what is all around us; we can devalue what is really worthwhile. We can even be tempted to destroy what is deserving of our love and appreciation. Abraham in the first reading climbed a mountain to destroy his son, believing this was what God was asking of him. Sacrificing children to the gods was part of the pagan religious culture in which Abraham lived. Abraham had to learn that this was not what God was asking of him. God’s words, ‘Do not harm him’, stopped Abraham in his tracks. On the mountain, God was calling Abraham to cherish life not to destroy it. In a similar way, God calls us to cherish life, to celebrate the wonder of life in all its forms, as the disciples celebrated the wonder of Jesus on the mountain. Then we might find ourselves saying more often, ‘it is wonderful to be here’.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

[eleventhdoctorsangel]

You can’t wake up this is not a dream

Summary: The Winchester siblings have always relied on each others for years. But has the years passed they made a small family. Years and years of fighting monster have brought them to the town of Derry. With fight a creature that is not of this world have to the Winchester finally met their match?

As I walked into the school I decided to go talk with the boys before having to go to class. I found them by Bill’s locker. “Hey guys.” I said as I walked up to them. “Hey y/n. What happened to your ankle?” Stan asked as he looked down at my ankle as I walked up to them. “Oh I fell off our porch this morning.” I said. “You clean and disinfectant it right?” Eddie asked. “Yes Eddie. Dean made sure to clean it.” I said. “Dean?” Eddie asked. “Have I not mentioned my brother’s names yet?” I asked. All of the boys shook their heads. “My other brother’s name is Sam.” I said. Then the bell rang. “Well I best head to class.” I said waving to the boys heading to my first hour. I went to go to my seat in the back of the room. Not to long after I walked in the room Vic and Henry walked in. “So what are your plans for the summer?” Henry asked me as he sat down. “Well it all depends on how long my brothers work keeps them here.” I said. “What happened to your ankle?” Vic asked. “I fell off my porch this morning.” I said. “A fall like that caused that?” Henry asked. “Yeah. There was a lose board.” I said. “Sound like it hurt.” Vic said. “Yeah it did. So what are your guys plans for the summer?” I said. “Not much to do in this shit hole town.” Henry said. “Ah.” I said. “I would say you could hang out with us but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have you and Hockestetter.” Henry said. I laugh. “Yeah I might end up shooting him.” I said jokily. Both Henry and Vic gave me an unsure look. “I’m joking guys.” I said. Then there was a loud knock at the door. Mr. Paul got up and went to open the door. In walked officer Bowers. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “What can I do for you officer Bowers?” Mr. Paul said. “I need to speak with the kids if you don’t mind.” Officer Bowers said. “Of course.” Mr. Paul said. Mr. Paul went back and sat at his desk. “Well good morning kids. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news on the last day of school. But there has been a curfew for the time being.” Officer Bowers said making the whole room let out a groan. I rolled my eyes. “Now I’m sure that this might put a damper on some of your summer plans. But until the person who is the reason all of the kids went missing is caught we want to keep the rest of you safe.” Officer Bowers said. “Sure you do.” I said under my breath. “Thank you kids.” Officer Bower said. “Say thank you to Officer Bowers.” Mr. Paul said. Almost everyone say thank you to him but Henry, Vic, and me. Thankfully he left after that. “You looked almost annoyed when he showed up.” Henry said. “A little I guess.” I said. “Well your brothers are here too right?” Henry asked. “Yeah they are. They won’t let him lay a hand on me.” I said. “The huge one would probably snap him in half.” Vic said. I let out a small laugh. “You’re right.” I said. Just then the bell rang. “Well I guess I’ll see you boys later.” I said grabbing my bag getting up to leave the class. “Why don’t you come and talk with us that belch.” Henry said. “Well if Patrick will be there I don’t think it would be a good idea.” I said. “You’re right do you think can come to my place after school?” Henry asked. “I’ll have to ask my brothers. I think a friend of ours is supposed to come in today.” I said. “Alright just let me know what they say.” Henry said. “What about your dad?” I asked. “He won’t bother us.” Henry said as we walked out of the classroom. “Are you sure. I could ask my brothers if you could come over to our place.” I said. “Which ever I don’t care.” Henry said. I nodded. “Well I have to go meet up with Stan and Eddie.” I said. “Why are you hanging out with those losers?” Henry asked. “They are not losers. They are nice guys.” I said. Then Belch and Patrick came to join Henry and Vic. Patrick just looked at me like he was waiting on some type of reaction. “See you later boys.” I said walking away. I went ahead to my next class and waited on Eddie and Stan. I took out my phone to text and ask Dean if Cas was still coming to join us. “Hey Y/n.” Stan said as he walked in the classroom and came to sit next to me. “Hey Stan.” I said smiling. “Hi Y/n” Eddie said as he came in sitting down next to Stan and I. But he couldn’t look away from my ankle. “Eddie are you ok?” I asked. “You’re bleeding.” Eddie said. I quickly looked down at my hurt ankle to see blood was seeping through the gauze. “Shit.” I said quietly as I quickly got up grabbing my phone. 

I quickly my way out of the room texting Sam to have him and dean to meet me to fix this. This had to be why Patrick was looking at me. I rushed into a restroom. Luckily the was a windowsill I went over and sat on it as I dragged the trashcan over to me with my foot. I started to take the gauze off to see what in the hell Patrick did. When I took off the gauze I saw that most of the stitches were now torn open. “You ass.” I said to myself as the door opened. I looked to see Dean walking in. “Son of a bitch kiddo what happened?” Dean asked. “My guess is Patrick kicked me. But I never felt him do it.” I said. “Why do you think he kicked you?” Dean asked as he started to clean my wound again. “Well it was after first hour. I was talking to Henry when Patrick and Belch came. Patrick was looking at me in a weird way. Kind of like he was waiting for some kind of reaction from me.” I said. “Well looks like he made this worse. I think that we should call Cas to come heal this.” Dean said. “Whatever you think is best.” I said. “Yeah I think it’s the best kiddo. Cas we need you.” Dean said. Then I heard the flaps of Cas’s wings. “Yes dean. Y/n what happened to you.” Cas said as he walked over to us. “I’ll explain later Cas. This kid kick her to get some kind of reaction out of y/n and he made this worse.” Dean said. “I see.” Cas said then he put his hand of my ankle. I watch as the light and sound that I was all to familiar with. After that Cas tool his hand off my ankle. “There you go y/n.” Cas said. “Thanks Cas. Dean can you wrap my ankle please so I don’t to explain how this magically healed?” I said. “Of course kiddo.” Dean said.  Dean wrapped my ankle back up. “There you go kiddo now go on and get back to class.” Dean said. I nodded hopping off of the windowsill. “Thanks dean. Thanks Cas.” I said as I gave them both hugs. They both hugged me back. “Alright. Alright kiddo get back to class.” Dean said. “Ok I’m going.” I said leaving the rest room and headed back to class. When I walked back in the classroom I glanced towards Patrick he looked slightly shocked when I walked back in. I made my way back over to where Stan and Eddie was. “You ok now y/n?” Stan asked. “Yeah I’m all fixed up now nothing to worry about.” I said. “How did you not know that you were bleeding?” Eddie said. “I don’t know.” I said shrugging my shoulders. “So what happened?” Stan asked. “I must have bumped my ankle against something.” I said. “Are you sure?” Eddie asked. “Yes Eddie I’m sure.” I said. Eddie nodded. Then the bell rang. “Thank god this day is closer to being over.” I said getting up grabbing my bag. “Yeah just a few more hours than we’re free.” Stan said. The three of us walked out of the classroom. We went to go join Bill and Richie to talk abit before the next class. 

Luckily the rest of the day went by fast. The final bell rang and Stan and I went to go find the other three. Sam, Dean, and Cas were outside waiting on me. I followed Stan up a thing of stairs as we found Bill, Richie, and Eddie. “That’s true.” Eddie said. “Hey wait up you guys!” Stan said as we rushed up to catch up with them. “Hey Stan what happens at the bar mitzvah anyways? Ed says they slice the tip of your d..ddd..ddick off.” Bill said. “Eddie where on earth did you hear that?” I asked. Eddie looked at Richie. “Why am I not shocked.” I said. “Yeah and I think the rabbi’s gonna pull down your pants turn to the crowd and say “Where’s the beef?” Richie said. Which made the boys laugh and I just shook my head. “At the bar mitzvah I read from the torah and I make a speech and suddenly I become a man.” Stan said. “I could think of funner ways to become a man.” Richie said. “By more fun you mean.” Stan said but stopped. “Oh shit.” Richie said as we walked past henry and his friends. I gave a small smile towards Henry, Vic and Belch. “Think they’ll sign my yearbook? Dear Richie sorry for taking a hot streaming dump in your backpack last march. Have a good summer.” Richie said as we made our way down another thing of stairs and a girl named Greta bumping into Stan. I didn’t know her name until Stan told me it after I saw her trying to hit on Dean. Bev also told me that Greta does bullying her but she made me promise not to do anything after what I did to Patrick. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that promise though. I walked with the boys out of the school and to some trash cans as they dumped what was left in their bags into the trash. “Best feeling ever.” Stan said. I looked to see Sam, Dean, and Cas close behind us just watching us closely. “Yeah? Try tickling your pickle for the first time.” Richie said. I rolled my eyes. “Hey what do you guys wanna do tomorrow?” Eddie asked. “I start my training.” Richie said. “Wait what training?” Eddie asked. “I got some new video games.” Richie said. “Is that how you wanna spend your summer? Inside your room?” Eddie asked. “Beats spending it inside of your mother. Oh!” Richie said holding his hand up for someone to high five him. Stan quickly pulled his hand down. “What if we go to the quarry?” Stan suggested. “Guys we have the ba..baa.barrnes.” Bill said. “Right.” Stan said. “Betty Ripsom’s mom.” Eddie said. I looked to see her by a police car looking at all of the kids coming out of the school. “Is she really expecting her to see her come out of that school?” Stan asked. “I don’t know. As if Betty Ripsom’s been hiding in Home Ec. For the last few weeks.” Eddie said. “You think they’ll actually find her?” Stan asked. “Sure. In a ditch. All decomposed covered in worms and maggots. Smelling like Eddie’s mom’s underwear.” Richie said. “Shut up! That’s freaking disgusting.” Eddie said. “She’s not dead. S..ss.She’s missing.” Bill said. “Sorry Bill. She’s missing.” Richie said as he fixed his glasses. “I’m sure my brothers and doing the best they can to help find her.” I said. Everyone gave me a small nod. “You know the barrens aren’t that bad. Who doesn’t love splashing around in shitty water?” Richie said as Henry came up from behind him grabbing him by the backpack pulling him back. Which made him fall into Stan which made Stan fall in to me as the three of us fell to the ground. “Oh no.” I said to myself knowing all hell was about to break lose. “Nice Frisbee Flamer.” Patrick said as he picked up Stan’s Yarmulke that fell off. “Give it back.” Stan said trying to get it back from Patrick who just laughed as he stood up. He went to throw it in a passing bus but Dean caught it. “Alright that’s enough. You better leave these kids alone.” Dean said as Sam and Cas helped us up. “What are you going to do if we don’t old man.” Patrick said. “Oh you don’t want to know.” Dean said stepping closer to Patrick. “Dean enough.” I said stepping between them. I heard belch and look to see him shoving Eddie. “Why don’t we just all walk away from each other.” Sam said. “Yeah everyone listen to Sam and walk away now.” I said. Patrick started to walk away so did Henry and Belch but not before Henry bumped into Bill. “Y..yyy.You suck Bowers.” Bill said. I let out a groan. Which made Henry, Belch and Patrick stop. “Shut up Bill.” Eddie said. “You say something Billy.” Henry said making fun of Bill’s stutter. “Henry just go please.” I said. Henry looked at me then back at bill. “You got a free ride this year cause of your little brother. Ride’s over Denbrough.” Henry said but stopped and he looked behind us. I looked over my shoulder to see that Henry’s dad was watching us. I looked over at Henry again and the look on his face gave me the answer I already knew. I looked to Sam and Dean would knew as well. Henry looked over at me then walked away. 

Supernatural Taglist: @darkqueennox​

Overall Taglist: @the-broken-halo-writer​ 

[jewish-privilege]

The note jammed onto a windshield in Sweden in March last year was designed to terrify. WE ARE WATCHING YOU, YOU JEWISH SWINE, read the message to a retired professor, written on paper with the logo of the Nordic Resistance Movement, a Swedish neo-Nazi organization.

In the bucolic university town of Lund, with its cobblestone streets and medieval buildings, the threat seemed jarringly out of place. More notes followed. “I was really scared,” says the professor, a small woman of 70, who is too fearful about a further attack to reveal her name in print.

Finally in October, an attacker broke into the professor’s home before dawn and set it alight. By a stroke of luck, the professor was not there. But her living and dining rooms were reduced to ash. So too were the writings of her late mother, detailing her internment in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. “For the first time in my life I have needed therapy,” she says, over tea in a sunlit café in Lund. “I have not known what to do with my life.”

The professor was targeted because she is Jewish, and in that she is not alone. Anti-Semitism is flourishing worldwide. Attacks on Jews doubled in the U.S. from 2017 to 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York City. That included the shooting in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last October, which killed 11 worshippers.

But the trend is especially pronounced in Europe, the continent where 75 years ago hatred of Jews led to their attempted extermination. The numbers speak plainly in country after country. For each of the past three years, the U.K. has reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents ever recorded. In France, with the world’s third biggest Jewish population, government records showed a 74% spike in anti-Semitic acts between 2017 and 2018. And in Germany, anti-Semitic incidents rose more than 19% last year. The findings prompted Germany’s first anti-Semitism commissioner to caution Jews in May about the dangers of wearing kippahs, the traditional skullcaps, in public.

Unsurprisingly, many Jews in Europe feel under assault. In an E.U. poll of European Jews across the Continent, published in January, a full 89% of those surveyed said anti-Semitism had significantly increased over five years. After polling 16,395 Jews in 12 E.U. countries, in a separate survey, the E.U.’s Fundamental Rights Agency concluded that Europe’s Jews were subjected to “a sustained stream of abuse.” With the decade drawing to a close, 38% of those surveyed said they were thinking about emigrating “because they no longer feel safe as Jews,” says the E.U. report.

European officials were stunned at the findings, but perhaps they ought not to have been. A complex web of factors have combined to create this moment in time for one of Europe’s oldest communities. Anti-Semitism has found oxygen among white supremacists on the far right and Israel bashers on the far left. Millions of new immigrants are settling in Europe, many from Muslim countries deeply hostile to Israel and sometimes also Jews. Exacerbated by the Internet’s ability to spread hatred, anti-Jewish feeling is surging in way that experts fear could result in a conflagration, if governments and communities fail effectively to tackle its causes.

...Not waiting for their leaders, communities across Europe have begun to take action themselves. Raised learning about Nazism, many fear what might happen if anti-Semitism is left unchallenged. In recent years, teachers, imams, rabbis and local activists have launched countless initiatives to break stereotypes, educate youth and forge links across religions. In several interviews with TIME, those fighting anti-Semitism caution that it is likely to take many years for their efforts to succeed. Still, they have begun. In Paris, Delphine Horvilleur, a rabbi and author of a recent book on anti-Semitism, says a young Muslim worshipper approached her in her synagogue after she presided over a joint Muslim-Jewish prayer service.

“He told me, ‘I grew up in a family where anti-Semitism was the music in the background,’” she says. Now, she says, “We have to ask ourselves, How can we make sure they have the ability to lower the volume?”

The horrors of World War II shamed the world into acknowledging the evils of anti-Semitism. But exposure did not cure it. Instead, say experts, the hatred simmered for years. “There was a consensus that anti-Semitism should not be voiced openly after World War II,” says Günther Jikeli, a specialist in European anti-Semitism at Indiana University, who is German. “This has gone away with time.”

The growth of the Internet provided new platforms for conspiracy theorists to circulate racist fantasies more broadly. After the financial crisis of 2008, for example, the ADL warned that anti-Semites were spreading lies on message boards that Jews were somehow to blame for the crash. One rumor went that Lehman Brothers, the vaunted U.S. investment bank founded by Jewish immigrants from Europe, had transferred $400 billion to Israeli banks prior to its collapse.

A decade on, those who monitor anti-Semitism believe each attack or conspiracy theory posted online, no matter how small, sets off others. As social media has become an ever greater and yet more unregulated part of our lives, hatred has proliferated. “It used to be that anti-Semitism peaked during times of conflict in the Middle East,” says Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission’s first-ever coordinator for combatting anti-Semitism. “Now the incidents remain at their highest level ever recorded.”

...Tensions sporadically erupt in violence. In Sarcelles, a French commune where Jews and Arab immigrants have lived alongside each other for decades, violence erupted during a pro-Palestinian march in 2014. Jewish businesses came under attack by demonstrators, many of them Muslim. Five years on, the Jewish residents of Sarcelles live with armed French soldiers on permanent patrol on their streets, in a measure of the government’s concern about further race riots. “We live with a sense of anxiety,” says René Taïeb, a Jewish community leader, sitting in a kosher café in Sarcelles. “We have a bag packed, ready to go, in the closet.”

But Europe’s most hardcore anti-Semites are arguably on the far right, and they are slowly joining the mainstream, as Europe’s political loyalties have fractured and polarized. In Hungary, the far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s campaign against Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros is regarded as thinly veiled anti-Semitism. And here in Sweden, ostensibly the most liberal country in Europe, a group of far-right extremists has achieved something close to political legitimacy.

...On the opposite end of the political spectrum, anti-Semitism has also flared up. During months of the so-called Yellow Vest protests in France, a handful of demonstrators in the crowd resurrected the stereotype of Jews controlling the levers of power. In February, a group of protesters accosted renowned French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut on a Paris street, screaming, “You are going to hell!” and “Go back to Tel Aviv!”

The problem is not always so overt, however. In the U.K., the opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has faced fury among some members over his alleged tolerance for anti-Semitism, especially regarding criticism of the Israeli government. The veteran leftist has said the party’s problem stems from a “small number of members and supporters,” and has pledged to stamp it out. But his defense has rung hollow to some. “The party is institutionally anti-Semitic,” says Luciana Berger, a Jewish member of Parliament who quit Labour this year over the issue. Under Corbyn, she tells TIME, “there is more of a permission for it to happen now.”

...Many Jews in Europe say it is not the major incidents but the minor ones that prove how widespread this problem is. They describe anti-Semitism as having seeped into quotidian life, in some ways complicating the effort to tackle the problem. “Unless it is very serious and you are physically attacked, there is a tendency not to call the police,” says Fredrik Sieradzki, spokesman for the Jewish community in Malmo, on Sweden’s southern border with Denmark.

...The more insidious effect is not at all visible: the choice by many Jews to remain discreet about their religious background. In numerous interviews, European Jews tell TIME that they avoid wearing a Star of David, and if they do, they tuck it under their shirts. Many also forgo affixing the traditional miniature prayer scrolls, called mezuzahs, to their doorposts, as many American Jews do, choosing instead to hang them inside. “Parents say to their kids, ‘Don’t tell your friends you are Jewish.’ Jewish teachers are afraid to tell kids they are Jewish,” says Shneur Kesselman, the Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi of Malmo, who moved from his native Detroit in 2004.

Kesselman recently installed bulletproof glass on his office window in Malmo’s synagogue, which dates from 1903. He says Jews have steadily adapted to low-level hostility. “We feel so long as our names are not on a list, we are O.K.,” he says. “There is a danger that we are accepting much too much.”

...Taïeb, the community leader in Sarcelles, says the best form of resistance might be to remind anti-Semites who Jews really are — their neighbors, and fellow citizens. He recalls watching the protest in 2014 spiral into violence and deciding to gather about 100 men to surround the synagogue. Instead of chanting Jewish prayers, as one might have expected, they decided instead to sing “La Marseillaise,” France’s national anthem. “We wanted to make the point that we are French, really French, who happen to be Jewish.”

...Yet, after a long period of feeling paralyzed by fear, the professor says she is finally venturing out. “Every day, I wake up and tell myself to go out and repair myself,” she says. Her home, rebuilt, now has security glass and alarms, far different from before the attack. “My house was wonderful, totally open, with big magnolia trees in the garden. The magnolia trees survived.”

[Read Vivienne Walt’s full piece in Time.]

[theoverflowinggrace]

Christian Testimony: Saved by Grace

My Testimony

God has been asking me to share my story but only today, May 24, 2020 the Holy Spirit led me to write it now after watching a preaching entitled “Grace is…” of the lead Pastor of Transformation Church, Michael Todd. I kept this secret to myself for so many years. I’d been so afraid to be judged. It would always scare me whenever I would attempt that the people I know might get away from me. But today, I don’t just want to keep that love God has been showing me, I wanted to share it. There also might be people who are going through something and needs encouragement in their lives right now and I don’t want to miss the chance.  

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I came from a very poor family. I had the worst father I’d thought. He was a gambler, a womanizer, a very irresponsible father to his four children. My father and my mother separated when I was five years old. At a very young age, I understood and felt very unhappy and deficient. My mother was the one who took the responsibilities for all of their children.  She had a relationship with another man. She did everything she could to provide for our family. Growing up, all I wanted was to get our family back together.  My family was all my life. They are my everything.

When I was in second year high school, my sister invited me to a Christian church she was attending to that time and there I felt Jesus but still didn’t understand what life really means. We stopped going to church as my sister and I had to move to Manila from Antipolo to get free education in public universities. From there, I lived with my father and with his girlfriend. Going to college for my sister and I was so difficult. There were days that we would not have allowance to go to school. There were days that we would not have food on our table. My sister and I even experienced to work as a saleslady in Divisoria mall thinking that we could save money for ourselves. I also remember that my sister and I even experienced selling coffee in a dangerous place in Custom where you needed to play hide and seek with the guards because they don’t allow vendors in there. We would offer coffee to those drivers who were driving their big trucks with big containers and when their queue would move you need to chase them for their payment. It was very dangerous.  

My friends in college were just normal people who also need free education from the government to go to college. One day, when my friends and I were strolling in the mall. There was this old man who suddenly approached me. At first, I thought he was a gay (I think it was just his style to cover up his real intention) who would want me to be one of his talents.  He showed me his phone and asked if he could get my number. My initial reaction was I got scared. I knew that he liked me. I didn’t give my number and left him. Shortly, when we were walking away from him, we didn’t know that he was following us. He was persistent to pursue me that day so while walking he was talking and introducing himself to us. He even showed his ID’s to us. He said that he is a lawyer, a professor, studied in Ateneo and even in UP and just wanted to eat with us. My friends and I were just crazy and said yes (we were trying to convince ourselves that it is just a treat and we could eat in a most expensive restaurant in that area because anyway we were still inside the vicinity of the mall so we don’t need to be scared of) Fast forward, when we were finished ordering and eating all the food we wanted from the restaurant, he asked my number again and I gave a fake one. He tried to call it but it didn’t ring. (Of course I just invented it) and to make the long story short, I ended up giving my number. After that time, I would receive sweet messages from him but I just ignored him until he stopped.

Fast forward, I was in my second semester in my 3rd year of college when my family received news that left us all devastated. My sister had stage 4 colon cancer and the doctor even told that she only had two months to live. We were hopeless that time. We are not rich. Where can we get the money to provide for her chemotherapies? Why did God let this happen to my sister? How could we still have the second chance for my family to get back together if my sister would die? Those were some of the questions I had in my mind.

Fast forward, one normal day after school, when I just finished my field study and decided to eat in a fast food restaurant, I once encountered again this old man who I’ve met few months ago. He called my number after we’ve seen each other again but again, I just ignored him.

Our family has history of cancer. Three of my very close relatives died because of it. My sister who just had two chemo sessions decided to stop and told his husband to just save the money for her daughter’s future instead of wasting the money if she would still die in the end. When I knew about it, I was in great pain but this old man came across my mind. I thought he could help me with the big amount of money my sister needed for the remaining Chemo sessions.  I became so desperate. But I was wrong; he told me so many lies. He was a big liar. I never thought of getting married or having kids before graduating to college. I was so careful (I thought I was) He told me that he could not make a woman pregnant because his doctor said so because of all the medications and everything he had when he was having multiple surgeries in his body (Before I met him I didn’t know that he had undergone multiple surgeries in his face hoping that he could still look young again; Indeed, he is a crazy man) He made me believed that everything he said were all true. I didn’t even know that he’s a married man. (He is really crazy) Things have fallen apart when I got pregnant. I couldn’t accept it. I hated it. I despised it so I destroyed it. I aborted it.

Fast forward, I graduated to college, got a decent job, passed the board exam for teachers, had a serious relationship, and my sister died after battling for three months with her disease.

Life became lifeless, pointless, and meaningless. It was so dark and I’d gone through depression. Every day, I wish I had died instead. I told myself that I would never be happy again. I told myself that I can’t be happy again. I don’t deserve and I won’t and I should not. I must not.

I stopped socializing. I stopped doing the things that could make me happy. I was punishing myself but never had I attempted to commit suicide because I knew that it would only help me to get a VIP ticket in my residence to hell.

I carried this guilt for more than six years until I met my Christ again. He showed me his mercy, poured me with his grace and wrapped me with His great love. I was a great sinner but His love is greater. It was when I didn’t know what to do anymore.  Every day was unbearable. It was when I came across these Christian preaching videos from CCF. God spoke to me in so many ways. I felt in love with Him. And finally I have forgiven myself. At this moment, I could say that I am not just happy but I am joyful. It says on Ephesians 2:8 “For by Grace you have been saved through Faith and He is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

I used to always question God. I was mad to Him. I kept asking him why he allowed me to get involved with this kind of man. There were a lot of women in that mall that he could approach instead of me? Why did we still have our next encounter after our first?  Why did God allow me to be used by this man?  Why my sister had to suffer from cancer? And why can’t my family just be happy? And God answered me in John 9:2 when His disciples asked him “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? And Jesus answered “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him”. I believed that God allowed all of these things to happen without any reasons. I believed that there’s no accident with God. All things happened for His glory. I still may not be the person God wanted me to be but I am grateful to Him that I am not the same person I used to be. I still fall short of glory every day but His grace is amazing. It is sufficient. People do not deserve this grace but God has given it to us. He has already paid in full when He died on the cross for us. We don’t need to earn it or work for it but we just only need to enjoy it. God has finished his work. If anyone of you who’s been struggling or condemning yourself from the sins you have committed, God is telling you right at this moment that He has already forgiven you so forgive yourself now. God would allow even the most painful thing that could ever happen to your life so you would be blessed by Him and use you for His glory. If anyone of you who are probably mad, keep on questioning God or going through some difficulties in life. Keep in your mind that you are never alone in your battle. You may not understand now but in the future, you will understand that God is really working. He is alive. You just have to give it all out to God and surely, he will direct you to what he has in stored for you.  

All of my earthly desires, I surrendered all to Him. To have plenty or nothing, His grace is sufficient. He had already done great things 2000 years ago. I will never cease worshiping and praising him for the rest of my life.

Recently, I just ended my four-year relationship. It took me two years to finally surrender him to Jesus. It didn’t honor God. It wasn’t a Christ-centered relationship. To let go of him was really painful. I thought he was the one I would be marrying. I have planned it already but I know God has better plans.  It was excruciating. But God has helped me go through with this hardship. I believe that with God everything is possible. It says in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Now, I am a living testimony of how unconditional, incomparable and indescribable His love for us. I am great sinner, saved by His grace through faith and now a committed follower of Jesus Christ. All praises, glory and honor to God. God bless you all!

[philosopherking1887]

Kol Nidrei (a Good Omens fic)

I’m back on my bullshit. @iscariotsss knows what I mean.

Word count: 2130 (including “footnotes”)

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Aziraphale liked going to houses of worship because it made him feel closer to God. He realized that this must seem foolish or paradoxical: he was, after all, a being suffused with God’s love and grace; and if he went through the right procedures, he could even (in theory) make direct contact with the Almighty. But calls to the Court of God’s Power through such channels—it had recently been made brutally, devastatingly clear to him—in fact went through a spokes-angel (no, not the wheeled kind), a mere mouthpiece who claimed to listen and speak on behalf of God. Speaking to God as an angel, using the capabilities and privileges his angelic nature afforded him, he had only ever reached a Glorified secretary.

Humans, though, when they prayed—it was possible that God truly listened. Angels listened, too, and sometimes took it upon themselves to answer; God was not in principle opposed to delegating, and angels were permitted a certain amount of latitude in how they executed the Divine Will, broadly understood. But sometimes miracles occurred, or moments of mystical inspiration, or improbable causal nudges, that could not be accounted for, even with all the Heavenly Bureaucracy’s scrupulous record-keeping. Then the angels had to wonder whether God Herself had heard and answered a prayer that Her agents had passed over. One of the Archangels would make a note by the observation of the anomalous event: “Divine intervention?” Always with a question mark, for God’s ways were known to none but God.

Aziraphale felt closer to God among humans praying than in the blessed Light of Heaven, or in his own grace-filled solitude, because he knew that their voices actually had a chance of being heard. Especially when they prayed in community, because although God did sometimes attend to solitary prayers (which might pierce through the noise because of the devoutness or holiness or strong personality of the pray-er), a group of people all speaking or meditating on the same message reinforce each other in a way that is not simply a matter of additive volume, but of resonance.

Because Aziraphale was at heart (and in body) an aesthete, he preferred places and modes of worship with a certain amount of pomp and ceremony. He could not abide the slick commercial atmosphere of ‘evangelical’ megachurches or the adaptation of modern popular musical styles to the purpose of worship; the mere presence of a guitar would send him out the door as quickly as consecrated ground did most demons. Nor was he much attracted to the simplest of gatherings, the mostly silent Quaker Circles, the unadorned meeting-houses that remained true to the Calvinist tradition (and, arguably, the original tradition of Christ and the first Apostles). No, he preferred the lushness of Catholic and Orthodox churches, their sparkling mosaics and glowing stained-glass masterpieces, the Masses and Liturgies composed by Europe’s greatest creative geniuses for sumptuous choirs and virtuosos playing thundering organs (Aziraphale found that of all artists, he had an especial rapport with organists). And if sometimes such fare was too rich even for him, he felt comfortably at home in the stolid, dignified (or as Crowley would say, stuffy and pompous) tradition of the Church of England. The Elgar and Britten anthems were not quite your Bach Mass or Verdi Requiem; but not even Aziraphale could eat lobster and venison every day.

So when the Jewish High Holidays came round and one felt compelled to put in an appearance (‘one’ referring not only to Heaven’s representatives on Earth, but to the Jewish worshipers as well), Aziraphale tended toward a certain style of Reform-to-Conservative congregation that favoured tastefully ornate architecture and a choir, accompanied by a piano or (in rare cases) an organ, singing nineteenth-century settings of the prayers and psalms much in the style of Mendelssohn,* or perhaps mid-twentieth-century arrangements taking inspiration from some combination of Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams, and dramatic film scores. Aziraphale was especially attached to the melancholy cello solo playing Bruch’s setting of the Kol Nidrei melody with which such congregations habitually began the Yom Kippur evening service.

On a mild, damp early autumn evening forty days after the world failed to end, Aziraphale went alone to the synagogue whose Kol Nidrei services he had been attending for the past twenty years or so (he was a creature of habit as much as, if not more than, a creature of love). He closed his eyes and let the cello’s plaintive voice set his chest to sweetly aching and was desperately grateful that he still had this—this salmon and crème fraîche omelette instead of the ‘eggs without salt’ of eternal celestial harmonies (stop thinking in food metaphors on a fast day!, he scolded himself, hurriedly directing his thoughts away from his stomach).

The cello’s final tremulous notes faded away and the cantor (who had classical operatic training; there was a reason Aziraphale preferred the services here) began singing the words of the Kol Nidrei. Aziraphale’s French or his Tibetan might sometimes grow rusty, but Hebrew and Aramaic always came back to him like riding a velocipede (or so they said; not that he would know).

“All vows,” the cantor sang (joined at musically appropriate points by the choir), “self-prohibitions, consecrations, bonds, promises, obligations, and oaths that we have vowed, sworn, consecrated, and taken as prohibitions upon ourselves from this Yom Kippur until the next—may it come to us for good—we regret and renounce them all; may they all be absolved, forgiven, cancelled, and rendered null and void; they shall have no force, and shall not endure. Let our vows not be vows, our prohibitions not be prohibitions, our oaths not be oaths.”

There was a widespread belief that the custom of making this declaration originated among the Iberian Jews who were forced to publicly convert to Christianity but who continued to practice their Judaism in secret—who insincerely forswore their faith in the sight of God and men, but wished to retract these false oaths in God’s sight alone. Among those who knew the text was older, the story was that it came out of an earlier time of persecution and conversions on pain of death. Aziraphale (who had witnessed the whole painful, arduous, improbable history of this people) knew that it came out of nothing of the sort: it was just that the Jews had an unfortunate habit, which caused their priests and rabbis no end of intestinal distress, of making solemn vows at the drop of a hat. There was even a significant commandment not to make vain oaths in the name of the Lord, but the habit persisted. So a formal ritual of renunciation was introduced in the hope that God could be persuaded not to take such utterances so terribly seriously. But it took on a darker, weightier significance in the face of the forced conversions that became a recurring theme in the history of the Jews. God’s Providence works in unexpected ways: a tradition that arose for one purpose might later prove even more essential for another.

When Aziraphale recited the formula with this congregation, it was always for the original reason for which it had been instituted. He, like the early Hebrews, had a shameful habit of making promises to God that he should have known he wouldn’t be able to keep. He promised he wouldn’t use frivolous miracles; he promised he wouldn’t eat and drink so lavishly; he promised he would be paying more attention next time, so that maybe he could stop or at least mitigate the next horror that the humans visited upon themselves—unless, of course, Michael or Gabriel told him it was part of the Divine Plan, in which case he would smile uncomfortably and wonder whether he should be praying that they were right or that they were wrong.

Above all, he promised to set aside his feelings for Crowley. He didn’t promise not to see him anymore—he had to keep an eye on Hell’s agent in his sector of the Earth, didn’t he?—but after every time they met, when he departed with a hollowness in his stomach that could not be filled by any amount of oysters or brioche, he promised that he would give no thought to the demon except in regard to thwarting him. He promised he would tell Crowley the Arrangement was over (of course, he never did… not until the second-to-last day of the world, when Crowley threatened to make him face up to what Heaven really was, and what they really were). He promised he would stay away, except to watch his counterpart’s movements, and perhaps to confront him directly if there was no other way of stopping his machinations. And he kept that promise for a whole century between 1862 and 1967—their encounter in 1941 had been entirely on Crowley’s initiative!—but during that century of separation, and especially after its unplanned interruption, he had been even more abysmal at keeping his promise not to think of Crowley in anything but his professional capacity.

Now Aziraphale was facing the first full year since the world had not been made anew, but somehow his world had; and he realized that he no longer needed to ask preemptive absolution for his usual vain promises to God. No one would be keeping track of Aziraphale’s “frivolous miracles,” much less sending him nasty letters about them. And though Aziraphale himself would never say it, he quite agreed with Crowley that Gabriel could shove his self-righteous comments about Aziraphale’s “gut” right up his tightly-clenched arse, along with that appalling tracksuit (he wasn’t entirely sure what Crowley had meant by calling him “basic,” but he gathered that it wasn’t good). Crowley liked him soft (he made a very good body-pillow, he was told), so Aziraphale liked himself that way, too.

As to preventing the horrors of human history… he wasn’t sure that he had any right to interfere, except by showing and encouraging kindness, where he could. As a Heavenly agent on Earth, he was retired, but he would remain a being of love until… well, until Heaven succeeded in destroying him, or God decided he deserved to Fall. But even then, he wasn’t sure: Crowley had Fallen (or “sauntered vaguely downwards,” as he liked to insist), but Aziraphale suspected that he was still a being of love, in spite of everything.

Most importantly, the primary impetus for Aziraphale’s empty vows, self-prohibitions, promises, and oaths no longer obtained. From this year on, there would be no vows not to think of Crowley, work with him, seek out his company. “For centuries I regretted and renounced those vows because I feared I couldn’t keep them,” Aziraphale said silently to God; he wasn’t sure whether or not he hoped She was actually listening. “Now I regret and renounce them because I should never have made them in the first place. I should never have wanted to be able to keep them.”

“Let our oaths not be oaths,” the choir was singing as the elaborate Romantic-style arrangement drew toward its dramatic close, the cantor’s voice rising in an impressive final cadenza. “Let our oaths not be oaths.”

“Ush’vuatana la sh’vuot,” Aziraphale whispered in time with the singers. All his foolish oaths had already been annulled,** most of them before he even made them; he could not now go back and retract them for the right reason. Well, he would probably come up with some new vain oaths, maybe about being less of a bastard to unwitting would-be customers in his bookshop.

There were some other vows he had it in mind to make where Crowley was concerned, but those would not be made only to God, and he had every intention of keeping them.

* “It sounds like bloody Gilbert and Sullivan,” Crowley had muttered to Aziraphale once when he had been invited to accompany him for a lark (the ground of synagogues did not burn his feet), and Aziraphale had had to bite the inside of his cheek to maintain his disapproving expression and stifle a laugh. “Listen, it’s the chorus of sisters, cousins, and aunts.”

** With the exception of those made during a year late in the eleventh century just before the change of tense instituted by Rabbi Meïr ben Shmuel, applying the renunciation to the year ahead rather than the year just past, had reached the synagogue in Paris where Aziraphale had been spending the Days of Awe for several years. Aziraphale panicked about it for a good six months, and indeed whenever he thought about it (with diminishing frequency) thereafter, not least because he and Crowley had first embarked on the Arrangement earlier that century and Aziraphale had spent decades regularly resolving to back out and never following through.