#the child of a methodist minister

[edenfalling]

#i'm a unitarian and even i know this one (via @wordsforrain)

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[ineffable-rohese]

I'm not a Christian, but I went to Christmas Eve service at the Anglican Cathedral tonight as is my custom. I go alone and sit in a room full of strangers and listen to old stories and sing old songs and cry at least once. It's a tradition I hold dear, and one I haven't been able to do for several years due to circumstances.

I was raised mainly Episcopalian (American Anglican), with most of elementary at Catholic schools. We also did Vacation Bible School at some mainline protestant church for a week or two most summers, probably because it was free childcare and was next to mom's work. But we didn't talk about religion or beliefs at home basically at all. My parents totally outsourced that.

I honestly liked Catholic school (other than the bullying, but that was a whole different issue). I liked going to Mass. It was at a Cathedral school, so the church was big and full of beautiful stained glass and statues and art. I remember a marble statue of Mary crushing a serpent beneath her bare foot, standing on the globe. And I loved the music. I loved singing the hymns. I loved the organ. I loved the ritual of all of it, too, the prayers and the vestments and the holy water and the standing up and the kneeling. It was clear and intentional and once you knew the rules (which they taught us), it felt good to be part of something where everyone acts together.

When I was 11-12, we moved and started going to the church near our house. Because I was a smart and responsible child and they were short on adults, I wound up teaching Sunday School for a year or so at around 13. I have no memory of what I was supposed to be teaching them. But despite mom strongly hinting (though never actually outright asking because we don't just ask people in my family), I never went to confirmation classes.

I still loved the ritual and the art and the building itself - a late 19th century replica of an older English church, lovely and un-modern and smelling of wood polish and candle wax. And, of course, I loved the music. I sang in the choir for years.

But sometime in early adolescence, I didn't so much lose faith as realize I didn't have any to begin with.

And, oh, I wanted to! My best friend was the child of a Methodist minister in town, and I went to their youth group (I was the only kid around my age in my congregation), and we'd go on retreats some times. And they'd talk about being filled with the holy spirit and living Jesus, and it seemed so comforting and ecstatic at the same time. I wanted it so much! The only time I felt close to what they seemed to describe was while I was singing. But once the music stopped, it was gone.

(Much, much later, I finally had that religious experience, but not with Jesus or the Holy Spirit or the Christian God. And it was everything I wanted then. Turns out I just needed a different form of deity. But this is not that story.)

But try as I might, Jesus just wasn't my guy.

There was a bit of queer rebellion in there, too. The new priest, who I liked (and who many years later extra-legally married my spouse and I), and who had shocked the congregation by preaching a pro-choice sermon on his first Easter, came out as gay. Now, the Episcopal Church as a whole didn't have a problem with this. They either recently had or were soon to have their first openly gay bishop. However, some of the old guard at the church did have a problem, and he got forced out. So like, there was apparently no theological problem with gay people. Just a cultural one. I wasn't even aware I was queer yet. I just thought it was hypocritical and shitty.

So why do I go to church by myself on Christmas Eve? I go as a way of honoring my family and my ancestors. And I go for myself.

There's power in rituals. Personal rituals have a certain amount of power. But collective rituals even more so. And rituals that have been done in more or less the same way at more or less the same time for hundreds of years are very powerful indeed.

How that power is used is important. I won't go to just any church. I've been in churches where they were actively praying against me and my family, or praying against bodily autonomy, or calling people I care about sinners. To my mind, that's an abuse of power and a failure to understand the words of the God you profess to follow.

(The Jesus I was raised with loved the outcast, stood with the marginalized, and cared for those whom others ignored or forgot. I have no beef with him. He's just not my dude.)

So I'm particular about what churches I go to, and what prayers I lend my power to. Tonight, the litany of prayer started with the King (which, lol, I forget we technically have one of those; he didn't get my prayers, sorry Charlie), but then was for the leaders of First Nations for true reconciliation, and then for the unhoused in our city. We prayed for Ukraine. We prayed for the Earth and the oceans (which included a fairly cutting jab at spending all our money on space exploration while the Earth burns) as the only source of life. We prayed for the people of Gaza and the West Bank and Israel, too, that there would be peace and an end to the humanitarian crisis and a just resolution. We prayed for our pets. We prayed for music and art and creative expression.

The power of all those people lending their thoughts and prayers, in this service at this time, with all the ranks of centuries of spiritual ancestors behind it, was palpable.

And I sang the old songs, together with a couple hundred strangers. I sang the songs my parents sang, and their parents, and their parents. "Silent night, holy night." I sang words my ancestors have sung or said or heard for a thousand years. "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us." I heard the words they heard. "And there were shepherds abiding in their fields keeping watch over their flocks by night." And I say to them that their beliefs may not be my own, but that they are not forgotten. They are loved, and I am reaching out to them with words they will understand.

May Christmas be merry for all who celebrate. And for those who don't, may you find joy and connection in the ways that best serve you.

[haymarketvtubestuff]

<transphobia, homophobia, implied abuse, divorce mention>

<fictional work>

A priest, a minister, and a high school English teacher and part-time witch walk into the home of a regular of St. Mark's Catholic.

One wouldn't be faulted to think that was the worst setup for a joke, but, at the same time, one wished it was a joke. Once Ariel stepped in, behind Rev. Burkhardt and Msgr. Canterbury, she felt the humor leave her entire being. That's how unhappy the house felt. Crosses, nativity sets, photos of two parents and a child living happily that were not up-to-date with reality.

"Mother filed for divorce but wasn't able to retain custody," Msgr. Canterbury remarked, his voice clinging tightly to what jolliness it usually carried. "Normally, the Church wouldn't condone divorce, but ..." He cut himself off before adding to the gloom and pain of the situation. Canterbury could only look to his Methodist colleague, who sensed the anger that dusted the house. All three agreed to silence before speaking with the father. Ariel gestured a request to scope the house while the men asked the parent further questions.

It started as a call to Msgr. Canterbury. The parishioner's child exhibited erratic behavior. Tics that were out of the ordinary. The occasional swear that was never heard from the child's mouth prior. Then came the angry remarks about the absent mother. The father complained how it was "out of the ordinary and unladylike behavior" at points, but assumed that it was "her being a teenager".

Then came the smashing of furniture. The overturned trash cans. The graffiti in an unknown script that, for the English teacher, had a tinge of familiarity. Her familiar, Fruma, had thought the same but couldn't place it themselves. She was brought out of her contemplative fugue by the parishioner, who was describing their child's actions and previous behavior while seeming to use the word "daughter" as a punctuation mark.

The emphasis was already suspect to Ariel, but, when both Burkhardt and Canterbury silently looked to her, the conclusion was already reached by the three. Something else had happened here.

Ariel was glad that she wasn't wearing her "armor", as she called her customized fatigue shirt, and instead still had on her work khakis and a blouse-like polo. The father's rhetoric screamed "queer basher" to the point where even the archbishop would balk at what was implied.

Searching through the house for more damage, more assistance to find the extra influence (or influences) on the situation gave Ariel the chance to clear her head. She kept going back to the scribbles - pictographs, more likely, but were these an untrained hand of an adult or a child? The media was clearly not blood, which ruled out supernatural changes. No, this looked like ...

"Red permanent marker," Ariel said to no one in particular. An easy fix with dry-erase marker and a wet cloth. This was the hand of one of the people in the house.

The time needed to find the child's room was minimal, as the door was completely gone from its hinges.

Not broken off with evidence of the door having once been there in one piece - removed. The pin was removed, leaving only the leaves that were screwed into the door frame.

The aura that came from the room had a texture to it. Ariel sensed frustration, violence, terror, but only the vaguest hint of malice.

There was also a sense of ... loneliness. Longing. A want for something.

Whatever was going on here, the witch knew she had to be ready. She removed her loafers and stepped into the child's bedroom, expecting a mess of rage and destruction and shocked to see it nearly barren.

A bed. A desk with a chair. A vanity, and a chest of drawers for non-hanging clothes.

Nothing else. Nothing here screamed the experience of a teenage girl. No ... something was removed from here other than the door. Many somethings. Stripped from the room, even.

"This child's privacy was revoked as well as this?" She muttered under her breath, hoping that whatever else was here would not pick up her knowledge.

"What did you say?" A non-human voice. Ariel spun her head in the direction of its origin - the child. The scraping timbre of the voice seemed both natural and in the first stages of practice - an amplification of two combined voices.

It was time for the witch to do her part. In her mind, Ariel uttered a line -

"Fruma, you're up."

She waited for a response. A deep, leonine growl and a feminine, feral voice answered -

"Ready whenever you are, baalat-ov."

Ariel snapped the fingers of her left hand. Immediately, a flash of void enveloped the whole of the small bedroom. A dustless swirl of clouds settled as her other form made its debut before the teenager.

Ariel was still in her khakis and polo, but an outsider would spot five things different about her -

Her blonde, normally pixie-cut-length hair was fuller, wilder, and shoulder length.

She no longer had ears where they should have been. Instead, her ears were a little higher up on her head, more pronounced, more rounded. It was more like a lioness's ears - brown-blonde fur matching her own natural "fur".

She had grown a full lion's tail. Ariel was thankful she wore pants that rode her hips so to allow for the change.

Her hands were altered so to incorporate claws and paw pads while still retaining humanoid form.

While she had more leonine features elsewhere, Ariel still had the same issue as any other sheyd or sheydah taking human form - chicken feet.

What the child saw from the front was the sixth change - Ariel's left eye, normally matching its neighbor in bluish silver tone, was now amber in hue. The child, however, did not waver in its stoic expression that still, as Ariel's students might put it, "gave resting bitch face". Ariel decided to set the tone.

"My name is Ariel Haymarket, son of Avram Haymarket, son of a rabbi, and Elisheva Chapman, daughter of a line of sorcerers who could commune with spirits. I here to advocate for the child of David Cavendish and their safety."

A pause. The child's expression had changed on the last expression to shock, though Ariel couldn't determine if the reaction was from the child, the spirit, or both. Ariel continued.

"I am also Fruma, the Righteous, known also as HaP'rai, the Savage One. I am both a human advocate and witch and a Sheydah. If you wish to discuss terms or the circumstances, I need to know with whom I am working."

Another pause. The child's expression returned to its prior state, then drooped - along with the child themself. A cold wind and hellish screaming filled the room (sensations Ariel was not unfamiliar with), the latter echoing through the house and joining other voices. Ariel and Fruma came to the same realization -

There's more of them???

Before Ariel, a new scene developed. A gray mist formed into a solid being. A feminine figure with long, wild hair that went down to its hips. Armored, stained with blood, armed with ancient weaponry. More screaming.

Once the presence made itself known to Ariel, she recalled a description by Maurus Servius Honoratus -

Eumenides was their name in hell.

Dirae in heaven.

Furiae on earth.

No wonder the pictographs looked familiar. There was no point in trying to read the message because even a scholar wouldn't be able to. It was enough for Ariel to recognize that the language was Linear B.

The message itself was no longer important.

There were furies in the house.

And one of them is possessing this man's son.

(to be continued)

[made-perfect-in-weakness]

My Journey to Catholicism

Feel free to read or not. I just wanted to share my experience.

When I was a child, my family didn't speak about God, or Jesus, or religion at all, really, outside an academic context. My grandfather was a Methodist minister, and when we went to visit the grandparents, we knew we had to say "oh my gosh" instead of "oh my God", and if we were there on a Sunday, my brother and I would go to Sunday School and color pictures of Noah and the Ark until our parents came back to claim us. My parents told me I could choose a religion when I got older, if I wanted to.

When I was 12 my parents were getting divorced, and I huddled in my bed after dark, listening to them fight in the room above me, and I prayed to Jesus to make them stop fighting, to keep them together, to make the nightmare end. I prayed quietly, because I didn't want anyone to hear me. I was embarrassed to be bringing up Jesus at all, but it just seemed to me like the right thing to do when you were desperate.

When I was in middle school, I started going to youth group with my best friend at a Methodist church. I was struggling a lot with family problems and emotional problems, and that youth group was the first time anyone ever said to me, "It's okay to be broken. You are loved." I started going to a small girls' group, and they let me talk about my fears without judgment, and I never really understood the God-stuff, but I kept going through all of middle school, and it helped.

When I was a sophomore in high school, most of my friends were male, seniors, and Christian. One of them started an apologetics group at his house, and we talked about religion, about Christianity, and I learned a lot. I started listening to Christian music. Part of me wanted God in my life; the other part just wanted my friends to think I was cool for being into the same things as them.

When I was a junior in high school, everything fell apart. My friends had all graduated and moved away, and my mental health was very bad, and I started hanging out with a new friend group. All of them were atheists. I followed them to parties where I drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes. I let them convince me to try marijuana. I let people use my body for their pleasure. I made bad choices, and I hated God, because my friends told me to. I made jokes about Jesus, because my friends were making jokes. I was deeply unhappy.

When I was in college, I stopped drinking and smoking pot. I slowly, nervously tried to make my way back to God. I would sneak into Methodist services on Sundays, sneaking out again at the end before anyone could stop me and try to talk to me. At the same time, I was self-harming and giving in to same sex attraction and absolutely loathing myself. I felt completely lost. Untethered. Alone.

When I was a senior in college, I met my future husband. He is good and kind and he stuck with me and supported me through a lot of my mental health struggles, including taking a leave of absence from my university and checking into a psychiatric hospital for several weeks, which was immensely helpful. We didn't really discuss religion; we knew we both were "vaguely Christian, maybe." He was baptized, I wasn't. He was raised Catholic, but hadn't been to a Mass in years. We slept together and lived together before marriage.

When I was 23, we started going to a church that met in a high school gym. They were very nice and welcoming - aggressively so. They helped us join a Bible Study, and a small group, and convinced us to come to extra services on Wednesday nights, and it started to feel suffocating. We both began to feel uncomfortable, but when we tried to step back, the church folks doubled down. They wanted us to come to more groups. They wanted to "re-baptize" my husband, and they didn't like that we were living together but wouldn't tell is why. They wanted more tithing. We both had a bad feeling about it, and so we left.

When I was 24, we joined the United Church of Christ. It was a better fit for us, and I was baptized in that church. We participated in volunteer opportunities and made some good friends. My husband lightheartedly referred to the UCC as "fake church," because Catholic church, for him, was "real church." I was too nervous to go to "real church" because I knew absolutely nothing about Catholicism and it seemed ludicrous that someone from my background could join a church like that. We left that church when we moved across the country.

When I was 27, my husband and I finally got married. We went to the courthouse with a few witnesses. A few months later, I was visiting family and my husband was walking out in the rain on Christmas Eve when a UCC pastor ushered him into the church where it was warm and dry. My husband stayed for the service, and started going there every Sunday, and joined the choir, and even convinced me to join, too. He continued to call our church "fake church," and lamented about the lack of tradition in the UCC. He liked it, but he was never fully comfortable there.

When I was 28, we moved back home and I finally agreed to give "real church" a try. We were living in my own hometown, and I'd driven past the church hundreds of times, though never been inside. I was thoroughly intimidated, but I went anyway, and was surprised to find that I liked it. He explained the Mass to me - he explained, as I called it, "the rules" to me - and I was delighted to learn as much as I possibly could. I loved the predictability of the Mass, the ritual of Reconciliation. I loved praying the rosary and reading the Catechism. I loved the hymns and the daily readings and the crucifix. I couldn't get enough. It felt right. We started volunteering at St. Vincent de Paul, and through that eventually both ended up with jobs at Catholic Charities.

When I was 29, we started RCIA. It was a small town, with only one Catholic church, and my boss was sponsoring one of my fellow catechumens, and my own sponsor was a fellow volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul. I'd gotten to know the pastor pretty well through my work at Catholic Charities. Everyone was intertwined, and I felt like I was part of a family. I felt like I was finally home. I felt whole.

When I was 30, I was confirmed and took my First Communion at Easter Vigil.

It's been 5 years since I joined the Catholic church. There have been lots of ups and downs. We moved to a different city. COVID happened, and we stopped going to church. I had to leave my job and apply for disability. I struggled with sexual sin and our marriage suffered for it. I went 3 years without going to confession because by the time I felt comfortable going out in public again after COVID, I was so ashamed of my sins I didn't even want to think about them, let alone tell them to a priest.

And then we slowly started going to Mass again. And I started to remember how much I loved it. And I was jealous of everyone taking the Eucharist, I wanted that. I wanted Jesus.

And I still didn't go to confession for several months.

But finally, one day, I was ready. I was nervous and jittery but when we got there, there wasn't even a line. And when I went to confess, the priest was kind and efficient. It felt like the entire process had been orchestrated to be as comfortable for me as possible. And then - and then I was free.

Since that day, we've been going to Mass and taking the Eucharist every Sunday, and going to Adoration on Friday nights, and going to confession when we need to. And I feel safe and comforted in a way that I haven't in a long, long time. I've been reading G.K. Chesterton and listening to worship music. I've been praying and reading the Bible.

I know it won't always be like this - I know there will be more times when I struggle. When I don't pray, or read the Bible, or even go to Mass. When I can't get out of bed, or I end up in the hospital. But knowing that God is with me always, no matter what - that he's brought me through everything so far - is what matters. Whenever I'm hospitalized, I read the psalms, and I find great comfort in them. And that will never change.

I know that God loves me - that Christ died for me. What more could I possibly want?

[lboogie1906]

James Leonard Farmer Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was a civil rights activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement "who pushed for the nonviolent protest to dismantle segregation, and served alongside Martin Luther King Jr." He was the initiator and organizer of the first Freedom Ride in 1961, which led to the desegregation of interstate transportation in the US. He was born in Marshall, Texas, to James L. Farmer Sr. and Pearl Houston, who were both educators. His father was a professor at Wiley College, and a Methodist minister with a Ph.D. in theology from Boston University. His mother, a homemaker, was a graduate of Florida's Bethune-Cookman Institute. He married Winnie Christie (1945-1946). He married Lula A. Peterson (1949-1977) and they had two daughters. He earned a BS at Wiley College and a B. Div from Howard University. During WWll, he had official status as a conscientious objector. He co-founded the Committee of Racial Equality in Chicago along with George Houser, James R. Robinson, Samuel E. Riley, Bernice Fisher, Homer Jack, and Joe Guinn. It was later called the Congress of Racial Equality and was dedicated to ending racial segregation in the US through nonviolence. He served as the national chairman from 1942 to 1944 He was known as "one of the Big Four civil rights leaders in the 1960s, together with King, NAACP chief Roy Wilkins and Urban League head Whitney Young." He was a child prodigy; as a freshman in 1934 at the age of 14, he enrolled at Wiley College. He was selected as part of the debate team. Melvin B. Tolson, a professor of English, became his mentor. The Great Debaters is a biographical drama film directed by and starring Denzel Washington. It is based on an article written about the Wiley College debate team by Tony Scherman for the spring 1997 issue of American Legacy. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #omegapsiphi https://www.instagram.com/p/CnT_zBzOP7o/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thevitalportal]

Interesting turn of events because being conservative in the UK is very different than being conservative in the US. This is particularly true given the parliamentary system of government. The following is an excerpt from the article.

“In one of her first speeches as an MP, Badenoch spoke of “living without electricity and doing my homework by candlelight, because the state electricity board could not provide power, and fetching water in heavy, rusty buckets from a borehole a mile away, because the nationalised water company could not get water out of the taps”. A precocious child, she excelled at English and won a national girls chess championship when she was just seven years old.

Badenoch’s parents instilled strict traditional Christian values (her grandfather was a Methodist minister) and the belief she could achieve anything she put her mind to. Earlier this year, she told one interviewer how her friends would see them like the Cosbys, because unlike some strict Nigerian parents, hers was a warm household where they would all joke and laugh. She was encouraged to voice her opinion. “Kemi was always outspoken,” says a school friend. “If there was something she didn’t agree with, she would respectfully tell the teacher. I think her parents instilled a certain amount of confidence in her.”

[dankusner]

Texas State Bar honors Fort Worth faith-based legal organization with Pro Bono Award

Methodist Justice Ministry, a faith-based family law nonprofit, received the 2024 Pro Bono Award from the State Bar of Texas on June 20, 2024.

This is the third time in the award’s 40-year history that a Fort Worth organization has been selected.

From left to right, Methodist Justice Ministry Executive Director Aaryn Landers Lamb, 2023-24 State Bar President Cindy Tisdale, Legal Director and Attorney Jodie Connaughton and Attorney Jonathan Turner. (Courtesy photo | Yajaera Chatterson)

Yajaera Chatterson remembers how a phone call from Child Protective Services changed her family’s life.

It was a Friday afternoon in 2015 when she found out her sister was under investigation.

Chatterson was faced with a decision:

She could become a voluntary caregiver for her nephew, Jovani, until the case was closed or let him go to foster care.

She and her husband, Aaron, didn’t hesitate to take him in.

Her experience propelled her into a world of family law, where she would end up becoming the development director for Methodist Justice Ministry, the faith-founded firm that helped her obtain custody of her nephew.

Now, the organization is being recognized for providing free legal representation and ongoing support to survivors of traumatic domestic violence and neglect on a statewide level.

The State Bar of Texas awarded Methodist Justice Ministry the 2024 Pro Bono Award on June 20, marking the third time a Fort Worth organization has been a recipient in the award’s 40-year history.

“It’s a nice validation that within our legal community, our work for the last 18 years is being recognized as a vital and crucial help for vulnerable community members,” Chatterson said.

Methodist Justice Ministry was established in 2006 by Brooks Harrington, an attorney and ordained Methodist minister.

The ministry’s attorneys file lawsuits in Tarrant and Johnson county’s family courts, including protective orders, custody and divorce.

Its client households are generally within 125% above the federal poverty line and cannot afford legal counsel.

The Pro Bono Award honors a volunteer attorney organization, such as a legal aid organization, local bar association or nonprofit that has made an “outstanding contribution toward guaranteeing access to the legal system by the poor,” according to the award’s nomination form.

The last time a Fort Worth organization was a recipient of the award was the Texas Lawyers for Texas Veterans in 2019.

“MJM (Methodist Justice Ministry) has grown from humble beginnings to become a vital pillar of support within the Fort Worth community,” according to the State Bar of Texas’ annual meeting notes.

Currently, one in three women in Tarrant County will be affected by intimate partner violence at some point in her lifetime, according to the county’s criminal district attorney website. Methodist Justice Ministry has filed over 1,200 family lawsuits and represented more than 3,000 vulnerable community members impacted by family violence.

Aaryn Landers Lamb, the organization’s new executive director, said the award recognizes the work the staff has been doing since its mission started several years ago.

“Tarrant County is not small. Fort Worth is not small,” Landers Lamb said. “I feel really proud that Methodist Justice Ministry gets to represent the community in this way.”

[ahopkins1965]

What is your favorite thing about myself?  My favorite thing about myself is that I have the Holy Spirit inside of me.  Jesus Christ is my personal Savior.   Jesus Christ died for my sins.   Jesus is the reason for the season 🙌 🙏.  Jesus Christ blessed me with an apartment that I call home.   Jesus Christ is inside of my heart and He is the Lord of my life.   God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change.  Give me the courage to change the things that I can and give me the wisdom to know the difference.   Just for Today!  Amen and Amen 🙏 🙌 👏.   I have been a born again Christian Man for 9 years now.   I want to inform everyone that I am happy to be a Child of the Most High God.   Lord Jesus, please, enable me to help others who are crying out for you.   Lord Jesus, I want to thank you for saving me from myself.  Lord Jesus, my favorite thing is that I am grateful to have you in my life as my Lord and Savior.  Lord Jesus, I Love You Very Much 🙏.  Lord Jesus, I am thankful for You every single day of my life.   Lord Jesus, my favorite book is the Holy Bible.   Lord Jesus, my favorite Church is Fort McKinley United Methodist Church located in Dayton, Ohio.   Lord Jesus,  I Love You with all of my life, soul and strength.   Lord Jesus, please allow me to become a Preacher just like my grandparents wanted me to become a Minister of my own Church ⛪️ 🙏.   Lord Jesus, I want to say that I am ready to go directly back inside of Your House.   Lord Jesus, my second favorite book is From Slavery to Freedom by Dr. John Hope Franklin & Dr. Alfred Moss.  Lord Jesus, please teach me how to communicate effectively with everyone 🙏.   Lord Jesus, please, teach me how to serve Your People.   Lord Jesus, please teach me how to read Your Word.  Lord Jesus, my favorite thing to do is to spend time with You right now 🙏.   Lord Jesus, please,  allow the Holy Spirit that is inside of me to teach me how to understand You.  Lord Jesus, I Love You with all of my heart soul and strength.   Thank you for giving me Your Breath of Life.   Lord Jesus,  I Love You and Your Creation Forever and Forever.   Lord Jesus, please,  allow me to go directly back inside of Your Place of Worship with Your Heavenly Saints.   Lord Jesus, I Love You Forever.   Lord Jesus I adore You and I admire Your Presence.   Lord Jesus, please, teach me how to keep it real like You!  Lord Jesus,  I want You to show me and take me to Your Land of Promise; So I can dwell Inside of Your Land Forever 🙏.   In Jesus Name I Pray Amen and Amen 🙏 🙌 👏.

[hbhughes]

Robert "Bob" Emory Osgood

Robert “Bob” Emory Osgood was a loving son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, pastor, and friend. His battle with cancer and congestive heart failure in recent months was met with faith and determination. Bob passed quickly on August 22, 2023, only two weeks after his 83rd birthday and just 9 days before his 60th wedding anniversary to the love of his life, Nancy.

Bob was born on August 7, 1940, to Lucy Rogers Osgood and Arthur Baxter Osgood of Plainville, Connecticut. He developed a long friendship with Nancy Sweeton Osgood which began at church-related functions at the district level; they married on August 31, 1963. Bob was predeceased by his brother Arthur Osgood and is survived by his older brother Doug Osgood, all three ordained ministers in the United Methodist Church. Bob is also survived by his three children and their spouses: Steve Osgood and Peggy Monastra, Greg Osgood and Erin Rada, and Kim and Chris Markworth. Bob was especially grateful for and proud of his three children as well as his seven grandchildren: Steve’s children Orlando and Ronan; Greg’s children Zoe, Simon, John, and Andrew; and Kim’s child Pax. They all miss him dearly.

Bob devoted his life and career to the United Methodist Church, serving throughout the New York Conference and beyond. He led the ministries at several United Methodist churches in New York and Connecticut and directed the Methodist Church’s camping program throughout New York for three years. From 1991 to 1994, he and Nancy served as missionaries in Haiti under the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries. He also served as the first coordinator of the disaster relief center at UMCOR Sager-Brown in Louisiana and worked at the UMCOR headquarters in Washington, DC. After retiring in 2007 to North Hoosick, NY, Bob served as interim pastor at the Emmaus United Methodist Church in Albany, NY. 

Throughout his life, Bob found great joy in gardening, running an antique nook, renovating the family home, traveling the National Park system with Nancy, being with family and friends, and telling stories. Nancy and Bob relocated to Wesley Village in Pittston, Pennsylvania, in 2020, where they continued to make great friends. 

Bob’s faith and good works touched the lives of so many, as so many others touched his life. A memorial service to celebrate his life will be held on Saturday, September 2, at 10:30 AM at Asbury United Methodist Church, 17 Old Post Road, Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

[dearfuturehusband2023]

Dear Future Husband, 03/05/23

“I was glad when they said to me let us go into the house of the Lord”. It’s Sunday 🙌🏾 and as you’ll come to learn it’s my favorite day of the week. Today I visited a United Methodist Church with my mom and brother and it was interestingly a great experience I’d say. The Blackness, the social aspect, the progressiveness while maintaining a sense of tradition. It’s well balanced I’d say. The sermon confirmed what I am experiencing in this season “trust God - He can turn it around”.

I’m looking forward to Sundays with you. With our kids. With our extended family. When I see families leaving church together I imagine what the rest of their day looks like. I want ours to be filled with love, food, memories, relaxation, rest, no Sunday Scaries (I didn’t know this was a thing until I was making my Hinge profile), and the Lord. Sundays feel like a big embrace. Cue “Sunday Kinda Love”.

I’m so happy that I won’t have to hide how much I love Sundays and love church and love the Word- and especially love worship. I can sing before during and after service and it won’t repel you. I hope you find the beauty in all the parts of who I am. I’m

Looking forward to hearing you pray for our Sunday meal. Your Sunday Best or just your humble attire to journey to God’s house. Whatever it looks like, I’m late ok’ing forward to it. I hope you found joy on this specific Sunday. I got to visit my grandpa and it made his day. I got to minister to a sister. I got to also try and mediate and bring understanding to a situation my mom dealt with today. I bought flowers from a woman on the side of the highway. I got ColdStone (do you know I only get Pistachio and rainbow sprinkles?)

I pray you don’t take Sundays for granted and that each time you’re in Gods house you are able to hear Him speaking to YOU. That you notice Him all around you. Praying for the priest you’ll be over our family. Praying you’re never “too manly” to come as a child before God. I pray if you find yourself in ministry, that the Lord is your North Star and I support you well. I love you and I can’t wait to spend my Sundays with you.

Love,

Your Wifey❤️

[zooterchet]

Vicar: They practiced Buddhism, yet they’re a Deacon, Vicar, or Canterbury Bishop.  They don’t qualify as a Catholic priest, a non-Buddhist martial arts champion, otherwise gay, a Minister, a fag (Baptist, Methodist, or Lutheran; cop clergy census, racist pogrom bigots, or anti-Semite Mafiaso hitmen).

Jew: They’re practiced Buddhism, yet they’ve refused to combine alcohol and marijuana, in the same sitting, a sociopath (they can’t shift singular form, to another, or outright ignoring, a bigot, a conservative; they think literal print, is stuck in form, a slave to the Jannissary system, Ottoman Israel).

Hamas: They’ve smoked opium, with marijuana, despite being Catholic, they walk slow, a Buddhist, instead of a Christian, a Yemeni Papist’s rank, otherwise committing suicide immediately, a combination of three, instead of two, proper form of law, spirit, and intent, hidden (a courier, hidden law, a leader, hidden spirit, or a terrorist, hidden intent).

Anglican: They’re a Neanderthal, but they haven’t had alcohol before age 15, a child molester, a sex offender; a false form of Japanese Shinto and Irish Mantingle, planted through oil wells, except on Natives, now Enlightened, unless Gay, Abstencht, minority hunters as leaders (hacking of passwords and ciphers, dodged by mathematical cheats on paper math, psychiatric doctrine failures on paper sheet of future mathematics, the notice of new problems designed by Neanderthals, to solve world problems, started by Anglicans; honor meaning family, at highest peak of produce, dishonor meaning revenge, at having been challenged, proving monetary compensation, at expense of Anglican pocketbook, the concept of the vagina inverse of penis of knowledge).

[spynorth]

John Bateman Background

I’ve mentioned a few times in the last couple of days how I love the idea of the small instances the viewers get of lucas’s personal life is sort of ambiguous in the sense (if you wanna be like me and make everything super fucking complicated and mysterious) that you can constantly ask yourself what are really his memories and what is background info that he grabs onto in order to maintain his lucas identity (because as part of finishing up the interview process for mi5 you’d have to know background and like ...mates. it’s mi5 like ... they’re gonna know. all i can imagine is john trying to write out information on some sort of application as lucas for mi5 and the only noise is that tiktok audio of like how will they know??).

Anyways, In 7x06 lucas tells the kid he’s momentary protecting (do i remember his name? no. it’s not integral to this) that his father was a Methodist minister and i was going back and forth on whether this was true or not and originally i was going to say it was a john memory but with the kid being involved in mi5 stuff, i don’t think he’d take that chance. So while lucas north’s father might have been a Methodist minister... john’s was not.

John Bateman was born on november 3,1982 (does this fuck with canon timeline? yes. but i’m not writing him in the 90s and early 2000s ... we’re making him a 2022 boy), which makes him 40 years old in the current year (2022). He was born  in Abbotsbury England, the only child to Paul (b. 1951) and Christine (b. 1957) Bateman who were 31 years and 25 years respectively on the day of his birth. 

Paul Bateman was a mechanically minded man that supported his family by essentially being the handyman for the village shops and inn. While originally focusing much of his time and work at the bed and breakfast known as number five, the increase in tourism as the years passed meant that as John aged, his father began taking on more and more jobs. He eventually was able to start being a one man service and hired on a few local boys to help as well. John was occasionally asked to come along or to help, but he complained the whole while. He didn’t like the monotony (in his mind) of his life and though he appreciated the scenery he grew up in, it eventually started losing its shine. 

[father-jones-temple]

Jim Jones’s Early Life

James Warren “Jim” Jones was born in a rural area of Crete, Indiana on May 13, 1931. He was the first and only son of James Thurman Jones, a World War 1 veteran and a victim of mustard gas who lived off of disability payments, and Lynetta Jones, an independent woman who worked multiple jobs to support her family. Jones was alone for most of his childhood, as his father was emotionally absent, wanting almost nothing to do with him, and his mother was constantly working, neither of them could nor really wanted to do much with their son. 

“I didn’t have any love given to me — I didn’t know what the hell love was,” - Jim Jones

Jones was taken to church regularly by a neighbor as a young child, and this led him to begin exploring religion on his own at the age of 10. He visited churches in the small town of Lynn, where he lived with his family, and became friends with a Pentecostal minister for a while. An observant child, Jones took what he learned at these different churches and started preaching to other children in the community. 

He was a strong student, especially in public speaking, but he had few friends. His overpowering religiousness weirded out a lot of people, and he, as well, disliked many typical teenage boy activities, such as sports, and rejected things that he thought was sinful behavior, such as dancing and drinking.

People that knew him as a child remember him being “a really weird kid” that was obsessed with religion and death. Some people, however, admired his preaching talents. Phyllis Wilmore, who dated him in high school, remembered a pep rally before a basketball game:

“Jimmy decided to stage an elaborate funeral for the other school. He got up and started preaching and did an incredible job. He had the control and inflection. It was like the real thing, but was all intended to be a joke. He was very self-assured on stage. He had that coal black hair and piercing eyes that would look right through you.”

Jones and a childhood friend both claimed his father was associated with the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Indiana at the time. Jones remembered how he and his father would argue on the issue of race, and how he did not speak with his father for a long time after he refused to let one of Jones's black friends into his house. Because of multiple disagreements, Jones’s parents eventually split up and he and his mother moved to Richmond, Indiana. There, he had a chance to start a new life with new people and he started working as an orderly in a hospital, where he met Marceline Baldwin, an older nursing student. After graduating early from Richmond High School with honors, he married Marceline during his first term of Indiana University in 1949.  In Indianapolis, he served as a student pastor in the Methodist Church in 1952 but chose to found his own church, Peoples Temple, in 1956. This was what led up to his vicious crimes as a pastor.

[kemetic-dreams]

Richard Allen (February 14, 1760 – March 26, 1831)was a minister, educator, writer, and one of America's most active and influential African leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent African denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Elected the first bishop of the AME Church in 1816, Allen focused on organizing a denomination in which free African people could worship without racial oppression and enslaved people could find a measure of dignity. He worked to upgrade the social status of the African community, organizing Sabbath schools to teach literacy and promoting national organizations to develop political strategies

He was born into slavery on February 14, 1760, on the Delaware property of Benjamin Chew. When he was a child Allen and his family were sold to Stokley Sturgis, who had a plantation in Delaware. When Sturgis had financial problems he sold Richard's mother and two of his five siblings. Allen had an older brother and sister left with him and the three began to attend meetings of the local Methodist Society, which was welcoming to enslaved and free African people. They were encouraged by their master Sturgis although he was unconverted. Richard taught himself to read and write. He joined the Methodists at 17. He began evangelizing and attracted criticism from local slave owners. The slave owners were angered by his actions.

Allen and his brother redoubled their efforts for Sturgis so that no one could say enslaved people did not do well because of religion.

The Reverend Freeborn Garrettson, who had freed his own slaves in 1775, began to preach in Delaware. He was among many Methodist and Baptist ministers after the American Revolutionary War who encouraged slaveholders to emancipate their people. When Garrettson visited the Sturgis plantation to preach, Allen's master was touched by this declaration and began to give consideration to the thought that holding slaves was sinful. Sturgis was soon convinced that slavery was wrong and offered enslaved people an opportunity to buy their freedom. Allen performed extra work to earn the money and bought his freedom in 1780 when he changed his name from "Negro Richard" to "Richard Allen

[pandorasimbox]

Black History Month 2020

Click images to enlarge.

Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (21 February 1933 – 21 April 2003), better known by her stage name Nina Simone, was an American singer-songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist who is remembered as the “High Priestess of Soul”. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, soul, folk, rhythm and blues, gospel, and pop.

The following short biography is quoted from Blackpast.org’s Biography of Nina Simone.

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tyron, North Carolina in 1933, Nina Simone began playing the family piano at the age of three. Her mother Mary Kate Waymon, a minister and choir director at a Methodist church in Tyron, interpreted her daughter’s gift as a God-given talent. Waymon began to study piano at age six with Muriel Massinovitch, an English pianist and Bach devotee married to a Russian painter husband. Waymon credited “Miss Mazzy” for teaching her to understand Bach; she credited Bach for dedicating her life to music. The lessons were paid for by family friends including a white couple in the town. Eunice’s father, John Divine Waymon, had been an entertainer before he chose to move his family to Tyron, a North Carolina resort town, and set up a barbershop and dry cleaners to support his family. In her autobiography – I Put a Spell on You, the Autobiography of Nina Simone – Waymon describes her relationship with her father as loving and supportive and Tyron as “uncommon” for a southern town because blacks and whites lived together in a series of circles around the center of town, which allowed them to mingle and form friendships.

Not only did her musically talented parents back their child prodigy offspring, Miss Mazzy and the entire community supported the Eunice Waymon Fund, a bank account that family, friends, and Tyron residents envisioned would allow her to become the first black American classical pianist. Over the years the fund grew large enough to support her advanced education. Waymon spent one year at Juilliard School of Music in New York, where she studied with Dr. Carl Friedburg. She had planned to attend the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but failed the recital entrance performance and was not admitted. Convinced that she was rejected on racial grounds, she changed her life direction.

Indicative of this change was her invention of a stage name. She chose “Nina,” a nickname given to her by a former boyfriend, and “Simone” after the French actress Simone Signoret. Nina Simone soon began performing in jazz clubs. Her powerful stage presence and soulful voice attracted the attention of the recording industry. She was signed by the Bethlehem label in 1957. Her 1958 hit “I Loves You Porgy” sold a million records.

Over the next four decades Simone recorded more than forty albums with Colpix, Philips, RCA, and other labels. Her mesmerizing alto voice was aptly described by jazz critic Adam Shatz of The Nation as “impossibly deep yet unmistakably feminine, lacerating in its intensity yet also capable of disarming tenderness. To listen to her voice was to feel almost hijacked by its power.”

Influenced by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Simone became known as the “Singer of the Black Revolution.” She composed and recorded a number of songs with political protest themes including “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”, “Old Jim Crow”, “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)”, “Backlash Blues” and “Mississippi Goddam”. Simone collaborated with close friends Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry to financially support the movement and took part in marches and spoke and performed at civil rights rallies.

In the early seventies, disillusioned by life in the United States, Simone divorced her manager-husband Andrew Stroud and moved first to Barbados and then to Liberia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands before finally settling in France in 1992.  Simone remained there until her death in 2003. Her 1993 autobiography I Put a Spell on You was made into a French documentary, Nina Simone: La Legende. Nina Simone died at her home in Carry-le-Rouet France on April 21, 2003.

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More BHM on Simblr:

@ophelia-nygmos  - Nichelle Nicholls

@anotherplumbob  - Rosa Parks

@oshinsims - Mae Jemison

@ice-creamforbreakfast - Tracey “Africa” Norman

@titosims -  Phillis Wheatley

@cupcakegnome -  Scott Joplin

@eslanes - Josephine Baker

@simscapades​ - Billie Holliday

@pandorasimbox - Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley

@utamuse​ - Harriet Tubman

@boomchicapopdatsims -  Shirley Anita Chisholm

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Footnotes:

The music of Nina Simone was a regular sonic undercurrent in my house as a child. The context for her music, however, was entirely absent. It wasn’t until my adulthood that I was confronted with my own ignorance about the reality of Simone’s life, and her very important role in the Civil Rights Movement. I will never forget how I felt after I heard her powerful and righteous defiance on “Four Women”, nor her gut-wrenching rendition of “Strange Fruit”, and I know I’m not alone. Nina Simone’s legacy may a complicated one, but it is undeniable.