#a matter of great doctrinal import

[box5intern]

Now is the time on Sprockets where we unpack the experience. Pictured above: me still thinking about Jordan being like eye level with Emilie whenever she was sitting down and he was kneeling.

The knowledge that it is HIGHLY unlikely I will ever see another trio where I love each of them that much…a weighty realization. Blessed though.

The absolute manic energy that overtook me as I approached an hourly worker like myself during a wishful Majestic Theatre vibe check a smooth…fifteen minutes (?) before the Sunday matinee. I did wait until he was done assisting ppl and then he turned to me and it was more or less:

“Hi! So sorry to bug you, I was wondering if there are any understudies* on today?”

“Oh yeah there’s hella understudies!” (he said that, he was super nice!)

“Oh, amazing, are any of them the Phantom, Christine, or Ra—“

“The Phantom is an understudy!”

“Oh! Is it—is it Jeremy St—“

“It is Jeremy Stolle.”

* The leads are currently all very strong of course but since I had seen Ben before and he has some really great understudies, in addition to hoping to possibly see Elizabeth or Kanisha or Bronson — it just seemed like there was a decent chance over the time I was there of getting to see one of a long list of people I’d be thrilled about, with such a solid main cast that it would be hard to go wrong.

Having a Normal One: taking your seat at a Sunday matinee when you saw that same show the actual night before. It is what it is.

I was so sad to miss Emilie in November, and had said I would Get On A Plane for Jordan Donica. So as excited as I would have been for the others, it was such a genuine delight to see them both twice. And then Jeremy was out here saying “fOoLe” and doing The Strolle so…

If you do see The Strolle & more in person I highly recommend seeing it with a like-minded friend/friends. We were clearly not going to yell in the theatre like — respect the cast, respect the other patrons, that said I’m not going to apologize for grabbing @emotionalmotionsicknessxx because I think it was the same amount of “I am grabbing your arm/softly hitting you so I will not audibly act up” although I know I whispered “no” a lot of times.

The way he was touching the sheet music at the beginning of first lair was untoward I don’t even know. He put his hand on her stomach during PONR. He was being chaotic on the bench. His “make your choice” broke me as a person. Also it was STRESSFUL to be sitting off to the side in our own little box because we could see Jeremy waiting behind the angel as Jordan Donica is mere feet below him being an absolute MENACE. Where is a person supposed to look?! (At Jordan and Emilie, mostly, but even though of course we know the phantom is there it was cool to be able to see him!)

When have I said a Raoul was a menace? Never! Nor will I ever again. Also great view of Emilie’s face acting at certain points, like “Twisted Ever Way” and this is the second time I ever teared up during “Wishing.”

Emilie and Jordan sound so lovely on that “anywhere you go—“ part in AIAOY and the only other time I ever really stopped to take notice of that is some Hugh audios with Sara Jean Ford and Sean MacLaughlin so — idk it’s a lovely song but rarely do I say “oh hello?!”

It is a matter of GREAT doctrinal import to know that the Pew Pew Stick simply did not work during Wandering Child and these two men responded by getting…Big N Loud at each other. Like more than they were already. Which…both of them are already deep-voiced and quite tall so honestly a blessing I was able to CLING to a friend at that moment as I was in danger of being sent to the astral plane.

And Jeremy did say Fathering Gaze. He said it. He said the thing.

Lived my best clown life that day. That was it, that was the pinnacle.

I will have to talk more about Emilie another time. She was just wonderful. Gotta get the right words together but…I would even go see it just for her if you can. I mean yes catch Jordan if you can, I hope he comes back, but Emilie’s Christine is something really really special.

#phantom of the opera #jeremy stolle #emilie kouatchou #Jordan Donica #a matter of great doctrinal import #daddying gaze #big dumb hand

[nerdygaymormon]

Thoughts on Queer People as part of the Eternal Family

That word "the" is important! In our church we usually speak of eternal families like there's a bunch of individual ones and we're hoping to turn our earthly family into one of them. But in LDS theology, we are all linked together to form the great family of God.

“For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.” (D&C 128:18). Everyone talking about being exalted without their LGBTQ+ family members WON’T BE. Our theology is one of inclusion, expansion, and progress. Our work is not done. If same-gender couples and trans people aren’t exalted, NO ONE will be. We cannot be pro-family and anti-LGBTQ+ at same time. 100% of LGBTQ+ people are from families and are part of God's eternal family. 

Being a queer member of the LDS Church means I tense up a little every time I hear the word "family" spoken in church, but it shouldn't be that way. I try to remember that Jesus didn't create a single traditional family during His lifetime. He never performed a marriage. He didn't get married. He didn't have children. Instead, Jesus redefined family by constructing a chosen family. Jesus created a new way of doing family, one which could include everyone.

Unfortunately, this chosen family approach isn't the model of family emphasized in our church, which means all the goals in our church are designed for straight people, and that's not me so it feels like I will never measure up. Our church has a doctrinal gap about what happens to anyone in the afterlife who isn't in a man+woman marriage, including singles and queer people. I believe I'm included in God's plan, just not in the Church's version of God's plan. 

Humans crave to love and be loved, to have companionship, we have a God-given sex drive (this is not meant to dismiss my aro/ace friends, I'm speaking in generalities). How cruel for people to be created this way and then told these things are not for us and we are to shut down these fundamental parts of who we are. We're to be miserable in this life for a shot a happiness after death. Does this sound like the plan of a loving God? Especially when everyone else is offered a win/win proposition to find happiness in this life and it will carry over to the other side. 

I have a feeling that Latter-day Saints are going to be deeply surprised at who all makes it to the Celestial Kingdom, and at how loving our Heavenly Parents are, and how family structures & sealings are going to be far more inclusive than many currently believe. What I know is God is in charge, ultimately God will win. The Godly approach in attitude, whether it’s on matters of race, gender, or sexual orientation, God will win and we will be the one eternal family because that’s the way He’s designed it. We won’t be pushing others away and singling them out as “them.” It’ll be “us.” In the interim, those of us who are deemed “the other,” whatever the “other” is, need to recognize that God will win. 

#tumblrstake #queerstake

[2024-grimoire-challenge]

March Week 3 - Traditions, Associations, Tools and Symbols

This week we will have several new pages. One for a personal look at your practice given the above prompts, one for a family/ ancestral look at the prompts, and one for your community, no matter how big that community is. Whether that is just you and your immediate friends, or something wider like a coven or group you regularly talk to your about your practice.

This will be another week with a lot of stuff in the prompts!

Monday - Traditions

First lets define tradition.

noun: tradition

the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.

a long-established custom or belief that has been passed on from one generation to another.

an artistic or literary method or style established by an artist, writer, or movement, and subsequently followed by others.

a doctrine believed to have divine authority though not in the scriptures.

Personal page - Take a look inward at yourself and your traditions, inside and outside of your witchcraft practice. What things do you do regularly, to keep your life and your habits on track? Your practice? How do you celebrate things both large and small? What are the traditions you hold personally in your life?

Family/ Ancestor page - Ask your family about these, beyond the ones you know. What are some of your family traditions? How does your family celebrate certain things, large and small? What meals are traditional to your family? Are there any prayers or actions of any kind that are passed down? Look deep and ask about your family further back than just the ones you've met.

Community page - Look at your community at large. Friend groups, a coven or other people who practice like you or with you, and the community you live in. What are some traditions that are held and passed down through generations within that larger community? Everything from celebrations to regularly held events and so on! How does it all relate to your practice or how has it become a part of it?

Tuesday -Associations/ Symbols

Personal page - What are some things you personally associate with yourself and your craft? Everything from foods, to plants, gems, animals, everything you associate with any part of your identity.

Family/ Ancestor page - What are some things from the list above that you associate with your family and your ancestors?

Community page - Same goes for your community. What associations do you hold for your community? We all feel a certain kind of way, and think about certain things when we think about our hometowns or the area in which we live. An example, I live in Ohio, so not so jokingly, there's a lot of corn here, a lot of farmland. That's something I associate with my community.

Wednesday - Tools

Personal page - What are some of the tools you personally use in your craft? It can be anything at all. An example from my practice is a small tin i keep on my altar, decorated with paint and symbols that I use as a sort of money offering tin. I put money in it regularly when I practice at my altar and use it to buy new things for my altar. Another is a round cylindrical tin I use to hold the small pages I've written my devotional poetry on. Anything that is specific to you and your practice.

Family/ Ancestor page - Same kind of deal as above, but on a broader scale, focused on your family and ancestry. What are some of the tools your family uses (both in and out of the traditions you've learned about). An example is my grandmother's piano. We use it as a focal point for a great many things. We come together at it to sing songs that remind us of our family.

Community page - Again, like the above, but focused on your community. A local fountain, or park, or place, a thing people in your community use for some sort of reason. There is a local park with a fountain that holds an important place in our community.

Thursday - A Little Treat

So for today, we're gonna have a bit of an offshoot. We're gonna get in the kitchen and cook! You don't have to do this one, but there's been a lot of stuff for the prompts this week, so let's treat ourselves while adding to our grimoires! Find some recipes!

Personal page - What's a recipe that you came up with on your own, pertaining to or not pertaining to your practice? If there is a certain food you like to cook before/ after spells or rituals, record it on your personal page. Then, go cook it! And enjoy!

Family/ Ancestor page - Ask your family if you want, and discover the recipe for something that has been passed down in your family. I will forever swear by my grandmother's potato soup recipe. Record it on this page, then make it!

Community page - Is there a local favorite spot? Is there a restaurant or place locally that you could visit and eat at? Or is there some sort of cuisine that is made locally and not really anywhere else? Record it if its something you can cook, and make it! If it is a place to visit, go there! And enjoy!

Friday - Back to the norm

Let's finish off the week with our regular research prompts!

New Page/ Research - Herbal research- Pick another herb from your list and learn all you can about it! Record it on a new page!

New Page/ Research - Gemstone/ other - Pick another gemstone or type of magic or tool, make a page or add the info to an existing page!

Whew! That was a lot! Feel free to share your recipes or pictures of what you cook, either by submissions on this page or by tagging me either here or at @thehazeldruid and I'll share what you've made!

Good luck and happy crafting witches!!

-Mod Hazel

#2024 grimoire challenge #grimoire #grimoire challenge #paganism #witchcraft #witchblr #book of shadows #2024 gc #dark academia #occultism #2024 grimoire challenge march #march week 3 #2024 gc march week 3 #grimoire stuff #grimspiration #grimoire inpsiration #witchy #witchcraft inspo #witchy challenge

[whencyclopedia]

Women in the American Revolution

In Colonial America, women were discouraged from taking an interest in politics and were instead expected to focus only on traditionally 'feminine' matters, such as homemaking and childrearing. However, such gender roles were challenged during the American Revolution (1765-1789), when women played a crucial role in achieving the independence of the United States.

From the very first signs of tension between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain, colonial women discovered their political voice. Women were the driving force behind boycotts of British imports, shunning British tea in favor of local herbal substitutes, and holding spinning bees to reduce dependence on British cloth. Female writers, such as Mercy Otis Warren and Phillis Wheatley, helped turn public opinion against British rule, while hundreds of women accompanied the Continental Army to perform essential duties like washing, nursing, and cooking; some women, like Margaret Corbin, Mary Ludwig Hays, and Deborah Sampson, even took up arms and fought against the British. Although women were not viewed as politically equal to men after the war, their involvement proved to be a vital first step in the long struggle for women's rights in the United States.

Role of Women in Colonial America

In October 1608, the 'second supply' of English settlers arrived at the Jamestown Colony of Virginia to supplement the population of original settlers. Among these new arrivals was Thomas Forrest, a gentleman financier, who was accompanied by his wife, a woman listed in the ship's manifest only as 'Mistress Forrest', and her maid, Anne Burras. Mistress Forrest and Anne Burras were the first two English women to settle in Jamestown; Burras would marry later that year and earn the additional distinction of becoming the first English woman to give birth in Virginia. English women continued to sporadically arrive in Jamestown over the course of the next decade until 1619 when the Virginia Company decided to send large groups of women to foster a self-sustaining population. In 1620, 90 single women, many of them from poor families, arrived in Virginia as the first of the so-called Jamestown brides, or 'tobacco brides'. They were married off to Jamestown's male settlers, each of whom paid the Virginia Company a dowry of 120-150 pounds of tobacco. Additional groups of Jamestown brides continued to arrive in the following years.

Faced with this growing population of women, the colonists of Jamestown implemented a gender hierarchy similar to that which existed in England. This revolved around the doctrine of coverture, which stipulated that once a woman was married, she was under the complete authority of her husband and no longer enjoyed an independent legal status. A married woman, or feme covert, was legally considered to be one with her husband; she could no longer own property or sign contracts, and any money she earned belonged to her husband. Once a woman married, she was usually confined to the role of homemaker, devoting her hours to cleaning, cooking, ironing, sewing, and gardening. Divorce was difficult to obtain and was often only permissible if a pre-existing condition rendered the initial marriage invalid. As a result, many colonial women felt anxiety about marriage, with one woman referring to marriage as a 'dark leap' from the familiarity of her parents' house into an unknown future controlled by a man whose personality she may have misjudged (Norton, 42). Still, married life was more desirable than remaining a single woman – or feme sole – for too long, as spinsters were often placed near the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Of course, the status of colonial women varied from colony to colony, and widely depended on social class. Wealthy women, for instance, were usually better educated than lower-class women, as were women from Puritan New England who were often taught how to read in order to study the Bible. But, by and large, women were expected to remain within the 'feminine sphere' and to display only feminine traits such as modesty, cheerfulness, patience, and chastity. They were discouraged from expressing any interest in subjects that were considered masculine, particularly politics; attempts by colonial women to involve themselves in politics were met with punishment, as was the case with Anne Hutchinson, who was banished from Massachusetts in 1637 after challenging the authority of male religious leaders. But, as historian Mary Beth Norton points out, the advent of the American Revolution lent colonial women a political voice for the first time, helping to spark the slow progression of women's rights in the US.

Continue reading...

#History #AbigailAdams #AmericanRevolution #ColonialAmerica

[saintmachina]

One million dollar question: is it true that the Bible condems homosexuality? I had a discussion with two conservatives who sent me some verses that seem to confirm that but i don't know much about the context although i know this is important too

Let’s start here: why is this the million dollar question? Why does it matter what the Bible has to say about sex, or love, or human relationships? At the end of the day, it’s just a book, right?

Oceans of ink (and blood) have been spilled over not only what the Bible says, but what it does, how it functions. The course of empires, nations, and families have been shaped by the contents of this book, and from a historical and cultural perspective, it holds a lot of weight. But you didn’t ask about the sociological, you asked about the theological, so let’s explore. 

Different Christian traditions vary in their approach to scripture. For example: some Protestant denominations believe that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. In this paradigm, God is the ultimate author of scripture working through human hands, and the resulting text is both without error and in no way deceptive or mistaken. Similarly, The Second Vatican Council decreed that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” When a member of the clergy is ordained into the Episcopal Church they swear that they “do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”

Can you see how many of these points of doctrine overlap yet seek to distinguish themselves from one another? Theologians have spent lifetimes arguing over definitions, and even when they manage to settle on solid teachings, the way that the teaching is interpreted by the clergy and incorporated into the lives of the laity varies WIDELY. As much as systematic theology may try, humans aren’t systematic beings. We’re highly contextual: we only exist in relation to others, to history, to circumstance, and to the divine. We simply cannot call up God to confirm church teaching, and I think a lot of people cling excessively to the Bible as a result of the ache (dare I even say trauma) of being separated from God via space and time in the way we currently are.

God is here, but God is not here. God is within us, God is within the beloved, God is within the sea and sky and land, and yet we cannot grasp God to our bodies in the way we long to. In this earthly lifetime, we are forever enmeshed in God, yet forever distinct, and that is our great joy and our great tragedy.

So barring a direct spiritual experience or the actual second coming, we're left to sort through these things ourselves. And because humans are flawed, our interpretations will always be flawed. Even with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives guiding us.

When engaging with any sort of Biblical debate, it is essential that you have a strong understanding of what the Bible means to you, an an embodied individual living a brief little awful and wonderful life on Earth. Otherwise it's easy to get pushed around by other people’s convincing-sounding arguments and sound bites.

Here’s where I show my hand. As a confirmed Episcopalian I believe that reason, tradition, and scripture form the “three-legged stool” upon which the church stands, interdependent and interrelational to each other, but I’ve also like, lived a life outside of books. I’ve met God in grimy alleyways and frigid ocean waters and in bed with my lovers. So my stool is actually four-legged, because I think it’s essential to incorporate one’s personal experience of God into the mix as well. (I did not invent this: it’s called the Wesleyan quadrilateral, but the official Wesleyan quadrilateral insists that scripture must trump all other legs of the table in the case of a conflict which...*cynical noises*)

Please do not interpret this answer as me doing a hand-wavey "it's all vibes, man, we're all equally right and equally wrong", but I do absolutely think we have a responsibility as creatures to weigh the suffering and/or flourishing of our fellow creatures against teachings handed down through oral tradition, schisms, imperial takeover of faith, and translation and mistranslation. Do I believe the Bible is sacred, supernatural even, and that it contains all things necessary to find one's way to God, if that is the way God chooses to manifest to an individual in a given lifetime? Absolutely. Do I believe it is a priceless work of art and human achievement that captures ancient truths and the hopes of a people (as well as a record of their atrocities) through symbols, stories, and signs? Unto my death, I do.

However, I am wary of making an object of human creation, God-breathed though it may be, into an idol, and trapping God in its pages like God is some sort of exotic bug we can pin down with a sewing needle.

Finally, we have reached the homosexuality debate. One of my favorite sayings of Jesus is Matthew 5: 15-17: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit." In other words: look at what religious teachings have wrought in the world. When I look at homophobic interpretations of the Bible, I see destruction, abuse, suffering, neglect, alienation, spiritual decay, and death. When I look at theology that affirms the holiness of LGBTQ+ relationships, I see joy, laughter, community building, thoughtful care, blooming families, creativity, resilience, and compassion. I see the love of Christ at work in the world. I see the hands of a God who chose under no duress to take up residence in a human body, to drink wine with tax collectors and break bread with sex workers and carry urchin children around on his shoulders. That's my limited little pet interpretation, but hey, that's all any of us really have, at the end of the day.

So, I am absolutely happy to do a play-by-play breakdown of why those passages you were given (we queer Christians often call them "clobber passages" or "texts of terror") don't hold water in a theological, historical, and cultural context. We can talk about Jesus blessing the eunuch and the institution of Greek pederasty and Levitical purity laws and Paul because I've done that reading. I've spent my nights crying in self-hatred and leafing through doctrine books and arguing with my pastors and writing long grad school essays on the subjects. Send me the verses, if you can remember them, and I'll take a look. But it's worth noting that out of the entire Bible, I believe there are only six that explicitly condemn homosexuality AND I'm being generous and including Sodom and Gommorah here, which is a willful and ignorant misreading if I've ever seen one.

In the meantime, I recommend books by people smarter than me! Try Outside The Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith by Mihee Kim-Kort, or Does Jesus Really Love Me by Jeff Chu, or Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke!

And take a breath, dear one. Breathe in God, in the droplets of water in the air and in the wind from the south. Breathe in the gift of life, and know that you are loved, now and unto the end of the age and even beyond then.

#I'm sorry this answer is the length of a Victor Hugo novel but I've been mulling on it for days and it unlocked the theology gremlin #who lives in my brain #theology #christianty #queer christianity #progressive christianity #religionposting #catholicism #episcopalian #lgbtq community

[volterran-wine]

How important are sire bonds? I mean, if one of the romanian decided to turn a human and that human turned out to be one of the Volturi's potential mate, would they hate the newborn automatically or would it depend of whether they were loyal to the romanians?

The example here is a little dramatic but I wonder if being sired by a particular person is something that is seen as relevant no matter who you are as a person, if it makes sense?

Also, I can't find whether or not you have already talked about that but can Sire influence the newborn? I know there are vampire stories where the sire can kinda hypnotise or influence a newborn's actions. Does something similar exists in your worldbuilding?

Thank you for your answers, I'm curious 🧐

• — 𝐀 𝐒𝐢𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

First of all I will answer your last question darling; a Sire does not have the ability to fully control a Newborn. They have free will, but when you awaken to an undead life and only one person seems to care for your wellbeing? That is a potent enough influence in itself. But there is no direct control or hypnotising involved in my personal writing and lore. Now, on to the matter of The Volturi and The Romanians. The truth of dear Anonymous is that it all depends on the scenario presented.

"Vladimir turns a human, abandons them and simply allows them to strife about the world to do as they please."

and

"Vladimir turns a human, raises them within his own coven and develops a strong sire-bond with them over several years. They take on the Romanian doctrine and Vladimir finally and allows them to strife about the world at some point."

Are two very different scenarios for anyone of The Volturi to deal with. Sire bonds will only have a great effect on a Newborn if the sire in fact spent the appropriate time to introduce them into the world of vampires. Vampiric society will regard a vampire and their sire depending on how much of a bond there is. Another example if I may;

"Aro was turned by a vampire named Djehuty, who in fact served Amun very well—Aro killed his sire not long after being turned however, so there are few who connect Aro to Amun."

and

"Demetri was turned by Amun, was raised by him as a newborn and the tracker sees him as somewhat of a father figure despite everything."

Both are connected to Amun, but only Demetri is truly seen as someone who once belonged to Amun's house per say.

#Volturi Questionnaire #Vampire Society #Vampire Anatomy

[rucbarthatbowtiesarecooldw]

September 30, 2023 Saturday Morning Session

How Wondrous and Great

How Firm a Foundation

Conducting: President Eyring

Elder David A Bednar

The Stalwart souls who travelled with the last wagons

They of the last wagon pressed forward

Captain Moroni – if more were like him the devil would never have power Alma 48:17

Walk in the path of your duty and press forward

Samuel the Lamanite: most walk clearly

Quiet members who often go unrecognized with their sustaining influence

Reverence the sanctity and importance of Life in God’s plan

Heavenly Father loves those who minister to children with love and unending kindness

Sister Amy A. Wright 1st Counselor Primary

Parable of the ten virgins Matt 25:1-13

Spiritual preparedness and discipleship

Cancer – “everything is going to be okay

At one point it will be too late to put more oil in your lamps – every drop matters now – but remember that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ we will all be ok.

That is the greatest power on earth

Here is your reminder that the Atonement of Jesus Christ covers so many more things than just repentance or helping with forgiveness – it is also there to help us gather strength when filled with pain or sorrow, help us know that we are not alone even in the darkness of our mental health.

Gather and focus light

God with infinite knowledge, love, and glory

We cannot share our oil but we can share His light

We need more holy and revelatory experiences

He is the reason why there is never an end to our story

Eternal Life is Eternal Joy

Look to Jesus Christ and Live – like the story about the people of moses looking to the snake on a staff

I Feel My Savior’s Love

Elder Robert M. Daines, 70

Face blindness from being shot

How do you suffer from spiritual faceblindness?

Do you see Heavenly Fathers love and mercy, or a thicket of rules and thorns?

Spiritual faceblindness = seeing the rules but not recognizing God’s love

Can you sometimes only lipsync and not sing the song of redeeming love?

Does this activity/lesson help people see Jesus?

Also are we being inclusive in how we are presenting the activity/lesson?

Pray and study to see who He is and what He loves

God is completely devoted to His children in every age and nation

They are not rules to earn His love – He already loves you perfectly!

We worship our Father and not a formula

Covenants are the shape of God’s embrace

Elder Carlos A. Godoy, Presidency of the 70

Got in the wrong taxi

Heavenly Father does not do coincidences.

Omar ended up returning, being baptized and baptizing his wife and children, and then were able to be sealed a year later

Felt it was about time to go back to church for the sake of their children

Anything broken can be mended with Jesus Christ

The decision of one will impact whole generations

Not just from someone choosing to leave – also because of what caused them to leave

We should always be asking where will this lead?

Decisions, impact on self and future generations etc.

Shouldn’t we be more valiant and less lukewarm

High on the Mountain Top

D Todd Christofferson

What is the purpose of this gathering?

Protection of the covenant people

A defense and refuge from the storm

He holds the keys to administer in all authority

Keeping a proper and faithful record

Eternal families by the sealing powe

Baptisms and sealings for the dead

Add strength to your chain

Ian S. Ardern 70

Love your neighbor, refugees?

“lets all talk about Africa” – ahhh Uganda

Give to humanitarian efforts – Partners in Health (Green brothers approved donation website)

Compassion is an attribute of Christ, it demonstrates love to others and knows no boundaries

God will guide you in compassionate acts of discipleship

True compassion is more than merely flinging a coin to a beggar, it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs reconstructuring- MLK

Compassion does not require us to know them, it only requires us to love them.

Faith in Every Footstep

President Dallin H. Oaks

Fullness of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ

Heavenly Father loves all His children so much, that He wants us all to live in a kingdom of glory forever.

In our Fathers house is many mansions

Your divine potential has everything to do with God’s love for you, and nothing to do with which glory you might possibly obtain later in life – this is something to be between you and God

You will be where you are comfortable

Do not just go through the motions and make “deposits”  - less of a checklist

He will force no one into a sealing relationship against his or her own will

TW - Plan of Salvation, Family Proclamation

Come Listen to a Prophets Voice

#genconf #tumblrstake #ldsconf #general conference #church of jesus christ of latter day saints #saturday morning session

[the-busy-ghost]

Alright uninformed rant time. It kind of bugs me that, when studying the Middle Ages, specifically in western Europe, it doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite that you have to take some kind of “Basics of Mediaeval Catholic Doctrine in Everyday Practise” class. 

Obviously you can’t cover everything- we don’t necessarily need to understand the ins and outs of obscure theological arguments (just as your average mediaeval churchgoer probably didn’t need to), or the inner workings of the Great Schism(s), nor how apparently simple theological disputes could be influenced by political and social factors, and of course the Official Line From The Vatican has changed over the centuries (which is why I’ve seen even modern Catholics getting mixed up about something that happened eight centuries ago). And naturally there are going to be misconceptions no matter how much you try to clarify things for people, and regional/class/temporal variations on how people’s actual everyday beliefs were influenced by the church’s rules. 

But it would help if historians studying the Middle Ages, especially western Christendom, were all given a broadly similar training in a) what the official doctrine was at various points on certain important issues and b) how this might translate to what the average layman believed. Because it feels like you’re supposed to pick that up as you go along and even where there are books on the subject they’re not always entirely reliable either (for example, people citing books about how things worked specifically in England to apply to the whole of Europe) and you can’t ask a book a question if you’re confused about any particular point. 

I mean I don’t expect to be spoonfed but somehow I don’t think that I’m supposed to accumulate a half-assed religious education from, say, a 15th century nobleman who was probably more interested in translating chivalric romances and rebelling against the Crown than religion; an angry 16th century Protestant; a 12th century nun from some forgotten valley in the Alps; some footnotes spread out over half a dozen modern political histories of Scotland; and an episode of ‘In Our Time’ from 2009. 

But equally if you’re not a specialist in church history or theology, I’m not sure that it’s necessary to probe the murky depths of every minor theological point ever, and once you’ve started where does it end? 

Anyway this entirely uninformed rant brought to you by my encounter with a sixteenth century bishop who was supposedly writing a completely orthodox book to re-evangelise his flock and tempt them away from Protestantism, but who described the baptismal rite in a way that sounds decidedly sketchy, if not heretical. And rather than being able to engage with the text properly and get what I needed from it, I was instead left sitting there like:

And frankly I didn’t have the time to go down the rabbit hole that would inevitably open up if I tried to find out

#This is a problem which is magnified in Britain I think as we also have to deal with the Hangover from Protestantism #As seen even in some folk who were raised Catholic but still imbibed certain ideas about the Middle Ages from culturally Protestant schools #And it isn't helped when we're hit with all these popular history tv documentaries #If I have to see one more person whose speciality is writing sensational paperbacks about Henry VIII's court #Being asked to explain for the British public What The Pope Thought I shall scream #Which is not even getting into some of England's super special common law get out clauses #Though having recently listened to some stuff in French I'm beginning to think misconceptions are not limited to Great Britain #Anyway I did take some realy interesting classes at uni on things like marriage and religious orders and so on #But it was definitely patchy and I definitely do not have a good handle on how it all basically hung together #As evidenced by the fact that I've probably made a tonne of mistakes in this post #Books aren't entirely helpful though because you can't ask them questions and sometimes the author is just plain wrong #I mean I will take book recommendations but they are not entirely helpful; and we also haven't all read the same stuff #So one person's idea of what the basics of being baptised involved are going to radically differ from another's based on what they read #Which if you are primarily a political historian interested in the Hundred Years' War doesn't seem important eonugh to quibble over #But it would help if everyone was given some kind of similar introductory training and then they could probe further if needed/wanted #So that one historian's elementary mistake about baptism doesn't affect generations of specialists in the Hundred Years' War #Because they have enough basic knowledge to know that they can just discount that tiny irrelevant bit #This is why seminars are important folks you get to ASK QUESTIONS AND FIGURE OUT BITS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND #And as I say there is a bit of a habit in this country of producing books about say religion in mediaeval England #And then you're expected to work out for yourself which bits you can extrapolate and assume were true outwith England #Or France or Scotland or wherever it may be though the English and the French are particularly bad for assuming #that whatever was true for them was obviously true for everyone else so why should they specify that they're only talking about France #Alright rant over #Beginning to come to the conclusion that nobody knows how Christianity works but would like certain historians to stop pretending they do #Edit: I sort of made up the examples of the historical people who gave me my religious education above #But I'm now enamoured with the idea of who actually did give me my weird ideas about mediaeval Catholicism #Who were my historical godparents so to speak #Do I have an idea of mediaeval religion that was jointly shaped by some professor from the 1970s and a 6th century saint? #Does Cardinal Campeggio know he's responsible for some much later human being's catechism? #Fake examples again but I'm going to be thinking about that today

[fitchersvogel]

Christmas Was Not "Stolen" From Pagans.

Seasons Greasons! As your friendly neighbourhood folklorist, I wanted to address some popular NeoPagan memes that spring up around holidays like Christmas. The history of the festival is complex, and there are definitely pre-Christian aspects that made their way into celebrations, but the language of “theft” is not accurate.

Basically:

FIRST: if you want to talk about Christians actively stealing religious beliefs and practices, their primary victim has always been Judaism. The entirety of the Christian religion is founded upon an appropriation and twisting of Jewish religion; please look up the doctrine of “supersessionism.” The ultimate goal was, of course, destruction of Judaism, but only after it had been extensively strip-mined.

Paganism, on the other hand, was to be straight-up destroyed. Strip-mining, when it happened, was more a matter of convenience than theological imperative.

Some pagan practices did stick around, for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes these pagan holdovers were a form of resistance. Sometimes converts just added Jesus to what they’d always done, with no worries. Sometimes Christian authorities deliberately adopted pagan practices to make coerced conversion more palatable.  Sometimes Christian authorities didn’t consider whatever was happening important enough to fuss about. And so on.

Many European pagan cultures—but not all—had festivals set at or around the winter solstice. The most important ones for our purposes are the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic/Norse Yule. (Ronald Hutton argues that the Roman New Year/Kalends (Jan 1) was also a factor, but since so many of the customs were basically identical to Saturnalia, I’m more inclined to see them as extensions of those festivities.)

In early Christianity, the single most important festival, by a long shot, was Easter. Christ’s Nativity, when they bothered with it at all, was very [shrug emoji].

The textual evidence of the Gospels, insofar as they can be relied on, suggests a spring birthday—that’s when shepherds would have been out watching their flocks by night, for example.

The Roman date of the feast of the Nativity was fixed at December 25 in the mid-4th century; it absolutely was placed there to take advantage of the existing holiday of Saturnalia, as well as the feasts of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus) and (possibly) Mithras’s birthday. Jesus had to be born sometime, and this was as good a choice as any.

Christians could also spot a good seasonal metaphor—the saviour is born at the darkest time of the year, and the light grows in power every day thereafter.

While Gregory the Great (601, Epistola ad Mellitum) is the most famous advocate for appropriating existing religious sites and festivals and plastering Jesus over them, the practice had been happening for a while already.

Because the authorities cared so little about policing the festival, tons of earlier celebratory traditions and symbolism just… carried over. Gift-giving, centrality of family/household, carnival atmosphere, Lords of Misrule, feasting (especially on boars), Yule logs/fire symbolism, evergreens as decoration… all of these customs are holdovers from either Saturnalia or Yule.

What didn’t carry over is the specifically religious elements: Saturnalia was a feast for Saturn, celebrating a lost golden age of peace and plenty. Yule was (probably) linked to some form of ancestor veneration and/or a feast for the dead.

You can make a slightly better case for theological influences from Sol Invictus or Mithras’s birthday; Christianity certainly appreciated the symbolic value of linking their god to the rebirth of the sun. But Sol Invictus is a relative latecomer on the Roman festival scene, and there is considerable dispute about December 25 as Mithras’s natal festival.

Once Christianity had successfully colonized and suppressed the majority of pagan religious practice, the most fanatical started getting upset about Christmas customs, because they now had more time to play orthodoxy police instead of, you know, murdering people and passing laws to compel conversion.

From, like, the 600s on, there is always some churchman bitching about the decadence, drunkenness, and extravagance of Christmas celebrations. Lots of them argued that it wasn’t a properly Christian festival at all.

The high point of anti-Christmas whining came during the Protestant reformation, when many hardliners forbade the festival altogether, citing a) lack of Biblical support, b) holdovers from paganism, and c) riotous behaviour from the ~lower orders~. Christmas was banned in Puritan New England for exactly this reason.

Modern “War on Christmas” narratives that insist that Christmas is, and always has been, a 100% Jesus holiday are pretty laughable: it was never all that theologically important, and their own co-religionists kept trying to ban it for most of the festival’s history.

To sum up: Christmas was not “stolen,” per se. Jesus’s birth is described in the Gospels, so there needed to be some kind of festival. December 25 was as good a time as any, because there were existing festival infrastructures, and the symbolism of the solstice is useful. Because it was such a minor festival, a fair amount of the less-overtly-religious folk elements from Saturnalia and Yule celebrations just kept going, and nobody in the early days cared enough to police that. Once Christianity had crushed active pagan resistance, then some theologians found time to bitch about how un-Christian the festival was, because of the arbitrary date and the continuance of earlier customs. This sense of “Christmas isn’t properly Christian” has been flaring up periodically ever since, particularly among fundamentalist Protestant groups; it’s also proven useful to modern Pagans who enjoy the customary trappings of Christmas, which is fine—I’m one of them!

But the language of “theft” isn’t useful here: advantage was taken of existing practices, but in a more hands-off way than Christians usually behaved—which is the reason so many of those pre-existing practices survived! If you want to talk about theft from pagans, you’re on much firmer ground when talking about things like the destruction of pagan sanctuaries to build churches. But remember: Jews are the primary victims of Christian religious appropriation, not pagans!

If you want some academic sources, Ronald Hutton's Stations of the Sun is the most useful and accessible. There's also The Battle for Christmas, by Stephen Nissenbaum, for an in-depth look specifically at American practices.

#folklore #yule #paganism #have i mentioned i hate christianity today

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

Devotional Hours Within the Bible

by James Russell Miller

The Two Great Commandments (Mark 12:28-34, Mark 12:38-44)

This scribe admired the way Jesus had answered the questions that were put to Him by His enemies. Jesus always answered well. He never got confused in His replies, as often human teachers do. He never erred in His answers to men’s questions, for He knew all truth. We know only fragments of the great body of truth, and therefore frequently find ourselves entangled when we attempt to explain difficult matters or to answer questions that are put to us. But Jesus knew truth in all its relations, and those who sought to catch Him in His words could never lead Him into any inconsistency of statement.

The practical lessons from this are important. One is that Christianity has nothing to fear from enemies who try to make its teachings appear self-contradictory. Amid all the assaults of skepticism, Christianity stands ever unharmed and secure. Their hammers are shattered and worn out but the anvil of truth is unbroken. The other lesson is that we may take to Christ all our own questions, our fears, our doubts, our ignorance, our perplexity, and He will always have for us a wise and satisfactory answer.

It is the fashion in these days, in some quarters, to decry creeds. ”Little matter what we believe ,” says one, “if only we live right.” But if we do not believe right we will not be likely to live right. The duty of loving God is based upon the truth that there is only one God to be loved. If there were more gods than one, there would be little use in teaching us to love God with all our heart. “Which God?” we might ask. So the doctrine of one God is a most practical one. There is only one God, and this one God is our Lord. What a comfort it is for us to know that the God in whom we trust is the great God of the universe!

He is our God. The little word “our” links Him to us and us to Him in closest relations. If He is our God we are under obligations to obey Him, to do His will. We belong to Him. Then, if He is our God, He belongs to us, and we have a claim on Him. “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance” (Psalms 16:5). Every child of a good father knows with what pride he points to his parent and says, “That is my father!” Still greater comfort to a believer is that he is able to point to God and say, “He is my God!” All He is, is ours His love, His grace, His goodness, His truth, His mercy.

If God is our God we should love Him. He is the God to whom we owe everything, from whom we came, to whom we go with our needs, who cares for us, watches over us, provides for us, and keeps us. He is our Father with all a father’s love! We ought to love God for Himself, for what He is in His character merciful, gracious, holy, loving, good. We ought to love Him, too, for what He has done for us. Surely the commandment is reasonable .

Notice that it is LOVE which God asks. Obedience is not enough. One might obey every divine command, and not have love for Him whom he obeys. Homage is not enough. We might pay homage to God, and yet have no affection for Him. God must have our love. Nor will a little love do. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart .” Our love for God must be greater than our love for father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, child, or friend. It must fill not our heart only but our soul, our mind, and our strength. That is, it must draw all the powers of our life with it. It must lead us to obedience, to service, to complete consecration. If we love God supremely, He must be the Master of our life. We must be ever ready for whatever duty or service He asks of us.

Some people’s religion seems compulsory ; they do right because they must not because they want to do so. All their work has the character of unwilling service. God says, “I want you to love Me!” And if we truly love Him, we will fly at His bidding to duty or to sacrifice with eager alacrity. “But how can I learn to love God?” asks someone. “I want to love Him but I cannot compel myself to do it. I love my father, my mother, my sister; but I cannot see God, and He seems great and awesome when I think about Him. He does not appeal to my heart as my mother does. I feel awe toward Him but not affection .

It is important to know how we can learn to love God. The incarnation was God coming down near to us, that we might love Him. The glory of Sinai did not make its appeal to men’s hearts. But when Jesus went among the people, touching them with His compassion, being their friend, comforting their sorrows it was not hard for them to love Him. We must get to know God if we would learn to love Him. We should read about Him in the Bible until we know His character, His feelings toward us, what He has done for us, especially in redeeming us. Another way to learn to love God is to begin to trust Him. “How shall I learn to love God?” asked one. “Trust Him,” was the answer. “I thought I must love Him before I could trust Him.” “No begin to trust Him and you will soon learn to love Him.”

No other duty comes before this duty of love to God. “This is the first commandment.” Until we begin to love God, no other obedience is pleasing to Him. We may do a great many things we ought to do and yet if we do not love Him all of our doings amounts to nothing. A child may obey all a father’s bidding but if there is no love in his heart, what does the father care for the obedience? A man may be very good so far as his acts are concerned but if he does not love God, all his good acts count for nothing. When Jesus tested the young ruler’s love by asking him to give up all he had for His sake, the young man went away sad. He had kept all the commandments from his youth but he did not love God; at least he loved his possessions more, and gave God up while he clung to his property.

Love to our fellow men is a very important duty but it avails nothing unless love to God is behind it and in it. Two comes after one. The second commandment can come only after the first. A good many people boast of their love for men, their humanitarianism. They take the Good Samaritan as their model. They are humane, charitable, and philanthropic. But this is the whole of their religion. They do no love God, nor worship Him, nor recognize Him in any way. They put the second commandment high up but they have no first. They do not know God, do not recognize Him, and do not love Him. The things they do are very beautiful, and if they first loved God and lived all their life inspired by love for Him, their charities and humanities would be pleasing to Him, and not the smallest of them would go unrewarded. But since they do not love God there can be nothing pleasing to Him, in their love for their neighbors.

The second comes after the first. After we have begun to obey the first commandment, the second presents itself and must also be obeyed. He who loves God will also love his neighbor. The two loves are linked together, and are inseparable. John says distinctly that he who claims to love God while he hates his brother is a liar (1 John 4:20). The love of God that does not overflow in love for our brother is not true Christian love.

Jesus was pleased with the scribe’s insight. He said to him, “you are not far from the kingdom of God.” If he would only do the truth he knew he would enter into the kingdom; he was yet outside, although so near. There are a great many people who are almost but not quite, Christians. There are those who know the way of salvation but do not with their hearts accept Christ. There are those whose character is good and beautiful. They do many of Christ’s sayings. They try to keep the second commandment, and seek to be gentle, kind, loving in temper, disposition, and act. They lack only one thing but that one thing is vital. They are not far from the kingdom of God.

Then there are those who are under conviction of sin and have a deep sense of spiritual need. They become honest inquirers, like the scribe, asking what they must do. They hear the answer of Christ and still stand hesitating, indecisive, on the point of submitting yet not yielding to Him. They are not far from the kingdom of God, and yet they are not in it. At the door, with the hand on the latch is still outside, and outside is lost! There are thousands now in eternal perdition who have been almost Christians, and yet have perished forever!

Jesus then turned to the people and said some plain things to them about the scribes. “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely!”

The scribes were the official interpreters of the Scriptures. It was their duty to make plain to the people, the Word and will of God. But Jesus said they were not trustworthy leaders. They professed to be guides to the people but they were not safe guides. They were fond of wearing the garb and having the honor of saintly men. They like to have people greet them as holy men ; they took the chief seats in the synagogue and at feasts; but in their private lives they were bad men. Instead of being the defenders of widows, they used on themselves, the widow’s money which was entrusted to them. Then, to balance their embezzlement; they would make longer prayers than ever in the streets. They were the most despicable hypocrites !

The beautiful story of one of these widows and her suffering, shows who were the really godly people in those days not the scribes and Pharisees, who put on the saintly airs which covered lives of shameful baseness, hardness, and evil but the poor, who were despised and robbed. This poor widow had higher honor before God than any of the rulers. Her gifts, though too small to be counted, weighed far more in God’s sight than all the great shining coins they cast into the treasury.

[ferusaurelius]

Spectre Evaluations Quartet

Ya’ll I can’t tell you how glad I am to have finished what started out as a silly one-shot and then decided to transform into a four-part series of developing-relationship ... Kryterius romantic comedy.

AO3 Links:

This will have no bearing on your evaluation.

Above center of mass in all respects.

Preserving joint environment lethality and ingenuity.

Adapt doctrine to circumstance.

... I’ve got a few fun background trivia points to expand on below the cut for anyone who is a fan of the pairing and this overall framework. ;)

Time for some fun character trivia that is alluded to in the stories, but that didn’t quite fit into the fics themselves:

1. This will have no bearing on your evaluation.

Nihlus in this AU is loosely based on the turian mercenary backstory I wrote for him in ‘The husbandry of victory is blood’, though only in the most raw outline. There are a few significant differences that will be apparent to anyone who has read both. It was important to me that Nihlus be both proud of his cultural differences and that Saren eventually take a great deal of care in acknowledging that pride.

I did not INTEND to write the whole quartet in such an experimental flavor of point of view! At least not at first. I tried to write the opening story in Chora’s Den with a more serious tone which just kept failing, no matter how I revised and poked and prodded. At some point, I just got the idea of Nihlus’s characteristic voice and reluctantly leaned into the absolutely ridiculous things it was telling me about what it was like to be a drunk ST&R candidate.

The most shocking moment in writing ‘This will have no bearing on your evaluation.’ (which was always its title!) occurred when wrapping up the ending scenes and realizing that Saren and Nihlus were respectively having two different conversations:

Saren: Realizing that Nihlus was making a genuine attempt to chat him up, since he hadn’t actually known that he was going to be chosen as a Spectre trainee. Saren has no idea what to do about a mentee who is personally interested in him, except put an immediate stop to all those questions so that he can focus on the job at hand. Beyond flustered by the implications, but also doesn’t want to admit to having anything remotely like an emotion, himself.

Nihlus: Confessing his many sins, still (unfortunately) realizing that Saren is actually his type for real and now they’re going to be working together. AWKWARD.

I wanted Nihlus to tell Saren the truth here even though it was going to make him look totally stupid!

The last scene is all about this dynamic and is intended to be the bedrock of their -- unique -- developing relationship:

Saren goes from interested, to blank-faced, to entirely still. Except that now his voice is flat, and his stare looks like it could melt a bulkhead.

“I will say this once,” Saren grates. “I expect you to keep the next two years professional. Your life and mine depend on whether or not you can maintain total focus on what I’m trying to teach you. Are we clear?”

Fuck, he’s hot.

“Aye, sir,” Nihlus answers, as automatic as if he were a fresh Ensign.

Saren accepts this answer, grudging. “While I am disappointed you did not acquire the selection results in advance of the announcement, I can appreciate the sheer audacity of your approach.”

What I intended to do here was illustrate on the one hand that Saren is absolutely laying down some ground rules for training, that Nihlus is still very much attracted to Saren (oops) and still capable of accepting those stated professional boundaries, and that Saren can respect Nihlus’s honesty and is offering a bit of concession or personal disclosure in return.

Even as the author, I didn’t expect Saren to admit that Nihlus had surprised or impressed him in any way. In retrospect (and after having written Saren as the background character in this series), I can see that Saren as a Spectre is used to nothing but lies and obfuscation and has no idea what to make of someone who is willing to confess to the truth of a situation so ridiculous that it beggars belief.

Nihlus doesn’t realize it yet, but Saren finds honesty to be a rare and valuable resource in his line of work. While Nihlus has a habit of constant internal narrative exaggeration, he’s also honest to a fault, especially with people he respects.

2. Above center of mass in all respects.

I wasn’t sure how much time I wanted to let pass between the first fic and this one, or where in the developing relationship I wanted to focus. However! I knew I wanted to stick to my absolutely rancid military jargon titles, and that I wanted to focus in some sense on the ‘evaluation’ implied by the previous story. What situation would create an opportunity for Nihlus to begin to realize that he’d earned Saren’s professional trust faster than anyone else in history?

Enter: the embassy hacking plotline, about six months into Nihlus’s training, after I thought Saren and Nihlus would have had time to get to know each other through regular assignments in the Skyllian Verge. I wanted to imply that they were busy enough outside the confines of the Citadel for something really dumb and standard to get overlooked (Nihlus’s security credentials). 

At this point I also decided that I wanted Alleia (still no surname, hah!) to become a recurring character, and that she needed to be a Blackwatch technical expert stationed on the Citadel. I generally imply that Saren’s usual area of operations is in the Skyllian Verge, so I wanted to set up a situation that would prompt him to return to the Citadel to “take care of things personally.”

It’s implied that a suspected ‘rogue’ salarian Special Tactics Group agent is framing the batarian Special Intervention Unit for a hacking incident at the turian embassy on the Citadel. While I don’t cover this in the story, Saren knows for a fact that he’s well-respected enough that such a plot is unlikely to have been conducted by any of the special operations units he’s already cowed into submission. He suspects independent sabotage conducted by a group he’d already been watching in Zakera Ward, so he sends Nihlus to talk to Alleia while he does his own investigating.

Offscreen, Saren seizes a too-good-to-be-true ambush opportunity to catch the suspect and gets himself blown up in the process. Normal. His calculation is that, if he does end up seriously injured and/or overestimates his ability to shield, Nihlus will be inbound fast enough to handle the rest of the situation -- and it’ll be one less threat to galactic stability, since there will no longer be any questions about infighting between STG and SIU. Which he considers a waste of time and resources when he could be handling real problems.

It’s a MUCH bigger explosion and trap than Saren anticipated (who knew?), but he still walks away thanks to his crazy!strong biotic abilities.

What Saren didn’t anticipate is that Nihlus knows him well enough to intuit every step in his decision-making process and is also FURIOUS about it! 

Nihlus incorrectly interprets the situation as Saren not waiting for backup on a whim, at least until Saren matter-of-factly states that he chose to take the risk only because he had Nihlus inbound as backup:

Nihlus has had enough.

“What, precisely, was the point of calling for backup if you were going to break down the front door. Alone! And then walk into a trap before we arrived?”

He can’t help the fury in his voice. He wants to snarl, too, but lets six years of Hierarchy discipline confine him to glaring full in Saren’s face, instead.

Alleia says nothing in the silence.

“It was a calculated risk,” Saren answers evenly, meeting him stare for stare. “I knew you weren’t far behind.”

This is the first time Saren has expressed that level of trust to Nihlus in so many words! 

Right after this, I got to further reinforce Saren’s level of respect for Nihlus’s abilities and judgment by actually bringing in that first performance evaluation. ;) I had a lot of fun letting Nihlus realize that Saren’s seemingly arbitrary expectations for his assistance were ... very likely ... grounded in a more nuanced view of his abilities than he expected. 

Nihlus is still confused and exasperated, but he’s also never gotten a performance review that unambiguously positive in his career -- much less from someone who appears to be the galaxy’s least enthusiastic mentor. Nihlus was prepared to be reprimanded for yelling at Saren, even if he was right about the risks and there being better alternative plans, but he was totally unprepared for positive feedback. XD

The theme/purpose of this chapter is establishing that Saren and Nihlus both exist with a professional rapport that (until now) they have been building together without openly acknowledging.

I had a great time allowing Nihlus to be beyond frustrated with Saren’s (apparent) neglect in the opening scenes, then frantic and worried at getting a request for backup, then furious about Saren’s decision to walk into a trap, and then finally deflated in the face of Saren’s regard.

Hard for Nihlus to stay mad about Saren relying on him for backup, after all! LOL.

3. Preserving joint environment lethality and ingenuity.

These events take place 18 months into Nihlus’s training, approximately a year after the previous fic’s embassy incident.

You can thank my research for my First Contact War AU fic for the whole opening scene with Nihlus as a marksman and armorer -- it decided to wake up and choose violence! Nihlus as a competitive shooter is a bit of a change from my other mercenary background handcanon thoughts, but it fit this AU setting really well and gave me an excuse to elaborate a bit on where Nihlus might have more expertise than Saren.

Alternative options to embarrass Nihlus I’d originally considered instead of Armax Arsenal Arena: damaged power armor and the undressing trope (but with an undersuit, and having to pretend he’s not attracted to the person he’s helping ... lol); something more mission-fic oriented with Alleia and Thanas as deputies/on loan from their regular units; Nihlus doing something a bit ridiculous and a bit brave and then having Saren get him out of trouble.

I’m really glad I went with the Arena plot in the end! Sparring-as-flirting is a favorite trope of mine, and this setup delivered on all counts. I got to turn it into a roundabout double-date thanks to Alleia and Thanas, with Nihlus snarking about Saren’s problems with pistol technique (see, Nihlus cares!) and then ... getting to write Nihlus doing a surprise trust fall with Saren! And Saren catching him!

They’re both surprised about this, by the way:

A barrel presses up beneath his jaw, and all at once he’s not alone.

“Surrender,” Saren says.

At point-blank, getting shot is gonna sting. He only has one chance to escape.

“Never,” he growls, going deadweight and fully expecting to hit the deck. In a real fight? Nope, not happening. But hitting a target on his back from prone isn't the craziest thing he's ever done.

Which is not what happens. A flare of dark energy catches him in the back, and then recedes until it’s just Saren’s hands between him and a hard landing on the floor.

“Really, Nihlus?” Saren asks, somewhere between amused and exasperated, still out of breath from the snap biotics.

Fuck, he may have miscalculated. Nihlus is warm from his neck to his toes. He’d give anything to see Saren’s face, but he doesn’t dare look.

This was so FUN to write! I didn’t even start knowing how or what was going to happen in this scenario, but the minute the whole ‘Saren catches Nihlus’ idea occurred to me, I knew it was the right direction to take.

Nihlus is expecting Saren’s reflex here to be totally different! He’s expecting to be shot, not caught! Everything happens so fast that there’s no hiding from either of them: Nihlus is personally invested enough to do free armory work for Saren on his off-time, and Saren’s actual instinct here is to keep Nihlus from falling.

Honestly, this was also my first real opportunity to hint that Saren is not as indifferent to Nihlus as he might have been at first. Wherever they started in relation to each other, I wanted to hint that the relationship dynamic and grown and changed in the intervening months even though both of them would still be reluctant to try to define or put any labels on each other.

Joke’s on Saren, too -- he thought he wanted things to stay professional, turns out he actually does kinda like Nihlus personally, as well. Oops! Didn’t see that one coming. ;)

While it’s not explicitly stated, Saren doesn’t have the consistent manual dexterity required to be an accurate shot without additional stabilizer mods or other aids. He prefers to rely on his biotics to do damage instead, though he still carries other armaments as options.

It wasn’t easy to keep this one true to the funny/snarky formula of the others while figuring out how to set up the emotional revelation in the end, but with tweaking it eventually fell into place.

4. Adapt doctrine to circumstance.

This was an absolute bear to write. While I knew that I wanted to at least give Alleia some screentime, and I suspected that was going to be at a promotion ceremony that turned into a larger event than Nihlus anticipated -- the intermediate transitions remained a challenge.

While my FCW AU fic has Saren as a Blackwatch recruit, for this scenario I chose to stick with a biotic Cabal background. 

I knew I also wanted Nihlus to not expect Saren to commit to attending whatever ceremonies were taking place -- so that he could be pleasantly surprised. ;)

The formality of this occasion also let me take a little creative license with what a dress Cabal uniform might look like, as well as setting up Saren’s complex (implied) relationship with his military honors and infamy. I was NOT expecting any of that background to make it into the story, and there’s plenty that is still missing.

For instance: this is the first time Saren’s worn his Star of Palaven in public, too! He received it shortly before he rejected Anderson for Spectre candidacy in this timeline (the paperwork took a little more than seven years), but also not long before he met Nihlus, and there was no graceful way to get used to the protocols since he was already a Spectre when he was officially decorated.

Nihlus has no idea that Saren has already made a number of complicated choices in attending Fleet promotion ceremonies, while also arranging for Nihlus’s surprise promotion ... in a way that all of his Navy peers will respect:

“Not even a whisper of a warning,” she sighs. “If I’d known, I’d have been ready to take vids. Then I could show you what your face looked like when he decided you merited a rank-pinning honor that dates back to before the Unification, delivered by a Recipient of the Star of Palaven.”

Nihlus puts his head in his hands. “Don’t remind me.”

Saren pinning Nihlus with his own rank insignia is one of the few Navy gestures that still has all the old meanings. In front of a Fleet audience? Not a single turian will have missed the significance of that trust being given to someone merc-born.

If he thinks about it too long it still makes him dizzy.

“It was also romantic, if you believe in that sort of thing,” Alleia teases.

He wishes he didn’t.

Again, I had SO MUCH FUN with figuring out how else Saren might potentially choose to make Nihlus’s promotion an occasion.

I’d read somewhere that military officers who were being promoted themselves occasionally gave their old rank insignia to the officers who were coming up behind them, to fill their old position, as a mark of esteem -- and I chose to alter that symbolism a bit for the Hierarchy Navy. 

While I only hint at this in the text: Saren pinning Nihlus with his rank insignia is one of those culturally Hierachy Navy touchstones that mixes the professional and the personal, and it’s also a gesture that, by its nature and by tradition, can only be done once in a career.

Alleia is correct that there are also romantic epics that feature this traditional gesture as a trope! XD

Finally, I knew from the very start that, since Saren was the one to draw the boundaries, he’d also have to be the one to instigate a discussion or an adjustment in the limits he’d set between him and Nihlus.

I considered a number of other scenarios where Saren left a note afterward, or put off that conversation, or did something else other than what happened here: immediately stating his intentions.

It was also hugely fun to work out how Saren might plausibly arrange to make Nihlus’s Spectre promotion as “by-the-book” Navy respectful as possible. I think you’ll agree that he outdid himself. ;)

-

PHEW. Now that I’m finished with the series, I’m also open to other asks. Either about this AU, different background details, turian headcanons, or other curiosities.

If you’re reading this: I have a tentative plan for a longer fanfic featuring these two characters, though with a more traditional POV structure. I’m not a terribly fast writer, so that’s about as much as I can say at this point...

#mass effect fanfiction #kryterius #my writing #meta #bar!fic link masterpost #ferus chats #I'm open to asks about this variant of these characters #just decided to noodle around a bit with some reflections #now that I've finally put the quartet to bed #saren arterius #nihlus kryik #i should not be allowed anywhere near ao3 #for obvious reasons #im laughing #i have so many wips at this point

[emilykaldwen]

@alexandria-millie sent three asks for this so I'm putting them all into one!

I've seen a theory that Jaehaerys' murder was planned to cause suffering and discord among the Greens. Play Aegon against Aemond. If Healena had been furious instead of sinking into depression, the dance would have had a different ending. Daemon's marriage to Rhaenyra was a huge political mistake on Rhaenyra's part. Daemon can't be controlled, it was a matter of time before he did something horrible and unlike Viserys it wouldn't be easy for Rhaenyra to punish him.

 Why you gotta bring me into the lion's den lmao. Okay. I'm gonna try tread respectfully and carefully here because these are all really nuanced, especially your final question: re daemyra (and I'm not their hype girl so take with that what you will).

Before I dive into everything else, I think what it has to come down to is how you view the Targaryens. They are a MESS. Capitals. Are they a fun problematic dynasty with dragons and incest and chaos? Yes, that's why we like playing with them, but they have been shown time and again to not be oh so great for the realm. They truly, genuinely believe they are above the common man (See: Doctrine of Exceptionalism), and as George has said: Dragons don't grow trees. The nobility as a whole for Westeros is a bad thing, Fuedelism ain't great! So it's really important to remember when it comes to talking about Targaryens is that you absolutely have that Valyrian Supremacy at play and while some may be better than others, you are supposed to be in the twilight of the Golden Age of Dragonriders, so remember that.

And if GRRM comes out and confirms: Yes, Daemon ordered B&C and all that, yes that's how I intended it, then there we go, word of god and all that.

1. Jaehaerys' murder motivation

I disagree. I can see why one would think it would sow discord, but truthfully I think that's a wobbly outcome to bank on because child murder does nothing but hurt Team Black. When I first read F&B and this situation, oh yeah 100% anti-Daemon cause that motherfucker killed babies! what the fuck! and while I'm still not Daemon's biggest fangirl, further reading of the situation and the story really highlights that Jaehaerys' murder was a fucking tragedy that shouldn't have happened, but there's no way anyone would believe Daemon Targaryen for being like 'yeah no I didn't order for Jae to be killed'. Because Daemon's spent his time not really fighting the sort of rumors and allegations thrown at him. He's just living it up in the myth people want to create of him. Make me your villain, I'm just doing my thing. Jaehaerys' murder gains sympathy for the Greens, it martyrs him in a way that Luke isn't. Luke was an emissary to a potential ally and was killed and it's tragic and sad. We sympathize for the loss of Rhaenyra's children.

Aemond's a 16/17/18 whatever year old riding a war machine with no experience in that way. It shows how utterly unprepared all these children fucking are for this.

Killing Jaehaerys only further villifies Daemon and now spreads that to Rhaenyra. It doesn't hold water, because it only really hurts Rhaenyra in the end.

[cavaet: This is the kind of set up thing where I could see 'well let's kill his son!' and then realizing 'shit no bad idea, okay lets kill aegon and/or aemond', but hey! for all I fucking know, George really was like 'yeah no they lost their shit and did something incredibly stupid because this whole book is filled with dumb shit that doesn't make sense like why is no one patrolling the gullet for enemy ships???]

2. Helaena's Grief and Rage

Sooooo seeing your child fucking decapitated in front of you after being forced to choose? Is gonna fuck you up. Her immobilizing grief makes sense to me. However if she had become a dragonrider in battle, yeah, that would change things. Dreamfyre is older than Vermithor, and Helaena's bond with her dragon is stronger than Hugh's with Vermithor IMO. The Blacks have Daemon and Rhaenys both experienced in battle on dragonback, but not with other dragons and Vermithor is being ridden by a dude who just learned how to ride a dragon. Dreamfyre puts the playing field strongly in Team Green favor from a battle standpoint, which is why she's taken out early.

3. Daemon and Rhaenyra

(no one @ me please)

the tina belcher sounds I just made. Okay, where do I start. Going up to my whole preamble about Targaryen Supremacy: No Targaryen marriage is politically advantageous. Their practice of dynastic incest continues to separate them from the realm that they rule because that's what they want. They are above men, they are closer to gods, and they don't want to dilute their blood (if you buy into the blood magic needed for dragon riding). Marrying out of the family would let other houses hold potential claim to dragons. We see this in Rhaenys Targaryen whose half Baratheon being able to claim a dragon.

The smartest marriage to happen at this point in time for the Targaryens was Viserys' marriage to Alicent Hightower. The Hightowers are tied with the Maesters (something something maester conspiracy), they are one of the most powerful families in the realm. THAT is a politically advantageous marriage (and a reason why they were not made Lords Paramount of the Reach). But politically advantageous or not, Viserys treatment of Alicent and her children further fractures the dynasty. His half-hightower children are not pureblooded Targaryen children (or even Aemma's children, which is a whole other can of worms), and I could very well see that as a reason why Viserys didn't name Aegon as heir (because he sure as shit held that threat over Rhaenyra's head in her youth because let's not forget he was a shitty dad to her too in different ways). Daemon, politically, doesn't help Rhaenyra's cause. Marrying her to Jason Lannister would have been a smart move. Laenor Velaryon still was a smart move. FUCK EVEN HARWIN WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD MOVE!

So you can look at the Daemyra marriage in three ways: For love, for dragon, or both.

Daemon's unpredictable, and he pokes buttons, and he takes things too far (re: the gold cloaks for example). He's also very loyal: in the books, he's loyal and in love with Laena, he loves his children, and he's been in love with Rhaenyra as well for years (and probably having threesomes I guess? they were all way closer in the book than in the show) these two sides of a person are allowed to coexist if we allow the same for characters like Aegon and Aemond. And we are led to believe that him and Rhaenyra did in fact love each other. I mean, me personally, I'm the Rhaewin OTP girl because I love me Rhaenyra and Harwin and I think they were very good for each other/could have been very good, I mean they had three kids together, Rhaenyra didn't go find herself a Lyseni dude to fuck, so the kind of risk she was putting herself in with that means there was something more there. Not only that, but Daemons' loyalty was absolute: he would have done anything for Rhaenyra and I don't think he would have risked hurting her position and claim just to have a 6 year old killed.

I think it also puts her oldest three sons in further danger in terms of a future succession conflict based on the rumors of Jace's legitimacy vs Aegon the Younger, who is undoubtedly fully Targaryen, and had the Dance not happened, that would 100% be the grounds for a future succession crisis of children half-targaryen vs full targaryen blood including the TargTower children. The dynasty was primed for a civil war regardless of when that happened because Viserys failed utterly to secure the futures of his family and just hoped there were enough nepo baby jobs to go around I guess.

Case in Point: The Blackfyre Rebellion.

Basically: the Targaryens make huge political mistakes all the time. @gwenllian-in-the-abbey pointed out their theory in a comment on the last chapter of Maiden how Viserys being the one to have Aegon and Helaena get married would hopefully neutralize Aegon's power, because otherwise, you're marrying him to someone like Cassandra Baratheon, and Borros would 100% want his daughter to be queen!

Anyway, I hope that answers some of your questions!

#hotd tag #I'm not answering anything else on this omg #please let me keep hiding

[casterlygldcs]

who: @lencra when and where: during coronation festivities, tyland lannister's mind is elsewhere; his eyes fall upon his cousin, the newly crowed queen lenora of house targaryen. this is set after the discussion between lenora and myriam, the current regent of dorne, in which myriam mentions the proposal issued to her by king jaehaerys. tyland has heard all too much of the doctrine of exceptionalism issued to valyrian men to take multiple wives; and had been waiting to see whether jaehaerys intended to lead by example.

there had been members of the dragon court that had coughed up hold venom in the clear indication the westerland influence had upon the court of kings landing: choking on the histories of flags of black and green and the mighty disgrace it had led to. the attack on lenora had been followed up by the westerlanders, with tyland seeing jaehaerys directly to voice his concerns regarding the reaction: what court was he ruling over? what vipers continued to linger and fester in his court that resulted in such treachery so early into the plans being set into motion?

there multiple houses in the crownlands that had fought for the claim of the half year queen and her children, who had fought loyally; the velaryons had lost a great amount of influence in court as a result of their loyalty to queen daenaerys, and yet they remained nonetheless.

tyland had even taken it upon himself to catch the hand of the dragon king - a man who appeared more twig than human, and asked for an update regarding the investigations. for the in the westerlands, an attack upon the princess would be considered treason - punishable by the swift sentence of death. and now the courtiers of various realms remained in great proximity to one another - not just westerosi, but even the lyseni and the braavosi from across the narrow sea. "an audience between myself and the rogare lord has been arranged for later in the week." he spoke, his arms resting behind his back as they walked along the stretch of the hall that was relatively empty; the side lines of the dancing, where there remained a flurry of colours with each swish of a skirt.

queendom suited lenora, despite the initial hitch in that matter: and that matter was not for tyland to speak on. it was her brothers who ought to remind her of the importance of maintaining her position, especially if the dragon king sought to start taking other wives. the limit was three - a fourth able to be taken in exchange for coin. but jaehaerys targaryen would not need to pay himself. the princess of dorne was a wildcard. it was a close call. she was no woman from a lesser house, but a woman with a region of her own - he would have had to end up trying to work out if he could have invested in dornish nobles overthrowing her.

"i intend on making a judgement on who the man is - though, by the looks of it, he seems to have established a connection with your husband the king." there was little that could make tyland lannister sway in his decision to remain an ally of the riverlands, especially one they were a lesser power than his own - he would not be able to exert that same level of influence over lys, nor did he feel like there was benefit in doing so. "though he too is allied with the dornish." that was all he needed to say on the matter; if the marriage with the dornish regent had gone through, it would have been a triarchy of it's own based in the crownlands - in direct contrast to the one established by the west.

the last thing they needed was dorne involving themselves, even in one way or another; the animosity and hate between the two realms will never truly be put out. but he was not willing to stand back and play the peacemaker; it was a smart move on behalf of jaehaerys in an attempt to stop the violence on his border. but it was too great a risk. "do you have any inclination as to who he could take as another?" tyland asked, his tone low as he spoke with his cousin, their steps in sync.

#c: lenora #lenora 002

[truthdogg]

As I read the post linked below, it reinforced for me just how much media has changed in the past ten to twenty years. The post itself is a great snapshot of what’s required to understand a news story, and it demonstrates why most news media today is simply not working.

I don’t watch tv news, and haven’t for probably a decade. We have a subscription to the New York Times, but the login rarely works for me, and we’ve let our Washington Post subscription lapse. I get my news from a variety of online newspapers, npr, websites, blogs, and podcasts, and usually do an internet search for anything that sounds interesting or that I want to understand better.

This is a pretty terrible way to keep up with things. It takes a lot of time, and it requires a general knowledge of the ideological slant of the news outlet I’m reading. That means I either have to remember or look up who owns the company and who runs their editorial board, which takes up even more time.

I could save a lot of time by going to one source that not only spells out what just happened, but also tells who loses and who gains, what the impacts will be and how to process it, and perhaps even include links to speech transcripts and legislation for us to read on our own. Good newspapers used to do more of that, but they don’t anymore; instead they simply share the latest quotes about the subject at hand. (“He said this thing, she said a different thing, so you decide for yourself who’s telling the truth. What is truth, anyway?”) So now we need to piece full stories together from multiple sources, just like tumblr user @yiffmaster does above.

It takes a genuine interest in what you’re reading to spend the necessary time that on that. Otherwise all you’ll see are stories about how there’s a new hire at NLRB from SEIU and that upset somebody, or something about the Joy Silk doctrine that makes no sense on its own, or (most likely) that Biden spoke to a worker or two on a picket line somewhere but so did Donald Trump so both parties claim to support workers. It’s all meaningless individual trees standing on their own until you can step back, study, and see the forest.

That’s not to say we never get important dot-connecting well-researched articles. We absolutely do, and there are still plenty of amazing hardworking journalists, but the landscape is so fragmented that it’s hard to know where those articles will come from, whether they can be trusted, or often even how to find or access them. Often they don’t even have dates, so it’s hard to know just how outdated the information even is.

I would love to find a news source that organized its articles by topic and provided outside links. Every story could provide links to relevant info and source material, instead of offhand references. But such a broad news site doesn’t really exist among the sources I read. (TPM might get closest at times, but it’s a tiny company.) instead, an article gets published, it’s out of date a week later, and it remains the top search result for its subject matter for weeks, months or years. Try looking up what the Biden administration did to help rail workers after they went back to work at the start of December 2022, to see what I mean. It’s possible, but you have to already know what you’re looking for. Otherwise all you can find is that they let workers down by forcing them back to work, which isn’t remotely the whole story—what came after that was a very big deal.

But there’s a workaround to all of this that a lot of Americans use to feel they have the full picture. It’s a cable network that does connect all the dots. It ties stories back into an overarching narrative, and explains to viewers how each news story reinforces its narrative. Its viewers tune in for that narrative; they know who is blocking the programs they’re told are good or bad, and who supports the other ones. It’s called FOX News of course, and it’s complete garbage propaganda. It’s also genius in how it works.

There is no good way to deprogram a FOX viewer who’s sucked in, because there is simply no alternative that fully describes the stories that they follow. They’re in an alternative universe of facts that have bits of the real world thrown in for color. The stories that multiple reliable sources do provide cannot counter that narrative on their own, because they simply don’t explain enough. If anything they have the opposite effect, because the FOX viewer is arriving with a set narrative in their mind, and the small story that simply presents arguments with no conclusions will include the argument they’re familiar with. For them to come out of that well of ignorance will require research into multiple sources that they’re simply not going to ever do.

A liberal propaganda outlet to counter it is more than useless—most people who lean left find those annoying and and no one on the right would believe a word of it.

No, what we need is news for today to be organized completely differently, almost like a current events Wikipedia. Publishing a newspaper or making a newscast and sticking them online is borderline ridiculous. They’re only snapshots in time, and without a tree of links to accompany them—perhaps via a link back to a topic main page where that tree of links resides—they often become misinformation fairly quickly.

Many news outlets have taken some baby steps toward something like this, but only with major stories (“Follow our impeachment coverage here!”), and only with their own articles. This relegates other important news (like what the Biden Admin is doing with labor) to a lesser status and keeps these outlets as news gatekeepers, and it undermines their own credibility among doubters by presenting yet another closed system.

We need news sources that are much more comprehensive and committed to providing a full picture if we ever hope to undo the damage and division that propaganda is creating here. I’d love to know if any of you have found such a thing. I haven’t.

#long reads #TLDR: news media is completely divorced from modem reality and needs a comprehensive update #us news #fake news #propaganda

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (November 10)

November 10 is the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgical memorial of the fifth-century Pope Saint Leo I, known as “St. Leo the Great,” whose involvement in the fourth ecumenical council helped prevent the spread of error on Christ's divine and human natures.

St. Leo also intervened for the safety of the Church in the West, persuading Attila the Hun to turn back from Rome.

Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians also maintain a devotion to the memory of Pope St. Leo the Great.

Churches of the Byzantine tradition celebrate his feast day on February 18.

“As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggests,” Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2008 general audience on the saint, “he was truly one of the greatest pontiffs to have honoured the Roman See and made a very important contribution to strengthening its authority and prestige.”

Leo’s origins are obscure and his date of birth unknown. His ancestors are said to have come from Tuscany, though the future pope may have been born in that region or in Rome itself.

He became a deacon in Rome in approximately 430, during the pontificate of Pope Celestine I.

During this time, central authority was beginning to decline in the Western portion of the Roman Empire.

At some point between 432 and 440, during the reign of Pope St. Celestine’s successor, Pope Sixtus III, the Roman Emperor Valentinian III commissioned Leo to travel to the region of Gaul and settle a dispute between military and civil officials.

Pope Sixtus III died in 440 and, like his predecessor Celestine, was canonized as a saint.

Leo, away on his diplomatic mission at the time of the Pope’s death, was chosen to be the next Bishop of Rome.

Reigning for over two decades, he sought to preserve the unity of the Church in its profession of faith and to ensure the safety of his people against frequent barbarian invasions.

Leo used his authority, in both doctrinal and disciplinary matters, against a number of heresies troubling the Western church — including Pelagianism (involving the denial of Original Sin) and Manichaeanism (a gnostic system that saw matter as evil).

In this same period, many Eastern Christians had begun arguing about the relationship between Jesus’ humanity and divinity.

As early as 445, Leo had intervened in this dispute in the East, which threatened to split the churches of Alexandria and Constantinople.

Its eventual resolution was, in fact, rejected in some quarters — leading to the present-day split between Eastern Orthodoxy and the so-called “non-Chalcedonian churches,” which accept only three ecumenical councils.

As the fifth-century Christological controversy continued, the Pope urged the gathering of an ecumenical council to resolve the matter.

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Pope’s teaching was received as authoritative by the Eastern bishops, who proclaimed: “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo.”

Leo’s teaching confirmed that Christ’s eternal divine personhood and nature did not absorb or negate the human nature that he assumed in time through the Incarnation.

Instead, “the proper character of both natures was maintained and came together in a single person.”

“So without leaving his Father's glory behind, the Son of God comes down from his heavenly throne and enters the depths of our world,” the Pope taught.

“Whilst remaining pre-existent, he begins to exist in time. The Lord of the universe veiled his measureless majesty and took on a servant's form.

The God who knew no suffering did not despise becoming a suffering man, and, deathless as he is, to be subject to the laws of death.”

In 452, one year after the Council of Chalcedon, Pope Leo led a delegation, which successfully negotiated with the barbarian King Attila to prevent an invasion of Rome.

When the Vandal leader Genseric occupied Rome in 455, the Pope confronted him, unarmed, and obtained a guarantee of safety for many of the city’s inhabitants and the churches to which they had fled.

Pope St. Leo the Great died on 10 November 461.

He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754.

A large collection of his writings and sermons survives, which can be read in translation today.

#Pope St. Leo the Great #Pope Saint Leo I #Saint of the Day

[potuzzz]

TLDR: A good, effective communist these days should be doing everything in their power, even dirty shit, even straight up being a capitalist, to Play, and to Win, The Game here in the imperial core.

` ` `

(No longer TLDR)

` ` `

I don't even want to open the can of worms that is Caleb Maupin, but a quote from him that I deeply resonate with, and that I think all im the Western Left should resonate with, is "out of the movement, and into the masses."

Here in the United States especially, the situation is so dire that we need to put on our War Hat and prepare to (potentially drastically) reduce our moral, ideological, and ethical standards for ourselves and our comrades.

The current methods have proven disastrously ineffective.

In war, if you can afford it, absolutely you should do the right thing. You should avoid civilian casualties and critical infrastructure, you should treat POWs kindly, you should loudly and patiently give enemies a chance to surrender, to tend to their wounded, to evacuate non combatants. Etc., etc.

However, we can not afford it. The current methods have failed us. We are behind. We are losing The Game, the dog eat dog game that this world is under a capitalist hegemony.

We do not have the power to dictate the rules of engagement. That isn't to say that small acts of kindness are not important, they are, but as a matter of policy, of doctrine? Mask off today. Scorched earth if need be.

We need money, we need power, we need numbers. By any means necessary. It is that simple.

If you're a comrade, go get you some money. Go get you some power. By any means necessary.

Another favorite quote:

"Revolution is no place for silk gloves."

Every successful revolution and socialist country has had periods of great struggle, where corners both material and moral had to be cut (certainly not to the extent of their enemies, nor the propaganda their enemies painted of them).

China had a period of ideological hardline, the Cultural Revolution. It was a disaster for them! To survive to play another day, and to play the long game, they then shifted towards opportunistic and shameless Dengism. And, by following the code of Socialism By Any Means Necessary, we arrive at where they are today under Xi: implementing incredible reforms that DO speak loudly to morals and ethics, that DO spend that little extra bit of cash or time or effort, just to do THE RIGHT THING...because they can afford it NOW, only AFTER the winnings of cold and calculating Dengism.

Again, we are not our enemies, and we never will be. Even in war, communist forces universally do not commit the amount of atrocities that capitalist or especially fascist forces do. We're softies. We care about people and mark-ass shit like that. But if, in those military conflicts, these softies across time and space didn't say, "Okay, I will kill a man to protect my home and people and thus socialism. I don't have to enjoy it, but I have to do it," they would have gone extinct.

We are at war. It has been here for a long time, it is just made to be obscure and indirect. It will get hotter as time goes on. It is a Cold War right now, but the consequences in the long term will be the same.

We are at war, and I think on a global scale, the war is over. Save for something truly heinous like Nuclear Armageddon, capitalism has lost. Socialism has won. It's just a matter of waiting for the rabid dog to die, minimizing the damage as it thrashes about, and for exorcising the poison out of all the bite marks it has left across the world.

However, on a much smaller scale, such as the United States, the future is not so clearly bright. I feel like our sins are great and they will come home to roost. I feel like this limb will be in many ways amputated from the rest of the world. Oh, they're gonna build a Wall all right. Just not facing the direction US Americans think it will.

` ` `

I disagree with @txttletale here but make sure to check out this blog it's great innit.

#txttletale #politics #communism #pragmatism #praxis #political strategy #western leftists #marxism leninism #tankie #anti tankie #socialism #psa #leftism #political discourse #imperialism #capitalism #revolutionary #american fascism #channelling #fortune telling