#and half way through fellowship my mind just started to sing them all on the star of county down tune

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

I highly doubt that hardcore Tolkienians don't know this, but if any of you haven't noticed, many of the peoms in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have a basic meter of an avarge English/Irish/Scotish folk song.

So, you can actually sing poems like Far Over the Misty Mountains and The Fall of Gil-galad on the tune of songs like Star of the County Down as well as The Wellerman shanty and most cursedly - Drunken Sailor.

Enjoy this information.

#it's very hard for me to read poetry in a second language #and half way through fellowship my mind just started to sing them all on the star of county down tune #it was so cool when i realized this #anyway #now you are cursed with this information #have fun #you just need to find tge right beat #and also feel which line should be said a bit faster #try a couple and you'll know #the lord of the rings #lord of the rings #lotr #the hobbit #tolkien #jrr tolkien

[parables-proverbs-pericopes]

I just deleted a half hour of labored writing trying to exegete a few verses. It seemed good when I started. Scripture usually is! But it wasn't working.

My mind and heart kept turning to a Wednesday night four years back. That Wednesday was a remarkable day among all of our remarkable days. The church campus was humming. That day we had preschool chapel. Always a highlight of my week.

That day saints far and wide told me of great steps, characterized by profound simplicity, by which they are committed to following God in the way of Jesus. That very day I was made aware of folks active in our congregation who quite recently were living in their vehicle. There was a certain symmetry in knowing that!

That Wednesday God's faithfulness to his children led one among us to fund the building of a school in Haiti. The whole school. Others were stepping up in ways seen clearly as life changing - when seen by faith.

A goodly crowd gathered for church family dinner. There was good food, good singing, good fellowship, outrageous laughter. It was unlikely to get better.

But it did.

Paul came to Bible Study. Not that Paul. Paul that lives down the street from the church building. He comes by sporadically to see me. He and his wife are poor in our common understanding of the term. He needs a little cash now and then to buy gasoline for his old car. Sometimes it is just a loaf of bread that will get them through until their social security check comes. Wednesday night he sat in the front row of chairs at Bible Study. The saints greeted him warmly. He listened attentively with wide eyes. After the prayers at the conclusion he hung around.

I knew he would.

He needed to talk.

We plopped down in a church pew and he asked if we could help with his utility bill. Because of the kindness of our church I was able without hesitation to say yes. He gave me the bill, which was promptly paid, and said "I enjoyed Bible Study tonight. Y'all have a way of 'putting it across.'" He wasn't talking about my teaching. He was talking about the church's way of living

As Paul walked through the sanctuary and out the door I watched him. I watched him take every step. I replayed every word. I asked God to keep him safe. And I thanked God that on a day that was already off the scale glorious he took us to new levels of wonder at the grace and mercy of God.

Sometimes (maybe almost all of the time?) it is just that simple.

Sorry, the exegesis just wouldn't happen this morning.

Paul did.

[idjitlili]

Eomer x reader

Warnings : a little steamy, if you don’t like mj don’t read

Summary:

Imagine somehow being teleported into lord of the rings and being in one of the tents with merry, at the eve of battle. Him being interested in what our world is like. In which eomer is peaking in jealousy.

Word count:2583

As you sat on the floor ,in the red and white canopy tent, merry looked at you with interest in front from your seat.

Merry gave you a big smile with half of his smirk up higher; after you somehow ended up in this strange world ,you became very closer with merry and pippin.

You had seen the two hobbits dance and sing days before, it was very strange , but uplifting and entertaining.

Merry had being asking you questions about your world the second you had gotten here, in fact minutes before now had been ,while practising his swordsmen skills on air.

“what is dancing like in your home, y/n?” Merry spoke break the comfortable silence you sat in.

“Well..um the dances I enjoy , is from before I was born or slightly after.” You explain quickly to the hobbit before continuing after taking a breather.

“There was this man, he was a talented singer and dancer. He has all these dance moves with are complexed yet he makes them look effortless. His name was Michael Jackson.”

Merry looks up at you with amazement wanting to hear more of the man.

“Would you teach me some of these dance moves,y/n?” He asks with pure delight.

You stand up quickly , holding out your hands for merry to take, he does , in which you pull him to his feet.

“Yes I will , okay his most known dance move is called the moonwalk.” You explain to him , then you take your shoes off and perform the action.

After you are done you look towards the hobbit struggling to repeat the move, you giggle at his attempt.

Unknown to you , a certain blonde haired future king to the throne of Rohan, had being watching more like stalking. He had pure jealousy written upon his face.

“No,no ,no merry. Here I’ll help.” You spoke to the hobbit , whilst bending down to the floor.

You lift his left heel up and pull his right leg back. Then you push the left heel down and bring up right and pull the left foot back behind.

“See you have to keep one heel up and the other down , in which the one is down you slide it back and then you change.” You explain as easy as you possible can.

“Ooohhhhhh, “ merry smiled bright at you and started trying again, this time he succeeded.

“Yesss , you got it dude.”

Suddenly you hear, someone clearing their throat from behind you. You look in the direction which the noise came from , to seem eomer. He has a scowl imprinted onto his face, you gulp nervously.

“Hey dude , what do need something?” You spoke dragging out the yes.

you had met eomer when you Aragorn ,Gimli and Legolas has been looking for the hobbits. He seemed to take an interest in you , not surprising you did look out of place. You wore clothes that were very different to what a woman in this world would wear. Not to mention that you was travelling with men, as a young woman. He had never heard anyone speak the way you had , using such words as dude for everyone, especially to royalty, you didn’t even bow.

You were a shy girl around people you didn’t know, you wish to seem as special to people, but in your heart you didn’t feel it. Not to mention you did this by naughty jokes , impressions or just speaking in pure quotes. Aragorn was not impressed when you stated a joke involving his name when the hobbits were no where to be found.

“Hey the hobbits Aragorn?!” You recall speaking to the small group of the fellowship that were left.

“Did you really just-“ Aragorn spoke before turning away searching for the trail of the hobbits. While gimli , enjoyed it very much.

After that you came up with another joke after Gimli spoke of his father and when the company were kidnapped by trolls.

“Gimli , do you know why they were discovered by the trolls?”

He looked up at you at and spoke “yeah they were try-“

However you interrupted him “Because he was Gloin in the dark.” He froze while legolas and Aragorn laughed.

“Why don’t you make fun of legolas for once?” He groaned at you.

You smirked to yourself, you had already planned this.

“Alright if you say so. Hey leggy. “ you spoke whilst placing your self on on the log next to legolas.

“Do you know what you would’ve been called if you had no legs?”

He frowned at you , not looking forward to what was to come. “No I do not , lady y/n. I assume the same.”

“Haha -wrong. Leg a less.Do you get it because your legs Aragorn.”

“Did you really had to add me to the joke?” Aragorn growled. You shrugged in response.

Eomer interrupted your thoughts , speaking “uh I just came to see what you two were doing.” He looked a little nervous, pink spread lightly on his cheeks.

“Oh , I was just teaching Merry some dance moves from my home, so he can impress some lady’s.” You respond to Eomer with a giggle whilst looking at merry who was in his own world, still moonwalking. You walked closer the entrance of the tent allowing Eomer in.

“That’s very nice of you lady y/n , that’s a strange move, yet so admiring” You smile lightly at him.

“Thank you ,Eomer, but please you don’t have to call me lady, I am not a lady , I am barely an adult. Plus I am not of importance just y/n.” You spoke with a light blush upon your face. You couldn’t help but admit to yourself, Eomer was very handsome.

“Oh L- y/n you of much of an importance especially to that hobbit there. You are very interesting to many men , with your unique personality , you have a lot of men swooning for you. It doesn’t help you are a very pretty girl.” His face flushed with red now, yours the same.

“T-thank you , I am not used to people thinking such things or calling me me pretty. “ you spoke quickly sputtering your words.

“Surely the reason is you have been courting a man and he threatens anyone that goes near you?”

You scoff at his words, he looks at you confused, “I am sorry to disappoint but that’s definitely not it, I haven’t ever had a proper relationship with a dude. NoT even a kiss.”

You look at your feet with embarrassment, after looking up at Eomer his mouth gapped with shock.

“That’s hard to believe for such a lovely person. None of them clearly deserve you.” He sincerely spoke , you feel his eyes on.

“More like the other way round. Do you want something to eat I made mash potatoes, we was about to eat?” You start walking towards the food getting bowls to dish it up.

“No one deserves you if they don’t tell you are beautiful. If you have enough , I will.” He gazes upon you.

You blush harder than you think possible.

“Yes we have more than enough come sit.” You gesture to fabric covered floor because it’s not like you can have furniture on a soon to be war zone.

“Merry sit down , before spill the drinks.”

You demand the hobbit.

“Yes ma.” He grins at you.

“Excuse you I think you are double my age. Here.” You pass the two men their food , receive thank yous, before sitting beside eomer on your bedroll.

What can you say , you just love mash potatoes.

You ,merry ,and eomer talked for hours , before you know it merry had fallen asleep and it was way past midnight.

You had been talking about your difficulties, trying to get Mordor, as you hadn’t been trained like the rest of the fellowship, plus you were only 18.

“that must have been very hard.” Eomer tells you , laughing.

Your smile turns into a straight face, before twitching up.

“That’s what she said” you begin to laugh hysterically, covering your mouth trying not to awake pippin.

Eomer looks at you confused but still laughs with you. “What does that mean?”

“ it’s a sex joke dude because-“ you began but are cut off by eomer.

“I didn’t know woman made such jokes especially someone so young.” He laughs

“Yes my dude , me and my friends back home do, they tell me I am too dirty minded. .” I smirk towards him.

“What makes them think you are,y/n?” he asks returning a smirk.

“Well my lord , I may have a slight thing for older men with stubble, let’s just leave it at that, I’ll spare you of the details.” Your eyes gaze down to his beard and back to his eyes, Blood rushes to your face.He twitches when you call him my lord, gazing at you.

“Oh , I see. Yet you still haven’t been kissed. “ he notices your gaze on his beard smirking bigger than before.

“yes tis true , I can’t help that, but I can imagine. Plus I got hands.” You giggle to yourself.

“ indeed you do, as do I. If you are referring to the same activities.” He chuckles at your humour.

“Yes I am.”

You both stare intensely at each other , eyes flickering at each other’s lips, slowly leaning forward. Lips almost grazing each other , when you breathe in. His breathe is hot on your face. Eomers soft blond locks slightly hitting against your face.

He then whispers to you slowly, “may I kiss you?” You nod your head slowly, nervously. His large rough hands land upon your cheeks softly. He places his lips upon yours lip the flutter of a butterfly. It was just a peck, yet electricity flew through body. He removes his hands from your face and looks into your eyes.

You quickly wrap your arms his neck against his hair , you press your lips against his roughly , he pulls you close by wrapping his strong arms around your waist. He gently bites your bottom lip , earning a small moan from your mouth, and causing your mouth to gap. You feel his smirk against your face and he takes his opening to put his tongue into your mouth, deepening the kiss.

Your hands end up into his locks slightly pulling , a small grunt leaves his lips. It sounded like keanu reeves.you shuffle yourself into his lap straddling him. His hands on your back under your shirt. You pull back still in his lap to breathe. You mumble “thank you.”

You go to kiss him again , missing his lips. He eagerly kisses back , lips colliding.one of his hands grips your upper back ,the other on your bottom. Lifting you over to your bed roll placing you down , your legs wrapped around his waist so tight that if it was his neck he would be dead soon. His head travels down your neck. Kissing it gently , then suddenly biting it and sucking on your soft skin. He earns multiple loud moans which you try to conceal with your hands.

His hands tug at the bottom of your shirt , you sit up slightly so he can remove it, leaving you bare with just your bra on. His eyes scan you. You frown slightly, feeling insecure. “You are beautiful.” He mumbles into neck. You then grab his face kissing him again. You pull his tunic shirt from his chest and kiss down his neck , like he did too you , sucking slightly , surely leaving marks. His hands travel up your sides slowly.

You begin grinding harshly into eomers , now erected cock. His clothed large erection twitching.He grunts at your actions. He begins to whisper “we should wait , we will wake merry.”

“No , I promise I’ll be quiet.” You whine to him quietly.

He leans down to your ear “no you won’t my love, you will be screaming my name.” his low voice sends chills down your spin. Your face flushed with colour.

“Okay but after the battle ?” You ask eagerly , he smirks and nods his head pressing A kiss to your lips.

“Are you going to stay in here tonight then? It’s very late.” You ask him looking into his eyes trying to hide the excitement from the event that have just occurred.

“ I cannot , my bed roll is my tent.” He sighs at the thought.

“You can share with me if you want?” You smile at him.

“Okay , I shall stay.” He sits up and puts his shirt back on as do you , but removing the bra because who sleeps in a bra. You both lay and he pulls you tight into your chest. His head resting in the crook of your neck. Soon you fall into sleep.

———————————————————

Inthe morning you wake up alone and merry is sitting eating and apple. You sit up slowly yawn. Merry smiles at you.

Soon you are fully awake and ready for the day, for battle. Eomer didn’t know that though.

You were talking talking to merry outside and eowyn comes over to talk to you a pippin. You had suspected that she wanted to help fight , but knew here brother and uncle would not allow it.

“Hey y/n, did you see my brother last night, I couldn’t find him anywhere?” She asks you smiling at you.

You go to speak but merry interrupts you quickly “oh y/n was teaching me a dance move and he came by and had dinner with us. I fell asleep after. But when I awoke he was gone ,so he must of left when I was sleeping.” Merry speaks quickly to eowyn.

You gulp remembering the moments you shared with him last night.

“Oh thank you, that’s why I couldn’t fin-Did you hurt your neck y/n?” She smirks at you. Unknowingly to you eomer has littered your neck with hickeys but you didn’t have a mirror in the tent so you couldn’t of known.

Merry looks at you innocently. “How could you bruise your neck??!” He gasps shocked, he doesn’t believe it’s possible.

Before you can even reply , the man him self walks up to eowyn and hugs her. “I’ve been looking for you , you and y/n shouldn’t still be here.” Both merry and eowyn look at his neck. The silence causes you to look at they are looking at. You gasp at the sight of his neck. Eowyn smirks at the two of you.

“How did both of you bruise your necks last night? You were sitting in the tent.” Merry still unaware of the cause but then let’s out ‘oh wait....’

“So brother did you see a girl last night?”

“No what on earth are you talking about , I was training and got hit by a wooden sword.” Eomer just smirks at you and then leaves.

“What about you y/n?” She crosses her arms still smirking.

“No I am virgin.” You admit freely.

She laughs ,” I believe you but my brother will make sure that doesn’t last not for long.”

———————————————————

After the battle end up reuniting with eomer and he asks to wed you immediately. The stubble was better than you thought it would be.

#eomer imagine #eomer x reader #lotr imagine #lotr x reader #eomer of rohan #merry brandybuck

[fundielicious-simblr]

(AN: I FINALLY FOUND THE ISSUE! I had a rogue mod that was causing the game to go haywire, so I went through every single mod [which just showed me I have WAYY TOO MANY] and finally got my game up and running again. Here’s the last official day before the behind-the-scene post and intros to the different families we met over the past 5 days!)

It’s the final day of camp! It’s been a great 5 days full of fun and fellowship, but all good things must come to an end eventually. The official program only runs for the morning, so there was only one event in the main hall.

The program started with a performance of ‘I am saved’ by the FCLL choir, made up of various unmarried young men and women who have shown their dedication to the Lord and his message. They sang an extended performance of the song

Branden Collins then led the next part, which was a sit down session with 2 couples to discuss ‘Homeschooling - Why and How?’ CFLL produces a homeschool curriculum that helps parents to train their children for the Lord, having a hand at writing a few workbooks himself, Branden sits down with Colt & Pearl Powell and Barrett & Kyleigh Collins to discuss why and how the 2 couples use(d) the CFLL materials with their children.

Branden started with Colt & Pearl Powell, he started by asking the couple to introduce themselves. 

[Colt] “Well, my name is Colt and this is my wonderful wife Pearl of almost 30 years. I pastor a church in our hometown of Appaloosa Plains and I’ve been on the CFLL Board of Directors for almost 15 years, and have been thoroughly blessed by the Lord in my life.”

[Pearl] “We have 11 wonderful children who have given us 10 grandchildren and counting! Each year brings us new change, but who doesn’t like having new things to thank the Lord for?”

[Branden] “Why did you choose to homeschool your children?” 

[Colt] “We were high school sweethearts, we got married while I was in college and she was in secretary school. We both grew up going to the same church, and so we had the conversation that we’d be open to as many children as the Lord wanted for us, and that we’d school them ourselves. Our parents both told us, and we ourselves experienced the immoral atmosphere of the public school atmosphere and realised we didn’t want our future children to be exposed to that, we wanted to be able to shape our children's minds and mould them into soldiers for Christ.”

[Pearl] “A few months after we married, a traveling minister told us of a conference happening near us that was put on by this wonderful organisation. We had a great time and learnt so much, and learnt we were pregnant with out first soon after, so we started attending as many sessions as we could before baby came. There were this brand new homeschool curriculum that had been released, and after reading through it we were to excited to be able to try out with our children when they were old enough.”

[Branden] “How did you homeschool?”

[Pearl] “As the mama, the home was my domain, so while daddy was the Principal, I was the Vice Principal of what we called ‘Powell Academy’. Since I was having a child every 2 years, we needed a system so make sure I didn’t lose my mind with the children *laughs*. Our first 4 went boy, girl, boy, girl, and I’m thankful that my girls had (and still have) such servants hearts and were always looking for ways to help me. When a new baby would come home they’d constantly beg to take care of them, so when it came time to do school in the morning, after I did their lessons with them, they’d help the younger ones with their letters and numbers. As they got older they were my right and left hands and helped with running the house during the day. I’d wake up with the youngest 2 whilst they worked with the other 7 to get everyone dressed, fed, and school work started. We’d gather round the table and I’d supervise them doing their work, whilst doting on the youngest, with the delivery of our youngest there were complications and he was born a bit early, so as he grew he was my main focus to make sure he got what he needed. I loved using CFLL’s materials for our kids, I didn’t feel the need to supplement with other curriculums, there was everything for every age group that the children grew into. When the kids started to graduate and pursue their future goals is when we really saw the value of our choice in homeschooling them. Both our boys and girls were sure in their identity as soldiers of Christ and set their goals based on that - our boys are great leaders, most with their own families who are benefiting from their leadership skills; our girls were able to learn how to run a household and to set their sights on being a good wife and mother. We also encouraged our children to use their musical talents to serve, with them traveling with others in a music ministry. Now that they’re giving us grandchildren, I’m excited to see my grand babies learn using the same curriculum that we used on their parents, and imagine what great people they’ll be.”

[Branden] “Thank you two for your wonderful testimony on homeschooling your children, you’ve blessed them greatly with your efforts and in turn have been blessed.”

Branden then welcomed Barrett and Kyleigh Collins to the stage 

[Branden] “Hey you two, why don’t you introduce yourselves”

[Barrett] “My names Barrett Collins, and this is my wife Kyleigh Collins, we’ve been married for almost 10 years and have 8 children together. If the last name is ringing a bell, it’s probably because you’ve watched my parents handle a few parts this past week, and if you’re really with the times then you know of my grandfather. This guy right here *points at Branden* is also my uncle *laughs*”

[Branden] “Great introduction, let’s jump right in: Why did you choose to homeschool?”

[Barrett] “I grew up homeschooled, both of my parents were homeschooled and when they got married they made the choice to homeschool us as well. It was great having all of us at home all of the time, and since I’m the oldest it was our mother who did all of our schooling until we were old enough to work on our own. Being homeschooled gave me the freedom to do what I wanted, even though there was required work I had to do, my parents used the CFLL curriculum for all of us and it’s helped all of us branch into the people that we have become or are becoming for my younger siblings still in school. When I met Kyleigh - which was here, many summers ago - one of the things we talked about while courting was what we wanted for our children, and we both agreed that homeschooling them was the only option.”

[Kyleigh] “Like Barrett, I was also homeschooled by my parents but unlike him I was an only child. Being an only child meant that my mother was able to tailor the work to what I wanted to do, and she’d add in things or take out things that she didn’t find necessary. I loved all that time I spent with her, it really cemented our mother-daughter bond and I really learnt so much wisdom and guidance from her in those formative years. When I look back on the relationship I had and still have with my mother, I can’t help but get excited about the relationships that I’m building with my daughters now as they grow.”

[Branden] “How does homeschooling fit into your day?”

[Kyleigh] “Our schedule is that we’ll both wake up, one of us will handle the baby and the other will deal with the toddlers who have most likely woken up early, since I seem to be having a baby every year it’s a great system for us.

[Barrett] “Often times I’ll deal with the baby because I do the night feedings, I’m thankful that our newest baby Olivia doesn’t fuss as much during the night as her siblings did. 

[Kyleigh] “I then handle breakfast whilst the younger ones play and Barrett gets ready for work, the older kids usually wake up by then and are dressed and ready for the day. Barrett leaves for work whilst the kids are eating breakfast and after the kids clear up the table is when we start with their school work. Our oldest 5 are triplets and twins, so we have 3 eight year olds and 2 six year olds, which is slightly easier because they can work together to get their work done rather than having 5 kids in different grades. Once I’ve got the triplets on track with their work, I can sit with the twins and do their work with them as they need more hands on teaching. We all sit at the table doing work for an hour and a half before we break for snacks and the kids can play a bit before we do verse memorization. I like using hand motions to get them to remember the words, and it’s been great to hear them sing and act out the songs that they learnt at the Children’s Academy this past week that they’ll no doubt be singing for a very long time. We also work on our manners during the day, and my older kids love ‘teaching’ the toddlers their manners - they say it makes them feel smarter *laughs*. Three times a week the kids head over to their grandparents house for their music lessons, they’re all learning the violin and piano, so I’m thankful that I married into a very musical family since all the siblings at home can pick a child and focus on them and their lessons. Right now with young kids we don’t spend the whole day doing work, but I’m assured that as they age that we’ll be able to adapt and change as necessary. Probably the kids’ favourite time of day is when Barrett gets home, it’s play time so he gets to blow off steam with the kids before dinnertime.

[Barrett] “I come home and play with the kids, we’ll then eat dinner and do nightly devotions as a family before putting the kids to bed. We go in reverse age order, so the toddlers head to bed first, followed by the twins, then the triplets, we like doing it that way because then we have time to sit down with all the kids and bond with them individually. Sometimes I’ll sit and think of my childhood when my parents would do the same things with us, and I thank the Lord for all the effort that my parents put into raising us as it had led us to this great life that we’re living now.”

[Branden] “Thank you both for your wonderful testimony on how homeschooling helped you, and how you’re working on changing your childrens lives for the better.”

The choir then closed out the programe (and the formal part of the conference) with a 20 minute performnace of a h hymn medly which was arranged by Claire Paulson and her advanced hymn writing class.

It was the perfect end to a great week of faith, fun, and fellowship! 

There were some official portraits done for the Children’s Academy and the Youth Choir!

Back Row (L-R) = Aaron Leonard, Aria Townsend, Tobias Duke, Melissa Sherman, Lester Paulson, Lyric Warner, Leroy Mitchell, Shania Crawford, Johnathan Herrington

Front Row (L-R) = Allan Collins Jr, Chloe Collins, Benjamin Collins, Rose Collins, Noah Leonard, Violet Collins, Luke Leonard

These young children are the building blocks for the next generation! They’re a testament to the benefits of moulding a young persons mind and training up a child in the way they should go! They’ve spent the last few days proving that their parents efforts in raising them have not been wasted, no doubt that as they age out of the children’s academy, they will grow and continue to be young Christian soldiers.

Back Row (L-R) Annette Collins, Jarrod Paulson, Sadie Berges, Willie Murray, Amira Collins, Jimmy Crawford, Celeste Paulson, Charles Collins, Delaney Mitchell, Tucker Crawford.

Front Row (L-R) Parker Collins, Priscilla Collins, Jolene Crawford, Fredrick Herrington, Lorilee Mitchell, Kellie Moyer, Zachary Paulson, Sabrina Paulson

Here are the wonderful youths that make up the choir! When not singing together, they’re all musicians in their own right who have shared beautiful music to the Lord, as you’ve seen over the past week! 

That makes it the end of the official program, the rest of the day was up to the attendants to use as they wished. Some headed to the lake whilst others headed to the volleyball courts for a tournament.

The children enjoyed swimming in the lake together, Macie taught them all how to swim, so it was great for them to be able to use their skills at the lake since none of their houses have pools! (AN: I spent almost an hour looking for lifejacket cc for kids, because in my mind gen 3 isn’t that clueless and know that you need lifejackets for young kids swimming in a large body of water - but that’s something the game lacks, which I might attempt to make some day)

Kyleigh and Casandra got a selfie in while at the lake, it’s been a tiring but rewarding week and they’re happy that they were able to relax by the lake on their last day. They don’t get to go to many pools and beaches due to the immodest outfits of other beach goers, but since everyone at the lake has the same (high) modesty standards, everyone was able to enjoy in peace.

(AN: ignore the horrendous editing, someones swimsuit didn’t have all the LODs and half their body disappeared😂)

There were many sandcastles made along the shores of the lake, the children practiced their diving skills using the diving platform, and loads of family and friends were able to catch up and reminisce on a great week together.

Meanwhile on the volleyball court...

The Red and Orange teams battled it out in a series of 5 matches to see who would be pronounced the winners, in the end the Orange Team won 3/5 matches, winning the tournament.

The Red Team consisted of: Jarrod Paulson, Charles Collins, Lorilee Mitchell, Annette Collins, and Celeste Paulson

The winners, the Orange Team, were: Parker Collins, Zachary Collins, Tucker Crawford, Sabrina Paulson, and Amira Collins (She was a last minute addition and didn’t get an orange shirt 😂)

The evening ended with everyone meeting at the mess hall to eat dinner before getting together for some fellowship before everyone leaves for their homes the next day. After a long, but refreshing week, everyone was sad to leave their friends, but was excited to get back to their respective homes!

#fundie sims #fundiesims #quiverfull sims #quiver full sims #modest sims #homeschool sims #CFLL Family Bible Camp #day 5 #sims 4 legacy #collins family #collins legacy #gen 2 #Branden and Lea #gen 3 #Mason and Adalynn #Barrett and Kyleigh #gen 4 #post #this post was in the works for WAYYY TOOO LONG because [1] my schedule got very busy very quickly and [2] my game just up and stopped workin #but im excited for it to be over #was very fun to do and im happy with how it turned out #really wanted to incorporate Barrett and Kyleigh as a way to try and flesh out a potential plot plan for gen 4 #the lake pictures were something I tried but there were too many damn sims that I focused on the kids only

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Tony Stark’s Guide to Being a Functional Adult

Step 6: Go Back to School (AO3)

TW: Ableist Language

A couple of weeks later he came out of his room to find Bucky on the couch, buried in a blanket and staring at the dark TV.  “Good morning,” he said cautiously.

Bucky made a noise and as Tony came closer, he said, “I can’t today.”

“Can’t what?”  When Bucky was silent, Tony went over to see that Bucky’s eyes were dull and tired as they looked up at him from under the blanket and hood of his sweatshirt.  He reached over and squeezed Bucky’s shoulder. “Alright, it’s fine. I got it.  I can take care of the shop today.” He started to get up but frowned when he saw the date on his phone.  “Wait, isn’t today doctor day?” he asked.  When Bucky just grunted, Tony squeezed his shoulder again.  “Hey, I know these days are grueling, but you always feel better when you’re done, right? So how about we just close the shop for the day and I’ll drive you everywhere you need to go.”  When Bucky didn’t respond, Tony tried a different tack. “If you don’t go today, you’re going to need to call and cancel and reschedule,” he said, smothering a smile when he saw Bucky’s glare.  “It’s easier to just go,” he wheedled. “You don’t even need to talk to me, I’ll just be your chauffeur.”  After a long minute, Bucky sighed.

"Fine,” he said, sounding defeated even as he kicked off the blanket and got off the couch.   As he shuffled towards the door, clearly intending to go to all of his appointments wearing his pajamas, Tony hurried around the house making sure he had Bucky’s wallet and his phone and the medical paperwork he’d stacked on the counter the night before.   He steered Bucky towards his own car instead of Bucky’s, because his car had heated seats and that seemed like something Bucky could really use right about now.  “Thank you,” Bucky mumbled as he fastened his seatbelt.  “I’m sorry for making you drive me around today.”

“You’re not making me, I offered,” Tony said firmly.  “I demanded, really.  Besides, we’re a team, right? Just let me do this for you today.”

The first stop was Bucky’s therapist, where Tony dropped Bucky off out front and waited in the car for him to finish, wanting to be respectful and give him as much space as possible.  When he came out, Bucky seemed to be a little lighter, standing a bit straighter, though he still had the hood to his sweatshirt over his head and his feet were shuffling as he walked across the parking lot.  Next was Bucky’s physical therapist, and this time Tony followed him inside because he was tired of sitting in the car.  

While Bucky slouched in the chair in the waiting room, Tony wandered around the office, looking at the informational posters and brochures they had on the wall.  He picked up one for prosthetics, curious, and sat back down next to Bucky.

“I tried one of those,” Bucky said, glancing over at the brochure.  “Hated it.”

“Why?”

Bucky shrugged and made a face.  “It just…it’s not an arm, you know? Doesn’t move like one, doesn’t look like one.  I’d rather have no arm than a half-assed arm, I guess. It was just more trouble than it was worth.”

“Huh.” As Tony looked down at the pictures in the brochure and read through the stats, the nurse came out to call Bucky’s name.  He folded the paper up and put it in his pocket, then spent the rest of the hour while Bucky was doing physical therapy on his phone doing research.

(More after the break!)

*****

“So? What do you think?” Tony asked nervously.  “I know it’s a lot different than my application, but-”

“Unfortunately, for a project like this you really need to be in CUNY’s biomedical engineering program, they are the ones on the cutting edge of prosthetics research right now,” the professor said regretfully, leaning back in his chair and tapping his pen on the desk.  “Tanden really just doesn’t have the expertise and equipment you need.”

Tony felt his stomach drop.  “But the fall semester starts in a month!”

“You might be able to get a transfer, doctoral programs are a little more flexible about this sort of thing than undergraduate programs.”

“But what about my financial aid? Will that transfer?”

“Financial…aid?” The professor repeated, baffled.  “You’re not-“

“Never mind,” Tony said, wiping his hands over his face.  He’d figure it out somehow. “Um, so what do I need to do about this transfer?”

“I know the head of the department over there, so I’ll give him a call and he will start working on it from his end.  If you don’t get an email from me in the next day or two, give me a call, ok?”

“Thanks.” Tony shook his hand and was searching up the phone number for the financial aid office of CUNY before he was even out of the professor’s office.  He spent twenty minutes on hold with them, then another twenty minutes on hold with NYU’s financial aid office, and then even longer with the FAFSA office, only to get the same information from each person – it was too late to transfer his financial aid grant to a new university.  Doctoral fellowships and grants had already been awarded, along with all of the graduate teaching assistant positions and the myriad of other ways students financed their PhD.  His choices were clear: he could either stay with NYU and keep his aid package, or he could go to CUNY and pay out of pocket.  And CUNY was going to cost significantly more than the couple of hundred dollars he had in his pocket.

“Fuck,” he said, sitting down heavily on the nearest bench.  He buried his face in his hands for a moment, trying to concentrate on breathing and not freaking out, then he scrubbed his face and reached for his phone.

“Hey, Jarvis,” he said.  “I’m sorry to bother you but are you free? I really need to talk.”

Because Howard was in town, Jarvis and Ana met him at the bakery around the corner from the house, where they had sometimes gone for breakfast on Sunday mornings.  When he got there, they had ordered him a glazed cruller and hot chocolate, just like every Sunday since he was a child.  When he saw that Tony had to look away and count to twenty in Latin, afraid he was going to cry if he let himself. Cry again, that is, since frustration had already gotten the better of him on the drive over.

“Tony!” Ana said with delight, and they both rose to hug him as he came over.  “How are you doing?” She framed his face with her hands and studied him, looking concerned.  “Oh dear.  You are not doing well,” she tsked. “What’s wrong?”

Caught before he could even get a word out, Tony sighed and rested his head on Ana’s shoulder, shoulders slumping.  “Everything,” he said pathetically.

Ana let him sit down and she and Jarvis listened attentively while Tony told them the whole situation.  They exchanged glances when Tony mentioned the marriage, but thankfully held their tongues until Tony was finished speaking.

“So you and this – Bucky, you said? – are fine?” Ana asked.  She put a hand over Tony’s.  “It’s just, this marriage thing seems so sudden.”

“Yeah, he’s great,” Tony said honestly.  “I just, care about him so much and I want to be able to help him, but...” He blew out a breath. “Despite everything, it seems like it’s coming down to money.”

“Have you not looked in the box Maria sent you?” Jarvis asked with surprise.

“No.  I thought it would just be, I don’t know, letters or drawings from my childhood or something, and I haven’t been in the mood to deal with that. Why?”

“Honey,” Ana said, part sympathetic and part exasperated.  “You know your father isn’t the only wealthy one in that marriage, right?”

“I know.” Tony rolled his eyes.  Maria had been old money, from a high society family that had not been impressed with how Howard had made his billions.  Her parents had died when Tony was pretty young, so he only had dim memories of a fancy piano room and Howard’s periodic grumblings about those “snooty bastards.” “But I can’t ask Mom for money.  If Howard found out…” Tony could just imagine the gloating, the condescension.   Even if Tony got rich on his own right, Howard would still say that he only did it because of Maria’s money.

Jarvis shook his head.  “Maria’s parents gave you money for every birthday and holiday since you were born,” he said.  “They were very excited to have a grandson, and fought with Howard constantly about seeing you more often.”

Tony stared at him blankly. “Are you saying that there is money in that box? My money? Why didn’t they ever say anything about it?”

“It was for an emergency,” Jarvis said.  "I'm sure your mother never thought you would need it."

Ana nodded. “But for you, sweetie, I think this situation is rainy enough to qualify.”

After that, Ana and Jarvis could tell that Tony was anxious to see if his mysterious inheritance was in fact what was in that deceptively small box from Maria, so they made excuses to leave as soon as he was done eating so he wouldn’t feel guilty about racing home immediately.  Bucky was in the garage under a Toyota, singing along to the radio, so Tony shouted hello as he raced up the stairs and dug the box out from under a pile of dirty laundry.  He realized his hands were shaking as he opened up the box and forced himself to take a deep breath.  With controlled movements, he leafed through the papers inside and found his birth certificate, his social security card, the title to his car, and, at the bottom, just like Ana and Jarvis had said, recent statements for a savings account in his name, with Maria’s parents listed as custodians.

“Jesus,” he whispered, looking at the account balance. Every year from his birth to their deaths, his grandparents had given him the maximum amount they could without it being taxed by the IRS; last year, it would have seemed like a pittance, but right now it felt like a fortune.   He was still in a daze, sitting on the floor of his bedroom with all the papers scattered around, when his phone rang.  He jumped and fumbled it out of his pockets, frowning with confusion when he saw it was Bucky.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I don’t know if you want to come downstairs, but your dad’s here,” Bucky said, and Tony could tell that his voice was tight with anger.  “He’s asking for you, but if you want, I can tell him to go piss off.”

“No, I’ll be right there.”  Tony shuffled everything together into a pile and set it on his bed before jogging down the stairs.

“Anthony,” Howard bit out as soon as he saw Tony. “What in the hell do you think you are doing?”

“You are going to have to be more specific,” Tony said.  “I’m doing a lot of stuff, and thanks to you, exactly none of it is your business.”

“Oh, really? If it’s none of my business, why did I get a phone call from someone working at the county clerk’s office asking for twenty thousand dollars or they will sell the news that Tony Stark just married some nobody from Brooklyn to every tabloid in the nation?” Howard shoved a faxed copy of Tony and Bucky’s marriage license in Tony’s face, almost hitting him in the nose.

“Well, it’s not my fault that someone at the county clerk’s office is a money-grubbing asshole,” Tony said calmly, taking the paper from Howard and crumpling it into a ball. “Do what you want with the information, I don’t care.”

For the first time in Tony’s life, Howard seemed speechless.  “This has gone on long enough,” he finally said.  “This little experiment.  Clearly this marriage is just meant to get my attention and you know what, it worked.  You’re going to come home, well get this…this marriage,” he said with distaste, “annulled, and if you are still insisting on this doctorate insanity we’ll see if you can do it part time or something.”

Tony stared at Howard in disbelief. “I’m not going anywhere,” Tony said finally.  “My marriage,” he said, echoing Howard’s snooty tone, “has nothing to do with you, and neither does my doctorate.”

“Oh please,” Howard sneered.  “You can’t convince me that this guy is anything other than some handicapped, money grubbing-“

“You will shut your goddamn mouth right there, do you understand?” Tony said dangerously, taking a step closer to Howard.  In the corner of his eye, he saw Bucky surreptitiously reach for a wrench from the work table, and felt a rush of warmth that Bucky was ready to leap to his defense.  “Bucky is a better man than you will ever be, do you understand?  He let me into his home, he gave me a job, and he’s been gracious and caring and none of it had anything to do with your goddamn money.  Do I love him? I don’t know, I might. But I’m starting to suspect that because of you, maybe I have a fucked up idea of what love feels like and looks like, so despite your gracious offer,” Tony said with a snarl, “I think I’m just going to stay right fucking here living my fucking life because I am doing just fine without you!” Tony didn’t realize he was starting to yell until he finished his sentence and was out of breath.  He pressed his lips together tightly because he was pretty sure that the only other thing that was going to come out of his mouth was going to just be a string of profanity.

Howard narrowed his eyes and started to speak, but just then Bucky stepped up beside Tony and said, “You need to leave,” with a look in his eye that said leave or I’ll make you.  Howard took one look at him, at the wrench in his hand and the set of his shoulders, and turned on his heels.

“Have it your way,” he said.  “I give the paparazzi a couple of hours before they are swarming you.” Then he slammed the door on his Aston Martin and peeled away with a screech of tires.

Tony exhaled and his shoulders relaxed as his father drove away.  He heard the clank of Bucky putting the wrench down and then there was an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into Bucky’s chest.  “Well, that was intense,” Tony said, resting his head against Bucky’s collarbone.

“Oh yeah,” Bucky agreed.  “Want to talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about? You were here for the whole thing.”

“Not your dad,” Bucky said, sounding like he was grinning a mile wide.  When Tony drew back from the hug and looked at him with confusion, Bucky’s smile somehow got wider. “The part where you said you might love me.”

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #no powers au #tw ableist language #prompts #dracusfyre

[flawlesspeasant]

no instructions.

Like I said, I only write fanfiction when I’m feeling inspired and I’ve been feeling inspired with Jo’s recent depression in the show. I really wanted to see something from Alex’s point of view and I got carried away with loving, concerned husband Alex and ended up writing about Alex dragging Jo to therapy. ❤️ Enjoy!

There’s a lot of things they don’t tell you how to prepare for, and this is one of them.

I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not like marriage comes with an instruction manual. To be honest, I spend most of my days going with the flow and learning as I go along.

Like when she leaves her hair on the bathroom floor and it feels like a white-hot branding iron was just put on my back. And I stomp to the bedroom to yell at her about taking five freaking seconds to pick up the goddamn broom and sweep up the mess before I have to go into work with a clump of her brown hair caked to my scrubs because that crap gets everywhere. Then, just as I’m ready to really give her the third degree, she’s lying on my side of the bed with her arm up under my pillow and her eyes are still closed and I think to myself, “what in the hell did I do to deserve her?” And all the anger melts away… something like putting an ice cube in the middle of a hot cup of coffee.

And also like when she drinks the last beer in the fridge but leaves the empty case there and it’s turned to the side in a way awkward enough to make me think that there’s still one left. It boils me up inside when I think that I’m going to come home after a long day of doing absolutely nothing at the hospital and crack open an ice cold brew, only to find that she dusted the last one off and gave me all kinds of false hope by leaving the empty six pack carton in the fridge. And just when I’m about to bust in the bathroom, rip the shower curtain back and yell at her for the umpteenth time about just throwing the damn case away, I stop in my tracks and can’t help but smile because through the sound of the water running, all I hear is her singing “it’s getting hot in here! So take off all your clothes!” and all I can think about is how I still can’t believe that I somehow tricked this goofball into marrying me. And I’m not so angry about the beer anymore.

See, it’s nothing like the first time I walked down the aisle and made somebody my wife. The time I married Iz, I mean.

When I married Iz, everything was a breeze. There weren’t any tough decisions and in truth, I had it easy. At the time, I sure thought that it was as hard as it would get and marriage was a horrible thing that I just so happened to get roped into. Back then, you couldn’t convince me that marriage was beautiful. Nobody on this earth could make me believe that it was great.

But that was when it was easy. With Izzie, it was easy. But with Jo, everything about this whole marriage thing is hard. And I can’t help but wonder if maybe — just maybe — it’s because for the first time in my life, I genuinely give a crap about her more than I give a crap about myself.

I mean, when you look at it, that makes sense… doesn’t it?

I didn’t need instructions when I married Izzie because marrying Izzie was easy and marrying Izzie was easy because I didn’t care about her enough.

At least not the way I care about Jo.

I spent the entire day wondering about that. Wondering why my marriage to Izzie wasn’t as hard on me as my marriage to Jo.

I asked Mer today at lunch why she thought that was and she didn't know what I meant. She thought I was trying to say that I regretted marrying Jo and I had to walk away when she implied that because that was the first time I’d been so pissed off in a while.

But I guess that was my fault because I couldn’t really explain to her what I meant by that.

What I meant was, why is my mind at home with Jo when before, it wouldn’t be?

All day today, I tried my hardest to be present with my patients. I listened to heartbeats and lungs, threw a diagnosis or two out there and administered and IV or two.

Yet all I could think about was how I knew my wife was at home in bed. She told me she was sick, but because I know Jo better than Jo knows herself sometimes, I knew that she was lying. If the tear streaks on her cheeks didn’t give that away, then the way her clothes don’t quite fit right anymore did.

And while I should have been paying attention to the actual sick people under my care, my mind wasn’t even in my head because all I wanted to know was if my wife was eating. Or if she had gotten out of bed yet. If she had showered. I could’ve given someone the wrong meds today and I genuinely wouldn’t have cared, as long as it meant that she had at least taken a bite of a piece of toast today.

Anyone who knows me knows how hard it is for me to give up control. But I did that yesterday because that’s just how badly I need her to be okay. Sure, I wish I was the person who could miraculously make her okay. I wish I could pull her out of whatever hell hole she’s been in the past few days, but I can’t. And if I can’t, then I have to hope that there’s somebody who can.

So, needless to even say how much I hoped that when I slid open the door to the loft, I would see her the way she used to be. I wanted to see her and Link sitting on the couch laughing, because he was my last resort. I wanted her beautiful hair to be brushed again and for my socks to be full of the clumps she left on the floor. And I wanted to open the fridge to find no more beer because she drank it all again.

And when I opened the door and heard the sound of her laughter echoing off the walls, I swear I still don’t know what stopped me from bum-rushing Link and hugging him because he did it. He really did it. He brought my beautiful, lively girl back.

Only he didn’t.

And that’s why we’re here.

I still don’t know if this was the “right” thing to do. And to be honest, I don’t know if she’s going to hate me after this or not. But I’m desperate now. Maybe even past desperate.

She sits across the room with her arms folded across her chest and her head down, still refusing to sit next to me. One half of her hair is still in knots, because she wouldn’t let me brush the other half after I told her that I was taking her to see a doctor. And nobody’s said anything but I can feel the eyes on her fuzzy purple pajama pants. It wasn’t pretty, but I told her I was bringing her “as is.” She resisted me a bit when I scooped her up and put her in the car.

“Karev?” the short little blonde calls from the door in the corner and, mostly out of habit, I stand up too.

Jo stands up so slowly that I wonder if she forgot that she could stand. It’s so quiet in this room that I can actually hear her bones shift and crack. I start to wonder how long it’s actually been since she’s walked on her own.

She takes one step without me and it’s like someone put a blanket around me and I didn’t realize I was cold and shivering until they did. I’m calmer now, just knowing that she’s even slightly agreeing to go. So I start to sit back down in my chair.

Only, she doesn’t let me.

She hasn’t spoken a word to me since we left the house nearly 45 minutes ago, but she doesn’t have to talk to let me know what she wants.

She puts her hand against mine before I can sit down all the way, and suddenly I’m not as soft as I was a second ago. A second ago, I felt like butter on toast. And in that same instant of my wife putting her hand against mine — of my wife telling me that she needs me — I’m solid again.

Because she needs me to be her rock.

She still doesn’t say anything the whole way back. We walk past a few doors; some open and some shut. Down a long hallway full of pictures of cheap plants and crap like that. And when we finally make it to the room we’re going to be in, Jo takes the seat closest to the door, like she always does. Closest to the exit. Always. And it sounds crazy, I know. But that little gesture — that little moment of her doing something so predictably her — is enough to let me know that my girl is still in there somewhere.

“So,” the therapist says as she shuts the door behind her. “If at any time you want your husband…?”

“Alex,” I mumble with a nod.

“Right,” she grins and nods back. “If at any time you want Alex to step out, just say so.” She sits at the desk across from both me and Jo and nudges a pair of glasses on. “This is our first session together, so I’m just going to really try to get to know you, Josephine. Or… Jo? Do you have a preference?”

Jo shrugs, so I — “Jo. She likes to be called Jo.”

“I see,” she nods again. “So… Jo. Just basics. What do you do for a living? I see you’re a… surgical fellow. Do you have a specialty?”

Jo just stares through the wall, blank. I reach over to hold her hand and she pulls it away.

“She um… she has a fellowship in future medicine. Which means she —“

“I would like to hear from Jo,” she says. We both turn toward her and we both know that she’s not going to say anything. So the therapist moves on to a different question. “We can always come back to your professional life when you’re ready. We can start with your personal life. What’s your marriage like? Are you happy?”

Jo nods, which is something and it’s something the therapist seems to run with.

“Any children?”

Jo and I both shake our heads at the same time.

“Ever been pregnant? Any history of miscarriages or abortions? Anything?”

I shake my head to answer that because I really don’t think Jo will and of course I know the answer to that.

Except, I guess I don’t.

Because Jo nods her head.

And for a split second, all I feel is anger. Coursing through my body. Like it replaced my blood.

Only for a split second, though.

In the next instant, all I feel is —

“Alex?” The therapist calls my name, which slaps me back to reality too quickly for me to really process… anything.

“What!?” I accidentally snap.

“Could you… step out?”

“She didn’t —“

“Alex,” the therapist says again. And this time, I trace her eyes to Jo’s eyes.

Jo’s eyes are low. Blank. Lifeless. But she is looking at me. Which is more than I can say for the past few days.

“Please.” The therapist says. And I’m waiting for Jo to put her hand on mine again, waiting for her to let me know that she wants me to stay again.

But she doesn’t. And before I can process anything, my legs are up out of my chair. And I’m out in the hallway. And my mind is off in a thousand different directions.

I swear, all marriage is to me is being scared every second of the day. It’s like having a piece of my heart walking around outside my body and I spend my every waking moment worried and hoping that the little piece of my heart — the piece that I know is depressed — is okay.

If I ever had any doubt of how much Jo has changed every inch of who I used to be, it’s this. Right here.

Because as much as I feel the old me — the me that’s still there just buried underneath everything that has grown — ready to rage because apparently my wife has been pregnant and I don’t know about it….

I just walk back to the waiting room and wait. For the next hour that Jo’s in therapy, I know my head is going to be a mess. I’m going to be wondering when she was pregnant and why I didn’t know. Trying to piece together a timeline that makes sense for me to have missed the signs. Trying to wonder if she was saying yes to having had a miscarriage or if she said yes to having had an abortion.

Yeah, I’m angry. Angry that my wife didn’t tell me something like this.

But more than that….

I just want my Jo to be okay.

#jolex #fanfiction #alex karev #jo wilson

[jacksoncenter]

Works Without Faith

I attended a funeral last week, which was a strange experience for me, because it is the first one I have ever attended. I did not know the person who passed as well as I would have liked to, but she was a massive figure in Northside and the surrounding communities. Her name was Mama Kat. Mama Kat was a woman who regularly volunteered with St. Joseph CME’s Food Ministry (AKA Heavenly Groceries), where food is collected and given to people who otherwise may not be able to afford it. That’s really an understatement though; she was omnipresent. Of the many volunteers that came through the Ministry, most of them recalled getting to know her as one of the most impactful parts of the whole experience. I count myself among them.

The day before the Funeral, the Jackson Center held a meeting, and everyone was asked whether or not we were willing to go to the funeral to show support for the family. I was the only one who hesitated despite half the table being populated with the Center’s other Summer Fellows, many of whom had been working at the Center for a much shorter time than I had, had known Mama Kat for a much shorter time than I had. But I hesitated, and I said, “My concerns are that I have a meeting at three, and I’m not sure I have the right clothes.” I did have a meeting, but I knew that we would be back before then. I knew I had the right clothes, but that was all that came out of my mouth when my real hesitation was that I was terrified at the idea because I did not know how to act at a funeral.

I have trouble coping with the thought of my own mortality, let alone how to properly respect someone who had just crossed beyond the veil. Besides, I didn’t see myself as very religious. I didn’t go to church very much at all growing up, and my interactions with religion had only ever been linked with those who wielded dogma to justify their bigotry, or else quietly went through the motions of faith without truly believing. I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

Della, our former Executive Director looked at me and said, “we will be back by then, and there is no right outfit.”

So the next morning I got up early and donned a white dress shirt and suit jacket I had recently brought back from my hometown on a whim, along with black dress shoes I didn’t know I even owned. I gently fastened a thin black tie around my neck that I had borrowed from a friend a long time ago and never given back since we mutually forgot about it. My entire outfit was an accident, some sort of serendipity that I started off that morning struggling to rectify. Had things been slightly different I wouldn’t have had that outfit.

We got into the car and drove out to the chapel in the country. Looking out at the woods as we passed by, they reminded me of the mountains and the pine forests which have surrounded the homes I have known in my life. We made small talk on the way and remembered Mama Kat’s life. I wished I had more to say, and I wished I had known her better. I wished I had put in the work to know her more before she passed.

We talked about how fortunate it was that The Jackson Center had preserved so many Oral Histories of Mama Kat, so that even though she had passed, her words would not be lost. Even though she was gone, her spirit could not be extinguished and would continue to live on in the hearts of those who remembered her voice and the ears of those future children who might know her through the stories we had saved.

When we arrived at the funeral, I was still anxious. Most of the people there had known Mama Kat for much of her life, were related to her, or worked with her. I was a just a white guy in a suit that no one knew, who had hardly ever been to church in his life, who didn’t believe in God, or in the Heaven that Mama Kat’s family knew she was cutting up in right as they spoke.

We walked in and through the beautiful church, and it was mostly already full. Soon enough we were ushered downstairs to the Fellowship Hall to watch the funeral on a television feed. Part of me had wanted to just stand against the wall for the whole ceremony rather than watch it on the television, but I knew there were more people coming in and there would almost certainly be people closer to Mama Kat than me who would have to watch on the television screen as well, so I just resolved to be present and listen.

To my surprise, all through the ceremony I couldn’t help but feel connected to it emotionally in ways I couldn’t really articulate. When I saw people walk over to the casket during the visitation and clutch the side of the box while staring down at their loved one, I felt that anguish and memory. When the church broke into song between speakers I wondered why I had to all but stop myself from singing along. Perhaps I should have sung along, but I didn’t know the words, and the basement overflow was not full of the singing and clapping that took place overhead.

But these feelings moving through me, this inarticulate connection, was only a dull hum compared to how I felt watching the pastor come to the altar and preach. He spoke of Mama Kat, of her work, of her character, and most importantly of the power of faith. Even all the caricatures of poor sermons in the world, full of hollow repeated verses and over worn Bible passages, could not have prepared me for the sheer power of someone using the text as a means for conveying their belief rather than someone speaking the same words as meaningless ritual. It was as if he were giving a speech through poetry as common prose, no matter how carefully chosen, would be unable to do the job. It felt as if something would be lost in those phrases like the energy between the words, the power of the lyric, or the context of the passage.

And so I wondered, a young man in an unfamiliar chapel who had never so much as stepped in a church since the age of six, why I felt myself on the verge of tears when the pastor proffered that “faith without works is dead.” Why was I shaken by the hymns? Why did my hands tremble at the sight of someone I had hardly known passing beyond this world?

I’m sure that many religious people might say that the power of the divine was affecting me, and I do not necessarily disagree. Many might say that I felt the awe of God.

But, despite my feelings, I grew up never believing in God, and I still cannot square my experiences with the existence of a God. So I’m left wondering what I do believe in.

Later that week I listened to another oral history we have in the archive at the Jackson Center. In it, the narrator speaks often about how he lets God use him, how he is often compelled to see and do things by something he feels is outside of himself; the power of God.

Strangely, the feeling is very familiar. The way he talked about being used by God sounded to me like the time I went to a protest and felt compelled to join the other activists in blocking an intersection. So filled with purpose was I at the time that looking back, the thought had not even crossed my mind that the action could have resulted in my being hit by a car or arrested. The way he talked about being used by God reminded me of how I felt when I had my first kiss, inconsiderate of anything other than the moment. The way he talked about being used by God reminded me of all the times I have reached out to someone I knew would have no time for me, but made time anyway. The way he talked about being used by God reminded me of how I have felt every time I have been brave in my life; every moment I made a decision I knew was right in my heart, in my bones, without being able to explain why.

How do I explain those moments to myself?

The short answer is that right now, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that those moments are necessary, that faith is necessary. Faith is in the bold, faith is in the world changing. True faith is inseparable from creating tangible change, because both rely on a suspension of material understanding in order to believe in a reality that is greater than the one currently experienced. How could protesting Candy-Coated Racism and sitting down in segregated stores, knowing you might get beaten by police or pummeled with a fire hose in order to secure a more just future that you can scarcely imagine, be that much different than having the courage to continue living devoutly through strife in order to live on eternally in a Heaven one can scarcely imagine?

Faith and Revolution have been long separated in the Western ideological canon, from the Cult of Reason to elitist critiques of the Civil Rights Movement, but I am beginning to think that this is a foolish error.

When that pastor said that Faith Without Works is Dead, he meant that it was not enough to believe in something without acting to better the lives of your brothers and sisters. Faith unmoored from a genuine mission to enrich the lives of others is hollow and vain. I would like to posit that the reverse is true. Works without faith are precarious.

The challenges facing this generation are colossal, are bigger than ourselves, and are so big that it is hard to feel like we are making any difference in changing them. People simply cannot understand the numbers of the big picture, you can’t visualize 3,000 tons of garbage. What we can visualize is our story, and what we want the world to look like in thirty years. Those who care most about creating a better world for our children, given a material understanding of our circumstances, are some of the most highly affected by anxiety, depression, and attention disorders. We are burnt out. We are tired. We are constantly second-guessing ourselves.

So often, our intense work is matched by an unrelenting nihilism that despite our efforts, things will never be better materially, and there is certainly no such thing as a life beyond this life where they will be better. But we need to believe that change is possible, that a better world is possible, because that faith is what keeps the lamp alight when all the other fuel has run out. For me, I think this means that my generation and activists writ large need to need to rediscover faith, a faith that feels authentic and true in our bones if not our heads. We need to decolonize ourselves and recognize that sometimes things can be true without being provable, at least on a personal level, even if that truth is not the existence of a God. And most importantly we need to feel genuinely that faith is radical, and radicals must have faith.

Faith without Works is Dead

Works without Faith don’t Last

— Wyatt Woodson

[laberintos-espinas]

The Old Chunk Of Coal

Some days are diamonds. Some days are Stones... And the alternative one, I am just an vintage bite of coal, but I can be a diamond at some point  Custom Made Jewellery I love songs. I love the lyrics and secondly the thumping vibrations of the decrease observe beats. I recollect these traces from  country conventional refrains. I recollect them due to the fact I realize the feeling of being taken into consideration a clump of coal. It's a bad feeling. It's now not so much the coloration that is a downer, it's the darkness that's involved whilst one thinks of coal. It's a fossil gas. It's top simplest for heaping onto an already insupportable ecological or metaphorical emotional trauma situation and making it worse. Let's strike a in shape to the coal and burn it until it is used up into ash. Then allow's desire the wind will scatter it, as we do not even want to empty the ashes once it is usefulness has been used up. We're ungrateful every now and then for services rendered. Coal paperwork under the floor. Without light. I assume it gets worse. I assume coal is not even an unique component. I suppose it is compressed gases or rotted timber or something discarded to begin with.

OK. So you get the image that I just like the phrases to songs that sing approximately desire for rotting ancient discarded elements.

I have a friend it truly is a shamanistic healer. It started out that he changed into going to help me locate my manner and discover my voice. Then I commenced cleaning his house for him. This made feel sooner or later for some motive. We additionally percentage songs. Baby-boomers are constantly flower youngsters at heart. I suppose neither one folks really knows why I'm nonetheless spiffing up the palace. I know at a few level we bartered house cleaning for transcended meditation classes. Yet I got here with a again schedule. I'm going to clean my way through his lavatories and into his coronary heart. When I get there, I'm going to mirror my Light on his pathway and then flip him into the palms of the one true God to take care of. Silly presumptive conceited me, assuming he wanted me to shop him. I deliver up my Shaman due to the fact he instructed me in three separate restoration periods I turned into a diamond so first-rate that soon many round me could recognize and notice me. I figured he changed into speakme inside the religious geographical regions and in symbolic language. Now I'm not so sure.

OK. So you get the picture that I've been on a religious quest to connect and solder myself right into the mainline connection with my Creator, God as I changed into taught. You recognise the only inside the Christian container? However, something came about along the way I didn't assume. My point of view concerning traditional Western Christianity flipped. I think now, that Jesus changed into certainly the entity that lead me into the Kingdom of God. Nevertheless, since I've certainly wondered and did research from original supply statistics, I suppose God is Spirit, the whole Spirit of the God and that God is entire natural Love; the originating, creating, shrewd Source that is the vibration of natural white power light. The Light of all cosmology and creation.

Something has also happened to me for the reason that my unique friend and the Shaman helped me locate my voice and soul again. I started out to put in writing. I started out to write prolifically. I write all the time. I cannot prevent it. It's been approximately six months now of nonstop writing. I write day and night time. I write about something and the entirety. I actually have masses to say and do not know why. My "still small voice" is very talkative. Just about each person it is are available in contact with my e-mail radar range, has advised I write for a living. I've just been watching for the go-ahead signal from a person. I've been at the intersection watching for the mild to turn green. Today it occurred.

You now recognize I stay to write down. I discover the sector around me high-quality and wondrous and want to inform absolutely everyone all about it.

I belong to a churchwomen's fellowship institution. It's seventy five-a hundred women who can find time on Thursday mornings to come back collectively with aim of being God honoring, together. One of the instructors for one in all this season's classes, I am venerated to say, has come to be a pal of mine. Judy is a raven-haired angel of a girl filled with grace, information and dignity. She's the pastor's spouse. She's additionally very humorous. I'm unshakably convinced God has a strong dry sense of humor. He need to have. Look at us!

Today Judy surprised me. She asked my permission to study one in all my written works. It was well timed and related to the President of america. She felt it turned into a very good element for some women to hear. I did not want to appear unpatriotic in those perilous instances, right after 9/11 so I agreed. I changed into very thankful she become not going to make me arise and examine my essay. I contemplated just skipping magnificence these days, to keep away from the embarrassment I'd no question sense and possibly keep away from the harsh sarcasm or poor criticism of my sisters in Christ. (Oops. It sounds a tad like my perceptions of my fellow guy is askew, would not it?) God will work on this hassle.

I did not hen out. I confirmed up. What I didn't anticipate passed off next.

Judy didn't wait till small institution time. She got up there and read my article to the complete bunch of properly-bred, sensible ladies at the monthly scheduled all-church women's luncheon earlier than our writing class. I become mortified! I started to look around me. The feast room changed into full of spherical tables seating eight ladies a table. A little hearth-orange rose budded out of the middle of every desk. These ladies began to appear like a bouquet of freshly reduce plants to me. This kind of bouquet is such an extravagance for someone like me. These girls are the cream of the crop on Mercer Island, WA. A.Ok.A. The Golden Ghetto. My sons and I best live on the island because of a Section 8 HUD housing voucher for the poor.

I watched as women began to wipe water out of the corners of their eyes. I watched as eyeglasses started being eliminated and noses had been blown. I watched girls torn between gazing me ( seeking to hide in a nook of the front of the room) and trying to stay riveted on Judy analyzing My written words. I watched as the sounds of my tale bounced towards my mind. I changed into surprised to say the least. I 'd by no means heard my words out loud earlier than. I become curious about the article. It produced a silent sound down in my internal middle connection to God. It struck worry (as in awe) in my heart as I realized some thing supernatural had passed off to my palms to jot down such sounds.

When the object become finished, the girls applauded. They asked copies to own in unison. I turned into proclaimed a proficient writer. I was humbled into silence, again. I saw some thing unrecognizable. I saw refracted mild start to prism off these ladies lower back at me. Just like while a diamond is held up to the daylight. I contemplated this sight.

As if this became now not sufficient, the primary group disbanded into the smaller lecture room corporations to prepare for the inspirational teachings of the day. It would be an hour and a half of studying and sharing Life training, girl Christian style. Judy had every other marvel in keep for me. She wasn't through with me yet due to the fact she was the teacher of the writing group I belonged to for this smaller organization.

The topic below discussion become Changing Times. Judy started out giving examples of how traditional authors had expressed themselves as she thumbed via Emerson, Lewis, and a pair current luminary authors. About midway via the class, Judy yanked out yet ANOTHER of my tales and read it to this magnificence as her last example! I turned into petrified the ladies might grow resentful, bored and angry at this monopoly on their time. There had been many proficient women in this organization. All with superb motivating stories to inform. Judy made no bones about how highly she regarded my capacity to seize pix and percentage my coronary heart-mind to an target market. She study Homecoming Parade. She excerpted and compacted the lengthy story into one which hit the mark. More tears flowed and mouths hung free. You should've heard a pin drop in the location. More applause. I shriveled underneath the desk and attempted to clown round graciously to alleviate the pain of appreciation and recognition.

What I saw as I appeared around this group of 30 movers and shakers of all ages, shocked me. I noticed it symbolically, as is my way. But nevertheless, it became there for the viewing. I saw a super wonderful blue-white, exquisite-reduce diamond being held up and placed into a platinum solitaire putting.

When the meeting ended, a woman I'd gotten to recognize recently approached me. Her call is Judy Boynton. She clipped off her credentials for the organization. She was a professional posted creator of fiction and non-fiction novels. She changed into an finished artist of sculptures. She become a trustee on the Board of Pacific Northwest Writers Conference affiliated with Pacific Lutheran University. She'd been a member of this group for over 25 years. I became impressed. Not so much through her credentials, as high-quality as they were, however with the aid of the strength and force at the back of her eyes. This woman had awareness and motive. She was aiming at me.

She advised me she knew what she was speaking approximately. She instructed me and the organization I WAS a gifted creator. She told us she'd visible enough to realize the difference among one that would like to be a writer and one that IS a writer. I fell into the latter category. She surpassed me numbers and pamphlets and instructed me to be at the next convention meeting. She explained this is where publishers, agents, and authors meet each other with the purpose on publishing written works of merit. Names like Ann Rule and J.A. Jance had been bantered approximately at some stage in this same day through others as they requested my permission to have them perhaps touch those "friends of theirs."

It isn't regularly in a lifetime that one simply is AWARE of a life converting moment or day. I've been graced with one of those moments. Today it appears, the sector round me is starting to notice and recognize the old chew of coal were given the dust pressure-washed off of her so hard and significantly by means of Life, that she'd developed into a diamond solitaire of well worth and observe.

I know in which I belong proper now, proper at this area in time. I belong sticking effective near my special buddies who know a way to crimp the ones platinum prongs at the diamond setting firmly and securely. I even have a sense diamonds are forever, as they are saying. How should this have passed off?

[game-of-thrones-season]

Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman breaks down season 8, episode 2's big scenes

Bryan Cogman on the 'play-like' episode 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms': 'This is really a love letter to the characters'

By

James Hibberd

April 21, 2019 at 11:16 PM EDT

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HELEN SLOAN/HBO

Game of Thrones

TYPE

TV Show

GENRE

Drama,

Fantasy

NETWORK

HBO

Game of Thrones co-executive producer Bryan Cogman penned the second episode of the final season, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” which devoted an hour to quietly spending time with fan-favorite characters before their apocalyptic battle against the Army of the Dead. While fans expected the six-episode final season to be action-packed (and it will be), the producers also felt it was important to slow down and savor the show’s ensemble lineup of characters now that they’re together in one place and facing what is almost certainly their last night all together.

“This episode is really a love letter to the characters,” Cogman says. “With most of our battles you get about 15 minutes of calm-before-the-storm with the characters participating in that battle taking stock of where they are in their lives before the dam breaks. This is an entire episode of that so that episode 3 can hit the ground running.”

Below, Cogman (who previously wrote a terrific GoT re-watch viewing guide) gives some behind-the-scenes insight into some of the episode’s biggest moments…

— Jaime’s informal trial: “This was not unlike the trial episode I adapted with Tyrion in season 4. It was a chance to revisit Jaime’s arc and the different perspectives that they have about him. Brienne’s perspective mirrors the audience. One thing I have to remind myself is that not everyone on Game of Thrones is watching Game of Thrones. The characters only know what they know and they only know their own experiences, but the natural thing for you to want is to say, ‘they’re both good guys, just put aside your differences.’ What’s fun about Brienne’s testimony is she’s the only character who’s bore witness to the amazing changes Jaime’s gone through over the course of the season — apart from Tyrion who has his own reasons for loving his brother and knowing he’s different than how he’s perceived.”

— Jaime asking to serve under Brienne and Brienne being knighted. “Jaime does something here you would never expect the Jaime of season 2 to do. For Jaime, to humble himself to serve under anyone is a huge thing. He would never do that for anybody other than her. Jaime has been a knight of the Seven Kingdoms his whole life, but he’s finally becoming the knight he’s been chasing.” And later, Jaime knighting Brienne in the Great Hall: “We wanted to take the audience by surprise. It’s not a ceremonial scene on a cliff at sunset with billowing capes. It comes out of a throwaway moment that even some people in the room think is a joke and then they quickly realize it’s not. It’s a monumental thing. It’s a moment of grace and beauty in the middle of a nightmare and the main reason I wanted to write this episode. The episode’s title, ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,’ refers to both Jaime and Brienne.” (By and by, EW asked Brienne actress Gwendoline Christie which scene she’s most proud of in the entire series and she said it was this one. “I think the knighting scene,” Christie replied. “I thought about it so much and what it means to me conceptually. It’s so emotional for the character to get something she wants and to be acknowledged.”)

— Arya and The Hound: “Arya asks, ‘When have you fought for anything or anyone other than yourself,’ and The Hound says, ‘I fought for you.’ There were glimmers of ‘goodness’ — for lack of a better term — in The Hound before he encountered Arya — certainly in his occasional protection of Sansa. But that scene in season 4 when he fights for Arya he was protecting her in his mind. He believed Brienne was there to do her harm. The tragedy of that scene was, again, if they had just seen each other’s subplots they would know to work together. Yeah, The Hound is always going to be a killer, he’s never going to embrace the life of peace that Brother Ray was preaching. But that time with Brother Ray fundamentally changed him and the seed of that was protecting Arya which grew into who he is now.”

— Arya and Gendry: “We asked ourselves what a lot of these characters would do on their final night. For Arya, there’s an attraction to Gendry and she’s like, ‘If I’m going to die, I might as well see what all the fuss is about.’ She executes that encounter and Gendry is more than happy to go along. We were very careful to make sure Maisie [Williams] was comfortable and everything was on her terms. One thing I wrote specifically when crafting that scene is ‘Gendry notes her scars.’ They’re from all of Arya’s encounters but most specifically when The Waif tried to kill her. There are so many things Gendry doesn’t understand about Arya. They’re having this nice flirtation and have this own shared history they draw upon but she’s very different from the Arya he used to know. There’s an attraction for him, but she’s also a bit scary too.”

— Davos and Gilly tending to refugees: “The short little scene with Davos and Gilly tending to refugees streaming into Winterfell. They encounter a girl with half her face scarred who bears a resemblance to [Stannis Baratheon’s sacrificed daughter] Shireen. The name ‘Shireen’ is not said in the scene. But Shireen taught both Davos and Gilly how to read. This is an example of how brilliant [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] are. I wrote a scene where Davos and Gilly get on the subject of knowing how to read and then get on the subject of Shireen and how she taught them both. It was the right inspiration but it felt contrived. [With the showrunners’ notes it] evolved into this where the scene is absolutely about Shireen, but neither of them are aware of the impact she had on the other. It was a beautiful way of acknowledging all of these threads between all of these characters that many of them are not aware of and never will be aware of — only we as the audience have the privilege of being aware of them.”

— Podrick’s song: “Songs have been important in the past on the show, but they’re more present in [George R.R. Martin’s] books. Pod once again surprises us when we find out he has a lovely singing voice. It was fun to find a reason to get ‘Jenny of Oldstones’ [a.k.a. ‘Jenny’s Song’] in there in a way that feels organic and appropriate. It’s not something we normally do, but I think it works. Dan wrote the [bulk of the] lyrics — about it being warm and having fellowship together and how they wish it could last longer, but it’s not going to.” The song is also covered by Florence + the Machine in the closing credits.

— Jon tells Dany about his parentage. “Jon is avoiding Dany the whole episode because this bombshell has been dropped on him and he can’t even process how to be in the same room with her. She senses a strange tension and can’t understand why. What really upsets Jon is that he’s a blood relative to the woman he’s in love with. In the crypt, Jon is taken aback when essentially the first thing she says is acknowledging that he has a claim to the Iron Throne. And Jon’s immediate concern is the fact that that’s her immediate concern. [Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke] play it beautifully. It’s a very difficult scene to pull off; so much has to go on behind the eyes. But then the horn blasts and the Army of the Dead are at the gates.”

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is “almost like a play,” Cogman adds, an episode that he was eager to tackle yet proved to be a massive challenge. Cogman praised showrunners Benioff and Weiss for helping shape and edit the final script. “This was the most difficult script of the 11 I’ve written for Game of Thrones,” he says. “The big challenge was not writing a Wikipedia page. In fact, my first draft was a Wikipedia page. The way it works is the showrunners return a Final Draft document with notes written in red in the margins. They returned my first script with a sea of red.”

One suspects the episode will dramatically feel even stronger when watched in tandem with the next episode of season 8, which chronicles the Battle of Winterfell. “There was such a breakneck pace to season 7 that I was delighted when the [showrunners] proposed an episode of just spending time with characters in this space,” Cogman says. “I think it will make episode 3 — which is spectacular — all the richer. The moment that episode 3 starts we’re in full 100 percent battle mode.”

More Game of Thrones season 8, episode 2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” coverage: — Maisie Williams discusses her surprise Gendry scene: ‘At first, I thought it was a prank…’ — Game of Thrones: Emilia Clarke defends Dany’s reaction to Jon’s parentage — Game of Thrones reveals big battle trailer for season 8, episode 3 — Game of Thrones releases ‘Jenny of Oldstones’ song performed by Florence + the Machine — Deep-dive recap for ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’

Game of Thrones

HBO’s epic fantasy drama based on George R.R. Martin’s novel series "A Song of Fire and Ice."TYPE

TV Show

SEASONS

7

EPISODES

67

GENRE

Drama,

Fantasy

RATING

TV-MA

RUN DATE

04/17/11

STATUS

On Hiatus

CREATOR

David Benioff,

D.B. Weiss

CAST

Kit Harington,

Emilia Clarke,

Peter Dinklage,

Lena Headey

NETWORK

HBO

AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING ON

COMPLETE COVERAGE

Game of Thrones

#MAANDO MBA #GAME OF THRONES

[rexylafemme]

time together with time to spare; time to learn, time to care

i feel seasick with grief. my stomach feels like a rubber hot water bottle being tossed about between two hands, sad water sloshing around, springing up through my throat to my eyes which keep welling up. my heart is beating and radiating from it is a dull burning feeling that contracts and expands through my chest as i breathe. my fingers are trembling and i can’t keep them steady, my whole body is slightly tingly, vibratory. tears keep surfacing, a wall of water over my eyes, cascading from behind my eyebrows, but then i breathe and they don’t fall. it’s 12:10pm and i must be hungry because i haven’t eaten since early afternoon yesterday, having been at hospice all day in new jersey until close to midnight. my mind feels hazy, my stomach is sour and i feel empty all over.  it feels like a hangover, but i am just living through death.

i’ll stop writing to eat soon because i know i need to care for myself well through this, but right now i need to write through what i feel first. i’m telling myself i will neglect everything i need to get done today, but i’m not sure that’s true. i’ll decide if maybe being productive toward tour tasks, making my video collage for my performance, making some important phone calls, going outside, anything other than just being in this, will be helpful to me today. if it won’t, i won’t allow myself to be stressed by obligation. i don’t want to use anything—workaholism, frenzied cleaning, substances, tv, sleeping—to distract myself or to numb myself or to get lost in something else.

i put two slices of bread in the oven, i’m going to eat toast. i think about orange juice, but my whole torso already feels like it’s coursing with watery acid. i sigh and i think “it’s unfair.” i wonder about spiritual justice, i wonder about consequences, i ask myself, or my thoughts vocalize themselves in my head, asking the void, asking the matrix, asking the ether—why?

i was supposed to spend the day yesterday at my aunt linda’s with her and my mother. my mother texted me on saturday night at around 10 that we couldn’t hang out because instead, she, linda, and my uncle, tommy, were going to go see our cousin, maureen, in hospice. cousin is kind of misleading, given maureen  is my grandmother’s niece. she’s 77 and more like an aunt to them, a great aunt to me. funnily, i was sitting on the rocks of the east river in red hook, off the street maureen grew up on when i get the text. i call my mother immediately, to ask if i could come with them. i call my uncle and leave a message, asking what the best way for me to link up with them tomorrow is if they are going.

i didn’t know how badly my mother was really doing until i saw her yesterday, or i did know, but haven’t been able to deal with it. and none of us knew how badly maureen was doing until we saw her yesterday, her dying. my mother didn’t come. she’s in a really fragile mental state, she’s not eating or taking care of herself, she’s foggy and quiet, and my uncle picked a fight with her before i was heading to queens and then she felt too sick and upset to come. my uncle was a huge, mean asshole lacking compassion as usual, and it’s his fault she didn’t come because the miscommunication about scheduling was his fault, but instead he just did what he and a lot of them tend to do in my family, blamed my mother, yelled at her, shut her down. she’s an easy target and she’s very sensitive.

i burnt my toast, but i’m going to eat it anyway, with half an avocado and some salt. i bite it, i chew, move the food around in my mouth until it is mush, swallow. it doesn’t taste like anything, it just feels like changing textures on my tongue, between my teeth, against the soft inner walls of my cheeks.

i saw my mother briefly around the corner from the house, felt hopeless and heartbroken. she kept saying she was okay and i kept saying she wasn’t. sometimes loving my mother, a lot of times, loving my mother, has meant begging her to care about herself enough to stay alive. she is slowly killing herself it seems sometimes, the house—how tommy hoarded it, how tommy and dorothy began hoarding her apartment after my mom took dorothy in—is killing her, their cruelty, their verbal abuse, the meanness, is killing her, me, us. i know i’m going to have to decide to restructure things in my life to take the reins to help her because she can’t do it herself at this juncture, in this way. but i do have faith that once she’s back on her feet a bit, once she’s shown some care, she can push forward again. nobody in our immediate family has a lot of faith in her but me. no one takes any responsibility for her well-being but me. because she’s the crazy one. because she’s the punching bag. i try to think clearly, i try to think of ways i can step in here without it overwhelming my life, without having to sacrifice what i need to do with myself. i try to be reasonable about what i’m dealing with here, i try to not catastrophize—i can deal with this after i return from tour. is there time for that?  will she be okay by the time i get back? will she be alive? reasonably, yes, she will be alive. she may not be any better than she is right now, though, but what i could accomplish toward that in a month in a fucked up personal state is unclear either way.

i think about next year and how i’ve been considering not going to the conservatory, been weighing my options and thinking about my dreams, my goals, what i’ve made and not waiting to live my life the way i want to. how i’ve been thinking of actually just extending the tour, starting the performance/organizing collective with the emerge people, working and traveling and using the money i raise toward performance programs that aren’t THE WHITE RICH ESTABLISHMENT and that also provide more financial assistance. not going $40,000 more into loan debt on top of the rest and having to raise $4-6,000 a semester on my own, just to go, not including housing, life expenses, everything else. i think about how i can take classes with laverne cox’s acting coach, singing classes with julia, queer-oriented body and movement classes, the doors that have opened for me through emerge with connections, fellowships, residencies, how i can develop my own framework for education and pay less for it, while also maybe getting more of what i need in ways that honor me. in a way where i wouldn’t have to, on top of being at school from 9-5 or 6 each day, and working  some nights and weekends, have to do the extra work to just teach everyone about who i am, about trans-ness and identity and privilege in general, on top of the psychological struggle it will be just to be in a program like that where the point is to delve deep into emotional landscapes and embodiment, but also—the psychological struggle of having to be a woman, literally, in scenes (and like rich wife canon characters). i think about all the work and energy i’ll put into transforming an institution that will revert back to itself for the most part upon my leaving. because that’s what i do in these settings. i think about being one of the only trans poor people there and i wonder why i would do it. i wonder what i would gain.

i tell myself if i don’t go, if i just run with what i’ve made, this book, six years in the making, run with what i’ve built in performance and with emerge, see where that goes, i also could always reapply and get in again. i got in with no training whatsoever. i got in because i wanted to, because i gave it everything. but maybe i want to give myself everything, maybe i want to go for my dream in a different way, in a way i’ve been dreaming about for a long time. maybe just because i am used to running myself ragged, running on empty, on fumes, used to being an exception in an affluent establishment institution and codeswitching and fighting my way through it, doesn’t mean it’s what i should do. maybe that’s an old dream, maybe that’s just what flashdance and gypsy and some theatrical version of meritocracy told me to do.

i’m diverging, i want to focus on yesterday, but i can’t separate the future, my future, from the present. my mother gets inserted into my planning. i wonder if that’s wrong. i think, maybe choosing not to go, well, i know choosing not to go, will make it easier for me to support her. but what kinda role should that play in my decision-making? i think that our radical communities, steeped in academic theories on what’s right and wrong in terms of how to be and act and live can be as blindly and naively individualistic as any other framework, sometimes don’t speak to the lived realities of poor families and what we have to do to survive and help each other survive. but also, codependence has been a sour reality in my family life and i’m constantly evaluating what support needs to look like in my life. as my cousin denise, maureen’s daughter, said yesterday, take care of yourself first, then take care of your mother. which is, i imagine, what has sustained her through taking care of her own mother.

i think, too, that going might be a bad kind of drain on my mental health, a bad kind of obsessive attention to my craft at the expense of a lot of other necessary parts of my life: like focusing on self-care and community-care and my family, blood and not, and herbal transitioning and just nourishing myself in all the other passions and desires and needs i have. i worry that the program won’t honor a much-needed and awaited dedication to balance in my life that i have been working hard and successfully (in some ways) to cultivate. because the kind of rigorous it is is the kind that tells you to push yourself beyond what you are reasonably capable, that kinda ragged discipline where you break yourself and don’t be a wimp/baby/sissy. no crying in baseball kinda system. i don’t know that i believe in that anymore. i believe in pushing myself, i believe in breaking, i believe in rigor, but maybe not in that way. and maybe not in that setting. who will hold me there?  

yesterday, like my whole life, and maybe anyone’s, especially where family is concerned, i was a child and i was an adult. precocious in my emotional intelligence, seen and held mostly by myself and by denise, maureen’s daughter. it was like years collapsing. it was like when grandma and donna died, like when maureen and denise showed up for us, for them? my aunts and uncles, their cousins they raised or grew up with. tables were turned. denise is a year younger than my mother, denise. maureen and denise were integral to my survival through my childhood, especially through the first couple years after my grandma and donna’s death, all the chaos that ensued. which was just a continuation of other chaos.

time collapsed. it was so ordinary and normal to talk to denise. it was so ordinary and normal for us to be all over each other with sweet, familial, friendly affection. we saw each other as we always did, denise, 58, me, 28. having these beautiful and complex relationships with our mothers. being two people who were always kinda different, always set apart. two people with so much exuberant love for people, two creative and eccentric and short people. and, interestingly, tho i was an only child, i always was treated as a kinda sibling to my 6 aunts and uncles and my mother, and denise, tho she had 3 siblings, was always kinda like an only child, much closer to maureen than to her siblings.  linda said, “denise is going to be so lost.” because she has been so close with maureen, living with her since before i was born aside from her own stint in the bay area and other moments in NYC, and, recently, taking care of maureen through the last two years, two years i didn’t realize until yesterday had been so extreme. taking care of her almost exclusively, as her siblings live out their married lives with children and ordinary career paths (no judgment, it’s just how it is). denise being the eldest.

and not knowing about maureen’s condition these two years: that’s partially the working class irish-catholic stoicism, as denise and i were discussing, sitting by a wall of windows in the hospice hallway, and that’s partially my family, my elders, being disconnected because of their dysfunction. and that’s partially maureen just not wanting people to know, not wanting to burden people, not wanting help, and also what denise called “vanity.” and so i don’t begrudge anyone for the ways they chose to deal, not deal, talk, not talk about what was happening. i am mature enough in these times now to not judge, to not have hard feelings. tho i do have regrets, and i expressed them honestly to denise. i wish i had seen her before now, have an actual conversation, see her laugh again, hear her speak, ask her things. denise said i shouldn’t. she loves me, she always has had a very special place in her heart where i live, that she wanted and expected me to be off, on my own, finding myself, spreading my wings. that it was no one’s fault that we weren’t as close. that we all do what we can.

that was the thing about maureen and denise and my grandmother and donna that were different: we talked about shit honestly, we didn’t hold back the hard stuff. the emotional experiences of these tragedies we lived within. so i told denise that i felt heartbroken, to tell her how much i value how encouraging and supportive maureen always was of my creativity, my sensitivity. how both of them really saved me through those times. how even before those deaths they were a respite for me. and she explained the last two years to me, and “you know how she is! she’s stubborn. she’s strong, she’s a tough cookie, she’s set in her ways.” the attendants call her queen maureen. exalted, the name card on the window by her bed in her hospice room says.

i didn’t know i was going there to say goodbye. we didn’t know. everything’s accelerated so fast since wednesday apparently. she was in rehab, the thought was she was going to get stronger and be alright, but then, a turn for the worse. of course when we were headed to hospice we knew that meant soon, but not like, any day. denise said one night all of a sudden maureen started saying, “mom, mom! mom, no i’m not ready. i need a jacket, i need my jacket.” and denise  said, “nana, no, wait, i need a few days.” end of life care, comfort care.

 we got out of the car in front of the hospital, linda and i, linda holding her portable oxygen tank, out of breath from just getting out of the car, waiting for tommy to park and enter together. as we stood there, we saw michelle, maureen’s youngest daughter, approaching. she looked at us and didn’t recognize us at first. then said, “oh my god,” hugged us. said to linda, “i didn’t recognize you. i saw you and was like why is this lady looking at me, wait she looks familiar. how are you feeling? like shit?” linda shrugged. tommy arrived. there was no preparing us. we got up to the hospice floor, i went to the bathroom. i took a deep breath and walked down the hall to maureen’s room.

there really was no preparing. she is so small. she is all bones, loose skin in places, taut skin in places, pale. i can’t quite remember what she looked like, which makes me sad, but i guess is a protective mechanism; she wouldn’t want me to remember her that way anyway. walking in to her was shocking. i tensed up, i felt sick, i felt frightened. it makes me feel sick to say that she, at first, terrified me. but it was the kinda fear that comes with knowledge of how much suffering she was going through, how much pain, how this was the last time i would ever see her. and this was a way i knew she didn’t want to be seen and her seeing me might make her feel more sadness and pain. i sat at the end of her bed on a chair next to lauren, her granddaughter, two years older than me and recently married in spring. maureen almost didn’t make it to her wedding because of her health problems, but, fierce miracle queen that she is, she did. and i remember the pictures from it on facebook, how just three months ago she looked so different, still like herself, tho much smaller and frailer and thinner and more tired.  

so delirious through the morphine, out of it, so barely there, in body and spirit. and, yet, it was her and she was alert. glimpses: her hands, her eyes, those moran eyes as everyone always said of my grandmother’s side and their uniform eyes. she looked right into my eyes, my face—recognition and surprise and her own grief, i wanted to know how she was feeling, i didn’t know how to ask, i didn’t know what to say. i felt stupid and like a child who didn’t know what to do, my love felt confused, because i didn’t want to hurt her more, physically or spiritually. i didn’t know what was right. looking in her eyes and denise’s eyes both were like looking into my grandmother’s eyes. she could barely, barely speak. but she said “i haven’t seen you in so long,” and all i could say was i know. it broke my heart, but i know it wasn’t a judgment. i gently rubbed her back, i touched her shoulder. she was trying, straining to speak to me. i can’t even explain what it was like. what she looked like, what she sounded like, how few words were spoken, and yet it felt like a whole conversation. i can’t, i have no reference points. it was so unreal. she wanted to speak, but she couldn’t, she said some things and i understood. mostly i could understand her pain, swimming and restless inside it, the cage of her torturous body. and yet, it was her, and she was beautiful. her hands still gesturing against the bed in the ways i remembered. i sat down and i was drowning in memories of her, drowning in the sound of her laugh. catching up with the moment, that it was almost over and this wasn’t what i thought i was walking into today. loss and regret and confusion. deep deep wells of sorrow.

it is what it is. this is a motto in our lives. the lives in which we lived, for generations, of white poor poverty, surrounded by death, too-early-death, addiction, mental health problems, violence. it is what it is. and the blessing, the silver lining, as we discussed, that maureen is 77. that she outlived so many. in a life of hers peppered by early deaths and loss, people dying in their 30s, 40s, 50s. children dying. losing her dad so young when she was 9, losing her husband so young, losing her sister so young. losing michael and donna, her cousin-nephew, cousin-niece, my uncle and aunt, so young. the silver lining of, yes, all of this she’s experienced now in the last two years has been extreme—complications as a result of a radical treatment for uterine cancer 40 years ago. scar tissue from that radiation is all wrapped and twisted up around her intestines. apparently, since two years ago, it’s just been one problem, one complication, one thing worse than the other. she’s barely been able to eat in two years. she’s had tubes in her. the cancer came back, plus all the other problems. the silver lining being, tho the ill-advised-yet-of-its-time treatment caused excessive and catastrophic damage now, it allowed her to live out a life. to see her children grow up, to have grandchildren, to grow old.

but to see her in such suffering and pain, unfair. i wanted to stay with her forever, i wanted to sit with her, hold her and never let go. but i was also responsible to the people around me, her children, denise, bobby, sharon, michelle, my aunt linda and uncle tommy, and her best friend for 70 years, diane, who i had to move away from maureen so she could sit at her side, holding her hand, stroking her shoulder, whispering, crying.

i decided to leave the house. i started crying as i walked out the door, started walking to sunset park, turned around, to head to greenwood. on my way, i passed DENISE written on the ground, followed by a hopscotch board that only went to 8, the numerological path number of this year for me. like in january when i passed the hopscotch board to 8 in prospect park. i was crying with my black sunglasses covering it all, and then i laughed. denise had told me yesterday that her dad’s side, the madden’s side, had a grave in greenwood right by the entrance to the tunnel. i found it. i found a grave nearby that said GIVEN GRACE.

while i was getting dressed today, black short-shorts and black tank top, i realized i shucked the NYC-always-wear-black-thing my whole life because we were always in mourning in my childhood and i associated it with that. i was tired of death. wakes and funerals and hung heads. i am more grounded and peaceful sitting under the big curving tree that sheltered me from the summer shower a couple weeks ago. i’m sitting close to the edge of the pond. little turtle heads poke up from the surface from time to time. i wrote and i wrote and i cried. i called my best friend of 23 years, i told them everything: the school plan thoughts, how my mother is, the whole story of the day with maureen. i was crying and it was hard. but i wasn’t alone. i’ve known r. since we were five. i thought of maureen and diane, friends since 6 years old.

all day yesterday, from early afternoon to 11:30pm as we were at hospice,  i thought about coming home to write through it all. to hold it all, to keep it all, why i don’t know. how i did this in the days immediately after my grandmother’s death, and donna’s. 15 pages, i think, single-spaced, paragraphless stream in lucida handwriting (god why). how, walking the 2 and a half blocks home from school that day, oct 30 2001, with natalia and esther, i felt off, distant, dread. how when we hit the corner of 83rd and 34th, i could see maureen standing in front of grandma’s house and my stomach fell to the floor. i knew. i said, no, i felt myself swirling, sick, drowning. i didn’t wanna cross the street, cross over into whatever was next, as if i could avoid what was already happening, what already happened.

i don’t remember the rest exactly, or i remember things that may have been dramatizations or reenactments, because i have exact visions of scenes i wasn’t there for, my aunt, donna, reclined on the couch sick before they took her to the hospital, monsignor mcguirl upstairs with my grandmother, blessing her. i wasn’t there for these things, they happened in the morning while i was at school. i can’t find what i wrote about it, years later, after the fray of eviction, moving, stuff going missing, etc. i remember i kept the chronicle in a plastic green folder and i would carry it around and re-read it often before it got lost. i guess in order for it all to stay real? like yesterday was unreal. or in order to grieve with myself. that was the thing—the writing of it gave me a place to grieve alone, to not bother anyone, it gave me a place to say everything. and maureen and denise were the ones who held me through grandma’s death, through donna’s, three weeks to the day later on november 20th. my immediate family couldn’t hold me. i was lost with them, i was a ghost. i was their equal. i was alone. i wasn’t alone. everyone, no one. there was me. there was maureen and denise.

when maureen said, as i held her, as i looked at her, “i was surprised to see renée,” as she searched my face and was moving her chapped mouth around, maybe looking for her voice, for something to say, maybe just grimacing or reacting to pain, kinda lightly moaning and humming, her gums and lips kinda pink with dried blood, so chapped. i just held her and asked why she was surprised and she said, “i don’t know. because i haven’t seen you in so long,” and at the time it made me feel so sad, such regret. i could only say “i know, i know.” i held her hand. we held hands, both of them. denise said later when i told her she held my hands that it was really special because it’s hard for her to even gather the strength to do that. it was meaningful. i stroked her back so lightly, would just place my hand on her shoulder, feeling her breathing, feeling her heart. “you’re so good with her,” denise said. i just shrugged, “i love her.” she got restless and said, “i don’t like…” “i need…” and i think she wanted me to move her. so i asked her how, where. her legs. i was honored she trusted me to help her. i asked for denise, but denise said i could do it. we did it together, lifted up her leg, bones, placed pillows between them. i told her i love her so much. i told her i was in red hook the night before, on conover st, “oh you were,” she said. i started telling her about sunny’s bar, but she interrupted me to say who was it just said they were in red hook, she was getting upset that she couldn’t remember, so i asked denise. john and esther, john and esther, i kept saying, trying to assure her because she seemed upset, maybe like she was losing everything.

then i had to move to let diane in, told her i would be back and she said, it’s ok. but i didn’t want to let go of her hands. the glimpses. my name out of her mouth like she always said my name. her beautiful voice.

when i first arrived and first saw her and saw linda touching her and crying, my lips started shaking and i had to walk out, briskly down the hall to the bathroom. tears welling up, but not falling and i felt like i was drowning and i couldn’t breathe and i was pacing around the small cube of the bathroom, and i hit my head against the wall and i slumped down it with my arms over my head, sliding down the wall, helpless. i was dry sobbing and swirling and i looked in the mirror—my lips red and purple and trembling, my chin quivering and that wall of water over my red eyes that wouldn’t break, or only slightly, a few tears. and i remembered all the times in the bathroom at grandma’s as a kid, looking into the mirror and crying, thinking my eyes looked so much more beautiful when i cried, all the hazel variations coming out at once, illuminated. and thinking i looked beautiful now, my eyes and my mouth. i wondered where everyone else was when i was in the bathroom crying alone then, a child.

anyway, maureen dying brings up everyone dying. because we were all there together, she was there and she was so beautifully present and supportive through it all, for everyone, but especially for me. michael, grandma, donna. of course mae, my grandma’s sister, and grandpa, tho i was a toddler. but i remember mae dying. i was her little nurse, i would bring her her pills in the blue pill case and water and i would tuck her in. i always wanted to heal everyone. i had a dream about her the night after she died that i thought was real. i was 3, but i can’t forget it. she came to me. i thought it was a memory, but my mother said it wasn’t, it was a dream. there was an empty gurney in the bedroom, dorothy’s bedroom, that they were caring for her in. there was the sense that she had been in it. but the wind just blew the white sheet around and she wasn’t there, she was released. i saw her in the hallway or i felt her in the hallway, touched by her presence, and i knew she was okay, i could smell her. and i was happy.

and beyond all that got dredged up, all denise and i spoke of about those deaths, what came after, about the trajectory of my specific family system, my aunts and uncles and how and why they are—new illuminations and puzzle pieces on all sides. things i already knew, but just got confirmed by denise. things denise knew, but got confirmed by me. there was all this, all the pain and all the darkness, but there was also the memories of joy and simple sweetness. there was sitting in the hospice room, maureen asleep, tommy and bobby lying back on the other hospital bed, linda and denise and i sitting against the wall, diane sitting next to maureen, all sharing memories of their childhoods and laughing. and it was the weirdest thing, i could see them all as children in those moments, i saw the youngness in their faces, in their smiles, and i was this adult, younger than them, but somehow older in that moment, somehow watching them through time. and it was beautiful and it was strange and it was sad and it was lovely. and i was grateful to be a part of it, i was grateful to know something about them before it all got so ugly and twisted, or maybe even as it was, for them, as with my life. the kernels of beauty and togetherness amidst the suffering, the hardships. and i thought of who we were before, how we were, the togetherness i so valued that was so crushing when we, when they, lost it. gave up on it or destroyed it. and how through all that, maureen and denise were always so present for me. their house was a safe haven for me, nurturing and loving, a respite. how they held me and listened and how they honored me in my fullness—my talents, my deep sensitivity, my grief. the full realities of my life and our family’s life. how it meant a lot to me when denise said in the hallway, “you didn’t get a childhood, you had to grow up too soon,” and tommy was there and he was just quiet. 

i could sense something in him wanted to challenge her on it, but he couldn’t. i also know there’s something that makes it hard for him to challenge me generally. which comes from i don’t know what, respect, or what i’m not sure. but it’s one win for my femmeness over his toxic masculinity. how later, when we were speaking without anyone around she said that even though the way they treated me as an adult, as a therapist, or straight up neglected me/fucked me up, was wrong and inappropriate, i was a gift to them. and it may be hard for me to see it that way, but i have all this material to work from and i can use it to be a gift for other people, too. that i’m a healer. and i was so affirmed in that. and felt seen. and i actually loved being myself, renée, in that space. didn’t want to be anything else, was fully me. some lipstick, some facial hair, obscured breasts, hot pants. just me. i’m not the best example of a trans person out there. i really barely give a shit about anything sometimes because there’s so much else than how i’m seen. it’s so unimportant to me sometimes.

i did think about maureen taking me to see lauren’s lil teen theatre company’s production of west side story, which started up an obsession. i would watch the movie every day and listen to the soundtrack obsessively, as my family fought or negotiated over the house in the background, as everyone unraveled and fell apart. how at the show i told maureen i had a crush on the beautiful boy who played riff. but in my head,too, i wanted to be him. he was probably 16 or 17, i was 13. she was like, “umm… i don’t think he likes girls.” haha, and he came out holding some boy’s hand. which, of course. the first of many beautiful queer boys i couldn’t get anywhere near. and i wanted to be him, but i didn’t know how.  

and maureen, the beautiful young mother, as they called her in our family. she had denise at 18. just, the way she talks, the way she would move her hands. her elegance and her grace. the way she says the word “her,” in that lovely old brooklyn way. her hair and the way she smiles and laughs. the portrait of her when she was young that used to hang in her house that i was obsessed with, wanting to be her, wanting to know her then, wanting to someday be with someone as beautiful and kind as her, but not having words for that or knowing what that meant then. not really knowing what it means now either.

#grief #living #family #lineage #history #trauma #love #friendship #femmes #death #dying #mothers #time #hope #change #transitions

[almightygodismydependence-blog]

Through the Great Tribulation, I Have Reaped Great Benefits

 By Rongguang  

After following Almighty God, I was put in prison because I believed in God. At that time I was a new believerand God had given me strength so that I could stand firm in my testimony. However, I mistakenly believed that I had the stature; I thought that I had a great amount of faith, love and loyalty for God, therefore I didn’t pay particular attention to eating and drinking God’s words of judgment and chastisement.

Even though I read, I compared the word by which God exposes man with other people and excluded myself from God’s judging words. I was only willing to read about the mysteries God has revealed and prophecies as well as words concerning obtaining blessings; these are the words I was most interested in. I read God’s words: “Based on their different functions and testimonies, the overcomers within the kingdom will serve as priests or followers, and all those who are victorious amid tribulation will become the body of priests within the kingdom. … In the body of priests there will be chief priests and priests, and the remainder will be the sons and people of God. This is all determined by their testimonies to God during tribulation; they are not titles that are given at whim” (“God’s Work and Man’s Practice” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “The tribulation cannot last too long, it can’t reach a year; if it lasts a year, then it will delay the next step of the work; the stature of man is not enough and if the time is too long, then man will not be able to bear it; the stature of man is limited” (“How to Walk the Last Stretch of the Journey” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). I thought: Position in the kingdom will be determined based on how people testify during the tribulation; these testimonies could influence someone’s fate. When the tribulation comes upon me, I will have to grit my teeth and put forth enough energy, and I will certainly offer a beautiful testimony. That way I will be able to obtain great blessings; besides, the tribulation won’t last too long–it will be less than a year. No matter what happens, I’ll be able to endure this period of hardship. By being dominated by thoughts of obtaining blessings I made up my mind to get ready for battle; I thought that by relying on my own “faith” and “will,” I would be able to be an overcomer in the tribulation.

God’s work of saving people is so wonderful and so wise. In 1996, we all entered into the great tribulation through God’s arrangement. But when the tribulation came upon us, no one was aware of it; everything happened so naturally, my true form and disgraceful situation of being an opportunist came to light during the tribulation.

In June and July of 1996, I was in another part of the country fulfilling my duty involving writing. One day, the leader of this area came and told us that the recent situation was not very good and that Sister so-and-so had been arrested by the great red dragon. When we heard of this, we wanted to pray for this sister and didn’t think of much else, because we all knew that it was a common occurrence for people to be arrested for their belief in God in China, a country that persecuted God like this. But, it wasn’t many days before we heard that a few more brothers and sisters were arrested. After a few more days, we heard that a dozen or so were arrested, and many well-known believers who were serving as leaders in God’s family were secretly listed as wanted. There were also some who had bounties for their arrests. The local leaders were also on the black list of the great red dragon. I sensed that things were not good: It looked like the great red dragon was trying to destroy the believers in one fell swoop. We felt a kind of terror in the atmosphere that enveloped us; we didn’t know what to do in this kind of situation; we wanted to contact the above and ask him how to proceed, but we couldn’t contact him. Later I found out that the tribulation had begun a month earlier. God’s word came true that “When God strikes the shepherd, the flock is scattered; then you won’t have a true leader and there will be complete disunity. Then you won’t be able to assemble like you do currently.” But at that time we were numb in spirit and we didn’t dare make wild guesses and define God’s work. Therefore we didn’t know that this was the great tribulation. All we could feel was the dark hand of the great red dragon pressing near us and we couldn’t progress in our work for objective reasons. In facing this kind of plight, we faintly became aware that the work had been obstructed by God’s hand; God was leading us to stop the work and hide ourselves and lose no time returning back to our homeland. That way we would be safer. Consequently, we were forced to disperse and return to our homeland.

I had only been home for a week when a sister came and gave me a letter saying that a brother in our church was arrested, and I needed to immediately leave home. At this time I was just like a deer in the headlights; I didn’t have any faith and I only had one thought in my heart: Quickly hide and don’t allow the great red dragon to capture me; the great red dragon is too deplorable and cruel, the vicious methods it uses to ravage believers is unprecedented. If I fall into the hands of the demon, the consequences would be unimaginable. Following this, a sister introduced me to the mountains to cook for the miners. I was there with two sisters and we took advantage of the times when no one was around to eat and drink the words of God, fellowship and sing hymns. Because we had a supply of God’s words, each day was very enriching. However, in less than a month, police came into the area and I had no choice but to quickly leave. Afterward I came to another restaurant to work. Everyone I came into contact with was an unbeliever and I didn’t have any common language with them; moreover, I didn’t have God’s word in this kind of environment, and there was no one to fellowship with to the point that it was difficult to even offer a proper prayer. I felt lonely and desolate and my heart couldn’t help but start complaining. I even wanted to betray God and not believe anymore: “Believing in God is really not easy and I am on edge all day; I am wandering in a world that lacks justice; when will these days be over? If I didn’t believe in God, living an easy and stable lifestyle like the unbelievers, wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Even though my heart thought this way, I felt afraid and didn’t dare leave God; I also felt like I couldn’t leave God, the thought of leaving God caused me pain. Yet since I didn’t love reading God’s words in the past, didn’t seek after truth, and only fulfilled my duties to obtain blessings, therefore, the moment I left the books of God’s word, my heart didn’t have a line of God’s word left in it. Without God’s words of life supporting me, I was just like a fool who had lost his mind. I didn’t know what to do with myself or what to pursue after. I just desperately struggled through each day. What was God’s will? Why did He arrange this for me? How could I practice and satisfy God? I didn’t have the strength to ponder this, all I thought about was my hardships. At that time my belief in the omnipotence and omniscience of God and my belief in God’s universal dominance were all lost. It got to the point that when a sister came to invite me to go visit some brothers and sisters, I declined, because my heart was fearful and cowardly. I didn’t have faith or strength, I only relied on my mind and thoughts, thinking that the environment will not be good before Hong Kong’s return to China. During this period of time, the great red dragon will frantically suppress and eradicate everyone who sincerely believes in God. Now it will be a long time before Hong Kong’s return, I certainly must protect myself well. During the two and a half months that I worked in the restaurant, my heart became more and more distant from God, almost to the point that I only acknowledged God’s name, but didn’t have God in my heart. My heart was often attracted to the sensual pleasures; I wanted to run away from God and live the life of the unbelievers. However, over the next few days I especially missed God and the brothers and sisters; I missed my former church life. While being by myself, I always couldn’t help but cry. My heart was sorrowful: Oh God, all day I am with people who belong to the devil; if I am not working, then I am eating or having a boring conversation. Only You know the emptiness and pain in my heart. Oh God, when will this long night pass? When will we be set free to believe in God, like in the past when we lived in Your warm family? My heart was tormented like it was being overrun by weeds and I couldn’t stay any longer. It just so happened to be getting close to the Spring Festival and I took advantage of the opportunity and quit my job and quickly returned to my brothers and sisters. Afterward I realized that it wasn’t just me who had these thoughts; there were many brothers and sisters who had avoided being arrested by the great red dragon by fleeing to other areas who had experienced the same thing. They all returned home because they were thinking the same thing. This was a miraculous guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Not more than a few days after I had returned home, a sister came to notify me of a church gathering. When I heard the sister say that the tribulation was over, and that everything had returned back to normal, and that I could go and fulfill my former duty, I took a moment before I realized: “What? The tribulation is over? This was the tribulation? It will still be a few months before Hong Kong’s return to China. How could the tribulation have ended? This is not what I expected! All along these things we have been experiencing were the tribulation, now I am finished! What did I manifest during the tribulation? Besides being cowardly and afraid, I complained, escaped, and betrayed. I didn’t have any components of faith, not to mention loyalty and love. This time God has tested my work and I completely failed.” I hung my head in despair with all kinds of feelings in my heart. This time I was able to understand what God said before the tribulation began: “After My work is finished, the next step is for people to walk the path they are supposed to walk on. Everyone should understand the path they should walk on: It is the path of suffering and hardship, and it is also the path of refining your resolution to love God. What truths should you enter? What truths do you need to make up for? How should you experience? In which aspects should you enter? You must understand these things. You must equip yourself now, if you wait for the tribulation to come upon you, it will be too late” (“How to Walk the Last Stretch of the Journey” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). This tragic lesson tells me: People cannot stand testimony in the tribulation if they do not have truth and if they rely on their own desires. People who live without truth in God’s work will certainly be thoroughly revealed; they will not be able to conceal themselves in the least bit or be able to fake it anymore. Without truth, you are built on a sand foundation, which won’t withstand the slightest test. Only with truth can you see things clearly, have faith and strength, be able to triumph over Satan and be able to put truth into practice to satisfy God and testify for God. I really hated myself: God has already patiently told us these things a long time ago, and why didn’t I believe it, why didn’t I take it seriously! Nothing can be taken back; there is no other choice but to diligently seek truth on the path ahead.

When we were finished meeting, I heard a sister reveal some internal intelligence: The great red dragon is still aggressively going about arresting believers and it is getting even more intense. When I heard this, my heart of little faith again whispered: The environment is this tense and the brothers and sisters are all fulfilling their duties. Is this OK? But the fact allowed me to see that: Even though the situation is tense, people are not fearful as they were during the tribulation; when we fulfill our duties, our hearts are especially steadfast and peaceful as if everyone forgot about the piece of intelligence the sister told us. The Holy Spirit is also doing an enormous work in the church; it won’t be long before the grand occasion when the gospel is extended into every land. Our work is getting busier and every duty is being smoothly carried out. Nearly all the brothers and sisters are fulfilling their duties with their best efforts in their respective positions. The scene is progressing in full swing just under the great red dragon’s nose, but with the work expanding this vigorously, there have not been any arrests like that in the midst of the great tribulation. These facts allowed me to see a truth clearly: In fact, the great red dragon is always working to resist God, persecute God and coerce God’s chosen people; it has never stopped and wants to assassinate God and His chosen people. Sometimes the butcher’s knife in its hand does not fall down on us, and that is God watching over and protecting us. Sometimes we don’t even perceive its intention to kill, and that is God using His great wings to shelter us, it is not that the great red dragon put its butcher’s knife down and stopped its persecution. The great red dragon has never put down its butcher’s knife, it will never put it down; it wants to resist God to the end and the closer it gets to the end, the more frantic it becomes, because the great red dragon is Satan, the evil spirit. It knows that the glorious day that God completes His work of salvation is its last day. Therefore, the closer death draws near, the more it struggles. However, no matter what happens, God’s work uses the great red dragon as a foil, it is a serving object in God’s hands, it is a tool for testing God’s chosen people. Its cruelty cannot block God’s work, without God’s permission, it has no power over God’s chosen people. When God does not allow it to hunt, God’s chosen people will be under its nose and it won’t be able to catch them. It has no other choice but to be at God’s mercy. Just like God’s word says: “When I formally begin My work, all people move as I move, such that people throughout the universe occupy themselves in step with Me, there is ‘jubilation’ across the universe, and man is spurred onward by Me. In consequence, the great red dragon itself is whipped into a state of frenzy and bewilderment by Me, and serves My work, and, despite being unwilling, is unable to follow its own desires, leaving it no choice but to ‘submit to My control’” (“The Twenty-ninth Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe in The Word Appears in the Flesh). In the great tribulation, God allowed the great red dragon to persecute God’s chosen people, because He wanted to exploit the great red dragon and use it to benefit God’s chosen people so that they see clearly the substance of the great red dragon’s resistance against God. If God was always watching over and protecting us, and didn’t allow us to suffer even a little bit of persecution in the real environment, then we would not be able to truly believe the words God revealed about the substance of the great red dragon’s corruption; and we wouldn’t be aware of the faithfulness of God. Therefore, God allows us to see the truth of the facts when appropriate. Only in this way can we see that everything God says is true and that the great red dragon is indeed the enemy of God, that it is an evil spirit, and that it slaughters people and swallows people’s spirits. If these facts were not revealed, I would still be fooled and cheated by it; I would still believe it when it said, “freedom of religion” and “legal rights of the citizens.” Today, I have personally experienced the pursuit and persecution of the great red dragon, I have seen the atrocious countenance of the great red dragon’s slaughtering of God’s chosen people with my own eyes. And I know now that the freedom and democracy that it proclaims is all a cover-up for its crimes. I now clearly see the evil and deplorable demonic substance of the great red dragon, and my heart truly despises it. I have made up my mind to betray it and follow God to the end.

Tribulations come from God, and the timing of their ending is surely in God’s hands. When God’s work produces results, God will certainly not procrastinate the time. Just like God said: “The tribulation cannot last too long, it can’t reach a year; if it lasts a year, then it will delay the next step of the work; the stature of man is not enough and if the time is too long, then man will not be able to bear it; the stature of man is limited” (“How to Walk the Last Stretch of the Journey” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God has His plan, and He does not delay the next step of spreading His gospel. God has a thorough understanding of us, He knows our statures, He knows our circumstances, and He is not willing to allow our lives to have losses. God has made exact plans for us in His work, He has thought about our lives in every way; but in my tribulation, all I thought about was my own safety and whether or not I was suffering hardships; I didn’t think about God at all. I am truly selfish and deplorable; I don’t have a rational conscience and am not worthy to live in God’s presence. In my tribulation, God revealed my actual stature, which caused me to have a realistic understanding of myself. I saw how poor, pitiful and blind I was; I saw that I had no faith or love for God, but only had rebellion and resistance to the point that I would betray at any time and any place. At this time, I was able to see my danger, and I felt the importance of being equipped with truth; since then I have had a thirst for truth. At this time I read the words God revealed about man’s corrupt nature and felt that God’s word came alive in me like a two-edged sword piercing my joints and marrow and revealing the filth and injustice in the depths of my heart. It caused me to see that I was deplorable and ugly and to see that I was deeply corrupted by Satan. I began to despise myself and have desire to change myself; I thirsted to be a genuine person. I felt the work of God’s judgment and chastisement was truly cleansing people and as long as I sincerely sought after truth, I would surely be cleansed and saved. The first time I felt the preciousness of God’s words and the importance of truth, my heart inwardly became gladdened: I have finally entered into my belief in God, I am striding toward a new beginning and can see the hope of obtaining salvation. Consequently, I set a resolution: No matter how bumpy the path is ahead of me, I will always be firm and unmoving in following God and walk in the correct path of life.

God’s wonderful arrangements allowed us to unwittingly enter the tribulation and to unwittingly rise out of the tribulation. The harvest we reaped from this was clear and easy to see. Through the tribulation, we can see that God is almighty and wise; we see that the great red dragon is incapable and foolish. It is unbridled and savage, and has no other choice but to be involuntarily tossed to and fro by God’s work; it will forever be defeated in God’s hands. The great red dragon vainly attempts to scare God’s chosen people through cruel persecution and disturb and dismantle God’s work. It doesn’t realize that God is using this to perfect God’s people. Even though on the outside it looks like the great red dragon’s persecution has come upon the people, in reality, it is all arranged by God’s almighty hand. He scatters people and gathers people, He leads people into tribulations and leads people out of tribulations; He allows people to endure until they want to leave, but He has always supported people, pulled people, and caused people to not be able to leave. It is amidst these wonderful arrangements of God that people are able to clearly see the ugly face of the great red dragon and to truly despise the great red dragon from the bottom of their hearts. People are also able to see God’s great power and experience God’s love, almightiness and wisdom. They are more steadfast and unwavering in following God, and can see their true statures and deficiencies; their hearts have a greater thirst for God and truth. There is so much significance in God raising the great tribulation; there is so much wisdom in God’s work. No one can fathom it. I was able to take part in the great tribulation arranged by God; it was truly God’s exaltation and abundant love and my honor in this life. Every time I reflect on this I am overwhelmed with emotion and want to give my heartfelt thanks and praise to God. If I didn’t experience the tribulation, I would have had no other choice but to follow blindly like a layman standing outside of the ranks of the training of the kingdom who ultimately would sink and be destroyed. If I didn’t experience the tribulation, I wouldn’t have true faith in God and wouldn’t understand the difficulty of God’s work and that saving people was not easy. If I didn’t experience the tribulation, I would not be able to see the true face of the great red dragon and I would still have delusions about this dark society, I would still have a fondness for this world and would not be able to follow God with an iron heart. It is God’s wonderful and wise work that has conquered me; it is God’s omnipotence and great love that has led me to where I am today! From now on, no matter what trials and tribulations I face, I will be willing to rely on my faith and love for God to stand witness for God and comfort God’s heart.

#Almighty God #believed in God #God’s Work

[garden-ghoul]

fellowship of the bloggening part 2

“I am out of my mind impatient to get to rohan and it’s probably going to take MONTHS I hate this”

Chapter THREE IS COMPANY

Frodo has been dragging his feet, but what’s a couple months after seventeen years? He’s trying to figure out how to leave non-suspiciously, how to not leave at all, where to go, he is all over the place. He’s REALLY excited to go to Rivendell. So he buys a house in Buckland and sells Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses (ugh!). Everyone thinks he’s downgrading to save money, even Merry, who helped him buy the new house. I think it’s very sweet that in his internal monologue he considers Merry & Pippin & co “his young friends.” Because honestly they are probably about half his age.

‘Whatever happens to the rest of my stuff, when the S.-B.s get their claws on it, at any rate I have found a good home for this!’ said Frodo, as he drained his glass. It was the last drop of Old Winyards. ...

‘Our last meal at Bag End!’ said Frodo, pushing back his chair. They left the washing up for Lobelia.

Sorry I love Frodo being petty to the Sackville-Bagginses (ugh!). So Frodo, Sam, and Pippin set out at sunset, because they like walking in the dark. Cute? As they leave they hear Some Creep asking where Frodo has gone. Secretly a Nazgul, I’m sure. They sleep under a tree and immediately upon waking Pippin starts loudly telling Sam to get water ready for a bath?? Okay is he just your servant, Mr Took? Don’t be an asshole. Anyway the next day the Nazgul passes them on the road; everyone is stirred up. Here we get a lot of loving description of the English Shire countryside and a travelling song Bilbo made up. It’s the one Pippin sings for Denethor in the movies, but it’s rather less serious, I think, than they made it seem by picking the most serious bits.

Then world behind and home ahead, We’ll wander back to home and bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade! Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, And then to bed! And then to bed!

ALSO he always pluralizes hoof as hoofs, not hooves. argh. So the Nazgul comes back, but is almost immediately chased away by a bunch of elves singing about Elbereth Gilthoniel (presumably it is Song, in the magic sense, because the hobbits can all understand them; I think it’s funny that they’re using Song to amuse themselves while travelling). From this Frodo concludes that they are high elves... but isn’t that Eldar? Elbereth is her Sindarin name, and like... literally all the elves speak Sindarin now...

In any case, he happens to be right, because the leader of the elves is Gildor ben Finrod (hahaha that naming convention sounds dumb with elf names). I didn’t even know Finrod had kids... as I recall his heir was his nephew, Orodreth. Yes I’m just here to pick apart continuity snarls that Tolkien didn’t manage to fix. ANYWAY the elves are kind of jerks, they think hobbits are too dull to associate with... until Pippin asks them who the black riders are, at which point they get scared and invite our heroes to stay the night with them. Only after the hobbits have started to fall asleep do the elves eat. Frodo tries to soak up as much Sindarin as possible (the elves think he’s adorably precocious, I don’t like them); Sam afterward remembers it as “one of the chief events of his life,” despite the fact that he is going to save the world later. Sorry what

A SHORTCUT TO MUSHROOMS

The perfect title for a chapter that starts right after Gildor gives Frodo some truly scary and cryptic warnings!

‘Did you ask about the sniffing?’ said Pippin.

‘We didn’t discuss it,’ said Frodo with his mouth full.

‘You should have. I am sure it is very important.’

‘In that case I am sure Gildor would have refused to explain it,’ said Frodo sharply.

Good old Gildor! I think Pippin’s right, though. Probably the fact that Nazgul can smell the Ring bodes p ill. We also get a bit of a glimpse at why the elf party is one of the main events in Sam’s life; it has totally changed his views on elves, and on the world, in a way he can’t quite put into words yet. It’s so jarring, the way Tolkien treats Sam like a dog one moment and the next “It did not sound like the voice of the old Sam Gamgee that he thought he knew. But it looked like the old Sam Gamgee sitting there, except that his face was unusually thoughtful.” Make up your mind, Johnald. Are servants people, or not?

Our heroes decide (after much arguing) to go overland to Bucklebury rather than by the road, to be harder for the Nazgul to find. Amusingly, one finds them almost immediately but is, I guess, unwilling to get off its horse to follow them down the bank. Maybe the horses evaporate if you get off them, it would be so inconvenient. He’d have to call Mordor for another one, and Sauron gets so mad if you ask him for a new horse.

Our heroes have a talk and some dinner with Pippin’s old friend, Mr Maggot, who unintentionally terrorized Frodo as a lad for stealing his mushrooms. It turns out the Nazgul have been asking around here, too, but Maggot saw them off. He graciously drives our heroes to the ferry, where they find Merry waiting for them, and gives them a parting gift, a large basket of mushrooms. And so the shortcut to mushrooms was being polite and friendly! A shame they cut that from the movie, it’s a nice morel.

A CONSPIRACY UNMASKED

Our heroes make it to Frodo’s house at Crickhollow, where Merry and their other friend Fredegar ‘Fatty’ Bolger have drawn three baths! And they have dinner, including the enormous amount of mushrooms they received as a gift. As an aside, Tolkien notes that hobbits love mushrooms more than anything else. Puts me in mind of badgers or pigs or some other woodland creature that loves to snuffle.

Merry reveals the fact that they all knew all along that Frodo was leaving the Shire, because he’s really not a very good actor. Unexpectedly, they all want to come with! Well, they are young, and they seem to thirst for adventure. Unlike Frodo, who is terrified, they seem to think it’s pretty fun. And yet...

‘But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,’ said Frodo. Sam looked at him unhappily. 

‘It all depends on what you want,’ put in Merry. ‘You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin - to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours - closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.’

Aww.

So they plan to be away into the Old Forest by first light. Fredegar is afraid, but Merry assures him it’s pretty safe during the day “when the trees are sleepy and fairly quiet.” Woo! Ominous! Are there ents in the Shire? Fredegar promises to wait for Gandalf, while our heroes go into

THE OLD FOREST

I wasn’t gonna do another chapter but this transition was too good to pass up. Merry tells our heroes a little of the history of the Old Forest: at one point it tried to attack the Hedge that marks the border of the Shire, but hobbits made war on it and cut down and burned a great many trees. Since then it has been even less friendly, but during daylight Brandybucks, at least, are pretty safe there. Frodo tries to sing a song, and the forest gets mad at him. Merry is apparently still cheerful, or a good actor.

They gradually realize that the forest is shunting them toward the Withywindle, the “center of all queerness.” Every time they try to veer north toward the road, they encounter great difficulty. Eventually they are forced to go right down into the river valley and walk along the river. But they begin to get very sleepy. I LOVE how Faerie this is. Sam is the only one who realizes something fishy is up, and has to rescue Frodo from being drowned by the tree. They realize it’s eating Merry and Pippin, and when they try to scare it by lighting a fire it threatens to kill them. Hostages! Frodo runs along the path, crying for help, and hears my favorite song in the entire entire:

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

Sorry these are just such merry sounds, I love them. I’ve heard some very strange things about Tom Bombadil, though. He sings to the willow tree and it releases Merry and Pippin, and then offers to let them eat at his house as thanks. Y’ALL DON’T DO IT. NOTHING GOOD COMES OF EATING FAERIE FOOD.

#blog of the rings

[stevecoleridge-posts]

SPANISH LOCKDOWN …DAY14

Saturday night s all right for fighting.. on Facebook of course,

i was just casting my mind back to a Ninurta  Night , as there called their Saturdays Night in Uruk, capital of Sunny Sumeria, and  imagining what a great time they were probably having 5000 years ago , getting pissed on the local beer, because they invented that ,as well as the seven day week. Of course they did nt have Netflix, but they got to go out more..i don’t have Netflix either , yet , but have axs to lots of stuff including Music documentaries , which we are watching in order , chronological order that is..starting with The Birth of Country music .. and Mr Ralph Peers,from new York, who looked a little like Brian Epstein by the way , who set up a temporary recording studio above  furniture shop, there you go agin , NEMs , well no, it was nt , but anyway I digress, and into this temporary Studio  walked The Carter Family..3 of them .. and Jimmie Rogers.. yes.. that Jimmie Rogers , the Singing brakeman..i mean ,Okay , i can hear you mumbling about Sam Phillips, and the Chess brothers etc.. but this was Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia..a place no-one who doesn’t live round there has heard of..its like discovering the Beatles and the Rolling Stones..or rather signing them..   After that we watched a newish doc about the King , E.V. Presley..and it was mad by some guys driving round America in his Rolls royce..great stuff   That led to the Fab Four , Eight days a Week.. which was about their touring years and the whole world has seen it except me… its absolutely.. the F word , second letter A..anyway this time 55 years ago they were filming Help. inSt Margarets..Twickenham..and taking photos for the infamous Butcher cover , in the Vale , Chelsea, where my first nursery school was located..ah well.. don’t want to get too carried away on Beatles Lore..or i ll bore you to death , because i don’t mind admitting i am well versed in that subject…   The Beatles represented the 60s in the same way Elvis represented the 50 s…and someone told a story about how the disgusting Colonel Parker, in inverted commas,used to put a cover over Elvis Cadillac so the girls could nt see him when he drove on to the Movie lot in hollywood… well once the Beatles arrived the Colonel still put the cover on , so Elvis could nt see there were no longer any girls..A sad figure..but  his mantle of  loneliness was later to be worn by Michael jackson and especially Prince..Do these Royal titles always end with a solitary death on the loo or in a Lift

From there we moved too the Seventies… and surely the quintessential Seventies hero is Bowie..well now it so alluringly sunny outside ill have to go and play guitar on the terrace .. and leave David for another time..

No i don’t want to see the News..

DAY 15..Sunday…

The clocks have gone on to sensible time..even in lockdown this is cheerful news.. I was wondering how long it will take for people with imaginary ailments to return to their plastic chairs in Hospital waiting rooms throughout the Western world.. these people presumably will be the ones most frightened of Covid 19..there s nothing imaginary about that..but if you have ME and you re lying on the sofa all day, and you feel depressed , and your bones are aching etc.. well how do feel different from everyone else..and as for food intolerance .. that should be interesting when the statistics come in about consumption in Supermarkets..i know there are allergies and allergies.. but the possibility of imminently drowning in ones own mucus does concentrate the mind wonderfully, and a lot of people will find themselves in the second category once shortages begin of certain previously essential items..suddenly one has to be tolerant of a whole raft of things one had previously considered unacceptable ..two weeks ago i could not have imagined four days without bread.. but its no big deal.. onions likewise..thats what happens when you shop with no list.. bit like going on stage without a playlist.. its a gamble … it can produce unexpected benefits in that you try stuff you had nt tried before.. but you often forget the best songs..

We watched the film about the Kursk, the Submarine which was on the seabed and owing to bureaucracy and politics the Crew were allowed to die..even though t5here was a foreign Ship with equipment nearby that could have saved them.. reminds me of something..are we the mariners or are we the mariners wives?

Does the Chinese government have a cure? are they just waiting for the US economy to completely collapse?..Will we ever know?

Day 16

Each day just goes so fast , i turn around , it s past..

One of my fave tracks from Revolver..anyway playing in E7 , as usual , in fact I’ve been stuck in E 7 since Lockdown started..Catfish , Smokestack lighting ,Good Morning Blues , Take Out Some Insurance..however now the time has come to expand ..and try Freight train..the classic finger picking song..so ,if i observe radio silence for a while you ll know why..

Saw the news…The government had adopted some economic measures which seemed very well thought out , in the sense they were are determined not to let the mistakes of the last crisis , where the poorest people got the rawest deal. I won’t go into details , its all online if you re interested..it was more a sensation than anything  logical , but it made me feel a bit less pessimistic for the first time in a few weeks,i found i was nt thinking about Death quite as much , even in the abstract. that may sound overdramatic , but i think everybody is thinking about it subconsciously a great deal more than they were, say, last Christmas..well actually in our particular situation , where we had been frequenting cancer wards and the like , maybe i should go back to 2018…but  the awarerness of death affects every facet of how you think about everything else..i don’t just mean concentrating the mind wonderfully..anyway its half past two, and tomorrow ill probably delete all this..The gist was that for some reason things don’t feel quite so bleak..

Day 17

Yesterday was a 3 own a scale of  ten as far as ding anything worthwhile was concerned. After watching a film i unreservedly recommend..The vanishing.. about  3 men who disappeared from a Scottish island where they were repairing th elighthouse , i watched Tolkien , the movie about one of my heroes , but not one of Auroras heroes apparently as she fell asleep during the first reel, so to speak, anyway she s not huge Tolkien fan , having been made to sit through the fellowship of the ring seven times..be that as it may , the sofa is not designed for sleeping comfortably so she had a severely cricked neck the next morning and stayed in bed, leaving Tina and i to our own devices..this meant i ate a packet of chocolate biscuits for brunch and did nt eat again till midnight , which goes to show how lucky I am not to be on my own.

  to entertain myself between bouts of fingerpicking i decided to9 look up on google what English people disliked the most.. while i did nt find the answer to this question i did get seriously sidetracked and found out the answers to several more pressing questions about Europe,and i m proud to say the british isles scored very highly

The Dirtriest City..Yay .. London The Ugliest people..The British and the irish  and the Germans ..okay , so we cant beat the Germans but at least we drew The Rudest people..That was easy..The French win every time, when i lived in  Paris  i prided myself on becoming Parisian, and adopting local customs , but one day , in a moment of absent mindedness , and for a subconscious second imagining myself in Spain , i said Good Morning to my next door neighbour, a short fellow with a mop of dark hair and glasses, who i passed on my way to the metro in Boulevard St . Germain… i am not a Physiognomist.. he replied…i made a not e of that , hoping i could use the phrase Je ne suit pas Phisionome, myself on some future occasion..but sadly , said opportunity has not arisen. Most boring City..Brussels .. for the third year running…Hasve nt these people been to Oslo? Most Friendly Country..wait for it… Scotland..most friendly capital .. Dublin Worst Cuisine..Malta , tied with Kosovo Best ..Italy Most Beautiful Women ..Norway ..and Bulgaria..i would have voted for Madrid..but you cant argue with Norway Most ignorant Country in Europe ..italy. Most Rapes..Sweden..well that was no surprise..however i won’t analyse those statistics or Ill be done for Isamolophobia Most ignorant country in the World ..Indonesia Most depressed ..World..China , India, Brazil,..what??..USA.. and Bangladesh Most mental Illness..Estonia,Belarus , Russia Most Obese Europe..Yes We won agin .. Britain

And so on .. there was more , i could nt stop , but i did check the criteria..and obviously ruled out anything from the Daily Mail or the Independent.. which are not really newspapers at , but sheets of opinions conforming to the prejudices of their readers.

When i got tired of this i got the Scythe out of the tree and  cut the grass for half an hour .. feeling like a peasant woman in Quiet Flows The Don..its quite restful when you get in rhythm. Aurora was still ill so i made her some chicken soup.. well , packet chicken soup with some noodles and chicken added.. anyway , she did nt eat it .. so i had it saved for my supper.. I did nt watch TV..i could nt be bothered to work out how turn it on to be honest , thats how lazy i felt, and i just sat by the fire and went through all the fingerpicking songs again.

Spanish lockdown..Day 18

Aurora s feeling a wee bit better, but cant eat anything , so cannot take Iboprufen, or whatever it is in English ..but says she could probably handle bread.. so..that means a trip to the heart of Fukushima, err..well ...on with the masks , gloves etc  and to the shop in El Llano.. small village near here , a lot more isolated than Carboneras..I was feeling fairly confident as i trundled along the track  , that the town hall had tarmacked before some election or other..anyway , rounding a corner there was a woman of un certain age in the road waving me down,.,.

What to do?…You re are not allowed passengers , plus she was not wearing gloves or a mask..

Should i observe the Law, or basic good manners? i d vaguely recognised her.. and had she she been a total stranger i would have passed on by , but , hell , she was Local, so i had to pick her up..

She did nt recognise me.. obviously , as i was wearing a cap , two masks with a scarf on top, and polo neck unrolled over the bottom half of my face , like a character in the Bash Street Kids..an way i had the window down , and was almost sticking my head out as i drove..

@ Chilly out @.. she observed…

i pretended not to understand this hint that i should close the window..

@ Do you think it s going to rain ? @

@ I  think probably not @

@All these people with masks @  she observed ,as a car squeezes by us, going in the opposite direction . I began to wonder if she knew there was  such a thing as Covid 19,and  saw the driver  studying us..I was hoping he  would nt recognise me either.. and was weighing up whether what i was doing would meet with his approval. i.e. helping a distressed local, or would be considered a breach of community sprit. On coming into the village we received more enigmatic looks..and i  felt uneasy as i got out in front of the shop and followed her to the door … pausing  to read the safety notices outside.and thus give her a head start . i won’t reproduce them ..wherever you are you ve probably seen the equivalent..anyway ,no sooner did i enter the shop than she was next to me selecting suit and veg..and ignoring safe distancing, which i agree was academic , as we d just been in much too close proximity,..thus forcing me to leave the fruit and go and study the options in frozen fish..while she was having a conversation wi the owner

  @ Do you think it will rain?@   @ Its chilly out @ etc..

As we went about our purchasing i saw more and more foodstuffs i would nt normally consider..and soon had over a weeks supply..which , considering how much we already had at home made me hope this lockdown was going to go on for  a while ..or otherwise id feel a fool .. no , i did nt really think that.. Much as i wanted to prolong my shopping experience there was queue forming outside , so felt obliged to go more quickly that i would have liked..especially as i hoped to delay long enough not to have to take the woman back to her house..vainly as it turned out as she was a quarter of a mile along the track when i was obliged to pick her up again..

We passed the garbage truck.in a lay-by. @ My nephew..@ she explained..I began to feel id made the right decision..as i doubted she d been more than a mile from her house in the past few months… nonetheless i observed full protocol on arriving home..even disinfecting the car having a shower and putting all my clothes in the machine.

[samanthasroberts]

Here are the best books for your brand new Kindle

If you’ve been gifted a Kindle having something to read right off the bat will be your first order of business. That’s why we’ve assembled a list of the best selling Kindle books of 2017 – for every type of reader. So whether you’re into dystopian novels, memoirs, or poetry, there’s something on this list for you.

Plus if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get access to the Kindle Lending Library. You can check out a book for free every month, and with new titles added each month you’ll never run out of options to choose from. But for big readers, Kindle Unlimited exists to help feed your hunger for new material. The standalone service costs $9.99 a month and allows you to download most eBooks for free. So go on and get reading! You can thank us later.

1) Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Amazon

From the publisher: The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $9.99) 

Buy it here

2) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Amazon

From the publisher: The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $15.95) 

Buy it here

3) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Price on Amazon: $8.99 (regularly $10.99)

Buy it here

4) 1984 by George Orwell 

Amazon

From the publisher: In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Price on Amazon: $9.99

Buy it here

5) The Unremembered Girl: A Novel by Eliza Maxwell

Amazon

From the publisher: In the deep woods of East Texas, Henry supports his family by selling bootleg liquor. It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods. Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

Buy it here

6) I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll 

Amazon

From the publisher: When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it—until she realises they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared. A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life. Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna’s friends and family might have something to hide. Anna’s best friend, Sarah, hasn’t been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night—and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own. Someone knows where Anna is—and they’re not telling. But they are watching Ella.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

Buy it here

7) The Letter by Kathryn Hughes 

Amazon

From the publisher: Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it – a decision that will alter the course of her life forever. Billy Stirling knows he has been a fool, but hopes he can put things right. On 4th September 1939 he sits down to write the letter he hopes will change his future. It does – in more ways than he can ever imagine.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $13.99) 

Buy it here

8) Dead Certain: A Novel by Adam Mitzner

Amazon

From the publisher: Ella Broden is living a double life. By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing. Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance. Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $15.95) 

But it here

9) Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck by Thug Kitchen

Amazon

From the publisher: Thug Kitchen started their wildly popular web site to inspire people to eat some Goddamn vegetables and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow (“This might be my favorite thing ever”) and named Saveur‘s Best New Food blog of 2013–with half a million Facebook fans and counting–Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food. Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell–and most people can’t afford the hype. Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they’re throwing down more than 100 vegan recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they’re going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own. This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $19.50) 

Buy it here

10) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Amazon

From the publisher: In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. From Sauron’s fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider. This new edition includes the fiftieth-anniversary fully corrected text setting and, for the first time, an extensive new index.

Price on Amazon: $16.99 (regularly $20.00)

Buy it here

11) Diary of a Wimpy Kid  by Jeff Kinney 

Amazon

From the publisher: It’s a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you’re ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary. In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.

Price on Amazon: $7.99 (regularly $12.56)

Buy it here

12) Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 1 by Kieron Gillen

Amazon

From the publisher: The original Dark Lord of the Sith stars in his first ongoing series! Ever since Darth Vader’s first on-screen appearance, he has become one of pop-culture’s most popular villains. Now, follow Vader straight from the ending of A NEW HOPE (and the pages of the new STAR WARS comic book) into his own solo adventures — showing the Empire’s war with the Rebel Alliance from the other side! But when a Dark Lord needs help, who can he turn to? As Vader pursues a very personal vengeance against the Rebels and investigates the Emperor’s secret machinations, he clashes with weapons scavenger Aphra and deadly Battle Droids, and returns to Geonosis to build an army. But some very powerful people don’t want him to learn the truths he seeks! Guest-starring Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett and more!

Price on Amazon: $2.99 (regularly $10.99) 

Buy it here

13) Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller

Amazon

From the publisher: Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of her family’s idyllic Long Island house hid teetering stacks of aging newspaper, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every room—the product of her father’s painful and unending struggle with hoarding. In this dazzling memoir, Miller brings to life her experience growing up in a rat-infested home, hiding her father’s shameful secret from friends for years, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to her suicide attempt. In beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, which has thrived in spite of the odds. Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where you come from and understanding the relationships that define you. It is also a powerful story of recovery and redemption.

Price on Amazon: $5.99 (regularly $13.95) 

Buy it here

14) Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly 

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse. Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch’s LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren’t keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison. The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

Price on Amazon: $14.99 (regularly $29.00) 

Buy it here

15) A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa

Amazon

From the publisher: Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian. In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $19.95) 

Buy it here

Shop the full list of best-selling Kindle books here

MORE BAZAAR DEALS:

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10 literary journalism classics that should be on your reading list

The Introvert Activity Book is perfect for those who find solace in alone time

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/here-are-the-best-books-for-your-brand-new-kindle/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/here-are-the-best-books-for-your-brand-new-kindle/

[allofbeercom]

Here are the best books for your brand new Kindle

If you’ve been gifted a Kindle having something to read right off the bat will be your first order of business. That’s why we’ve assembled a list of the best selling Kindle books of 2017 – for every type of reader. So whether you’re into dystopian novels, memoirs, or poetry, there’s something on this list for you.

Plus if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you get access to the Kindle Lending Library. You can check out a book for free every month, and with new titles added each month you’ll never run out of options to choose from. But for big readers, Kindle Unlimited exists to help feed your hunger for new material. The standalone service costs $9.99 a month and allows you to download most eBooks for free. So go on and get reading! You can thank us later.

1) Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Amazon

From the publisher: The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $9.99) 

Buy it here

2) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Amazon

From the publisher: The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $15.95) 

Buy it here

3) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Amazon

From the publisher: Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Price on Amazon: $8.99 (regularly $10.99)

Buy it here

4) 1984 by George Orwell 

Amazon

From the publisher: In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Price on Amazon: $9.99

Buy it here

5) The Unremembered Girl: A Novel by Eliza Maxwell

Amazon

From the publisher: In the deep woods of East Texas, Henry supports his family by selling bootleg liquor. It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods. Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

Buy it here

6) I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll 

Amazon

From the publisher: When Ella Longfield overhears two attractive young men flirting with teenage girls on a train, she thinks nothing of it—until she realises they are fresh out of prison and her maternal instinct is put on high alert. But just as she’s decided to call for help, something stops her. The next day, she wakes up to the news that one of the girls—beautiful, green-eyed Anna Ballard—has disappeared. A year later, Anna is still missing. Ella is wracked with guilt over what she failed to do, and she’s not the only one who can’t forget. Someone is sending her threatening letters—letters that make her fear for her life. Then an anniversary appeal reveals that Anna’s friends and family might have something to hide. Anna’s best friend, Sarah, hasn’t been telling the whole truth about what really happened that night—and her parents have been keeping secrets of their own. Someone knows where Anna is—and they’re not telling. But they are watching Ella.

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $14.95) 

Buy it here

7) The Letter by Kathryn Hughes 

Amazon

From the publisher: Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it – a decision that will alter the course of her life forever. Billy Stirling knows he has been a fool, but hopes he can put things right. On 4th September 1939 he sits down to write the letter he hopes will change his future. It does – in more ways than he can ever imagine.

Price on Amazon: $1.99 (regularly $13.99) 

Buy it here

8) Dead Certain: A Novel by Adam Mitzner

Amazon

From the publisher: Ella Broden is living a double life. By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing. Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance. Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?

Price on Amazon: $4.99 (regularly $15.95) 

But it here

9) Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck by Thug Kitchen

Amazon

From the publisher: Thug Kitchen started their wildly popular web site to inspire people to eat some Goddamn vegetables and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow (“This might be my favorite thing ever”) and named Saveur‘s Best New Food blog of 2013–with half a million Facebook fans and counting–Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food. Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell–and most people can’t afford the hype. Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they’re throwing down more than 100 vegan recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they’re going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own. This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

Price on Amazon: $9.99 (regularly $19.50) 

Buy it here

10) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Amazon

From the publisher: In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. From Sauron’s fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider. This new edition includes the fiftieth-anniversary fully corrected text setting and, for the first time, an extensive new index.

Price on Amazon: $16.99 (regularly $20.00)

Buy it here

11) Diary of a Wimpy Kid  by Jeff Kinney 

Amazon

From the publisher: It’s a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you’re ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary. In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.

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12) Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 1 by Kieron Gillen

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From the publisher: The original Dark Lord of the Sith stars in his first ongoing series! Ever since Darth Vader’s first on-screen appearance, he has become one of pop-culture’s most popular villains. Now, follow Vader straight from the ending of A NEW HOPE (and the pages of the new STAR WARS comic book) into his own solo adventures — showing the Empire’s war with the Rebel Alliance from the other side! But when a Dark Lord needs help, who can he turn to? As Vader pursues a very personal vengeance against the Rebels and investigates the Emperor’s secret machinations, he clashes with weapons scavenger Aphra and deadly Battle Droids, and returns to Geonosis to build an army. But some very powerful people don’t want him to learn the truths he seeks! Guest-starring Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett and more!

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13) Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller

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From the publisher: Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of her family’s idyllic Long Island house hid teetering stacks of aging newspaper, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every room—the product of her father’s painful and unending struggle with hoarding. In this dazzling memoir, Miller brings to life her experience growing up in a rat-infested home, hiding her father’s shameful secret from friends for years, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to her suicide attempt. In beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, which has thrived in spite of the odds. Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where you come from and understanding the relationships that define you. It is also a powerful story of recovery and redemption.

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14) Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly 

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From the publisher: Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town’s 3-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous, big business world of pill mills and prescription drug abuse. Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch’s LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him, and seems to have new evidence to prove it. Bosch left the LAPD on bad terms, so his former colleagues aren’t keen to protect his reputation. He must fend for himself in clearing his name and keeping a clever killer in prison. The two unrelated cases wind around each other like strands of barbed wire. Along the way Bosch discovers that there are two kinds of truth: the kind that sets you free and the kind that leaves you buried in darkness.

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15) A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa

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From the publisher: Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian. In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/here-are-the-best-books-for-your-brand-new-kindle/

[darinb]

Spiritual Success 4- Find the Right Fellowship

Fellowship is an often misunderstood term.  So far in this series on how to achieve true spiritual success, we have looked at reading the Word of God, and prayer. The third step involves a step that is to some is strangely controversial… fellowship.

YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE… UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO!

There’s a famous song by Gerry and the Pacemakers, the theme of Liverpool football club, “You’ll never walk alone.” It revolves around the basic human need we all have of fellowship, camaraderie, friends we can talk to and connect with. Yet the question of Church fellowship is oddly controversial in this day and age, because almost every week I am meeting mature, godly wonderful Christians who explain to me why they love God but hate church, and prefer to walk alone!

 A husband and wife were taking early one Sunday morning. The husband confessed that he hates Church and refuses to go. The wife demanded three good reasons…

 He told her. “First, the congregation is cold. Second, no one likes me. And third, I just don’t want to go.”

“Well, honey”, she replied, “I have three good reasons why you should go,” his wife replied. “First, the congregation is warm. Second, there are a few people there who like you. And third, you are the pastor. So get dressed.”

 David writes,

Psalm 122:1 (ESV Strong's)

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”

 Glad someone was glad. I get it. I’ve had many times, years even, when I wasn’t glad to go to church. We’ve all been bored by church or hurt by Christians, and many by pastors, somewhere in the past. I understand, because I too have been viciously attacked by so called men of God. I too have found Church laboured, painful, boring and not worth investing time into.

 Rev Denny Brake once joked, “I don't know why some people change churches - what difference does it make which one you stay home from?”

 But the third step to becoming spiritually successful is to be actively linked in to the right church. As we examine this today, please don’t think I am threatening you in any way. Ignite is full of people who have been hurt elsewhere, and this is specifically what I have prayed for. When I took the helm here, I prayed that God would use this church to draw hurting believers together, to have them become part of a church family that loves and supports them and to fan into fame and release the gifts they have to fulfil their lives!

  WHY BOTHER WITH CHURCH OR FELLOWSHIP?

 Statistics now tell us that going to church once a month is considered a regular attendee. They also suggest that on our Coast more than half of the professed believers do not attend a church regularly. They love God but hate Church.

 But here is the jump. Statistics, and my experience tell us that those who attend regularly and get involved in Church grow in spiritual maturity and become more spiritually successful, while those who neglect Church stagnate and fail to grow in Christ the way they should. I believe we are better together. Church is not my idea, it’s God’s idea, and we as leaders ought to seek to establish the churches He wants. The Bible says,

 Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV Strong's)

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

 You can be a Christian without going to church or being part of a fellowship. You can be married and not live together, but it is not the normal thing. Most married people live together, and most Christians should go to church. This passage clearly commands that we must not neglect meeting together. Studies show that if you miss Church for more than a month, the odds are almost 2 to 1 that you won’t go for the next year.

 Yes, you can spend time in the Word at home, and yes you can pray by yourself. But there is something amazing, something special, something spiritual that happens when we get together. The Lord bestows a special blessing for unity, but how can we even have unity if one party is absent?

 I’m this message I want to outline reasons why you should make every effort to come to church. Obviously, I’m preaching to the converted, because you are here already. If you have been hurt or turned off church elsewhere, please understand I am not shaming or accusing you, I understand, and I am offering the hand of fellowship and the pledge that I will do all in my power as a pastor to love, nurture and bless you.

 So what does being part of a church fellowship family offer you, and why should we bother to meet together at all?

  1.                   WE CAN WORSHIP TOGETHER

 Worship is not the support act to the main event at church. It is a core reason why the church exists.

 Something very special happens when we worship together in fellowship and unity. Sure, you can put on a CD and sing at home or in the car, but when we gather together in unity there is a sense of awe and blessing. When we worship corporately there is a great sense of belonging, even if you don’t agree with everything that goes on in your church, you can still worship in unity.

 Psalms 22:3 (ESV Strong's)

Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

 When we worship together in unity, there the Lord is enthroned. The Hebrew word for enthroned means several things, including inhabit, tarrying and marrying. When we praise the Lord together it is kind of like God marries in with us.

 And let me also say, there is no set way in which we worship as a fellowship. Some raise their hands, some don’t. Some sing loudly, some don’t. Some praise God best with set songs, others like worship free form. Ignite is here to accommodate all styles of worship, and I am not going to force you to worship a certain way. When we worship together, the key ingredient I believe is unity. Unity means that we don’t criticise the way others worship, and we don’t force them to change to our way. Can you love the Lord and love each other more than you love getting your own way in worship?

 1 Timothy 2:8 (ESV Strong's)

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling;

 We need to worship together without anger or quarrels. And I know we all worship differently, but we can still worship together, because unity is more important that you doing your thing your way!

 That being said, I’m hoping we all grow together in our understanding and expression of worship and fellowship. Who among us knows everything about worshipping God? Isn’t one of the great joys of church being able to live and journey and discover the truths of God together?

 2.                   WE CAN LEARN FROM THE BIBLE TOGETHER

 There is a trend today for churches to move away from Biblical teaching. Ignite will not be that sort of church, because the Word of God is central to everything we do. That’s why so many of us have pledged to read the Bible daily.

 And when you come to church, I am promising to centre all our teaching on God’s Word. If it’s not in the Bible, it’s not happening at Ignite, and it’s that simple! I’m going to preach the Word, and I’m going to live the Word. Here’s what God commands me…

 2 Timothy 4:2-3 (ESV Strong's)

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

 If you want church teaching to tickle your ears, not challenge you in any way and make you feel ok, find another church! I am sworn to proclaim the truth of God’s Word no matter the consequences. And I preach from what the Lord is showing me, not random stuff I am making up or some other guy’s message I read on the internet. In season, out of season, any season I will preach the Word of the Lord, like it or not!

 And at the end of the day, you don’t want my opinion do you? You want God’s, right?

 Some believe they can skip church and download a few good messages from YouTube or watch God TV. I have observed that people doing that tend to find preachers that, to quote the verse, “suit their passions.” Listening to recorded messages is fine, I encourage it, but as your pastor I have made a pledge to God to love you support you and stir your gifts into flame, ignite them if you will!

 I know you can definitely find better preachers, better teachers and better sermons than mine out there online, but what you won’t find is someone who loves you and is called to pastor you like I am.

 News flash… TD Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Brian’s Houston, Chuck Swindoll, as good as those preachers are, they don’t know you from Adam. They are not committed to your walk with Christ, your spiritual success, the release of your gifts… they don’t even know who you are! You cannot substitute recordings of famous preachers for a pastor who genuinely cares about you.

 As your pastor, though my teaching and preaching might be limited next to those great leaders, I’m different because I am totally committed to seeing your life with Christ grow. If you want an advocate, if you want a pastor who cares about your life, I’m your guy! I take the calling of a shepherd very seriously.  This terrifies me so much that some time ago I started regularly praying this prayer…

 1 Kings 3:9 (ESV Strong's)

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

 I can’t be a proper leader for Ignite Christian Church, I don’t have the skills and ability. But God does, and I humbly rely on Him and His wisdom to direct this church. If I start preaching my own wisdom, if I cannot support what I’m teaching from the Bible, show me, because I need to preach God’s Word as much as you need to listen to God’s Word! Together we grow and learn through the years.

 3.                   WE CAN FELLOWSHIP TOGETHER

 Fellowship is a great strength we have here at Ignite. After church, everyone stays for ages, and when we have a need, scores of people support it in prayer and other ways.

 Acts 2:42 (ESV Strong's)

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

 The early Church understood fellowship, as they sold belongings and cared for each other, and they moved from house to house. They hung out, in other words, they fellowshipped.

 Fellowship is not talking about football results or TV celebrities, it is talking about Jesus. It is praying for each other. It’s caring for each other. It is Dig In and connect groups and men’s and women’s groups. It’s growing closer as friends, learning to trust each other, stirring one another towards greatness in Christ. You can’t get this by yourself skipping church, and believers who are dislocated from church are missing out on this key ingredient of growth in fellowship.

 I have dislocated my shoulders many times and had operations to secure them in their sockets. When dislocated there is incredible pain and the arm is basically useless, but it’s still attached to my body. That’s what we are like without fellowship. We are still Christians, still part of the body, but in pain and not really useful to the body. The cry of my heart is to put dislocated Christians back in the socket, back in the place in the body where they belong. And as many of you have experienced, even when you get back there is a period of pain as you heal. I want ignite to be a place of healing and knitting in.

 4.                   WE CAN ENCOURAGE TOGETHER

 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV Strong's)

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

 Believers should encourage one another, and that’s why I insist on unity in the fellowship at Ignite. If you have an issue with something, or with someone, talk to a leader, seek advice, seek help, but don’t make your way around spreading gossip and discord. We need to be careful to guard our mouths and only speak words of encouragement and love to build others up!

 Ephesians 4:29 (ESV Strong's)

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

 Church should be a place where we encourage one another, and no issue, unless it directly contradicts God’s Word, no issue is bigger than the love, unity and encouragement we should have one for another. Please church, don’t love your own opinion more than you love each other! Don’t get so focussed on an issue or what you believe is true that you hurt others, or attack others.

 5.                   WE CAN EVANGELISE TOGETHER

 If we want to see people come to know Jesus, nothing beats an on fire, ignited church!

 Acts 2:46-47 (ESV Strong's)

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

 When the early church functioned properly, they had the Word, fellowship, worship and people were added daily. We need to reach out to our community and see people coming to Jesus!

 Together we are better in sharing the gospel. That’s why Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs, not in their own. And when we share our faith, let’s do so kindly, gently and respectfully…

 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV Strong's)

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

 Coming up we are going to start reaching out to our community, first by prayer walking the streets and then by sharing the good news that Jesus loves them!

 Romans 10:14-15 (ESV Strong's)

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

 It’s time to take our beautiful feet and start walking the dirty, dusty streets of our community, sharing the love of our fellowship with them!

 6.                   WE CAN SERVE TOGETHER

 If you are dislocated from church, you cut off almost all the avenues of Christian service. You might still share the gospel to odd people you meet, but how do you follow up those who make commitments? You can’t do it all on your own, and neither were you designed to do it all on your own.

 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV Strong's)

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:

 Here at Ignite, I don’t do everything. I cannot do everything, I’m busy enough and I still work in my job! So my plan, which is really God’s plan, is that I stir up gifts that are within others, and let them serve doing what they love and are gifted at. If you are here, and have a gift in your heart, do 101 and 201 (next week), and let me open the door for you to serve the Lord here.

 Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV Strong's)

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

 My calling as a pastor is not to build a big building. It’s not to manage a big corporation, it’s not to become a famous preacher. My calling is to shepherd, it is to stir up within you the gifts of service you have, and then to open the door for them to be used. My job is to train and equip you to become everything you ought to be in Christ, then allow you to operate in your gifting!

 One of the greatest reasons Christians have to go to church is so they can serve the Lord better. You can get trained, equiped and inspired, and then through the Church find a way of expressing that gift. There is a particular satisfaction that comes from serving the Lord in your gifting, and Church is the ideal place to do this.

 UNITED WE STAND

 So the first step towards becoming spiritually successful is to read God’s Word every day, the second is to pray without ceasing, and the third is to not just attend church, but to become a part of the church fellowship. And I would love you to be a part of Ignite Christian Church.  I would love the joy and the honour of watching your life become fruitful for Jesus. And I guarantee you, this place is good soil, yielding 30, 60 and 100 fold!

 Yet Ignite church is under attack. Yes unchurched people might attack us. Yes the government tries to paralyse us with paperwork and legislation. Sometimes even other Christians might attack and criticise us. But by far the greatest threat we have to this body of believers comes from within our own fellowship!

 Disunity kills churches that should be full of life. Beware of anything that disrupts unity in the fellowship, even if you feel you are right and the others are wrong!

 Colossians 3:13-14 (ESV Strong's)

bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

 Look, I understand that we are human, and we have opinions about people, things and the way we do things. But let me be frank, unless something is out and out sin as described in the Bible, I cannot tolerate threats to the beautiful unity we have here at Ignite. I’ve seen churches spilt over the colour of carpets or the placement of a cross or an altar. I was even at a Baptist church once that nearly split over an excess water bill, because there were too many baptisms!

 I don’t expect you to agree with everything, or everyone. But you must commit to disagreeing agreeably, not gossiping to others about whatever your problem is and stirring up trouble. Jesus said a house divided will not stand, because He understood the destructive power of disunity.

 When we elevate our personal preferences or petty disagreements above fellowship, unity and our love for each other, let me be bold here, I believe it is sin, and the devil uses this to destroy God’s work in a church. So before you get on your high hobby horse and cause strife, ask yourself if Jesus would be talking this way.  Remember, this is the same Jesus who prayed…

 John 17:21-22 (ESV Strong's)

that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,

 Would Paul talk this way, the Paul that said,

 1 Corinthians 1:10 (ESV Strong's)

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Let's be united in fellowship!

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