#I YEARN CONSTANTLY FOR JOHN TO FAVOUR ME | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peakyblindersxx · 3 years

Text

whiskey business - john x reader (part 3 of ?)

gif by @michaelgreys but i cropped it cause god daMn 👀

read part one and two! | my masterlist

a/n: this one goes out to all my john bitches!! i know it's hard out here, we get no new content but this part is steamy as hell. its not over yet, though! i'm a sucker for happy endings, ok? i hope you all like it, i'm still working on requests as i go :) much love to @stxdyblr-2k for ghostwriting on this series, she has the most amazing ideas in the world 🖤

love, abi xxx

tagging: @datewithgianni

prompt: john's been ignoring you and you want to know why.

warnings: fluff, angst, nsfw!! smut, cocky john, just straight up porn at the end but can you blame me

John hadn't spoken a word in your direction for a week. Despite constantly seeing you glued to Ada's hip, he’d barely acknowledged you since the wedding. He didn’t even bother looking up. Instead his jaw tensed, taking longer inhales of smoke, constantly examining the pocket watch dangling from his right hip. You were the last person John wanted to see right now. He couldn’t get you out of his head, the flush of your cheeks as you had moaned for him imprinted in his memory. You were fucking picturesque writhing around in his lap, a mess for him, and only him. He’d never felt like this; never wanted someone so badly it hurt. Usually, he drowned what little emotions he had in the nearest bottle of whiskey. You, however, were igniting something inside him he’d never felt. Lust, yes, but it was more. A yearning, a need, to see you smile at his crap jokes for the rest of his fucking life. God, you were getting to him.

His coldness and distance towards you hadn't gone unnoticed. To John’s embarrassment, his brothers regularly referred to it as "a little tiff", usually when you were within earshot, as they loved embarrassing his brother. They were blissfully unaware of the full story, assuming his cockiness had put you off him. He sometimes wondered the same; even though you remained polite by greeting him despite the minimal nod he responded with, you seemed ashamed. John only hoped it wasn't because you were ashamed of him. The truth was, he couldn't get the intensity between the two of you off his mind. Whenever he so much as caught a glimpse of you, he remembered how pretty you looked begging for him, then the embarrassment of having to reject you out of family loyalty. You admitting you wanted to have sex with him, him getting fucked off at you because you were off your face, complicating everything. Yet, every night, he held your words close to him, trying to decipher them.

He knew his brothers wouldn't get it. They wouldn't understand how tragic it was; they'd think it was funny that Ada's best friend wanted to fuck him. Either way, John would always rather put himself in the firing line of his brother's jokes than risk your reputation being blemished. He just couldn't look at you without a wave of guilt and sexual attraction flowing through his veins, causing his jaw to clench and his shoulders to stiffen, his suit jacket expertly covering strain on the crotch of his trousers.

A full week had passed since the wedding, of a man Tommy had recruited in an assassination effort. It was embarrassing how his family used money to attempt to push the trauma they created under the carpet. He knew he didn't have room to talk, but fuckin’ hell, a wedding? Maybe Tommy should've just not hired him to blow the brains out of his own father. Well, it was one way to get rid of the police commissioner who got too nosey, John guessed.

He had hoped that you were a passing phase of infatuation. He’d had many before; he’d been notorious around Birmingham for his conquests. Sure, it was possible he had just gotten overly excited and intoxicated around a beautiful girl. Yet, in the quiet moments of his life, in between his kids and business, his mind was only on you. You, straddling him in that booth, the way you grinned at him as he approached you at the wedding party. Sometimes when he was driving home, his mind would drift off thinking of the feeling of your figure pressed against him, the feel of your lips, your laugh, the sound of your heaving breaths against his ear. You haunted him the most at night, visions of you with his name on your lips in his silk sheets. You were his forbidden fruit, dangling barely out of reach.

***

John was at his desk, paperwork long abandoned in favour of whiskey and a cigar, lost in his own thoughts. The loud tapping of rain and the wind of the storm outside shook the windows, yet John felt somewhat at peace; a temporary peace, but he could unwind. Just his desk, the moonlight, the gas lamp illuminating his empty glass and the heavy English rain for company. He found far more joy in the simplicity of life than his brothers, who reeked of new money. He liked his things the way they were, it all worked, but he had to admit he was a sucker for a good suit. The kids were long in bed, the nanny to comfort their nightmares. It made him feel like a shit father, and he didn't want to be like his useless dad. He had started resenting the life Thomas was forcing him to live; the booze, the partying, the Tokyo, the fighting. It was wearing on him. He needed a break from everyone in this town, he reckoned.

However, a certain unexpected guest was always welcome to him. You had just drifted across his mind when a firm knock at the door caught his attention. He straightened his tie, leaving his legs outstretched and crossed on the dark oak desk, calling for the visitor to enter.

There you were. Dripping from head to toe, but still as beautiful as ever to him, despite your damp hair and slightly smudged makeup. You had caught him off guard, and in his surprise, he couldn't suppress the cheeky grin which spread across his face.

"Got caught in the storm, eh? I'll put the fire on and pour you a drink yeah? Warm you up." He slurred slightly, springing into action, lighting the fire and going to fill two glasses with whiskey, which you politely refused.

"I'm not drinking tonight, Mr. Shelby."

He decides he won't either. He tried to ignore your piercing gaze, motioning you to sit across his desk from him, reaching to put the whiskey in his drawer. "That's not like you. Where you headed, love? That lecture with Ada?"

"I came to see you."

He noted your firm tone, the flirty smile, the coy eye contact.

"What's the occasion?"

"You've been avoiding me." You told him bluntly, his cheeks reddening, eye contact breaking momentarily.

"Yeah, I know." He took a draw from his cigar, rolling the smoke from between his lips on the exhale. "M’sorry."

You watched him for a moment and he met your eyes, suddenly softened from his usual icey blue inquisitive stare. To shame, he looked so vulnerable right now. You could feel yourself falling for him again. This is what you hung around for, the fleeting glimpses of the authentic John Shelby. The lad you'd first giggled about in the girl's bathroom at lunch, barely knowing what sex was. Barely understanding power and politics. Unaware of who you'd both end up as.

"You're fucking soaked to the bone. Come on, I'll put your clothes to dry by the fire. And don't give me that look, I'll give you my coat to save your modesty, lass." He teased. You ignored the way his muscles flexed as he reached for his woolen jacket, some outrageously expensive tailored affair from some London boutique, his large rough hands brushing your fingers. "I'll turn around."

You grasped the coat, heading to the fireplace and warming up for a moment, checking that you were far from his line of sight. This was a dangerous game for you both. You wished he'd grab you, take you on his desk and finish what he started, but the way he absentmindedly drummed his fingers on the desk as he waited indicated that he was restraining himself.

You'd rid yourself of your thin jacket, bought from the market stall last week, effortlessly trendy but an imitation of the pricey stuff Ada and the blinder wives and girlfriends you knew. You were jealous of their fur coats, they were always warm and glamorous looking even on the coldest winter night in Birmingham.

You glanced across the room to John. He was staring intently at the wall lost in thought, teeth gritted.

"John? Could you unzip me?" You asked, purposefully making your voice sound as neutral as possible, looking at him over your shoulder.

He paused, bringing his fingers to rub circles against his jaw. You caught a glimpse of white teeth and dimples as he glanced at you out the corner of his eye and you can't help but match his coy grin. He pushed himself off the desk and quickly closed the small distance towards you, his hand finding first your shoulder then the zip at the nape of your neck, your breath hitching as he pulled the zip to your waist. You could feel his eyes tracing the curvature of your spine and hips. You both hesitated for a moment, before John’s warm fingertips grazed your waist, lips pressing into your hair affectionately. His mouth found his way to your ear, cheekbone, jaw and then neck, encouraged by the way your left hand cradled his head as you pressed your body back into his and how your eyes drifted shut at his touch.

"Sweetheart, why did you come here?" He muttered into your ear, his words and casual affection causing your core to swell in response.

"Couldn't stop thinking about you. I've barely slept in a week, feel terrible. Then you've been ignoring me-"

"It isn't personal, Y/N. You know this isn’t how I want it to be." His hands found their way to your waist, gripping lightly at your hip bones, sending a shiver down your back.

"Well this is how it is, John. It's never going to be any different. So, what are you going to do about it?"

"What are you fucking on about, love?"

"I reckon that just once can't hurt, nobody would know but us. Then we can both move on with our lives..."

John hesitated, "What about Ada?" His head rested on your shoulder, the scent of your sweet perfume causing him to want you even more. Jesus, he was too far gone.

"We were so close the first night I got here and we didn't. No one caught on then, why would it be different now?"

He wanted to trust you so badly, it ached inside of him. He wanted to feel you around him, make you cum for him again and again, for you to be breathless and shaking under him. He wanted to give you everything he could, even if just once. But he couldn't.

"She's my sister. Family is everything; if I don't have them, I’ve got nothin’." He stated firmly, yet his palms lingered on your hips, the liquor destroying his perception of the distinction between friendly touching and actions that made you swallow deeply and pray for relief.

"You have me for tonight." You pulled away from him, ignoring the groan that escaped from his lips at the loss of contact. You locked your eyes with his blue ones and pushed the straps of your dress from your shoulders, allowing the damp material to pool around your feet, standing in front of the man you'd wanted for years. It was now or never.

He stayed silent, watching you, eyes not leaving yours, challenging you for a brief moment before his eyes flickered over your figure.

"Is it such a crime to want to fuck you?" You asked, the silk of your skimpy underwear forcing John to wipe the corner of his mouth absentmindedly as he drank you in, mumbling profanities under his breath. Yet, despite the glances and his sudden frustration, you could tell you had him. His eyes were feral and hungry, daring you to keep pushing him. His shoulders were squared, he was ready for action. The crackling firelight illuminated you beautifully; you were irresistible to him.

"It's not a crime. Where'd you get this backbone from?" He asked, reaching for you but you stepped away, teasing him.

"University up north does sommet to a woman."

"You can fuck off or fuck me with that attitude."

"The latter if you behave yourself, Mr Shelby."

He smirked at you, holding his hands up in mock surrender, before wrapping his coat around your shoulders, pulling you towards him by the back of the collar. "You've got a mouth on you, love. You gonna put it to good use?"

"I was told months ago that you'd sort me out, John-" Your speech was interrupted by a small squealing giggle as he tugged at your hair lightly for mocking his voice, his eyes bright and crinkled at the edges due to his grin. "I'm disappointed with these delays, especially from the Shelby Company."

"Well, as the boss, I'll sort it for you, personally and immediately. Let me make it up to you, lass," John crooned, his lips meeting yours once again, fingers pushing your thighs apart, still clad in your black stockings and garter belt. "This is where we got up to last time, yes?"

"Yes Mr. Shelby, I believe so."

He pressed his lips and teeth against where your jaw met your neck, tracing his index and middle fingers over the silk of your underwear which covered your slit. You couldn’t help but lean into him, a slight hiss escaping your teeth.

"You like that, huh? You're fuckin’ soaked for me already, love," John muttered against your neck, lifting your left leg to hook around his waist, easily lifting you onto his desk, scattering loose papers and heavy accounting books onto the floor in his urgency to feel your bare skin on his. "They teach you how to push a bloke over the edge at that fancy university?"

"No, I figured that out on my own actually."

"Always knew you were bright," He smirked, quickly ridding you of your flimsy panties, the pads of his fingertips hot against your thighs. "Always going for the ones smarter than me, Tommy reckons it's not difficult."

"Your brother's chatting shit, he's not the one ‘bout to fuck me on his desk, yeah?" You shot back, opening your thighs to encourage him, your cunt exposed, cutting off John’s laugh. He couldn’t help but stare, eyes glued to your dripping cunt. "You're my favourite brother, always have been. If you tell Finn, I'll kill you," You teased.

"Come off it," John grunted in reply, unable to restrain pressing kisses to your inner thighs, your head tilting back, fingers desperately clutching at his hair. “Need t’get a proper taste of you, yeah? Look so fuckin’ sweet for me.” His mouth reached your core, slowly dipping his tongue into you, causing your mouth to fall open in ecstasy. God, his lips were even softer than they looked. His movements switched from light and teasing to purposeful and focused, his fingers curled and pumping inside you, tongue and thumb attacking your clit. He'd gotten on his knees, your legs wrapped around his neck as he groaned into your cunt, causing you to buck your hips wildly at the sensation, moans falling out of your mouth.

“Fuckin’ christ, John,” You swore, feeling yourself pulsate and twitch around his nimble fingers, crying out into the empty office building. You were getting so close, your hips jerking independently, chest heaving as you gasped for air. You were quickly getting overstimulated, you were so close. Before you could finish, John raised his head back to yours, letting you taste yourself on his mouth, his hands moving from your cunt to your tits, finger tips tracing the outline of your nipples through your silk bra.

"If we get to do this once, I want to feel you finish on my cock, doll," John grunted in a hushed tone, pointedly moving his lips to your collarbone when you opened your mouth to argue back to him.

"Then I get to ride you." Your statement took him by surprise; most women he'd slept with seemed fairly passive in bed. Sure they enjoyed themselves, but they never took control. He could feel himself swell in response to your words. He'd never been put in this position; he was a stranger to it, but the idea was thrilling and wickedly seductive. Especially from someone who was the epitome of "girl-next-door" as they were growing up.

"Polly reckoned you'd be trouble since Ada told us you'd returned. Don't mind getting into trouble with you, though," He teased, his plump mouth dipping to your cleavage, unclasping your bra, tongue circling your hardening nipples.

"John, fuckin’ christ, need you to finish me off, yeah?" You begged, voice shaking, much to his amusement, his fingers re-entering you roughly. John pressed open-mouthed kisses to your neck, soothing your body from the sharp sensation, the slight pain exacerbating the pleasure arising from his mouth and fingers.

"I've barely started with you, and already you're begging for me to fuck you." He muttered into your skin, as he watched you writhe and lift your hips, reacting beautifully to the feelings he was reawakening within you.

"John, m’not fucking about, yeah? I need you," You whined, hand resting on his inner thigh, fingers grazing the fastenings across his groin, gazing up at him from your seat on his desk. John hated waiting for relief, he had very little patience, and almost immediately he gave in and collapsed into his large armchair, pulling you on top of him, letting you pin his wrists to the chair and grind against him as your mouth found his, then his neck, removing his waistcoat, shirt and tie, revealing his muscular chest. The bruising kisses you pressed to his skin left him breathless and needing more, helping you unbuckle his belt and push his suit trousers down his legs. You couldn’t help but take him into your hand, moving it up and down his sensitive shaft.

“Christ, you’re too fuckin’ good at this,” John groaned as you spit on your palm to better move your hand up and down his cock, teasing the sensitive tip with your fingers and tongue. He couldn’t help but watch you, keeping eye contact as you toyed with him, blue eyes heavy with pleasure and lust for more.

You angled your hips above him and he adjusted himself, using his hand to better push himself inside you. You yelped lightly as you adjusted to his girth, his mouth distracting you by pressing kisses on your shoulder and tangling his hands through your hair, trying to control his breaths as you adjusted to him, soft moans falling from your mouth, your tight cunt gripping his cock.

“S’fuckin’ perfect, like your pussy was made for me,” he groaned, breath growing heavier with the sensation of you grinding against him. Pushing his hips up into you, he couldn’t help but grab at your hip bones, grip burning into your skin, bouncing you on his cock, mouth slightly slack, groaning as he grasped at your flesh. You’d imagined hundreds of times how fucking irresistible John would look underneath you, but it was nothing compared to the real thing.

The thrill of having John Shelby with his trousers down in his office, quickly dissolving into a moaning and grunting mess with every rotation or twist of your hips, in the midst of a stormy night while the thunder echoed around the empty streets below was almost too much to take. You should be home right now, curled up in that empty unheated flat, behaving yourself. Even on a date or fucking someone else. But instead you'd gone to him and now you were riding him. You wanted the moment to last forever, right now everything felt so right, you knew when it was over the guilt would hit. But you couldn't avoid it, you could feel your legs start to shake.

“Look so god damn pretty ridin’ me, love. Makin’ me wanna cum inside you.” John growled, panting, struggling to keep pace as you moaned on top of him. Your fingers found his jawline and guided him to look up at you, craving to see how his face looked when he finally came undone. He reached between your legs, torturing your clit with his fingers while he slammed into you a few extra times, using up the rest of his energy. The extra stimulation pushed you over the edge, crying out John’s name as you felt yourself release. Watching you whine his name was the last straw for him, spilling into you as your dripping cunt squeezed him, reveling in the image of you a mess for him.

***

You finally came back to your senses, catching your breath, John clutching you to his chest protectively for a minute or two, enjoying the tranquility and post-sex clarity. He checked his clock, sighing and lifting you from his lap to his desk, running a towel under the sink in the corner of his room and passing it to you to clean up between your legs with.

"Charming," You smirked, tired but satisfied. "No wonder the ladies always come back for more."

"Not you though, aye? One night only exclusive, this." He matched your playful tone, but his eyes were dull with exhaustion and he looked almost upset. He was probably just knackered after working all day and then going overtime just to please you.

"Make yourself useful and grab my clothes for me John-lad." You teased, thankfully changing the subject. He rolled his eyes in the waning firelight, locating the clothes the two of you had left scattered around the room. You quickly dressed, not caring how he watched you silently, as though trying to memorize the image of you. Your clothes were far drier than earlier, the last remaining remnants of damp clutching to the fibers and freezing you all over again. Yet before you could even comment, John's wool coat was wrapped back around your shoulders.

"Because you're cold, not because you look fuckable in it." He said pointedly, smirking slightly, the edges seeming artificial.

"Remind me not to fall madly in love with you. Won't be able to help myself if you keep talking like that, Mr. Shelby." You retorted sarcastically with a grin, earning a gentle dig to the ribs.

"It's Mr. Shelby if you're trying to fuck me. John is between friends and family, right?"

"Someone better inform Mr. Solomons of that distinction, then," You paused, "Mr. Shelby."

"Don't be a fucking cocktease." He scolded with a small grin, grabbing his car keys and hat from the door. "You want a lift then? Don't dick about being polite, Y/N, it's fucking midnight, just accept it."

"Since you asked so nicely."

"You know you've got worse since you've been at uni? Too fast for us lot now." He teased, half serious, as he led you to his car. He couldn't believe the beautiful woman in his passenger seat was the girl with pigtails who'd chase Ada around the canal with their girl gang for hours, the pretty teen who read for hours in his sister's bedroom, comparing notes together. No one was surprised you got a scholarship to university, despite your gender and class. You'd been incredibly lucky. Yet, you'd seen the world and had come back to Birmingham and picked him.

Shame you could only pick him once.

#john shelby imagine #john shelby x reader #john shelby smut #john shelby fluff #john shelby #peaky blinders headcanon #peaky blinders x reader #john shelby masterlist #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders smut #peaky blinders masterlist

776 notes · View notes

lawrenceop · 4 years

Text

HOMILY for Sun in the Octave of the Ascension (Dominican rite)

1 Pt 4:7-11; John 15:26, 27; 16:1-4

Dom Prosper Gueranger, in his classic commentaries on the Liturgy, says that today’s Sunday Liturgy, coming between the Lord’s Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is one in which “the Church is yearning for the Lord, she feels the pangs of separation.” Thus the Officium, the Entrance chant, says: “my heart has said to Thee, I have sought Thy face, Thy face, O Lord, I will seek: turn not away Thy face from me.”

Many of you might say that this has been your refrain these long weeks while the churches have been closed up, and the Sacred Liturgy has become largely inaccessible. Today’s Liturgy, therefore, expresses in a particularly poignant way this year the deep yearning and longing in your heart for the Eucharistic Lord. So, yes, this year we share the experience of the first Christian community who, as Gueranger says, “yearns for Christ, and directs her gaze upward to her heavenly King; [and the Church] awaits the Holy Ghost with prolonged prayer.”

However, I think that the Officium expresses something even more profound, and touching not merely our Christian state of being, but rather the fundamental human condition. Due to original sin, all humanity has been separated from God and so experiences a certain existential angst. The classic expression of this comes from St Augustine who said: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The restlessness of the human heart is alluded to in the Entrance chant: “my heart has said to Thee, I have sought Thy face.” The whole human quest for happiness and indeed, for any kind of lasting joy, is in fact a quest for the face of God, a deep intrinsic desire in Man to see the face of God. As St Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord.” Therefore, Man, having lost his friendship with God through the sin of Adam and Eve, is separated from God, and so he is fundamentally restless, always seeking happiness but never really finding it in the created world.

Not that God is absent from his world, for all that exists is good, and is held in being by the good and loving God. However the tragedy of sin is that our hearts become insensitive to the goodness of God, we become blind to his beauty, we can no longer see the One whose face we seek even when he is present to us. In this sinful state, the human quest for happiness, for God, leads us to try and find God in the pleasures and distractions of this world. We have a God-shaped hole, so to speak, in our lives, but we try to fill that with things and persons who are not God. And so the restlessness remains, the dissatisfaction, and the yearning, ultimately, for love. Tragically, Man – and so many of our contemporaries – do not know their fundamental intrinsic need for God and for his love. So many have fallen for the lie of the ancient Serpent, the Devil, who deceived even Adam and Eve into thinking that God is the enemy of my happiness and freedom, and that I can find joy and human fulfillment without God. But this is a lie. It is impossible. For “you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless unless they rest in you.”

Therefore, St Augustine realises at last that “you [God] were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. [But] You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness.“

Notice that it is God who calls out to Augustine. It is vital that we realise that although we can speak of our human life as one long quest for God, and although we often speak of the Christian life as our journey towards God, it is important to remember, as St Augustine does, that everything begins with the divine initiative. It is God who creates us; it is God who holds us in existence through his love; and it is God who saves us, and who moves us to seek him, and who touches our hardened hearts. St Augustine speaks of the inbreaking of God’s grace, of the effect of the grace of conversion in a way that is both bodily and spiritual because the whole human person longs for God. He says: “you lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”

So, yes, the Christian soul, and the whole Church, now longs and yearns for the Lord as Gueranger says. And today’s Liturgy expresses this longing: “Thy face, O Lord, I will seek: turn not away Thy face from me.”

But one has to wonder, sometimes, if we really long for God. Do we actually actively seek his face? Could we say, with St Augustine, that we gasp and pant for God; that we hunger and thirst for him; that we burn with desire for him? Or is it just his favours that we want; his consolations; the way he makes me feel; the things I can get from him? As a wise Dominican sister said to me when I was a novice: Do not confuse the God of consolations with the consolations of God. Because, if we really long for God, then we need to pray. In the epistle today, therefore, we hear the exhortation of St Peter: “be vigilant in prayer.” This doesn’t mean, necessarily, that we need to spend more time in prayer, or say more words in prayer, or even more novenas. St Thomas Aquinas, in fact, said that prayer shouldn’t last too long lest it becomes tedious, nor too brief so that it is distracted and irreverent, but rather it should be long enough to increase our love and desire for God. For that is the aim of true prayer: that we should yearn for God himself with a deeper love. And this is the yearning that today’s Liturgy speaks of; the deep love of the Church, of Our Lady and the apostles who gathered in prayer in the Upper Room of Jerusalem for the first and only necessary Novena of prayer. For, following Our Lord’s instructions to “stay in the city”, (Lk 24:49b) they “devoted themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14), awaiting the Holy Spirit, the “power [of God’s love] from on high”. (cf Lk 24:49c)

Therefore, in this time between the Ascension and Pentecost, the Liturgy invites us to be united with Our Lady and the apostles in prayer. We need not necessarily spend more hours in prayer – although I would encourage us to persevere with a daily Rosary at least – but, more importantly, we’re called to pray more intensely, more devotedly, more completely with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. (cf Lk 10:27). In the epistle St Peter thus speaks of prayer in a way that involves the whole human person: “practice hospitality… minister the grace you have received from God, one to another… [speak and serve] by the strength that God supplies” so that our whole life gives glory to God. (cf 1 Pt 4:9-11) Our whole Christian life, therefore, is lived in a state of prayer. For the yearning for God in true prayer fills us with his love, which empowers us to live a life of love for God and neighbour. For it is thus that prayer can be said to suffuse our whole lives; thus that we can be told to “pray constantly”, as St Paul does. (1 Thess 5:17)

The fruit of genuine Christian prayer; the fruit of this active love and graced service, is that we are united to Christ, to the God for whom we long. St Augustine puts it this way: “Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.”

Therefore, the Lord commanded us, before he departed from us, to love another as he has loved us. And he promised to send us the Holy Spirit, who is the personal Love of God, who comes to inflame our hearts with love. For only the love of God satisfies the deepest longings of the human heart. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God, in him who is Love. Hence, in these days of the first novena, let us pray: “Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts and minds of Thy faithful servants and enkindle in them the fire of Thy Divine love.” For “my heart has said to Thee, I have sought Thy face”… So, come, Holy Spirit. Amen.

#prayer #love #charity #service #grace #St Augustine #Aquinas

10 notes · View notes

abadzone · 5 years

Text

A Weekly Song: Episode 8 - Joe Hisaishi

A Weekly Song: Episode 8

Joe Hisaishi – Procession of the Gods

“When’s he going to do a movie composer?”

“He’s always going on about film soundtracks.”

It’s true, I am, I do. The reason is this – I listen to a hell of a lot of them. I’m an aficionado. When you’re writing and drawing all day and night, whether it’s writing articles for magazines or scripts for other artists, or just drawing your own comics and illustrations, you listen to a lot of music.

About five years ago, other than corporate work, I changed my professional emphasis from both writing and drawing to predominantly writing (largely because I make more money from writing than from doing both. Making comics and graphic novels is slow, hard work where you do about ten jobs for the price of one. Plus, anyone in comics publishing will tell you how little most artists make, but that is not the purpose of this essay so I’ll leave that story and observations on same for another time).

I’ve always found that I can’t listen to music with lyrics or indeed a human voice of any kind while writing – I find it distracting. This leaves instrumental music – Jazz and Classical, sure, Ambient definitely, but most often – soundtracks. Film and TV scores.

Perhaps the reason for this is that the part of my brain that I use to create stories and voices of characters is also the part that listens to and processes speech and singing. I don’t know that for sure, but whatever the reason, because most of my time is now spent writing, there’s much less time to listen to listen to podcasts, talk radio and the like.

When I was doing the more “automatic” tasks in the creation of a page of comics, like lettering, inking or colouring, I always found myself listening to something with a human voice – a play, a podcast, radio documentaries. My inking was actually better, both looser and slicker, if I was slightly distracted by listening to radio plays or discussion of some kind. (Hi, BBC Radio 4, NPR and Big Finish. I miss you.)

Correspondingly, my appetite for soundtracks has increased, but they’ve always been an important – nay, essential part of my creative process. They are both mood setters and emotional emollient, both starting points and helpful compositional markers in the creation of a story.

It goes something like this: you think of a scene, what the purpose of it is, how you want it to play, what the characters are saying and doing and you choose a piece of music that sets the temperature of that set of incidents. I think every book and every comic I’ve ever written has had a temp-track of sorts, a tracklisting that serves as a guide for the mood and atmosphere I’m looking for.

In many cases, this temp-track evolves and changes as the story does, with some pieces of music being dropped in favour of others as the shape of the narrative develops. I imagine it’s a similar process in an editing suite; as you revise and modify the focus of different elements of a story, the linguistic accompaniments necessarily change too. In film or TV, it might be the Foley sounds, a change of emphasis in lighting via colour grading; in comics it might be the layout, the way the guttering of a page affects the pace at which a reader scans it, and where their eye is led; the tempo at which it subtextually guides a reader to the turn of the page and an emotional turning point, all the while preserving a sense of immersion. Every small detail the author employs affects everything else, and everything has to be right and constantly rejigged to create the illusion of the real world within the story.

This is the kind of constant balancing act common to all forms of visual storytelling. While comics don’t have the luxury of sound and motion, it is still a supremely nuanced and sophisticated language in its own right. What I always liked about comics as both art form and means of expression is how accessible they are and that they can be created relatively cheaply in comparison to film or TV. Anyone can make a comic; you really can be a sole creator, whereas film and TV are collaborative media. A graphic novel really can be one person’s creative vision, unlike a film, which although it may be steered by one overall captain, the authorship really is shared by many (despite what the director’s credit would have you believe: “A Film By…”)

I digress. The point is, one art form and means of cultural expression runs into the next; none of them stand alone. Everything influences everything else and in my case, I’d go so far as to say, these days, music probably influences me more in terms of the kinds of stories I like to tell than many other comics do. Storytelling is a free-flowing activity that inhabits every possible mode of human expression.

Obviously, all this means I have a lot of favourite soundtracks and film composers. How to pick one, and just one track from so many, for this week’s song?

Well, first time around, I’m gonna do the easy thing. I’m going straight to someone who supplies music for one of the greats in a related field: animation. The greatest living animator, in my humble opinion, is Hayao Miyazaki. One of Miyazaki’s constant and most consistent collaborators is Mamoru Fujisawa AKA Joe Hisaishi, who has composed scores for every Miyazaki movie but one. Not to compare Miyazaki to a Spielberg or a Lucas, but Hisashi is Miyazaki’s John Williams.

It’s really difficult to pick a favourite Miyazaki film, and equally difficult to pick a Hisaishi score. He is, predictably, a composer who can match the depth, vision and moods of Miyazaki, one who seems as comfortable with experimental electronica as he is with the orchestra.

My admiration for Hisaishi is a fairly usual reaction to his music; sometimes it’s interesting to look at exactly why a composer is beloved. His association with one of the best storytellers in the world is partially the reason, but composers are of course storytellers in their own right. There is a line of thinking that viewers shouldn’t really notice movie music – that it’s a subtextual support to the emotion and action of the story being told onscreen. While there’s an element of truth in that, there are just as many examples to the opposite. What I think a good film score should do is complement and highlight the story, help make it an immersive emotional experience; be textural as opposed to specific. It should help you, the viewer, get caught up in the characters and story without necessarily calling attention to itself, which calls for a lot of nuance and is a very neat balancing act. You can still notice it – I sometimes do, but what’s fascinating about it is that, when it’s working well, I often don’t do it consciously. The opposite is true also – I notice it when it’s intrusive or overly sentimental, signposting emotions rather than being an integral part of them.

Something that interests me is that Hisaishi is on record as thinking many modern Hollywood soundtracks don’t have enough “space” or silence in them – that quiet is as much a tool of the composer as loud is. This is a man whose comprehension of emotional colour and silence as a tone in his palette is second to none. I love his work in film and beyond it (which is why I’m also going to cheat a bit and also recommend his Minima Rhythm series, the first of which you can listen to here).

That’s not today’s pick though, which I agonised over. I almost went for the opening of Princes Mononoke, Attack of the Tatari-Gami, which is both great action music and one of the most sinister themes in animation history. In the end, I settled upon a piece from Spirited Away, which is possibly one of Hisaishi’s most sweeping, yearning scores.

Variously known as Procession of the Gods (on the US pressing of the soundtrack I have), Procession of the Spirits and The Procession of Celestial Beings, the cue is actually seriously truncated in the movie and not allowed to fully bloom the way it does on the soundtrack album. You’re going to have to take my word for that, because unfortunately there is no official Studio Ghibli channel that I can find on YouTube that showcases Hisaishi’s work, but you can do a search and find several cover versions that attempt to recapture its ominous majesty. Here’s a link to how it sounds in the film, but I’d encourage you to seek out the soundtrack album and listen to it in all its pomp,

The scene it accompanies is shortly after the main character, a ten-year old girl called Chihiro, finds herself stranded in a magical world. Her parents have turned into pigs (yes) and she attempts to find the tunnel that is a gateway back to her reality, only to find that she is now separated from it by a newly-appeared river. A boat begins crossing the water towards her and this music begins to play, all string-plucked notes and magical portent. There are no visible passengers until the boat hits the shore, where Chihiro stands watching. Doors open, the music swells, heralding the arrival of beings that no human child should witness. They appear as masks that float around head height and, floating above the deck, file off the boat one by one. As they disembark, cloaks flow from the masks, like paint tipped from a bucket, flowing down to describe the shapes of their intangible bodies…

…And Chihiro flees, the music fades. On the soundtrack album it reaches a magnificent crescendo and ends on a playful note, punctuated by human voices. It’s a scene that goes from a foreboding menace to awe and wonder, from fear to celebration and back again.

If you’ve never seen the film, see it. It is far, far from being merely a children’s entertainment and occupies a place among the most visionary films ever made.

I have another version of Procession from the Spirited Away Image Album, which I think might be a demo rather than the more usual “song in character” pieces you get on those kinds of tie-ins (but I can’t read Japanese, so I might be completely wrong about that. Feel free to correct me if so via Twitter or email or if you have any further information about this particularly sumptuous film score).

To get a flavour of Joe Hisaishi’s imaginative brilliance, you can watch and listen to a whole concert here.

More info on Studio Ghibli (n English) available here.

#aweeklysong #spirited away #joe hisaishi #miyazaki #spiritedaway #studioghibli #studio ghibli #joehisaishi

2 notes · View notes

rowingchat · 7 years

Text

Coaching psychology: Conditional Praise

Photo credit: Huffington Post.

THE CONTEXT:

As some parents and coaches continue to rely on what I call “conditional praise” as a form of motivation, I hope they’re aware of some of the unintended consequences.

When I was a young boy competing in sports I spent a good lot of my time in the pursuit of approval—praise—from those around me. It grew into a pattern of incessantly chasing self-worth as seen through the eyes of others, and set me up on a never ending quest. One that believed life would be better when I had this, or won that, or accomplished something others hadn’t.

In chasing accolades through my accomplishments, others acknowledged me as tirelessly hard-working and ambitious. I simply used those comments as fodder to chase harder. But, when I got honest about what was really behind my drive to chase, I soon realized there would never be an end game to this life. I would never have a moment where I felt I had arrived and that what I had achieved was good enough.

WHERE TO BEGIN:

Through my work I’ve met my fair-share of individuals who would likely acknowledge their tendency to “chase.” When I ask them how the pattern of striving to constantly achieve bigger and better things began, most agree it was when they were young athletes.

I, too, recognize youth sport as the genesis of my early-life tendency to chase. That’s where I first began to foster a desire to stand out. Yes, it was on those young teams that I discovered that if I accomplished extraordinary success, I garnered the attention of the adults in my life. Coaches, parents, teachers—all of them. They would notice the things that I did and talk about me with great delight. And, the more I got noticed, the more I wanted to get noticed.

I remember winning Athlete of the Year in grade-six. May not seem like a big deal today. But, at the time, I was twelve and saw quite clearly how those around me celebrated that accomplishment. It registered as a significant moment. A moment I wanted to replicate.

From there it only grew. Make that team. Win this game. Earn that award. One of the reasons I desired external praise so badly is because I wanted to hear others tell me I was good. More specifically—good enough. Because, trust me on this, I wasn’t saying it to myself.

Yup, it all boils down to ego—not the good kind. And, therefore, never ends well. For whatever reason I had convinced myself that, in my own eyes, I wasn’t worth much. To rectify that predicament, I embarked on a life of achievement. More. Bigger. Repeat.

My insecurity took over and drove me to chase stuff—material goods, titles and awards. Stuff that will impress others and result in public praise. It was like a drug. No sooner was I done with one project and I was off onto another. My internal chatter constantly trying to convince me that just one more success story will satisfy my yearning to feel whole. However, as we all know, it doesn’t work like that. It never has. It never will.

If we don’t feel worthy without all of the stuff—we sure as hell won’t drowning in it. We have to feel whole before we embark on our life’s journeys. Not after. And, no surprise, as coaches and parents that’s where we come in.

If your mood during the proverbial car ride home after a game is different depending on whether or not your child won or lost—that’s exactly what I’m talking about. If you treat your athletes to donuts when they win and kick garbage cans across the floor when they lose—this message is for you. That’s not okay!

It perpetrates the message, “I’ll love you when … when you win. When you score. When you train harder. Whenever the condition I’ve put in place is met.” Having said that, I get it—it can be very effective. It can inspire change. I won’t argue that it doesn’t work. My concern is around the long-term impact of that behaviour. The love and approval that we dangle before our children is an incredible motivator—true enough. Trouble is, that motivation for approval can become habit forming.

Our children need to know that our relationship with them—our love for them—is not conditional upon winning or losing a game!

In fact, appreciating the impact of my conditional approval upon the athletes that I’ve coached has been one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn. I remember when I first began coaching. There were many times during the course of a season where my athletes were afraid of me. They knew that my mood and how I spoke to them would be drastically different depending on whether or not they did as I said or performed as I expected. I had no idea at the time how destructive and disabling my behaviour was on their young psyche.

THE OPPORTUNITY:

As adults, through the relationships that we foster with our athletes, we hold the power to create incredibly meaningful and healthy experiences. Regardless of whether or not we grew up with coaches, parents or teachers who demonstrated conditional approval with us, we need to move beyond what we were taught and make better choices. And, this is a good place to start!

When athletes know that their relationship with you isn’t contingent upon how they perform, they are free from the fear of disappointing you. From that safe place, they thrive. Athletes reach levels of performance unburdened with the heavy price of shame. The shame of not measuring up to yours and others expectations. This one shift in my coaching philosophy has had the most drastic impact of anything that I’ve ever tried to address. Both from a performance standpoint and in terms of the longterm relationships that have developed with the athletes I’ve coached.

To that end, I encourage you to check-in with how you manage praise with the young people you work with. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m by no means advocating a Dora-fest. “Good-job!” every third sentence is not the praise that I speak of. I’m talking about the emotion that children detect from us when we’re either pleased or displeased with their behaviour.

You may think that by withholding praise constitutes “tough-love” and may actually do them a favour, but guess what? That’s just wrong. As adults, we have to know better. We have to show the children in our lives more respect. Yes, it’s our job. But, more importantly, it’s our moral and ethical responsibility, as well.

This article first published on Jason Dorland’s blog

If you are a parent – read the A Parent’s Guide to Rowing ebook and John Parker’s Advice Series for Sporting Parents – it has a wealth of insight you can use to ensure your child has a positive relationship to sport.

The post Coaching psychology: Conditional Praise appeared first on Rowperfect UK.

Advice on choosing a coach for your child

Let the children row

from Rowperfect (On-Demand) http://ift.tt/2qfJiPe

#rowing #crew #rowperfect #Rowperfect (On-Demand)

2 notes · View notes

thespearnews-blog · 7 years

Text

You have failed to even implement your own ideology; Bobi Wine's letter to Museveni

New Post has been published on https://thespearnews.com/2017/07/16/you-have-failed-even-your-own-ideology-bobi-wines-letter-to-museveni/

You have failed to even implement your own ideology; Bobi Wine's letter to Museveni

Hon. Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert-Bobi Wine the MP- Kyadondo East has responded to president Museveni’s letter he wrote about Kyadondo by-elections.

In the missive the new MP voices out on the side of the young generation which he describes as enslaved by the old generation to which Museveni belongs. He states that its time to focus on the young generation rather that parties or other social differences.

You’re enslaving young people into a system which responds to 21st century challenges using 19th century approaches!

It’s time to focus on the NEXT GENERATION not NEXT GENERAL-ELECTIONS

Mr. President, I have read your article dated 10th July, 2017 on the recent by-elections. I thank you for congratulating me on my victory in the Kyadondo East polls. For emphasis, it is not me who won but rather the ideas which I presented to the electorate. It was especially a victory of a people determined to get involved in how they are governed.

While I agree with some aspects of your article, I don’t agree with many of the conclusions you draw. For example, I agree that unemployment, corruption, increased levels of crime and leaders not connecting with the population are serious issues. These are not mere gaps but are grave questions of national importance which must be addressed. I am constrained to respond to some of your points, mainly three.

Firstly Mr. President, you castigate the media for covering our campaigns very widely and accuse them of not being happy when the NRM wins by-elections. In this regard you single out the New Vision. Anyone who has been to Uganda or who has followed our politics knows that this is not an accurate analysis. Rather than focus on the recent by-election, it is better for one to consider our electioneering process and politics in general.

It is on record that due to direct and indirect pressure from the government, in most cases media coverage favours the NRM. Only last year, the European Union Observation Mission said this of the 2016 elections; “…the overall reporting environment was conducive to self-censorship and yielded coverage overwhelmingly in favour of the incumbent and the NRM. Thus, despite the fact that more than 300 media outlets operate in Uganda, the variety of information available across the media landscape was constrained, limiting voters’ ability to make an informed choice.”

On its part, the Supreme Court while noting that this issue has been recurrent, held that state owned media failed to give balanced coverage to all presidential candidates as required by law.

Therefore, despite the progress made with regards to media freedom, the NRM gets more coverage on a daily.

What happened in Kyadondo East was not a reflection that the media had been ‘freed’. It was partly because of the extra ordinary nature of that election that print and digital, local and international media widely covered it. Our campaign inspired the people, even beyond the constituency, because we correctly diagnosed the problems of our society, understood people’s frustrations and identified with their struggles.

In the process we were able to effectively suggest practical solutions to improve the conditions of our people. Although you would have wished to see the NRM and its candidate dominate headlines, the media should be balanced while reflecting the wishes and aspirations of the people, which is what our campaign offered. The press could not be expected to headline stale ideas which people had rejected. I therefore applaud them for rejecting intimidation and other machinations to fulfil their duty to society.

Secondly, Mr. President, in your article, you talk about the question of ideology versus biology and the role of youth in politics.

In sum, your argument is that the solution to society’s problems lies in ideas and not in the physical/ biological state of the actors. This is indeed true but my point of departure lies in so far as you seem to think that the present young people lack in ideology.

You seem to suggest that the NRA/M ideology is superior and forget that as society evolves better ideas crop up and they should be given opportunity to flourish.

Even then, the NRM hasn’t fared very well with what you identify as the core principles of your ideology- patriotism, Pan-Africanism, social-economic metamorphosis and democracy. Many would agree that these are noble ideals.

The problem being that the NRM prefers to constantly talk and sing about your ideology but not practice it.

Had you fully implemented them no doubt our society would be much better.

You have laboured to point out leaders who rose to positions of responsibility in their youthful years and did great harm to society. You give examples of Ssekabaka Mwanga, Ssekabaka Mutesa II, Obote, Ibingira, Amin and John Kakonge. I definitely DISAGREE on your conclusion here.

As a student of Uganda’s constitutional history, I know that the crises our society went through in the past years were caused by many factors beyond the leaders of the times. Because of constraints in time and space I will not discuss them here.

However, while it is true that correct ideology overrides biology, the biggest question is ‘WHAT IDEOLOGY?’ You rightly point out that the electorate is losing interest in issues of identity of religion or tribes as basis for electing leaders.

Again, rather than look at it as an achievement of your government, I think of it more as a natural result of our population demographics and their struggles. Our society is more blended today as a result of intermarriages between people from different backgrounds (I am an example). You note that 78% of our population comprises of youth.

Many of them are unemployed or underemployed. The hustle for them is real. They have to make ends meet and are definitely uninterested in chauvinism of any kind. I do not want to say that you do not fully understand this but it is rather troubling how you choose to downplay it.

Our society has moved on and new issues are emerging. The generation of the 1960s and 1970s had to respond to challenges of that time and we are grateful to those of you who rose to the occasion and played a role. However, the challenges of our time require a new kind of ideology and approach.

We are talking about a generation where technology is evolving at a terrific speed. A generation which must struggle with the effects of climate change! Today’s generation has to deal with complex issues in science and technology. Young Africans must find out what economic models work best for their times and work hard to improve the living conditions of our people.

As someone who has interacted with so many of these young Ugandans, I know that they have great ideas on how to get there or at least have some idea which simply needs an enabling environment for it to blossom. I do not think that Ugandan youth or Africans generally have a gene for slowness or stupidity.

As someone who has led an African country for over three decades, you might be better placed to explain why youth on other continents are inventing and innovating useful products every day, for which we pay a lot of money.

Part of the problem has been that the NRM views money as the solution to everything in itself. Only God knows how many funds you have put in place for innovation, prosperity, etc. only for them to fail flat. In any case most of that money is lost through corruption.

We must rethink our education system. Those UPE and USE schools might not help the situation in their current state.

Now, almost all these young people were born when you were President and they unfortunately have to put up with a system which tries to respond to challenges of the 21st century using the approaches of the 20th century! Their ideas are viewed as disruptive and discomforting. They are not understood by the leaders most of whom are out of touch with the world reality.

This is why we have been saying that the government is not in touch with the people who they claim to work for. For example, every day I interact with those ‘slum dweller’ youth you talk about. (I prefer to call them GHETTO YOUTH).

Despite lack of advanced education for most of them, these are people with great ideas. They have ideas for innovation and transformation. They have a proper ideology!

But they have been left out completely.

No one listens to them. In supporting me massively, those people were just yearning for a microphone (obwogelero/obugambiro) so that they could also be heard.

They could no longer afford to see government only through its officials who drive through the ghetto in their expensive, guarded vehicles with tinted glasses, moreover paid for by tax payers.

They need a leadership which works for them.

My humble view Mr. President is that those who govern us today should first of all appreciate the fact that the TIMES HAVE CHANGED and involve young people in making decisions for their country.

This ‘lack of proper ideology argument’ has been used far too long to keep them outside.

This is a contradiction given that in the initial years of your government, most people in leadership were just over 30 years of age. Key government positions were occupied by young men and women who in their prime were able to do a lot of good things for the country.

Most Ugandans would find it unbelievable that at only 36 Suleiman Kuggundu (RIP) was Governor Bank of Uganda, Gen. Mugisha Muntu was Army Commander at 31, Dr. Kiiza Besigye was deputy minister for internal affairs and national political commissar at 30, Dr. Crispus Kiyonga was minister for finance at 34, etc.

I am mindful of the contribution of those who were slightly older and society needs both the old and the young.

Elders are capable of providing wise counsel. However, younger people with vigour and fresh ideas should be given opportunity to take the lead. Therefore rest assured that many young Ugandans are able and in fact ready to steer their country forward.

It would be better if they are given the opportunity, PEACEFULLY, and without requiring the country to go through turmoil whenever one generation has to pave way for another.

It is for this reason that I join most Ugandans to request that you stick to your promise and not tamper with the Constitution to remove the age-limit provision for presidency. The country will be grateful for your service when you retire peacefully and let a new breed of leaders with generation-relevant skills and ideas take charge of the affairs of our mother land.

I might understand that your frustration with the generation is born out of the nature of leaders you mostly interact with. Our society is unfortunately dominated by two kinds of leaders.

The first category is the hardliners whose stance is that everything about Uganda is wrong. I do not subscribe to that notion because in seeking a way forward for a better country, we must be willing to talk to each other, being aware that all of us have our failings.

The other category are those leaders who come to you only for monetary favours, whether they belong to the ruling NRM or the opposition.

As a result, many politicians are viewed as buyable and unprincipled.

Uganda today does not need these two kinds of leaders. It simply needs principled leaders who engage with respect for each other and only for the good of the country and not for their own benefit. There are very many such Ugandans. We should only give them opportunity.

Finally on the question of our supporters heckling you at Zirobwe Road junction, I hope you are aware of the events of that day. Whereas I do not condone violence or bad politics, many times our people are provoked by state agencies.

On that day my supporters were charged because we were supposed to hold our rally in Kasangati and the police decided to unlawfully block me from holding it there because you were expected in the area.

That said, Mr. President, you must also note that some of this conduct comes out of deep seated frustration and anger by the people about how they are governed. A powerless, suppressed people may heckle a Head of State simply because that’s the only opportunity they ever got to have their leader listen to them since the government is very far from them.

Many years ago you justified your going to the bush thus, “If you have a government has closed off all other channels of peaceful change, what else could we do, except to surrender, to resign ourselves to slavery? And we couldn’t do that as long as people were willing to fight.”

I think that is the message you should read in those people who heckled you. Today they have no guns but many feel as oppressed as you felt in 1981. A tired people using whatever tool with in their power to express their discontent.

Hopefully we can rethink these things and all of us strive to build a better country.

As it has been put before, it’s time to focus not on the NEXT GENERAL-ELECTION but rather on the NEXT GENERATION.

Hon. Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert-Bobi Wine, MP- Kyadondo East

0 notes