#The Scriptures 1998

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

God's Covenant with Abram

5 And He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward the heavens, and count the stars if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So are your seed.”

6 And he believed in יהוה, and He reckoned it to him for righteousness. — Genesis 15:5-6 | The Scriptures (ISR 1998) The Scriptures 1998 Copyright © 1998 Institute for Scripture Research. All Rights reserved. Cross References: Genesis 17:2; Genesis 22:17; Genesis 26:4; Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 1:10; Nehemiah 9:8; Romans 4:3; Romans 4:9; Romans 4:18; Romans 4:20; Romans 4:22; Galatians 3:6; Hebrews 11:12; James 2:23

#God #Abraham #divine promise #stars #heaven #innumerable #descendants #belief #righteousness #Genesis 15:5-6 #Book of Genesis #Old Testament #ISR 1998 #The Scriptures 1998 #Institute for Scripture Research

[crosspunisher]

you’re looking at him with that face , that face you make when he says something stupid — scrutinizing him with dark eyes hidden behind glasses . " stop talking while you’re ahead, ok Wolf ? If you keep speaking you’re gonna make yourself look stupider than you already do.. " even with the harsh words , you can’t help the smile that inches it’s way onto your features.

          BAM. The man slammed HIS SIXTH glass so hard it shook the earth. Had he had noticed, the whisky flying from the glass, now wasted life atop a dirty bar table, would have brought this tipsy gunman to tears. He couldn't recall how this absurd conversation even came about. Logic, remembrance had no place in a setting such as this, both left behind by those who come through the door.

          "I'M TELLIN' YA!! I MAY HAVE JUST CRACKED THIS DAMNED INDUSTRY WIIIIIIDE ASS OPEN!" Wolf exclaims, standing from his stool, pointing to high heaven, "THEY'LL THANK ME!! SLAP MY FACE ON THE BOTTLE!! You sit at the table of the future paragon of the bourdon world!!" To Hell to the nasty looks of fellow bar patrons, the man was on a roll!

          "One word, brother..." Silence loomed as he eased back down into his seat, directing a needlessly dramatic expression at his twin, "...worms."

          "Think about it! You see any wheat growin' around here?! In the next billion years!? I can go outside and pick ten of those suckers out of the ground IN TEN SECONDS! We can save this beautiful honey's life from extinction!" Swirling around an empty glass, Wolf raises his arm, twirling one finger to signal the bartender another, another! ( Another in which he absolutely did not need. ) Of course he had more to say, of course the passionate, nonsensical muses of a drunkard did not stop here.

#† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎replies. #† likeness ─‎ ‎‎1998. #/ i love them i miss them COME HERE

[zorcskhakis]

For @melffy-puppy :D

You want a car that gets the job done? You want a car that's hassle free? You want a car that literally no one will ever compliment you on? Well look no further.

The 1999 Toyota Corolla.

Let's talk about features. Bluetooth: nope Sunroof: nope Fancy wheels: nope Rear view camera: nope...but it's got a transparent rear window and you have a fucking neck that can turn.

Let me tell you a story. One day my Corolla started making a strange sound. I didn't give a shit and ignored it. It went away. The End.

You could take the engine out of this car, drop it off the Golden Gate Bridge, fish it out of the water a thousand years later, put it in the trunk of the car, fill the gas tank up with Nutella, turn the key, and this puppy would fucking start right up.

This car will outlive you, it will outlive your children.

Things this car is old enough to do: Vote: yes Consent to sex: yes Rent a car: it IS a car

This car's got history. It's seen some shit. People have done straight things in this car. People have done gay things in this car. It's not going to judge you like a fucking Volkswagen would.

Interesting facts: This car's exterior color is gray, but it's interior color is grey. In the owner's manual, oil is listed as "optional." When this car was unveiled at the 1998 Detroit Auto Show, it caused all 2,000 attendees to spontaneously yawn. The resulting abrupt change in air pressure inside the building caused a partial collapse of the roof. Four people died. The event is chronicled in the documentary "Bored to Death: The Story of the 1999 Toyota Corolla"

You wanna know more? Great, I had my car fill out a Facebook survey. Favorite food: spaghetti Favorite tv show: Alf Favorite band: tie between Bush and the Gin Blossoms

This car is as practical as a Roth IRA. It's as middle-of-the-road as your grandpa during his last Silver Alert. It's as utilitarian as a member of a church whose scripture is based entirely on water bills.

When I ran the CarFax for this car, I got back a single piece of paper that said, "It's a Corolla. It's fine."

Let's face the facts, this car isn't going to win any beauty contests, but neither are you. Stop lying to yourself and stop lying to your wife. This isn't the car you want, it's the car you deserve: The fucking 1999 Toyota Corolla.

#yugioh #yami yugi #atem #i fucking DIED making this #usually i correct the mispronunciations but i left a few in bc they're fucking funny #yami really went on an emotional journey here #greatest hits

[bfpnola]

definitely a longer piece so these excerpts are far from showcasing everything this piece has to offer! read the whole thing on your own time, and in general, just check out jewish currents, an educational, leftist, anti-zionist jewish magazine!

Every August, the township of Edison, New Jersey—where one in five residents is of Indian origin—holds a parade to celebrate India’s Independence Day. In 2022, a long line of floats rolled through the streets, decked out in images of Hindu deities and colorful advertisements for local businesses. People cheered from the sidelines or joined the cavalcade, dancing to pulsing Bollywood music. In the middle of the procession came another kind of vehicle: A wheel loader, which looks like a small bulldozer, rumbled along the route bearing an image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi aloft in its bucket. For South Asian Muslims, the meaning of the addition was hard to miss. A few months earlier, during the month of Ramadan, Indian government officials had sent bulldozers into Delhi’s Muslim neighborhoods, where they damaged a mosque and leveled homes and storefronts. The Washington Post called the bulldozer “a polarizing symbol of state power under Narendra Modi,” whose ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasingly enacting a program of Hindu supremacy and Muslim subjugation. In the weeks after the parade, one Muslim resident of Edison, who is of Indian origin, told The New York Times that he understood the bulldozer much as Jews would a swastika or Black Americans would a Klansman’s hood. Its inclusion underscored the parade’s other nods to the ideology known as Hindutva, which seeks to transform India into an ethnonationalist Hindu state. The event’s grand marshal was the BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, who flew in from India. Other invitees were affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international arm of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary force Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of which Modi is a longtime member.

...

On December 6th, 1992, a mob of 150,000 Hindus, many of whom were affiliated with the paramilitary group the RSS, gathered at the Babri Masjid, a centuries-old mosque that is one of the most contested sacred sites in the world. Over the preceding century, far-right Hindus had claimed that the mosque, located in the North Indian city of Ayodhya, was built not only upon the site where the Hindu deity Ram was born but atop the foundations of a demolished Hindu temple. The RSS and its affiliates had been campaigning to, in the words of a BJP minister, correct the “historical mistake” of the mosque’s existence, a task the mob completed that December afternoon. “They climbed on top of the domes and tombs,” one witness told NPR. “They were carrying hammers and these three-pronged spears from Hindu scripture. They started hacking at the mosque. By night, it was destroyed.” The demolition sparked riots that lasted months and killed an estimated 2,000 people across the country.

The destruction of the Babri Masjid was arguably Hindu nationalism’s greatest triumph to date. Since its establishment in 1925, the RSS—whose founders sought what one of them called a “military regeneration of the Hindus,” inspired by Mussolini’s Black Shirts and Nazi “race pride”—had been a marginal presence in India: Its members held no elected office, and it was temporarily designated a terrorist organization after one of its affiliates shot and killed Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. But the leveling of the Babri Masjid activated a virulently ethnonationalist base and paved the way for three decades of Hindutva ascendance. In 1998, the BJP formed a government for the first time; in 2014, it returned to power, winning a staggering 282 out of 543 seats in parliament and propelling Modi into India’s highest office. Since then, journalist Samanth Subramanian notes, all of the country’s governmental and civil society institutions “have been pressured to fall in line” with a Hindutva agenda—a phenomenon on full display in 2019, when the Supreme Court of India awarded the land where the Babri Masjid once stood to a government run by the very Hindu nationalists who illegally destroyed it. (Modi has since laid a foundation stone for a new Ram temple in Ayodhya, an event that a prominent RSS activist celebrated with a billboard in Times Square.) The Ayodhya verdict came in the same year that Modi stripped constitutional protections from residents of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir and passed a law that creates a fast track to citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants, laying the groundwork for a religious test for Indian nationality. Under Modi, “the Hinduization of India is almost complete,” as journalist Yasmeen Serhan has written in The Atlantic.

To achieve its goals, the RSS has worked via a dense network of organizations that call themselves the “Sangh Parivar” (“joint family”) of Hindu nationalism. The BJP, which holds more seats in the Indian parliament than every other party combined, is the Sangh’s electoral face. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is the movement’s cultural wing, responsible for “Hinduizing” Indian society at the grassroots level. The Bajrang Dal is the project’s militant arm, which enforces Hindu supremacy through violence. Dozens of other organizations contribute money and platforms to the Sangh. The sheer number of groups affords the Sangh what human rights activist Pranay Somayajula has referred to as a “tactical politics of plausible deniability,” in which the many degrees of separation between the governing elements and their vigilante partners shields the former from backlash. This explains how, until 2018, the CIA could describe the VHP and Bajrang Dal as “militant religious organizations”—a designation that applies to non-electoral groups exerting political pressure—even as successive US governments have maintained a warm relationship with their parliamentary counterpart, the BJP.

...

The most extreme figures in the Hindu nationalist and Zionist movements were especially frank about the nature of their partnership: “Whether you call them Palestinians, Afghans, or Pakistanis, the root of the problem for Hindus and Jews is Islam,” Bajrang Dal affiliate Rohit Vyasmaan told The New York Times of his friendly relationship with Mike Guzofsky, a member of a violent militant group connected to the infamous Jewish supremacist Meir Kahane’s Kach Party.

...

In 2003, Gary Ackerman—a Jewish former congressman who was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honor for helping to found the Congressional Caucus on India—told a gathering of AJC and AIPAC representatives and their Indian counterparts that “Israel [is] surrounded by 120 million Muslims,” while “India has 120 million [within].” Tom Lantos, another Jewish member of the caucus, likewise enjoined the two communities to collaborate: “We are drawn together by mindless, vicious, fanatic, Islamic terrorism.”

#reaux speaks #hindutva #nationalism #islam #religion #india #narendra modi #south asia #muslim #new jersey #Bharatiya Janata Party #history #resources #jewish currents #anti zionism #palestine #islamophobia #afghanistan #hindu #jewish #free palestine #israel

[officiallordvetinari]

Wikipedia Featured Article Poll, Biographies Edition. Summaries and links below the cut

Margaret Ives Abbott (June 15, 1878 – June 10, 1955) was an American amateur golfer. She was the first American woman to win an Olympic event: the women's golf tournament at the 1900 Summer Olympics.

Lilias Eveline Armstrong (29 September 1882 – 9 December 1937) was an English phonetician. She worked at University College London, where she attained the rank of reader. Armstrong is most known for her work on English intonation as well as the phonetics and tone of Somali and Kikuyu. Her book on English intonation, written with Ida C. Ward, was in print for 50 years. Armstrong also provided some of the first detailed descriptions of tone in Somali and Kikuyu.

Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American catcher and coach in Major League Baseball, who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, Berg was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".

Edward Dando (c. 1803 – 28 August 1832) was a thief who came to public notice in Britain because of his unusual habit of overeating at food stalls and inns, and then revealing that he had no money to pay. Although the fare he consumed was varied, he was particularly fond of oysters, having once eaten 25 dozen of them with a loaf and a half of bread with butter.

Harold Francis Davidson (14 July 1875 – 30 July 1937), generally known as the Rector of Stiffkey, was a Church of England priest who in 1932, after a public scandal, was convicted of immorality by a church court and defrocked. Davidson strongly protested his innocence and to raise funds for his reinstatement campaign he exhibited himself in a barrel on the Blackpool seafront. He performed in other sideshows of a similar nature, and died after being attacked by a lion in whose cage he was appearing in a seaside spectacular.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas (April 7, 1890 – May 14, 1998) was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, she became a freelance writer, producing over one hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring (1962). Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, enabling her to advance her causes.

George Went Hensley (May 2, 1881 – July 25, 1955) was an American Pentecostal minister best known for popularizing the practice of snake handling. A native of rural Appalachia, Hensley experienced a religious conversion around 1910: on the basis of his interpretation of scripture, he came to believe that the New Testament commanded all Christians to handle venomous snakes.

Margaret Alice Murray FSA Scot FRAI (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was a British-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist who was born in India. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935. She served as president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely over the course of her career.

Dom Pedro Afonso (19 July 1848 – 10 January 1850) was the Prince Imperial and heir apparent to the throne of the Empire of Brazil. Born at the Palace of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, he was the second son and youngest child of Emperor Dom Pedro II and Dona Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza. Pedro Afonso was seen as vital to the future viability of the monarchy, which had been put in jeopardy by the death of his older brother Dom Afonso almost three years earlier.

Elias Abraham Rosenberg (Hebrew: אליאס אברהם רוזנברג; Hawaiian: Eliaka Apelahama Loselabeka; c. 1810 – July 10, 1887) was a Jewish immigrant to the United States who, despite a questionable past, became a trusted friend and adviser of King Kalākaua of Hawaii. Regarded as eccentric, he lived in San Francisco in the 1880s and worked as a peddler selling illegal lottery tickets. In 1886, he traveled to Hawaii and performed as a fortune-teller. He came to Kalākaua's attention, and endeared himself to the king with favorable predictions about the future of Hawaii. Rosenberg received royal appointments to several positions: kahuna-kilokilo (royal soothsayer), customs appraiser, and guard. He was given lavish gifts by the king, but was mistrusted by other royal advisers and satirized in the Hawaiian press.

#i expanded the summaries from the first sentence of the article to the first paragraph #cause with some of these people you don't get the full effect from just the first sentence #and also cause it's my poll. #Wikipedia polls

[carnageandculture]

When I bought my first copy of the Bible, the King James version, it was to the Old Testament that I was drawn, with its maniacal, punitive God, that dealt out to His long-suffering humanity punishments that had me drop-jawed in disbelief at the very depth of their vengefulness. I had a burgeoning interest in violent literature coupled with an unnamed sense of the divinity in things and, in my early twenties, the Old Testament spoke to that part of me that railed and hissed and spat at the world. I believed in God, but I also believed that God was malign and if the Old Testament was testament to anything, it was testament to that. Evil seemed to live so close to the surface of existence within it, you could smell its mad breath, see the yellow smoke curl from its many pages, hear the blood-curdling moans of despair. It was a wonderful, terrible book and it was sacred scripture.

But you grow up. You do. You mellow out. Buds of compassion push through the cracks in the black and bitter soil. Your rage ceases to need a name. You no longer find comfort watching a whacked-out God tormenting a wretched humanity as you learn to forgive yourself and the world. That God of Old begins to transmute in your heart, base metals become silver and gold, and you warm to the world.

From the introduction of Nick Cave for The Gospel According to Mark, Canongate Books, 1998.

#nick cave #lit #bible #st. mark

[moononmyfloor]

A Compilation of Chinese Period drama OSTs that are inspired by Classical Poetry- Part 3

Part 1, Part 2

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More in Confirmed List

8. The Long River

"Life Passes Like a Dream (浮生若梦)" (Ending theme) by Li Bai, performed by Wang Zhenhua

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9. Oh My General (2017)

Yang Lin [杨蔺] - Pride of the Fishermen [渔家傲] by Fan Zhongyan

I couldn't find a way to share an mp3, but you can find it here and listen from there.

.

10. Dream of the Red Chambers (1987)

Source

Source

Sadly I couldn't find any other songs he composed based on the original poems for the drama, except the one below. If you know more, please do share! 🥺 🙏

Burial of Flowers

A famous cover by Tong Liya

I highly recommend listening to this chilling cover done for the kiddie drama version of Red Chambers as well.

.

11. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994)

滚滚长江东逝水 Gǔngǔn Chángjiāng Dōngshì Shuǐ (The Billowing Yangtze River Flows East) by Ming Dynasty poet Yang Shen, performed by Yang Hongji

.

短歌行 Duǎngē Xíng (A Short Song) by Cao Cao; performed by Yang Hongji

Extra: Rendition of the same scene in Three Kingdoms (2010) with Eng translation and in Advisors Alliance (2017)

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子夜四时歌 Zǐyè Sìshí Gē (The Midnight Song) Lyrics adapted from a Southern Dynasties era poem; performed in a Wu accent. Played during Liu Bei and Sun Shangxiang's wedding scene in episode 43. Source

A translated fanvid

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七步诗 Qībù Shī (The Seven Steps Poem) by Cao Zhi; performed by Liu Huan

(Aka the Bean Poem. Here's a nice comparison of the same scene in different dramas by another Tumblr user!)

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丈夫歌 Zhàngfū Gē (A Song for Men) by Luo Guanzhong; performed by Lü Jianhong

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There are more but this is all I was able to find :(

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12. The Advisors Alliance (2017)

In the same spirit (their version of Duan Ge Xing is already shared above),

十五从军征 At Fifteen I Joined the Army on Expedition by unknown Han dynasty poet, performed by Jin Yushan (金语衫) (not sure, Wikipedia says Jin Yubin) Here's a cartoon version as well.

The thumbnail of the vid is incorrect for some reason btw. It's from AA not 3K.

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怨歌行Yuan Ge Xing (Song of Regret) by Ban Jieyu, performed by Yeung Tung & Lu Moyi

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13. My Fair Princess (1998)

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14. Shaolin Wendao (2016)

Not a poem, but the ost is made out of the Mahayana Buddhist Sutra Da Bei Zhou/Great Compassion Mantra/Nilakantha Dharani.

This was one of the first songs I have listened on YouTube, even before I started watching Cdramas etc. It has always brought me great sense of calm and peace. Only recently, more than like 5 years later I finally found out where it is from.

Da Bei Zhou (大悲咒) by Jing Shan Yuan (敬善媛)

The scene from drama

Full ost:

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15. Journey to the West (2011)

Similarly, the opening ost was taken from the mantra of the Mahayana Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra.

Xin Jing (心经) performed by Yang Xiaolin

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My other posts

#Youtube #My goodness I am so tired #classical Chinese poetry #drama osts #Cdrama #Chinese drama #gufeng #guofeng #The Long River #romance of the three kingdoms #oh my general #dream of the red chamber #my fair princess #shaolin wendao #journey to the west #three kingdoms #the advisors alliance #poetry

[haveyoureadthispoll]

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

#book: the poisonwood bible #author: barbara kingsolver #genre: historical fiction #genre: african literature #genre: classics #year: 1990s

[the-monkey-ruler]

Journey to the West (1996) 西游记 西遊記

Director: Liu Shiyu

Screenwriter: Zhang Huabiao / Ye Guangyin

Starring: Jiang Hua / Zhang Dicky / Lai Yaoxiang / Mak Changqing

Genre: Comedy / Fantasy / Adventure

Country/Region of Production: Hong Kong, China

Language: Cantonese

Date: 1996-11-18 (Hong Kong, China) / 1998-10-26 (Season 2)

Number of Seasons: 2

Episodes: 72

Single episode length: 45 minutes

Also known as: Monkey King / 齐天大圣 / Heaven and Earth Fight for the Monkey King / 天地争霸美猴王 / Journey to the West II / 西遊記貳 / Sun Wukong churning in the sea of clouds / 云海翻腾孙悟空 / Journey to the West 2 / 西游记2

IMDb: tt1459024 / tt3530256 

Type: Retelling

Summary:

Journey to the West is a Hong Kong television series adapted from the 16th-century novel of the same title. Starring Dicky Cheung, Kwong Wah, Wayne Lai and Evergreen Mak, the series was produced by TVB and was first broadcast on TVB Jade in Hong Kong in November 1996. A sequel, Journey to the West II, was broadcast in 1998, but the role of the Monkey King was played by Benny Chan instead, due to contract problems between Dicky Cheung and TVB. Cheung later reprised the role in another television series The Monkey King: Quest for the Sutra (2002), which was broadcast on TVB but not produced by the station.

This is another masterpiece of Hong Kong TVB's remake of the classic. In addition to being based on the classic "Journey to the West", the plot also adds a lot of funny elements, which makes this work create another flavor different from the original while restoring the original. A Mingling stone monkey (decorated by Zhang Weijian) exploded from a huge rock in Flower Fruit Mountain in Dongsheng Shenzhou. After the stone monkey learned supernatural powers, he made a big fuss in the Heavenly Palace and was crushed under the Five Fingers Mountain by the Buddha. Five hundred years later, Guanyin Bodhisattva enlightened Wukong, worshiped Tang Sanzang (played by Jiang Hua) as his teacher, and embarked on the road of learning from the scriptures and redeeming sins.

Then in the last episode, Tang Seng and his disciples continued on the road. However, Tang Seng had a nightmare on this day. In the dream, his hometown Chang'an City experienced a catastrophe. A giant monkey was wreaking havoc. In order to protect his righteous brother Tang Taizong, Tang Seng himself died tragically! Tang Seng woke up from the nightmare and knew that he was the reincarnation of the Golden Cicada. This was by no means a simple dream, but a sign from heaven. Therefore, Tang Seng decided to ask Wukong (played by Chen Haomin), Bajie (played by Li Yaoxiang) and Wujing (played by Mai Changqing) to go back to Chang'an in three groups to stop this catastrophe. Afterwards, Tang Seng was still worried, and decided to do what he couldn't do, and walked back to Chang'an City by himself to prevent the catastrophe. On the other hand, Chang'an City is a different scene. Emperor Tang Taizong was so overjoyed that he thought the ape was an auspicious beast, so he sent people to capture it and display it at the ceremony. The catastrophe in Tang Seng's dream is slowly approaching.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West_(1996_TV_series)

Link: https://kissasian.com.ru/Drama/Journey-to-the-West-1996/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy8WDOJkSFFwaYU9Z2h3fXjo5zwo1Amfl https://kissasian.com.ru/Drama/Journey-to-the-West-2

#Journey to the West #西游记 西遊記 #Monkey King #齐天大圣 #Heaven and Earth Fight for the Monkey King #天地争霸美猴王 #Journey to the West II #西游记 #西遊記 #西遊記貳 #Sun Wukong churning in the sea of clouds #云海翻腾孙悟空 #Journey to the West 2 #西游记2 #jttw media #jttw #xiyouji media #jttw television #television #live action #retelling #jttw 1998 #the favs~ #sun wukong #zhu bajie #sha wujing #Tang Sanzang #monk tripitaka #White Bone Demon #addition

[offender42085]

Post 0399

Johnny Hiro Rider, Georgia inmate 1002246300, born 1998, incarceration intake March 2018, at age 19, sentenced to life, parole eligible in 2077

Aggravated Assault, Theft, Murder

A judge sent two teenagers to prison for life after police say they killed two grandparents, locked up their bodies and threw a party in the house.

Johnny Rider, who confessed to both murders, pleaded for forgiveness and quoted Scripture as the judge sent him and his girlfriend to prison.

Rider and his now former girlfriend Cassie Bjorge blame each other for the plot to kill her grandparents and attack other family members last year.

Seventeen-year-old Bjorge refused to say a word in court, but 19-year-old Rider said a lot. “Please, I beg you all, forgive me for what I have done,” Rider said. “For it is written, if you forgive.���

Rider admitted he needs a lot of forgiveness after he and Cassie Bjorge beat, stabbed and slit the throats of her grandparents, Randall and Wendy Bjorge.

“I know what I have done is abominable and evil and is deserving of hellfire,” Rider said. “I would like to express my deepest apologies to the Bjorge family. I'm so sorry for the pain and grief I have caused all of you.”

Prosecutors say the teens poured bleach over the grandparents’ bodies, sealed the doors of the Lawrenceville-area home with caulk to hide the stench, then ordered take out and partied with friends in the home for days.

Authorities say Cassie Bjorge had been living with her grandparents, but was fighting with them and wanted revenge.

The judge described the case as one of the worst she's ever dealt with, but didn’t spend a lot of time talking to the admitted killers. “I'm not sure I’ve ever imagined such a well-planned, despicable, heinous act to be committed by two such young people,” the judge said. “The heartless and depraved nature of what the two of you did says to me it’s not worth my time.”

After Rider quoted scripture and Cassie Bjorge refused to say anything, both teens were sentenced to a negotiated two life sentences with the chance for parole in 60 years.

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

I Waited Patiently for the LORD

1 I waited, waited for יהוה; And He inclined to me, and heard my cry.

2 And He drew me Out of the pit of destruction, Out of the muddy clay, And He set my feet upon a rock, He is establishing my steps.

3 Then He put a new song in my mouth; Praise to our Elohim; Many do see it and fear, And trust in יהוה.

4 Blessed is that man who has made יהוה his trust, And has not turned to the proud, And those turning aside to falsehood.

5 O יהוה my Elohim, many are the wonders Which You have done, and Your purposes toward us; There is no one to compare with You; I declare and speak: They are too many to be numbered.

6 Slaughtering and meal offering You did not desire; You have opened my ears; Burnt offering and sin offering You did not ask for.

7 Then I said, “See, I have come; In the scroll of the Book it is prescribed for me.

8 I have delighted to do Your pleasure, O my Elohim, And Your Torah is within my hearta.”

9 I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness, In the great assembly; See, I do not restrain my lips, O יהוה, You know.

10 I did not conceal Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your trustworthiness and Your deliverance; I did not hide Your kindness and Your truth From the great assembly.

11 Do not withhold Your compassion from me, O יהוה; Let Your kindness and Your truth always watch over me.

12 For evils without number have surrounded me; My crookednesses have overtaken me, And I have been unable to see; They became more than the hairs of my head; And my heart has failed me.

13 Be pleased, O יהוה, to deliver me; O יהוה, hasten to help me!

14 Let those who seek to destroy my life Be ashamed and abashed altogether; Let those who are desiring my evil Be driven back and put to shame.

15 Let those who say to me, “Aha, aha!” Be appalled at their own shame.

16 Let all those who seek You Rejoice and be glad in You; Let those who love Your deliverance always say, “יהוה be exalted!”

17 But I am poor and needy; Let יהוה think upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my Elohim, do not delay! — Psalm 40 | The Scriptures 1998 (ISR 1998) The Scriptures 1998 Copyright © 1998 Institute for Scripture Research. All Rights reserved. Cross References: Genesis 49:18; Joshua 22:22; Job 5:9; Job 7:11; Job 37:24; Job 42:3; Psalm 7:9; Psalm 18:5; Psalm 18:29; Psalm 22:19; psalm 22:26; Psalm 25:3; Psalm 25:10; Psalm 28:7; Psalm 34:8; Psalm 35:4; Psalm 35:21; Psalm 35:26-27; Psalm 38:22; Psalm 57:3; Psalm 70:3-4 and 5; Psalm 86:1 Matthew 3:15; Luke 21:20; John 4:34; Acts 20:20; Acts 20:27; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Hebrews 10:5-6; Hebrews 10:7-8 and 9; 1 Peter 5:7; Revelation 5:9

#Lord #prayer #deliverance #song of praise #patience #waiting #Psalm 40 #Book of Psalms #Old Testament #ISR 1998 #The Scriptures 1998 #Institute for Scripture Research

[crosspunisher]

Tag drop.

#† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎pinned. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎ooc. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎replies. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎answered. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎open. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎saved. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎promos. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎prompts. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎dash games. #† scriptures ─‎ ‎‎dash comm. #† altarpiece ─‎ ‎‎aesthetic. #† altarpiece ─‎ ‎‎portrait. #† altarpiece ─‎ ‎‎musing. #† disciples ─‎ ‎‎vash. #† disciples ─‎ ‎‎livio. #† verses ─‎ ‎‎maximum. #† verses ─‎ ‎‎stampede. #† verses ─‎ ‎‎1998. #/ More to be added! #† likeness ─‎ ‎‎maximum. #† likeness ─‎ ‎‎stampede. #† likeness ─‎ ‎‎1998.

[barbiewritesstuff]

Church Encounters: Chapter 6 (part 2)

-- This fic was written in collaboration with @Igg5989, she is posting this on her tumblr and on her AO3 too and she made this amazing moodboard!

Please excuse the Italian we did everything via Google Translate

Previous part

Taglist: @acarboni21 @unsurebuttrying @dempy @peaches-1998 @bbooks-and-teas --

Once you had finally convinced yourself and Jake to get off the couch, you found yourself in the kitchen with the rest of the women. Alessandra was sitting at the island snapping green beans in half, Maria was helping Isabella peel potatoes, Nonna was keeping a close eye on the turkey, and Sofia was preparing the ham to be put in the oven. After breakfast, it was decided by everyone that you were to be put on pie duty. They had presented you with the ingredients for both an apple and a pecan pie. 

You had put your own flair on both of the pies, making the dough from scratch and taking extra care to ensure each apple and pecan was sliced or chopped to perfection. Once the pies had been baked and came out of the oven, you started helping Sofia and Alessandra who had moved on to preparing beets and the rolls for dinner. As you stood, making kind conversation with them, discussing babies and married life, a scream brought everything in the kitchen to a screeching halt. 

Every eye turned to the doorway as Luca appeared with a screaming Catalina, your heart dropped when, in his hand, you recognized your chapel veil. The pristine white fabric and it’s pattern didn’t look right the way that it was being held. Sofia moved towards them to pick Catalina up, and you moved towards Luca, gently taking the fabric from him. 

“Where did you get this?” you asked him, trying to keep your voice soft and not lose the temper that you weren’t known for having. 

“Catalina had it, I think she accidentally stepped on it,” he said, looking at you with wide eyes. 

You looked at the once beautiful fabric in your hands. There appeared to be thread missing from some of the roses on it, and it was ripped jaggedly across its length. Pushing out a shaking breath, you stood up, from your crouched position in front of Luca. Before you turned around to address the room you mumbled under your breath, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you,” you said to yourself. It had become a habit of yours to mumble scripture to yourself when your emotions were overwhelmed, it helped you to keep a calm head in times such as these. 

You turned around to find Nonna standing close to you, “What’s this?” she asked. 

Letting out a shaking breath, you answered, “My great-grandmother’s chapel veil.” 

She shook her head, looking at the now tattered fabric. The hand embroidered roses were no less beautiful than they had been on the day she had given it to you. She had passed away shortly after, and you cherished the only veil you ever wore to mass. Every time you slipped it over your head, you thought of her and it brought you comfort. 

Nonna took your hands in hers for a moment, squeezing before letting go. You looked at Catalina, still crying in her mother’s arms. Placing a hand on her cheek, wiping a little tear, you said, “It’s alright darling, no need to cry. Accidents happen.” 

Your calming voice and touch seemed to do the trick, and she quieted down. The women in the kitchen were all looking at you with sympathetic eyes, you didn’t know if they veiled at church, but at this moment you didn’t care. Looking one more time at the tattered fabric in your hands, you excused yourself from the activities, “I think I just need a moment to put this away,” you said quietly, to no one in particular. 

Nonna spoke up first, “Of course, take your time dear,” she said to you, a frown on her ancient face. 

With that you left the kitchen, rubbing Luca’s head when you passed him in the doorway. Once you were out of sight, you took the stairs as fast as you could manage without making a racket. Opening the door to Jake's room, you closed it quietly before sliding down the inside. Clamping your hand over your mouth, you let out a gut wrenching sob. 

This veil had been the last connection you had to your grandmother and now you would never be able to wear it again. She had given you and your sisters each one, picking them special from her own collection for you. Annie’s was sheer and black, a delicate lace design along the edges, your grandma had said it was a beautiful veil for a beautiful woman. Audrey’s was red, the whole piece made of a thicker lace, your grandmother said it had complimented her beautiful lips. 

When she turned to you, running one of her hands over your curly hair that you had inherited from her side of the family, she smiled. 

“This veil is very special, you have to promise to take good care of it,” she had said, looking you in the eye. 

“Of course I will grandma,” you had replied excitedly, your sixteen year old self giddy with excitement. 

Unlike your sisters, yours was in a box. She slowly pulled the top off, revealing white tissue paper. Folding the paper away, you laid eyes on the most beautiful veil you had ever seen. It was white, with a thin lace bordering the outside edges. The thin material of the veil was embroidered with tiny roses, a bit of gold sewn into their olive green stems. 

Before handing it to you she looked at it lovingly, “This was my mother’s and now it is yours. Every time you wear it, know that you are carrying us with you my dear.”

“I will, grandma, I promise,” you had said, taking the delicate fabric from her. 

That was the last time you had seen her before she had passed away. It was like she knew her time was coming and she wanted to give the veils to you and your sisters before she became too sick to do so. 

Your sobs were now silent, the tattered fabric of the veil soaking up the tears that were running down your face as you brought it up to your cheek. It was stupid to be sobbing over a piece of fabric, but it meant so much to you that you didn’t know what to do. Jake had been planning on taking you to his family’s church Sunday before you left Monday morning, but without your veil you didn’t know if you could go. You had been wearing it for over ten years, without it you felt exposed, disrespectful, without it you felt naked. 

A knock on the door startled you. The tears had choked out your voice, and you didn’t dare speak for fear that a sob would burst out of your mouth. You scooted away from the door, still sitting on the floor, when it was pushed open slowly. Jake’s head peeked into the room, and when he saw your state he rushed in, closing the door behind him. He picked you up, like you weighed nothing, carrying you to his bed. 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, but you could only shake your head, borrowing it into his shoulder, “Honey, you’re scaring me,” he tried again. 

All you could do was hold the fabric out to him. It was like something changed in him, he went rigid, “What happened?”

You tried to take a deep breath, your lungs spasming, making your breaths jump in and out of your nose, “The-the kids-s foun-d it,” you choked out. 

He took the fabric from your hands, his own shaking as they pieced together the ruined fabric. Glancing at you, seeing your chin dimple and your bottom lip tremble, he placed it on his night stand before pulling your head to his chest, carding his hand through your hair. 

“I’m so sorry baby. I remember you saying it was your great-grandmother’s,” he said quietly, hesitating a moment before continuing, “I know that I could never replace it, but let me take you into town tomorrow or Saturday and we can pick out a new one.” 

You felt pitiful, having to be held like this, but at the moment all you wanted was to sink into his embrace and never leave, “O-okay.”

Jake placed his lips on your head, cupping a hand over your cheek and wiping away the last of your tears. It wouldn’t be the same veil you had been wearing for ten years, but it would be better than nothing. 

You felt Jake stiffen as the door creaked open, at this point you were sure that the whole house had heard what had happened. Someone must have poked their head into the room, because Jake tried to shield you from them. The door closed a second later and Jake relaxed again, pulling you to sit in his lap as he laid against the headboard. 

“I know that you might not be feeling up to it, but dinner is going to be ready soon,” he said quietly, still gently brushing his fingers through your hair, “If you want, you can stay here in my bed and I will bring you up a plate.” 

You shook your head, your breathing coming easier now, “No, I don’t want this to ruin everyone’s day. Catalina didn’t mean to rip it.” 

He just looked at you, his eyes filled with what you could only describe as awe. Leaving you on the bed for a minute, he went into his bathroom. You heard the sink run before he came back, a wet washcloth in his hand. Cupping your face with his hand once more, he pressed the cold rag to your cheeks and eyes, gently wiping away your tears and soothing the angry redness that you could feel burning. 

When he was done, and your face looked almost like normal, he pressed a feather-light kiss to your lips, “I love you, so much.”

“I love you too,” you said back, “I’m sorry for ruining this weekend.” 

He shook his head at you, tossing the cloth into his hamper before taking your face between both of his hands, “You could never, even if you tried.” 

He escorted you down to dinner. Plastering a smile on your face, you sat and made conversation with everyone, only noticing a few concerned looks from Nonna and Isabella. By the end of the meal you were feeling better. You ended the night early, going up to bed in Maria’s room, the veil clutched tightly to your chest. 

---

Once you had gone to bed, Jake wandered around for a bit before finding his older brothers and dragging them and a bottle of whiskey down to the basement. The pool table in Giovanni Senior’s office had been calling their name ever since he arrived. They uncovered it with the reverence it deserved and each picked their cue from the wall. This is what Jake had been practising for, all those ‘friendly’ games against Rooster at the Hard Deck had only one purpose: preparing him to finally beat John. 

Jake had been doing great, keeping his drinking to a minimum and concentrating on every shot and every movement with his cue, but something kept distracting him. You had only been together for about two months, but he knew where the relationship was going. He also knew that getting his brothers together and alone was unlikely to happen again, especially with Christmas and John’s soon-to-be newborn on the horizon. So why not ask now? 

“I’m going to marry her,” He stated, the nerves he felt stopping him from looking at his brothers. Jake missed his shot.

“Mio Dio, are you drunk, Jacob?” Tony laughed, looking at him like he was crazy.

“Ah fuck off,” Jake said, “I’m trying to be serious. You guys know how it goes. I thought I would ask for advice, but if you’re going to be like that, forget it.”

He felt angry. Emotions made him uncomfortable, and having to find the words to explain what he wanted was harder than it probably needed to be with just about anyone other than you. Why did he even bother? It wasn’t like his brothers had ever been helpful before. Telling them anything had always been downright painful. Still, he wanted answers. He wanted to do this right, to do it well, and they knew the answer to his question.

“No, no, no. Advice on what?” John asked, holding a hand up to shut Tony up. 

Jake sighed, shrugging his shoulders, pool cue still in hand, “Proposing, I don’t know, being married.”

“Why do you want to marry her?” He asked, lining up his queue and taking a shot.

“Because I love her?” He asked, unsure of what his oldest brother wanted to hear. John motioned for him to keep going with one hand, Jake thought for a second, “I want to marry her because if I don’t, if I lose her, I think I might die. When she’s away I feel like I can’t breathe, you know, like my lungs have been ripped out of my chest. I feel like I’m missing something, like I’m incomplete. I think I’ve always felt like that and I’ve tried filling that void with just…anything and anyone, but it’s always just felt counterfeit, you know? Especially now that I’ve felt the real thing.” 

He couldn’t bear looking at them, so he closed his eyes and searched for a way to explain what he felt. His brain drew a blank, the only thing he was able to provide him with was the image of you and Luca in the kitchen that morning. The picture evoked the same feeling of deep seated yearning it had this morning. While his brain could not explain what he wanted to, he was surprised to find that his mouth seemed to know what to say.

“The Bible says, “Let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth,” and, she has told me she loved me more times than I can count but all of that just fucking pales in comparison to what she has done for me. She has changed my bandages, she has fed me, she has tolerated me through a truly stupid phase of my life and somehow, even after meeting you, the world’s least friendly bunch, she still loves me. And I do the same, I would happily do the same forever” He said, his voice growing quieter with every word he said till eventually, it was barely above a whisper.

Out of the shadows a voice spoke, “Sei senza speranza”. Giovanni senior stepped out of his hiding spot and into the light of the ceiling lamp. 

Jake could think of nothing to say. He lifted his arms from his side and let them drop again in exasperation at himself, “Sì. sì, lo sono,” he said. Yes, he was. “È così male?” 

Tony snorted, “No, it’s not bad. Just a little ridiculous… You’d be the first man to pick out a Jackie after trying out a couple Marylin’s.”

“A couple,” John laughed, “Rumour has it you asked to be posted in San Diego because you ran out of girls in Texas.” 

Jake tutted, swatting his brother’s hat to the floor with one movement of his hand. John only laughed harder, “Does the poor girl know?” 

“Yeah, she knows. We’ve known each other for three years, she’s seen me do plenty of things I ain’t proud of,” Jake said, looking at his feet. A shameful blush covering his face. 

“Doesn’t seem to bother her though,” Tony added, sounding thoughtful. 

“Is it ridiculous to think that maybe she was sent my way?” He said, still inspecting the floor beneath his feet, “Like maybe, the Lord sent her to me? Because I don’t know… She’s everything I’ve ever prayed for, you know? And I mean everything, she’s kind, she’s caring, she’s --” 

“You want my advice?” His father asked, “You tell her what you told us. You say that shit about not being able to breathe and then the fact that you think God sent her.”

Jake looked at his brothers, wanting them to say something. They nodded along with their father, “Just another piece of advice: don’t listen to us. Ask what she wants and do that. Asking a bunch of guys who have had enough whiskey to be arrested for DUI’s advice on how to propose, is just about the worst idea you could ever have.”

---

You woke up after only two hours of sleep with a debilitating headache. The seven coffees you had drunk during the day clearly hadn’t kept you hydrated and you were forced to admit between two waves of pain that, maybe, Jake was right and despite the fact that coffee was made out of water, it didn’t actually count towards the 11.5 cups of water it was recommended women drank per day. 

You climbed out of bed, remembering that you had taken care to pack some pain tablets in Jake’s washbag. You swayed gently as you stood, your eyes clouding with stars and then returning back to normal in a blink. With slow, careful steps you made your way to Jake’s bedroom, careful to wear your dressing gown in case you ran into anyone.

Jake’s room was empty. He had also, much to your dismay, moved the bags and their content to the top of the wardrobe so as to leave the floor space empty. Hoping that perhaps he would have thought to empty the washbag into his en suite, you checked but he’d only removed his toothbrush, 3-in-1 shampoo and shaving utensils. 

“Can I help you?” a deep voice called from behind you. 

You hoped you didn’t look as bad as you felt, but considering the look on Giovanni Senior’s face when he flicked the light on and you flinched, you figured you did. He moved to guide you onto Jake’s bed.

“It’s okay, just a headache. I was looking for some pain tablets, they’re in the bag but --” You moved yourself to show the top of the wardrobe but you turned your head too fast and a wave of searing white pain washed over you. 

Giovanni left you to recover by yourself for a minute. Then, he came back with a tablet and a glass of water. You took the medication, expecting to be left alone until it kicked in, but the bed sank beside you as Jake’s father sat down.

“I wanted to say I am sorry,” He said in his deep, gruff voice, “I realise how unwelcoming we have been, and I wish to apologise.”

“It’s fine --” you started. 

“No. We were rude,” he said, pausing for a moment, “You are a nice girl, Y/n. We knew that from the start, Jacob made sure to tell us… But, sometimes, we can be distrustful of strangers. We don’t see many people, we don’t have many friends. Jacob especially, he was an awkward child, one of those kids who doesn’t know how to make friends easily so he pretends it’s on purpose by being mean. I’m glad you saw through that. He’s a nice boy, he loves you very much.” 

Giovanni looked straight in front of him at an imaginary point on the wall, “He loves you very much,” He repeated, “I overheard some things, and I probably shouldn’t tell you, but I know you haven’t been together long and I want you to know now so you can let him down gently if that’s what you want to do. He wants to marry you. He asked his brothers for advice. I don’t think it’ll happen soon, he seemed to want to do it properly.”

“I’m not good with serious conversation, Y/n, I don’t think any of us are, so you might not get an apology out of all of us. Especially not my mother, or Maria. So, I’ll apologise on behalf of everyone. I’m sorry we were a little hostile when you first arrived. You’re a wonderful girl and you take such good care of our Jacob, it would be a shame if things didn’t work out between the two of you because of our behaviour,” he finished quietly. 

You didn’t know what to say but you found that you didn’t have to as Giovanni left almost as soon as he finished speaking. You sat on Jake’s bed for a little longer replaying the conversation in your head, until, after fifteen minutes, you decided to make your way to Maria’s room again. 

You knelt by the bed. Folding your hands out in front of you and ignoring the throbbing in your skull, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 

You paused as you thought over your words. You wanted to ask for guidance, although for what you were not sure. In the end, you prayed for Jake, asking God to help guide him to do what was best for both of you. When you felt that you had conveyed your thoughts, you finished with a whispered, “Amen.”

---

Jake woke you up with a steaming cup of coffee and a kiss on the temple. You opened one of your eyes to look at him. Ever the morning person, he was already dressed, showered and shaved.

“Honey, wake up,” He whispered, stealing a glance at Maria, still sleeping in her bed. Ensuring his voice was low enough to avoid incurring her wrath, “We said we’d get you a new Chapel Veil.”

You gently pushed yourself up to a sitting position, accepting the coffee Jake had so kindly made for you. You took a sip and waited for the caffeine to wake you up a little. Then, you made your way to Maria’s ensuite and got yourself ready. In an effort to counteract the sadness in your chest, you opted to dress nicely with a black midi skirt and a lavender sweater. 

“You look nice,” Jake told you as you climbed into his truck. He climbed in a few minutes later, wasting no time to reverse out of the drive. 

You smiled, “Thank you” you mumbled. 

“Can I ask you something?” He asked once you were on the road. Barely giving you any time to answer, he added, “Why do you wear a veil?”

You took your time to think before answering, “Partly because it’s one of the ways I feel closer to my great-grandmother, and partly because,” You paused for a moment, “It feels natural. It is my way to show the Good Lord that I accept him as my saviour and my God. That I submit to him and revere him. And I suppose I just feel naked without it. Holy Mass is a wedding between the Lord and the Church, and -- this is silly --” You looked at him with a side glance, to see if he wants you to continue. You expected Jake to be half-listening, but as he stops at a red light, you notice he is paying attention to every word you say, “If man is made in the image of God, then it follows that women are meant to be the church in this metaphor. I suppose that, when I don’t veil, I feel like I’m turning up to my wedding in my underwear.” 

You laughed a little uncomfortably, finding that a few stray tears have made their way down your cheeks. Jake parked the truck in the nearest empty spot. He looked at you, and moved his hand to wipe away your tears. 

“I’m sorry,” He whispered, pushing your head closer with one hand at the back of your neck to kiss your forehead, “I know it won’t be the same, but we’ll get you a new one,” he said against your skin. 

Jake started the truck again and drove the next five minutes into town with his hand holding yours over the gear stick. Once he parks the truck, you take the few seconds it takes Jake to walk around the front to compose yourself and check your makeup before he opens your door and helps you out. 

The small religious shop was at the back of a shopping mall. The shop was tiny and cramped with anything one might need. Books lined the walls, and at the edge of the baseboards, there were candles spilling out of the back room and pictures of Saints and prayer cards spilling out of cupboards. It was incredibly chaotic and yet somehow both calming and comforting. The person behind the till was an elderly woman with a tight bun and perpetually pursed lips, but when she saw you and Jake enter and he tips his hat before removing it, you could have sworn she smiled.

“Do you sell Chapel Veils?” Jake asked, his Southern accent twice as pronounced as when he’s on base.

“You’re a Seresin boy,” The woman stated, looking him up and down with a sceptical eye.

“Yes ma’am,” Jake replied

“I sold one to your sister-in-law last week, she’s already broken it?” the lady asked, her voice sounds exasperated. 

“No ma’am, this one is for my girlfriend,” Jake said. The woman looked at you, giving you the once-over too. She purses her lips even further before ignoring you completely and speaking directly to Jake.

“Sorry, we’re out. I got a new shipment coming in next week,” her voice said, and you weren’t sure that you believed her. 

Jake turns to you with an apologetic look, “I’m sorry baby, we’ll look for one in San Diego, yeah?”

You let out a disappointed sigh, “It’s fine, I’ll get used to it Jake. I’m sure it’s no big deal, the Good Lord doesn’t stop raining blessings on his people just because a veil broke.”

“I suppose not,” He replies, then, lost in thought, he repeats, “I suppose not.”

“How about a coffee? I saw a Starbucks,” You said, Jake flinched and shot a careful look at the old woman. He bid her goodbye and exited the shop.

“You have to be careful, my mother will have my skin if she hears I drink American coffee,” He winked at you but you knew he was serious, “I’m game, but we have to dispose of all evidence before we leave.” 

You ordered a venti of whatever seasonal drink contained the least amount of sugar and the most amount of milk. After Thanksgiving, you were keen to watch your health without trading away enjoyment. Much to your surprise, Jake ordered the same.

“I want to know why you like this shit so much, alright… We both know you won’t share” He said, trying to conceal an amused smile. 

You bit your tongue. You knew he snuck sips of your drink whenever he thought you weren’t looking, but he was trying hard not to admit he actually liked the ‘girly shit’ you ordered. The appeal of sugar free Pumpkin Spice Lattes had been too strong however, and he now happily sipped as he walked. 

“How do you like Texas then?” he asked you, glancing at you from the corner of his eye. 

You let out a laugh, “I haven’t seen much of it, but so far I like it.”

“We’ll have to come back. We could do a roadtrip next time? Like leave from San Diego, hit Indiana, and finish with a nice loop of Texas. Maybe with a stop in Mississippi for the Vicksburg National Military Park, I’ve always wanted to go,” Jake said, a smile on his face. 

You let out a surprised laugh, trying to do the maths in your head, “Oh goodness that’s like a --” 

“A 3400 mile trip, 52 hour drive to Texas, yeah,” Jake said, looking sheepish. 

“To Texas? So it’s not the entire trip?” You laughed, “You’ve really put some thought into this.”

“Couldn’t sleep last night…” Jake said, trailing off. 

You smiled at him for a moment, “Fine. But if we’re doing this, we’re stopping by the Billy The Kid Museum in New Mexico. And the Salvation Mountain in California,” you said, excitement clear in your voice, Jake looked at you and smiled, “And Joshua Tree National Park.”

Jake laughed. He dug a hand in his pocket and fished out his phone, typing in the landmarks you had mentioned, “Okay, okay, but if we’re doing all that, we are also stopping by the Water-zoo Indoor Water Park” 

“I’m happy you like it here” Jake said, after a long pause

“Stupidly hot though, even for November,” you said, disappointment in your voice. 

“Wait til you visit in the summer, it gets mind-numbingly hot” He said, taking a sip of his coffee “Speaking of, we’ll need to get you a hat.”

Jake took his own hat from his head and twirled it around for a second.

“You think I’d look good in one?” You asked.

As if he hadn’t heard you, he continued, “I’d say you could borrow one of mine…”

You raised an eyebrow,  “Maybe after we’re married,” you said, right as Jake took a sip of his coffee

He choked on his beverage, “Christ, not half as innocent as you look, are ya?” he sputtered out.

You laughed, “I do like yours though,” you added, taking the hat out of his hands and turning it over and around in your hands. 

It was a beautiful hat. The sand-coloured stetson felt soft in your hands as you admired the exterior with its leather braid and turned it over to look inside. Someone had sewn a clumsy hand-embroidered label with Jake’s full name on the rim of the hat.

You traced the label with your finger, a smile on your face. You handed him the hat back, watching as he secured it on his head. He shot you a wink before taking your hand and walking you back to the truck. As you passed one of the last stores in the mall, you pulled on Jake’s hand, bringing him to a stop. In the window was the most beautiful ivory stetson hat. It had a tan strap as trim that tied in a small bow. 

You looked up at Jake with a questioning look in your eye and he laughed, pulling open the shop door to go inside, “Well, we did say that you needed a hat.” 

The man behind the counter turned to look at the door as the bell sounded, “Jacob Seresin, I thought you were stationed in California,” his deep voice called. 

“That’s ‘cause I am, Earl,” Jake said back, a smile on his face. 

Earl let out a laugh, “Good to see you’re in town again, what can I do ya’ for?” he asked, humour in his voice. 

“Well, we need to get the lady a hat. I believe the one in the window caught her eye,” he said, looking at you with a grin. 

“Ma’am,” Earl said, making his way to the window to grab the hat, “Let’s just get it fitted for ya’.”

Smiling, you said, “That sounds great. I’ve always wanted a custom fit hat.” 

Earl gave you a look as he turned on the hat steamer, “Not from ‘round here, are ya’?”

“No,” you said, “From a small town in Indiana.” 

“Well I guess that’s better than one of those big cities,” he said, “Never thought a Seresin boy would settle down with someone from outside the state though.” 

“Hey now Earl,” Jake said, his voice sounding a little protective, “Some states turn out good ones too.”

He laughed, shooting you a friendly wink, “I’ll take your word for it.” 

Jake and Earl carried on the conversation as you watched him steam the hat. Beckoning you forward, he placed it on your head, using his hands on the outside to fit the band to your head. He pulled it off your head and put it back on the steamer, “What shape do you want for the top and sides?” he asked you. 

You reached up, plucking Jake’s hat off his head, “How about matching this?” you asked him. 

“That I can do,” Earl said, taking a close look at Jake’s hat before pulling yours off the steamer, forming the top dents and the brim curves. When he was done he handed it to you saying, “Well, try ‘er on.” 

You placed the hat on your head, turning to look at Jake, “What do you think? Do I look like a cowgirl yet?”

He let out a laugh, “Best damn cowgirl I’ve ever seen,” he said warmly. 

As you followed Earl to the register, hat stil placed on your head, you made to pull your wallet out of your purse, but a hand stopped you. Jake had one hand on yours and his other was digging through his own pocket for his wallet. 

Opening your mouth to protest, Jake just shook his head, “Remember what I said darlin’? As long as you’re with me, you aren’t paying for anything.” 

You watched as Jake paid for the hat, a smile on your face, it was nice to have someone want to do things for you every now and then. You made your goodbyes to Earl and Jake escorted you to the truck, his hand resting on your lower back the whole way there. He opened the door for you, presenting you with his hand to help climb in. 

Taking his hand, you leaned up on your tip-toes and gave him a gentle kiss, feeling the brims of your hats touching together. You pulled back, lips hovering over his, “Thank you, I love my hat.” 

Pulling back a little, Jake brought the hand that was holding the door to the back of your neck, pulling you in for another gentle kiss, “Anything for you darlin’,” he said with a smile. He got you situated in the truck before making his way around to the driver’s side. Grabbing your hand, he held it the whole way back to the ranch. 

----

The end of your leave came quickly with the dawning of Sunday morning. The only thing on your schedule besides church, was driving home. 

“Right, are we all good to go?” Isabella shouted through the hallway where the entire Seresin family was putting on their coats and shoes.

Your answer would have been ‘no’ if you had been brave enough to answer honestly. This was your first mass without a veil since the eve of your sixteenth birthday. You had tried to pray, tried to breathe, and tried to tell yourself nothing bad would happen but nothing helped

“I forgot something, Y/n and I will catch up --” Jake announced halfway to the car, the family loudly protested but Jake sternly repeated, “Y/n and I will catch up in a minute”

They all grumbled and groaned but left all the same. John and his wife were still wrestling their children into their respective car seats when Jake made his way back to you five minutes later, gently putting a piece of fabric into his front coat pocket. Jake smirked at his brother who, after making sure the children couldn’t see, slowly raised a middle finger towards his brother. 

The Seresin family church was an impressive building in the middle of a sea of cattle pastures and crop fields. You weren’t certain what to expect when you entered the church, but you certainly hadn’t imagined it would be so drastically different from your church in San Diego. Still, the atmosphere felt much the same. Or it would have, if you hadn’t been so terrified. 

Jake stopped you right before you entered, “Nonna asked me to give you this,” he said. He dug his hand in his pocket and retrieved a small folded piece of white fabric. You recognised it immediately. This chapel veil was much more intricately designed than your grandmother’s even without the embroidered roses. 

“She says you can have it,” He added as he unfolded it for you and placed it on your head. He dug into his pocket again and retrieved your stash of bobby pins, tied together with a purple hair tie, “She said something about now being able to wear it anymore because she got married?”

“White is for unmarried women,” You replied, shoving bobby pins into your hair faster than you ever had before. The clock struck ten thirty and mass was about to start. You saw the altar boys making their way through the isles, holding the church candles. Seeing the children do this always made you nervous. They looked so small and the candles so big and heavy, it wouldn’t take much for one to fall and hurt one of the boys, or worse, fall and set the carpet ablaze.

“How silly of me,” He said in a pretend serious voice, “I should have realised,” he grabbed your hand and led you to the nearest pew. 

“I think we’ll be good here,” He said, sitting down. You followed suit, although a little hesitantly as Jake’s family had sat themselves on the very first pew. You saw them turning around, trying to find where the two of you were sitting. Jake raised a hand to wave at them but stayed seated.

“We’re so far away from your family,” You whispered.

“I know, but to be honest baby, I like mass better when it’s just us,” He said with a wink. 

Mass was wonderful. You hadn’t seen the difference in size between this congregation and yours in San Diego as an advantage but the second everybody stood and opened their mouths to sing, you felt your heart swell in your chest. The congregation’s voice rose a little louder as the song went on, with every lyric you felt yourself grow more emotional. Jake stirred next to you, although he was doing everything in his might not to show his face, you saw him quietly wipe a tear away from his eye. You held his hand right through the mass, only letting go to hug and kiss him to exchange “Peace be with you’s and to shake your neighbours’ hands.

Once mass ended it was time for you to go. Despite how Thanksgiving weekend had started, you were actually quite sad to go. Texas had been beautiful and Jake’s family had turned out to be kind and generous once they had warmed up to you, even if you would happily have done without John’s constant hovering. 

“Abandoning us, then?” Tony joked as he made his way through the church. He was immediately shushed by several parishioners, as his voice had come out louder than intended and resonated through the building.

“Yeah we’re leaving now,” Jake answered, dragging his brother into a hug and clapping him on the back, “I think we’ve packed everything,” He asked you, you nodded in response.

You felt something tug at the hem of your dress and looked down to find Agostino, hiding one hand behind his back, “We made you something,” He said.

He thrust the fist he had been hiding up towards you and you took the papers he had held in it. You looked at them with a small smile. One of them was a rather talented drawing of two planes in the air, one labelled Uncle Jacob and the other labelled Y/n. A clumsy little “Luca” had been spelled in capital letters in the top left corner. The second drawer depicted a lot of purple and blue circles, scribbled through very enthusiastically with an orange crayon. The top corner said “Catalina”. The third drawing was a collection of thirteen stick figures standing in front of a church, the two figures in the middle were a woman with straw-coloured hair in a white dress and a man in a tuxedo. They had helpfully been labelled with both yours and Jake’s name. 

“Nonna helped with mine,” Agostino proudly announced when he saw you looking at the drawing. You looked up at Jake’s grandmother. She winked at you. You folded the drawing and thanked each of the children, promising that you would hang their art in your house and hugging them tightly, before putting them in your bag. 

After more goodbye hugs you finally climbed into Jake’s truck, happy to be going back to San Diego but sad to leave his family behind

#fanfic #top gun fanfiction #top gun x reader #top gun maverick #fanfiction #hangman x reader #original fic #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman top gun

[eremosjournal]

By Chad Hewitt

In 1998, I was a fifth grader at a Catholic school in a small town in Ohio. This meant school uniforms, mass twice a week (or more, if there was a holy day that week), and a strict adherence to the principles outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. These principles included two types: the fundamentals of Jesus’ teachings, like the Beatitudes (“Blessed are the persecuted”) and then others, never explicitly stated in the Bible but upheld within society over thousands of years and filtered down into the parochial school system (i.e.“Don’t be gay”). The former were taught through Scripture, sermons, and sacraments. The latter were enforced by other kids, television, and my developing pre-adolescent brain.

As the youngest of three boys in my family, I learned how to operate within these sometimes conflicting paradigms. “Love thy neighbor as yourself”, but only if your “self” is a certain thing; “thou shall not lie”, unless it’s about something like your sexual orientation. Then by all means, lie, lie and lie some more.

Imagine my confusion when during the course of my usual weekday afternoon routine of watching Total Request Live at my best friend Stiv’s house, a music video premiered by a brand new artist named Britney Spears. While I had absolutely no understanding of what the phrase “Hit me baby one more time,” meant, in that moment I immediately felt something come over me, just like Harry Potter receiving his wand for the first time. I had no idea what kind of wand it was exactly but I would soon find out that most of the other boys didn’t even receive their letter to Hogwarts. Yes, we would all agree that Britney was “hot”, but I sensed that the way I felt about her was different and wouldn’t be shared, much less celebrated, by my friends at school. The girls, maybe. The boys, very unlikely.

But if we’re being honest, who doesn’t like Britney Spears? If you find yourself in a room of people who don’t turn the fuck up during “Toxic” then that room, quite frankly, is dangerous and you should get out. The difference was that I loved her for other reasons. Reasons that I couldn’t really put into words and probably wouldn’t even if I could. Reasons that pointed to something about myself that I was taught for so long was shameful and bad. Reasons that, if embraced, would upset my entire worldview and consequently, the relationships that were formed through it. At that time I wasn’t even totally sure if these feelings were real or not, but I did know that sooner or later, I would have to confront them. When I did let myself imagine my life in the context of these fears, the best-case scenario was loving a person that the Church would not consider acceptable, and that would mean a blatant rejection of Christ's love. And so I ultimately had to choose. God’s will or mine. To spare myself the sense of grief and loneliness I would feel from turning my back on God, I dug my heels in, so to speak.

Thus, Britney became the first of many of my guilty pleasures. Since I wasn’t necessarily “allowed” to genuinely love her, I had to love her ironically, justifying my requests for her songs at school dances as a joke. Through my high school and college years I had many more of these “guilty pleasures”, always justifying things that made people even slightly suspicious as an ironic interest and never serious. Because if enjoying those things made something else true about me, then all hope for my eternal soul was lost. *collapses on a chaise lounge*

Recently I had my 34th birthday party, and since Jesus didn’t get to have one of those, the theme was “What Would Jesus Have Done?” Everyone had to dress up as some version of Jesus, whether real or made up. My boyfriend did exceptional work in coordinating the party, which was replete with bespoke cocktail menu (including my favorite, “The Gay Wedding at Cana”), communion wafers as snacks, and a neon cross. I showed up in a priest's robe, and some people didn’t quite understand why, given the theme’s parameters. It was meant to be ironic: I was in costume as a version of myself that might have been if I had never come out. The actual me was enjoying his friends, dancing with his boyfriend at a gay bar in New York City to Britney Spears’ music. Heaven.

This is one of the bigger surprises to me about coming out as queer as a former Catholic: seemingly overnight, all of your guilty pleasures become sanctified. In this new world, liking Britney Spears doesn’t conflict with one’s identity or morality or religion. Britney Spears is the religion. Thinking back now about that first hit of serotonin from hearing “Baby One More Time”, I realize there was something familiar about what she was singing. The song isn’t necessarily about someone whining to an ex for attention. It could also be an actual prayer: the words of a person begging for some kind of signal that they are loved. The desperation and sorrow of a person that feels badly about themselves but doesn’t seem to understand why. The conviction of a person who knows their prayers will be answered one day.

At one point at my party while everyone was dancing, “Oops I Did It Again” started playing and I tore off my robe, revealing a second costume underneath: a shiny red bodysuit. My favorite version of my own personal savior.

#deconstruction #exvangelical #deconvert #ex catholic #excatholic #exchristian #post christian #ex christian #catholic #post catholic #lukewarm #religious trauma

[beardedmrbean]

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) — For more than two hours on a Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Gustavo Castillo led the Pentecostal congregation he’s been growing in this Minneapolis suburb through prayer, Scriptures, rousing music and sometimes tearful testimonials.

But it all may end soon. A sudden procedural change in how the federal government processes green cards for foreign-born religious workers, together with historic highs in numbers of illegal border crossers, means that thousands of clergy like him are losing the ability to remain in this country.

“We were right on the edge of becoming permanent residents, and boom, this changed,” Colombia-born Castillo said as his wife rocked their 7-month-old boy, a U.S. citizen by birth. “We have done everything correctly, from here onward we believe that God will work a miracle. We don’t have any other option.”

To become permanent U.S. residents, which can eventually lead to citizenship, immigrants apply for green cards, generally through U.S. family members or employers. A limited number of green cards are available annually, set by Congress and separated into categories depending on the closeness of the family relationship or the skills needed in a job.

Citizens of countries with disproportionately high numbers of migrants are put in separate, often longer green card queues. Currently, the most backlogged category is for the married Mexican children of U.S. citizens – only applications filed before March 1998 are being processed.

For faith leaders, the line historically has been short enough to get a green card before their temporary work visas expired, attorneys say.

That changed in March. The State Department announced that for nearly seven years it had been placing in the wrong line tens of thousands of applications for neglected or abused minors from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and would now start adding them to the clergy queue. Since the mid-2010s, a surging number of youth from these countries have sought asylum after illegally crossing into the U.S.

This change means that only applications filed before January 2019 are currently being processed, moving forward the Central American minors by a few months but giving clergy with expiring visas, like Castillo, no option but to leave their U.S. congregations behind.

“They’re doing everything they’re supposed to be doing and all of a sudden, they’re totally steamrolled,” said Matthew Curtis, an immigration attorney in New York City whose clients, like an Israeli rabbi and a South African music minister, are running out of time. “It’s like a bombshell on the system.”

Attorneys estimate so many people are now in the queue that the wait is at least a decade long, because only 10,000 of these green cards can be granted annually.

Curtis’ firm advises potential clergy applicants that “there is no indication when you can receive a green card.”

That’s likely to dissuade religious organizations from hiring foreign workers precisely when they’re most needed because of the growing demand for leaders of immigrant congregations who can speak languages other than English and understand other cultures.

“There’s a comfort to practice your religion in your native tongue, in someone close to your culture celebrating Mass,” said Olga Rojas, the Archdiocese of Chicago’s senior counsel for immigration. The U.S. Catholic Church has also turned to foreign priests to ease a shortage of local vocations.

At one Chicago-area parish that’s been helping with this year’s surge of new arrivals from the border, two Mexican religious sisters have started ministries for women in the shelters as well as English classes, Rojas said.

“These two sisters know they won’t get green cards,” she added, and they expect to lose other religious sisters and brothers who are teachers, principals and serve in other key roles. “That’s catastrophic.”

Those from religious orders with vows of poverty, like Catholic nuns and Buddhist monks, are especially hard hit, because most other employment visa categories require employers to show they’re paying foreign workers prevailing wages. Since they’re getting no wages, they don’t qualify.

Across all faith traditions, there are few options for these workers to continue their U.S.-based ministry, attorneys say. At a minimum, they would need to go abroad for a year before being eligible for another temporary religious worker visa, and repeat that process, paying thousands in fees, throughout the decade – or for however long their green card application stays pending.

“A big concern is that leaving is not really viable. The church will replace the pastor or shut down, it’s too much instability,” said Calleigh McRaith, Castillo’s attorney in Minnesota.

Being in limbo is challenging for the affected religious workers, including Stephanie Reimer, a Canadian serving a nondenominational Christian youth missionary organization in Kansas City. Her visa expires in January.

“I’ve done a lot of praying,” she said. “There are days when it feels overwhelming.”

Martin Valko, an immigration attorney in Dallas whose clients include imams and Methodist pastors, said many rely on their faith to stay hopeful.

But realistic options are so few that the American Immigration Lawyers Association and faith leaders, like Chicago’s Catholic cardinal and coalitions of evangelical pastors, have lobbied the Biden administration and Congress to fix the problem.

Administrative solutions could include allowing religious workers to at least file for their green cards, so they can get temporary work authorization like those in other queues awaiting permanent residence.

The most effective and immediate fix would be for Congress to remove from this category the vulnerable minors’ applications, attorneys say. Despite being humanitarian, they make up the vast majority of the queue they share with religious workers, said Lance Conklin, a Maryland attorney who co-chairs the lawyer association’s religious workers group.

“They shouldn’t be pitted against each other in competition for visas,” said Matthew Soerens, who leads the Evangelical Immigration Table, a national immigrant advocacy organization.

Back at the Iglesia Pentecostal Unida Latinoamericana, Castillo said he has ministered to a family with two young children who survived the Darien Gap, a jungle in Central America favored by smugglers that’s among the most dangerous parts of migrants’ journeys, and a mother and daughter who said they came “through the hole” in the border wall.

“Some of them are in a better migration situation” than himself and his wife Yarleny, Castillo said. But he added that his call to minister to them is undaunted. “I serve God. He will take charge of these affairs while I lead those he has entrusted to me.”

That’s why, even as they face having to leave the country when their visas expire in February, the Castillos are fundraising to buy the building where they now rent worship space. They also regularly drive 10 hours to South Dakota, where they’re establishing another church.

“In this work, one is constantly helping destroyed migrant families,” Yarleny Castillo said. “And they need a space like this.”

#nunyas news

[linggluu]

Coming to the sudden realization that Jet Li's acting was truly over shadowed by his face and his martial arts . Compiled are my favorite movies before he went to Hollywood.

care free young boy? see jue yuan and san long your typical 90s protagonist in the USAwho's good at kungfu? see ah kit 一代宗师？ Take a a peak at Wong Fei Hung and Zhang San Feng (Huo Yuanjia unshown) Tragic Qing Dynasty kungfu master? Catch Fong Saiyuk or Hong Xiguan. Feel like you wanna fight? My Father is a hero or Bodyguard from Beijing? Suddenly feeling very pro nationalist? Chen Zhen and Allan are there for you. Wanna watch a very suave Ling Huchong? Watch Swordsman II. Wanna see him be a dad? Watch The New Legend of Shaolin or My Father is a Hero. Need a good adventure that also has eye candy Takeshi Kaneshiro? Watch The Scripture with no words.

The man is way too versatile and this is not even mentioning his films after the 2000s which I have enjoyed, namely: Romeo must Die, Kiss of the Dragon, Hero, Cradle to the Grave, Unleashed, Fearless,THE WARLORDS, Ocean Heaven. Badges of Fury (he is SO FUNNY).

ANYWAYS.

RE: Jet Li is seriously an underrated actor. He has 1000% more 灵气 than say , Jackie Chan. Above are specific shots that have stood out in my brain since 1998.

#jet li #cmovie #李连杰 #kungfu cinema #my gif