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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

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Episode 93: Alone at Sea

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?”

Something I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here before is that both of my parents are ministers. I myself am not religious (not because of trauma or anything, my folks are great), but I was raised in the Presbyterian Church by a mom and dad who often saw things through a “hey, that could be in a sermon!” lens, and that tends to rub off on a kid. Not to oversell the value of these posts, but it’s not lost on me that I ended up writing something to share with people every Sunday. I can think of worse people to emulate.

So it’s hard for someone like me not to notice that Gems take crucial steps towards becoming Crystal Gems through some pretty baptismal circumstances. I’m not saying the symbolism is intentional, because neither aquatic rituals nor the show’s crew are uniquely Christian—Rebecca Sugar, for instance, comes from a Jewish background—but we’ve yet to see a Gem fall in love with Earth without being reborn through water. Peridot first bonds with Steven in the rain. Ruby and Sapphire land on solid ground together in the rain. Pink Diamond and Pearl first realize they need to rebel as a storm brews.

And then there’s Lapis Lazuli.

Lapis literally entered the series because Steven broke a mirror, so it’s no wonder she’s misfortune personified. Bad things happen to Lapis. Bad things happen because of Lapis. And sure enough, she might control the same waters that herald rebirth for other Gems, but she’s also consumed by them. Her old life can’t get washed away because she’s still submerged. So an episode about Steven trying to reconnect her with water is bound to be a bit more complex than a joyous scene in the rain.

Alone at Sea takes us to a dark place for Steven Universe, even compared to its preceding episode, the harrowing Monster Reunion. Plenty of bad things have happened to our characters, but for the first time since the Week of Sardonyx we must confront that one of our characters has herself intentionally done a bad thing. Not day-to-day meanness or misguided acts of loyalty to Homeworld, but something truly awful. Almost as if we’re priming for some big reveal about a core character’s moral ambiguity at the end of the season.

This isn’t to say that Lapis, who also entered the series by stealing the ocean and battling the Crystal Gems, is a stranger to doing bad things. But there’s a gulf of difference between seeing magic antagonist stuff and the learning that she was abusive to her ex. Not many kids are gonna cause marine catastrophes, but way too many kids are gonna have to deal with abusive relationships one day, so Alone at Sea can’t help but feel more raw.

The first moments of the episode show that Lapis is more than her suffering; she’s capable of having genuine fun, especially with Steven. She hints at her deeper issues by insisting she doesn’t deserve to be treated nicely, but she’s just as quick to snort with laughter. And even after boarding the rechristened Li’l Lappy, she’s willing to give happiness a shot. While she’s uncomfortable about dipping her toe in the water, she still finds moments of joy (particularly when it comes to horns). But more often than not, this positive outlook is hindered by her crewmates.

Greg, bless him, hurts more than he helps. He introduces himself as the guy whose leg Lapis broke, his discomfort around her water powers stifles her floundering self-confidence, and he bores her to death with regular fishing. Likewise, while Steven means well, he’s overbearing in his attempts to make Lapis happy. As awkward as it is, I’m glad the show acknowledges how easy it can be to mess up when trying to cheer up a friend in the dumps. Despite Steven’s apology about pushing too hard, we don’t get an explicit lesson about paying attention to how your friends are feeling instead of steamrolling them with fun. This isn’t a criticism: it’s okay to not get explicit lessons all the time, and it’s a nice change of pace from the show’s recent string of episodes that outright tell us the moral, even though these morals are sound.

Everything comes to a head when the rudder is thrown off, veering Li’l Lappy and her namesake off course. Steven gives that apology, but Lapis reiterates that she doesn’t deserve his help, and this time we learn why: as brutal and bullying as Jasper is, in some twisted sense Lapis learned to love their toxic relationship, using it to take all her grief and rage out on Jasper. We saw a hint of her aggression in Chille Tid, but in Jennifer Paz’s best delivery of the episode, Lapis reveals that she misses Malachite. And right on cue, the opportunity to fuse with Jasper again reveals itself.

Jasper’s last lines that weren’t just shouting “YOU!” at Steven were all the way back in Jailbreak, but Kimberly Brooks is worth the wait. Her hungry correction that she was “looking for you” instead of the crew as a whole is perfect (the woman knows her way around second person pronouns), and she manages to become even scarier when she transitions from menacing to begging. All at once we see that Jasper is still monstrous, but has been changed by Lapis. Not in the way she’s saying when trying to convince Lapis to fuse again—there’s little indication that Malachite would be any healthier if she came back—but in the way this massive warrior is on her knees pleading to essentially be made a prisoner again.

From her debut, Lapis has been the most powerful being on Earth by a country mile thanks to her mastery of its most abundant resource. She effortlessly bested the Crystal Gems in Ocean Gem, and had the mental fortitude to overcome Jasper’s iron will and wrest control of Malachite. But only now, in Jasper’s pleas, does a character finally acknowledge Lapis’s power. It speaks volumes to their relationship, because it’s not just about control and manipulation: at some level, beneath all the toxicity, Jasper understands Lapis in a way others don’t. It’s not enough to make them a functional couple, but it shows that there’s an uncomfortable level of nuance even in relationships that are obviously bad. It would be much easier to write either Jasper or Lapis off as totally rotten, but Malachite wouldn’t work without a hint, however small, of real affection.

Malachite made both Jasper and Lapis feel stronger, but they weren’t strong in the real way: they were suffering, and instead of trying to fix this problem, they each learned to like the suffering. And it might be easy to place more blame on Jasper than Lapis, because even here we see how manipulative and violent she can be, but Alone at Sea doesn’t shy away from Lapis’s complicity even when presenting her in a more heroic light. Steven doesn’t call her out on her behavior, but he doesn’t exactly correct her when she reveals how terrible she’s been.

Back in It Could’ve Been Great and Message Received, we got a taste of uncertainty in terms of Peridot’s future. Sure, a promo spoiled that she was staying with the Crystal Gems, but otherwise there was no telling whether she was a temporary addition. Lapis has the same quality, but amplified to a thrilling degree due to her rockier stance with the Crystal Gems. When I first watched Alone at Sea, I legitimately didn’t know what would happen next. Lapis was such a new and tenuous ally and had so much baggage with Jasper that it wouldn’t have shocked me if she had gone back to being Malachite, especially considering how underused Malachite ended up being. It gives the episode way higher stakes than, say, the Week of Sardonyx, where despite the turmoil you could pretty much guarantee that the Crystal Gems would come out of it okay. Lapis is fundamentally not okay, so anything could happen.

And that actual chance of returning to Jasper makes Lapis’s rejection so much more triumphant. She seems to sincerely consider Jasper’s offer, even when she sounds sickened by the prospect, but when given a true choice she’s able to see past her longing for that life. Malachite began with Jasper’s forceful “Just say yes,” and she can’t come back if Lapis says no. It might be alluring, but unlike Jasper, Lapis refuses to take the bait.

I haven’t gushed about Aivi and Surasshu for a while, have I? I’ll be honest, a big part of that is that with the release of Steven Universe’s first soundtrack, the composers stopped releasing background tracks on the internet, and only several years later have these tracks finally popped up again. Access to their music got scarcer and scarcer, but I’m so glad that before it dried up, we got the instrumentation of this final sequence, because it’s really something.

As the clouds gather and she talks about her time fused with Jasper, we hear the buildup of Lapis’s darker theme, and the moment she reveals that she misses being Malachite, the fusion’s ominous two-note motif clangs just once. The track is soon overtaken by Jasper’s synth drum war march, with only hints of Lapis’s celesta leaking in (just like in The Return), but as Jasper begs to fuse again we get the very first quiet version Malachite’s motif (at 1:49, it’s so easy to miss); the fusion’s theme is no longer a force of nature, but a desperate plea.

A piano rendition of Lapis’s theme drowns out Jasper as she considers her options. Strings build to the same fever pitch that we got when Lapis first agreed to dance, but they fade to a quiet conclusion as she refuses to go back to Malachite. Jasper’s drums make one last appearance as she lashes out at Steven, but Lapis’s counterattack is as musically calm as her rejection. Lapis could have gotten loud, dramatic variants of her theme for her one-two punch defending herself and then Steven, and it would have sounded awesome, but instead both big moments show that she’s shunning loudness for peace. Tying all these musical themes together is impressive enough, but that restraint ties the whole scene together.

Jasper is about to dominate the final arc of the season in a story that has nothing to do with Lapis, but everything to do with Lapis. It’s safe to say Jasper doesn’t handle their breakup well, and her collection of Corrupted Gems is less a matter of a soldier raising an army and more a jilted lover looking for acceptance after being abandoned for what’s likely the first time in her very long life. This is the first in a string of blows that knock Jasper down more than her fight with Garnet ever did: it’s one thing to lose, but it’s another to be rejected, and until Jasper learns to make a change, rejection is the only future she’s got.

Lapis goes right back to being an angsty teen after this, despite getting more comfortable around Peridot. But Alone at Sea makes me appreciate her eventual abandonment of Earth when the going gets tough again, because while it’s not the right thing to do, it makes sense that a character with massive unresolved trauma would follow the most defensive instincts possible to avoid further pain. I’m not huge on the show just saying Lapis did something awful and not following it up with much soul-searching, but she does plenty of work outside of Jasper and perhaps it’s for the best that she focused on less toxic parts of her life for self-improvement.

The big bummer of Lapis and Jasper’s story is that it never really resolves: even when Jasper halfway reforms, she and Lapis will never share a screen again, let alone have a conversation. I’m not saying I want a reconciliation, but apology is good for the soul, so I hope that someday Little Homeworld sees a moment where Lapis says she’s sorry for her part in Malachite’s agony, even if Jasper was worse.

Still, seeing Lapis refuse to re-fuse still works as a resolution to the episode, if not the arc. And she does work on her issues in other ways, even if Jasper doesn’t. But even though this is their last interaction in the series, admitting your mistakes and choosing not to repeat them is itself a noble step.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

She’s not even in the episode, but Pearl and her swim cap are the winner of this entry. Does nobody else care about their hair?

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is our second excellent feel-bad episode in a row. We may not ever get an acknowledgement about the abusive nature of Lars and Sadie’s relationship in Island Adventure, but at least we have this episode addressing the issue.

(Bear in mind I’m not champing at the bit for more abusive relationships in children’s media, but if you’re going to have them, I just think it’s irresponsible not to use them as an educational tool, is all.)

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

#alone at sea #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

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The Primacy of Peter and of Love

This week is the Third Sunday of Easter, and our readings highlight the primacy of Peter among the Apostles, and the primacy of love in following Jesus.

During the seven weeks of the Easter Season, the Lectionary reads semi-continuously through Acts in the First Reading (showing the birth of the Church on earth) and through Revelation in the Second (showing the final state of the Church in heaven).

In the First Reading this week (Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41) we see Peter’s primacy (“Peter and the apostles said in reply …”) in leading the early Church through the experience of persecution, and in boldly proclaiming the Gospel despite sustained and serious cultural opposition. Let’s pray for Pope Francis to do the same.

In the Second Reading, (Rev 5:11-14 ), John, whom tradition has identified as the same as the author of this Sunday’s Gospel, sees the entire creation in worship of the Lamb: “every creature in heaven and on earth, and under the earth and in the sea”—all cry out “To the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor …”

It’s amazing that John should have such a universal vision of the glory of the Church, at a time (perhaps the AD 60’s) when Christianity was still very small and persecuted.

Even today, despite large numbers on the books, the Church still feels like a little flock, persecuted by civil authorities as in Acts 5, and also by a smug-and-snarky international media establishment, yet we take courage in the firm hope that all creation will acknowledge Jesus as Lord on the last day.

The Gospel is Jn 21:1-19 :

At that time, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore, only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

Some scholars insist that John 21 is an addition to the Gospel by a different author that chapters 1-20, but this has to be regarded as improbable and unsupported. The language, structures, and thought on John 21 are very similar to the rest of the Gospel and there are a large number of intertextual links that bind John 21 with the entire book.

Two other Gospel passages have to be kept in mind to properly understand John 21. The first is Luke 5:1-11, where Jesus first calls the disciples. After preaching from Peter’s boat, Jesus tells Peter to “put out into the deep” (duc in altum) for a big catch, even though they had toiled all night and caught nothing. Peter and the sons of Zebedee pull in an amazing catch of fish, Peter begs the Lord to depart because he is a “sinful man”, and Jesus calls the disciples to follow him and become fishers of men. There are several obvious parallels with this Sunday’s Gospel. John the Evangelist presupposes that the reader knows the story of Luke 5, in order to grasp that here, in John 21, after the resurrection, Jesus is renewing his call to the Apostles to “follow him” and calling them back to their original vocation and mission. This is one of several instances where John presupposes that his readers have some familiarity with the life of Jesus from the other Gospels or possibly oral tradition.

The other Gospel passage to be kept in mind is John 18:15-18,25-27, the account of the threefold denial of Jesus by Peter. When Peter denied Jesus, he was warming himself over a “charcoal fire” (John 18:18). Jesus makes a “charcoal fire” to cook breakfast in this Sunday’s Gospel (John 21:9). These are the only two references to a charcoal fire in the Gospel of John, indeed in all of Scripture. It’s not accidental — Peter is being reminded of the night of his betrayal, and Jesus will allow him a chance to ritually “renounce his renunciation” three times.

This Gospel account highlights the primacy of Peter among the Apostles. The character of Peter, in fact, dominates most of John 21, the conclusion of this greatest of the Gospels, even though the Gospel was clearly written by a different apostle (John 21:20-24). Peter is listed first among the disciples named as present. The other disciples follow his lead by accompanying him fishing. When Jesus shows his presence on the shore, Peter is the first one to go ashore, followed by the others. The others don’t seem to be able to get the fish ashore. But then, the way John describes it, it sounds like Peter goes single-handedly back on board the boat and drags the net of 153 fish in by himself. After the breakfast, Peter alone is granted a private audience with the risen Lord. Obviously the author of this Gospel has a high regard for Peter and his role among the Apostles and within the Church.

But this Gospel is not only about the primacy of Peter. It is also about the primacy of love. During the “audience” between Jesus and Peter (vv. 15-19), Peter’s ritual re-confirmation as chief shepherd all revolves around his love for the Lord.

First, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me more than these?” The question is ambiguous. Who are the “these”? Does Jesus mean:

(1) “Do you love me more than [you love] these [other men]?” I.e. Do you love me above all other persons in your life? (2) “Do you love me more than these [fish]?” I.e. Do you love me more than you profession, your way of life, your livelihood, your “comfort zone”? (3) “Do you love me more than these [other men do]?” I.e. Do you have greater love for me than others do? Do you excel in love, so as to be suitable to excel also in authority?

Ambiguity abounds in the Gospel of John, and I think it is intentional. All three meanings may well be meant. Jesus is eliciting from Peter a comprehensive love to correspond to the comprehensive role of shepherding that he will bestow.

Three times Jesus asks about Peter’s love; three times he affirms it. Two different words for “love” are used in the Greek. The first two times, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you agape me?” Agape is the word for divine love. Peter always answers, “I phileo you.” Phileo is the Greek word for fraternal love. The last time, Jesus adopts Peter’s term and asks, “Do you phileo me?”

This gives the impression that Jesus asks twice, Do you love me with divine love? And Peter responds twice, “I love you with brotherly love.” And at last Jesus condescends to Peter’s capabilities, “Do you love me with brotherly love?”, thus implying that such love will suffice: Jesus will accept what Peter, no longer brash and now painfully cognizant of his human weakness, knows he can offer.

This interpretation is suggestive, but must be entertained with caution, because both phileo and agapao are used elsewhere in John for both divine and human love.

The idea that Jesus is condescending to Peter’s human weakness is, nonetheless, clear from the passage as a whole. Otherwise, Jesus would have rejected Peter on account of his threefold denial at the Lord’s time of need.

The primary requirement that Jesus asks of Peter is love. In return for this love, Jesus commissions Peter to “Feed my lambs—tend my sheep—feed my sheep.” The threefold repetition of this commission, together with the variations in which the shepherding charge is phrased, point to the comprehensive nature of the shepherding role being given to Peter. While all the apostles have a role as shepherd over part of the flock, Peter is commissioned as shepherd of the whole flock. As Protestant Bible scholar Andreas Kostenberger puts it: “[Peter], who has renounced all earthly ties and who has declared supreme loyalty to Jesus … is commissioned to serve as shepherd of Jesus’ flock as the Great Shepherd takes his leave.”

It’s remarkable that more and more Protestant biblicists are willing to acknowledge that this and other passages of the Gospels imply that Peter was given a kind of general pastoral responsibility over the whole early Church (see for example Markus Bockmeuhl, Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory: The New Testament Apostle in the Early Church [Baker Academic, 2012], especially the last few pages of the last chapter.)

Peter’s love will lead to the cross. “When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands” –this is a reference to stretching one’s arms on the patibulum, the perpendicular bar of a Roman cross.

Love and authority go together in the Church. Love gives credibility to authority. St. Ignatius of Antioch gives one of the earliest testimonies to the primacy of the authority of the Church of Rome, Peter’s See, in his Letter to the Romans, when he famously refers to Rome “presiding in love” over the other churches. Indeed, whoever would preside in authority should first preside in love. Pope Francis quoted St. Ignatius’ words about “presiding in love” on the very night he was first presented on the balcony of St. Peter’s as “bishop of Rome,” the one who presides over the church that is to preside in love.

This Sunday’s Gospel lays out the role of Peter and all his successors: they must renounce all others and excel in love of Jesus in order to lead the whole Church.

At the same time, the Lord’s words are applied to us: Do we love him “more than these”? Do we love him more than we love other persons, than we love our profession and lifestyle? Do we in any way distinguish ourselves from other people by our love for Christ? That’s what it means to follow Jesus, and everyone, from the Pope to the most unknown believer, has to respond to Jesus’ summons: “Follow me!”

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

#primacy of peter

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heartsofstrangers · 6 years

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Aaron, what has been one of the most challenging things that you’ve experienced or are currently experiencing?

“One of the most challenging things I am going through right now has actually been ongoing. I came out about two years ago as gay, and the reaction from my family has been strange. It started with my sister asking me and I told her—she asked me why I didn’t say anything before, and I said, ‘Obviously, you know why: because out family would not approve.’ And, of course, they didn’t, as it moved down the line. For some odd reason my aunt told my entire family without my permission. She said they took it well, but I didn’t know what that meant. Then Mom found out and she was heartbroken. She said things in the house were going to change. I said, as opposed to what? The family is still adamant in their beliefs. Pretty Jamaican, Christian home, so it’s somewhat aggressive, very emotional but not very understanding of certain ideals—I guess I am more progressive.

“It’s been a struggle of identity, because I want to be outgoing and fun and friendly, just happen to be gay as well, but I feel like I can’t do that within my own home, I can’t do that around my family, I can’t do that when I am around members of my own community. I was especially worried that if it hit my church, my original church home, then I would probably be crucified or excommunicated or something, because they are very anti-gay. I wanted to walk in that truth, as would say. Well my mom probably said something like that, or Oprah, I don’t know, but something along the lines of ‘walking in your truth.’

“And I wanted to do that, but I felt like there were so many outside factors thrown at me. Even social media played into that, because I befriended many gay archetypes on Facebook, you know ‘club kings,’ ‘party arrangers,’ models and artists, and all these people who happen to be part of the LGBT community. I feel like I got some sort of family going on with them, even though it’s electronically based. I get kind of jealous when I see them doing big things, getting published in magazines, having big parties, meeting celebrities, getting photographed. There’s a bit of jealousy there because it’s like, ‘Oh, why can’t I be doing that? Why can’t I be free enough to express myself like that, or do what they are doing?’ Meanwhile, I’m stuck over here, trying to get through school and this job and looking after my sister every single day. It almost feels like you’re kind of trapped. I feel like, if I hadn’t come out right now, if I hadn’t come out two years ago, I probably would be suicidal or probably in a situation that I don’t want to put myself in, like probably with a girl, breaking her heart or something, you know. I didn’t want to ever put anyone through that, but the main struggle of being gay is that a lot of people see that first and nothing else. Being gay is not the entirety of my identity and I didn’t want it to become that, I don’t think it has. I guess the main thing that has been keeping me from really enjoying myself and being myself is what my family thinks of me and what my church would think of me, because they are all I’ve had from the very beginning. If they turned on me, as much as I feel like, that shouldn’t matter too much, it’s tugging at my heart and telling me I’m nothing without them. That’s the thing that stops me in my tracks most of time.”

What are some of the obstacles that sharing, that piece of yourself with your family or friends with—Have you shared it with you church, at all?

“I have not shared it with my church. I have not attended in a couple of years because of my former job. Thankfully, that was one of the benefits of it, I worked Sundays so I wouldn’t have to go. Granted, I’ve been dragged there every week from day one, so faith has never been something for me to kind of enjoy. It’s been something enforced and latched onto me from day one. Granted, it’s literally my mom’s middle name, so it’s kind of important to our family, but honestly I saw it more as a parenting tool than as a spiritual resource. It was just something to be there and ingratiate me while Mom went off and did her thing in the church, or whatever, but that’s something else.

“I have trouble sharing this with my family and my church, because they don’t see eye-to-eye with me. Mom even told me when I came out, ‘I think you need to seek mental health help. I think you hate women. I think you have some problems going on. I think you need to get fixed. There’s something really wrong with you.’ I knew there was something wrong with me—not that being gay was it—but I just knew that I was very anxious and depressed when I was younger, about middle school, starting end of elementary school into the present day, and a lot of it was because I had to keep this in. I was very anti-gay from fifth grade on. Fifth grade was when I found out in myself, but from that point on, I said, ‘Okay, you need to keep it low-key. You know about this, but you can’t do or say anything, otherwise’—I was ten or eleven at the time, so I am like, ‘I could get kicked out of my house, my mom could like spank me or beat me,’ and I didn’t want that issue. I didn’t want any rifts in the family, any rifts in my house, and I just endured it for a long time. And in that time I kind-of joined them, just to stay safe: I gay bashed, I stayed away from it, I name-called, I tried to do anything to distance myself, to save my own behind. I feel bad that I did that, but at the same time I couldn’t relate myself with that being a good thing, with me being a part of that, or else I would suffer consequences from all sides. Mind you, back then even in school, back in late 2000s, it was not very hip to be gay; you were still a social pariah in that sense, you still got bullied, there were kids killing themselves. I remember seeing them on Ellen. There were kids killing themselves over being bullied, over being harassed, over being cyber-bullied, and I didn’t want to be one of them. I felt awful, but I did not want to be that. As much as I want to explain myself, I’m constantly met with the argument from my family that sin is not supposed to make sense, so they don’t try to understand or figure out or anything like that. There is no retort, there is no conversation. A lot of it is also just frowned upon in the black community as well, to be honest. Like being black and gay don’t go together at all. They are two separate things that aren’t supposed to mesh. And, of course, there is hyper-masculinity, toxic masculinity, and all that other junk I have to deal with. I don’t know how I slid by that when I was younger, but, as you see today, I’m this amalgam of emotions and gayness. For my family and my church, it was always one and the same, to be honest, because they took on that same kind of authoritative spiritual figure. So that was kind-of this weird—I felt like if I was talking to my family, I was also talking to my church, so it was just—nothing was sacred, nothing was safe, ironically nothing’s sacred. I felt like I couldn’t tell them anything, because I was, I like to call myself the white sheep of my family, because it was just a little—it was a little scary releasing that info, and I was always the weird kid. I was always that one they asked, ‘Why aren’t you like the other kids?’ I’m would say, ‘Because I am not. I wish I was, but I don’t know how.’ That translated into, ‘He’s just going to be that weird kid. He’ll probably grow out of it. He’ll be normal one of these days.’ Then I laid this bombshell on them and they’re like, ‘Umm, okay then. We are just not going to talk about that.’ Two years ago, that Thanksgiving and Christmas was, like you could feel the wall, there was no communication from family other than a hello or hi, and I just sat there. Even when we went around the table saying what we were thankful for, everyone was agreeing with each other and it was nice, but when I went up to speak, there was silence. You could hear a pin drop. It kind of hurt. I even asked Mom about it later on that day. I said, ‘Why was the family so averse to me talking?’ She was like, ‘Aaron, look at you. Do you know what you’ve become? Do you know what you are?’ I didn’t know I changed into another creature or anything like that, but it was kind of heartbreaking to look at your family and have them look at you and see you as something else, like you weren’t the same person you were before. I feel like this whole thing makes me separate from everyone honestly, it doesn’t make you black, it doesn’t make you a man, it doesn’t make you part of God’s kingdom, it doesn’t make you a human being. They say they love me, they say they still care about me, it’s just this one major detail that kind-of gets in the way of things. So it’s a little bit strained, and I’ve never really talked to my family much, not so much for this reason, but I have never really been able to relate to them because I was that white sheep of family. I didn’t necessarily separate myself, but it was hard to get into any of that, because a lot of the topics were things that I was averse to, like sports, politics, the gay agenda—that was literally what they would talk about every Sunday dinner, after church.

“It would be a serial thing and I am just sitting on the side, you know what, I am just not going to say anything, because I don’t want to start anything, I don’t want to have a controversial opinion and then be ostracized for it, but it all came to a head that day my sister talked to me and outed me and—well, she didn’t out me, but I told her, after that, when the family found out it was just like—it was as if almost nothing changed, to be honest, because I was not that close to them before, still not that close with them now, but this just gave them a reason too. I have been trying to go with it for a long time. So far, I haven’t hurt anyone and I have made a few new friends, there’s a plus, but otherwise it’s been—it’s a very personal issue that you can only deal with yourself, you can’t really tell anyone about it.”

What impact has this had on how you feel about yourself and how you interact with others?

“In a sense, I feel like this has freed me a little, like I don’t have to hide anymore, though I still feel a little bit separate. Sure, family and church aside, you start going into the world, and you start viewing life outside of that bubble. You start to meet friends, you start to see people, and it feels like I’m like one of the only gay guys within a five- or fifteen-mile radius from my space, so you feel a little alone and you get that electronic relationship through your fancy glowing rectangle, but you don’t get to see guys or contact guys or really get involved with anybody else that’s male and understands where you’re coming from, i.e. gay. It’s slightly empowering to me, to be honest, I mean a few good opportunities have come out of this. A friend of mine got me involved with the Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus. I met him at the Pride Rally when they legalized marriage equality that day. I was a keynote speaker at the One Big Event in downtown Hartford last year, totally didn’t expect that, but it was an honor and a privilege. That was like an apex to my declaration. To be honest, that was kind of bizarre, when I look back on it. I didn’t think it was a big deal when I did it, but looking back now it’s like, wow! I did that, that’s a little weird. I am trying to assert myself with this identity that, I am still Aaron but a little newer and improved and also gay too, but I want to express that through my outward actions rather than just internally, because the idea is there, the execution isn’t, and I don’t necessarily feel like the look is either. I really want to change my entire life. I want to fix up whatever anxiety and depressions are getting me down, I want to change my wardrobe, get my life in order. It sounds a little bit superficial to fix the outside too, but I know that the heart and the brain are so under construction and they are going to be under construction, but I just want closure, you know. I want to go off and do something.”

Do you feel like the need or the want to change things externally is because you have been doing work internally for so long that now you want the outside to represent what you have done internally?

“Yes. The reason this is such an easy story for me to tell is that I have been harboring this forever, really. Because when you don’t have much of anything else—I go to work, I go to school, I look after my sister, there’s not much extracurricular activity going on, except the chorus. I don’t watch TV, I don’t have cable or anything, so I can’t binge-watch or—that’s another thing too, I can’t relate to anybody in my own generation, that is the weird part, like twenty-somethings, they just don’t get me at all, I vibe a lot—a few friends of mine are in my age range, but I just vibe with mainly older guys, and I have been okay with that. It hasn’t really had any negative impact at all. I feel like you are kind of out there to your family and your church and then you are out there to the rest of the world except this little, not a little niche group, but this other kind of group and it’s—I’m not sure how to take it most of the time because there’s being liked for who you are and then there’s being fetishized. And, I realized that as soon as I came out as well, when some guys would try to come up to me they kind of only want you for one thing and they turn you into a fetish, they turn you into an object, and it was kind of demeaning to me. I really didn’t like it. There are also multiple times where I would overlook it because I never really cared that much about myself to say, you know what, maybe that’s not right, rather it was maybe I deserve that. I’ve done that multiple times with getting insulted, getting hurt, either placing myself in a situation of my own devising or of a situation outside of my control, I just kind of think to myself, you know what, I probably deserved that, it wasn’t a big deal, I was just kind-of, I wasn’t doing the right thing anyway, that’s fine, somebody else can get that or whatever. I kind-of dealt with life lackadaisically and I don’t want to do that. I want to take control and I want to assert myself and have a more aggressive attitude, but I’ve always seen that as kind of cocky and arrogant, and I didn’t want to look like someone I’m not either. There’s a fine line—there are extremities and there’s the middle ground, and I didn’t want to have any vices getting in the way. I just wanted to be normal, I guess, that’s my main concern. I wanted to be normal to everyone, and I’m the farthest thing from that, but I’m okay with it.”

What is your idea of normal? What does that look like to you?

“I want to be kind of a straight male, just one of the dude bros who go around and, you know, I guess, it is a little different than that because I would be kind of a gentleman I guess. If I were to want a woman, I would go after her respectfully and I would treat her nicely. I would be that weird guy who’s into all those other things that regular straight guys aren’t. The more and more I have thought about that, I am like ‘Wait, my idea of normal, is gay.’ I’d be all romantic and everything, and I’m like maybe there wouldn’t be any sex involved if I were a little bit—oh no, no, no, no that would not be the case. I wanted to be someone who was palatable, I wanted to make sure I didn’t rock the boat with anybody, that there were no confrontations, no anger, no misunderstandings. I just wanted to be somebody everyone liked and loved and didn’t have any issues with. And, I tend to be that kind of person. I mean, I will be the one where if mutual friends are in a conflict, one will come up to me with their story, the other will come up to me with their story, while they fight ,and I am just sitting in the back. I am kind of the shoulder to cry on, I’m kind of the voice of reason in a lot of places, so in a way I am kind of a mainstay. But I just don’t want to be the reason for the discord. I don’t want to be the reason for the chaos. I don’t want to make myself out to be a problem for people, so that involved a lot of self-sacrifice and forsaking my own needs for another. I mean, I look after my sister all the time. As I probably told you, she’s my twin. She’s autistic and I’ve been doing this for about a decade or more. I am hoping that one of these days Mom will find something for her that’s more stable, but she goes to her little day program in the morning, which is great, but once I get out of college and eventually move out, what’s going to happen to her? I can’t be looking after her all the time. Mom kind of sees me as—well I finally got the chance, I finally had the realization that I am seen as having a familial obligation rather than being a volunteer, and I didn’t like that. That’s actually the main reason my older sister, who I came out to first, moved out first. She and Mom were having problems, and she didn’t want to deal with it, so she moved out and she is doing great now. They are even repairing their broken relationship that they had as a result of that, but I didn’t want that separation to be the same way between me and Mom. Because she and I are very close.

“Even on my birthday a couple of weeks ago, she called me her only-begotten son, and I am like ‘Oh, dear lord,’ this is—she’s like having a real faith complex going on and it’s made life uncomfortable. That’s another thing: I was never able to see life through an unfiltered lens, because everything was seen through the eyes of religion, through the eyes of faith, so nothing was ever pure, nothing was ever nice, nothing was ever palatable, nothing was ever acceptable, and you get held back from a lot of stuff. I was sheltered, I had no idea that I was being sheltered though. That was one thing I realized a couple of years ago, when I first went to college and guys and girls were around me and they just looked at me and went, ‘Dude, you were pretty sheltered, aren’t you?’ I’m like ‘What? No. What does that even mean?’ ‘You didn’t live much, did you?’ I was like ‘No.’ ‘Have you even been anywhere?’ ‘No, I never left New England. Why?’ ‘Oh, lord.’

“A lot of people knew I was gay before I said anything. Even when I did a little bit of radio, I heard my voice for the first time, on the radio, and I was like ‘Oh my god, how did they not know? I’m literally spouting rainbows out of my mouth, I sound so cringe-worthy.’ But that’s one thing that’s held me back a little bit too. There is a slight issue of transparency with me. When people say, ‘What was your idea of normal?’ I wanted to be the mysterious guy, they guy who people admired, but didn’t really know about. They know of him, but they don’t know who he really is. I felt like that for a little while because of how distant I was from everyone, but coming into my realization and after watching, there was show on last night or the night before called ‘Bull’, with a jury selector who psychoanalyzes everyone so he has the right jury for the right case, and it made me think of all the psych majors I’ve met, all the philosophy majors I’ve met, and a few random friends I’ve met who can read me like a book. Without me even saying anything or doing anything they get a basic idea of who I am, and they can see right through me, and I’ve hated that. It’s a very painful thing for me when someone can see right through me, because I feel inadequate, I feel like I’m having an inaccurate description of who I am based on an outward or an inward thing, like body language or whatever, I feel like people are mis-registering something that isn’t true. ‘Yeah, I’m awkward and shy and skittish at first, but please give me a minute. I swear, the objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.’

“I know I can’t control people’s perception of me, but first impressions are everything, so if I leave with a bad one and then I all of a sudden start acting like someone else, then I might seem two-faced or something like that. I really do want to have the best look for everyone else. I never thought about having a look just for the sake of you looking like something, because I never cared about it. I guess I relate that to all the problems going on in my life—this whole gay thing, and work and school and all that other stuff, I just attributed that to, ‘Well, you got all this going on for you, so might as well put your time and energy into that instead of caring about your appearance, your opinion, how you look, how you relate to others and all that stuff, you don’t really’—I don’t look at myself in the mirror very often. I try to take a little note of my appearance every now and then, but for the longest time I never really liked looking at the mirror. I never really liked seeing myself and seeing myself in relation to other people. A few people have told me if you want to know more about yourself, put yourself in the third person, like ‘Oh god, I could never do that,’ because I always saw everything I did as cringe-worthy or awkward or just kind of too ‘other’ for everyone else, kind of socially unacceptable. And, I guess that translated into my current mindset my routines of not so much caring about how I look or how I view others or how others view me, how others thought I looked. Mom always said I was the man of the house, which was probably a bald-faced lie, but I never really felt like a man. It was just kind-of this—because I thought it was a visual thing and also an action thing, and I never seemed to exude that or perform that, so I just felt less of a guy, less of a person and never really—that’s one thing, I always felt like there was something every other guy on the planet had that I didn’t, and I still didn’t know what that is, but I keep feeling like if I have that then maybe, just maybe, I got a shot in this world. I know it’s all in the head. I want to make sure that I can exude that and maybe help somebody else see that in themselves or something. I don’t know. I want to see that in myself first, whatever it is.”

Tell me about the relationship you have with yourself. It sounds like you are at a crossroads of wanting to improve yourself to be received by others but also wanting to improve yourself just because you recognize that you’re worth it. That’s the place many people could identify with.

“My relationship with myself is kind of love-hate, it’s kind of 70/30, 80/20, 90/10, no, it can be mostly defeatist. I will have some days when I can look in the mirror and go ‘hey,’ but otherwise it’s a lot of ‘oh, you again.’ I guess that has carried over into everything I do: my studies, my social interaction, how I deal with my family, because I never really gave a hoot about myself. I don’t know why, to be honest. I guess I got a few comments from family when I was younger, like my sister, my older sister used to call me ugly a lot, and she was joking, but I kind of felt it and my family would definitely give me the whole ‘Oh, guys don’t. Guys aren’t supposed to do that. Be a man. Act like a man. Why are you into that stuff? Don’t do that.’ It was the shaping and all of that, making me into a malleable personality rather than just being myself. I feel like I have the freedom to do that now, but I need to give myself permission to do that. I keep not giving myself permission because I am worried about, what my family is going to say, what’s your church going to say, what are they going to say. I’ve become so wrapped up in what other people think that I haven’t really developed my own opinion about myself, and that’s carried on into a ton of other things. I don’t even have an opinion on faith anymore or a higher power, or dating too. That’s another thing. I have never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and a question that I got a lot of the time before I came out, especially from church too, was ‘When are you going to get a girlfriend? Oh, I just bet they’re just knocking down your door, Janeen! They are just going to be all over him.’ Every time I heard that I cringed internally. After coming out that wasn’t a big issue with those immediately around me, but with my new friends now it’s like, ‘So when are you getting a boyfriend? What are you going to do? When are you going get with someone?’ I’m just like, ‘Ahhhmmm.’ I’ll take unknown answer for $200, Alex, and it was just—you can’t escape that whole cycle of ‘so when are you going to get with someone?’ I’m trying to get right with me first. I know that I’m not going to be a complete and total ready-made person to say, ‘Okay, now I’m ready to go out and get someone.’ That’s should be fun, right? It’s not that someone out there is going to be my other half either, because everyone is a whole person. I’m not fully at terms with myself yet, but I feel like I am getting there. But I also know that if I am looking to go out and meet people and maybe get a potential partner, then I need to have some things in mind, whatever those are, and I need to not be so afraid of love, because I am terrified of love. I guess it is the whole thing, the commitment, the caring, the thinking about someone, the caring about someone—I am terrified of it, because I have not really even cared for myself or looked after myself, so why are you out there trying to do it for somebody else when you don’t even know the first thing about taking care of yourself? And that’s made me wonder if I am even going to make it. Am I going to move out? Am I going to do the things that all my friends are doing, or am I just going to sit here and turn into a depressed lump?”

You mentioned the word depression and experiencing anxiety and awkwardness. Tell me about some of those experiences, and how you cope with those feeling of depression, anxiety (and you mention also becoming suicidal). Had you not come out when you did, had you actually experienced thoughts of suicide before that?

“There was one time when it was a very serious thought, but I never took any action into it. I guess that was when faith did step in, because suicide was a sin or whatever, and it was also—Mom told me that’s no way to try to fix anything. And I never considered it; like the thought came up every now and then, but it was just ‘No, that’s just not a good idea, I probably shouldn’t do that.’ But a few times that was a result of depression, and usually depression, sometimes it was a mood, sometimes it was my whole condition, never really clinically assessed or anything like that, but it was medically assessed. It was something that came about when I did something—I slighted someone in a minor way, or I forgot to do something, or there was a miscommunication, and it would hover for the rest of the day. I guess I was kind of triggered by a lot of little things, because my emotional fortitude isn’t what it is supposed to be. I coped with it, basically, by ruminating and sulking, and sometimes I’ll listen to music too, but it was either facing it by getting sad or distracting myself with music or art or something. It was just sometimes that I thought, once again, maybe I deserve this, maybe I just need to get sad for a little bit and not deal with it. It was constant and even stuff from years ago, like little faults I’ve done to people or in school or at a church or at work or anything, and someone scolded me for it, or anything, I’d still think back on that awkward moment and get all cringed up again. It’s kind-of crippling, because you feel it and it affects how you go about your day, and I want to stop that too. I want to say, ‘Dude, it was a little thing. Just get over it. It’s not even important anymore. It happened ages ago. Why are you still thinking about it?’ but I can’t stop, like it just sits in there and now any time I was feeling all right my memory bank could just flip through its little Rolodex and say, ‘Hey, remember this?’ The cycle would start up again. Same with the anxiety—that was usually brought about all of a sudden by, again, minor situations, probably like talking to someone important or if someone told me, ‘Aaron, can I talk to you for a minute?’ All of a sudden I get a little on guard, because I always felt like I did something wrong and that I was going to get punished for something and it was kind of something that carries on until after the fact that I deal with it or I realize, ‘Okay, maybe it was less of a deal than I thought, so I come down from that,’ but the anxiety comes socially too. If I’m with a bunch of people I don’t know, if I see somebody I like or admire a lot and I start talking to them, I start to get a little freaked out and, you know, with family, with my church, definitely too because I never wanted to—it was like walking on a tightrope or walking on eggshells with certain people, just so I don’t say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. It might just leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, and I guess I felt like I had to micro-manage everything so that I don’t, you know, get anxious or get depressed or set the other person off in some way, shape, or form.

“I had a time when I was just really good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, like I didn’t even mean it either, but I said something that I probably shouldn’t have even, though I thought it was the right thing to say, and it just ends up offending or slighting someone, and I just kind-of recoil and get into that whole mood again.

“I guess I never really have coped with anxiety. I just let it pass until it comes up again. I want to learn to chill, to relax, you know, let things pass, but a few friends have told me, ‘Aaron, all you really need is some weed. You’re getting all worked up over this. Just smoke a blunt and you’ll be fine.’ I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to take any of those routes,’ because I’m the kind of guy who’s kind of an all or nothing. If I can’t get everything done at once, then I won’t do it, and it’s super-perfectionistic and it’s very superficial and I know it’s unhealthy, but I haven’t been able to bust out of that. It has been kind of ruining me in some sense—academically it’s been straining, socially it’s been straining, and just mentally too, because it’s like, do this or you’ll let them down, but if you do this you’ll let yourself down, if you do this you’ll end up letting both people down, and you and that other person down. It’s a balancing act, making sure this person is happy, make sure you are doing the right thing, make sure that nothing goes wrong, or else. I don’t know what that ‘or else’ was, but it was just do this right or nothing matters.”

Do you think it’s possible that trying to please other people and not create any conflicts and please yourself, you still may be hurting yourself or hurting someone else or upsetting someone? Perhaps a path you may want to choose at some point is to follow your heart and learn to accept that being who you are and moving forward on your journey may upset people. Some people may not understand it, but ultimately it’s your life, it’s your path, and to be able to accept that, may make some people uncomfortable and some people might not be a part of that journey, and to be okay with that. Sounds like it’s very draining and exhausting to try to manage things that are out of your control, essentially. You don’t have control over how people react or respond. You only have control over the actions that you take and the way that you respond to the way people react to you, or respond to you. Does that make sense?

“Yeah, it does. It’s just this constant feeling of inadequacy, I don’t know where it came from but it is just, I guess I got a lot of ‘you should be doing X, Y and Z by now.’

“So, I’ve always found it a little hypocritical but I still go through it, how others, family will tell me, Oh, you’re supposed to be doing this, or you should be graduating by now, you should be having a career by now,’ like ‘Why aren’t you doing this, why aren’t you getting somewhere, why are you still in my house?’ like it was a lot of that, but at the same time I keep getting the ‘you’re not going to be young forever, you need to go out and do stuff, you need to go out and live, have a life, go do something already.’

“I can’t necessarily do that when I’m here looking after my sister all the time and going to work and school. I can’t have a life. A lot of people are also saying, ‘Oh, you’re young, you’ll have your whole life to do stuff,’ then why are you making me feel like my life is already over?

“You don’t understand what you’re doing to me when you tell me all this junk. I already don’t have much direction in life, and then you’re just giving me a sign, you’re giving me two signs in the opposite direction that are telling me one-way, so I don’t know what you want from me. And, I don’t even know what I want from myself.

“So you kind of have to stay still, you can’t move, otherwise you’ll risk hurting yourself or ruining everything, making a mistake and having the world judge you for it and you not caring about it.

“That’s miraculously how I just gotten through life so far. It’s just been a series of, I made a mistake and deserved it and I’m probably going to make another one. It’s not healthy. I know it’s not healthy.”

Yeah, some things come to mind as I’m listening to you. One of them is to practice forgiveness, forgiving yourself, and that mistakes are signs that you are trying new things. It sounds like the fear of hurting yourself or making mistakes, or making someone else disappointed in you, or not meeting your expectations of what they think you should be doing or how you should be doing it, has immobilized you to the point where you’ve delayed progress in areas that you would like to see more progress in. But it sounds like your awareness of this may bring about more change and hopefully some more confidence in who you are, your potential, and your capabilities. Being gay myself, I’m going to make a reference to a very popular gay film, ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ There’s the moment in the movie when the Good Witch Glinda says to Dorothy, ‘You had the power all along,’ and that’s something I think many of us struggle with. We think that some outside force is going to come and tap us on the shoulder and say ‘here you go,’ or ‘this is the way,’ when really we have ability always, within us, at any point to determine what direction we are going to go in and how we are going to get there.

We talked about the relationship you have with yourself, we talked a little bit about the relationship with your church and the fear you have with that and with your family, and you’ve mentioned your sister, you’ve mentioned your mother and your older sister, but I have not heard you mention your father. What is the relationship with your father?

“Okay, here’s the wild story about my father. When we were born he had a condition called Randolph Syndrome. It’s not that rare; actually, it’s pretty common. Basically, when me and my twin sister were born he ‘Rand’off.’”

Haahaahaaa.

“I know it’s my little dark joke for the situation, but I handle it well. He was never present, until my late teenage years, he started to make a motion towards me through cards, through pictures. I met him on Facebook, I met my half-sister and I met my paternal grandmother. He started to tell me, ‘I want to know about your life, what you’re doing, what you’re up to. I love you. You’re my son. I hope you grow up to be just like me.’ Just like who? Just like who, to be honest. Aside from that, I took it for what it was, and I’m like, ‘You know what, at least he’s trying, so I’ll give him that, whatever.’ Then I talked to him on the phone one time, for the first time, and that was freaky because there’s nothing like talking on the phone and hearing yourself. It’s very jarring, but we talked about life and whatever, it was pretty relaxed, there was no ill will from me towards him. I never had any, but a lot of it came from my mom and my family, because mom always thought he was a scumbag. I even asked her a few years before he made contact with me, ‘Mom, why hasn’t my father talked to me? Do you think I should try to look for him, or something?’ ‘Woah, woah, woah, Aaron,’ she told me, ‘if he cared he would look for you, so don’t get it twisted.’ I’m like okay, all right, fine, just hope he can do that sometime, then a few years later that happens.

“It was still kind of strained because whenever Mom heard from my paternal grandmother or him it was just kind-of—we were on good terms with my paternal grandmother, that was great, but from him it was just animosity and probably border-line hatred coming from them. But the big thing happened three years ago, because, by the way, he had no sense of tact, he kind-of said whatever, whenever. One day he was telling me about, throughout our conversations, he told me he had cancer, but it had in remission, so he’s been pretty clean from it for a while and that’s good. He also was a religion hopper. According to my mom, one day he’s Muslim, one day he’s Christian, one day he’s atheist, it just went around and around, so he was never really stable in that sense. Then three years ago, the big thing happened. I get a message on Facebook from my paternal aunt, his sister, said, ‘Hi, Aaron. I’m your aunt, Jeffrey’s sister. I want to let you know that your father is in the hospital. His non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma came out of remission. He is halfway in a coma and this could be it.’ I said, ‘Oh my god.’ So, after my class was over, I got out, I ran out of the building. I call up the hospital and I get on the phone to his room, his current wife picks up (mind you, he has four different families, and I have about nine half brothers and sisters, but what can I say: ‘Papa was a rolling stone’)—but that’s not important, I get on the phone with his current wife and say, ‘Hey, can I speak to him? This is his son.’ She put the phone up to his ear—I know this sounds so much like a soap opera, but this what went down—I get on the phone with him and I say, ‘Look, Dad,’ and I’ve never called him dad before, but I thought to myself, ‘This is it, so why, why, why harbor anything, why try to make it what it isn’t?’ so I said, ‘Look, Dad, I just want to let you know that I love you, I care about you, and I forgive you for not being there, for doing whatever you had to do for this other family,’ with a special needs daughter, mind you, ‘I just wanted to let you know, I harbor no ill will again you, I don’t want any animosity between you and me,’ not that there ever was, ‘but I just want to let you know that I care about you very much, I hope that you’ve gotten your house in order, I hope you realized—I hope you got all your ducks in a row, and tied every knot, I hope you’re secure and you’re safe and if this is it, goodbye.’ His wife told me he nodded an acknowledgment, I said, Okay, thank you, goodbye.’ Hung up the phone, told Mom what happened that day and she was shocked, because she didn’t think, she’s known this dude for a while too, she’s just like, oh, he’s in the hospital, oh my god, that’s pretty serious. Mind you, that day that happened was the day before Thanksgiving vacation, so Thursday, mind you, this is three years ago, and two years ago I came out, so this is back when the family was on decently good terms with me. We were going around the table saying what were thankful for, and I said, ‘I’m thankful for my father,’ and my family was like, huh? I proceed to tell them the story, and they are all just sitting there with their jaws on the floor, because they all to a degree had some kind-of animosity towards him, and I’d imagine a family would, after something like that. That’s understandable to me, but I didn’t harbor it, and they just looked at me and thought, ‘Oh my god, Aaron. How did you do that? How are you able to do that to someone who hurt you? How are you able to just kind-of just brush it off?’ I told them it was because I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t feel any hurt, I didn’t feel any pain, he was just—sure, he was absent, but I didn’t hold any animosity, for the longest time I actually held him in high regard because I thought, okay maybe he can be the daddy that I wanted, maybe he could do something for me—maybe he could come back and do something like that, I always kind-of held that hope out, and I realized a little time before, way before he died, I’m like maybe he won’t, but that’s okay. At least he made an effort now or whatever and he’s just doing whatever he needs to do, I guess.

“My older sister heard the story and cried because she comes from a different father and she never met him, so she got a little emotional at that point and I comforted her too. My family just told me, Aaron, you just broke a generational curse, you just like cleared all that air. All the junk that we had against him you just kind of threw aside and said, ‘were good.’ I’m like, there was nothing hard about it. It just seemed like the right thing to do. What sense is there to just harping on. The man is at death’s door, basically, it looks like. He could go into remission again, but we don’t know that. The family was very proud of me from that point. We got together again the next day, on black Friday, for leftovers and schmoozing, that day I found out that he passed. I managed to clear the table with him, say goodbye and get closure before that man even died.

“I still didn’t think it was a big deal until my family came up and told me about it because they’re like, ‘Aaron, don’t you realize, not many people get the chance to do that, not many people get to send somebody off like that, no one gets to have that last degree of separation with someone, like that’s just—you clinched it, you really kind-of, you hit it and that was it.’ I was like, well this was a man I never even met, never even got to see face-to-face who apparently fathered me. It just seemed like the right thing to do. In the few weeks after he passed I felt very strange. I had some serious bouts of depression, more so than usual, because a few emotions where coming up. I was like, ‘Okay, why wasn’t he more involved in my life while he was here? Why did he have to go and do that?’ because now that kind of stuff was kind-of coming up in me a little bit. I didn’t act on it, but it was there and it just tore me up inside a little. A lot of it, I felt like I was waving goodbye to a ghost when he died, because it was like—who am I saying goodbye to, who—I still don’t know who you are, you’re supposed to be my father, you’re supposed to be this man and I don’t even know who you are, so it was a very strange feeling of anger, depression, sadness, and regret, to a degree. I kept saying, ‘I wish I got to know him,’ but really, I wish that he got to know me. It was a little heartbreaking because it did affect me in a few areas, but then one day it kind-of cleared up and I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I’m good,’ but that filtering of emotion was definitely what I needed during the time, because I don’t know what was with me, it was just strange, granted my twin sister’s autistic, she doesn’t even know I’m gay, she doesn’t even know our father exists, like she doesn’t have to deal with that.

“My sister has her own battles that she deals with, but otherwise this was something that I was dealing with for myself, and Mom saw I was going through it, and didn’t do much about it, she’s just like, ‘I don’t know why you’re acting like this.’ So I guess there was some degree of animosity even in the death, but still it was something that I felt I had to personally wrestle with myself because this is my father and you guys have no specific connection to him, so this is something that I had to deal with myself, and I’m glad I did. It would have been nice to meet him but Mom always told me no, in the spirit of animosity, of course, that if I, if he were involved in my life, if I met him or gotten some influences from him, I wouldn’t be who I am today. So that’s Jeffrey.

“Are you okay, by the way?”

Yeah. Of course, I just naturally get emotional hearing things like this, because I can empathize and I feel it, and everything has to come out and it comes out in my eyes.

Through some of these experiences, fear of being who you are, and taking control of your life and the issue with your church and religion and faith and your mother and your father and taking care of your sister and just feeling delayed from being where you want to be—what have you learned about yourself? What are some gifts you’ve uncovered in all this?

“I have learned that I can be pretty resilient. In spite of everything that has been going on I can—even in the spirit of, oh well, next time, there’s a degree of perseverance there’s some—I’ve always retained hope that things would get better. I don’t know what that hope was or what that hope was in, but it was there and I always thought, okay, maybe one of these days you’ll get to where you want to be and you’ll have what you’ll need and you’ll make a life for yourself and you’ll be over that hill and things will turn around. I’ve also realized from the job I just left, from two years, it’s been two years that I have worked there, up until this point. I would have been there today, had it not been for me resigning, but I have a very good personality, I’ve realized. I make people smile, I make people laugh, I try to brighten their day whenever they approach me, so it’s not so much a cover for the depression and anxiety but it’s just been the best option there is. It’s helped so many people, because a lot of the time people would come into the place and say, ‘Well, Aaron, the food’s sub-par and your bosses are whatever, but the main reason we come is, honestly, to see you. You’re the only smiling face in the place.’ It’s like, someone has to be. Ironically, I can’t go through life being all mopey and depressed, like everybody around me. I guess that’s one thing that, kind of, it’s like an extrovertedly happy introvertedly blah mood thing. If everyone around me is kind of depressed I try not to be that, and try to bring myself to be that happy person when everyone else is kind of down, and it can spread, it can definitely spread. When I see people who come in who are happy to see me, it’s a very good feeling and I know that they are here to see me, they’re here for me and it’s something, it makes you feel important, it makes you feel like you are doing something right.

“Even before I came out there were people who came up to me and said, ‘Aaron, you know, you’ve got this thing about you,’ I don’t know if they would describe it as je ne sais quoi, but they said there’s this thing about you that I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got it and I like it a lot and I don’t, I can’t put my finger on it. I think someone told me that ‘Aaron, it’s definitely your heart, it is definitely your heart, because not a lot of people possess the attitude that you have or the degree of kindness and niceness from you that you have, you need to share that, and you need to never’—like one guy over there, he’s like eighty years old, he told ‘don’t ever change, Aaron, don’t ever, EVER, ever change. There are not many people like you in the world and they need people like you.’ That did make me feel like I was doing something right, even if internally there was a battle but, externally there’s a smile.

“It’s not so much fake it till you make it, that’s in other areas. But it’s that someone has to be the nice guy, some has to be altruistic, someone has to be an agent of change, an agent of good, you know, someone has to be that, so why not me?”

I love that line, ‘Why not me?’ Is there a cool piece of advice, a song lyric, or something that resonates with you, that you would like to share?

“Yes. A biblical verse that Mom always told me whenever things were going weird in school or at work or a lot of people were bullying me or being nasty to me. I kind-of took it, because I was just that kind of guy. I’d think to myself, ‘I’m okay. Throw it on. I deserve this.’ She told me, first of all, don’t take that, but second of all, the verse was ‘Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.’ Even in the non-biblical sense I’ve heard it from many other people: ‘Let your light shine, dude. They’ll see who you really are and that will give them the permission to shine theirs.’ People will see that, people will be attracted to it, people will be led by it, and it can do a lot, if you let it shine, so I guess I have.”

Why does that resonate with you?

“It showed up when I left my old job. I had been there two years, and it had given people time to warm up to me and really enjoy my presence there. When I told them I was leaving, they suddenly started to get a little emotional, telling me, ‘Oh my god, Aaron, I wish you the best. Thank you for all you have done for us over the two years, even if it’s just giving us breakfast in the morning. You are so happy, you’re so joyful, and we need that. It’s hard to find anybody with it, but you’ve been so nice, and that doesn’t go unnoticed there. We want you to know that, and please come back sometime.’ I’m like, ‘I’ll visit. I’ll be around. I’m not leaving the country.’ It’s good that there a lot of people who can recognize your niceness, recognize your good works and, I guess, give you some credit for it, give you some sort of approval. I don’t necessarily need approval, but it was nice. I figured being nice was enough and they saw it and recognized in anyway, but I didn’t need somebody telling me that I was doing well. It definitely helps, but I guess I didn’t need that. It’s like, have you ever seen ‘The Devil Wears Prada?’ You know that end scene where Anne Hathaway is on the train or the cab and she’s just smiling to herself because she is like, ’Oh god, I got everything done, I didn’t mess up, this is great,’ and meanwhile you see Meryl Streep in her cab smiling for the first time throughout the entire film. It was that scene that made me think, ‘Wow! She did all this and she was fine without any of her bosses’ recognition or a smile or saying you did a good job, thank you. She knew she was doing a good job and she didn’t need that, even though her boss approved of everything that was going on, she didn’t see that, but she didn’t need to see it. I feel that’s kind of what I get most of the time. I feel like, behind the scenes some people are like, wow that was really cool, thanks, Aaron—it’s pretty interesting to see what people are, what people think of you. In a good sense, anyway, because I already think about me as is, but when I see a good outcome from that, it’s like ‘wow, okay, that’s good.’ It’s very relieving and it’s very comforting.”

What advice would you offer to your ten or eleven year old self, having been through what you’ve been through to this day and what you’ve learned?

“Do what you need to, be who you are, don’t sweat the small stuff. Relax, pretty much relax. I was always so tense because I had to watch what I did in front of everyone to keep myself from being perceived as something that I am not, but now I definitely say relax and just be yourself, honestly. Because I always felt like no one liked me for myself. A lot of it was true at the time, I was anxious and awkward and annoying—and thank god I changed over the time—but I was always wishing I was better than myself, that I wasn’t myself, that I wasn’t this or wasn’t that. Now it’s like eventually you’re going to be the best, but right now don’t worry about it.”

Are you doing the best you can with what you have and where you are?

“I am tapping into that, yes.”

I think it’s fair to say that you’re the best, the best you are right now in this moment. Fair enough?

“Thank you.”

More than enough. How has it felt to share these experiences and feelings with me today?

“It felt very good. I’ve always had this story on my heart and I was honestly just waiting for the right person to tell it to, and then you came along. So I am very thankful and grateful for this privilege. I do want others to hear about this too, because it articulates it in a way that may just telling someone upfront wouldn’t understand. I feel like this is the most absolute truth that I can give, without being misconstrued, and if people can see that and take it for what it’s worth and understand me to a degree, then that’s all I really want. It’s like what Oprah said, ‘The three main things people want in life are: do you see me? do you hear me? and does what I am saying make sense to you?’”

Three things that I think are most important in being human and sort of the platform for what Hearts of Strangers is, is ‘I see you, I hear you, and I value you.’ So, it’s very similar to what you just said about Oprah. Do you think it’s possible that by someone else who reads your story may understand themselves a little bit better and know that they are not alone and that there is hope?

“Yes, indeed. That’s another thing I have done throughout my emotional rollercoaster journey: I’ve always come to people when I’ve been that shoulder to cry on, when I’ve been that person to talk to. I always try to boost, I try to bring somebody up, I always try to give them a piece of advice or make them laugh, or try to uplift them in some way, shape, or form. Even though I couldn’t do it for myself, I figured someone else could use this. Rather than remedy my own situation, I always try to remedy else’s situation. I should try that on myself, most likely, but I’ve always been one to inspire or boost another person, so I really hope that seeing my life story will bring about, heck, maybe an epiphany for someone.”

#heartsofstrangers #hos #everyhearthasastorytotell #yourstorywillinspireothers #yourenotalone #yourebeautiful #mentalhealth #authenticity #courage #vulnerability

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romancatholicreflections · 6 years

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28th January >> Daily Reflection/Commentary on Today’s Mass Readings for Roman Catholics on the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28).

ON THE PAST TWO SUNDAYS we have seen Jesus baptised, he has announced the meaning and purpose of his work and he has called his first disciples. In today’s Mass we see him beginning that work.

The words of Deuteronomy (First Reading) are being fulfilled. “Yahweh your God will raise up a prophet… from among yourselves, from your own brothers; to him you must listen.” Jesus has appeared, a Jew of Palestine like all those around him. And he is a prophet. Not in the current sense of someone who can foretell the future but rather as one who speaks the word of God. For that reason, he should be listened to.

A day in the life…

Today’s passage from Mark is really the beginning of a busy day (and night) for Jesus in which are contained, one might say, all the main characteristics of his public life. He joins in public worship, he teaches, he heals, he drives out evil spirits – and he prays privately. There is also the astounded reaction of the ordinary people.

(In Mark’s gospel we find three kinds of people, all of whom react differently to Jesus – his own disciples, the religious leaders, and the ordinary people. Usually, it is only the ordinary people who come off with any credit and insight.)

This first reported day in Jesus’ public life is a Sabbath day. And we find Jesus with his fellow townsmen in the synagogue. It is important for us to realise that Jesus was a practising Jew and he normally observed the requirements of the Jewish faith, as did his disciples even after the resurrection. He never criticised that faith. What he did criticise were what he saw as distortions, hypocrisies and other corrupting elements. Jesus’ message is, as he says himself in Matthew, not an abrogation of the Jewish faith but carrying it to its logical fulfilment (Matthew 5:17).

In the synagogue

The synagogue service was basically a Scripture and prayer service. There was no sacrifice; that was confined to one place, the Temple in Jerusalem. Most Jews very seldom went to the Temple for the simple reason that, for most of them, it was too far away. We see Jesus apparently going there about once a year or, like his compatriots, for some of the major feasts.

However, on every Sabbath (Saturday to us) they went to their local synagogue for common worship and prayer. The service was simple: some prayers, reading from the Scripture (the Hebrew or Old Testament, of course) and someone preached. There were no formal clergy or priests in the synagogue. (Again, these were confined to the Temple; John the Baptist’s father was one of them. It is only when Jesus goes to Jerusalem that he comes in confrontation with them. They are not to be confused with either the Pharisees or the Scribes.)

In the synagogue, then, anyone could be invited to get up and preach. On this particular Sabbath day, Jesus was invited. Perhaps he already had a name as a speaker. In any case, as soon as he opens his mouth the people feel immediately that here is someone who is different.

When the Scribes, the experts in the Law, preached, they were primarily explaining the given meaning of the Jewish Law in the sacred books. But when Jesus spoke it was with ‘authority.’ Somehow the people realised that he was not giving out someone else’s teaching. He was giving out his own. As we hear it in Matthew’s gospel: “You have heard it said … but I say…”

A man possessed

But Jesus not only spoke with authority. He also acted with authority. Right there as he spoke there was a man with an ‘evil spirit.’ What exactly does that mean? Have you ever encountered a person with an ‘evil spirit’? Have you ever met a so-called ‘possessed’ person? We need to remember that in the time of Jesus, people believed that the world was full of spirits – some good, some bad. They were everywhere and could attack people in all kinds of ways. You could even ask that evil spirits attack other people, for instance, people you wanted to take revenge on.

This is by no means a thing of the past. Such beliefs are still very much alive in many parts of the world, not least in parts of Southeast Asia e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines. Even in sophisticated ‘developed’ societies it is often difficult to find someone who will walk calmly through a cemetery in the dark. Amid the glass and steel skyscrapers of Hong Kong and Singapore, how careful people are in choosing a wedding date or how anxious they are about the fung shui, the propitious orientation of their house or office.

In the time of Jesus, if any person was sick, or acted in an ‘abnormal’ way, they were said to have an evil spirit. It was natural to think that people such as epileptics, spastics, mentally disturbed people were the victims of some force that had invaded their bodies. Because of the spirit, people seemed to lose control of their speech and movements. The spirit had taken over. Were these evil spirits real? It is difficult to say. Obviously, some would have a simple medical diagnosis today. But one does meet people in some parts of the world who are convinced that there are forms of possession. The point is that they were healed, made whole again, by Jesus and liberated from their affliction.

The evil spirits of our own day

That there are evil forces in our world today is difficult to deny. Some of the appalling sufferings that people are made to endure by the inhuman behaviour of individuals and groups are hard to explain otherwise. And, while we often look on helpless, somehow we are part of it ourselves.

What is important is that, in the time of Jesus, people really believed in the existence of all kinds of forces. These forces were the source of great and even paralysing fears. What Jesus does is to liberate people from their fears. It was not the evil spirit that was the problem so much as the victim’s fear of that spirit. It is not objective reality that limits our freedom and effectiveness but the way it is seen by us. (Have you ever tried the trick of putting a rubber snake in a friend’s bed and waited for the reaction? What made them scream? The piece of rubber? Or their fear?)

Jesus shows no fear in the face of the spirit in the synagogue. “Be quiet! Come out of him!” The man is thrown into convulsions but he is free. And what is really important is that he feels free.

What are our fears? What spirits are we afraid of? What are the things, the persons, the places which prevent us from doing what we really want to do, from being the person we really want to be? It is important that we identify our fears and that we see them within ourselves and not simply blame others for them. Once we recognise them within ourselves, we can ask Jesus to help us drop them. Let us put ourselves under his authority and he will liberate us.

The people in the synagogue are simply astounded. “Here is teaching that is new and with authority behind it. He gives orders even to unclean spirits – and they obey him.” No wonder his name rapidly becomes known all over the countryside. (The rural grapevine works faster than any fax machine!)

Jesus, a man of authority

We can see here how powerfully Mark presents the impact that Jesus makes. His work of salvation has begun. The Kingdom of God is near when he acts like this. People experience the power. But what kind of power is it?

It is the power of authority. The word authority comes from a Latin verb augere, which means to make something increase. Its root can be found in words like ‘authority,’ ‘author.’ Its root is also found in the English verb ‘to wax’ (as the moon ‘waxes’ and wanes).

So real authority is not just, as we often interpret it, having power over people so that we can make them do what we want them to do. Genuine authority is the ability to en-able people, to em-power them. To enable them to transcend themselves, to grow as persons, to be more effective in the development and use of their innate gifts.

Authority as service

This is the kind of authority which Jesus wields. Jesus did not come to rule and control people. He came, he said, not to be served but to serve. He came, above all, to make people free. So that in their freedom, they could generate all the productive and growth energies within them and be alive with the life of God within them. He freed them from all the ‘evil spirits’ of fear, compulsions, narrow self-centredness, anger, resentment, hostility and violence which prevent people from truly enjoying the experience of being alive. “I have come that they may have life, life in abundance.”

How sad it is then that so many people see being faithful to the Christian faith as a burden to be sloughed off so that they can be “free” of oppression and limitation. To what extent is the Church responsible for giving this image which is such a contradiction of the Gospel message?

So, let us all pray today that Jesus, with his growth-inducing authority will be a real source of liberation for us. May he free us from all those spirits which make us deaf, dumb, blind and lame in life – and paralysed by fear.

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switchedatbirthgleerp-blog · 6 years

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The Basics

KITTY GEORGIA WILDE is sixteen seventeen and a junior at William McKinley High School. She identifies as heterosexual and her endgame is with Jake Puckerman. She wasn’t switched at birth, but she is still waiting for her test results. She is currently dating Ryder Lynn. Unfortunately for you, she is TAKEN.

Nature vs. Nurture

Kitty is quick-witted, cunning, judgmental, and harsh, but she can also be loyal, intuitive, impatient, and stubborn.

The Story

Kitty Wilde was born on October 4th near midnight to Matthew and Ruth Wilde, a megachurch pastor and a trophy wife, and brought into a world of mansions, silver spoons and gold-embossed Bibles. From an early age, she was taught that God came first, appearances second, and anything else after that, and the Wildes kept up their appearance as the perfect, blond, beautiful family every Sunday at church. Despite the relative nightmare of being a PK (pastor’s kid), Kitty’s childhood was idyllic; she spent weekends with her best friend Marley, and she dragged the poor girl to horseriding, dancing, and gymnastics, all paid for by her father’s job. Growing up, Kitty was very aware that her mother didn’t love her father like he loved her, but she never questioned it; their relationship worked, and it provided a stable foundation for her life, so who was she to doubt it?

Despite going to a Christian school her entire life, when it came to high school, lobbied for her parents to enroll her in McKinley High, purely so that she could go to the same school as Marley and fulfill her high school dream of being a popular cheerleader, with her best friend beside her. She never had any doubt that, with her cunning nature and quick wit, she’d have the school wrapped around her little finger in no time. True to her word, she joined the cheerleading team, and despite not being captain, managed to have all the other cheerleaders bending to her every will out of pure fear. She also made her family proud and earned a brand new red convertible when she announced that she had started a celibacy club, with a respectable number of members (the majority of them being intimidated cheerleaders).

Despite her protests, Coach Sylvester insisted that she joined the Glee club, and Kitty reluctantly went to the first rehearsal of the year. Despite being completely determined to hate it, when Mr. Schue pulled her up onstage and paired her up with Jake for a dance routine, she remembered how much she’d loved her childhood dance lessons, and begrudgingly admitted to herself that she didn’t mind it. She had a confidence onstage that, despite her quick quips and attitude, she’d never really felt before. Not that she’d ever admit it, of course, if anyone asks her what she thinks, she’ll say that Mr. Schue looks like a middle-aged Chik-Fil-A employee who’s watched one too many inspirational TED talks, and that the club is full of mouth breathers on a constant sugar high.

She’d never, ever admit it, but when Sam dumped her, it damn near broke her heart. Despite what anyone thought, she really liked being with him, and she liked the feeling of being wanted. She had even considered breaking her celibacy pledge, just because she wanted to be close to him like that. It was devastating when he broke up with her. Ryder’s sweet and all, but let’s be real, he’s a total rebound, and she doesn’t know if she’ll feel the same way about another guy anytime soon. Sam made her put some walls up that will take a lot of work for any guy to break down, and she vowed to never let another guy break her heart like that. When you’re Kitty Wilde, you don’t get your heart broken; you break them instead.

Major Connections

Marley Fabray: Kitty has always been one of Marley’s best friends since they met in Sunday School. The two have almost no secrets and can frequently be found walking the halls of McKinley together - well, when they aren’t with their boyfriends, at least. Of course, they can be a bit competitive, especially since Kitty really wanted that head Cheerio position, but they’re more likely to team up against others than themselves. They know all of the other’s secrets, including the fact that Marley actually has had sex and that Kitty actually made out with Mason.

Mason McCarthy: Kitty assumed Mason was gay for the longest time, so she might’ve acted differently around him than she would’ve otherwise, like by touching him more and treating him like a GBF. Then she found out he was straight (or at least that he liked girls), and, not going to lie, she kind of got interested. And maybe after Kitty and Sam broke up they made out once and Mason has a huge crush on her, but she’s with Ryder now and she doesn’t intend on changing things.

Sam Evans: So these two dated and everything seemed fine to Kitty. Sam was a gentleman who never pressured her to do anything against her religion (even if she sometimes wanted him to). She got him to join glee club and they had fun together, and she thought they were at least cute together…And then Sam dumped her rather abruptly only to start dating one of Kitty’s least favorite people, Santana, like, a day later. Yikes. And Kitty doesn’t even know Sam cheated on her with Kurt, though she assumes he cheated on her with Santana. Double yikes. And now Kitty is dating Sam’s best friend. Triple fucking yikes.

Ryder Lynn: Okay, so when Sam cheated on her, Kitty was honestly heartbroken. But hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and a Kitty Wilde scorned? Ouch. Much worse. So when she realized Ryder was available, Kitty easily got him in her grips and soon the two were dating. Ryder does actually like Kitty, at least a little, but she’s also really bossy and obviously hates his best friend, so he’s confused. He'd love to double date with Sam and his girlfriend, Santana, like he does with Marley and Noah, but Kitty would never let that happen.

Rachel McCarthy: They don’t like each other purely because Rachel and Marley don’t get along. While Kitty thinks she would’ve made a better captain than Marley, she can’t stand that Rachel thinks she’s better than her best friend and refuses to put up with that BS. Marley can bite when need be, but Kitty’s got claws. Rachel would have no qualms with Kitty if it wasn’t for the fact that she defends Marley and that she attacks her best friend, Santana. Because of that, it’s war.

Santana Lopez: Kitty is besties with Marley and Santana is besties with Rachel. Marley and Rachel don’t get along, so Kitty and Santana don’t get along. They’re also pretty loud and opinionated and rude, so they just don’t get along well. And, to just make it even worse, Santana is dating (well, “dating”) Sam, Kitty’s ex, and they started dating pretty much a day after Sam broke up with Kitty. Naturally, Kitty assumes Sam cheated on her with Santana, so she hates her guts even more now. Since Santana has promised not to out Sam, she hasn’t told Kitty the truth.

Jake Puckerman: Kitty drives Jake crazy, and the feeling is mutual. Kitty finds his whole “bad boy” schtick hilarious and fake as hell, and Jake feels the same way about her attempt at seeming pure. The two of them tend to disagree on everything, but as the two best dancers in glee club, they often get paired together for dances. And their chemistry? It’s off the charts. Maybe if Kitty stopped being so stuck-up and Jake stopped pretending to be some brooding badboy they could actually get along, and maybe even be more than friends. But for now, they just bicker and argue while Kitty goes off holding hands with Ryder.

#kitty wilde #not switched #o #f #of #c

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angelsaxis · 7 years

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Really long rant about Catholicism below-scroll fast

I've noticed that in general, Catholics are really, REALLY bad at trying to actually practice what they preach. I mean Catholicism as a whole in terms of what the ~doctrine~ is and what they teach as a culture. Doctrine says love everyone. Culture says love everyone BUT, Jews are wrong, Muslims are wrong, atheists may as well belong in insane asylums, and make really passive aggressive remarks to non-Catholic Christians about converting them (this was all from one teacher, guys). In the end, nobody is actually truly happy unless they're Catholic. I was taught that Catholicism is about love, but I also learned that the Church sold fake tickets to heaven for dead loved ones and dug up body parts and sold them as "saint relics" to make money (one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation). I was also taught that there were Catholic Churches during the Holocaust that refused to take in refugee Jews unless they converted. This was a religion I was meant to be proud of. I was taught that Catholicism was meant to be fair to both genders, but my school was so obviously sexist and in favor of boys and every little thing they did that I could never conflate "Catholic" with "equal". And of course there's the whole women priests thing and the flimsy arguments defending it. Catholic sex Ed is a joke. Catholics tried to sell Catholicism as a "community" to me, but anyone who wasn't interested was wrong, people who struggled with their faith were wrong, people who didn't adhere to every little rule are weak AND wrong. (there's ridiculous shit like prayers that have to be said at both 3 PM and 3. FUCKING. AM IN THE MORNING.) It was "don't judge, but also if you don't give us proof that you're going to church every sunday, were giving you a failing homework grade". It was "racism is over and the Church had nothing to do with imperialism." It was "Italians (read: white people) are the best". It was pointing out the black kids in Spanish class and saying "moreno/a!" at the top of your lungs to teach everyone that it essentially meant "dark". It was telling at girls every day about skirt length and treating them like small sexual beings at the age of twelve when the boys could come in with bleach stains and holes in their shirts and not have anything said to them. The doctrine says one thing while Catholics practice another, basically. Catholicism says "we base everything we do off the Bible" but then makes rules and laws based off of previous rules and laws that were made from some council that was inspired by some other council that was tangentially related to figuring out the Bible. Seriously--ask almost any question about birth control or IVF or sex and the FIRST thing that person will reference will likely be John Paul II's Theology of the Body (shitty sexist homophobic read of course). Any other questions will automatically source to Catholic-originated documents and pieces of text. The Bible is sourced last, always. I can't even say whether or not they READ the Bible. The Bible says "Mary was a virgin until she had Jesus" and "Jesus' brothers and sisters" and suddenly "until" in that instance is the same until in a sentence like "She was a virgin until she died". "Brothers and sisters?" No--fucking cousins for Christ's sakes. It's "take Jesus at his word" until Jesus says "give up your riches", then the obvious course of action would be to make masses unnecessarily expensive and have priest's vestments be word hundreds to thousands of dollars. Candles have to be at least 51% real beeswax. Specially designed Stained glass windows are a must. Instead of getting volunteers, you need an organ. Fucking cathedrals. And then when Jesus says "no divorce unless one of you cheats?" It's no divorce at all, even in that one case that Jesus specifically said it was okay. Is your spouse abusing you? No divorce. Does your spouse do heinous and horrible things? No divorce. Divorce is only allowed through a special process called an annulment, which can only be granted IF there was something wrong with the ORIGINAL state of your marriage--as in, if it wasn't valid to begin with (like your priest wasn't certified or one of you wasn't actually baptised). Otherwise, if you said your vows and consummated (another requirement), then there was nothing that could be done. And annulments are expensive and take YEARS to go through (one woman had to wait ten to have hers granted. She just gave up at one point and got married to someone else). Basically what I'm saying is it's a shit religion.

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

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Life Story Part 11

I don't think I've ever been happy for more than six months in my entire life since I was four or so. Is that normal? I don't know how to gauge that sort of thing because I really have nothing to compare it to. It seems normal to me, but that might just be because I am kind of fucked up in a way.

So back to the story. Everything that I had mentioned with my dad occasionally knocking me down to nothing was still happening. I was still getting picked on in Kendrick. I was still unpopular. I couldn't seem to manage to have a crush on any of the boys. I still drew on my papers, got sent to the offices. I remember the school lighting very well, and the creak of the boards under the school rugging.

My mother forgot my 11th birthday party three weekends in a row. Roxanne had chilled out about being mean to me at this time. She had decorated with a cake and streamers. After the third time we stopped expecting her to arrive. And when she did, she had just bought some stuff from the good will, some socks and a music box. We had moved out of the new place that we had rented, and we had taken up residence in this old house with a basement. It was a bit bigger in this place. I made the mistake one day of shaving my arms there. For some reason this memory sticks out to me. I was always told not to, that if I started I could never stop, but I wanted to see what would happen so I took that jump. The soft baby hairs were replaced by a forest of dark upright hairs. And now to this day I shave my arms.

It was disappointing and hurtful for my mother to forget my birthday so many times in a row, but it's also in a strange way relieving to know where you stand. I think my mom's absence made me more resilient when I got older and gave me a wider appreciation for nature to a degree which would be hard to explain at this juncture. Some kids with inactive parents pine and wonder if their parents care. I pretty much knew where my mother stood. Everyone was always hungover during the day, so we all had to tiptoe until four pm or so. David could wake her up sometimes. James eyes were always bloodshot and he was so high he couldn't tell what people were even saying to him half the time. He had smelled up this disgusting downstairs room up, and he him and my mom would watch a lot of 70's kung foo. I cannot imagine how gross it must have been to be them. To be drunk all the time, wasting what was left of their semi-middle age youth in that gross smelly room going nowhere being nothing and watching those dollar store movies. Spending the last of the divorce money.

Outside, there were two female cats that kept having baby kittens. I spent all my waking hours outside with those cats, until I felt like I was a cat myself. I remember growing to really understand that mother cats have a lot of depth, and they do each other solids a lot. Eventually, this one mother cat, when she was hungry or needed a break, trusted me so much with her kittens that she would do this communicative thing where she would give me this prolonged eye contact and I could read on her face that she was having me watch her kittens till she got back. I have met people who told me that cats cannot really communicate like this, but I know for a fact they do.

I also learned that male cats rape. It's one of those unfortunate elements in nature I guess. I really don't like it, and I think it might be in situations like this that give me a strong sense that there really is no god. Forget war. Why would any sensible god give male cats a barbwired dick? It seems like many animals do a somewhat voluntary exchange. But cats, an otherwise wonderful complex and naturally beautiful creature of elegance and grace, also have this fowl rape culture thing going on that is ingrained in their nature. What sense does this make? I mean, I might see it with insects or something, but why cats? I never liked it one bit. It bothered me so much that eventually I tried my best to stand guard and prevent the male cat from getting the female cats, who were already sickly from having had so many batches. And then one day, I went outside and he had one of the baby kittens bitten to the ground and he was raping this little baby. I know he probably could not help what was making him do this, but I was so infuriated. I ran up to him and I kicked him as hard as I could. I kind of considered the female cats like a family.

I eventually took one of the little female kittens home to father's with me, and I named her Pixie. I had her for a few years after that. Eventually, while my dad was on vacation when I was in 8th grade, she scratched one of my nephews. This made Roxanne's boyfriend at the time creepy angry, and he took her and dragged her to death in the back of his truck. I didn't know it had happened for a long time after that, but eventually Roxanne admitted this to me. She wasn't apart of it, and had only heard it after the fact. She had been afraid to tell me for some time. It makes me deeply sick in the stomach just thinking of that.

For a short time we had a dog as well. She was on the side of the road. Someone had dumped her because she was obviously a handful. She loved to get loose and roll in dead animal. We named her Angel. Eventually she ran away and never returned. I can only hope she found a good home.

I started going to Sunday school, since the church was a two minute walk from my house. I was never religious, but the mythology of Christianity was very interesting to me. I liked talking about the symbolic significance of every detail in the bible, and going over it in class. I also liked the fact that it was brutal, unfair, and rigid. I suppose I was supposed to like the main characters, including God, but I didn't, which made the entire thing all the more fascinating. I always felt frustrated after reading the bible texts. I don't know why people think that stuff is comforting. At best, it's profound enough to where you really have to think about what it means for modern society, and at worst, it really makes you question why anyone in their right mind is buying this stuff. I was also fascinated with the genealogical order of genesis. I used to be able to name off all the prophets from Adam down to King Solomon. I often times knew their wives, and even their handmaids.

Honestly, I was a little jealous of the bible. Here I was drawing these squeaky clean Alien girls in their late teens, dressed in pure fashion and having names like Paprika and Daffodil, and there were these gritty ugly characters who were always struggling with and and under the psychosis of a sky god lunatic who were much better. And yet it addressed human greed, order, jealousy, betrayal, forgiveness, and all those things that my alien girls completely failed to.

My mom decided to start sewing for awhile. She sewed me a decent Halloween hippie costume, perhaps to make up for missing my birthday so many times in a row. It was one of the few times in that many years time that I really spent any time with her. She taught me how to sew – kind of. I remember her telling me that she was tired of telling her I hated myself. I said I hated myself a loud every day just about. But she really could not say anything really. Everyone in the house confirmed I was annoying, weird, funny looking, and obviously forgettable enough to forget my birthday. My mom also decided that she and James were going to get married. The dresses she had in mind would be green she told me. That might have been why she got her sewing stuff out. My Halloween costume was good though, and it made a splash at school. She made things into patches, and she added flare to all my sleevings of my pants and shirt.

Overall though, I was increasingly frustrated with rage and self hatred. She made me mad one day. I don't remember the reason, but I think it was because David was spoiled, or I had been overlooked or mistreated in some way. I wish I knew why, but I don't really remember. I lost complete and total control. We had about 40 board games in the closet. I found myself screaming and crying in a way I didn't ordinarily. It felt like no matter what I did I failed and I wanted to destroy myself, but I didn't have the means or the bravery to go through with it, and I wanted to tear something apart. I took every single board game, and all their parts and I poured them all over the floor. The entire room was covered in board game pieces. It was complete madness. Naturally, this didn't make anyone happy with me in the least. Everyone was told to ignore everything I said and did to make me feel like a fool. They told me to clean it up, but I wouldn't. I didn't feel good about what I had done either. The monopoly man and the Plum dude from Candy land looked up at me accusingly. Eventually James came in and had his one little speech of things that he ever said to me for the four years I knew him. He said in this stoned hippie voice 'God man. How could you do this to your mother man?... after all your dad did to her, and now you wanna be just like him... it makes me sick... it just makes me so sick you would be so uncool. Your mother does so much for you and this is how you treat her? What's wrong with you?' and a tangent of other rhetorical nonsense.

David had grown so spoiled that I also was having troubles keeping calm in his presence. He started being very defiant and aggressive towards me and Allison and my mother. He was mean. I would find myself getting so angry, I would turn around and smack him in the face. Now, to be clear, I would not do this now. I was eleven, and this was kind of how I understood things were to be done. I was trying very hard to discipline David since he wasn't getting disciplined from my mother or father. I was so angry back then, and I didn't even have a clue on how to handle my own feelings. My mother would scream and cry and I remember she had a fight in front of the house, telling my dad over and over 'SHE'S GOING TO KILL SOMEONE DAVE!! SHE'S EVENTUALLY GOING TO KILL OUR SON!' My father didn't see me as the murdering type, and he seemed pleased that she was displeased in a postdivorce sort of way.

The most pivotal moment in this cat-house – as I have grown up calling it, though it isn't what someone might think it is by that name, was one night when I stayed up very late to watch Kiki's Delivery Service with Allison, who was four at the time. Allison had never stayed up past midnight before, and I wanted to keep her up to see what she was like. She seemed very loopy. She was babbling and talking about something or other about kitties or the movie, something a small child might talk about, and I was listening to her for fun. Suddenly, I started hearing this weird crashing noise in the other room. There was no door to that room. The windows did not open. Nobody was in that room. It was David's room theoretically, though he actually slept with my mom most of the time. I tried to ignore it, but I heard it again. It sounded like someone had picked up one of David's toys and threw it. It might have been my fear and paranoia at that point, but I felt like something in the house had gotten really wrong somehow. I didn't want to scare Allison though. If she was scared, that would make me even more frightened. She heard the noises too, but I was trying to pretend that they were not worthy of consideration so she didn't start to scream

As I sat there, what I suddenly saw blew me away and I could barely believe I was seeing it. This man figure walked through the hallway. Everything looked mostly normal, and then he just kind of moved through that part of the house, past the doorway where I could see him wandering past. He seemed to be made out of light, and I could not see his features. And then he was gone. I was beyond panicked. I was ready to start screaming and crying, but I was too afraid to even do that. I was too afraid to move. Allison seemed to have missed it. I was paralyzed for a few minutes, afraid to do anything. Nothing else strange happened, and the house seemed to return to a normal feeling, though I was still at this point so scared I was crying. Eventually I got my mother up, sure that she would see the significance. But she didn't seem to care. She was mostly annoyed that I woke her. I forced her to sleep upstairs on the couch anyway.

As an adult, and a skeptic, I can not be 100% certain what I saw was accurate. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me? Allison confirmed for a fact that she heard the noises that I had heard, but she didn't see anything. It's possible, and not at all out of the realm of possibility that I might have been so scared by the initial noises that my brain made up something that wasn't there. I can never really know anything anyway now though, because the memory is a flexible unstructured thing. I generally don't go over this memory much anymore because every time you go over a memory, you change that memory. I haven't thought about a lot of these situations in years actually. I trust my memory a little better than some though. Part of the reason for this is that I have generally always written everything down, even when I was a kid. So I would memorize the words, or the story itself apart from my direct memory of it, but associated as well. Which definitely creates memory discrepancies of it's own, but at the same time it solidifies the story somewhat. All I can really do is try to be honest. And honestly, I felt with the entire fiber of my being that I had seen a ghost.

Anyway, until another sleepless night occurs.

If you want to read my life story so far, here are the previous parts.

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

#text

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minihappybaker-blog · 7 years

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My Story of recovering from Anxiety and Binge Eating Disorder: Part 2- Greedy

It's been a few weeks since my first post. The reason for that is that it is harder than I imagined to write about something so personal. I want to start this chapter by saying that I don't want my story to come across as a 'poor me' story at all. I am extremely lucky that I have a wonderful family, awesome friends new and old and a very supportive husband who pushed me to get help when I needed it most. I just want to tell my story as honestly as possible because I'm proud of how far I've come and because just maybe someone might come across this who is going through some of the same stuff and it may help. Xx

For as long as I can remember I have used food to comfort me. It's easy to see that now that I have an understanding of my illness (chronic anxiety disorder) but at the time I had no idea my eating patterns were in any way linked to anything else. As far as I was aware, I was just greedy. I liked food too much and that was something to be ashamed of and hidden.

I had always been a very nervous and anxious child. My mum tells me that when I was very small (maybe 5 or 6) I was terrified of being left on my own at night and to get me to go to sleep I made her recite a list of various foods, bread, milk, cheese etc. The list had to be in the same order every night otherwise there was no chance of me going to sleep. I'm sure lots of kids have similar bedtime rituals however illogical they may be and I'm not suggesting that there was anything especially unusual about mine. I just think it's interesting, knowing what I know now, that even as far back as that it was a list of foods that soothed me to sleep.

I wont say that I had a difficult childhood because that would be unfair to people who aren't fortunate enough to have the things many of us take for granted. I had loving parents and I never went without food or clothes, but I do think it's fair to say that for whatever reason, I found childhood difficult. My dad was well known in our small town as he was the local vicar. In a small, working class town in northern England, we were painfully middle class and not just that, but we were religious. I was different to my classmates and I felt it acutely.

While my friends mums read magazines and listened to pop music, my parents read books and listened to classical music and church hymns. Conversation in our house often revolved around church politics, sermons or Sunday school. While my friends parents took them on foreign holidays or to holiday parks at the beach, my parents took us to cottages in the countryside or occasionally to Christian retreats. Our holidays were spent going to look at stately homes, museums or churches. My friends went to theme parks and amusement arcades.

I went to church on Sundays while my friends went on shopping trips or were allowed to lounge around until midday in their pyjamas. My friends lived in 2 or 3 bedroom semi detached houses that were pleasantly decorated and cosily furnished. We lived in a large detached 5 bedroom house provided by the church that we didn't own which always felt draughty and slightly shabby.

We also spoke differently. I quickly learned that it was not 'cool' to use the long words I heard at home or not to have the same broad northern accent that my friends had. I didn't understand the swear words they sometimes used and quickly tried to learn them to get up to speed. I was desperate to fit in, to be 'normal'. Being different was the worst thing in the world in my eyes.

Although I can remember feeling like this in primary school, the need to be 'normal' was amplified massively when I started secondary school. My parents were keen for me and my siblings to go to the best school available to us and this meant that they scoured the local league tables and I was sent to a school in a different catchment area to my primary school. This was unusual in my town where the vast majority of kids simply went to the nearest school. This meant that starting secondary school was especially nerve wracking for me as I knew very few people. I soon realised I had the wrong shoes, coat, schoolbag etc. Girls were suddenly talking about kissing boys, something I had no idea was supposed to be on my radar already. I can remember feeling desperately self conscious and as though every day was an effort to imitate the other girls to mould myself into one of them or to not say or do anything that would mark myself out as 'different' or 'uncool'.

I was a chameleon. I played the part of being the same as everyone else. I dumbed myself down so I wouldn't appear posh or 'swotty'. My accent became far more pronounced than my brother and sisters as I subconsciously mimicked the people around me. I desperately studied the latest pop music (something that my parents had no interest in) and tried hard to learn the words to songs that everyone else knew. Even a conversation about a film that everyone else had seen was stressful to me as I pretended I had seen it too for fear that I would be outed as weird or different if I admitted to not having seen it. I pretended to be working class just like my friends. When I heard things that shocked me I pretended not to be shocked. I told no-one about going to church on Sundays or being in the church choir.

I'm sure lots of people have a similar experience at school. For me, putting on a mask didn't end when I left school. Throughout university and my work life, I played a part. I was what I thought people around me wanted me to be. This wasn't a conscious decision for me, I wasn't trying to deceive anyone, it was simply to only way I knew to how to make friends. It made it easier for everyone if I was 'normal'.

Pretending to be someone you're not even for a few hours is exhausting. Imagine doing that for 15 years. I might sound dramatic but I can honestly say that when I met my husband 7 years ago when I was 24, I felt this overwhelming sense of relief. Here was someone who had seen through my façade straight away and wanted to get to know the real me. For the first time I could remember I felt like I could relax and be myself with him. I felt like I'd been holding my breath for years and hadn't even realised and I could suddenly let it out.

When you're living this way you are constantly on edge. Looking back now my anxiety definitely stemmed from feeling different and desperately trying to fit in. You get used to living on a knife edge and that becomes your normal. Food, very early on became a way for me to escape the constant effort to be someone else and gave me some comfort. Meals and treats became the highlights of my day, the only time I could fully enjoy something without feeling like I was doing it wrong.

One of my first memories of properly binging was when I was about 12. My dad had just let me start walking home on my own rather than getting picked up. This was very important to me because none of my friends got picked up from school so I felt that me getting picked up was another sign of how different our family was. Even though I lived much further away from the school than my friends my dad reluctantly let me walk home. The walk took nearly an hour but I didn't care, I was thrilled to be one step closer to being just like my friends.

I can remember every day a feeling of a weight being lifted off my shoulders when I passed the point of my journey when there were no other schoolkids walking my route. The pressures of keeping up with everyone else melting away until tomorrow. There was a post office at about this point and I remember going in and spending about £1.50 on sweets. My lunch money was £2/ day so I quickly worked out that if I just had a portion of chips for lunch all day, I could keep the rest of my money for my walk home and buy as many sweets as I could with the change and eat them in secret on my way home. I can remember sitting in my classes dreaming and planning the sweets I would by on my way home and how I could get as much as possible for my money. I would eat them secretly from my pocket on the rest of my walk home and then leave the wrappers in my pocket so that my parents wouldn't see them in the bin. I remember then telling my dad I was starving when I got home so I needed a snack before tea. While I was making a sandwich I would quietly close the kitchen door, stand on a chair so I could reach the cupboard where we kept crisps and biscuits. In our house you were supposed to ask for a treat and not just help yourself as most of my friends were allowed to. I would quickly sneak a handful of whatever was there, chocolate mini rolls, Bakewell tarts, penguin bars or something similar, slip them into my pocket and eat them sneakily after my sandwich when no-one was looking.

I also remember at Easter and Christmas or any time when us kids were given chocolate, I would eat mine piece by piece in one go in secret until I felt sick. Because of my dad's job as the local vicar it meant that a lot of parishioners wanted to give the vicars kids chocolates and treats so this was a lot of chocolate. My brother and sister's supply would last for weeks and mine would be gone within a day or two so I would steal their goodies when they were asleep. I can remember thinking they obviously didn't want it very much if they hadn't eaten it. On more than one occasion my sister ended up in tears because someone had eaten her favourite Easter egg. I never admitted it was me even though everyone knew I was guilty.

These behaviours are probably not too unusual and I'm sure most people snuck treats from the kitchen at some point in their childhood. But for me I can now look back and see that as social anxiety tightened it's grip on my life, food became the only way I knew to deal with life. Food brought me comfort but it also started me on a lifelong cycle of comfort followed by guilt and shame which would impact every part of my life. It would cause me to fail my 2nd year of my degree course twice, end up in an abusive relationship for over 2 years and to fall into a deep pit of depression. It gripped me in a cycle of alternately starving myself and then binging and eventually compulsively exercising and trying to make myself sick to 'undo the damage" I had caused. It also lead me to drink heavily and take a lot of drugs in an effort to escape myself but food was always my drug of choice.

Of course as the child who wasn't even overweight, sneaking treats from the kitchen cupboard, I had no idea that my behaviour was setting myself up for an addiction to food that would take over my life until I reached my 30's. I had no idea that the cravings I felt were actually due to a chemical imbalance of serotonin in my brain. To me I was just greedy and even before I had any awareness of my body or the label 'fat' I knew it was something to be very ashamed of.

Thanks for reading. I'm so excited to be sharing my story now that I have come out the other side. I feel so fortunate to be living the life I am now and I'm a firm believer that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Looking forward to sharing the next chapters and sharing my story of recovery.

xxx

#binge eating #anxiety #recovery #my story #nodiet #weightloss #health #depression #help #strong #courage #happiness

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canaryatlaw · 3 years

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okay, well today was pretty good. My alarm went off at 7:45 and I did not want to get up, but I dragged my ass out of bed anyway and got ready for church. transit was a bit of a mess, the bus somehow got really delayed so I just hopped off where I usually switch to the train and ubered the rest of the way, which got me there only a little late, so that was good. the sermon was the second week of their series called "A Bigger Table," I missed last week's episode and it hasn't been on their podcast feed yet, so I wasn't totally filled in with what they were talking about, but I was familiar with the bigger table language, mostly from one of my favorite Christian authors, Rachel Held Evans (who tragically passed away in 2019 at the age of 37, leaving behind a 2 year old and an infant a couple months old...it's heartbreakingly sad), who often used it in her writing. I really can't underestimate how big of an impact she had on Christianity, especially for young people. She changed the game for so many people, with the radical idea that we make more room at the "table" and stop turning people away because they don't meet the requirements of what we think Christians can be. She was very strongly LGBT, and I know she had a huge impact on young LGBT Christians who had felt completely traumatized by the church, and letting them know there's still hope, that just because people who are full of faults are misrepresenting God. This was a slightly different message though, because it was mainly about how to disagree with people, on issues of faith or otherwise, without being a (fill in the blank with your descriptor of choice). And it was somewhat challenging for me, because most of the church is very progressive and I know he mostly meant the message to be aimed at those who attend who aren't so much, but I do know it goes both ways, and that I have been very judgmental about Christians who do not believe the same way that I do, and there are obviously some issues I will always stand up for. the table part though, he was saying the "main course" in the middle of the table is the very important parts of scripture, the whole God thing and core beliefs, and the other things are "sides," and too often we let the sides dictate who we will or won't sit with when that's really missing the point entirely. my pastor went as far as saying that they loved the diversity of the church, from race to age to sexual orientation, and while it's not a secret they're pro-LGBT, that was the first time I heard it from the pulpit I think, so that made me happy. after the service I was in with the babies for the second one, which has ended up being a lot less crowded than the first, which is how I like to serve because it's a lot less chaotic with less babies running around. we ended up with 2 today, both very cute, so it was a nice time. after that we were doing a kids ministry "summer bbq" that ended up being inside lol but was still good, and they kind of updated us on where they're going with things. we've had somewhat of an issue of keeping a head of the kids ministry in place, we were talking about it today and since I joined the church in 2015, almost 6 years ago, we're now on our 5th ministry head, so it's basically been a new one every year which has made things hard, but I like our new ones, they had both been hired like a week before everything shut down which of course changed everything, so they started doing youtube videos for the kids that are lots of fun and have a ton of them out there on youtube now, which is really cute. they're heading into the summer kids camp stuff now so they're prepping all that, and looking forward they said that halloween was on a Sunday, and they were going to use it to launch a "harry potter style" program, and like, I can't even tell you how happy that makes me, having grown up in a church that immediately condemned HP without bothering to do as much as read a word, and of course also insisting that celebrating Halloween in any form is innately evil, so the combination of those two things made me really happy.

I did tell them at the end I have a BA in Theatre and would totally be down to help them with videos and such, so we'll see where that goes. By the time I got out it was around 2, and we were supposed to see an apartment fairly far north at 3:15, and I considered taking an uber but fares were up and it would've been $40, so I said fuck that and just took the train to the bus, but it ended up taking forever and I ended up being late, then when I got there I realized I fucked up the address (I managed to type in 3917 as the house number instead of 3719) so I told them to just go for it and I'll walk down there. I got outside right when they were coming out of the building, but the agent wanted to show us the other unit they had available that was considerably bigger and nicer, definitely a strong possibility, the only snag being that it's not available until 8/1, and friend's lease ends 7/15, and we've discussed that she can absolutely live on my couch for two weeks if we have to, because she already has a lot of stress about the move so I'm trying to minimize that as much as I can. but yeah, it was really pretty, so we'll see. once we left we made a mcdonalds stop and sat for a bit eating before heading home. once home I watched the last episode of Panic, which had a highly satisfying conclusion, so high marks there. after that I didn't really have anything to do or watch and was feeling tired, and I had some time to spare so I laid down for like an hour or so, probably took me longer to fall asleep than actually get to sleep, as that tends to be my issue with naps. but I got up in time to watch Legends, which was a fine episode I guess, I do like that we got more of Sara and her plot than we have been, and I thought the Ava clone stuff with Gary was really funny, it was just overall kind of meh. I liked the Batwoman episode, it had some really sweet moments that I just wanted to like breakdown and cry haha so I'll have plenty of things to discuss on the podcast this week. after that I'd since run out of shows, so I logged into disneyplus for the first time since I split an account with my sister like two weeks ago and watched the first episode of Loki. It definitely had Legends vibes, but that was expected, so we'll see where this goes. after that I watched Seinfeld for a bit before getting in the shower and getting ready for bed, and yeah that's about it. It's 1:30 am currently so I really need to go to sleep, so I'll end this here. Goodnight friends. Hope your Monday doesn't suck.

#daily journal #June 2021

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mcdouglecompany-blog · 5 years

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Religion: Bound by Loving Ties. Jeffrey R. Holland. ACU Sunday Series.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland/religion-bound-loving-ties/

True religion, the tie that binds us to God and to each other, not only seals our family relationships in eternity but also heightens our delight in those family experiences while in mortality.

One of my BYU professors of yesteryear—actually quite a few yesteryears—was Edward L. Hart, who wrote the text of a much-loved hymn in the Church. The second verse of that hymn, Our Savior’s Love, reads this way:

The Spirit, voice

Of goodness, whispers to our hearts

A better choice

Than evil’s anguished cries.

Loud may the sound

Of hope ring till all doubt departs,

And we are bound

To him by loving ties.1

An omnibus word familiar to us all that summarizes these “loving ties” to our Heavenly Father is religion. Scholars debate the etymology of that word just as scholars and laymen alike debate almost everything about the subject of religion, but a widely accepted account of its origin suggests that our English word religion comes from the Latin word religare, meaning “to tie” or, more literally, “to re-tie.”2 In that root syllable of ligare you can hear the echo of a word such as ligature, which is what a doctor uses to sew us up if we have a wound.

So, for our purpose today, religion is that which unites what was separated or holds together that which might be torn apart—an obvious need for us, individually and collectively, given the trials and tribulations we all experience here in mortality.

What is equally obvious is that the great conflict between good and evil, right and wrong, the moral and the immoral—conflict that the world’s great faiths and devoted religious believers have historically tried to address—is being intensified in our time and is affecting an ever-wider segment of our culture. And let there be no doubt that the outcome of this conflict truly matters, not only in eternity but in everyday life as well. Will and Ariel Durant put the issue squarely as they reflected on what they called “the lessons of history.” “There is no significant example in history,” they said, “of [any] society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”3

If that is true—and surely we feel it is—then we should be genuinely concerned over the assertion that the single most distinguishing feature of modern life is the rise of secularism with its attendant dismissal of, cynicism toward, or marked disenchantment with religion.4 How wonderfully prophetic our beloved Elder Neal A. Maxwell was—clear back in 1978—when he said in a BYU devotional:

We shall see in our time a maximum . . . effort . . . to establish irreligion as the state religion. [These secularists will use] the carefully preserved . . . freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as [they reject] the value . . . of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.

Continuing on, he said:

Your discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily discounted. . . . This new irreligious imperialism [will seek] to disallow certain . . . opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions.5

My goodness! That forecast of turbulent religious weather issued nearly forty years ago is steadily being fulfilled virtually every day somewhere in the world in the minimization of—or open hostility toward—religious practice, religious expression, and, even in some cases, the very idea of religious belief itself. Of course there is often a counterclaim that while some in the contemporary world may be less committed to religion per se, nevertheless many still consider themselves “spiritual.” But, frankly, that palliative may not offer much in terms of collective moral influence in society if “spirituality” means only gazing at the stars or meditating on a mountaintop.

Indeed, many of our ancestors in generations past lived, breathed, walked, and talked in a world full of “spirituality,” but that clearly included concern for the state of one’s soul, an attempt to live a righteous life, some form of Church attendance, and participation in that congregation’s charitable service in the community. Yes, in more modern times individuals can certainly be “spiritual” in isolation, but we don’t live in isolation. We live as families, friends, neighbors, and nations. That calls for ties that bind us together and bind us to the good. That is what religion does for our society, leading the way for other respected civic and charitable organizations that do the same.

This is not to say that individual faith groups in their many different forms and with their various conflicting beliefs are all true and equally valuable; obviously they cannot be. Nor does it say that institutional religions collectively—churches, if you will—have been an infallible solution to society’s challenges; they clearly have not been. But if we speak of religious faith as among the highest and most noble impulses within us, then to say that so-and-so is a “religious person” or that such and such a family “lives their religion” is intended as a compliment. Such an observation would, as a rule, imply that these people try to be an influence for good, try to live to a higher level of morality than they might otherwise have done, and have tried to help hold the sociopolitical fabric of their community together.

Well, thank heaven for that, because the sociopolitical fabric of a community wears a little thin from time to time—locally, nationally, or internationally—and a glance at the evening news tells us this is one of those times. My concern is that when it comes to binding up that fabric in our day, the ligatures of religion are not being looked to in quite the way they once were. My boyhood friend and distinguished legal scholar Elder Bruce C. Hafen framed it even more seriously than that:

Democracy’s core values of civilized religion . . . are now under siege—partly because of violent criminals who claim to have religious motives; partly because the wellsprings of stable social norms once transmitted naturally by religion and marriage-based family life are being polluted . . . ; and partly because the advocates of some causes today have marshaled enough political and financial capital to impose by intimidation, rather than by reason, their anti-religion strategy of “might makes right.”6

There are many colliding social and cultural forces in our day that contribute to this anti-religious condition, which I am not going to address in these remarks. But I do wish to make the very general observation that part of this shift away from respect for traditional religious beliefs—and even the right to express those religious beliefs—has come because of a conspicuous shift toward greater and greater preoccupation with the existential circumstances of this world and less and less concern for—or even belief in—the circumstances, truths, and requirements of the next.

Call it secularism or modernity or the technological age or existentialism on steroids—whatever you want to call such an approach to life, we do know a thing or two about it. Most important, we know that it cannot answer the yearning questions of the soul, nor is it substantial enough to sustain us in times of moral crises.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, formerly Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth for twenty-two years, a man whom I admire very much, has written:

What the secularists forgot is that Homo sapiens is the meaning-seeking animal. If there is one thing the great institutions of the modern world do not do, it is to provide meaning.7

We are so fortunate—and grateful—that modern technology gives us unprecedented personal freedom, access to virtually unlimited knowledge, and communication capability beyond anything ever known in this world’s history, but neither technology nor its worthy parent science can give us much moral guidance as to how to use that freedom, where to benefit from that knowledge, or what the best purpose of our communication should be. It has been principally the world’s great faiths—religion, those ligatures to the Divine we have been speaking of—that do that, that speak to the collective good of society, that offer us a code of conduct and moral compass for living, that help us exult in profound human love, and that strengthen us against profound human loss. If we lose consideration of these deeper elements of our mortal existence—divine elements, if you will—we lose much, some would say most, of that which has value in life.

The legendary German sociologist Max Weber once described such a loss of religious principle in society as being stuck in an “iron cage” of disbelief.8 And that was in 1904! Noting even in his day the shift toward a more luxurious but less value-laden society, a society that was giving away its priceless spiritual and religious roots, Weber said in 1918 that “not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness.”9

But of course not everyone agrees that religion does or should play such an essential role in civilized society. Recently the gloves have come off in the intellectual street fighting being waged under the banner of the “New Atheists.” Figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens are some of the stars in what is, for me, a dim firmament. These men are as free to express their beliefs—or, in their case, disbeliefs—as any other, but we feel about them what one Oxford don said about a colleague: “On the surface, he’s profound, but deep down, he’s [pretty] superficial.”10

Rabbi Sacks said that surely it is mind-boggling to think that a group of bright secular thinkers in the twenty-first century really believe that if they can show, for example, “that the universe is more than 6,000 years old” or that a rainbow can be explained other “than as a sign of God’s covenant after the Flood,” that somehow such stunning assertions will bring all of “humanity’s religious beliefs . . . tumbling down like a house of cards and we would be left with a serene world of rational non-believers,”11—serene except perhaps when they whistle nervously past the local graveyard.

A much harsher assessment of this movement came from theologian David Bentley Hart, who wrote:

Atheism that consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness, is as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism.12

We are grateful that a large segment of the human population does have some form of religious belief, and in that sense we have not yet seen a “polar night of icy darkness”13 envelop us. But no one can say we are not seeing some glaciers on the move.

Charles Taylor, in his book with the descriptive title A Secular Age, described the cold dimming of socioreligious light. The shift of our time, he said, has been

from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is [only] one human possibility among [many] others.14

Charles Taylor also wrote that now, in the twenty-first century, “belief in God is no longer axiomatic.”15 Indeed, in some quarters it is not even a convenient option, it is “an embattled option.”16

But faith has almost always been “an embattled option” and has almost always been won—and kept—at a price. Indeed, many who have walked away from faith have found the price higher than they intended to pay, such as the man who tore down the fence surrounding his new property only to learn that his next-door neighbor kept a pack of particularly vicious Rottweilers.

David Brooks hinted at this but put it much too mildly when he wrote in his New York Times column, “Take away [the] rich social fabric [that religion has always been,] and what you are left with [are] people who are uncertain about who they really are.”17 My point about “too mildly” is that a rich social fabric, important as that is, says absolutely nothing about the moral state of one’s soul, redemption from physical death, overcoming spiritual alienation from God, the perpetuation of marriage and the family unit into eternity, and so forth—if anyone is considering such issues in a postmodern world.

In fact, religion has been the principal influence—not the only one, but the principal one—that has kept Western social, political, and cultural life moral, to the extent that these have been moral. And I shudder at how immoral life might have been—then and now—without that influence. Granted, religion has no monopoly on moral action, but centuries of religious belief, including institutional church- or synagogue- or mosque-going, have clearly been preeminent in shaping our notions of right and wrong. Journalist William Saletan put it candidly: “Religion is the vehicle through which most folks learn and practice morality.”18

I am stressing such points this morning because I have my eye on that future condition about which Elder Maxwell warned—a time when if we are not careful we may find religion at the margins of society rather than at the center of it, when religious beliefs and all the good works those beliefs have generated may be tolerated privately but not admitted or at least certainly not encouraged publicly. The cloud the prophet Elijah saw in the distance no larger than “a man’s hand”19 is that kind of cloud on the political horizon today. So we speak of it by way of warning, remembering the storm into which Elijah’s small cloud developed.20

But whatever the trouble along the way, I am absolutely certain how this all turns out. I know the prophecies and the promises given to the faithful, and I know our collective religious heritage—all the Western world’s traditional religious beliefs, varied as they are—is remarkably strong and resilient. The evidence of that religious heritage is all around us, including at great universities, or at least it once was—and fortunately still is at BYU.

Just to remind us how rich the ambiance of religion is in Western culture and because this is Campus Education Week, let me mention just a few of the great religiously influenced non-LDS pieces of literature that I met while pursuing my education on this campus fifty years ago, provincial and dated as my list is. I do so while stressing how barren our lives would be had there not been the freedom for writers, artists, and musicians to embrace and express religious values or discuss religious issues.

I begin by noting the majestic literary—to say nothing of the theological—influence of the King James Bible, what one of the professors I knew later at Yale called “the sublime summit of literature in [the] English [language],”21 the greatest single influence on the world’s creative literature for the last 400 years. I think also of what is probably the most widely read piece of English literature other than the Bible: John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

Five decades after I first read them, I am still moved by the magnificence of two of the greatest poems ever written by the hand of man: Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Certainly the three greatest American novels I read at BYU were Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—each in its own way a religious text and all more meaningful in my reading of them now than when I was a student on this campus so long ago. So too it is with my encounter with Russian writers, especially Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy.

Then—to name only a handful—you add British giants like George Herbert, John Donne, William Blake, and Robert Browning; throw in Americans like Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor; then an American who became British, like T. S. Eliot, and a Briton who became American, like W. H. Auden; and for good luck throw in an Irishman like W. B. Yeats and you have biblical imagery, religious conflict, and wrenching questions of sin, society, and salvation on virtually every page you turn.

Having mentioned a tiny bit of the religiously related literature I happened to encounter as a student, I now note an equally tiny bit of the contribution that religious sensibility has provoked in the heart of the visual artist and the soul of the exultant musician. [An audiovisual presentation was shown.]

Brothers and sisters, my testimony this morning, as one observer recently wrote, is that “over the long haul, religious faith has proven itself the most powerful and enduring force in human history.”22 Roman Catholic scholar Robert Royal made the same point, reaffirming that for many, “religion remains deep, widespread, and persistent, to the surprise and irritation of those who claimed to have cast aside [religious] illusion”23—to those, I might add, who underestimated the indisputable power of faith.

The indisputable power of faith. The most powerful and enduring force in human history. The influence for good in the world. The link between the highest in us and our highest hopes for others. That is why religion matters. Voices of religious faith have elevated our vision, deepened our human conversation, and strengthened both our personal and collective aspirations since time began. How do we even begin to speak of what Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni have given us? Or of what Peter, James, John, the Apostle Paul, Joseph Smith, and Thomas S. Monson mean to us?

It is impossible to calculate the impact that prophets and apostles have had on us, but, putting them in a special category of their own, we can still consider the world-shaping views and moral force that have come to us from a Martin Luther or a John Calvin or a John Wesley in earlier times, or from a Billy Graham or a Pope Francis or a Dalai Lama in our current age. In this audience today we are partly who we are because some 450 years ago, men like Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, being burned at the stake in Oxford, called out to one another that they were lighting such a religious fire in England that it would never be put out in all the world. Later William Wilberforce applied just such Christian conviction to abolishing the slave trade in Great Britain. As an ordained minister, Martin Luther King Jr. continued the quest for racial and civil justice through religious eloquence at the pulpit and in the street. George Washington prayed at Valley Forge, and Abraham Lincoln’s most cherished volume in his library, which he read regularly, was his Bible—out of which he sought to right a great national wrong and from which, in victory, he called for “malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”24

So the core landscape of history has been sketched by the pen and brush and word of those who invoke a Divine Creator’s involvement in our lives and who count on the ligatures of religion to bind up our wounds and help us hold things together.

Speaking both literally and figuratively of a recurring feature on that landscape, Will Durant wrote:

These [church] steeples, everywhere pointing upward, ignoring despair and lifting hope, these lofty city spires, or simple chapels in the hills—they rise at every step from the earth to the sky; in every village of every nation on the globe they challenge doubt and invite weary hearts to consolation. Is it all a vain delusion? Is there nothing beyond life but death, and nothing beyond death but decay? We cannot know. But as long as men suffer these steeples will remain.25

Of course, those of us who are believers have very specific convictions about what we can know regarding the meaning of those ubiquitous church steeples.

In that spirit let me conclude with my heartfelt apostolic witness of truths I do know regarding the ultimate gift true religion provides us. I have been focusing on the social, political, and cultural contributions that religion has provided us for centuries, but I testify that true religion—the gospel of Jesus Christ—gives us infinitely more than that; it gives us “peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come,”26 as the scripture phrases it.

True religion brings understanding of and loyalty to our Father in Heaven and His uncompromised love for every one of His spirit children—past, present, and future. True religion engenders in us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and hope in His Resurrection. It encourages love, forbearance, and forgiveness in our interactions with one another, as He so magnanimously demonstrated them in His.

True religion, the tie that binds us to God and to each other, not only seals our family relationships in eternity but also heightens our delight in those family experiences while in mortality. Well beyond all the civic, social, and cultural gifts religion gives us is the mercy of a loving Father and Son who conceived and carried out the atoning mission of that Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, suturing up that which was torn, bonding together that which was broken, healing that which was ill or imperfect, “proclaim[ing] liberty to the captives, and . . . opening . . . the prison to them that are bound.”27

Because my faith, my family, my beliefs, and my covenants—in short, my religion—mean everything to me, I thank my Father in Heaven for religion and pray for the continued privilege to speak of it so long as I shall live. May we think upon the religious heritage that has been handed down to us—at an incalculable price in many instances—and in so remembering not only cherish that heritage more fervently but live the religious principles we say we want to preserve. Only in the living of our religion will the preservation of it have true meaning. It is in that spirit that we seek the good of our fellow men and women and work toward the earthly kingdom of God rolling forth, so that the heavenly kingdom of God may come.

May our religious privileges be cherished, preserved, and lived, binding us to God and to each other until that blessed millennial day comes, I earnestly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Jeffrey R. Holland was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional address was given on 16 August 2016 during BYU Campus Education Week.

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iprayunceasingly-blog · 5 years

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Full text of Pope Francis' in-flight press conference from Panama

New Post has been published on https://pray-unceasingly.com/catholic-living/catholic-news/full-text-of-pope-francis-in-flight-press-conference-from-panama/

Full text of Pope Francis' in-flight press conference from Panama

Aboard the papal plane, Jan 28, 2019 / 07:52 am (CNA).- Please read below for CNA's full transcript of the Pope's July 28 in-flight press conference from Panama City to Rome:

Alessandro Gisotti, interim director of the Holy See Press Office: Good evening! Holy Father, we can still hear in our ears the cry of “La Juventud del Papa” [Ed. note: a chant in Spanish translated to “The Young People of the Pope”], the Youth of Jesus Christ, as Monsignor Ulloa said, this great joy, these intense days, which nevertheless gave you so much energy. And, I believe that we have all seen in your face so much joy, the joy of this meeting, as well as the joy of the youth.

I brought something that I think many of the journalists here know about. This will not be a document that enters the magisterium of the Pope, but it is a document that you care so much about. This here is a song written by a girl from Honduras, Marta Avila, whose image I gave you yesterday, and this song is practically a song against bullying, which was a bit like the meeting with Scholas Occurrentes. This is to say that there was also the element of pain of these young people, as well as that of joy that we have seen on many occasions. I just want to say one image that struck me a lot, Holy Father, when you passed with the popemobile and said goodbye, I saw so many young people, perhaps for a single moment, embraced each other after greeting you. This touched me, the sharing of joy: that is, young people who hugged each other after seeing you even just for a moment, and this is perhaps a lesson for us adults. When young people are happy, they share joy, they don't keep it to themselves. This is something I wanted to share with you and the journalists. Here, Holy Father, you also had – among the many surprises that you had in these days – a meeting with UNICEF in the nunciature, just in the last moments before your departure. I don't know if you want to say a few words before giving the floor to the journalists for questions and before greeting them. Pope Francis: Good evening, and then rest well because certainly everyone is tired after such an intense trip. Thank you for your work. Also for me, there were things I did not imagine, surprises, like this one that Gisotti said of the 16-year-old girl from Honduras, a victim of bullying, who sang with a beautiful voice and who wrote this song. Then the meeting before leaving the nunciature with people from the UNICEF of Central America, some testimonies of two young people and then those who work there. I heard things that touch the heart…It was an intense trip! You have the floor!

Gisotti: This is a trip that has many journeys within it, so please stay within the theme of this great voyage that has represented the world through the young people who were present. Obviously, the first word goes to the local press from Panama. Edwin Cabrera Uribe of Radio Panama will ask you two questions on behalf of the whole group of journalists from Panama. He will ask you one question, then after your answer another question. Thank you, Edwin.

Edwin Cabrera Uribe, Radio Panama: On behalf of the six Panamanian colleagues, the journey you gave to the Panamanian people is very big. You spoke to the volunteers about the fact that they have lived a mission. They know how the heart beats when you live a mission. What was your mission for the Central American WYD?

Pope Francis: My mission in a World Youth Day is the mission of Peter, which is to confirm in our faith. And this is not done with cold commands and orders but by letting oneself be touched by the heart and responding to what comes to you. I do not conceive, because I live it like this in me, I find it hard to think that someone can accomplish a mission only with the head. To fulfill a mission you have to feel it, and when you feel it, it strikes you. Life strikes you. Thoughts strike you.

At the airport, I was greeting the president and they brought me a child, a nice little boy… such a child… They told me that [when] this boy was crossing the Colombian border his mother died and he was left alone. He must be about 5 years old. He is from Africa but they don't know what country, because he doesn't speak English, Portuguese or French, but only his tribal language. They adopted him. He was a very lively child, he moved very well. It's the abuse of a boy abandoned by life because his mother died there, the policeman handed him over to the authorities to be taken care of. This is like a slap in the face and makes the mission take on color. The mission involves me. Maybe because I am… and it comes from inside me. I tell young people what they have to do in life they have to do by walking and using the three languages: head, heart and hands. Three harmonious languages, so that they do what they feel and what they think, think what they feel and what they do, feel what they think and what they do.

I don't know how to take stock of the mission. With all this I go to prayer and stay there before the Lord, sometimes I fall asleep, but I entrust him with the things I have lived in the mission and ask him to confirm in faith through me. This is how I conceive the pope's mission and how I live it.

There have been cases in which difficulties of the dogmatic type have been presented and I do not have to respond only with reason but in another way.

Cabrerà: Were the expectations of the WYD of Panama fulfilled?

Pope Francis: Evidently, the thermometer to understand it is tiredness. And, I am destroyed.

Cabrerà: There is a problem throughout Central America, Panama and much of Latin America: girls get pregnant early. Only in Panama have there been [unintelligible] Detractors of the Church say that it is the responsibility of the Church because it opposes sex education. The Catholic Church has many schools in Latin America and in universities. I would like to know the opinion of Pope Francis on sex education…

Pope Francis: I believe that in schools we must give sex education. Sex is a gift from God, it is not a monster, it is a gift from God to love. That some people use it to earn money or exploit is another problem. But we need to give an objective sexual education, that is without ideological colonization. If you start by giving sexual education full of ideological colonization you destroy the person. But sex as a gift from God must be taught. To educate is to educate, to make the best of people emerge and to accompany them along the way.

The problem is with those responsible for education, whether at the national, provincial or unit level (…), which teachers are chosen for this task and which textbooks, etc.. I have seen some books that are a little dirty. There are things that mature and things that do harm. I don't know if it's objective or not, that you don't have sex education in Panama. I say this without putting myself in the political problem of Panama. We need to have sex education for children. The ideal is to start from home, with the parents. It is not always possible because there are so many different situations in families, and because they do not know how to do it. And so the school makes up for this, because otherwise it will remain a void that will then be filled by any ideology.

Javier Martinez Brocal, Rome Reports: Holy Father, first of all I would like to congratulate you because you have set the record; in just four days you’ve become a Panamanian. It was just four days to fill your heart with Panama. And I would like to ask you a question in Italian.

These days, you have spoken with many young people. Surely, you have also spoken with young people who are fallen away from the Church or who have difficulties. In your opinion, where do young people find these difficulties, what are the reasons that drive them away from the Church? Thank you!

Pope Francis: There's a lot! Some are personal, but most general. I believe that first, it is the lack of Christian witnesses, priests, bishops. I'm not saying that of the popes because that's too much… but it is also! The lack of witness! If a pastor is an entrepreneur or an organizer of a pastoral program, or if a pastor is not close to the people, this pastor does not give witness of a true pastor. The pastor must be with the people, shepherd and flock we say. The shepherd must be ahead of the flock, to show the way in the midst of the herd, to smell the people, and to understand what they feel, what they need, how they feel, and to guard the flock from behind. But if a shepherd does not live with passion, people feel abandoned or in a certain sense feel despised [Ed. ignored], or when one feels orphaned and where orphanhood exists, I believe this…

I emphasized pastors, but also Christians, the hypocritical Catholics, right? Hypocritical Catholics, you know? They go to mass every Sunday but they don't pay a bonus and they pay you under the table, using people, then they go to the Caribbean on vacation all through the exploitation of people. "But I'm a Catholic, I go to mass every Sunday." If you do that, you give a counter-witness. This, in my opinion, alienates people from the Church the most. Even the laity, all of them. But I would say: don't say that you're a Catholic if you don't bear witness. Say 'I am from a Catholic upbringing, but I'm lukewarm, I'm worldly, forgive me, don't look at me as a model,' this must be said.

I'm afraid of Catholics like that, huh? That they believe themselves to be perfect! But history repeats itself. The same with Jesus and the doctors of the law, no? "I thank you Lord because I am not like this poor sinner…" This is the lack of a witness. There are others, like personal difficulties, but this is the most general.

Gisotti: Holy Father, now Caroline Pigozzi of Paris Match will ask you a question.

Pope Francis: First of all I want to thank you, I tracked down Father Benoist de Sinety, he concelebrated with me, good man, and with also 200 young people from Paris.

Caroline Pigozzi, Paris Match: There is another letter for you, Holiness, I will give it to you next week because he must write it.

Pope Francis: Very good.

Pigozzi: For four days, we have seen many young people praying with such intensity. Among them there is maybe a certain number that intend to embrace the religious life, you can think that a certain number have a vocation. But maybe someone is hesitating because he thinks that it will be a difficult path not being able to marry. Is it possible to think that in the Catholic Church, following the Eastern rite, you will permit married men to become priests?

Pope Francis: In the Eastern rite of the Catholic Church they may do it. The celibate option is given before diaconate [ordination].

Pigozzi: But now, with the Catholic Church of the Latin rite, do you think that you will reconsider the decision [of priestly celibacy]?

Pope Francis: For the Latin rite, I am reminded of a phrase of St. Paul VI: "I prefer to give my life before changing the law of celibacy." This came to me and I want to say it because it is a courageous phrase. In a moment more difficult than this — it was in the years 1968-1970. Personally, I think that celibacy is a gift to the Church. Secondly, I would say that I do not agree with permitting optional celibacy, no. There remains only some possibility for very far places. I think of the Pacific islands, when there is a pastoral necessity, the pastor should think of the faithful.

There is an interesting book by Fr. Lobinger [Ed. note: Fritz Lobinger, bishop emeritus of Aliwal, South Africa] [on this topic] — this is an issue of discussion between theologians, it is not yet my decision — my decision is: optional celibacy before the diaconate, no. It is my thought, personally, but I would not do it. And this remains clear. It is only my personal thought. Am I narrow-minded, maybe? I do not want to put myself before God with this decision.

Fr. Lobinger says that the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church. But where there is not the Eucharist, do you think Caroline, in the Pacific islands, maybe there… In many places, says Lobinger, who does the Eucharist? The directors, the organizers of those communities are deacons or sisters, or directly, the laity. And Lobinger says: you can ordain an older married man, it is his thesis, but only that exercise the munus santificandi, that is, that celebrate the Mass, that administer the sacrament of reconciliation and of unction.

Priestly ordination gives three munera [functions]: regendi [governing], that that commands; docendi [teaching], that that teaches, and santificandi [sanctifying]. This comes with ordination. But the bishop gives them [the viri probati] only the license of santificandi. The book [of Lobinger] is interesting. And maybe it could help to think about the problem. I believe that the problem should be open in this sense: where there is a pastoral problem due to the lack of priests. I do not say that it should be done, because I have not reflected, I have not prayed sufficiently on this. But the theology should be studied.

For example, Fr. Lobinger is an example, is a fidei donum of South Africa. [The potential candidate for priesthood] is already a mature man. I make this example to show the places where it should be done. I was speaking with an official of the Secretary of State, a bishop, that had worked in a communist country at the beginning of the revolution. When he had seen the crisis of the Revolution arrive it was the 1950s. The bishops secretly ordained peasants, of good religious faith. The crisis passed and 30 years later the thing was resolved. And he told me the emotion that he had when during a concelebration of the Mass he saw these farmers with their farmer hands put on their shirts to concelebrate with the bishops. This has been given in the history of the Church. It is something to study, think, rethink, and pray about.

Pigozzi: But there are also married Protestant clergy that have become Catholic?

Pope Francis: You ask me a question about that which Benedict did, that it is true, I had forgotten this. Benedict XVI made the "Anglicanorum coetibus" [Ed. creating personal ordinariates for the reception of former anglicans]. Anglican priests that have become Catholic and maintain the life an Eastern priest would. I remember in a Wednesday audience that I saw many men with a collar, but many women and children with them, in the hands of the priests, and they explained it to me… it's true, thank you for reminding me of this.

Gisotti: She will now ask you a question, Lena Klimkeit of the DPA.

Lena Klimkeit, DPA: Holy Father, during the Stations of the Cross on Friday a young man spoke very strong words about abortion. I want to repeat them for a moment. [Ed. note: The reporter repeats the comment in Spanish] ‘There is a tomb that cries out to heaven and denounces the terrible cruelty of humanity. It is the tomb that opens in the womb of the mothers from which innocent life is plucked. May God grant us to truly humanize ourselves, to defend life fervently, to make the laws that kill life not feel erased forever.’ This is a very radical position, in my opinion. I wonder and would like to ask you if this position also respects the suffering of women in this situation and if it corresponds to your message of mercy. Pope Francis: The message of mercy is for everyone. Also for the human person who is in gestation. It is for everyone. After this failure, there is mercy as well. But a difficult mercy because the problem is not in giving forgiveness. The problem is to accompany a woman who has become aware of [what it means to have had] an abortion. These are terrible tragedies. Once I heard a doctor talking about a theory that a cell of the newly conceived fetus goes to the marrow of the mother and there is also a physical memory. This is a theory, but to say, a woman when she thinks about what she did… but I tell you the truth, you have to be in the confessional and you have to give comfort there, you can't say anything. That is why I have opened up the power [for priests] to absolve abortion out of mercy, because many times, but always, they have to meet with their child. I advise many times when they call, they have this anguish: "Your child is in heaven, talk to him. Sing to him the lullaby that you have not sung… you have not been able to sing to him". And there is a way for the mother to reconcile with her child. With God there is already forgiveness, God always forgives. But mercy also, that you elaborate this. The tragedy of abortion, to understand it well, one must be in a confessional. Terrible.

Gisotti: Thanks, Holy Father. The next question is from Valentina Alazraki of Televisa. Valentina, come. Valentina is coming up. If I remember well, it’s her 150th Apostolic Trip. I believe.

Valentina Alazraki, Televisa: Pope Francis, you have said these days here in Panama that you were very close to Venezuela, that you felt very close to the Venezuelans and today you asked for a just, peaceful solution, in respect of the human rights of all. The Venezuelans want to know what this means. They await your word. They want to know if this solution passes through the recognition of Juan Guaido, who has been backed by many countries. Others are asking for elections in the short term, free elections so the people can vote. They feel that you are a Latin American Pope and they want to hear your support, your help, your counsel. Thanks.

Pope Francis: I support in this moment all of the Venezuelan people – it is a people that is suffering – including those who are one side and the other. All of the people are suffering. If I entered to say, “listen to these countries,” or “listen to these others who say this,” I would be putting myself in a role I don’t know. It would be a pastoral imprudence on my side, and it would do damage. The words. I thought about them and thought about them again. And I think with this I expressed my closeness, what I feel. I suffer for what is happening in Venezuela right now. And for this I desire that they come to an agreement. I don’t know, not even saying to come to an agreement is okay. A just and peaceful solution. What is it that scares me? The shedding of blood. And there I also ask greatness to help, to those who can help and resolve the problem. The problem of violence terrifies me. After all the effort made in Colombia, what happened in the cadets’ school the other day was terrifying. Blood is not the solution. That why I have to be… I don’t like the word “balanced.” I have to be a shepherd, to all. And if they need help, from a mutual agreement, may they ask for it. That’s it, to help. Thanks.

Gisotti: Thank you, Holy Father. It is the turn of Junno Arocho Estevez of Catholic News Service. Junno.

Junno Arocho Estevez, CNS: Good evening, Holiness. During her lunch with a group of young pilgrims, a young American girl told us that she had been asked about the pain and indignation of so many Catholics, particularly of the United States, for the crisis of abuse. Many American Catholics pray for the Church, but many feel betrayed and downcast after recent reports of abuse and cover-up by some bishops and have lost faith in them. Holiness, what are your expectations or hopes for the meeting in February so that the church can begin to rebuild trust between the faithful and their bishops?

Pope Francis: This is sneaky, he left WYD and he arrived here. My compliments. No, but thank you for the question.

The idea of this was born in the G9 [Ed. note: he means “C9”] because we saw that some bishops did not understand well or did not know what to do or did something good or wrong and we felt the responsibility to give a "catechesis," in quotation marks, on this problem to the episcopal conferences. That is why we called upon the presidents.

First, a catechesis: that we become aware of the tragedy, what is an abused boy, an abused girl. I regularly receive abused people [in audience]. I remember one… 40 years without being able to pray. It is terrible, the suffering is terrible. That first, [the bishops] become aware of this.

Second: that they know what must be done, the procedure, because sometimes the bishop does not know what to do. It is something that has grown very strong and has not arrived at all angles, so to speak. And then, let them make general programs, but they will come from all the episcopal conferences: what the bishop must do, what the archbishop who is the metropolitan must do, what the president of the episcopal conference must do. But it must be clear in that… that they are – let’s say it in terms [that are] a little juridical – that there are protocols that are clear. This is the main thing. But, before [talking of] what must be done, is that which I said before, raising awareness.

Then, there we will pray. There will be testimonies to help to become aware and then a penitential liturgy to ask forgiveness for the whole Church. But they are working well in preparation for this. I permit myself to say that I’ve perceived a bit of an inflated expectation. We need to deflate the expectations to these points that I’m saying. Because the problem of abuse will continue. It’s a human problem, but human everywhere. I read a statistic the other day, there are those statistics that say that 50 percent is reported, of this 50 percent, 20 percent is listened to… and it goes down, and it finished like this: five percent is condemned. Terrible. Terrible. It’s a human tragedy and we need to become aware. Also us, resolving the problem in the Church, but becoming aware will help to resolve it in society, in the families where shame covers everything, and the victim… in so many others… or in so many other societies. But first, we must become aware, have the protocols [in place] and move forward. This is the thing.

Gisotti: So, I’m not sure there is time for another question. Maybe another quick question would be possible… Yes. Manuela Tulli. Please, if you could be brief because they are about to serve dinner. Thank you, Manuela.

Manuela Tulli, ANSA: Good evening, Holy Father. During this WYD, you said that it’s absurd and irresponsible to consider migrants as bearers of social problems. In Italy the new immigration policies have led to the closing of the CARA facility at Castelnuovo di Porto, which you know well. That was an experiment where you could see seeds of integration, the children were attending school, and people are at risk of being evicted. You have chosen that precise facility to celebrate Holy Thursday Mass back in 2016. Therefore, I would like to ask you what your opinion about the closing of the CARA facility in Castelnuovo di Porto is.

Pope Francis: I did not understand the question. What was ultimately decided?

Tulli: to close the CARA facility of Castelnuovo di Porto, where you celebrated Holy Thursday Mass in 2016 and now there is the risk that the people involved in the experience will be sent away.

Pope Francis: I did hear rumors about what was happening in Italy, but I was immersed in the WYD preparations, so I am not well aware of the circumstances, but I can imagine what is going on, I can imagine. It is true that the issue regarding the arrival of migrants is a very complex situation, a problem that wants memory, to ask ourselves what would happen if my country was made of immigrants. We, the Argentinians, for instance, we are all migrants. The United States was all made of immigrants. It takes recalling and… Recently, one bishop, a cardinal actually, I can’t remember his name, but he has written a beautiful article about the ‘problem of our lack of memory,’ that was the article’s title.

Then, the words that I use to express myself… is to receive, to have a heart willing to receive, to welcome, to accompany, to help grow and integrate. And I also say: the ruler must use prudence because prudence is the ruler’s most proper virtue. I said that in my last flight. With these words, yes. It is a tough equation. It comes to my mind the example of Sweden, a country that back in the 1970’s has received many, many immigrants due to a situation of dictatorship in Latin American countries and managed to integrate all the people who migrated. It is what I see that the Sant’Egidio Community [in Rome] does: they integrate migrants very fast. But the Swedish have said a few years ago that they should take this process more slowly so they can finish it, and this is the prudence of the rulers. It is a problem of charity, of love, of solidarity, and I praise the nations that have been more generous to welcome migrants, but we have other countries that did not manage to do as much, nevertheless, we have the example of Italy and Greece, and Turkey on a lesser scale. Greece was extremely generous and so was Italy. When I went to Lampedusa, that was just the beginning…. But it is true that it's important to think realistically. Then there’s another important aspect, something we should all consider: one way of helping migrants is to offer help to the countries where they come from. Migrants often flee because of famine or because of wars. It's necessary to invest where there’s starvation. Europe is capable of doing it and it is a way of fostering growth. But, speaking again about the case of Africa, there is always that unconscious thought: Africa is to be exploited. This remains in our history and it causes a large damage. The migrants from the Middle East on the other hand, they have found another way out. In Lebanon, generosity is outstanding: there are over one million citizens from Syria living there. Jordan is the same thing, they are open, they do what they can, hoping to reintegrate everyone. And also, Turkey has received quite a few [migrants], right? And so did we in Italy. But it's a complex problem, that we must speak about without prejudice. Considering all these things that just came to my mind.

Gisotti: Thank you, Holy Father. So, have a good dinner and a good trip and within in a week we’ll see you again for another very important trip, so…

Pope Francis: I thank you so much for you work. I would just like to say a thing about Panama. I felt a new feeling. I know Latin America but not Panama. And this word came to me: Panama is a noble nation. I found nobility. This I wish to say, and I want to say another thing that I said when I came back from Colombia, speaking of the experience in Cartagena and the other cities, a thing that we don’t see in Europe, that is, the pride, in this case of the Panamanians. You lift up the children and they say to you, “this is my victory,” “this is my future,” “this is my pride.” This in the midst of the demographic winter we’re living in Europe. In Italy, below zero. It has to make us think. What is my pride? Tourism? The villa [home]? The dog? Or lifting up a child? Thanks! Pray for me, I need it.

CNA Daily News

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