#catholicism. however he didn’t understand any other religion and we were the only two people in the class who were not Christian or | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-little-slice-of-fandom · 4 years

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A) hi how ya doing? B) I miss you C) can you analyze anything of Aragon? Thank you :)

Hey anon! I’m doing good ❤️❤️❤️ thanks so much for asking! I hope you’re doing well too!

Aragon is really interesting to me, because her song is kind of like the bohemian rhapsody of six. Very few people will say that it’s their favourite, but everyone will instantly sing along because it’s so catchy! Plus, it’s a great song to follow ex-wives with. It keeps the energy up and introduces the audience to the plot of the show.

I will say this until the day I die: while I would love if more songs were as scathing as say AYWD...you could never start with those songs. It’s too much too quickly. You need the more catchy, light-hearted songs of Ex-Wives, No Way and DLUH to start with because it helps get the audience invested in the show and the plot as a whole. Six, first and foremost, will always need to work dramatically. That’s why the old, more openly bitter No Way was changed to something a little more light-hearted.

The first thing that always comes to mind when I think of Aragon is regal. She’s the queen who was married to Henry for 24 years and was a Spanish princess as well. She’s the refined, confident queen who knows her own worth and honestly? I get the vibe she just wants a little bit of respect from the other queens. While some people characterise Aragon as rather cold, I honestly don’t get that? The show portrays Aragon as a very loyal person despite all that Henry put her through, and she clearly cares for Mary and also, to a lesser extent, Parr as her god daughter (remember she calls Howard “the least relevant Katherine”...meaning she does see Parr as relevant.) and she often refers to other queens as “babe” even though she was just arguing with them five seconds earlier (harking on the idea of forgiveness, something I think Aragon is very good at in the show!). Plus, while there’s only one line referring to Mary, Aragon is always so protective of her and warm to her. In the album, Renee’s “aw, hi baby!” is the most adorable and heartwarming part of the song and it’s clear she adores her daughter, while the “oh, you don’t remember?” in the live versions is so protective of her baby. It’s honestly something we don’t discuss enough. Moreover, Aragon’s song is one of the most energetic, but she has her earnest moment of pleading as well, along with her undisputable strength of refusing to back down and accept Henry’s lies. She is also incredibly passionate when talking about something she loves or defending herself when she has to (which make sense! This was the woman who rode with an army wearing armour while pregnant. Aragon was not to be messed with!).

I personally disagree with people who try and claim that Toby and Lucy wrote Aragon as the “angry” queen because she never truly gets to the levels of boleyn or seymour (yes there’s the miscarriage argument where she does raise her voice but like...are we ignoring Seymour’s “boohoo Mary had the chickenpox” or the fact that Boleyn is also shouting in that argument??? And she usually goes louder than Aragon???) and yet she’s so often defined by that trait even though other queens share it and are even more extreme. And yes, Im fully aware of why certain people characterise aragon in this way and I’m so annoyed that even though we continually call out the fact that’s it’s problematic, it continues to happen. However Aragon does have flaws like every good character should. Aragon just won’t try and listen to the other queens. She refuses to accept that Boleyn or Seymour might have had a worse time than her. Now I personally never got the feeling that Aragon blames the other queens for anything. Her feelings are directed at Henry. Notice in now way she talks about how henry is “running around with some pretty young thing” and she refers to him having “one son with someone who don’t own a wedding ring”. Those people? They’re clearly supposed to be Boleyn and Bessie, two people who are actually on stage at the time. But Aragon doesn’t take an easy shot at either of them in her song. She doesn’t say their name or call them out or try and involve them in her song. Contrast this with DLUH where Boleyn grabs Aragon, forces her to be front and centre in this verse and then insults her constantly (“three in the bed” = airing Aragon’s and Henry’s ✨ intimate issues ✨ with the entire world while “Don’t be bitter, cause I’m fitter” and “he doesn’t want to bang you, somebody hang you” are both pretty self explanatory). I think it’s absolutely key that Aragon doesn’t blame Boleyn or Bessie or direct any misplaced feelings towards them in no way or the show. Her (very justified) feelings of anger and betrayal are (generally) directed at Henry. And that’s something so many people ignore! And I personally wish more people would be like Aragon in this regard in the real world. I don’t know if other people agree with me, but it’s your boyfriends/husbands job to not cheat on you, not someone else’s. I do know some people think that Aragon is slighting Boleyn and Bessie in that verse but if we’re sticking to tudor ideals, Aragon not mentioning them by name (in essence keeping their “dignity” and “honour” intact) would be the kinder thing to to. (Note I’m only saying this with Tudor ideals in mind. I also think Aragon fully knows that Bessie was 13 when Henry started making advances on her and again, refuses to blame Bessie for what happened because she knows she’s a victim).

However...Aragon doesn’t ever try and listen to other queens and will insult them if she has to. She (along with the other queens like Boleyn and Seymour) gets more and more defensive and petty as the show continues. However, she never gets to the same levels of hard hitting insults has say Boleyn. But I mean...Aragon was a queen who went through so much in her lifetime and never was able to really talk about it. Yes, she resisted Henry trying to get their marriage annulled, and she was one of the strongest women at the time, but she couldn’t deal with her emotions the same way that we can today. She never got to told Boleyn to go away or leave her alone. She never got to bad mouth Henry because he was the king. She was, first and foremost, a lady, and she was expected to act in a certain way all of her life. And now that she’s reincarnated in modern days, she doesn’t have to do all of those things. She can be annoyed and let it show, she can tell Boleyn all those things she wanted to do back in the day. Some actresses even lean into the idea that it’s sort of cathartic for Aragon to FINALLY just say what she wants to say without having to worry on how it would reflect on her as queen. Mind you, I still think that Aragon considers how her words would reflect on her (much more than any other queen) but she definitely has more wiggle room within the show than she did during her reign.

In addition, while the fandom also like to reduce Aragon to obsessed with her religion, I actually really like how her relationship with Catholicism is portrayed in the show. While I do concede that Aragon’s faith is sometimes reduced to the butt of the joke, that’s not always the case and I personally really enjoy how Aragon seems to gain a lot of strength from her religion, instead of it holding her back or hindering her. While I do understand why so many characters in media struggle with their religion or find it suffocating (my relationship with Catholicism is...fragile at the best of times), but I genuinely love this idea that Aragon’s faith is what guides her and gives her inner strength in times of need. I mean,,,when she’s pleading to Henry during now way, the music slows to something that sounds more like a gospel song, Aragon is kneeling with her hands clasped and there's bright white light around her (i also vaguely remember something that looks like a crucifix behind her as well? But I'm not 100 percent sure on that). At the time where Aragon is most vulnerable and needs to find inner strength and wants guidance...she turns to her religion and that's seen as a very positive thing!!! The same with Aragon's verse in Sox. Moving to a nunnery and finding friends there is something that's now postive and liberating instead of being stuffy and boring and restrictive like nunnery are often portrayed as in media. (yes I know that's also a play on Henry wanting to send Aragon into the nunnery after their divorce but I do think that there’s no malicious religion-basing in Six is a nice touch that’s often overlooked).

Finally, Aragon’s costume is quite important to her character. It is one of the more feminine outlines (especially the updated version on broadway) and I do think it’s an inadvertent issue that the queens with the more stereotypical feminine costumes are more catty whereas the more stereotypical androgynous or masculine outfits (aka Parr and Cleves) are often the voices of reason, but I don’t think that’s intentional or is intended to comment on anything. It’s just a coincidence. However, the gold of Aragon’s outfit obviously symbolises her love, courage and passion, along with indicating her status as a noble. While yes the rest of the queens were all noble in some way before they married Henry, Aragon was a Spanish princess and the daughter of two incredibly powerful monarchs. She was probably the highest standing out of any of the queens, and her costume reflects that. I also think that her wearing gold to flaunt her status could be her trying to make up for the years between her marriages to Arthur and Henry (where she didn’t have many provisions made for her as far as I know) and also the last few years of her life. (I’ve seen differing reports on how Aragon was provided for after Henry divorced her, with her claiming that she was living in poverty while others state she got 3000 pounds. If anyone has any confirmation then let me know). Either way, her wanting to flaunt her status after her reincarnation by wearing lots of bright gold makes total sense. I’ve also seen a few people say that the bust on Aragon’s costume is the most historically accurate but I can’t confirm that, although if it is then that’s a really nice touch.

Well this took ages, but it was fun to finally get to analyse stuff again AND do it on a queen who doesn’t get discussed very much!!! Aragon often gets reduced to “catholic” or “angry” within this fandom, even though she is just as complex as any other character within the show but she just expresses things in very different ways. And that’s okay! This whole show is about how women (and NB folk!) are different and do have different experiences and do express things differently and have different personalities and that’s okay! We should celebrate our differences.

#six the musical #six #sixthemusical #ask #anon ask #anonymous #anonymous ask #anon #ask answered #enya discusses: six

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grandhotelabyss · 3 years

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Well, speaking from my lived experience—no, wait, sorry, I don’t believe in that shit; I speak from passion and intellect, as should you. Anyway, the question is answered several times in the thread: a multi-ethnic and multi-racial society without ethnic and racial humor to relieve tension (“He laughed to free his mind from his mind’s bondage” [James Joyce]) is such a disastrous prescription it could only have been dreamed up by academics, bureaucrats, and corporate managers. Such postmodern padroni don’t ride the public bus—there’s a lived experience!—so they don’t know how this works in everyday life for people who aren’t boxed up in cubicles, and consequently they inflict on the rest of us illiberal, inhumane theories like the “microagression” (as if life consisted of anything else for anybody: “We came here to be insulted” [Philip Roth]). Such concepts are unethical because unlivable, as proved by the discharge of indestructible energy elsewhere, in this case onto the swarthy and greasy person of the wop, the dago—in short, myself and, albeit honorarily, Donald Trump. We’ve earned our punishment, the (critical race) theory goes, because even the people on the public bus understand how, at the border of whiteness (“Garibaldi didn’t unite Italy, he divided Africa” [apocryphal]; “Your hair’s kinkier than mine, Pino” [Spike Lee]), we hypercorrected. As I’ve written:

Please bear in mind, in the matter of identity politics, that DeLillo is the only great American novelist to share my and my family’s ethno-religious and class background. But neither he nor I make heavy weather out of it. It’s nothing, in the literary world, to be proud of. We were the first of the white ethnics to make the break with the left, and we made it more thoroughly than anyone else. As I detailed in my piece on White Noise, as Bill Clinton was the first black president and Barack Obama the first gay president, Donald Trump is the first Italian-American president.

As I said to an Irish-American the other day, however, is it Italian-Americans’ fault if we belong to what once was a minority group but which the political left never got around to creating a redemptive positive identity for? Did we have any choice except to opt for what is tendentiously called assimilationism (a postcolonial scholar once looked me up and down and said to me, “You know, you dark whites will never really assimilate”) but which might better be called universalism? Hence the name of the book: not American Catholica or, still worse, American Italiana, but, and without qualification, Americana. David Bell says, “I wanted to become an artist, as I believed them to be, an individual willing to deal in the complexities of truth.” Amen.

There are only two great Italian-American writers: DeLillo and Paglia. No special pleading for minor beatniks and dreary proletarian novelists, please. Marianna De Marco Torgovnick has made a heroic effort on behalf of The Godfather, but I like her essay better than the book, which—lived experience!—I first read when I was 10. Gay Talese says we’re a visual people and better at movies; I reject this kind of thinking, for my fancied ancestral non-ancestor, the fascist priest Ermenegildo Pistelli, author of Le pistole d'Omero, a paronomasiac play on our shared surname equating letters and guns—I am also descended from stone-cold killers—was a philologist.

Both DeLillo and Paglia identify somewhat more with Catholicism than Italianness per se—which I understand, as someone who doesn’t identify with Italianness at all. A parochial schoolboy in almost the first suburb beyond the city, I was raised less in an Italian milieu, despite the language being spoken around me in my grandmother’s house, than in a multi-ethnic world of immigrants’ children or grandchildren, including Irish, Polish, Lithuanian, German, Vietnamese and other ethnicities in addition to Italian, a world whose two religions were Catholicism and America. Cosmopolites, DeLillo and Paglia rejected identity politics, wrote big universal books, and, when they got to the great world of culture, tended to affiliate with “Jewish utopianism,” itself perfectly congruent with the religion of America.

Have I followed this path? Reader, I saw no other. Ethnic particularism, self-minoritization, is a dead end, also a betrayal of the very people who, in living memory, worked very hard to get us here—out of the village and into the universe (“We must believe that the universe is our birthright” [Jorge Luis Borges]; most Pistellis, I note, are Argentine).

To the woke humorists slinging spicy-meatball quips because they can’t say in public the lines they repeat in private about every other racial and ethnic and sexual minority—and it’s admittedly a rich field, considering only how the major personae of the pandemic are Italian: Cuomo, DeSantis, Fauci—I say: I can take a particularist joke, but can you take the universalist truth?

#italian-american #don delillo #camille paglia #identity politics

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starstruckteacup · 4 years

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Cottagecore Films (pt. 11)

A Little Princess (1995)

starring Liesel Matthews, Liam Cunningham, Vanessa Chester, Eleanor Bron

synopsis

I was extremely disappointed in this film, to put it lightly. The story itself was beautiful, but that is thanks exclusively to the novel on which it was based. The movie itself utterly failed to convey the magic and timelessness of the book. The acting was flat, emotionless, and forced at every point, from every actor (except for maybe Cunningham, but he was absent for half of it). One would think a gaggle of girls would have some form of natural chemistry, whether pulling them together or apart, but not a single child actor portrayed even the remotest semblance of a relationship to another. (Note: I describe in my review of Pan’s Labyrinth what quality acting from a child looks like, for reference.) Even Matthews and Cunningham could not pass a believable father-daughter relationship, despite the story being about that. As far as emotional acting, the adults were just as bad as the children. They couldn’t even feign a single moment of joy, sadness, or anger, regardless of the context. I actually laughed for the entire scene during which Sara nearly died because of how bad the acting from the adults was. At least Chester seemed somewhat worried; Bron and the nameless police officers stood around so vacantly it looked like they forgot what was happening. I really was appalled by the abysmal acting, especially when so much was handed to them in the story. I want to preface my next point by saying that yes, I know computer animation was still a work in progress in the 90s. But this was horrifyingly awful. I have never once, not in my entire life, seen CGI as terrible as the monster in Sara’s stories. I nearly gave up on the entire movie within the first five minutes because of that monster. And it kept showing up, which absolutely ruined whatever favor I tried to hold for this movie. If you don’t have the budget, which this film clearly didn’t, don’t try to animate a monster. It’s that simple. I wish I had more words for it but it was truly so atrocious that I’m at a loss. Any good will I hold for this movie is due to my fondness for the story (no credit to the film), the settings (while not exceptional, they were fairly pretty), and Liam Cunningham’s acting. 2/10

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

TW: blood, mild gore, torture, racism against indigenous people

starring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish, Jordi Mollà, Samantha Morton

This film is the sequel to Elizabeth (1998) (see part 10 of my film reviews), which continues the story of Queen Elizabeth I as her rule progresses. Tensions between Catholic Spain and Protestant England grow ever greater, escalating to treasonous plots and assassination attempts. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and King Philip II of Spain conspire to depose Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, restoring Catholicism as the national religion. Even as these events lead to war between the two superpowers, the court provides no sense of stability as new faces and new stresses surround the Virgin Queen. She forms a strong friendship with the pirate Walter Raleigh upon his return trip from the New World, where he seeks to establish colonies under the English flag. However, his stay is extended greatly when Elizabeth’s selfishness and pride take over, and are only broken down in the face of battle when she puts him at the forefront of the British navy. Outnumbered, Elizabeth will need Raleigh’s loyalty and cunning, along with the unwavering loyalty of her people, if they wish to survive the Spanish onslaught.

While still a drama, this film proved to be much more war-oriented than its predecessor, but I’m not sure it did either as well. I liked the deeper look this film gave us into the Elizabeth’s mind, especially with her social and emotional conflicts. They remind us that she is still human, despite the somewhat cold appearance the first film gave her at the end. She is more mature, and even more prideful, but there’s still a limit to what she can take as a person. I think the first film gave a better portrayal of her complicated mind, but this was a solid continuation of what years of ruling can do. I also liked how much detail they put into Raleigh’s character, which the first film didn’t do as well with its secondary characters. We got to know more about him, even if he did still feel somewhat surface-level. I think the dramatic aspects could have felt more high-stakes than they did, especially for the characters who were actually in danger. Even though so many characters were actively committing treason, I only felt that level of tension with one: Mary Stuart. Her death was particularly elegant and laden with symbolism, and even though I knew the outcome historically the scene still delivered the anxiety it was meant to. The others simply didn’t have the same delivery. Even the assassination attempt didn’t project any kind of concern, regardless of one’s historical knowledge. The war focus was a fairly different take than the first had, which I appreciated. The film established a strong balance between the tensions in England, Scotland, and Spain, and did a good job making the stakes very clear for each group. Given the uncritically positive stance on England that this film takes, I would have expected the film to villainize Spain a little more to form a stronger dichotomy between the two rulers, but Spain was presented rather neutrally to the audience. The Spanish ruler and nobles didn’t have much character, despite being the antagonist. As for that uncritical positivity regarding England, I do have a bit more to say. Although to an extent it makes sense that the film would lean in favor of England, given its content and the point of view from which the story is told, it became overbearing at times. England could do no wrong in this film, despite children dying in battle, indigenous people being humiliated and dehumanized for show, talk about slavery, and a complete disregard for the suffering of non-white and non-Protestant groups. In contrast, the first film heavily criticized England, from Mary of Guise shaming Elizabeth for sending young children to war, to Elizabeth frowning upon Walsingham’s torture methods (granted she never stopped them, but she didn’t approve as readily as she did in this film), and so on. Although England in truth did all of these things without rebuke, the film could have handled it more gracefully and came across less like propaganda, at the very least. 5/10

Loving Vincent (2017)

TW: suicide (action offscreen, death onscreen)

Sensory Warning: movement of the impressionistic paintings can be very disorienting for those with sensory processing difficulties. I had to break from watching multiple times so as not to become ill.

starring Douglas Booth, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jerome Flynn, Robert Gulaczyk

This fully hand-painted animated film follows Armand Roulin, a young man with a severe temper, on his way to deliver Vincent Van Gogh’s last letter to a living recipient. When he reaches the town where Vincent died, he begins speaking to a variety of villagers with their own stories about the artist, and their own theories about how he died. Armand tries to piece the puzzle together, wondering if the death was not a suicide as claimed, but rather something more sinister.

This film was spectacularly breathtaking. The amount of work that went into painting every scene was awe-inspiring, and definitely sets the bar high for any other films of its kind. The team of artists that created this film represented Van Gogh’s unique art style exquisitely through their loving application of oil-based paints, and truly brought to life the emotion he put into his works. I wish I hadn’t struggled so much with the constant movement, as I feel I would have been able to appreciate the film in its entirety better, but as it was I struggled to pay attention to the story because the art style consumed too much of my sensory processing capabilities. As for the story, I thought it was interesting, but I found it lacking despite the incredible artwork. Foremost, after some cursory research, I discovered that the homicide theory on which this film was based was only acknowledge by one individual, and spurned by hundreds of others. Although the film leaves the verdict open-ended, both to Roulin and to the audience, the story itself seemed to lean into the homicide theory, then completely give up on it with no resolution, so it came across as fairly noncommittal. I won’t argue for or against the theory, as I don’t know nearly enough about Van Gogh to assert an opinion, but I’m somewhat unsettled by the amount of weight it gave to it without any kind of evidentiary support, only to dump it as if the writers changed their mind themselves. The pacing was also slow for a murder mystery, which is basically what the story turned out to be. I would much have preferred the film to cover Vincent’s life, or even the days/weeks leading up to his death, instead of only featuring him in other people’s flashbacks. This kind of existential impressionism should capture the life of its creator, not the mundane views of people who didn’t understand him or even hated him. There wasn’t anything wrong with the film, per se, but I wish the writing was given as much love as the art was. 7/10

Part 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10

#cottagecore #gardencore #naturecore #flowercore #cozycore #historical drama #period drama #art film #film #film review #movie #movie review #activities #mine

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thebabushka · 3 years

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Thanksgiving

The first "thanksgiving" happened in October of 1621, but the constructed history and significance of that event has been over 500 years in the making. When I was a child I liked Thanksgiving because it meant family time. When I became a man I felt angered and betrayed by the truth of the holiday. Now, as a father, I see Thanksgiving as a teachable moment - a chance to properly frame the history of the day while still enjoying time with my two boys, my wife, and my family. Holidays are a wonderful chance to remember where we come from, what is important to us, and how we got where we are. Mark Twain is attributed as saying something to the effect of "history doesn't actually repeat itself, but it often rhymes." Thanksgiving gives us a lot of opportunity to reflect on this.

In order to better understand the first Thanksgiving, we start nearly 100 years earlier in the 1530s. The King of England, Henry VIII, wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (she was the first of what would end up being six wives), but the Pope wouldn't allow it. So the King declared that the Pope was no longer the head of the church. This set England on a path that renounced Catholicism in favor of the Church of England as the ultimate religious authority, and set the King as the head of that Church. 100 years later, it was not acceptable in England to be any sort of Christian other than as part of the Church of England.

The King of England was a powerful man who may have usurped a religion to get what he wanted. The religious intolerance of England back then echoes to recent times as strife between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. And while today England is full of people who are allowed to practice other religions, it is interesting that in 1620 the pilgrims to America were the "wrong kind" of Christian to be in England. (Perhaps there will always be "wrong kinds" and "others" in our society, and perhaps the test of our virtue isn't in the certainty of our beliefs, but in our tolerance for alternatives.)

Intolerance was a problem for the group of Christians who would become the Pilgrims, and that intolerance ran both ways. They wanted to be separate from the Church of England, and to worship in their own way. But such dissent would not be tolerated and they were persecuted. So they fled England and moved to Holland where there was some acceptance for differences in religion. However, these separatists didn't like their children learning dutch and adopting dutch culture. They found it hard to integrate with Dutch society while retaining strict adherence to their own specific religious and cultural doctrine. So the decided they needed to move again.

The Separatists were immigrants in Holland, but without the willingness to integrate they could not make Holland their home. They themselves were intolerant of their new host country. England wouldn't tolerate them. They wouldn't accept Holland. And they refused to change themselves. Their self-imposed isolation led them to the idea that they could be left alone in America, and land with no King, to do as they pleased... and they intended to establish a new society based on their specific and strict religious and cultural beliefs.

So they worked out a deal with England (and I am simplifying this a bit). England would give them passage to America, where they would prosper and work off the debt for this passage by sending surplus back to England, to the profit of the investors. Because of this, the Pilgrims weren't the only people on the Mayflower. With them were indentured servants they forced to come along, and some "company men" who were responsible for seeing to the financial success of the colony. In their journals, the pilgrims referred to these people, with whom they would have to live and work, as "the strangers".

So the forces that brought the pilgrims to America were both religious and financial. Here was a group of people divided between those seeking to create and spread their idea of a religious haven, and those who wanted to make money.

Fortunately the obvious conflict came to a head early, and before they stepped off the boat to start their new colony they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, which established a secular government for the colony. The leadership for the colony would not rest in religion, but would be shared by all. Well... not all... 41 men signed, out of the 101 total passengers on the ship. Women, indentured servants, and children were not given authority to participate in the compact and did not sign it.

But this story isn't just about Pilgrims, it's also about the New World: America, and the people who already inhabited it. While it's likely Norse sailors (specifically Leif Ericson around 1003) were the first Europeans to North America, Christopher Columbus is the most well known. Ponce de Leon was the first to reach what would become the United States. These explorers and those that followed brought with them horrible epidemics of disease, for which the native population had no defenses. Not only were their immune systems unprepared for the new diseases, they had no experience or medicine for treating these new illnesses. There is no conclusive estimate of the population of Native Americans living in what would become the United States before European explorers arrived, but credible attempts have estimated a population as low as 2 million, and as high as 18 million. Similarly, we can't know how many died to disease, but we do know that whole villages disappeared after the arrival of the Europeans. And we know that by 1900 there were only about 250,000 Native Americans left. Which means that 400 years after Europeans arrived, the population of Native Americans was reduced by somewhere between 90 and 99%, with some tribes disappearing entirely.

When the first settlers started to arrive, they weren't coming to an empty continent. They were coming to a place where people had been living for thousands of years. They had trails, and traded with one another. They had separate and distinct cultures and languages. They had specialized skill sets and industries. But now they were all being devastated by unrelenting waves of epidemic disease and war brought by visitor after visitor looking to exploit the resources of the new world. Those that survived smallpox were still vulnerable to measles, and plague, and new variants of influenza. Imagine wave after wave of disease killing half or more of the population over and again. Those who didn't die still got sick. Who gathered the food? Who tended to the ill? It was devastating to the people, and their cultures. Their infrastructure crumbled, their population reduced, and their way of life was decimated. The effect of such devastation to the psyche of a people is beyond imagining.

And so it was when the Mayflower arrived 130 years after the first explorers. On their first two expeditions ashore the pilgrims found graves, from which they stole household goods and corn - which they would plant in the spring. On their third expedition they encountered natives, and ended up shooting back and forth at each other (bows versus muskets). The Pilgrims decided they didn't want to settle in this area, as they had likely offended the locals with their grave robbing and shootout, so they sailed a few days away. They found cleared land in an easily defended area and began their settlement. This fantastic location was no happy accident. Just three years previous this place was called Patuxet, now abandoned after a plague killed all of its residents. The Pilgrims will say they they founded Plymouth, but it might be more accurate to say they resettled Patuxet.

By the time the Pilgrims found Patuxet it was late December, and they huddled in their ship barely surviving the brutal, hungry first winter. By march only 47 souls survived, though 102 had left port 6 months before.

There were, roughly, three different groups of local Natives. They had been watching the pilgrims carefully all winter, just as the pilgrims had been watching them. In the days before there had been frightening encounters between pilgrims and natives, and the pilgrims were rushing to install a cannon in their emerging fortification. They were on high alert, and expecting confrontation. Given the history, mutual fear, and mistrust, a violent encounter between the two groups seemed imminent and unavoidable.

The story many of us were told is that Squanto and a group of Indians approached the pilgrims, as if neither had ever seen the other before, and in greeting Squanto raised his hand and said, "How". The actual truth is that a visiting chief named Samoset strode, alone, into the middle of the budding and militarizing pilgrim town and said, "Welcome Englishman." And then he asked for a beer. (Truth.) It turns out Samoset was visiting local Wampanoag chieftain Massasoit, and he spoke some broken English, which he had learned from the English fishermen near his home. He took it upon himself to open negotiations with the new settlers. He told them about the local tribes, and brokered an introduction to Chief Massasoit, with whom the pilgrims ultimately signed a treaty.

Along with the treaty came Squanto, a Native American originally from the now defunct Patuxet tribe. Squanto was invaluable to the Pilgrims. Not only could he act as a translator, but he also knew the local tribes and the area itself. It was where he grew up. He knew what food was available, what crops to plant and how, and he knew not only the language but the disposition and history of local tribes. Speaking with the locals isn't enough if you can't discern their desires and motives. Squanto was a great friend to the English Pilgrims, and acted in their interests, sometimes to his own peril.

How did Squanto learn English language and culture? Squanto had been kidnapped by the English captain Thomas Hunt in 1614. Hunt abducted 27 natives, Squanto among them, which he sold as slaves in Spain for a small sum. These hostilities, just years before the arrival of the Pilgrims, are the reason for the initial animosity and aggression toward the English Pilgrims when they arrived, and why the natives were wise enough to attack the English, even if their bows were not a match for English muskets. Exactly how Squanto survived in the old world, or how he got from Spain to England, is unclear. It is known that a few years after his abduction, Squanto was "working" (likely as an indentured servant) for Thomas Dermer of the London Company. Dermer brought Squanto back to the location of the Patuxet village in 1619 as part of a trade and scouting venture, but the village had been wiped out by disease. After acting as translator and negotiator for Dermer on that trip, the now homeless Squanto stayed in America and went to live with Pokanoket tribe. The terms of this arrangement are not clear. It is possible Squanto was a prisoner of the Pokanoket, and that he was "given" in a trade that allowed the Dermer to exit a dangerous situation. Regardless, Squanto chose to live out the rest of his life with the Pilgrims in his childhood home of Patuxet, now renamed Plymouth by the (re-)colonizing English Pilgrims. Whatever the exact details, Squanto was one of the most traveled men in the area - having been born in America and spending time in Spain, England, and Newfoundland.

Squanto's time with the pilgrims appears full of adventures. He was sent as an emissary for peace and trade on behalf of the pilgrims to numerous tribes. It also appears he leveraged his influence among the Europeans to make some of his own demands from these tribes, which drew the ire of many local tribal leaders. Chief Massasoit even called for Squanto's execution. When William Bradford (Plymoth's Governor) diplomatically refused, Massasoit sent a delegation to retrieve Squanto from the Pilgrims. Again Bradford refused, even when offered a cache of beaver pelts in exchange for Squanto, with Bradford saying, "It was not the manner of the English to sell men's lives at a price”. Squanto was very valuable to the Plymoth colony, but he died in 1622 of "Indian fever".

In October (most likely) of 1621 the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest. The was indeed a harvest feast attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. Both groups brought food and games to the three day celebration. But this was not the start of the Thanksgiving holiday in America. It was a harvest festival, and harvest was common ground that both cultures celebrated. The American holiday of Thanksgiving was first celebrated as such when George Washington and John Adams declared days of thanksgiving during their presidencies. This was followed by a long period where subsequent Presidents did not declare such events. A writer and editor named Sarah Hale, most famous for penning "Mary Had a Little Lamb", began to champion the idea of a national "Thanksgiving" holiday in a 17 year campaign of newspaper editorials and personal letters written to five different Presidents. Perhaps because of her insistence and the popularity she garnered for the idea, Abraham Lincoln revived Thanksgiving as a unified national holiday in 1863. A few years later Congress enshrined it as a national celebration on the 4th Thursday of November.

And this is my Thanksgiving. It's not the simpleton's story of an awkward greeting followed by a good meal. It's the story of a King who wanted a divorce, religious self-righteousness, the greed of men, a clash of cultures, a struggle for survival, loyalty and betrayal, the creation of a national holiday intended to help mend a nation torn apart by civil war, and the myths we created to tie us all together. As always, truth is a much more engaging and explanatory than a politely shared fiction.

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mysmedrabbles · 5 years

Text

RFA Reacting to a Muslim MC

requested: twice by the same anon :P

a/n: note that I am not a muslim nor am i a hijabi, so if i get a detail wrong, im super sorry and please pLEAse let me know so it can be fixed!! :D this was really interesting to write, enjoy!!

would you like to support this Muslim MC? want more specific WoC MC’s? buy me a coffee to support my dangerous coffee addiction so i can do em for ya!

warnings: n/a

-hyped mod alex

Jumin

-his strong faith in Christianity was admirable, his ideals set in stone as he abided by them; but of course there was the smallest bit of apprehension in getting to know him, how would he react to someone with ideals different than his?

-he was never one to announce his faith publicly, he still isn’t, however he likes taking with you about your respective religions, sitting on the balcony of his penthouse taking in the cool night air,,, wine for him and Aryana’s Halal Cola shipped all the way from Montreal for you

-orders you the finest hijabs for you to wear, most of them custom made exactly the way you love them, elegant and refined. he also learns the level of modesty you tend to wear your clothes, buying you occasional stunning gala outfit that he knows you’ll both love and feel comfortable with

-you own the most stunning abayas

-absolutely takes you with him on his trips to the middle east. he’s an avid believer in learning about your own roots, and especially if you have family there, he’ll more than certainly take you, going together to see all the sights, take private tours of museums and enjoy life

-makes Chef learn specific halal recipes, and is more than willing to import any food you want from other countries that you cant get in Korea

-learns Arabic in about a year flat,, of course his Korean accent hits heavily, but its so sweet hearing him carefully pronounce sentences to your parents and or relatives

-on eid al-adha he’s aware of the old tradition to sacrifice animals and share with the poor, needy and family; so as a compromise he decides to donate 300 lbs of meat to various homeless shelters and soup kitchens. both you and him going down to help with transport, hand every box to the people, a sort of community service combined with observing a time old tradition.

-comes down with you to the night prayer at the mosque during ramadan, and even though he stays near the entrance and the garden out front, hearing the prayers coming from the inside and seeing all the people that you know and love around you, smiling and having a good time, it makes him happy

Jaehee

-she grew up catholic, lives catholic; but this isn’t to say she’s close-minded to other religions,, she always loves learning more, especially if its about you, who she loves with all her heart

-when youre cuddling, she likes fiddling with the edge of your hijab, just feeling the material and knowing you’re there makes any day of hers better, no matter how hard it may have been

-you being muslim doesn’t have much of an impact, she’s respectful to your beliefs, and even puts in halal foods in the cafe

-this is, of course, after months of her experimenting with different recipes, often finding her in the kitchen at midnight, flour on her face and apron dirtied, sleeves rolled up in a frenzy as she mutters under her breath

-shes so proud to finally present the finished deserts and foods to you!!

-one time you used one of her woven silk scarves as a makeshift hijab when all of yours were in the wash and she almost cries seeing how pretty you are in her stuff (the scarf is yours now)

-always interested in your religion, and she likes learning the differences between the traditions she was raised with and the ones you were

-during Ramadan, the two of you keep the shop open later for anyone wanting to eat after the sun has set, figuring that no one had to break their fast alone if they didn’t want to

-she gets up very early to prepare Suhoor for you in the morning, a simple oatmeal with dates, blueberries, grapes, almonds and honey

-likes to read her own books aside you while you read the Quran and do your morning prayer, its often the most peaceful part of your day, just having a clean and quiet space as you both enjoy each others company while also doing your own morning routines

Yoosung

-sweet boy, he knows very little of,, well any religion to be honest, and outside of 10th grade history, his knowledge on Islam as a whole is quite limited

-always asking questions about your traditions

-he reads the Quran at some point, wanting to understand you better,, and even though it takes him a long time (mostly due to having to re-read the passages over and over again to understand what was going on), but he’s devoted to learning about your culture

-he drives/walks you to the mosque, but doesn’t leave,, he’s not sure if he can go in, so instead he opts to walk around the area, enjoying the park and waiting for you to come back out so you can walk/drive back together

-he learns so many recipes specifically for you everything from mawmenye, harira, and moroccan krsa to berber bread

-he loves spending time with your family, he loves the sense of community and the celebrations that take place in your household, specifically during religious holidays

-he legitimately cries when you eventually decide to go to Mecca, leaving for hajj, because he knows he cant be with you for around a week and a half,, he can’t help it, he’s so sad he won't be able to see you for more than a week

-he’s so used to stopping all gaming and quieting down devices during salah, that even when you’re not around he still stops for five minutes at the designated times, mostly out of habit, but it also serves as a break from working, studying or gaming

-Lisa,, lisa loves your prayer mat, always trying to knock it down from its rolled up position next to the couch and sleep on it, so instead yoosung buys her a smaller prayer rug to lay on and its the cutest thing you've ever seen

Seven

-although he’s always been the one to mention his own faith in Catholicism, he’s also the one to be most curious about other faiths.

-he likes hearing you talk about the way you grew up, specifically hearing you talk about Islam and asking questions about traditions and practices you have to do

- “wait y/n!!,,, are honey buddha chips halal???”

-if theyre not, he opts to buy pringles in bulk instead. hes going to binge eat chips and damnit he wants you to join him!!!

-when it comes time for you to perform Salah, he makes sure that you have total peace, even stopping his typing for the duration, letting you connect fully with Allah and your spirit

-since theres little to no sunlight that appears in the bunker, he makes a simple little app that alerts you when the times of prayer come, pre-dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and night, using the bells that are primarily heard in mosques as the ringtone for the app

-if anyone dares to mess with you or insult you in any way, Defender of Justice 707 will send a nasty virus their way, because theres no way anyone is getting away with hurting his angel

-its canon that he knows Arabic, and often times, when you can’t go to sleep he’ll sing to you in the language, and although his singing isn't the best, focusing on the strength and passion in his words, the almost comforting way he sings, it sends you calmly to sleep

Zen

-incredibly respectful of your religion and the fact that you’re Muslim

-he sets himself to learn everything he can about your faith and things he might have to change or alter in his own life to be respectful of the way you live yours

-he cuts down on alcohol. a lot.

-this isn’t to say he stops drinking altogether but he certainly cuts down, only having a beer or two in the fridge for emergencies

-bursts in one day, phone in hand as he wheezes, leaning on the couch for support, “y/n ArE wE hALaL dATiNg Or?”

-if you believe that sex should be saved to be only after marriage, he respects that, if not,, well he respects that too

-WILL spend extra money on an abaya from serenity scarves as a gift, just for you being you

-his only goal is to make you as comfortable as you can be, and he Will Not Stand for islamophobic comments directed towards you, but in most cases he won't even let them reach you, cutting off interviewers before they can say anything with a stream of gushing about how perfect you are, and smoothly taking you to the other side of the room if he thinks someone is looking at you, shooting them a mean glare before looking back at you and smiling, whispering something to make you laugh as you guys walk away hand in hand

-respect is this mans middle name, he’ll meet your family the second you start officially dating, making sure to make a good first impression, the second, and third, and fourth impressions

-likes going shopping with you, and is constantly in awe of how stunning you can make anything look, going to the little middle eastern kiosk in the mall to buy food

-he’s such a shameless fan of those cute matching couples outfits, and his heart bursts everytime your hijab matches the colour or pattern of his shirt or jacket

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princess-of-france · 4 years

Note

I’m interested in your take on Angelo & Isabella w/ personality parallels (also just your opinion on Angelo especially tbh because I feel like I under-analyzed him when I read the play bc I was just. Well, found him scary :P) because obviously w/ your production you’re pretty deep in and I don’t see a lot of MFM content

Oof, this is a loaded question.

I’m happy to answer it, but I think I should make a disclaimer that—as you point out—my opinions of Angelo are skewed by my experiences as an actor inside a specific production. I’m also not an English scholar; I’m a theater artist. My lit crit skills are dodgy at best (as @lizbennett2013 knows all too well), and I don’t believe there is a single way to interpret any character in drama, especially when you’re dealing with heightened text. All I can do is give my honest appraisal of Angelo as I have encountered him dramaturgically through cutting our script, rehearsing Isabella, and seeing his iterations in other productions.

So! Angelo and Isabella. Two sides of the same coin. I really think they are.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first: Angelo is scary. He just is. His sexually motivated exploitation of authority continues to be one of the most transcendent aspects of this ever-timely play. However you stage it, however you trim the text, whatever charismatic actor you slot into the role, Angelo is a capital-T-Terror and there’s no getting around it. Coercive, manipulative, hypocritical, ruthless, misogynistic, fraudulent, and cruel, he basically spends the entirety of MEASURE FOR MEASURE committing crimes and then soliloquizing about how painful it all is for his bargain-price conscience. You’ll never hear me say he doesn’t deserve his reputation as one of the most reprehensible tyrants in all of Shakespeare.

But.

Of the three defining qualities I see in Angelo—ideological dogmatism, rhetorical prowess, and professional pride—there’s not one of them that is not blisteringly prominent in his antagonist, Isabella. Despite the fact that she’s a Catholic republican (“Butt out of people’s lives, Big Government; God will judge us when we die!”) and he’s a Puritan[ical] bureaucrat (“My job is to regulate people’s lives because purgatory is a myth!”), they have far more in common, cognitively, than not. Understand: I’m not saying that Angelo is not a piece of shit for how he behaves throughout course of the play. Nor am I implying that Isabella is somehow culpable for his masturbatory exercise of power over her. My girl has flaws, but she’s unquestionably the hero of M4M. What I’m trying to articulate is that Angelo and Isabella were born with the same psychological toolkit, which they elect to apply towards radically different purposes. (Think Parseltongue and “It is our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities…”) This shared intellectual arsenal is what makes their pair of scenes in Act Two so iconic. We basically get to watch them play out Newton’s Third Law in real time: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction… As far as rhetoric goes, neither Isabella nor Angelo can overwhelm the other. For every argument she makes in favor of mercy, he punctures it with legalism. For every judicial explication he provides, she dissolves it with morality. One minute, we’re nodding our heads along with Angelo as he explains why Christian values should have no place in a court of law; the next, we’re on our feet cheering for Isabella to convince him to factor human integrity into his role as a public servant. I can’t read 2.2 as anything other than the blueprint for every screenplay Aaron Sorkin ever wrote. It is the ultimate courtroom drama.

Just look at the play’s opening act. Angelo’s hasty promotion aside, both he and Isabella begin the story at the lowest rung of their respective vocational ladders: he’s a would-be Chief Justice, she’s a would-be Prioress. Deputy/nun. Politics/religion. Different spheres/same ambition. And, in like true zealots, both Angelo and Isabella express their commitment to their new duties in terms of self-flagellation:

“You may not so extenuate his offenseFor I have had such faults, but rather tell me,When I that censure him do so offend,Let mine own judgment pattern out my deathAnd nothing come in partial.” (Angelo, II.i.29-33)

“And have you nuns no farther privileges?[…] I speak not as desiring more,But rather wishing a more strict restraintUpon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.” (Isabella, I.iv.1, 3-5)

It’s also worth mentioning that our first introduction to these characters features them scurrying along in the wake of an authority figure they respect.

Act 1, Scene 1: Angelo wants to know the extent to which he can wield his law degree at the pleasure of the Duke of Vienna (the Duke himself!).

Act 1, Scene 4: Isabella wants to know the extent to which she can practice self-denial for the glory of God and the approval of Mother Superior.

They are both drawn to gravitas, to figures who represent order and authority. They are also drawn to discipline. He’s a non-drinking, non-smoking Precision. She’s a gluttony-abhorring Bride of Christ. Let the rest of the world eat cake. They will be eating their sins and purifying their souls, thank you very much.

At the risk of descending into the flaming pits of cliché, I’ll also touch on those three qualities I mentioned earlier, because who says the TPE (Three Paragraph Essay) is dead?

First up: ideological dogmatism.

[Side note: I may be a crappy historian, but I do recognize there’s a historical paradigm at play in this text. Vienna needs to be a Catholic city and Angelo’s Protestantism needs to be allusive because Shakespeare presumably valued all his limbs and didn’t relish the idea of rotting in a Cheapside prison. If he’d lived in a “free press” kind of sociocultural context, he might have endowed his religious figures with a bit more Opinion. I digress.]

In the M4M-centered episode of Isaac Butler’s phenomenal podcast, “Lend Me Your Ears,” he interviews JohnPaul Spiro (Assistant Director of the School of Liberal Arts, Villanova University), who does a wonderfully unfussy job of summing up the Angelo/Isabella ideology parallel:

“In much the same way as our era is filled with political zealots—as well as, to a certain degree, religious zealots—what you’ll find when you look closer is there’s a small number of very loud people who are dominating the discourse. And a lot of people are in the middle and would rather not have to take sides. Claudio, he seems to be monogamous, he seems to want to just live a very simple life, he’s not really concerned with theological things. And when pressed on theological things, his point is: ‘I don’t really know. No one really knows what happen when you die, so I’m scared.’”

Because religious extremism lies at the heart of the rhetorical warfare between Angelo and Isabella, I think there’s a misconception that M4M is a Play About Religion. But the ONLY characters who canonically go to the mat about the finer points of theology are…wait for it…Angelo and Isabella. This is an early modern text brimming with religious figures (Sister Francisca, Friar Thomas, Friar Peter, even the phony Friar Lodowick), but not a single one of them gets on the pulpit about ANYTHING in the course of the entire play. Sister Francisca’s role consists of bemusedly listening to her youthful novitiate describe her desire for stricter prohibitions at the cloister. Friar Thomas, a sycophantic priest whose parish coffers are probably lined with Vincentio’s gold, spends his one onstage scene nodding his head sympathetically as the Duke over-explains why he is disguising himself as a monk. Friar Peter, the poor Jesuit roped into delivering the Duke’s messages, forgoes moralizing and instead uses his limited dialogue to try to help two disenfranchised women receive justice for their abuse. And Friar Lodowick, of course, is nothing but an alias for a cowardly sociopath who wants to run the world without being held accountable for his mistakes. Nothing evangelical about any of that.

But Angelo and Isabella? They can’t shut up about religion.

Isabella wants Angelo to temper his punitive Weltanschauung with morality, ideology, Platonic ideals, metaphysics…in short, all of the intangibles that can’t be used as evidence in a court of law.

“Why, all the souls that were were forfeit onceAnd He that might the vantage best have tookFound out the remedy. How would you be,If He, which is the top of judgment, shouldBut judge you as you are? O, think on thatAnd mercy then will breathe within your lips,Like man new made.” (Isabella, II.ii.97-103)

Angelo, in turn, wants Isabella to recognize the futility of Catholicism as a proper tool for creating heaven on earth because Catholicism permits withdrawal from the world and the abdication of earthly responsibility (cf: nunnery). Instead, he argues, what God actually needs is for people to actively toil in their communities to criminalize, punish, and eradicate sin.

“I show [pity] most of all when I show justice,For then I pity those I do not know,Which a dismissed offense would after gall,And do him right that—answering one foul wrong—Lives not to act another.” (Angelo, II.ii.128-132)

They take up the two sides of a theological debate that predates Christianity: ethics vs. justice. And that conflict is itself inextricably tied to the timeless political debate of non-intervention vs. regulation. And the thing is: even when Angelo and Isabella realize the irreconcilability of their respective schools of thought, they KEEP ARGUING ABOUT IT because extremism is just that: extreme. Angelo and Isabella may be major players in M4M, but they represent the radical minority of their world. They are the “small group of very loud people” and literally everyone is a moderate next to them. Ideology, not desire, is the bedrock of their personhood. When confronted with a person of an uncompromisingly polar viewpoint, they behave as if it might be possible to change the viewpoint of that person because the alternative is to admit defeat. To tragic effect, they hold their ideals more sacred than human life. For Angelo, that ideal is the law (i.e. integrity of action). For Isabella, it’s chastity (i.e. integrity of the soul). They are dogmatic in their beliefs, inflexible in their opinions, and inalienably convinced of their own “rightness.” They are austere, incisive, independent, articulate, and sharp. They are disgusted by the depravity of the world around them and determined to transcend it. What differentiates them is the content of their convictions, but they rate the value of that conviction equally.

So, yes, M4M is a play acutely interested in how religion shapes the law and human behavior. But I would argue that it is really only about one thing: power.

Which brings me to rhetoric.

Angelo and Isabella are lawyers. Both of them. High-powered, quick-thinking, weakness-sniffing, self-righteous litigators. Sure, Isabella may not have the paperwork to prove it; she was conceived by an Englishman in the early 17th century. But much in the same way that it’s obvious to everyone with eyes that would-be nun Maria [von Trapp] is a born music teacher from the first scene of The Sound of Music, so is it evident from Isabella’s first moments onstage that she is a born lawyer. She was, quite simply, born to argue.

Consider her first scene onstage: in the nunnery, with Lucio and Francisca. Unlike the audience, Isabella doesn’t have empirical evidence of Lucio’s amorality and notorious womanizing. She doesn’t need it. She can smell it on him. And in six short lines, she wipes the mosaic-laced marble floor of the cathedral with his ass:

LUCIOCan you so stead meAs bring me to the sight of Isabella,A novice of this place and the fair sisterTo her unhappy brother, Claudio?

ISABELLAWhy her “unhappy brother”? Let me ask,The rather for I now must make you knowI am that Isabella, and his sister.

LUCIOGentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.

ISABELLAWoe me, for what?

LUCIOFor that which, if myself might be his judge,He should receive his punishment in thanks:He hath got his friend with child.

ISABELLASir, make me not your story.

LUCIO‘Tis true.I would not, though ‘tis my familiar sinWith maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so.I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,By your renouncement an immortal spiritAnd to be talked with in sincerityAs with a saint.

ISABELLAYou do blaspheme the good in mocking me.

(I.iv.18-40)

I’m not going to venture down the English professor’s rabbit hole of rhetorical devices and syntactical analysis—partly because there are thousands of scholars who have already done it better than I ever could (check out Claire McEachern and Julie Felise Dubiner!) and partly because I’ve been blathering for too long in general. But sufficed to say that three hallmarks of a good lawyer are as follows:

The ability to seize and repurpose the language of one’s opponent (“Why her ‘unhappy brother?’”)

The ability to spot and sidestep landmines (“Sir, make me not your story.”)

The ability to redirect conversation (“You do blaspheme.”)

By that metric alone, Isabella’s performance here is worthy of the Harvard Law Review.

And then, of course, two scenes later, she meets her match.

A dear friend of mine, who is a first-year at Georgetown Law and basically the smartest person I’ve ever met, once told me: “The best and worst thing that can happen to a good lawyer is to meet another good lawyer with different ideas.” I do apologize for invoking Sorkin twice in one essay, but honestly: “The President likes smart people who disagree with him” (Leo, The West Wing, 2x05). It is a truth universally acknowledged that however infuriating it is for a highly intelligent person to debate with an equally intelligent person who disagrees with everything they stand for, it can also be unbelievably stimulating and monumentally entertaining to watch. (Hello, 50 million seasons of Law & Order.)

I’m now two weeks deep into rehearsals for M4M and I still get gobsmacked, daily, by the sheer majesty of Angelo’s and Isabella’s rhetoric. Theirs goes so far beyond the mental agility of anyone else in this play, or even—dare I say it—in Shakespeare’s canon. They are beyond intelligent. They are freaky genius kids with the kind of sanctimonious stubbornness that would be obnoxious if it weren’t so damn compelling. Between the two of them, between their two infamous scenes, they pull out every rhetorical trick in the book and play approximately seventeen unique rounds of intellectual checkers. (I say checkers because chess is too slow for them. If you want chilly brinksmanship, check out the Roman plays. Angelo and Isabella have agendas and professional pride on the line. Time is of the essence.)

ISABELLAI do think that you might pardon him,And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

ANGELOI will not do it.

ISABELLABut can you, if you would?

ANGELOLook, what I cannot, that I will not do.

ISABELLABut might you do it, and do the world no wrongIf so your heart were touched with that remorseAs mine is to him?

ANGELOHe’s sentenced. ‘Tis too late.

ISABELLA“Too late”? Why, no. I, that do speak a word,Might call it back again.

(II.ii.67-78 [italics are mine])

Things get even more complicated when they start moving into those same theoretical marshes I described earlier:

“If he had been as you, and you as he,You would have slipped like him, but he like youWould not have been so stern.” (Isabella, II.ii.84-86)

“The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.Those many had not dared to do that evilIf the first that did th’ edict infringeHad answered for his deed. Now ‘tis awake…” (Angelo, II.ii.117-120)

ENOUGH WITH THE METAPHORS ALREADY. CLAUDIO IS ON DEATH ROW.

And even when they finally, finally get to the point, they remain at an impasse:

ISABELLAYet show some pity.

ANGELOI show it most when I show justice.

(II.ii.127-128)

Which causes Isabella essentially to lose all sense of self-awareness and control because goddam it, never once in her entire life has she met a person she couldn’t out-argue, who the fuck does this deputy think he is, this was supposed to be a simple mission and she’s been standing in this room for ten minutes and he’s still siTTING THERE SMILING AT HER WHAT THE F—

“So you must be the first that gives this sentence,And he that suffers. O, it is excellentTo have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannousTo use it like a giant[…]Could great men thunderAs Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet,For every pelting, petty officerWould use his heaven for thunder,Nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven,Thou rather with thy sharp and sulfurous boltSplits the un-wedgeable and gnarlèd oakThan the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,Dressed in a little brief authority,Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,His glassy essence like an angry apePlays such fantastic tricks before high heavenAs makes the angels weep, who with our spleensWould all themselves laugh mortal.” (Isabella, II.ii.134-152)

Which causes ANGELO to lose all self-awareness and control because goddam it, never once in his entire life has he met a person he couldn’t out-argue, who the fuck does this nun think she is, this was supposed to be a simple smackdown and she’s been standing in this room for ten minutes and he’s still waiting for her to admit defeat and oh God oh no oh no oh no why can’t he look away from her face, what the fuck is happening what the F—

ANGELOWHY DO YOU PUT THESE SAYINGS UPON ME?

ISABELLABecause authority, though it err like others,Hath yet a kind of medicine in itselfThat skins the vice o’ th’ top. Go to your bosom,Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth knowThat’s like my brother’s fault. If it confessA natural guiltiness such as is his,Let it not sound a thought upon your tongueAgainst my brother’s life.

ANGELO, asideShe speaks and ‘tis such senseThat my sense breeds with it.

(II.ii.163-173)

Finally, Angelo gets her to leave and faces the music. My tremendous co-actor, Jude Van der Voorde, always slays this soliloquy.

“What’s this, what’s this? Is this her fault or mine?The tempter or the tempted, who sins most, ha?Not she; nor doth she tempt, but it is IThat, lying by the violet in the sun,Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,Corrupt with virtuous season.” (Angelo, II.iv.199-204)

[Non sequitur: Jude is the kind of actor actors dream of acting with. He’s always got at least one trick up his sleeve, so my Isabella is constantly second-guessing herself around him. And he does the “sleazy wunderkind act” with a panache rivaling BJ Novak’s in Season 4 of The Office. He’s also one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Kids, don’t be Method. Make friends with your fellow actors. Leave the emotions onstage and go get a midnight pizza. You will be so much happier.]

With regards to the M4M narrative, we all know what happens next, although it takes an agonizing 175 lines of text in 2.4 before Shakespeare levels off and gives us the canonical threat:

“Redeem thy brotherBy yielding up thy body to my will,Or else he must not only die the death,But thy unkindness shall his death draw outTo lingering sufferance. Answer me tomorrowOr by the affection that now guides me mostI’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you:Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.” (Angelo, II.iv.177-184)

What precedes this is the kind of tension-groaning, hair-splitting, goosebump-raising rhetorical tarantella that television writers today spend their entire careers trying to emulate. Isabella plays the fool for as long as she possibly can…

ANGELONay, but hear me.Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are ignorantOr seem so, crafty, and that’s not good.

ISABELLALet me be ignorant, and in nothing goodBut graciously to know I am no better.

(II.iv.79-83)

…but eventually Angelo forces her hand and she has to deflect his onslaught with the sleek diplomacy of a kidnapping victim.

ISABELLABetter it were a brother died at onceThan that a sister, by redeeming him,Should die forever.

ANGELOWere not you then as cruel as the sentenceThat you have slandered so?

ISABELLAIgnomy in ransom and free pardonAre of two houses. Lawful mercyIs nothing kin to foul redemption.

ANGELOYou seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,And rather proved the sliding of your brotherA merriment than a vice.

ISABELLAO, pardon me, my lord. It oft falls out,To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.I something do excuse the thing I hateFor his advantage that I dearly love.

(II.iv.114-128)

Remember when I said that Angelo and Isabella are alike in that they are inalienably convinced of their own “rightness”? That still holds true. But now Angelo, without warning, has moved beyond the conceits of debate and is taking Isabella’s rhetorical arguments from 2.2 at literal face value in order to trip her up. He’s brought ideology crashing down to earth and introduced their physical relationship into the conversation…again, without warning and very much without her consent. And she has to figure out a way to back-peddle on her words without yielding defeat of the argument. It is nigh impossible. And I bring it up because guess who gets trapped in the exact same situation three short acts later?

LUCIOCome, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave’s visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! Will ‘t not off?

(LUCIO pulls off the friar’s hood and reveals the DUKE.)

DUKEThou art the first knave that e’er made’st a duke.—First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.—Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and youMust have a word anon.—Lay hold on him.

LUCIOThis may prove worse than hanging.

DUKEWhat you have spoke I pardon. Sit you down.We’ll borrow place of him. (to Angelo)Sir, by your leave.Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudenceThat yet can do thee office? If thou hast,Rely upon it till my tale be heardAnd hold no longer out.

ANGELOO my dread lord,I should be guiltier than my guiltinessTo think I can be undiscernible,When I perceive your Grace, like power divine,Hath looked upon my passes. (V.i.395-421)

Game, set, match.

As for ego… Do I really need to talk about professional pride? I don’t think so. It’s Angelo and Isabella. Pride leaks out of every virtually every line they speak in this play. Pride in their conviction, pride in their moral righteousness, pride in their intellect, pride in their ability to judge the world with clarity (or whatever). Angelo actually admits it out loud to us in perhaps his most famous soliloquy, because the little fucker has a lot more Catholic guilt about lusting after a novitiate nun than his Protestant heart would like to admit:

“The state whereon I studiedIs, like a good thing being often read,Grown sere and tedious. Yea, my gravity,Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,Could I with boot change for an idle plumeWhich the air beats for vain.” (Angelo, II.iv.7-15)

And even though Isabella could easily be the poster child for Christian piety, she’s so damn proud of her own humility that she occasionally threatens to void it altogether.

ANGELOWhat would you do?

ISABELLAAs much for my poor brother as myself.That is, were I under the terms of death,Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubiesAnd strip myself to death as to a bedThat longing have been sick for, ere I’d yieldMy body up to shame.

(II.iv.107-111)

Look at me, Angelo. Look at this body. It’s mine. Mine and God’s. I see what you’re doing, I know where you’re trying to go. And it is never. going. to happen.

Two weeks into rehearsal and I’m still not sure I’m convincing in my delivery of these lines. I’ve watched every filmed production of M4M I can get my hands on, and it’s no help. I just don’t know what to make of this. Scholars disagree virulently about these lines, but also…scholars aren’t actors, you know? I find myself questioning everything every time I get to this passage. Is Isabella actually a virgin? I’m not sure. Chastity and virginity aren’t actually the same thing and Isabella, for all her idealism, is more worldly than many of her ingenue brethren. One thing is for sure: she’s flushed with self-righteousness when she speaks these words. Angelo may be a haughty son of a bitch, but so is she, so is she, so is she.

Ugh, these characters. I love them so much. I hate Angelo, I do. I also love him. And God help me I love Isabella. They’re dumpster fires of human conviction and I’m so grateful to Shakespeare for giving us their story and for understanding four hundred fucking years ago, that this, THIS is the pinnacle of hell in the female experience: “Who would believe thee, Isabel?”

#MeToo

Thank you, Will. Thank you.

I feel like I should apologize for the length of this reply, but I’ve had so much freaking fun that I also don’t feel apologetic. Thank you for this amazing question! Hope you’re doing well! xx Claire

Tagging @malvoliowithin @measureformeasure @harry-leroy @suits-of-woe

#measure for measure #m4m 2019

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notbemoved-blog · 4 years

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Dorothy Day and her Hope-filled “Revolution of the Heart”

What a time we’re in! I’ve put my blog on hold while working on my next book, but feel the need to come back with a few pieces to “Keep Hope Alive” in these dark times. And just in time for a Dorothy Day revival! Dorothy Day, the enterprising journalist and social activist (and perhaps soon to be saint of the Catholic Church) is having something of a revival of her reputation. A new biography (Dorothy Day by John Loughery and Blythe Randolph) and a new documentary (“Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story” by Martin Doblmeier) have put Day back in the limelight where she belongs. She’s recently appeared in the New York Times Book Review (written by prominent religion historian Karen Armstrong, no less), for an extensive New Yorker profile, and even today in the REVIEW section of the Wall Street Journal! Day’s renaissance couldn’t come at a better time, when, thanks to the pandemic, the fragility of our safety net for the poor shows itself for what it really is: benign neglect, if not downright abuse.

I’ve been an admirer of Dorothy Day’s for decades, dating back to my time as a Catholic seminarian in Baltimore in the 1970s when we were encouraged to think a lot about the poor and about social conditions and how best to put our social consciences to work to improve things. After leaving the seminary and trying to find my way throughout the rest of the ‘70s, I enrolled in The American University’s School of Communications and set about trying to improve my skills as a writer. While pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in Communications (the first, from St. Mary’s Seminary College, was in Philosophy), I happened upon a wonderful journalist/teacher Joe Tinkelman, who taught some of my earliest writing classes and whose consistent encouragement caused me to believe I might have a career as a writer someday.

For his “American Newspapers” class, Tinkelman pushed us to write a long-form journalistic piece profiling a newspaper of our choice. My mind immediately went to The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day’s creation from the 1930s that was still going strong in the 1980s. I thought a 50-year retrospective was in order, so I set about to research this little-known gem and report back to Tinkelman and the class. The research I did (mostly at Catholic University) put me in deeper touch with Dorothy Day, her philosophy, her writing, and her work with the poor of New York City.

For the next four weeks, I’m posting a serialized version of the paper I did for Professor Tinkelman as a tribute to his inspiring teaching and to Dorothy Day herself and her incredible work. Read with caution: You may just get radicalized!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Catholic Worker—The Voice of American Catholic Radicalism Since the 1930’s (Part I)

By Michael J. O’Brien, 12/8/81 – American Newspapers, American University, Professor Joe Tinkelman

On a piercingly cold night in December of 1978, I stepped from the sub-compact I had so comfortably been traveling in with a former seminarian classmate of mine onto the curb of Second Avenue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We were on our way to Maryhouse, the Catholic Worker’s House of Hospitality for homeless women, to attend one of the C.W.’s Friday night meetings. It was my first visit to the Catholic Worker Headquarters. Before I could even close the car door, a middle-aged Black man with the smell of whiskey on his breath and of urine on his clothes—the smell of the destitute in any city—asked me for some money “for a cup of coffee.” I remember looking into this man’s half-dazed eyes, seeing behind him the lights of Second Avenue—the bars and novelty shops, the cafes and movie houses that give the street a feeling of one continuous cabaret—and wondering how to tell him on this of all nights that I could not give him a penny. [Part of our seminary training was to decline to give money to alcoholics. “They’ll only use if to further their illness,” we were told.]

I was already late for the C.W. meeting, so instead of inviting him for a bite to eat at one of those cafes, I asked him to join me at Maryhouse. I knew he would at least be warm there and perhaps could even get a cup of hot coffee. He refused, and as my friend and I dashed across the street to get to the meeting, I heard him cursing us. I can’t think, now, of a more appropriate greeting for my first visit to the Catholic Worker—a group that has served the poor and the dispossessed of the Bowery for almost 50 years.

At the time, however, I was only thinking of our lateness! As we opened the doors to Maryhouse and rushed up the stairs of this seemingly ancient tenement, I was awed by the thought that Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker—“both a newspaper and a movement”—graced these steps daily. For all I knew, she was there that very night, this being her primary residence in the City. I didn’t know much about Dorothy Day then, but I knew she had chosen to live her life among the poor and to serve them as if they were Christ. That was enough to spark my interest in her and in her work.

My friend and I entered the doors of the auditorium to a standing-room only crowd. More than two hundred people were packed into this tiny hall that serves as a distribution center for the newspaper and the meeting hall for “the clarification of thought,” as Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker’s other founder, put it.

We took our places among those standing in the back and I caught a glimpse of Daniel Berrigan, the radical Jesuit pacifist, who was speaking to the throng. Berrigan was scheduled to talk that night—I guess that’s why so many people showed up—on the poetry of Thomas Merton, a well-known Catholic monk and author who died in the late 1960s. Berrigan read to us some of Merton’s poems concerning war, peace, death, and nuclear armaments. After each poem, he gave us his own interpretation of what he believed Merton was trying to convey; they had been good friends.

Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and Daniel Berrigan: Three pillars of radical Catholic thought in the 1960s.

The entire evening had an aura of unreality about it for me. Here I was in Dorothy Day’s house listening to Daniel Berrigan speaking on Thomas Merton—three pillars of radical Catholic thought represented under one roof! The history of modern Catholic radicalism came alive for me that night. It is some of that history, particularly the Catholic Worker’s singular role in its development, that I will attempt to relate in the text that follows.

The Young Radical Journalist

One could say Dorothy Day was a journalist from birth. Her father was a sports writer for the New York Morning Telegraph; her brothers became newspaper editors. Journalism was in her blood.

She became involved in questions of social justice at an early age. She read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Jack London’s essay on class struggle while still in high school. One of her brothers worked on a Chicago paper (where the family lived during Day’s adolescence) called The Day Book, an experiment by Scripps-Howard that reported on the ups and downs of the Labor Movement. The paper’s accounts of the the struggles of the poor and of the workers stirred Dorothy deeply. She began to feel that her life was linked to theirs, that she had received “a call, a vocation, a direction” for her life.

Dorothy Day began her career as a journalist in 1916 at the age of 18 by taking a job at a newspaper coincidentally named The New York Call—a socialist daily that was heavily involved in the labor issues of the day. Later she worked on The Masses, a monthly Communist magazine. After the periodical’s suppression by the Attorney General during the post-World War II “Red Scare”, Day worked for The Liberator, the successor to The Masses.

Her assignments took her to all kinds of strike meetings, picket lines, and peace rallies. She interviewed Leon Trotsky while he was living in New York and writing for a Russian socialist newspaper. She picketed the White House and went to jail for a month with a group of suffragists. She counted as her friends Eugene O’Neill, the great American playwright; Max Eastman, editor of The Masses; and John Reed, author of Ten Days That Shook the World, a journalists’s account of the Russian Revolution. (The new movie REDS explores aspects of the lives of all three of these men.)

A 1917 photo of Dorothy Day (center, holding a copy of The New York Call) urging the U.S. NOT to enter WWI.

An Unlikely Convert

Although her early years as a journalist were spent advocating for causes and movements that were considered godless (Communism, after all, considers religion as an opiate), Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism in 1927 at the age of 30. She saw the Catholic Church as the church of the poor and of the worker, and she wanted to be one with them in every way. Also, she had given birth to a little girl through a common-law marriage, and the overwhelming love she experienced for both her lover and her daughter made her believe that there must be a God.

Day’s conversion caused her much suffering; she had to leave the man she loved because he would not condone her religious leanings. But she put principle before personal comfort, as she would so many times in the future.

After her Baptism, Day found she was no longer one with her comrades. They could not understand her religious convictions and she found it difficult as a Catholic to participate in demonstrations and meetings that were organized by Communists. She continued to report on the plight of the working man for Catholic periodicals—she even did a series of articles for the Catholic press explaining Marxist-Leninism!—but she felt far removed from her earlier radical involvement. She was at a loss as to how to reconcile her two great loves—her newfound love for God and her continued love for the working man and the poor.

An Answered Prayer

Dorothy Day often warned people to be careful how they prayed. “God takes you at your word,” she would say. It was through just such a prayer that she found a solution to her dilemma and that The Catholic Worker came to be.

In early December 1932, Day was covering a march on Washington, D.C., by the Communist-led Unemployment Councils. The march was an attempt by the Depression’s unemployed workers to bring their grievances to Congress. Day was reporting on the march for two Catholic periodicals, America and Commonweal. She became distressed by the march’s lack of Catholic leadership and felt she could no longer sit by and watch as others, especially Communists, took the lead in fighting for the working man. She had to find a way to get involved in the struggle as a Catholic.

On December 8, just after the worker’s march and, coincidentally a Catholic Holy Day, Dorothy Day went to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception—still under construction in Washington—and prayed fervently that God would show her the way out of the box she was in. Remarkably, God took her at her word. When she returned home to New York, Peter Maurin, the man who was to teach her the way out, was waiting for her in her apartment.

Peter Maurin

Maurin had been sent to Day by the editor of Commonweal because they “thought alike.” He was a French peasant and was deeply rooted in Catholic social tradition. He had studied Aquinas, Augustine, and the socialy encyclicals of the Popes, as well as the many contemporary Catholic social writers, including Hillaire Belloc, Emmanuel Mounier, and the Russian activist and social theorist Peter Kropotkin.

Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin sitting for a group Catholic Worker photo in the early 1940s.

Maurin had a plan for the reconstruction of the then-crumbling American society. His plan had four planks: (1) houses of hospitality for the immediate relief of those in need; (2) farming communes to relieve the wretched unemployment brought about by urban industrialization; (3) round table discussion “for the clarification of thought” on social issues; and, (4) a newspaper to get these ideas to the man and woman in the street. Maurin’s entire plan was aimed at “creating a new society within the shell of the old” where it would be “easier for men to be good.”

The Birth of a Newspaper

Dorothy Day didn’t immediately comprehend the breadth of Maurin’s thought, but she jumped at the idea of publishing her own newspaper. She found out that the Paulist Press—a Catholic publishing outlet—would print 2,500 copies of an eight-page tabloid (originally 9”X12”) for fifty-seven dollars. Day feverishly began writing articles for the fledgling paper—articles on the plight of sharecroppers, child labor, the hourly wage for factory workers, and racial injustice. These, along with Maurin’s “Easy Essays”—short, free-flowing verse for quick and easy consumption of ideas by the man in the street—made up the copy for the papers first edition.

Maurin wanted to call the paper The Catholic Radical, but because of her knowledge of Communist periodicals in the U.S., Day insisted on calling it The Catholic Worker—a direct challenge to the then-popular Communist paper The Daily Worker. “Man proposes, woman disposes,” Maurin jokingly demurred. And so, The Catholic Worker was born.

They didn’t seek permission from the Church to use the word “Catholic.” Day wondered about this, but a priest friend of hers wisely advised, “Never ask permission.”

The enduring Catholic Worker masthead

The first issue of The Catholic Worker was ready for distribution on May Day—May first, the great Communist holiday celebrating the working masses—of 1933. In a short column entitled To Our Reader, Day dedicated the paper:

For those who are sitting on park benches in the warm spring sunlight. For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain. For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work. For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight—this little paper is addressed. It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program—to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare.

Dorothy Day was determined to make her stand along with others involved in the workers’ struggle, so in typical in-your-face radical fashion, she along with three of her Catholic supporters went to hock the paper in Union Square, where 50,000 workers had gathered for a massive show of support for Communism. They were scoffed at and they sold few papers, but Day and her friends were satisfied with their results. The paper had been launched. In addition, Day and Maurin had embarked on the great pilgrimage that would consume the rest of their lives.

(To Be Continued)

#Dorothy Day #Peter Maurin #Daniel Berrigan #Thomas Merton #Joe Tinkelman #The Catholic Worker #American University #AU Communications #St. Mary's Seminary College #smsc

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candleheartwitch · 5 years

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don’t mind me, posting my comparative religion final essay here for sharing and archiving purposes.

Polytheism, Choice, and You

Across the world and throughout human history, people have relied on religion for comfort, aid, and purpose. The type of religion one is drawn to can vary wildly depending on culture, lifestyle, personality, and many other factors. The biggest conflict in religion is the question of God: is there one god, two, or more? Are they all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present? Are they some or none of those things? We will most likely never have satisfying, concrete answers to those questions, but we can still choose our own path and decide what religion, if any, we want to follow. The choice is easy for some, and yet some people don’t think they have a choice at all. The biggest dichotomy in religion is mono- versus polytheism. Some are neither, like Buddhism, while Hinduism seems to be both. In Hinduism there are countless deities, each serving a purpose—there are house spirits, family gods, and community gods on top of the “basic” gods of the religion. Each is important to different people. Each Hindu devotes themselves to different deities, even though they all believe roughly the same things. In our Western, Christian-centric culture, it can be hard to understand why anyone would choose to worship in that way. We can find it difficult to wrap one’s head around polytheism and transactional worship at all. Why would someone worship a god that isn’t necessarily all-powerful, that doesn’t necessarily care if you worship them at all? Every polytheist would give a different answer to that question, but there seems to be one consistent reason. Polytheism and transactional religions preserve a person’s agency and grant choice—many people find it easier to be fully devoted to a god or gods they chose themselves.

People who leave Christianity often say that they did not enjoy the feeling of subservience and inferiority impressed upon them by the religion. Christianity and Islam view religion as a system of debts and inherent superiority—God has already given humanity his love and help, and worshippers spend their lives trying to repay Him and stay in his good graces. Not only that, but god is worthy of worship simply by the fact that He created the world; He is the perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent force that keeps everything running. One is supposed to worship Him simply because He is the One True God. In polytheistic religions, the deities generally aren’t portrayed as perfect, not are they imperfect—rather, they are simply forces of reality that should not be questioned. In Hinduism, it is often much more a transaction-based relationship between devotee and deity. Worship is part of a deal struck with a specific god; the devotee performs a ritual or makes an offering in exchange for a service from the god (or insurance for the future). Of course, the relationship is not totally heartless. Many polytheists feel a deep personal connection with their gods, some even claiming gods have communicated directly with them. A Hindu might bathe a god’s likeness in milk, or present a priest with food to be blessed; these are done in service to a god, as the “price” of devotion. If a polytheist does not fulfill certain things, they might be able to count on their deity when they need something, or incur the righteous wrath of a higher power. In contrast, a religion like Buddhism that has no deities sees the self as both a natural force and a perfect being, and requires neither subservience not payment. A Buddhist might see the worship of a deity as a crutch keeping someone from realizing the true potential of the individual.

In Hinduism, the gods are much more involved with the gritty, every-day realities of life. They make up every force in the universe, with little regard for morality. Often, one god has both “good” and “bad” attributes; this is why polytheistic religion does not tend to apply such concepts to their gods or to their practice. For example, the Greek god Apollon is the god of both medicine and plague—when people begin to get sick, worshippers wonder what they did to anger Him, and try to appease Him to He will heal the afflicted. The plague is not seen as an “evil” phenomenon. Rather, it is simply the way things are, or even a punishment for not worshipping correctly. In Christianity and Islam, Good and Evil are separate forces, and only the Good is worshipped. The Abrahamic God is transcendent; He is perfect and good, and thus rarely delves into the world of men, which is imperfect, dirty, and at risk of evil. That idea is another thing that leads many people to convert to polytheism—they feel like the Hindu, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, or other deities are more relatable, and thus make more attainable role models. In Christianity specifically, it is Satan’s proximity to the base desires of humanity and temptation that give him Evil characteristics; he fell from Grace to Imperfection. This creates the narrative that it is impossible for human beings to every truly be good while they are human, and that the only way to do good is to get as close to God as possible. For some people, this mindset is helpful—it aids in the search of goodness, and helps people to kick harmful habits and behaviors. In a tradition where the end result is to be as Perfect and Good as possible, temptation away from Perfection is temptation toward Evil. The only way to become perfect is to remove oneself from Earthly desires. As it stands, humans are sullied by Sin and dissatisfaction, neither of which plagues the perfect God. In pagan polytheism, the gods are not guides in morality, and neither do they preach arbitrary rules for behavior. Very little is black-and-white, good-or-evil, do-or-die; this allows people to worship casually without getting bogged down in grand questions of morality. Hinduism is complicated, however, as there is a destiny or code that is ascribed to each person (called dharma), but it is not dictated by the gods; this is why Hinduism is considered both mono- and polytheistic. The universe determines a person’s dharma, and their gods determine everyday worship and behavior. The two concepts are inextricably entwined, and a discussion of gods in Hinduism is not complete without at least a mention of dharma as well.

The problem of idolatry is also a major division in religion. At one extreme, Islam does not allow any images of God or the divine, and images of the prophet are only allowed sometimes. As a result, mosques tend to use calligraphy of Quran passages as décor, like Christian churches may use images of Jesus. Christianity forbids idolatry, though it is defined as the worship of things other than God (which includes polytheism). Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox churches permit the use of religious images, and Catholics often claim patron saints, thought they claim they simply honor the saints. Protestants generally prohibit “worshipping” imagery or saints, though they often use the image of the cross as a symbol. This extreme aversion to icons is why many people in the West have trouble understanding Hindu practice; Hinduism is all about icon worship. In temples and in home shrines, each god honored there must have a likeness, generally a statue or figurine. This figure is known to be a vessel for the deity, and thus must be taken great care of. It is washed, “fed” by placing offerings of food on its altar, dressed, and sometimes carried to different places in the temple or home. This is a physical symbol of worship; as devotees honor the icon, so are they honoring the god. It is also known that if one has an icon in one’s home, the god has a presence there. These symbols only become real, however, when they are consecrated by a priest. The home becomes sacred once a priest performs a blessing upon it. This allows temporary symbols: as long as a priest blesses an object (which might be a carving, a drawing, a tree, or other), it is believed to be the deity incarnate. It is considered inappropriate to view an idol without its ritual adornment, as that deity is not ready to be seen.

Perhaps the biggest draw to polytheism is the customization, so to speak. Many people who grew up in Christianity describe that they felt trapped; they wanted to do good, and to be a good person, but felt that Christian rules weren’t the right way. They were taught that there is one way to be, and if someone strays from the path they are doomed. People who convert to polytheism say they were drawn to the freedom to choose what and how to worship, as well as what and how to be. In an informal interview on Instagram, young adults expressed their displeasure with the stringent regulation in Abrahamic churches. Instagram user Cassandra (@im_a_cas_tastrophe) said that monotheistic religion “didn’t appeal to my need for freedom in spirituality and sexuality…. It’s more like apprenticing myself to an amazing, reputable teacher and dedicating myself to learning about them and their craft.” User @imtherealest_mermaid talked about the expectation of worship: “…because yes I want to worship and devote myself to them but I’m also not about that blindly follow with nothing in return sort of thing [sic].” User @deathbydivination exhibits how varied polytheism can be: “For myself it’s a very deep mutual partnership…I actually have equal footing in my relationship with my deity and unlike monotheism where it almost feels like they hold ultimate power over you….” In pagan polytheism there are certain rules, but the devotee is free to choose which pantheon, deities, and rules fit their idea of religion. Worship in Hinduism is a bit more prescribed—the religion is thousands of years old, after all—but individuals are still welcome and expected to choose a personal deity they feel the most connected to.

Religion is the “big question” of human history. Atrocities, miracles, and good deeds have all been committed in the name of every religion under the sun. Humanity will never agree on which tradition is “correct,” nor will we ever decide if religion is “real” or not. Despite the growing numbers of atheist and non-religious people, religion will continue to give people comfort, purpose, and a sense of community, just as it has for thousands of years. While monotheistic, Abrahamic religions are still the largest populations in the world, polytheism continues to restore agency to those who feel left behind by other traditions. Hinduism as well will continue to endure, and as more Hindus emigrate from India the religion will spread, and who knows—maybe it will gain a large convert population.

#it's not much of a read don't bother #the assignment was 'write whatever as long as you include Hinduism'

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oaesiir-beloved-of-heaven · 5 years

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NEWER DISCLAIMER: While working on my blog about lawn-mowing I discovered this old thing. I was pretty proud of it at the time and thought it gone for good. I decided to go ahead and post it with a few edits to replace my older more problematic and ignorant viewpoints with ones that more closely reflect reality and my now more liberal viewpoints. DISCLAIMER: I wrote this for a Facebook group I was talking to people in who were predominantly National Socialists. The kind who think Hitler did nothing wrong. So if my words seem directed at such a kind of people, don't think I'm talking to you the reader specifically. It's intended as a story to illustrate the flaws in their position and how the whole "We Must Suppress X Minority Group Based on Race and Conspiracy Theories!" is a self-fulfilling prophecy which perpetuates an endless cycle of instability. I was writing this on a Friday night and had plans to go out. As it got time for me to leave, I saved the document and left. But I came back to find I'd been banned from the group. I didn't want all that work to go to waste however. So, here it is.

I'm going to tell you all a little story. I'll come back later to see what you all have to say to it. But I have more important things to do tonight. But for now I'm going to leave you all with a parable to consider. If you want to become more well-read on the subject you are all welcome to do so.

The Parable of Visigothic Spain.

In the region we now know as Spain, Jews and Christians lived side by side without any qualms under the Roman Empire. There were absolutely zero instances of ethnic or religious-based violence between the two groups.

Then the Visigoths showed up.

Like most Barbarian groups they were leaving Northern Europe as a mini Ice Age gripped those regions, rendering harvests and food supplies nonexistent. The Visigoths eventually settled in the regions now known as Spain and Southern France.

Eventually the Visigoths in Spain adopted Christianity, even though it was Arianism. Their formal entrance into the Catholic Religion would not come until much later.

Even after their formal merge with Rome, the Iberian Church had a very basic knowledge of Christianity. Mostly derived from oral tradition and the Bible.

In the Bible, it's pretty clearly laid out after the Gospels in the New Testament that the first persecutors of Christianity were the Jews. In spite of this, however, very little in the way of what we might recognize as "Antisemitism" appears in the Biblical texts. In Rome at this time, documents like "Sicut Judicaeris" outlined civil rights for Jews. Saint Augustine said Jews were to be valued, not exterminated, as an important part of Christian history and a valuable asset for the preservation of the Old Testament, its history, and an understanding of it.

But the Visigoths themselves were very cut off from Rome and just emerging from Barbarism. As such, Tribalism governed much of their policy. "Us vs. Them," if you will. So even though they found themselves rulers of a multiethnic and multicultural area of the world, they continued their policies largely as though they were governing only Visigoths.

Couple this with their primitive understanding of Christianity, and we have one of the first appearances of Antisemitism in a Catholic government.

Without explanation, context, or reason Visigothic synods and kings were passing laws to suppress Jews. But apparently even though they had never been before, the Jews were a threat to civil order as a whole and had to be suppressed, oppressed, and controlled.

Flash forward a few hundred years to the Moorish Invasion of Iberia; no one knows precisely why the Moors invaded. Various theories are tossed about, from Eastern versus Western understandings of Feudal sovereignty to an over-sized colonization force to a simple series of raids that got bogged down and accidentally built a civilization. One theory rapidly gaining ground is that the Moors were invited by a deposed Castilan king. However a lack of written record from the time period concerning the motivations and plots of the parties involved in the invasion leaves room of speculation. Most Iberian Catholics simply saw it as an invasion to conquer and destroy their Christian civilization.

At this specific instance in history, the Catholics in the region were oppressive toward Jews and the Caliphate of the Moors from North Africa was somewhat tolerant for the moment. Both these factors had little to do with religion and more to do with the present leadership; any student of Islam can say the religion doesn’t have a track record for treating Jews that is dissimilar from Catholicism.

The result is that the Jews welcomed the Moors. They helped them in their conquests. For no other reason than they wanted more freedom than what the Catholics offered.

So it was for most of the period we all know as the Reconquista. The Jews helped the Moors; there were exceptions I feel I should note. Many Catholic rulers, knowing the Faith better and seeing how the Caliphate was turning against Jews (the "Sephardic Golden Age" didn't last very long) became more lenient towards them and treated them much the same as they did Muslims who did not oppose them. They did what was best for their realms and their people; ideology was secondary to that. The only overarching thing that - mostly - guided Catholic rulers was Catholicism.

So let's fast forward to the Post-Reconquista. The Moors have been pushed out, but many Muslims and Jews remain in the southern regions of Spain. But not just Muslims and Jews; Muslims and Jews with a real stake in the Caliphate. Money is involved now.

But there's something else at play; most of those who fought in the Reconquista don't know much about the Visigothic Period. Their only experience with Jews is with them as traitors and friends of their oppressors. They don't know much about the Who's and Why's of the Visigoth Antisemitic Laws, because there's little to no way for them to know. Even then, that doesn't matter; it doesn't reflect the present reality.

So the Spaniards see the Jews as traitors and a subversive element; they don't know anything else. The Jews don't particularly care at this point about reconciliation; they have a larger stake in helping the Moors at this point. The unified Spain is a young entity; can it truly survive? Already Jewish forces were establishing contacts with the Moors. If another invasion was tried, they would certainly help. Figures in local government were still Jewish and/or Muslim.

So the Expulsion of the Moriscoes takes place, and the rest is history.

But what's the point of this story?

I'm going to make a bet that most people on /pol/ are in favor of the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Question." That most of you don't like Jews just on principle.

My question is: why? Because of some unfounded theories and suppositions? For all you know, that Jew you know who is your neighbor has no problem with you. Or he wouldn't if you didn't hang a fucking Swastika in your window. He doesn't want your rights subverted anymore than you do.

He probably doesn't feel any special connection with his Jewish history beyond the superficial.

But I'll bet that if you and a bunch of "Daily Stormer" reading-buddies got together, starting cosplaying as Nazis, and having your own Kristalnacht in your neighborhood, very quickly those who find themselves targeted by you would unify against you.

Because human nature is funny like that, with how it reacts to adversity and oppression. When you attack a large group of people as a whole, they unite.

If a whole bunch of Black Panthers went on the warpath where you live looking to kill Whitey, I'll bet you and all your buddies would rally really quickly. I bet lots of White People would join you or hide behind you if only for their own survival.

This is how human nature works and why racial prejudice is self-defeating. It is always a self-fulfilling prophecy. One race persecute another, it resists, and the oppressor shouts, "SEE!? They were against us all along!"

Except any other ethnicity would do -the exact same thing-.

I've heard South Africa is a pretty bad place to live for a White Man now. I'll admit, I don't know much about the whole affair. But let's say it is.

Let's suppose the Whites in South Africa are in a position identical to the Jews in Visigothic Spain. For added sting, let's assume South Africans are predominantly Muslim and the Whites are Christian.

Now let's assume a foreign Christian power invaded South Africa for whatever reason. Let's assume they didn't successfully conquer all of it.

Every White Supremacist would cheer and support every act of terrorism, every bit of mob action, every racist scree, every act and word written to undermine the native Black South African government. Let's assume Black South Africans win the war and reunify the country under a Black Muslim government. In spite of the fact the Whites were openly seditious, you would decry any attempt by the government to control a clearly traitorous group. Because they're White, so you have to help them, and that's all that matters.

This is why Racial Supremacy is a farce. This is why canards spread about Jewish supremacy are self-fulfilling prophecies. It's barbaric tribalism that is doomed to keep the world and all its States ever-shrinking and ever-unstable and ever-warring.

We have to better than that. We must.

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scriptlgbt · 6 years

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Catholicism-Related Homophobia Masterpost

Hello!

Mod Deryn here, as your local Roman Catholic gal, here to talk to you about some common comments/’arguments’/views/ideologies held/made by homophobic Catholics, and what your characters can say back to them.

TW for transphobia, homophobia, religion, and general bleh-ness.

I want to start off by saying that any self-respecting Catholic that actually practices what they preach would not be homophobic, because it literally goes against the 10 Commandments (basically the ten rules that you’re not supposed to break ever because they’re especially bad sins), and violates the second-most important commandment, which is to love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:39). We as laypeople explicitly do not have the right to judge (much less punish) anyone, no matter what. We are called to love everyone.

Anyway, your homophobic Catholic is likely to be more of a ‘conservative Catholic,’ so to speak, rooting their arguments in traditionalism and condemning more progressive stances in Catholicism that are pro-LGBT. (Please keep in mind that while many Catholics refer to God as a He, I refer to Them as They, and will thus refer to Them as that).

Common Arguments that your Homophobic Catholic Character May Use and How to Confront Them:

1. The Genesis Argument (AKA Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve) This is a very common “argument,” and basically centres on the idea that in the first creation story (and yes!! there are two included in Genesis!!) God creates Adam (the first man) and then Eve (the first woman). In the second Genesis story, God tries to find the perfect ‘companion’ for Adam, and when nothing works, They make Adam fall asleep and pull out Adam’s rib and make a new human (Eve) out of that rib. Implausible as it sounds, it is one of the two possible explanations of creation that exist in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, as well as the first book of the Torah.

It is important to realize that in the original Hebrew text, the first human is referred to as Ish, which means ‘humankind,’ and then, when Eve is created, they are then referred to as ish and isha (man and woman). Basically, men weren’t created first because just ‘humanity’ was created first. (To be fair, this is more of a side-note than anything, but I do find it important to note).

How to Confront this Argument:

A) Have your character point out that this creation story is, quite frankly, just that. A story. The Bible includes two separate accounts of creation for just this reason, to make it clear that the creation story is a story, not an actual account of reality. (And no, I’m not being a heretic, this is literally what’s taught in religion class. Ask my religion teacher with a Masters in Religious Education). The use of repetition in the first story (i.e. “And there was evening and there was morning, the [x] day”), the largely symbolic language, and other, subtler hints are meant to clue in the readers that the creation story is largely symbolic and not an account of real events. Most of Genesis is like this; stories and things that must be taken into the context of the time they were written in in order to fully understand what the messages are.

Almost all (Old Testament) Bible stories are not meant to be taken literally, and your Catholic homophobe will likely be the die-hard ‘the bible said this so it must be true.’ If that is the case, your character could mention some other things the bible mentions that are somewhat ridiculous in a modern context and have to be taken in the context they were written in - for example, in Leviticus 19:19, God instructs the people that “[they should] not wear clothing woven of two types of material.” Given that that includes most fabric nowadays, something has to give.

2. “The Bible says homosexuality is wrong!!” (AKA - I’m going to pretend I read this passage so I have a reason to be uncomfortable with you).

Your character is likely to be referencing either the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) or that one line from Romans (You Know What I Mean).

(Rape Mention TW)

To sum up, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the people there are like, super sinful, so God wants to destroy them all a la flood style. But Abraham (God’s Main Dude - Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic people all trace their lineage back to him, I believe) was like ‘hey, wait a second there God, I have family there, don’t kill them.’ So to ‘test’ Sodom and Gomorrah, God sent two angels in disguise as humans to go visit Abraham’s family, who welcomes them in. However, the rest of the residents of Sodom all go to Lot (Abraham’s family - I can’t remember the exact relation), but they go to Lot’s house and demand to be allowed the permission of sleeping with Lot’s guests (the angels). Lot, being a good person, doesn’t do that.

The next morning, the angels tell Lot and his family to clear out before they destroy the two cities, they do so (although Lot’s wife looks back and gets turned into a pillar of salt), and are thus saved.

(End Rape TW)

This story has been interpreted in two major ways - one is that it is a warning against homosexuality, the other being that it’s a warning against inhospitality. The second one, in context, makes more sense. Lot is spared, not because he didn’t display any homosexual tendencies, but because he was a good host and tried to protect the angels. His wife, despite being not described as gay in any way, is turned into a pillar of salt because she disobeys their guests’ wishes.

Basically - the main biblical story that Catholics use to preach against homosexuality is a misunderstanding of the text.

The line in Romans about homosexuality is based off this story, in most interpretations, and is thus also based on a misunderstanding of the text, and thus unreasonable to take into consideration.

How Your Character Could Confront This Argument:

Assuming your character had read the passages in question (which isn’t necessarily untrue to life - when I first began realizing I was gay, I started scanning as much of the bible as possible to find out what the Bible actually said about homosexuality. However, I will admit that that’s a rather uncommon reaction, especially if your character has not been raised in a very faith-immersed environment. A character with less knowledge about this background could instead point out the inadequacies of the Bible as a set of rules to live one’s life (Jesus Himself did not follow all the rules that the Pharisees had set - for one example, He would heal people on Shabbat, regardless of the fact that it was supposed to be a day where you did very little - I don’t know the exact rules, but He wasn’t supposed to be healing people).

Not only that, but Jesus (who set out the New Commandments and basically was sent out into the world to create a new era of Love and, depending on who you talked to, basically voided the majority of the Old Testament) never actually said anything about homosexuality, and the Old Testament is where the majority of homophobic arguments are found, showing that a lot of people who use these arguments are ignoring the part of Bible they’re arguably supposed to be paying the most attention to.

3. God Hates X Group!

Nope. God is Love. The two words are literally interchangeable throughout the Bible. Remember that passage from Corinthians - Love is patient, Love is kind?

Now think... God is patient, God is kind. Slow to anger, rich in kindness...

In the Beginning, Love created the heavens and the earth.

It goes on.

The spiritual embodiment of love literally cannot hate. It’s just... not possible. Not only is this person presuming to know what an all-powerful and presumably omniscient deity believes in and thinks, they are also presuming to believe that God would hate Their own creation.

Again in the New Testament, there are a startling amount of parables about tax collectors. Why? Everyone hated tax collectors. They were often corrupt, took money for themselves, and sometimes left families destitute. It was a pretty common feeling among the people that these collectors were destined for hell (and good riddance!). However, Jesus goes on up there and tells them that tax collectors, prostitutes... all these people who are condemned by the public? They’re going to heaven first. Why? Because they’re still God’s children, no matter what, and God doesn’t hate them.

How to Have Your Characters Refute This Argument:

“Oh, I thought your God was a loving God?”

Listen, God literally sent Their own progeny, their only child, to be humiliated, tortured, and then killed. Why? To save everyone. No matter who, or what, or how, or why, they’re ALL being saved. Anything else violates Catholic teaching.

4. “You must be fruitful and multiply!” (AKA: Being gay is wrong because you can’t naturally reproduce).

Transphobia aside, this view is (again) based heavily on Genesis, which was written in 1400 BCE. It’s worth keeping in mind the context in which this was written (child mortality rates were high, people didn’t live very long, having lots of children was almost necessary because of mortality rates, etc). Using hermeneutics (the modern study of the Bible, taking into account context, storytelling format, authors’ bias, and so much more), we are able to make better judgements in relation to what the Bible says.

Now, it is generally understood that people aren’t required to have twelve children in order to obey God because that doesn’t make sense within a modern era. There are blessed single people who do not choose to be nuns but choose to live single and are thus sanctified (my grade six teacher is one, though I forget the exact title). All members of the clergy do not have children - priests because they represent God, and nuns and monks because of spiritual obligations to God. Obviously, if so many members (and important members!) of the church - both lay and clergy - are considered just as sacred as those who did have children, it stands to reason that the only thing that truly matters is their dedication to God, not the number of children they had.

Besides that, adoption is a thing, surrogacy and artificial insemination is a thing, and this is ultimately an outdated worldview.

How To Have Your Character Refute This:

If your homophobic character uses that exact line, consider having your character point out how long ago that part of the Bible was written. Alternatively, they could point out the number of LGBT+ couples/families seeking out adoptions and other methods of having children, point out the transphobia in their statements, or otherwise find flaws in their logic as seen.

TL;DR: In my opinion, while there are absolutely many interpretations of the Bible, hatred is not one of them, and using Roman Catholicism to justify homophobia is upsetting, to say the least, because using God to promote hatred goes against the whole point of a religion based on love.

Most of these arguments can be easily refuted by someone reminding the prosecutor that Roman Catholicism is about love, not hate.

And if refutation isn’t enough, maybe hitting them over the head with a bible will do it (but I generally don’t endorse doing that. Violence doesn’t really work).

Best of luck writing!

-Mod Deryn

All bible transcripts come from the New Revised Standard Edition Bible.

#roman catholicism #masterpost #mod deryn #writing advice #lgbt writing #writing lgbt characters #rape //#homophobia //#religion //

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restorerjourney · 3 years

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Our last week and a half of outreach!!

08/19/2021

Sorry for the delay in updating you guys but the past week and a half has been a whirlwind...I feel like I’ve been saying that for every week, but literally this week was as well ^^;;

To summarize last week,

Monday: We did our usual preparation for street evangelism in the evening and asked God to speak to us on what He wanted us to do and who specifically He wanted us to meet. We call it “treasure hunting” when we ask God to highlight or describe whom God want us to meet. It’s been fun and so encouraging to see how we actually get to meet the people that He has described to us and encouraging that we could hear the voice of God. So normally when we get together we all take time to hear the voice and then go around in a circle and briefly share. It’s tedious to be honest and it’s tempting to just be told by the leaders what to do, but it’s SO MUCH better to do it this way because this really builds and unifies our faith as we trust God as our leader. That day we saw us doing soccer with the children, painting nails ministry, and meeting people as we walk down the street..so we divided into groups based on what we individually saw or heard from God. Some of us saw us worshipping with flags beforehand and so we decided to do that before we split into groups. It was so beautiful seeing the sunset and as we sang 3 songs, I danced with the flags. The old Alicia would have been embarrassed to be known as the “flag lady” but honestly it was liberating and I didn’t care what others thought of me. All I wanted was for the people to see through these flags that our group represented the peace and free gift from God. Locals took recording of us and watched us with awe and curiosity which was encouraging to witness. I did nail ministry and me and some of my team members met a group of girls who wanted to their nails done. After we ask them what color they want their nails done, we would share the 5 finger gospel that was represented with each different nail color so that they would remember. We also shared our testimony and I could see the awe and wonder in their eyes. It was their first time hearing the gospel and they all accepted Jesus in their hearts. I could tell some are still questioning it but I do believe and pray in faith that in that moment we invited the Holy spirit to plant seeds and start moving in their lives.

Side note: In Mexico, because their religion is predominantly Catholicism, many of them get it confused with Christianity. We emphasize and explain that Christianity is not just a religion but a relationship...that it’s not about perfection but knowing Jesus died and rose again despite our weakness and failures...so when we share the gospel to them, they are very receptive to accepting Him and the Holy spirit. What has been really helpful was trying to connect them with a local church or giving them bible which we have been implementing lately. Our desire as team is to not have just converts but disciples of Christ.

Tuesday morning we did one of the hottest ministries that I’ve experienced in my life..like literally it was so hot that you could cook an egg outside..and on top of that having to wear a KN94 mask and long sleeves so you don’t bit by mosquitoes...what an experience lol. There God spoke and assigned to us what he wanted us to do. Some of us gave food and drink to the families waiting outside of the hospital since no one could go in due to COVID. I was in the evangelism group and we encountered 3 groups of people. One of them was a christian woman who reached out to us to pray for her and her daughter who in labor early. It was encouraging to see her radiant faith and worshipping outside despite the heat for her daughter. There was another man that we met who was outside because his cousin got COVID and was there a lot longer than expected. Yedam, Javi, Yoonkyung and I shared the gospel, prayed for his original design, and encouraged him. Original design prayer is literally what it sounds like. Praying for what God has originally intended and gifted you before you were born. I’ve witnessed and experienced people becoming so much more receptive to the gospel and touched by the Holy spirit through this prayer. In the evening we did our weekly clean up at the base’s cafeteria. This experience is pretty much hard labor with no a/c, washing dishes, mopping the floor and praying that you don’t get bit by mosquitoes.

Wednesday we did our last bible distribution. We give out about 77 bibles every time we go since we each carry 7 bibles in our backpacks as we walk through neighbors. This time I felt God was gracious to me that everyone received them and when there is no one home, we usually leave it at the door and pray for the home that the family there would know Jesus. We’ve heard stories of people receiving Jesus Christ just by reading His word so it really encourages me that we as our team get to be part of this ministry. After we did ministry preparation for the following ministries this week while eating oreos, mexican snacks, and our one drink we get a day at the cafe. I usually get just iced tea with no sugar. We then went to a local church later in the evening and attended worship and some of us, including myself shared our testimony. I shared my journey of getting my period here in Mazatlan and how this second time really sealed the deal for me that I was healed. Three main points that I shared throughout my testimony was 1) that God loves to see our faith before He shows us His power 2) His ways are so much higher than ours, even when it doesn’t make sense 3) to worship the promise keeper more than the promise. For those who are interested in hearing it, I have a recording that I can send it to you guys!

Thursday we had our weekly campus intercession where we prayed for each other and the different spheres that God has placed us...whether if it’s science, business, arts, family, etc. After we were told for our weekly base cleaning duty to weed the garden at the base. This garden is in between the two sections of the base where there is no shade and weeds everywhere. This was one hurdle that our team had to face weekly because as much as we understand the concept of weeding, it didn’t make sense to us they didn’t spray any weed killer after. Weeding at 12pm in 95 degree weather for an hour is no bueno. However God spoke to me of how similar sin is to weeds and that we need to continually check the gardens in our own heart to prevent these weeds from going rampant. The bigger the weed, the more difficult and work it takes to remove them...because they literally start to look like small trees. After that gruesome afternoon, we found out last minute that we can go to Stone Island for the last time. We had zero expectation that we could ever go since COVID cases were so high there and to protect the people however we got an open door opportunity. There I got to visit the rehabilitation center where it’s mostly people who involuntarily are put there to be rehabilitated from alcohol or drug abuse. I was with a team called BSN which is a secondary school that teaches their students how to teach the bible to others. Every week they visit this center and share a bible study with them. It really encouraged my heart that I got to see the church be a light to this center by sharing to them God’s word. Also every time we go Stone Island we have to take a ferry to get there so it was sad to ride it one last time. Stone Island has been special in my heart because that is where we did our first and last alpha course before the pandemic hit the island really hard. There is a lot of witchcraft and idolatry there as well. There is a part of the island where this is a huge wooden cross but right next to it, there is an animal sacrifice altar for witchcraft. That’s how dark this place is, but we’ve received so many promises over this place that God is going to raise an army of believer particularly children here. I’m so thankful that I got to visit the island one last time before we go. For dinner, we usually go out with some of the ministry leaders and we get to bless them with a free meal and develop a relationship with them. This is crucial to share because before we left for Mazatlan, we heard from the Lord to not only serve the poor but leaders as well.

Friday afternoon we went to help out at another local church plant that just started but was postponed for awhile due to the pandemic. We helped out by giving out bible tracts on the book of John to the local neighborhood. I was with our translator Alejandro, Dayoung, and Imjae. The highlight for me during that time was when we got to meet a woman name Ilda and her husband to be and how welcoming they were to their home. They are in their late 60′s and although they didn’t have much they were so friendly and welcoming to their humble home. In the late afternoon we went to one of my favorite ministries which is Racham. Racham in Hebrew means “ a touch of compassion” or “to restore”. I shared previously that it is a children’s ministry that is partnered with the government to help abused children get out of the streets and find homes. All the girls there have been raped and all the boys have either done or sold drugs. The age range is 4 to 15-years-old. They are all so sweet and precious and we had such a great time playing games, teaching them how to hear God’s voice on their own original design, and the importance of community. Time flies by so fast when I am with them.

During the weekend I mostly spent time with people that I would see for the last time in a while. In the morning I ate lunch with my old roomies, did some last minute shopping, and hang out with some of the ywammers here in Mazatlan. One of my favorite memory is going to Sophie’s house and having a girl’s movie night. We got to watch “Coco” which was perfect to watch while being in Mexico. It was so cool to see up close what a life of a long term missionary looked like. And what’s crazy is that they are mostly late teens early twenties. They are all truly brave and I admire their yes to Jesus.

Sunday...omg was probably the HARDEST TRIAL I’ve experienced coming here in Mazatlan and it’s kinda comical. It was going to one of the local church’s sunday service. Before you judge, let me explain. 90% of the time when we go somewhere new to help out or attend, we have no idea where we are going. We just try our best to prepare. For example, always wear sunblock, and bug repellant because you never know where they might place you and you could be in the middle of the desert with a cloud of mosquitoes because there is a swamp nearby. I’ve gotten used to this always preparing myself as much as possible. When we got there, we find out there are 30-40 people there and the service is outside. I thought “Oh..Lord...”. Thankfully there were fans but it was HOT. And probably not the safest during the pandemic to gather like this, but what can you do? Just gotta walk in faith. So we did not take our KN94 masks off at all and by the end of the service which was almost 3 hours long!, our masks were gross. What was hardest for me was not preparing mentally that this service was going to be so long and while I was sitting there, the pastor had his microphone in full blast, the wind from the fans were blowing in my face giving me a headache, and I was getting hungry. Bad combination. I wanted to fall asleep so bad but had the burden to stay awake because the locals knew we were missionaries! It was like dying to myself and I had to use every once of strength to stay awake despite the heat and humidity. In the end, I felt convicted to never take a/c for granted at church and despite the environment situation, the locals were still worshipping God with everything they had which was inspirational. In the evening we had to out in the hot sun to support a local ywammer that we met who is making a music video and she wanted to use us as actors. As fatigued as we were from the heat, I believe God allowed us to be part of something so powerful through the song that she has written to bless the nations. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Monday morning we met with the Stone Island church plant pastor whom we partnered earlier to start an alpha course. We met them to answer any questions they had about alpha before we left and to tie up any loose ends. It was so encouraging to hear their appreciation and how our small obedience to God really bless their ministry and vision. The locals who participated even approached the pastor and asked when the next session was! They will be restarting Alpha again hopefully next month if things are more under control with the pandemic. In the evening we did our last street evangelism which was such a sweet ending. We felt the Lord leading us to go to a popular market place down town and worship there and do a prayer walk while treasure hunting on the way back to the base. God shared with me to find a woman with a small boy who would come up to me. When we worshipped, a lot of the by passers watched and listened to us in awe and wonder. A lot of our team members felt a shift in the atmosphere and it was such a great foundation to start our ministry. I went with Javi, Yoonkyung, and Grace and God graciously showed us all the people we were looking for! One highlight was the woman with the small boy that I saw immediately came up to us after we worshipped and we shared the gospel to them. I could tell her in her eyes she was so blessed and encouraged by her prayers.

Tuesday we went to the dump ministry which was our last ministry for outreach. We went to the market to prepare the food as usual and this time thankfully didn’t have to climb up to the back of a truck to arrive to the dumpster. Some of us tried to put drops of eucalyptus essential oil on our mask but after 30 seconds it became powerless against the smell of death we faced at the dumpster. To me the smell the second time coming was a lot worse and I almost wanted to puke. It just smelled like death and you just would immediately feel nauseous. That morning however before ministry God spoke to me to find a woman named “ Esmeralda” and to pray for her and tell her how much God loves her. At the dumpster when I was trying not to puke, I asked around if there was an Esmeralda. No one answered. However more people started to line up and I asked again and I found her! There was only one and I got so excited. It’s just so cool and fun to do ministry like this with God and be reassured again that you could hear God’s voice. She didn’t know Jesus so I felt led to share the gospel and my testimony to her. She accepted Jesus and I shared to her how much God loved her and told me to find her this morning. I could tell in her eyes that she was in wonder and awe of who Jesus is.

Wednesday we went to get our COVID tests done before our flight on Friday. We were kinda nervous because if one of us was positive that person would have to stay behind and quarantine. Praise the Lord we were all negative! I believe it’s because of God’s mercy and grace towards our team and we were so truly grateful that not one of us got COVID during outreach...especially with the number of people we met during ministry.

Thursday we debriefed, packed, ate our last tacos, and cleaned up. Today is our last full day here and tomorrow we have our flight around 1:30PM. We have two layovers, Phoenix and LA...so we do have some prayer requests.

1) Travel mercies especially for our Korean citizens. They have to go through immigration again to re-enter the states and if they are denied they won’t be to finish remix and will be sent home. Also LA is doing pretty bad with COVID, please pray for protection and smooth transition to Honolulu.

2) Remix: Please pray for us to adjust quickly to our remix session as we will be spending about a month processing all that God has revealed to us..where God will take us...and what He wants to do after DTS. This is what we all have been waiting for really and on top of that, it’s also a lot of emotions because we have become so close as a family. Please pray that we would continue to pursue unity as a team and have many more breakthroughs while we are there.

Thank you for reading this long summary! There is still so much I have left out but because I gotta pack, I will leave it up to here!

-Alicia

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oc-review-shop · 6 years

Text

OC Review: Nim

Submitted by: Nimbg

Reviewed by: Mod Charle

I’m back again! I’ve revised Nim’s backstory a little. Sorry if I’m spamming.

Not at all :)

Nim Is a pagan wolf-god hailing from eastern Europe. She was associated with a small tribe that lived south of the Danube. Her worship was at its strongest around 680 A.D. and started fading 864 when Christianity was accepted in her territory. From then on she was mostly remembered by soldiers who invoked her protection when going to battle.

From my memory of World History, I’m pretty sure Christianity was accepted into eastern Europe earlier than 864 A.D. I assume around 300-400 A.D. I could be wrong, but check online to make sure the facts are correct.

In the 11th century was the final nail in her coffin, when The first Bulgarian empire fell under Byzantine rule. At that time not only did she get in trouble with the Christian God but with the old Greek pantheon who still had considerable amount of followers. She was wiped off the face of history. This, however, didn’t mean she died. Reduced to nearly a human Nim continued attempting to help her people in any way she could think of.

How did she get in trouble? Was it her fault or was she played into taking the blame? Expand a little more on how she fell from God status.

During the rise of the second Bulgarian empire she was getting tired, as much as she loved her people, as much as she missed them worshipping her, without power the task became torturous. This is the time she got most of the scars on her body.

Was she physically wounded in battle, or was it all mental and psychological breakdowns that “impurified” her in a way? Basically, how did she get the scars (literally)?

Finally she gave up when the Ottoman empire marched on the land. She had no power left and couldn’t bare seeing her people forced to accept another religion, so she fled. During the age of paganism she had met many lesser deities and now sought refuge with some of them. She spend the next 650 years wondering Asia. The place was surprisingly hospitable, some of the deities who sheltered her even shared some power.

Nice Gods helping my girl out !!! If Nim was in Asia, however, she would run into the Gods of Confucianism, being it was the biggest religion in most Asian countries during the time (and Buddhism). Due to the large religions already present, I’m not sure the Gods would be so accepting of Nim. Christianity was also in Asia at this time already. Maybe specify the region of Asia in which Nim sought refuge in, just to clarify she wasn’t associated or interacting with the the major religions’ gods.

Nim had received news that Bulgaria was once again liberated, but was too scared to go back. With the turn of the century there was a stir in the world of gods. Apparently after the two world wars and who knows what else, humans had finally done something that caused the Christian God and most of the remaining pagan gods to forsake humanity and go do their own thing. Nim never truly understood what that event was but it was enough motivation for her to return.

This is a MAJOR time skip. We went from the first century all the way to the 20th century in a flash. I would just elaborate a little more on what Nim was doing during this time. Although it may not be totally important or relevant, adding extra information will give readers a better explanation on what Nim’s motives and emotions are.

Back in Christian land the angels were scrambling to maintain the religion but much like the gods of old were failing. The downfall had begun. When she returned Nim found that a lot of people were now atheists, choosing to leave gods behind altogether.

This information would suffice. After the world wars, I would imagine the gods getting irritated with human interaction. However, although atheism has peaked during the modern era, other religions such as Catholicism and Islam really show. But this is an OC and stuff so I think it’s fine if a little bit of history is warped.

However with the advance of science the world had become much more interesting. It was becoming increasingly obvious that things aren’t as they seem, and even the gods didn’t know the complete workings of the world. Nim made herself a quiet life as an officer in reserve while studying biology on the side.

I’m just curious, but why biology? Psychology would be best if Nim were to try to understand why humans became atheists, so why did she decide to study bio?

After about 10 years of this Christianity found her again, this time in the form of the devil king who had gotten bored and had decided to do something similar to her. He had spotted her unique essence and curiosity led him to approache her. He introduced himself as Versebute, turns out he was a descendant of the original Devil.

I kinda like the way the story is headed, but a timeline would be much appreciated, with specific dates. Nim has been alive so long, a chronological timeline of actions and events would make understanding everything a lot easier.

Versebute had a crystal logged in his chest and when Nim asked what it was he explained that it linked devils to the dark realm letting them ise magic in the human world without the power of human souls or faith. He told her that angelic halos did the same and that while in their respective realm andels used their wings and demons their horns to draw power. And that some gods had also figured out how to do so which led to them losing interest in humanity. So it wasn’t humanity’s fault after all.

OOooooh I like. It’s getting interesting. Gods are starting to give up on humanity and enjoy themselves. I like.

Nim asked him if it was possible for him to give her a crystal while she figured out how to draw power for herself. The devil agreed on the condition that she accompany him in his quest to “find something interesting because I’m bored”.

And with that, Nim X Versebute has begun.

So he had a collar, that had a crystal pendant, made for her.It was both to honor their agreement and a little joke on the devil’s side because Nim was a “pup”. Said collar became Nim’s most praised possession.The markings on her face, also known as demon markings, appeared after prolonged exposure to the dark realm’s power. Even after so many years it’s still difficult for Nim to live life for herself, she began protecting him and even won herself the title of his personal guard and advisor even though he was strong enough and needed no real protecting.

I like how Nim’s story is going. I honestly think this has the potential to become an actual story thrown into a book, although many critiques and changes need to be made, of course. If you make Versebute and give him a backstory and such, I would LOVE to review him! He already seems like the type of character I like. Great jon on Nim though! You definitely dug deeper into her life this time.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps! ☆d(o⌒∇⌒o)b

**All OC credit goes to nimbg

~Mod Charle

#oc_review_shop #ocreview #oc #nimbg #nim #pagan god #pagan god oc

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roslinadama-sinequanon · 6 years

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So, this was another fun podcast https://anchor.fm/s/d3f93c I really look forward to listening to these, especially at the end of a long day at work when I can kick back with a glass of wine and laugh. It also got me thinking because there was some talk of Sharon being portrayed as a prude. So here is my take on that.

I don’t think Sharon’s wanting to take things slow with Andy indicates that she’s a prude. I always figured that considering how long Sharon had been separated from Jack there had been a man or two between him and Andy, which Mary alluded to in one of her pod casts. What kind of threw me was that when Andy asked, “So it’s not like a date or anything” she responded with, “Of course not lieutenant, I’m a married woman.” There is no way anyone could convince me that Sharon was the kind of woman who would pick up a guy and sleep with him but wouldn’t date him. I think it was either a. poor writing b. Jduff really believed that Sharon did not have any men in her life for 20 years and Mary simply disagreed with that take or c. Sharon just threw that out there as a way to keep distance between her and Andy and also maybe to make it more comfortable between them. The last thing Andy needed on this day was the added stress of being on “date” with his boss when he was already struggling with his daughter’s wedding.

Now, all that said. Why did Sharon want to take it slow with Andy?

Sharon is not an impulsive kind of person; she likes to think things through and to make wise and prudent decisions. That’s just her character. And though while I I think there was a probably a couple guys between Jack and Andy I certainly don’t see her as the kind of woman who slept around. I think she was careful and discreet in any relationship she has had, and whatever those relationships were, I don’t think they ever turned into anything serious because given who Sharon is, if a relationship had gotten serious, she would have divorced Jack.

Now that brings me to her Catholicism. I think that with whomever she was with, including Andy, there probably was some guilt involved WHILE she was still married to Jack. Sharon takes her religion very seriously and she is a woman with high morals. Even when she knew she didn’t do anything wrong in shooting Darnell, she still felt that guilt. However, once she was divorced from Jack I don’t think she would have felt guilt for sleeping with Andy even though they weren’t married. I don’t think she was that prudish. I think whatever guilt she had felt in the past was about being married, even though legally separated, and the idea of adultery. I don’t see her as believing that sex outside of marriage is wrong. In the deleted scene where she discusses overnight guests to the condo with Rusty (which SHOULD have been shown), Sharon had a pretty easy attitude toward sex. She seemed comfortable in that conversation and wasn’t prudish enough that she was going to try to hide the physical side of her relationship with Andy from her son--she wanted everything out in the open. If Sharon had been a prude, she would have only had sex with Andy at his house or somewhere other than her condo so Rusty would not find out. Also, later, Sharon was okay with the idea of Gus spending the night at the condo. Most parents understand that their kids are going to be having sex before marriage, but they aren’t going to allow their boyfriends or girlfriends to sleep over while they are living at home. When I was in college there is no way my parents would have let my boyfriend spend the night, so Sharon is rather advanced in that respect. So, no, I don’t think she is a prude at all.

As I said earlier, I do think Sharon has always been careful. And I think the reason she wanted to take it slow with Andy is not because she felt guilty about sex before marriage or because she was a prude, or anything like that. I think it came down to a few things, most of it boiling down to the fact that they worked together. Sharon already had a strong emotional relationship with Andy before they began officially dating, personally and at work. At work he was her right hand man, the one she turned to for advice, the one she relied on the most. And since Nicole’s wedding, he had also become a very, very, good friend. I’d dare say her best friend since we didn’t get to see any of her friendships. So, I think for Sharon, the idea of moving into physical intimacy brought with it a real commitment to the relationship. She wanted to be very sure that they were compatible dating as boyfriend/girlfriend before she hopped into bed with him because once she slept with him her heart would have been irretrievably bound to him in a way that would have been far more devastating had they broken up. Andy kind of flippantly tells Taylor that if things don’t work they can just go back to being friends. And maybe at that moment they both believed that, but once the relationship became sexual and moved into “love” it would be much harder I think for both of them to go back to being friends if it hadn’t worked out. I think deep inside Sharon knew that and it was why she held back for a while. She truly valued her personal and professional relationship with Andy and didn’t want to do anything that might destroy that. Sharon is old enough and wise enough to understand the risks of a romance-which she clearly defined to Rusty and the ramifications if things didn’t work out.

Now, that said, there has always been a lot of talk about things going slow but there didn’t appear to be an excessive amount of time between when they started dating and when they started sleeping together. It seemes like it was maybe a few weeks to a month, hard to know for sure. I guess some might call that “old fashioned” in a time where sleeping with someone on a first date has become a norm but personally I don’t think that is old fashioned. The next time Andy talked about things moving slow in their relationship he was referring to taking that next step…moving in together, not sleeping together.

In that conversation, it was apparent that they had been talking about it and that Sharon was considering it. He says that he understands she wants to talk to her children about it so it they must have been discussing the subject…off screen of course where every other conversation regarding their relationship took place. In that same episode, it is SHARON who tells Andy not to do anything about finding a house in Silver Lake until they talk over dinner--which she says in a way that I think is one of Sharon’s flirtiest moments. She later tells him that she will tell him her answer before they order. She had made her decision.

Last case point that Sharon isn’t prudish is that while she does confess that she is co-habitating with a man to whom she is not married, she doesn’t appear to feel too guilty about it and it is more like she is letting Father Stan know what is going on in her life, rather than feeling she needs to do penance for it. Stan doesn’t seem surprised or offended and just says something like “he’s divorced; he’s Catholic, not that big a deal. Give my best to Andy.” And then Sharon says something about “Your rules Father.” So it is also apparent that like most Catholics she questions some of the rules of the church and doesn’t completely adhere to them. So, she is not prudish and old fashioned in that regard either.

Honestly, I think she handled her relationship with Andy in a very smart, very adult way. That said, we should have seen some of those milestones, first date, first kiss, some cuddling in the apartment, some flirting, some sexual banter etc. I think if we’d been allowed to see that people might not think Sharon was portrayed as a prude, I just choose to believe that they had those moments even though we weren’t allowed to see them.

#sharon raydor #shandy #Major Crimes #sharon wasn't a prude she just had bad writers and bad creator

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septembersung · 6 years

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It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about how I came to the Traditional mass, so since the topic is on anyway: The long and short of it is the TLM was instrumental in my conversion and I wouldn’t be Catholic without it. All my words fall short, but I would dearly love to be able to tell the world with any kind of accuracy why it is so incredible, and why the world needs it.

I was baptized as a toddler and attended a typical tiny backwoods Novus Ordo parish for most of my childhood. There were maybe six kids, lots of elderly, a couple parents, and two or three high schoolers. There I learned such insightful theology as, there’s not really any good reason for women not to be priests. I did, however, have the benefit of reading the Bible a lot more thoroughly than was typical - even if I didn’t have anyone to explain it to me. On the verge of my teenage years we moved and our new parish was bigger, though with still (proportionally) tiny youth engagement. Our religious ed teachers were well-meaning but had no idea what they were talking about. Their idea of a retreat was to sit in total darkness and listen to sappy music. I quit going to mass, got confirmed, and continued not going to mass. But, praise God, I went to an orthodox Catholic college. There was a lot of Catholic Lite culture in the air, which I avoided studiously, correctly identifying it as a quasi-Protestant emotion-fest - the sugar-high version of what my high school parish was trying to instill in us. But my theology professors were the real deal. For the first time there were people who could tell me what the content of the faith was, show me its history, actually answer questions, and identify and shoot down wrongheaded lines of inquiry. It was a revelation. I promptly spent a solid year and a half studying interreligious dialogue - entering the study of truth by the back door, as it were. At the end of that, having run up against the un-negotiable “stumbling block” of Christ, whose claim to be Truth and have given it in fullness to his Church cannot be watered down or explained away, I gave up, signed on as a theology major, and got down to the business of figuring just what this “arrogant” Church had to say for herself. I was still not going to mass. My saving graces - and I mean grace literally - were a fear and awe of the Eucharist, and an emotional devotion to Our Lady.

By my senior year, I was, personally, six kinds of a wreck (which is a whole other story) but also convinced that if Catholicism wasn’t true, nothing was - whether or not I could learn to live it. Into that latent conviction, a total unwillingness to deal with its looming consequences for me, and my generally wrecky life entered a new boyfriend, stage right: he was very smart, very handsome, very stubborn, and a convert. I knew within weeks that we were destined for each other. (Spoiler alert: we got married a year and a half later.) Our arguments about politics, culture, and religion shook walls. We were both wrong, in different ways, and helped make each other more right. That Holy Week, he asked me go to the Traditional Latin Triduum and Easter Vigil. I reluctantly agreed. It could no longer be put off: I had finally come to a reckoning with the Person behind all the theology. I got my sorry butt to confession, the start of a long and painful ongoing process, and we went.

I didn’t like it.

But I was also not happy - and never had been - with the NO.

Fast forward: We were engaged and in grad school - in different states, but within driving distance. I was the only one with a working vehicle, so I was the one who traveled. It was very important to us that we prioritize seeing each other face to face during our engagement, so we sacrificed a lot of time and money to make it happen regularly. Being apart was very hard on our relationship. One Saturday night when I wasn’t visiting, he told me he’d found a new church to check out tomorrow, he’s excited to visit it, and can’t wait to tell me about it.

I waited. all. day. All day. It was late, after dinner time, when I finally heard back from him. Turns out it’s way in the middle of nowhere service is spotty, and he stayed from the morning mass all the way through dinner. He was excited about the great group of people, the hospitable priest who hosted regular come-as-you-are, quasi-potluck Sunday dinners at the rectory - and the priest offered the Latin Mass.

Thus began my love affair with the usus antiquor. He went every Sunday, and I went as often as I visited. I started going to the monthly low mass at my own local church. He bought me a missal, and I learned how to use it. I started comparing the old and the new rite, both reflectively and analytically. I started reading about the changes and went down all the rabbit holes regarding Vatican II. (I’d studied Vatican II in college, but it was strictly the texts. Looking back, I see that the professor very carefully walked a fine line of subject matter that allowed him to neuter the “spirit of Vatican II!” version of history without actually getting into what happened before and after the Council. But I digress.) I had to engage, body and soul and mind, with the mass, and my own faith - not just an intellectual study anymore, or something to be endured because that’s just what Catholics on Sunday, I was confronted with the foundational questions: What’s the point of the mass? Why, why any of it? It was a humbling process, a spiritual crucible. All at once I wasn’t just a disembodied intellect asking probing questions, but a soul face-to-face with her Creator, Judge, and Redeemer, applying theology to my own life: what do I owe to God? how do I fulfill that obligation? Where do I encounter Him? What is being asked of me? And miracle of miracles, I had this wonderful community to help me as I went through this process.

Fast forward a number of years: that little church is where we got married, in the old rite, and where our first child was baptized, also in the old rite. Since then we’ve moved twice and had more children, but wherever we go, travel, or plan to move, we go to the TLM. It’s the solid foundation of our family life. Our kids are growing up inundated with beauty, reverence, and a sense of the sacred. We’re very lucky; in our current city, the TLM community has the use of a beautiful church and a rotation of pastors, one of whom also runs the most successful and reverent parish in the city, who offer mass for us every Sunday, some weekdays (at various locations), and most holy days. (And for Holy Week, as a church can have only one holy week and not two in different rites, we are able to make a pilgrimage, as it were, to an FSSP church.)

The ancient rite opened up the presence and person of Christ for me in a way that nothing else, certainly not the NO mass, ever had. I finally understood the point and purpose of the liturgy, and therefore of the whole Christian life. I had to check my pride and my assumptions and my self-satisfaction at the door and be broken open in a brand new way. I had to take Christ on His terms, or not at all. The old rite embodies the truth of the Catholic faith - it lives them, and for the person who embraces them, makes that person to live them. It’s not an add-on to our lives, it doesn’t fit in neatly with the rest of our modern existence. It makes itself the foundation and center of everything, because it is the dwelling place of Christ, and we are meant and made to dwell with Him.

The old mass and everything that goes with it, all the things that were cut out of the new order when it was invented, the prayers and the obligations and the seasonal markers and the theology, the way of seeing God and ourselves and the Church and the world, is the living tradition of the Catholic faith, our unbroken link to all and everyone that has come before us. In the old calendar, we celebrate feasts on the same days that the great saints of the past did; we sing the same chants and say the same prayers; it’s bigger than we are, and because it’s focused on God, exclusively, and not on ourselves, it heals us and helps us and transforms us in a way that anthropocentric styles of prayer never can. The old life of the Church doesn’t bring God down to our level, but transforms us, raises us up to Him.

So much of what we take for granted today about the mass, about the faith, so many of the attitudes and assumptions that we have absorbed or been taught, are wrong. Point blank, they are wrong, they are in conflict with what the Church taught for millennia, they are not “of the mind of the Church,” and they have been wreaking havoc on Catholic life for going on a century now. I have made a special study of this history of ideas and their effects over the years, and it is ongoing. The more I learn, the harder I find it to summarize to others just what’s wrong with the way contemporary Catholicism is practiced, and the more profoundly grateful I am that I was brought - by human love - into the fulness of Catholic tradition. Now that I have the benefit of nearly five years of almost exclusive TLM attendance, I wonder how I ever lived without it. I have very strong feelings about it; it’s the driving force behind my desire to evangelize because now I understand what I’m inviting people to share. Not a set of intellectual propositions, not a feeling, but a way of life that boldly and unapologetically has Christ enthroned at its center - a tangible way to see and worship that involves the whole person, body and soul, that makes demands on us. I wish I could bring all of my friends, Catholic and non-Catholic, to a glorious high mass at a beautiful church with all the smells and bells. Because the glory of Christ is there, and His glory is ours.

I went through some tags to find some things I’ve written before: Latin in mass, “NO vs TLM feels”, why I came and stayed for the TLM, book recs, Latin and the vernacular.

If you want to understand more about the TLM, the new books I’m recommending to everyone are Kwasniewski’s Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness and Fr. Jackson’s Nothing Superfluous.

#my catholic thoughts #my life #TLM

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mrepstein · 7 years

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Melody Maker - August 12, 1967

The Epstein Interviews

Part Two

By Mike Hennessey

You said in the first interview that the thing you feared most in life was loneliness. Have you ever thought about marriage?

Yes. Very often. I’d like it to happen - if it could happen. Apart from the companionship it represents, I would welcome it because I get very put out trying to run two homes on my own.

Do you think marriage is likely in the immediate future?

No.

Is that because of your attitude or because of a lack of suitable candidates?

I think because of me.

What do you look for in a woman?

Simplicity, understanding and a loveliness that appeals to me.

Have you met no women with these characteristics?

Of course I have - I’ve been introduced to many whom I would have liked to get to know better, but it just hasn’t happened.

Are you happy in the society of women?

Sometimes.

But you are fairly convinced that the prospects of your marrying are remote?

I think the wish is slightly idealistic and unlikely to be fulfilled. But it is one of the biggest disappointments to me because I must be missing out somewhere not having a wife and children. I would love to have children.

Coming from a Jewish family, have you ever encountered any personal anti-Jewish prejudice?

I’ve been very lucky. But I think a lot of anti-Jewish prejudice is occasioned not by people who are anti-semitic but by those who are affected by it. In other words, Jewish people sometimes have a defensive attitude because they expect a hostile reaction.

Funnily enough I was with a man the other evening who commented on the fact that I was staying at a hotel run by Jews. ‘But I’m a Jew,’ I told him. He was very embarrassed and said quickly, ‘Yes, but the owners of that hotel are not very nice Jews.’ Well, they may not have been very nice - I didn’t meet them. But if they were not nice it was not because they were Jews. There are unpleasant Jews, Catholics, Protestants and so on.

I believe you were asked to help the Israeli cause in the recent Middle East crisis and refused. Why?

I refused to help because I’m as sorry for a wounded Arab as I am for a wounded Israeli. People fundamentally are all the same and I can’t discriminate between Israelis and Arabs.

Did your refusal to help upset your Jewish friends?

I think Bernard Delfont and Cyril Shane who were among many who particularly asked me to help, were somewhat surprised at my negative reaction! But I can’t help it. I feel that people should have no greater concern for the suffering of one race than they have for any other. I believe in and want to help, as far as I can, to understand mankind whatever colour, creed, religion or nationality. And I think this sort of philosophy, however broad and general it sounds, is the only basic one the leaders of the world can work from to attain world peace.

Is the Jewish faith important to you?

Yes, naturally it figures necessarily in my thought. There are many beautiful and good things written in the scriptures and prayers, which I believe to be good and true. However, I find it difficult to accept religion of any kind in a ritualistic form. I find myself uneasy and unable to comprehend so much within the precincts of a Jewish house of worship. But, because I’m of Jewish parentage I find myself respectful and tolerant. I love my family dearly.

Have you ever prayed?

Yes, I prayed as a child. I loosely studied Judaism and other religions. At school I found myself interested in Roman Catholicism. I think that belief in life and God that ever prevails is better than ritualistic and religious praying

Is there any justification for the frequent association of Jewishness with meanness?

No, I don’t think so. Everybody is a bit mean. I’m mean because although I know I’ve got enough money, I’ll suddenly put the brake on and think, ‘I can’t carry on like this forever.’

You have got a great deal out of life. What have you put into it?

I have done what I can and will continue to do so. People who criticise me may have a point and may be sincere - but it doesn’t really matter what they say. I know I have done my best. People get too wound up and serious. I’ve been rude to people in my life, too, but one discovers that it is quite unnecessary. During the very, very active period of Beatles management I maintained as much calm and gave them as much of a boost to their morale as I could. I would agree that I was particularly lucky to have found them in the first place - but maybe it was destined to happen. That, to a certain extent, I believe

Do you have strong political views?

I am becoming more and more politically minded. I feel strongly about some issues and the main problem, not only in Vietnam but throughout the world, is that politicians are not single-minded in their beliefs. I think so many politicians allow so many other pressures to bear on them, restricting truthful and honest thought.

Are you inclined towards the right or to the left in politics?

I suppose I’m left really and I think I always have been.

What social reform would you most like to see?

I would like to see more tolerance all round, more understanding and less ignorance by those who consider themselves the leaders of the country.

Do you think the Rolling Stones’ trial was an example of establishment, intolerance and misunderstanding?

I think it was an appalling mess which should never have reached the stage it did. On the other hand, maybe we will be grateful in the future that they were scapegoats. I really think the Press interest in the Rolling Stones and drugs is in excess of the public interest.

You’ve had an immensely successful career, but has there ever been a period in your life when you were filled with despair?

There have been many instances throughout my successful, semi-successful, and failure periods.

Would you care to talk about them?

No, they are too personal.

Has any period of despair ever been acute enough for you to contemplate suicide?

Yes. But I think I’ve got over that period now.

Outside the Beatles and NEMS Empire, what are your interests?

I have a natural curiosity about everything. And at present I am very keen on Spanish things. Also I’m now very involved with my Sussex home which I bought five months ago.

How much did it cost you?

About £30,000. I moved in with just the hangings and the carpets and now I’m enjoying installing bits and pieces of furniture and pictures

Where do you prefer to spend your off-duty time?

Either in Sussex or New York. I’m greatly attracted to New York and feel great in that environment. It is a beautiful city. Fortunately, I’m also able to work from either place.

What do you think of the current Flower Power scene both here and in America?

Flower power is becoming a tiny bit of a drag. It’s becoming a cliche and a fashionable cult. I’m currently wondering whether the cult is not slightly akin to rock ‘n’ roll, Merseybeat, Swinging London and so on. Basically there’s a lot to be said for the general attitude, and if the move in this direction which is toward love and things could grow throughout the world we might find this planet a better place to be living on. There is certainly nothing wrong with the attitudes expressed by the Flower Children. I think I’ve been a flower child all my life but I hope the mood will progress and not become a commercial businessman’s paradise because then it defeats its purpose. There are some signs of this but the attitude is so good, sincere and lovely that one cannot but help be happy to be in its midst. It’s an international feeling so I cannot differentiate.

#Brian Epstein #Mike Hennessey #Melody Maker #The Epstein Interviews #1967 #60s #interview #Brian Epstein interview

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