#if your name is noah and you did history in year 11 then hi | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heavenaintaniceplace · 3 years

Text

so i found my mother’s copy of the jw (new world translation) bible and i decided to yoink that shit for disposal but not before i realized there is a lot of lines highlighted in the book from when she was being manipulated by the jw lady that convinced her to do “bible study” for years. and what do you know if the lines the lady had my mother highlight weren’t the same lines that jws use to justify their cult beliefs! all the lines are cherry picked, no actual study, just the lady manipulating and priming her to accept their beliefs by presenting so called “biblical proof.” so here is some of the things that stand out before i finally rip this thing to shreds and through it away.

literally the whole book replaces every instance of the tetagrammaton with “jehovah” because they want people to believe its been “removed from the bible thousands of times because they don’t want you to know the true name of god”. the whole thing is translated with an agenda to make them look right and everyone else wrong and to make people believe they have some secret hidden knowledge (they don’t they’re liars). putting this under a read more because its very long.

heavy TW for everything related ro religious trauma, the jehovah’s witnesses, bible passages and christianity. incredibly long post. i plan on burning the jehovah’s witness copy of the bible, no joke.

the imago dei part of genesis to try and convince her that humans were super special to god

genesis chapter 3, the serpent convincing eve to eat the fruit of knowledge so that she would accept their version of the original sin doctrine and that women are cursed

chapter where cain kills abel to convince her that this was the first murder in human history (obviously incorrect)

highlighted the part where god kills everything on earth with a flood to groom her into expecting god to do it again later and seen as fair and just and part where god “gives” noah every living creature (because fuck other organisms apparently)

part of leviticus where (in their version) theyre like “no soul must eat blood” (what the fuck) to justify not allowing life saving blood transfusions

deuteronomy part about “jehovah being one” to justify being non trinitarian (they don’t believe jesus is god or that the holy spirit is god, this is meant to lure people who are already christians away from their denoms and into theirs)

“thou shall not kill” is highlighted for some reason and i don’t know why

highlighted job 1:12 to emphasize that they believe satan is in control of the world because god allows it and job 26:7 that has a note saying “the earth hangs there” when talking about sheol to convince her of where earth is relative to “heaven” and using a bunch of “face of the waters” creationist language to make it vague as possible. job 27:5 to make her believe that “no one is righteous” and that saying so is sinful

part in psalms that assures that “wicked people will be no more if you just wait a little while longer” (this is the apocalypse imminent narrative they use to groom people with fear of dying or leaving but also to get them warmed up to the idea of mass death). “the righteous will inherit the earth and live forever” narrative so they believe that jws will live on earth forever after being resurrected while everyone else (whos not a jw) is killed by god

psalms 91 to drive home the fact that these people think theyre invincible in every meaning of the word, to natural disasters and disease etc

proverbs 6 part about “false witnesses”. jws believe that three jehovah’s witnesses have to be present to verify that a crime (like domestic or sexual abuse) actually happened or the governing body and elders don’t care. literally. the “false witness” narrative is used against survivors and people they want to silence in their organization and emphasizes how much jehovah hates “false witnesses” aka people brave enough to talk and victims

proverbs 12:18 about “wise and unwise tongues”, basically anyone that speaks out against the jws are “unwise” and harmful

proverbs 22 about raising children (”train up a child”, if you don’t know it already this is a child abuser dog whistle) that implies that indoctrination will last until adulthood if done right. this is especially bad because this copy is from the early 2000s when i was in kindergarten. this woman had been lurking on us since i was an infant.

proverbs 27 about how neighbors near is better than brothers far away. the implication here is that fundamentally family who aren’t jws don’t matter

ecclesiates 5. i genuinely think its warning people to not ask too much of god or risk his anger, thats the vibe im getting here because the wording is confusing as fuck

isiah 40:22 trying to hammer in the notion that god is greater than anything especially “worldly” governments (except the governing body ofc /s). isiah 43:10 the “you are my witnesses” to justify the name “jehovah’s witnesses” and shoehorn the idea in

daniel 2:40, the idea of an indescribable kingdom, the whole kingdoms in the “last days” conspiracy they use to convince people the “last days” are coming

matthew 4:8 where jesus is persuaded by satan by offering every kingdom on earth. the point in text is “don’t worship anyone except god” but the point of the jws is that nothing on earth actually matters

matthew 6:9 (nice), the our father, meant to make the reader to ask god to hasten the kingdom of god or as we ex-jws know hasten the apocalypse and the death of people they dont like

matthew 16:24, meant to convince people to leave everything behind and join the jws, “disown yourself” aka “die to yourself” toxic bullshit repackaged

matthew 19:9, to convince people that divorce even in instances of domestic abuse is wrong because the governing body won’t allow it and loves to control women

matthew 24:4-14, “anyone who doesnt speak for the jws is a false prophet” and warms people up to the notion that war is necessary; also that evidence of war is a sign of the “last days” and that this is supposed to be good news. ongoing war and the hope for global genocide is “good news” to them.

matthew 24:21. this one is meant to make people feel the apocalypse could happen at any time and to be afraid of it, a great war is coming and only the “chosen ones” (jehovah’s witnesses) will survive when everyone else dies. there’s a paper bookmark on this page. makes me wonder.

mark 8:34. the “die to yourself” bullshit, the idea that the cross was a “torture stake” because jws believe that wearing crosses is idolatry and they want other people to believe their quirky beliefs so they accept heavier things

matthew 10:28, “anyone who follows jehovah and jesus will literally live forever!” but also that “no one is prepared to leave their family for jesus and thats shameful because you should want to sacrifice your entire family!”

mark 11:24 “anything you pray for earnestly you get”. this is spiritual bypassing btw. and :25 “ask for forgiveness and be automatically forgiven no matter what you did” is also fucked

matthew 15-23: jesus (almost) gets wasted while being crucified etc, not sure why this one is highlighted unless im missing some jw bullshit here

luke 20:27. don’t understand this one but they’re threatening “heavier judgement” on people

john 5:28, promising resurrection through jesus after people die but only for the Good tm people (the jws)

john 6:15. how jesus is about to be arrested but goes to a mountain. dunno why this on is underlined

john 11:24. bringing home the same “jesus will save you from dying if youre a jw” bullshit. john 14:6 “jesus is the ONLY way ever! there can’t be anything else except jesus” indoctrination tailored to make you co-dependent. john 17:3, hook line and sinker of promising resurrection and “eternal life” again

john 17:15. here is the “we aren’t of the World tm” shit meant to make you feel outcast from everyone else who isnt a jw, setting up “the world” (everyone else) as other

acts 15:25. “follow the jw rules because the holy spirit you to”

romans 10:10, spread jw beliefs and witness as much as possible. romans 12:9 “hate everything jehovah hates so you’re not a hypocrite” basically means hate other people the jws don’t approve of

corinthians 6:9 (nice but not so nice this time) “anyone we don’t like won’t inherit the earth” translation: anyone we don’t like won’t survive the apocalypse thats definitely happening soon so always be afraid. “homosexuals” are changed to “men kept for unnatural purposes for this one.” still homophobic.

corinthians 7:6, the idea that everyone has a gift that needs to be exploited and used by the jws

corinthians 15:33. “don’t participate in any activities with any outsiders because it will lead you away from jehovah!! fun is ‘drunkenness’, you’ll loose your resurrection if you do!! non jw people are bad influences!!”

2 corinthians 7:1. your body and flesh is defiled, you need to be cleansed in order to be good

galatians 5:20. “having human emotions is sinful! struggling is sinful! being angry is sinful! having a bad day is sinful!” basically that being human is inherently wrong or something

ephesians 3:14. tries to make people believe everything is owed to god only and that obedience is good so they fall for cult power structures later. 4:28 here is just the top of the page being labeled “new personality” and thats all we need to know about indoctrination and cult personality vs actual personality. also “let not the sun set with you in a provoked state” being used against people still angry about being wronged and hurt by others and its been used against me a lot of times

ephesians 6:4. make sure the jw fathers provide the most discipline to children, literally uses the phrase “mental regulating of jehovah”. it couldn’t be more cult like at this point.

timothy 5:8 makes people believe that men alone are expected to provide and if they don’t they’re worse than “those without faith”. no pressure though!

timothy 6:19. wants people to neglect everything actually happening in favor of the “real life” (”eternal life”) instead and to constantly prepare for that instead of actually living life. dedicate your whole life to jw activities

titus 2. women need to be subjects to their husbands but also homemakers, live to glorify their husband, chaste and definitely not mentally ill or showing any symptoms. what the fuck is titus i never heard of this shit until today.

hebrews 1:7-14, trying to convince people that angels live to serve god but also has some superseccsionist/replacement theology (antisemitism) vibes going on

james 2:23, wants people to believe that god “putting people to the test” is actually a way to become “jehovah’s friend” and that being put to the test (read: suffering) is actually a good thing because it primes them to accept suffering as their fault later on. james 4:7 “everything evil will vanish if you rebuke it long enough!!”

peter 3:9 the “god’s timing is always right” gospel bs and encourages people not to do things themselves but to wait and also that jehovah will be on time when its time to start another global genocide. how encouraging! peter 3:13, the same “end of world near” scare tactic, “new heavens new earth” promise to eradicate everyone the jws dont like as that is jehvoah’s “promise” to the witnesses

1 john 3:8, their version of the original sin doctrine, the devil is the source of all evil scare tactic etc

short detour: every instance of “servant” is replaced with “slave” in this version. it makes me feel ill.

revelations 7:16, wants people to believe that god will take away all their pain and that they won’t need food or water to survive anymore (bullshit). also the jehovah’s witness 144,000 chosen people bullshit is here too but not highlighted

revelations 12:7-13, a depiction fo michael drop kicking satan and the implication that satan has always been in charge and not god because they want people to believe that. also that the devil will fall to earth and try to eat jws

revalations 14-4: virgins get dibs on heaven and god i guess. i dont know what the fuck is going on. 14:6 an angel yelling fear god from above, probably where the jws get most of their apocalyptic imagery from that they use to scare children into believing they could die at any minute

so now that we finally got to the end of that mess, their version of revalations ends with jesus saying “yes, i am coming quickly” and “may the undeserved kindness of jesus christ be with the holy ones.”

joking aside, everything highlighted in this copy of this book has been used against me and my mother for years and is a huge part of the reason i have religious trauma now. everything she was told or encouraged to highlight aided jehovah’s witness indoctrination and propaganda, her own indoctrination and eventually mine which apparently started even earlier than i thought.

#ex christian #haanp.txt #ex jehovah's witness #ex jw #exvangelical #religious trauma

25 notes · View notes

roswelldetails · 4 years

Text

RNM 2x05 - I'll Stand By You

So just a little note from me, the person behind the season 2 detailing. I am trying really really hard to keep emotion out of these posts...which is really really hard for me because I'm an inherently emotional person. I'm a glass case of emotion, ready to shatter at any given moment. (#dramatic) But I want to be true to the intent of this blog and keep my feelings, biases, and, you know, shipping out of this blog.

It was really really hard to do with this episode. Because I straight up ugly cried for like, 45 of the 60 minutes. 😂

So I guess, the point is, I'm proud of myself and sticking to the details here. My regular blog is where I'm doing the emotional flip out thing! 😂

EPISODE SUMMARY:

ACCEPTING REALITY — The discovery of some complications with Max’s (Nathan Dean) pod forces Liz (Jeanine Mason), Michael (Michael Vlamis) and Isobel (Lily Cowles) to confront the possibility that they may not be able to save him. Elsewhere, Maria (Heather Hemmens) and Alex (Tyler Blackburn) make amends. Kimberly McCullough directed the episode written by Alanna Bennett & Jason Gavin (#205). Original airdate 4/13/2020.

DETAILS:

Max/Isobel/Michael reunite at age 11 according to what Michael tells Alex in 1x10. So that would make the opening of this episode set in 2002ish.

Michael tells Max and Isobel, "I remember you. I don't know you."

"After nobody adopted me for a year they just stuck me with the name of that trucker who found us."

"I didn't ask you for anything."

This is like the thesis statement of Michael's whole history with Max in the flashbacks.

"Don't pay more than you collect, kid. Passing credit back and forth is a good way to get stuck with somebody forever."

Rosa's art.

What I can see says: "...what they all told me, but I didn't listen" and "Stand the shelter".

Rosa on her dreams

"I have not had any freaky dreams in weeks. Okay, Max is probably off haunting Isobel now that they're strong enough for their psychic twincest weirdness."

"How long has that been happening?"

"Um, I don't know. It's an old boom box."

"Rosa, have electrical appliances been malfunctioning around you?"

"I really thought it was just a side effect of the handprint."

"If being in the pod introduced a new protein into your system it could have altered your DNA too. You could be developing abilities."

"Liz, look. The handprint is changing. It's smaller."

"It's fading."

"Tell me this is a good thing."

"I don't think so."

Michael and Liz theorizing on why the pod shorted out:

"The pod's got a charge. It's like a battery powering the preservation process. This one's gone dead."

"Did the generator blow the electromagnetic threshold?"

"I think a surge came from the pod itself. But that pod has lasted almost a century. It shouldn't glitch out."

"Okay, well, then, this one did."

"All right, stop. It doesn't matter why the pod is broken. It just is. So how long does Max have?"

"My theory is that being tethered to Rosa through the mark is what kept Max from going brain-dead, and in turn the stasis process is what kept the mark from fading. So he could be gone by tonight."

"Okay, well, we have three more pods. So let's just put him into another pod."

"No. He's just gonna do it again. I haven't told you everything. I didn't want to scare you. I didn't want to be the one that took the hope away."

"Talk now, Rosa. Right now."

"I was seeing Max in my nightmares months before I told you about it, and he was begging me to stop you. He said that he was in a lot of pain in there."

"That's Noah's pod. Noah told us it was broken. It wasn't keeping him in stasis. He could feel time passing. None of us thought of that."

"We've been doing everything we can to make Max stronger. He pulled his own plug."

Note...as far as we know Isobel was the only one who knew about Noah's pod being broken. In 1x12 it was before Liz arrived at the house that he told them about the broken pod, so only Max and Isobel heard that part of the story.

Alex on his training. "NSA intelligence cryptology training".

Monitor screen in the secret lab:

Noah's heart is still too weak to transplant. Kyle says it needs at least eight more weeks

"I wrote a paper for a bioethics class on patients in vegetative states who feel pain. Sometimes it's all they feel."

As a non sciencey person, I was wondering if bioethics class was a real thing. Tonight I saw an interview on the news with a UC Berkeley bioethics professor on COVID. So yes, it's a thing.

Alex on Michael that summer post-Rosa's death:

Starting fights with jocks

Broke into the drugstore

Not going to UNM

Hasn't hung out with Max all summer

Got busted for stealing hubcaps (Kyle's hubcaps, we learn later)

Became a walking bar fight

Was in jail when Alex left to enlist

Michael on Max in 2008:

"It's more than that. And it's less than that. We were friends when we were kids, but now Max reminds me of a bunch of stuff that I'd rather forget. The only thing that we have in common anymore is Isobel."

Max's yearbook had a pencil stuck in the page with Liz and Max's photo in it. (The one we first saw in 1x03).

"Biology Club. Max hated science. He was in that club for four years just to watch your sister chew on the end of her pencil."

Max's mindscape:

First just desert, clouds, and then lightning strikes (destructive energy?)

Liz's antennae -- they disappear from Isobel's hands

Rosa describes it as broken

Crashdown special is Max's favorite "Little Green Man milkshake".

The Crashdown counter is kind of merged with biology lab equipment.

The juke box is there

The Crashdown booths

Jeep

Neon Crashdown sign

One of those claw drop game machines (from the Crashdown) but it's filled with baked good displays.

The yearbook

Later, everything else is gone except the one Crashdown booth, the Jeep, and the neon sign.

The distorted music they follow to find Max is the Cactus Groove song in the music list...just, messed around with. See @angsty-nerd's post here:

"I'm the hothead. You are the hero. It's always been that way."

"You stole the hubcaps off Kyle Valenti's graduation present. Both his parents are cops. Do you want to end up in jail tonight?".

👀 Tonight, specifically.

Michael seemed excited about the job at Foster's Ranch until he found out that Max set it up for him. Max found out about it from his dad (only like the 2nd or 3rd mention of his dad in the series so far).

"When I got back in town I asked Max why you and your brilliant mind hadn't changed the world yet. He said you didn't care about the world enough to bother changing it. He believed you could."

Max and Isobel in the mindscape:

"You're okay. I could feel something was wrong with you. Everything felt…"

"Cold. I know."

"You can't be here. It's finally ending. I can feel it. But I don't know what happens if you're in my head when I die."

"So it's true? You want this?"

"I could feel my connection to the outside world getting stronger, so I snapped. I couldn't take it anymore. I released a surge. You have to let me go, Iz."

"I can't take it anymore."

"Okay."

"I am so sorry."

"I just want to memorize this."

"Okay. Okay. I need you to tell Liz something."

"You can tell her yourself. She and Kyle are prepping for surgery. They're going to use the faulty heart. She just wants to talk to you before you die."

"No. No."

"You won't be suffering. They're just gonna bring you back and then let you go."

"No you have to stop this. You cannot bring me back under any circumstances."

"Max? What is really going on?"

"I am dangerous. Whatever Liz is bringing back is not me. It's just some broken shell."

Maria on her mom's computer

"Her nurse said that for the two weeks before she went missing, when she wasn't trying to escape, she was talking to someone online."

The 21st birthday flashback

Isobel gets Michael to help move Max after getting drunk on tequila. He passed out in front of the tattoo parlor. It's the same tattoo parlor Michael goes to at the end of the episode.

Max's weird drunken statement.

"The thing is, there has to be there. Okay? There's always three. Until the very end. I'll show you...What it means is you should be here…'cause it's all broken without three. So we'll figure it out. You'll find your way back."

👀 Until the very end. Interesting.

On Max becoming a deputy:

"You know he did the whole police academy thing because of you, right? He thinks you're gonna get into the kind of trouble you can't get out of if you don't know someone."

Back in the mindscape:

"I figured it all out. She, there's an energy to suffering, there's an energy to death, and when I heal people, I absorb that energy. So when I resurrected Rosa, I took in ten years of emptiness. So if you resurrect me, you will be bringing back an infection. Don't want… I don't want to come back as a monster. I don't want to hurt anyone that I care about."

"That's what this is about? We've been hurting, Max. We don't work without you."

"You will! You will. You are stronger now than when I died. All of you are. You, Michael, Liz, you will survive this. The three of you. No, you need to stop them, Iz. Now."

"Okay. I love you."

"You too." Isobel disappears.

Max is using pretty similar wording to his drunken rambles in the 21st birthday flashback

We don't see that Max is chained down until this next exchange with Rosa. Isobel didn't see that detail as far as we know. Didn't hear the chains clanking when they stood and hugged. Only after Isobel left.

"I'm sorry this is happening."

"Isobel is lying. She is buying time. You know she'll never let me go. But you can feel the darkness too, right? That's why you don't like being in my head. Because you know it's real."

"I didn't want that to be true, but yes."

"I know my sister and I know your sister and they'll never give up. So you have to be the one to stop this surgery, okay? Or I will destroy everything that we love. You have to stop them to save them. Now go. Please, Rosa. Go."

Isobel explaining to Liz

"When he saved Rosa he absorbed all of that dark energy. He's gonna have to expel it."

"And he's afraid he's gonna kill someone when he does."

"Yeah. So we just need someone stronger than Max to take that hit...if he thinks he needs to protect us he obviously doesn't know how capable we are. Bring him back, Liz. I'll handle the rest."

"I get it now. It's gotta be the three of us."

"He would never pull his plug to end his own suffering. Unless he thought he was saving us from something. And I'm a little sick of his heroic martyr crap."

In case you missed it, Michael did not know that. At the beginning of the hospital sequence Isobel is telling Liz what she learned in Max's mindscape and says that she hasn't been able to get ahold of Michael. Michael figured it out on his own. He finally "got it".

The pacemaker:

Isobel with Max at the end… everything is gone except the Jeep. And Bright Eyes playing (the song he and Liz danced to on their first date back in 2008). And then his eyes close and Bright Eyes fades away.

“First thing I remember is the three of us. We woke up terrified and lost. But together. And then all of the sudden I was alone. I got real good at being alone. I had given up on people entirely. And then you found me again. Hell of hero move. You showed up just in time. When you are a kid who nobody loves, kindness is a currency. Friendship doesn’t means jack. Family just lies, and hurts, and leaves. I’ve only ever known love to be temporary. So yeah, I push people away. Every time someone threatens to care about me I test their love until they have to leave. Connection is conditional. Everybody eventually gives up on the guy who refuses to be rescued. But you were the only one who I couldn’t run off. You never believed me when I tried to be something I wasn’t. So this thing in your chest, it might give your heart a pretty solid kick every once in a while. Consider it payback. It’s my hero move, Max. If you wake up, you consider us even, okay? If you wake up, we can be a family.”

Good visual parallels during Michael's speech. Alex and Kyle drinking together during the "and then you found me again". Maria walking up on "the guy who refuses to be rescued"

Max is in the coma for three weeks. Wakes up at the secret lab (instead of his house, which is where he was previously. I'm guessing it was a planned wake up because he's no longer plugged into all of the IVs and whatnot.

"I begged you to understand."

"Max, it's gonna be fine."

"No… I told you to let me go. I can feel it inside me."

"It's...it's symmetry, okay? It's just energy for energy. We can deal with that. Fight it, Max. This isn't you."

"I don't want to hurt you. I need to get out. I need to get away from you, from everyone."

"I can't let you do that."

Max shoves Isobel and runs. When he shoves her there's a slight ringing like the sound they use when the aliens use their powers. Isobel follows and stops him with her powers.

"I made a promise that if you came back and you weren't Max, and you were actually going to hurt people that I would kill you. I figure, hey, you got to play God. Make life and death decisions all on your own. Well it's my turn now."

MUSIC:

1. Letters To Cleo "Here and Now"

2. Lady Antebellum "Love Don't Live Here"

3. Cactus Groove "Fallin"

4. James Talley "Big Thunder"

8. Ross Copperman "Stars Are On Your Side"

5. Lindsey Ray "Keep You Safe"

6. Tommee Profitt feat. Sam Tinnesz "With you Til The End"

7. Bright Eyes "First Day Of My Life"

The Cactus Groove song is the first song this season that I haven’t been able to find on Spotify… let me know if any of y’all had any luck with it!

#roswell new mexico #rnm season 2 #episode details #long post #rnm 205 #i'll stand by you

32 notes · View notes

wisdomrays · 4 years

Text

MARY: Part 2

Mary’s being among those named by the Prophet

The narrations stated above have led some scholars to believe that there is a possibility of the existence of female prophets. There has been various opinions supporting the idea that female prophets may have been sent and asking whether Mary the mother of Jesus was a Prophet or not. The opinion of scholars who believe Mary may have been a Prophet is based on the fact that Mary’s name is mentioned in the Qur’an among the Prophets: “Those were some of the Prophets on whom God did bestow his grace of the posterity of Adam and of those whom we carried (in the Ark) with Noah and of the posterity of Abraham and Israel-of those we guided and chose”(Mary 19:58), and also on the angel bringing the revelation of tidings and the benevolence provided to Mary from the creator, and the fact that she was a chosen person above all women purified through the grace of God as a “woman of perfection,” and “leader in Paradise”16 all led these scholars to believe that Mary could possibly be a messenger. However, the general opinion accepted by most scholars is that women were not sent to the world as prophets.

There are some Christian theologians who claim that Mary was a prophet. The Christian opinion in general is that she was superior to other women and saints but not superior to Jesus. Mary has been widely praised in Christian literature for her obedience, patience, modesty, piety, faith, hope, compassion, dignity and many other virtues.

Mary: the monument of chastity

The Qur’an clearly explains in this verse how Mary conceived Jesus:

And (remember) when the angels said: “Mary, God gives you the glad tidings of a Word from Him, to be called the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary" highly honored in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those near-stationed to God. He will speak to people in the cradle and in manhood, and he is of the righteous. "Lord," said Mary, “how shall I have a son seeing no mortal has ever touched me?” “That is how it is,” he (the Spirit who appeared before her) said, (quoting God): “God creates whatever He wills; when He decrees a thing, He does but say to it ‘Be!’ and it is.”(Al Imran 3:45–47)

The chapter Mary (19:16–33) of the Qur’an gives an extensive version of the conception, the birth and the events that followed the birth of baby Jesus. Furthermore, God the Almighty reveals how He located Mary and her son Jesus, whom He sent as an example to humans, in a prosperous place on high land with flowing streams and bestowed upon Jesus the divine benevolence He had bestowed upon his mother: “O Jesus son of Mary! O Jesus, son of Mary! Remember My favor upon you and upon your mother” (Al-Maeda 5:110).

There are various reports and comments specifically referring to Mary’s conception of Jesus and the miraculous birth in the interpretations and explanations of hadith which exceed the limits of this article. The embryologic phase of Mary’s pregnancy was just like any other pregnant woman: she conceived, the baby grew in her womb, and when the contractions began she made her way to the vicinity of the date tree behind a flowing stream and then gave birth. But how did the pregnancy and this embryological process actually begin? This question resembles a parcel holding the mysteries of this miraculous event.

So in brief, Mary was a true monument of chastity and, even though she was a virgin, conceived in a miraculous way. The fact that Mary guarded both her dignity and chastity is emphasized in the following verses of the Qur’an:

“And (mention) that blessed woman who set the best example in guarding her chastity. We breathed into her out of Our Spirit, and We made her and her son a miraculous sign (of Our Power and matchless way of doing things) for all the worlds.” (Al-Anbiya 21–91), “And also Mary, the daughter of Imran, who kept herself chaste (body and soul), so We breathed into it out of Our Spirit, and who affirmed the truth of the words of her Lord, and His Books; and she was of those devoutly obedient to God.” (At-Tahrim 66:12).

As a matter of fact, the Qur’an tells us that great disaster and punishment await those who speak unfavorably about Mary, for whatever they say against her chastity and dignity is slander, and their hearts are sealed to faith.

Mary’s death and burial

There is no account in the Qur’an or hadith of Mary’s death or burial, so details and information related to the topic are generally based on Christian sources or historical literature. Not included in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), Mary’s attending the miracle of Cana (John 2:11) and the event of the crucifix (John 19:25–27) were only reported in the book of John; she prayed with Jesus and his disciples in the Acts (1:14) following his resurrection, but there is no mention of the remaining period of her life, her death, age, or appearance in any of the gospels.

It is estimated that Mary must have been around fifty years old at the time of Jesus’ passing and there are varying reports regarding her own death; some say she was fifty-six, while there are other reports of her being seventy or even seventy-two. The questions of where and how she died have been topics of discussion and dispute for centuries, but the fact that she carried on throughout her life in sincere devotion and worship of God is much more suitable for her general profile.

Although there is no information on Mary’s place of burial in Christian sources, there are different views. Some say she was buried in Jerusalem, whereas others say it could have been in Ephesus or Antioch. Although there is no specific grave associated with Mary in Ephesus, there are graves said to be that of Mary which are in churches, one in the Jehosaphat valley between the Mount of Olives and Mount Temple and another in Gethsemani. There are some claims that her grave is on the mountain of Sion, and a Syrian history writer claims that her grave is situated in Al-Faradis in Damascus.

3 notes · View notes

obscuritas-est-lux · 4 years

Text

( Cody Christian, male , he/him) ⌇ have you seen Noah Sutton around icaria? they are the 28 year old child of Zeus. They remind me of raging storms, cuddling, and red skies in the morning. They’ve been on the island for 15 years.

Full Name: Noah Lucas Sutton Nickname: No? Age: 28 Sexuality: Bisexual Birthday: January 22

History:

Marie Baxter was always a shy woman. She never really wanted much to do with men. She spent most of her young 20′s working at her family owned flower shop on the island of Icaria. It was there that she learned all about flowers and what special secrets they held. It was around that time that Marie met Zeus and was completely charmed by him. She did anything and everything he asked. Soon she found out she was pregnant. Embarrassed by her pregnancy Marie fled the island. She wound up in California with her Aunt and Uncle.

Marie started a job at a flower shop on the sunny coast of California. Who knew her boss was going to fall head over heels in love with her. Lucas Sutton was your average kind of guy. He was patient, loving, caring, and mostly kind. The complete package for Marie. Shortly after they met Marie confided in Lucas about being pregnant. Lucas had already fallen in love with her and asked her to marry him. They got married one month before Noah was born.

Noah lived a very normal childhood. He had two parents who loved him and cared about him. When Noah was around 8 strange weather events that usually never occurred started to creep up. There was all types of rumors about unnatural weather phenomenon. It look Marie and Lucas a whole year to realize that it was Noah that was causing some of the weather problems. They didn’t know what to do. They tried to put Noah in therapy to help him learn to control his emotions. Of course they didn’t tell the therapist why it was very important he learned to do so.

When Noah was 11 his Uncle showed up at his house with a 6 year old boy. It turned out to be his cousin. Marie took in the boy even though she was furious at her brother for just abandoning him. It turned out that just like Noah his cousin was also a product of a god trying to just get what they wanted. Noah’s cousin, Colton joined their little family and that’s when things started to change.

2 years after Colton joined the family, Marie’s father had an accident that left him unable to work. The family flower shop was going to be in danger of closing. Marie decided she needed to go back home to help take care of her parents. So the Suttons packed up and moved back to Icaria.

Noah spent the rest of his childhood in Icaria. He got better at controlling his power and emotions. He was now able to feel sad and it not rain or angry and not create a storm. Though he wasn’t perfect, Noah was never able to complexly get rid of his hot headed nature. After graduating from Icaria high school and university Noah was brought into the family business. Last year his mother finally passed over the shop to him.

Tidbits of information:

- Noah is not afraid of confrontation he actually enjoys arguing with people.

- He is very loyal to his family and friends mostly shown by his constant helping of his cousin who is always getting himself in trouble.

-Even though he seems like a big bad tough guy underneath it Noah is the softest teddy bear. He enjoys snuggling and cuddling really anyone it doesn’t matter who.

#icaria: intro #noah intro

2 notes · View notes

thetrainwreckjournals · 5 years

Text

The Little Wolf Queen Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Connection

Ava is woken up too early, is stared at by one of the boys on the hockey team and feels weird. Shawn goes to school, his nose is on overdrive and he finds his mate.

The first thing she heard was the shrieking blare of her alarm followed by her stepmother Elena calling her name from downstairs. Groaning, she slammed her hand down on the alarm before rolling back into her sheets to enjoy the warmth, closing her eyes….and immediately opening them when she heard her door open.

“Ava” Elena’s gentle voice came through her room. “Ava sweetheart, you gotta get up for school”

“No” Ava grumbled.

“Ava honey, school is important” Elena chuckled.

“It’s not, I’m gonna make a killing being a grumpy judge on a talent show like Simon Cowell” Ava muttered from under her covers.

“You still need to finish school, now come on and get up before-”

“AVAAAAAA” came the loud voice of her three-year-old sister before a small mass crashed into her body with much more force than it should’ve.

“Oof” Ava groaned upon the impact.

“Chelsea!” Elena chastised the small girl. “Don’t do that, you could hurt your sister!”

“Sorry Mommy” Chelsea said bashfully.

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to your sister” Elena scolded.

“Sorry Ava” Chelsea smiled before throwing herself to hug her older sister.

“S’alright kid” Ava smiled back before reaching for her phone to take a quick snapchat of her sister being all cuddly and cute.

“Let’s get you both downstairs, gotta get you both ready for school” Elena smiled.

Reluctantly hauling herself out of bed, she remembered why she loved her blankets so much. It may have been spring in Canada, but the mornings could be chilly. Her sleep jumper and shorts were perfect until she removed the blankets, even on the carpet and with socks on, her legs felt slightly cold. Walking down the stairs somewhat drowsily with a big yawn coming up, Ava couldn’t help but smile as the twins stood at the bottom of the stairs with big curious eyes as they watched their mom with big smiles to match.

“Oh, by the way, they ate the rest of the chocolate cake” Elena smiled apologetically. “I can buy some more from the bakery when I drop them off at Mum’s”

“Elena darling” Ava’s dad called from the kitchen, “Where on earth is the cheese?”

“Back of the fridge” both Ava and Elena answered at the same time.

“You don’t suppose he’ll ever get his eyes checked, do you?” Elena quizzed gazing into the kitchen.

“It’s Dad, what do you think?” Ava stated like it was obvious.

Elena laughed her bell like laugh and took the hands of the twins while Chelsea grabbed Ava’s hand and pulled her down the stairs.

“Morning sleeping beauty” Ava’s dad smiled fondly at his somewhat disheveled daughter.

“Dad” she acknowledged. “Can you grab me that cereal?”

Passing the cereal to his daughter, he watched her as she sighed upon looking at her phone. “everything okay?”

“Yeah, but last two weeks of school and then summer. Which means feeling too lazy to do those last pieces of work that get me into the 11th Grade” Ava groaned miserably.

“Just two more weeks baby” Elena smiled kissing Ava’s temple.

“Elena do my work for me” Ava begged.

“You’re a capable woman Ava” Elena reminded her stepdaughter.

“Fine” she grumbled.

Eating her cereal, she was joined by an equally grumpy Jesse and a very sleepy Noah.

“Do you want some of my fruit loops?” Jesse asked with a big yawn.

“Nah that’s alright, you want any coco pops?” she asked him.

“Just a spoon” he smiled dopily.

While he got his cereal, Noah glanced at them while eating his wholemeal ham and tomato sandwich with his favourite cheese.

“Those cereals have lots of added sugar in them y’know. You should eat something lo GI that has protein in it” Noah told them in his four-year-old “I know everything” tone before walking off to sit on the porch with their Dad.

Narrowing her eyes in confusion, Ava reminded herself that he was four and not 30. Then she turned to Jesse as if he had an explanation, which apparently, he did.

“He’s been watching the food network on his sick days” Jesse shrugged.

Elena loved the food network. It made sense.

Finishing her cereal, she went upstairs to throw on her jeans and Coca Cola t shirt and converse before heading to her mirror. She blended out her foundation and concealer before debating if he could be bothered with proper eyeshadow. Deciding she could not, she set her face with powder, bronzed her cheekbones and used the same bronzer for eyeshadow and contouring her nose before applying a nude lip and mascara. She almost forgot her highlight but then remembered that Katie was planning on polaroid’s at school today so she applied some.

She threw her books in her bag, her tissues and bounced her way downstairs before making her coffee.

“Well you certainly seem to be in much higher spirits” Elena smiled.

“All things are possible with coffee and mascara Elena, all things” Ava smiled back brightly.

“Wanna go and round up your siblings?” Her dad asked.

“Sure” Ava agreed. “GET DOWN HERE MY ARMY” she yelled at the top of her lungs making Elena and her Dad wince.

“I meant at a lower volume” Her Dad grumbled.

“There’s too many to find individually” Ava shrugged.

Just then, a mess of four children came hurdling down the hallway giggling and laughing while they raced each other to the front door.

“School drop off time. Alex and Levi, just where do you think you’re going?” Elena said in fake sternness with her hands on her hips.

Alex and Levi were meant to be waiting with Ava’s Dad. Instead they had their animal bag packs on and their jackets.

“They’re coming with us” Chelsea stated proudly. “I put their jackets on and Jesse got their bags Mom”

Raising her eyes to the ceiling, Elena sighed. “You can come to the drop offs but then we’re coming back home to say goodbye to Dad and the dogs”

Giggling victoriously, they all packed themselves into the car and drove off to school.

“Have a nice day. Two more weeks, that’s all Ava” Elena reminded her stepdaughter before driving off.

Groaning in despair, Ava turned and walked her way through school.

“Morning Ava” Monty smiled nervously at her.

“Morning Monty” Ava smiled back.

Monty was the socially awkward geek in her History class who seemed to have a crush on her. She wasn’t to alarmed by him, it was his friend Gavin, the extroverted creep who bothered her.

“Babe!” she heard the exaggerated happiness in the voice of Heather Wilson, the school’s very own demon, as she rushed over to very sloppily kiss her newest toy, Dustin Kirk. Dustin and Heather belonged to the popular kids of the school. While Ava wasn’t unpopular, she didn’t have the whole “queen” status going on for her. She noticed that some of the hockey players were present, bit early for them. She spotted Katie’s older brother and then she saw Shawn Mendes with his friends Cameron Dallas and Brian Craigen. They played on the hockey team and were kinda cute. His mom was friends with Elena and her Dad. Karen was a sweet lady. But then she spotted the one who made her heart stop. Jake Henderson. All 5ft11 of his blonde-haired, blue-eyed muscle. Snapping herself out of it before someone noticed her staring, she walked around their group and onto her friends.

“Hello Ava” Katie greeted. “How was the weekend, we didn’t see you at all”

“Talk about missing the fun” Leah grinned. “I don’t think Laura’s ever seen so many shirtless men in her life”

“It was a wonderful sight to behold” Laura smiled.

“How was games night?” Stacey smiled.

“Good, you know Elena’s parents, heavy on the food, heavy on the wine and heavier on the desert” Ava sighed contently.

“You know I swear you’re never happy without food in your mouth” Laura laughed.

“Food is good for the soul. And I need about all the soul I can get in these last two weeks” Ava muttered grimly.

As the girls continued gossiping about the latest party, Ava couldn’t help but feel she was being watched. She looked up to see the last person she was expecting to be looking at her. Shawn Mendes was watching her with an odd sort of gaze as he caught her eye. Affection? Admiration? It was strange. Suddenly she felt this odd sensation in her stomach and slightly dizzy. Before she could linger on it, the bell rang and their classes had begun.

SHAWNS POV

He was early to school today. Brian’s parents had taken his brother out of town for a specialist appointment for his little brothers hearing, so they were at school before the bell rang for once.

He was watching Heather and Dustin be their usual selves and then he smelt it. That same sweet smell he caught lingering in the hallways. Except this time, it was stronger, much stronger. Overwhelmingly so. It was all his nose could focus on. A cross between vanilla and baking sugar. He took a deep inhale and turned to his left. A girl walking by seemed to radiate the smell.

Mate. His inner wolf told him.

He suddenly felt dizzy, his hands were sweaty, his body was warm and he felt a tugging sensation at his stomach. The smell seemed to overpower all his senses as shivers went down his spine. Could it really be?

She was small and she had black hair. All he could see was the back of her covered by a denim jacket and a backpack. When she had sat down, she was against the wall and her could only see half her face. Caramel skin. And then by some sort of mercy she frowned. Was she okay? Was something making her sad? Then she looked up, right at him and he felt his whole world shift. He got lost in her brown eyes and he felt a drop in his stomach and a fluttery feeling. It was her. He had found his mate. She looked so familiar, but did he know her? Did she know him? He didn’t have a chance to linger as the bell rang and he was pulled in one direction whilst she was pulled in the other.

He had spent the whole day with his head in the clouds thinking of her and when he was leaving school, he saw her once more getting into a car with… no…Liam Beauregard? He was notorious for his womanizing ways. He didn’t do love or commitment. He was in simple words, a dog.

Walking his way to Jake’s car, he stared out the window in misery. His mate with another wolf? A deplorable one at that.

“Uhh dude, you getting out or coming home with me?” Jake laughed.

“Sorry man, see y’all at practice” Shawn grinned, shaking it off. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to tell his friend yet.

He was lying on his bed formulating a plan to murder Liam when his thoughts returned to her and all he could do was smile.

He had found her. He had found his mate. And she was perfect. Petite in height, quite slim from what he could see, not that he’d care if she was otherwise. Black hair, dark brows, chocolate brown eyes and caramel skin with plump lips. She was stunning. He wondered if she was Spanish or something. She definitely looked it.

Broken out of his thoughts by his Mom’s voice telling him to leave his bed and the sound of a car pulling up, he suddenly remembered his Mom telling him Elena Prescott would be coming over for afternoon tea today. Elena was one of the few wolves mated to a human in their pack. Her mate actually helped out by playing the role of pack doctor on Wednesdays. They were both nice people. Besides, Elena was Shawn’s favourite babysitter as a kid. He could ask her about her human mate bond. Rare but possible, as Shawn now knew. Or did he. Was she human? He didn’t have time to dwell as he trudged downstairs to greet Elena.

After saying hi and being told to make tea by his Mom, he returned to smiled at his babysitter who now had 5 children of her own now if he remembered correctly.

“Hey there Rockstar” Elena smiled.

“Ellie” Shawn smiled brightly at her.

“You and Aaliyah are the only ones to get away with calling me that”

“we were the best kids you ever babysat and you know it” Shawn grinned.

“Quite possibly” Elena avoided answering

“How are you kids?” he quizzed, genuinely interested.

“Growing” she said ominously. “and fast”

“How old are they all now?”

“Jesse’s five, Chelsea is three and Levi and Alex are 18 months.”

“Man, your house must be loud” Shawn laughed.

“You’ve no idea. The dogs are quieter than my kids and you can hear them bark from here” Elena said dramatically.

Suddenly Elena moved and knocked her keys off the coffee table which Shawn immediately picked up for her before spotting the keychain and the photo on it. Of Elena, her husband, her kids and Shawn’s mate.

“Ellie who’s the older girl? You’ve only got 4 four kids” Shawn observed.

“Oh, that’s Ava, our biggest ray of sunshine. She’s not much younger than you actually, Lewis actually had four kids from his previous marriage, she’s his third child and second daughter” Elena explained.

“Does she know about all of this?” Shawn asked.

“No, we agreed to keep her out of it until necessary” Elena said. “We’ll have to tell her eventually because of Jesse” Elena sighed. “Her best friend comes from a wolf family too actually, Katie Beauregard”

“Marcus’ daughter?” Karen asked.

“One and only, her and Katie have been attached to the hip since she moved her. More like sisters than friends those two are”

He couldn’t believe his ears. Elena’s stepdaughter was his mate. He’d hit the jackpot. He could find out everything from her.

“I feel like I’ve seen her before” Shawn muttered. “Does she go to my school or something?” he feigned ignorance.

“Year below you actually” Elena told him.

“Oh, well if ever see the two of you I’ll make sure I come and say hi” Shawn smiled politely before turning to his Mom. “I have practice now, I’ll be home for dinner, just later than usual. Bye guys”

Turning and running out of the house he walked his way to Kyle’s house two blocks over, smiling the whole way there.

Ava. Her name was Ava Prescott. The name suited her. Just thinking of her made him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. He’d locked eyes with her for a split second but it was enough for him to know she was his mate. Beautiful chocolate almond shaped eyes and a gorgeous smile based off what he’d seen when she was dragged out by her friends, grinning at their enthusiasm. He didn’t notice much too overcome with his initial emotions and heart eyes.

He did however notice Jason Lewis eyeing her up like a piece of meat as she got dragged past him.

Asshole.

All Shawn knew was that he had to find a way to talk to her, get to know her and somehow manage not to freak her out in the process.

He was going to be with his mate.

Part 2

169 notes · View notes

dailyaudiobible · 4 years

Text

01/18/2020 DAB Transcript

Genesis 37:1-38:30, Matthew 12:22-45, Psalms 16:1-11, Proverbs 3:27-32

Today is the 18th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it's great to be here with you today as we end a…end a week. This is actually…I’m looking at a calendar…this is the third weekend of this new decade. I guess I hadn't realized that until just now. Nevertheless, we have set sail. We have moved all the way here 18 days on our journey and we will continue that journey today. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week, which is today, and we have been working our way through the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose name became Israel. And now we’re going to pick up the story of Israel and Jacob's son Joseph. So, today Genesis chapters 37 and 38.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for another complete week together in Your word and starting to feel the rhythm of the year now, this new decade upon us, starting to settle in, which is one of the words that we spoke of this year. And, so, we ask that You help us to do that, to find within ourselves, amidst all of the disruption that the Bible can bring to us, that what's really happening here is that what's false is being shaken. And sometimes we didn't even know it was false until it's exposed. But there is the truth deep within us where You live where the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells and this place is true and we want to learn about this place within us, because this is the place that Your word speaks to. And, so, come Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. This is the promise the Scriptures give us, and we believe that You will. Lead us on the narrow path that leads to life. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. So, be sure to stay tuned and stay connected

The Community section of the website, and for that matter, the app, you can get all these sections in the Daily Audio Bible app by pressing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. And by the way, while we’re talking about this, I mean, over the years of the Daily Audio Bible there’s been different iterations of the app. The latest iteration is the one that we are really trying to move everybody into and onto because we have finally reached a place where so many of the technologies that we were building and dreaming and living into and having to come up with, finally, we have like an incredibly stable environment where, if you check a box that you listened, it checks the box. We even had problems with that last year. Like if you check that box, it's checked, it's done. Done deal. In fact, you check a box it's checked on any device you are logged in. Like, so, I had a fun time playing with this. like logging in on the web player, then using the app and checking the checkbox that I’d listened to a certain day on the app and then watching it instantly appear on the computer. It’s like across the board, finally. So, I say all that to say, if you haven't updated recently then go to your web store and look for Daily Audio Mobile app. You may see other Daily Audio Bible apps. Some of those other previous apps, they are being depreciated, they’re going away. Look for Daily Audio Bible mobile app. And even if that's the app that you're using, but you haven't updated in a while, this most recent update that we've done back, actually back at the beginning of the year, is by far…I mean…what's under the hood….the technology under the hood…is really what you’re gonna want to be using. So, update. How did I get on all that? Like I was talking about navigation. So, like, alright, back to the website or the app, go the Community section of the website, find a different links to different social media channels that we participate in, links to the Prayer Wall, like ways to stay connected and praying for one another and now we’re a couple weeks into this year. So, one of the rhythms that become apparent is that we’re a community that's actually incredibly loving, incredibly accepting. Like everybody knows that we’re in this together and we’re all…like…we’ve decided to try to live in the truth, like Jesus is demonstrating for us, which means that…that we accept each other on…on the journey that were on knowing that we’re sharing some history together. And the best thing we can do is love one another, pray for one another, encourage one another. And, so, you know, that's…that's the Prayer Wall and that's the prayers that come in at the end every day. So, you know, kinda like a little bit of a discombobulated conversation, discussing all these things, but I think that's really, I wanted to say is stay connected. That makes all the difference in the world on a journey like this. So, stay up to date and stay connected.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link that lives on the homepage and I thank you profoundly and humbly for your partnership. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I will be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, this is Candace from Oregon. I love you Daily Audio Bible. Have I told you that lately? And Brian and Jill thank you so much. Oh Lord that none of us ever take for granted this amazing situation. I want to thank Rachel from Pennsylvania and everyone else who’ve been praying for me and my household. We were under terrible attacks. Starting in November, it went on all the way into January and made…the holidays were good…but this was sort of underlying it and very stressful. I think it’s much better now. Please pray. January 28th, I have a beloved in law who might…who has to go to court and might end up doing some jail time. So, please pray that whatever is the best thing for this dear one will occur, be that jail time or not and that the judge and everyone he has to interact with will know how to point him in the right direction. Lord have your way. Also, please for my February 8th piano recital, that all the students will do well and that the whole experience of taking these lessons will be part of drawing them into a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Thank you so much for your prayers and I am praying for all of you as well. May the Lord’s name be praised.

[singing starts] I will send out an army to find you in the middle of the darkest night. It’s true I will rescue you. I will never stop marching to reach you in the middle of the hardest fight. It’s true I will rescue you [singing ends]. Hey this is for Anonymous who called back on December 27th and to anyone else who thinks since God’s so good and we’re so bad we’re not worthy and He doesn’t want anything to do with us, but like the song says He’s doing everything He can to get to us and He will rescue you. So, just a little encouragement.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Carla Jean from Las Vegas calling today asking you to pray for my son Noah. He’s 23 years old and has been fighting a spiritual battle most of his life. I keep thinking that God must have great plans for this boy for him to be so pursued by Satan. He’s 23 and he contacted me yesterday in the middle of an anxiety attack and we Facetimed for an hour trying to get him to seek help. He lives in a different state and he’s afraid because he has no health insurance and I told him I don’t care, just get the help you need, and I will take care of it financially. I’ve asked him if he wants me to come to him and he does not want me to go there. He is a sweet boy and I’m just…am asking you to storm heaven with me. Matthew 8:16 said many who were demon possessed were brought to him and He drove out the spirit with a word and healed all the sick. That’s my prayer for my son Noah and I’m praying for all of you who are fighting spiritual demons right now. May the Lord grant us all peace. Amen.

Some skim the surface while others dig deep yet both of them say Your commandments they keep one says confess and believe in your heart and you shall be saved you’ll have a new start and nothing and no one can take that away salvation is yours, whatever may but then the other one says action speaks louder than words and faith without works is just air for the birds if God is in your life then there should be some change all things are new if they’re not something strange but both of them say that Christ is the way that judgment is coming and you should trust and obey but yet and still both of them put others down including each other the cycle just goes round vicious in nature and not from our God which they both claim to represent which really seems odd traditions and customs leading to sin the Sadducees and Pharisees all over again what will it lead to where will it end misleading the children of God is a terrible sin though not by intention for they too are deceived but that original serpent also fooled Eve some skim the surface while others dig deep yet both of them say your commandments they keep

[email protected]. Like to give a shout out to Sherlock Washington and Kim and Michelle from LA. Hope you both are doing well and know you’re all in my prayers daily. And once again Brian and the Hardin family thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit flow. Keep it flown’ y’all. All right bye-bye.

Hello sweet DABber family this is Trusting Father in South Carolina. It is Sunday the 12th about 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m a five-year listener, this is my second time calling in, the first time being about a year and a half ago when my daughter had an affair. Since then she divorced and went into another relationship, a real bad relationship and from that she is pregnant, and we have a precious little baby boy on his way in April. But also, in her family she has two other little boys, one is five and the other soon to be three and I’m asking prayer for her. She…I don’t even know how to put it into words, but she is…she is very confused. She is in a high-powered job and, you know, before she went into her affair, she and her husband were…you know...they like to party and…and I’m…I just…I don’t even know. I feel like her…she’s just messed up mentally, emotionally, physically and, of course spiritually. So, I need to also tell you this, that I have a son who’s an alcoholic and a recluse and he’s 34 years old and we have another daughter who’s been in a 10 year relationship with another woman and my husband has been depressed before we were even married when where we are age 19 and 20. So, it has been very intense here, especially lately. And I want to, I don’t know, I just felt very led to reach out just ask for your prayer and I’m just so grateful in knowing that Father’s faithful. And thank you so much.

Hello this is Duncan from Fredericksburg Texas. I’ve tried…I’ve been on here once at least, I know that. For the lady in South Carolina whose sister is…is in...is in ICU let me pray right now. Oh Father so many hurting people and there are many listening to this who are broken and hurting and at various stages of grief, various stages of anger, various stages of anything that’s not good. Father, I know I’ve been in…I’m still…the post-holiday __ or hardships of life are…are sometimes harder to deal with and especially Father for those of us who have lost loved ones as I have lost my wife back in October. Father just take care of…of this gal, just please touch her and heal. Father just raise up people, more people who will love her back…back to health. Father, I believe that can be done with encouragement and father with being ministered to and I just ask you to do that for this lady who is suffering from bipolar and is in the ICU. And for…I cannot remember names, so many of them. So, just take care of them Jesus. Thank you. Amen. And now, just for me. I request, I am a pianist, I am…just happened to be totally blind but that doesn’t stop me. I’m 73 years old that does not stop me either. And I will be going to upstate New York next weekend and then to Long Island and then finally back up to Buffalo. I leave Saturday the 27th and then come back…no…Saturday the 18th and then come back the 27th then a player local gig on the 28th. So, I just ask you to pray for me…

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is J from Nashville. Got a little bit of a something going on with my throat, but I wanted to take a moment to pray for the people who just feel like they can’t catch a break. Heavenly Father, in the precious and mighty magical name of Jesus Christ, God we come before You this morning adoring You and lifting up the holy name of Jesus. Mighty God bless You as we confess of any sins that we may have committed knowingly or unknowingly. Lord we rest in Your forgiveness and we thank You for Your grace and mercy allowing us to come to You again and again receiving this precious gift that You give us. Father, we need You in this moment. We pray for Your comfort. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will give us wisdom and understanding in these times where we just feel like giving up, where You feel like all the odds are against us and we can’t find a single way out. Lord we ask that in these moments of despair, confusion, fear, we ask that You will remind us in a way that only You know how, that You are there and You will always be there and You are in control. We love You Father. We praise You Jesus. We glorify You God and we thank You. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. I love you family. I miss you. Until next time.

4 notes · View notes

bladesoflightandshadow · 5 years

Text

indefinitely [lucas/mc]

note: hi! hello! i wrote another thing! finally! this one was actually supposed to be part of a series of ficlets based on a prompt list which i abandoned, but i think it holds its own well enough to post. i know the ‘character has bad dreams and has their partner comfort them’ trope is way overdone when it comes to the it lives series but like.....i love these two too much not to try

pairing: lucas x mc (everett walker)

word count: 1,947

warnings: discussions of trauma & anxiety, though nothing you haven’t already seen if you’ve read ilitw.

tagged: @teja-desai

summary: a late night talk with lucas has everett re-evaluating his feelings.

. . . . .

Everett learned quickly at the start of his and Lucas’s relationship that they’re both restless sleepers.

For Lucas, it’s always been like this—worrying about what he has to do in the day ahead or the day after tomorrow or what he did the day before and what went wrong and what could go wrong all keep him up—so sometimes he doesn’t bother with sleep at all, and it’s only made worse by the events of homecoming their senior year.

For Everett, it started in the weeks leading up to the homecoming incident. Despite numerous sleeping aids and therapy and God knows what else, sleep often feels like a trap he needs to outsmart, with memories of that night and of what Noah did and what he did always just in his periphery, waiting for the right time to strike.

Not to say that what happened didn’t affect their group of friends too, if seeing another one of them have a breakdown about it every week after the incident was any indication. But Everett never could shake the roiling guilt of feeling responsible for what happened to them—to his friends, to Jane, to Noah.

And it’s these thoughts that plague him while he’s lying awake in bed tonight, staring up at the ceiling.

When it becomes hard to breathe, he kicks his sheets away and paces the room, hugging himself as a sudden chill crawls up his spine. Everett contemplates going for a walk to clear his mind, but one look at the woods outside and just the thought of being anywhere near them makes him physically sick. He grabs his phone from his nightstand and sees that it’s 3 A.M. Knowing Lucas, he’s probably awake at this time too. Everett considers texting him to see if he’s awake, but his thumbs hover over the keyboard, worried that if Lucas is asleep, the sound might wake him up.

Before he can decide, though, a text appears on his phone screen, the sound startling him into dropping his phone. When he picks it up—unbroken, thank God, he can’t afford to ask for a new one—he sees that it’s from Lucas, seemingly having just read his mind.

Can’t sleep. Thinking about you.

He feels himself smile, almost involuntarily, as he types out a reply. When are you not thinking about me?

Ha. Then, after a beat: Rarely, to be fair.

Everett steps towards his bed and falls back onto it. I am a pretty good distraction, aren’t I?

Only the best. Everett sighs, momentarily forgetting why he was unable to sleep in the first place.

Lucas sends him another text. Can I call you? I miss your voice.

You spoke to me in person earlier today.

And what about it?

He closes the messaging app and finds Lucas’s number in his recent call history, the name in his contacts plastered with heart emotes. Lucas picks up almost immediately.

“Hey,” Everett says, quietly so as to not rouse his parents in the next room.

“Hey,” Lucas responds. “Sorry if I’m bothering you.”

Everett lifts his arm to cover his face, sighing slightly. “Nah, I was already awake. I was thinking of calling you too.”

Lucas hums in response. There’s a near-imperceptible edge to his voice, and he’s clearly agitated—more than usual, anyway. Everett asks him what’s wrong.

“Nothing?” A pause, in which Everett hopes to communicate the sentiment of, I know you too well. Don’t lie to me. “…Yeah, okay. Something’s wrong. It’s… it’s stupid.”

“Everything about our lives these past few months has been stupid,” Everett says, shifting around on the bed so that he’s under his duvet again. “Nothing you say can surprise me.”

Lucas lets out a half-hearted chuckle. “I suppose not.” He hesitates, then sighs. “It’s just… It’s the first time I’ve been home alone in a while. My dad’s away on some business trip and my mom is staying with family for the night, so I’m the only person in the house, which makes overthinking every sound I hear or every shadow I see a lot easier.” He sighs again. “It’s…childish, I know.”

“No, it’s not. Trust me. I… I get it.” Everett bites his lip, unsure of how else to reassure him when he’s not feeling any braver himself.

At his lack of response, Lucas asks, “What about you? Why are you awake?”

A pause. Everett closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Oh, you know, the usual. Just trying to stave away the feeling of overwhelming guilt and fear over letting my childhood friends get hurt at the hands of a powerful supernatural being, two of which are now dead, while said supernatural being is probably still out there somewhere.”

There’s a silence that stretches on a beat too long. Everett starts chewing on his lower lip. “Sorry. That was too much.”

“No,” Lucas tells him. “No, you’re allowed to express how you’re feeling, even if it is through really morbid jokes.”

“Who says I was joking?”

He falls quiet again, and Everett’s worried he went too far this time, until he speaks again. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

Everett breathes in, slowly, shakily. “I know,” he whispers. “I know. Everyone keeps telling me. I know. But I also can’t fucking convince myself to believe it. So I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“Hey.” There’s rustling on Lucas’s end. It sounds like he’s getting out of bed, or sitting up. “Do you want us to talk about something else?”

“Yes, please.” Everett thinks for a moment, rattling his brain for conversation topics. “Where’s your dog?”

“Tolkien?” More rustling on the other line as Lucas presumably moves to look for the terrier. “He’s sleeping on the floor next to me.”

“So you’re not really home alone after all.”

“I suppose. But Tolkien’s an old man. I don’t think he can do much to protect me.”

“I still can’t believe your parents let you name him that.”

He lets out a snort. “In all fairness, I was nine.”

Everett takes reprieve in the conversation shift, letting himself retreat into their usual banter. “You must’ve thought you were such a smartass, naming him after a writer that was way above everyone else’s reading level at the time.”

“You joke, but that was probably my exact thought process,” Lucas says, a smile in his voice. “Also, this is rich coming from the guy who named his cat Cattywampus.”

“Wampus is a business professional and she does not take well to your mockery.” Lucas laughs, the sound soft but genuine, and Everett allows himself to ease into the warmth of it.

Slowly, the fear that had kept them both awake fades into an afterthought, as they let the conversation carry them through to the early hours of the morning. When Everett wakes up, he’s relieved to find that one of them had, wittingly or not, ended the call before they fell asleep. His phone reads 11:36 A.M., and his heart jumps to his throat for a moment before he realises it’s a Saturday.

Almost without thinking, he taps Lucas’s name on his phone to call him again.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” he answers, almost annoyingly chipper. Even when he’s barely gotten any sleep, Lucas can never bring himself to wake up later than 9 A.M., something Everett’s had to learn the hard way.

“Mornin’,” Everett murmurs through a yawn. “God, how are you such a morning person?”

He can hear the clattering of pots and pans from Lucas’s end. “Hmm, I guess it’s hard not to be one when I get to hear your voice first thing in the morning,” he says.

Everett roll his eyes, but even the tiredness can’t fend off his smile. “You didn’t even know I was gonna call you.”

“Wishful thinking?” More clattering. “I’m making breakfast. Or brunch, I guess. Do you want to come over?”

Groaning, Everett pulls the covers over his head to block the sunlight streaming directly onto his face. “Give me, like, an hour to feel alive again and then I’ll be there.”

“Alright. Let me know when you’re near.”

“I will. I love you.”

It goes quiet on Lucas’s line. Everett half expects him to have hung up, but one glance at his phone tells him he’s still there. There’s a long, long pause as Lucas takes in what he just said, and as Everett wakes up enough to realise what he just said.

“Oh,” he stutters. “Oh—shit, I’m sorry, that was…I know you said you wanted to take things slow, and I—agh, I’m sorry, Lucas—”

“Stop,” Lucas says, and his tone is gentle, but Everett’s heart still freezes in place. “Did you mean it?”

It takes him a few moments to collect his thoughts. Even in his morning bleariness, Everett knows the answer with clarity. Who else does he know that makes him feel this safe—this calm? Who else would Everett, without even thinking, want to call first thing in the morning, when he knows he sounds like absolute hell? Who else does he trust this much?

He breathes in, letting the feeling wash over him, and he wills his heart to calm down just long enough for him to speak.

“Yeah,” Everett exhales, and something like relief floods out of him. “Yeah. I did mean it.”

In all honesty, part of him had known for a while, yet there was always something, some nagging feeling putting him off from admitting it. They’d talked before about how they wanted to take things slow after everything that happened—to handle this relationship with the care it deserved, at least until they got to a point where things weren’t so fraught.

Yet, despite the anxiety that had kept him tossing and turning last night, Everett feels calmer than he’s been in weeks. Like Lucas’s mere presence through the phone were enough of a remedy for his nerves. His pulse is still hammering, but there’s no fear.

“Good. Because I love you too,” Lucas says, and he sounds… like he’s in awe of the fact. “I’ve known for a while. I just… I didn’t want to say it too soon, especially after I told you I wanted to take things slow…”

Everett is suddenly wide awake, unable to shake the giddy smile from his face. They both take a few moments to just bask in the revelation, the quiet between them profound and full of warmth. Love. They love each other. No holding back.

“You jerk,” Everett says suddenly. “You were waiting for me to say it first so you wouldn’t feel weird about it.”

On the other end, Lucas laughs, brightly, a sound Everett doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of. “And what are you going to do about it?”

“Uhh, hold it over your head for the rest of our lives?” He’s smiling so much his face aches. “Face it, Thomas, you weren’t man enough to say it first.”

“Pfft, you only said it on accident.”

“I at least demand a consolation prize!”

There’s movement on Lucas’s end, the scraping of a chair as he sits down. “Fine. Whatever you want, name it.”

Everett bites the inside of his cheek, lifting his free hand up to cover his face like it might stop the unadulterated joy from spilling out. His head is spinning. Is this what love is?

“Just keep saying it. That you love me.”

“That’s it?” There’s a smile in Lucas’s voice, too, like he can’t stop himself either. “Just keep telling you I love you, indefinitely?”

“Indefinitely. Yeah.” Everett laughs. “For as long as you can.”

And he does.

#playchoices #playchoices fanfic #it lives in the woods #lucas thomas #lucas thomas x mc #lucas x mc #i never know what to tag these how do u get attention for ur writing in this godforsaken fandom #anyway yeah it's 5am but i'm just gonna yeet this out there before i overthink myself out of existence bye !#my writing #long post #mc: everett walker #if i squint i think i can say im proud of this one

36 notes · View notes

shamekhalaamri · 4 years

Text

Dear intellectuals and members of this distinguished group, allow me to present this work to you, asking you to share my opinions and theses, and to make it together under study to help see the light, perhaps we would have benefited people and made a change in it at the level of history. If my conclusions are true, then it is not true that I I tell God not to be truth.

Theory of inclination

Text::

After the sane, wise man appeared on the earth, the earth deviated with respect to its pivotal rotation, which led to a great qualitative shift in the history of mankind, so it caused changes to the topography, general climate, and composition of man and was the reason behind the Great Flood.

Explanation ::

This theory is the result of a long series of research after you stopped me after the observations regarding the story of Noah, peace be upon him, in the wise download .. The theory and scientific integrity began after I heard the late Dr. Muhammad Shahrour talking about the issue of the time period that Noah, peace be upon him, spent in his people in the wise download And the difference in the mechanism of calculating the years between us and the house of that era .. Here I adopted this idea and I was inspired by the roots of my theory .. And I saw that this news necessarily has behind it other great mysteries and another aspect, and therefore there are news and other interpretations accompanying this information and I started searching and that was my hypothesis.

When we talk about wiping out at the level of this planet, we must talk about a great event other than the course of human history, in which the life and environmental system is complete.

Duha in the Arabic tongue is, in short, the body took the shape of an egg and it has another significance in the sense that I threw the stone, that is, I threw it

As mentioned in the download Hakim: (, Do you most have created or sky built by (27) raise the thickness of Fssoaha (28) and Ogueth that night in and out overnight (29) and the earth after that He spread (30) of which directed its water and pasture (31) and the mountains established (32) chattel you And for your cattle)

I stood at verse 30 of Surat Al-Naza’at and its position in formulating the verses (and the earth then expelled them) so let us send some conclusions ..

First: The Lord of Glory, His Majesty, invented the globe, and it became oval or almost repetitive in shape as we have now .. This event occurred in a specific time period based on the arrangement of the above verses and their formulation which indicates the narration of the chronology of the origin and development of our solar system stage by stage The other, including the planet Earth in its first form .. In addition to the sound effect of the conscience distraction in the late verses, which enhances the idea of this sequence up to the stage of erasing the earth .. And the thing that we should be aware of is that the verses that follow the stage of erosion suggest that they are the product of this process of erasing In the form of topographic and environmental changes T, after the earth was destroyed and she (her water and pasture was removed from it (31) and the mountains laid it (32) for you and your cattle) in the sense that these events occurred sequentially after the destruction.

Now, let us determine the time for the ritual occurrence .. So we will put the following verses in mind ... The Almighty said in Surah Noah:

I said to ask forgiveness of your Lord, he was Gfara (10) sends the sky you Madrara (11) Amddkm funds and boys and makes you gardens and makes you rivers (12) What you do not hope to God Qara (13) has created you in stages)

When Noah ordered his people to seek forgiveness from their Lord in (so I said ask your Lord for forgiveness that he was forgiving) .. And in the same way in the sequence of the following verses the following verses came to suggest to us that it is a condition answer to the act of seeking forgiveness .. In the sense that the supply of wealth and the wealth To obey Noah, peace be upon him, and to believe and seek forgiveness from their Lord, and that these environmental and terrainous elements did not exist before, but they were later developed .. And from a historical point of view in the pre-Flood era, neither the human nor his historical name was the sane, erect sane .. He has settled environmentally and this The promises that Noah promised to There are signs of human stability, and this will become clear later .. But it was stable and mentally complete so that he became eligible to be revealed to him and in the phoneme composition of the name of Noah is a sign of this, so the era of Noah was the beginning of the divine revelation for humans and the pre-writing era .. The only culture at that time was The ability of a person to set fire to something that constituted a social shift, which was a reason for people to gather around it. Here, I remember the saying of Moses, peace be upon him (that I am a fire), who also in turn was the first step in the scale of building societies and clarifying the concept of the family .. Therefore the content of the message of Noah, peace be upon him, was unification And parents,

Now we will translate all of these conclusions physically and connect the rings together.

Physics says that the Earth completes a complete cycle around the sun in a relatively irregular and elliptical orbit whenever 365.25 revolves around its axis and revolve around its axis at an angle of 23.5 degrees with respect to the perpendicular to the Earth's equator with the center of the sun All of this system works in a very accurate arithmetic way, but suppose Just one thing:

This axial slope did not exist and the Earth rotated vertically at an angle of Milan

Then the earth will receive sunlight equally throughout all of it, which makes the day and night completely equal and the temperature is relatively stable and most areas are completely frozen in addition to the absence of the phenomenon of the four seasons and the climate will be a summer and winter successive every half of the cycle around the sun and will be There are consecutive eclipses and eclipses every two weeks, and the environmental conditions will be very harsh .. And these perceptions were the environment in which Noah and his people lived completely, so he promised them stability of life .. This was the form of life before the great flood and I will explain that

..And let’s start with Noah’s life mentioned in the Wise Download:

(And we sent Noah to his people, and he lived there for a thousand years, except for fifty years, so the flood took them and they are unjust) (14)

And here the term year and year is mentioned in describing the time spent in his people and the difference between them that the year is the unit of time associated with the occurrence of a specific recurring phenomenon that people enacted and agreed upon .. while the year is the calculation of the time period that begins with the occurrence of a specific event until the end of it, such as the school year for example That is why it is strange for us that Noah lived more than nine hundred years in relation to our calculation of time in our time in the solar year, and it is logical that Noah's era does not have the scientific tools to know that the earth revolves around the sun and also does not have the four seasons of the year as we previously assumed. The Earth was not tilted yet, and they did not They know that the earth revolves around its axis from the foundation .. Therefore, the age of Noah mentioned in the download is calculated by their units they are not .. If we compute the repeated phenomena for them we will find them are the alternation of night and day equally and two phenomena of eclipses and eclipses respectively every two weeks and the summer and winter coups every half of a cycle Around the sun, i.e. six months with our calculation, if we exclude the phenomenon of the two seasons because of its inaccuracy, the only logical phenomenon for calculating the Sunnah they have is the sequence of eclipses and eclipses, meaning that their year equals 14 solar days with our current account, and therefore I estimate Noah's message period less than 40 years from our years, we note that the download indicated How long was Noah's message It is not only his full age, and for the year they have, it is clear that it is a unit smaller than the year, and that the year is divided into a number of more than fifty units, which is the year and is calculated during the day.

Thus, when the Earth was destroyed, the reason was that it was possible for the Lord of Glory, the Majesty, to change the direction of the Earth’s rotation around its axis at an angle of 23.5. Thus there was a disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field, and the center of the Earth’s gravity changed and the Earth’s magnetic field was dispersed, which affected the Earth’s gravitational force near the Moon Equal, so the shape of the moon changed, which in turn also caused a change in the center of gravity of the moon, which is now a distance below the center of the moon’s mass point. This change affected the strength of the moon’s gravity for us, which led to a change in the shape of the Earth, which became semi-spherical and has two dents as we see it today, and this was done. Operation process Noah's era, peace be upon him, and that was the miracle of Noah, and accordingly, his prophecy and promise were fulfilled. Because of this pivotal deviation of the earth, the angle of sunlight fall to the earth changed, and the night became shorter than the day, and temperatures rose in the icy areas, which led to its melting and moderate wind speed So that the rain was formed and these two reasons were the source of the great flood water and the evidence: (So we opened the gates of heaven with poured water (11), and the earth blew us with eyes, then the ark of the ark was raised) For seasonal and fruitful pastures and pastures due to the appearance of spring and autumnal equinoxes, thus agriculture flourished since that time. It is worth noting that the removal of the cattle was after the flood because the agricultural climate and the grassy nature were available, so cattle and animals were attracted and the evidence was: (out of it their water and pastures), and it is also a staggering (30) Fruits and Fathers (31) pleasures for you and your cattle (It is worth noting that it was not mentioned in all places in the story of Noah in the Holy Book ... And another thing happened and because of the sudden deviation of the earth there was turmoil and trembling in its movement, so the Lord of Glory is established Except It is a disturbance that the mountains are shrouded in them until their movement is stabilized and the evidence is established (and the mountains have established them). The divine process of calming the calm movement of the globe.

Here are some other clues that support the theory:

• Noah, peace be upon him, said to his Lord in Surah Noah (the Lord said that I called my people night and day (5)) It is strange that he mentioned the period of his call to them by night and day in this equal manner considering that in the night there is rest and stillness for people .. but only in the case that it was The night is really equal to the day, and this is what we assumed before the occurrence of worms.

• Hood said to his people (and remember it made you successors after the people of Noah and added one more in the creation Basta remember the agents of God, that ye may prosper (69)) and Basta in the creation means that their bodies have become bigger and more powerful compared to a people of Noah, and this is because of the physical mutation that occurred due to the impact of Increasing the Moon's gravitational force.

• After calling him to board the ship, Ibn Noah said (He said that I would equate to a mountain that protects me from the water) and in this response is a sign that the mountains after God shook the earth upon them and they saw that was an amazing and strange thing for them, so Ibn Noah thought that it would be illusory when God described the power and shape of the flood waves in the mountains in Surat Hood, which is more terrifying.

• Noah reminded his people of the stages of development in God’s creation and ability so that they would not be surprised by the development of their promised lives and likening them to the process of germination as gardens and fruits will grow for them (what for you do not hope for God as reverent (13) and may He be the best of all). Heavens in a layer (15) and made the moon in them a light and made the sun a lamp (16), and God made you from the earth plants.

• In Surat Hud and the Believers, the wise remembrance mentioned the description of the beginning of the flood in the desert of the enlightenment (even when our command came and the enlightenment fled, we said: I carry in it from each of the two wives, and the two of them have used it.) The likeness is that it is very similar to the shape of the planet earth, in addition to that, after its construction is complete, it is always placed in a diagonal shape similar to the inclination of the earth .. And the advantage of the Holy Qur’an in analogy is that it is similar to something that exists for people before their eyes at the time of the descent of the Holy Qur’an and the Arabs know the enlightenment well and the people of Iraq Special .

• If we follow the sites where the mountains were mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, we will notice a clear distinction between the entity of the mountains and the earth, and they were two completely different elements (for example, the land and the mountains were loaded with a single bench and a number of branches). Primitive or benefit from it even though it is a prominent teacher and was mentioned only during the occurrence of the flood while I used it and returned after them.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/173195789483939/permalink/1792873367516165/

Signed by: Shamekh Al-Amri - Quranic scholar and thinker

1 note · View note

ecmlol · 5 years

Text

“ I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my mom. Why?”jude asked

“ well there is a guy name bigbro925 that catch my attention. He thinking the picture is tacky and youit would look better in black and white.”

“ well his birthday would be 9/25 if he’s old because I was a early morning baby I think my mom said something like 12:10 so if he was born 11 minutes before me that would be the day before.”

Noah clicks on bigbro925 page.There are a lot of pictures of dogs, food and landscapes.

“ gotcha you. I found selfies kinda”noah shows jude

“ wow that’s just amazing. “Jude says as he sees the first picture of his brother.

Brandon is sitting on a couch with a goatee and a clean cut hair style that looks very much like Jude’s .

“ I don’t know how it’s even possible that you could be even hotter. You’d look great with a goate.” Noah say

“You think?”

“ definitely “noah say.

“ next year for your birthday I’ll grow one for you for a couple of weeks.”jude says

“ only if you want to”noah say

“ sure why not I like the extra sleeping in time in the summer.”jude says

“ me too.I miss your longer hair too.”Noah says running his hand over Jude’s newly cut hair. Noah give Jude’s hair a little tug at the nape.

Noah smiles and kisses Jude’s cheeks. Jude gets goosebumps

“ so do you think I should respond to your brother? “

“ I don’t know but I think you want to.”Jude say

“You know me so well” noah smiles

Noah goes back to his picture and goes to the comments.

“ I will let my husband know. Send” noah say.

Noah looks at Jude and shrugs.

“ I’m trying to be nice to him. You don’t want to antagonize someone like him. I maybe nuts but I’m not stupid.”

“ you said it not me “ jude says with a small smile.

“ haha let’s get going you don’t want to be late to meet officer Murray.”

Jude and Noah headed to the bathroom to get really for the day.

Noah is driving because he wasn’t staying at work he was heading to his old apartment to check on Jamie after dropping off jude with his personal body guard.

Jamie is sitting on the couch doing homework when there a knock on the door.

At first Jamie didn’t know if she should get it or just sit there.

“ Noah should have his key” jamie says to herself. Jamie gets up and takes the headphones off her belly.

Earlier in the week pax sent flowers to the apartment. Normally Jamie would have gotten rid of them but she felt like the apartment need some color.

The door opens and Noah pokes his head in.

“ you dress?”

“ yeah of course”

“ ok just checking” noah walks in carrying a body pillow.

“ is that for me ?”jamie say as she gets up.

“ of course “

“ I’m really happy you came over. I felt her move this morning!This time I know for sure it was her and not gas!”jamie says will a smile.

“ that so awesome. I can wait to feel her kick. If that’s ok”

“ of course “

“ thank you”

“ oh I started to put the headphones on my belly so she can hear yours and Jude voices. I don’t know if she can head it but that’s when I felt her move the first time for sure.”

“ thanks I want her to be comfortable with our voices if that’s even possible.”noah says

“ I’m sure she will. I think you have a nice voice I’m sure she will think so too.

The pop of colors from the flowers on the counter catches Noah’s eye.

“ owww flowers.”

“ yeah about those pax sent them to say sorry”

“He hasn’t been back has he?”

“ no not yet but I’m sorta thinking he will come by at some points.”

“ you don’t think you might need a restraining order do you?”

“I hope not that seems a little extreme don’t you thing. I can handle myself.”jamie say

“ ok.”noah says

At the arena Jude and Murray are doing Jude’s daily walk around. This is the time of the day that jude sees the progress on any repairs that are being done on the arena.

Jude and Murray make small talk as they walk the arena.

“Have you seen the new lays potato chips?”Murray asked

“No I haven’t my husband loves chips though what flavor s are they” jude asks

As Murray tells jude about the pizza flavored chips she gets hit with the feeling that they are being watched.

“ oh those sound good”

“ they taste just like pizza.”

Murray steps a little closer to jude.

“ do you feel like we’re being watched?”

Jude look over his shoulder he sees something move in his peripheral vision.jude quickly turns. Off in the distance jude and Murray hear someone knocking things over like someone is running into thing as they try and get away.

“ Sooo I know it’s none of my business but why am I here.”Murray ask.

Jude has a quick flash back of the first time jude was at Noah’s apartment.

“ Well my husband thinks I’m in danger ...”

“Of....”

“ my ...brother”

“ oh..”

“Identical twin brother “

“ well fuck us.a evil twin. No wonder why my boss told me to pay close attention to your cloth and hands”

“ my hands?”

“ your rings. You wear a lot of rings for a man.”

“ ah ok.”jude wears his engagements and his wedding band and the devil chapionship ring.

“In the back of my head I sorta thought about a double or something. I looked you up and you have one sister but nothing about a twin.”

“ well I just found out and I haven’t even spoken to him yet. Your very good at your research my sister has been mentioned once In social media.”

“Your husband mentioned her once”

Jude nod.

“ ok we need a plan.

Jude sighs

Jude is tired of all the passwords and plans. It seems like Noah is coming up with something new everyday. Even Their back up plans have back up plans. Why should she be any different.

“ ok what’s the plan?” Jude say with fake interest not wanting to make her feel like he is undermining her trying to do her job.

Around the corner Brandon is fumbling to get away when he runs into Snow the security guard.

“ ah huh” snow say.

“ sorry .”

“ your fine what’s the rush and where’s Murray at?”

“ bathroom. I have to go”

“ well have a good one. Mr. kinkade.” Snows says and heads in the same direction as Brandon.

A few minutes later jude and Murray come across Snow.

“ Mr kinkade it a pleasure to see you as always”

“ hi have you seen anything unusual today?”Jude say

“ matter of fact I have your brother just left.” Snow says.

“ you know? How”?”

“ I use to work closely with your father. Let’s say we keep I touch.”jude has never noticed how well groomed the older man is or how expensive his taste in watches are.yes he’s head of security at the arena but what’s his story? Jude thought.

Wow married to a reporter for a couples of weeks has already starting to rub off on him Jude thought to himself.

“Your father and me go all the back to before you two were even born. I was a police officer that came to a call at a accident your father had. Our long time arrangement didn’t happen until a few weeks later when we met again when I was working a side gig at a underground club he use to visit. And the rest is history as they say”

“ wow I had no idea my father has friends.”

“ your father has acquaintance.”

“ ah.”jude says

“ I must go check on something. Always a pleasure. My lady“He tips his hat to Murray and nods to jude before walking away.

“ oh he’s interesting.” Murray say

“That he is “jude says

A few hours later noah picks up Jude in the back of the arena. The proper passwords and are exchanged.

Noah smile and leans in to give Jude a quick kiss. They both wave to Murray and drive off.

“ how is everything at the apartment?”jude ask

“She felt her kick this time it was for real .”Noah say

“Let me guess it was gas last time.”

“ yes I love that your doing so much baby research “ noah say

“ well I’m all in . I want this too. I never thought I would have almost everything I have ever dreamed of before I’m 30. I’m willing to go the distance to get it to.”

“ ok this isn’t some kind or foreshadowing to darth Judius is it?”noah says

“Haha noah Don’t Jedi sometime walk a fine line between the light and dark side.”

“ as much as the geek talk is turning me on there is a down side of Luke crossing the line.BAM hello Kylo Ren”

“ I have full faith that you will rein me in if you think I might cross that line.”

“ let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The week went by quickly. Jude and Noah started to get in to a nightly ritual that they both enjoy. The trips home are a ping pong of their daily going ons and trying to figure out what’s for dinner. Once home Noah tends to start stripping out of his cloths at the door. Jude finds is funny and endearing that Noah is down to his underwear by the time he makes it to the bedroom.At first Jude thought Noah was trying to Initiate sex every night until noah stopped him and informed him he just wanted out of his clothes.That was after the fifth blow job in a row. How was jude to know.Jude on the other hand opts for a slower strip down in his home office. Noah heads to the living room to play video games while jude works in his office most of the time. Tonight Noah has something else in mind.

Noah puts down the game control and pads to Jude’s office.

“ hey I’m going to call my dads want to say hey.” Noah asked .

“ we do need to put that in the schedule don’t we . Family phone calls.” Jude looks up at Noah like he wasn’t that happy about it.

“ three minutes ago you seem like you were in a better mood what’s wrong?”

“ zero”

“ oh?”

“ yeah he’s coming to town and wants to see me”

“ I thought you blocked him”

“ I did but not from email.”

“ oh.”noah crosses his arms over his bare chest.

“ it’s just league business noah”

“ he’s in the European league so what business does he have with you?”

All of a sudden jude looks guilty.

“ ah ...I’m not really ready to answer that”jude say in a uneasy tone.

“ come again jude you can’t just tell me your ex is sniffing around and not tell me why. Don’t start shutting down again. You have been so open with me.There is no reason for you to clam up now”noah says as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“ Nono”Jude gets up and walks over.noah sides steps Jude.

“ Nono? Really?Wow you really have to tell me what’s going on now”

Jude walks pass noah and have a seat back at his desk.

“ your not going to let this go are you?”

“ no I’m not”noah says as he sits on the couch across from Jude’s desk.

Jude sighs

“I’m not ready to talk about this noah. I promise something that I can’t deliver now “

“ so you promised something to zero?”noah ask

“ yes.”

“ what did you promise jude?”Noah asked

“ I don’t want to talk about it noah can’t we enjoy our evening? We can call our families and dance to a few songs. We can have fun tonight your way.”

“ This ride is closed until further notice. “noah says

“ Noah come on I’m too embarrassed to tell you that I wasn’t joking about the 6 sexual favors comment when I got the devils.”

“ wait one of your backers is zero?”

“ you can say that.”

“ Jude...”

“ Fine all of my backers are zero. Of course I have the small investors but zero is the main backer. I never even told Lionel. I told him he owed me for humiliating me by walking out after proposing to him.he is the technical half owner of the devils.It was his idea to tack on the delayed break up sex sessions.”

“Wow Jude. So when were you going to tell me about this little arrangement? Our daughter high school graduation maybe? Or when I walked in on you two having sex?”

“ Noah I had to. I couldn’t think of anyone I could strong arm that kind of money out and don’t say my dad.”

“ well atleast with your dad you wouldn’t have to break a vow”

“ we were not married at the time ! You can’t blame me for not seeing the future.

“ so you didn’t see a future with me then even if it was short term?”

“ Noah I had feeling for you then that I was scared of. I figured I’d screw it up and you would leave just like he did. I never thought I’d be married noah. Please don’t be mad I never thought he would ever want to “collect” on it and if he did I didn’t think I’d ever have anyone that would care if he did “collect”jude say

Noah looks closely at Jude . All the emotions that are clearly on his face are hard to look at.Noah knows that he’s telling the truth. Noah’s frustration starts to melt away.this is part of the messiness her loves about him and a side effect of that love.

Noah gets up and hugs Jude.

“We will figure this out.”noah says

“We ?this is my fault my mess to clean up”

“ do you you want to sleep with him ?” Noah ask . Jude shakes his head no .”it’s not like he has it in a contract.”noah say

“He said if I don’t show up he will come out as co owner of the devils “

“Oh” noah says

“ I’m screwed”Jude say

“ not yet. We can figure something out.”

Jude breaks the hug first.

“ let’s not let my problem ruin our Friday night.”jude says

“ your problems are mine now jude. I just said that. We are in this together “

Jude sighs and walks over to the couch to have a seat.

“ this is two weeks away let’s talk about your game day tomorrow. Hell let talk about anything but this.I think we have all the snack you need.”

“ yeah we should be good “noah sighs

“ what time is everyone coming over tomorrow “

“ around 11“

“ oh ok that’s not bad”jude says

Jude walks out of the office and Noah follows him out.

Jude turns to Noah and smiles.

“ so what do you have in mind for tonight?”

“ how about you come over here a and I’ll turn on the stereo and sees where our feet take us.”

Jude walks over and Noah turns on the stereo . Lately noah has been working on Jude’s slow dancing.

Wicked games by theory of a deadman comes on.

“I like this song” jude says

“ me too and You are getting better.”

“ I have a very patience teacher”jude says

Jude and Noah slowly swirl around the livingroom in almost a sexy way. They are only talking to each in a whisper that sends chills down Jude’s back.

“ I love the feel of you in my arm.” Noah says in Jude’s ear.jude sighs and leans in closer.

“ this is nice . It’s like we have our bubble back.”

Jude and Noah dance for one more song and then head to bed to Jude’s disappointment.

Jude wakes up to noah getting dressed in a tank top and a pair of basketball shorts.

“ what time is it?”jude asked

“1030 I wanted to make breakfast for us before they got here how does smoothies sound?”

“ ok I guess I need to get up”

“ no you don’t have to get up yet .Relax Jude.

Jude lays back down and curls up. It’s amazing how well you sleep when you know you have someone fully in your corner. There is something about falling asleep with someone’s arm flung over you or your head on on someone chest just before falling asleep. Jude smile to himself. Is he worried about zero ? Yes is he worried about the baby situation ?yes but knowing noah has his back makes a big differences to Jude.

The blender goes off in the kitchen and a few minutes later Noah comes in with two tall cups.

“ Dane ? Love you asleep?”

Jude rolls over and smiles at noah.

“ here”

Jude looks in the cup and smell it.

“ chocolate and strawberries?”

“ and half the refrigerators “ noah say as he sips from his metal straw.

Jude takes a sip. As Jude sips he stares at Noah.

“ ah is something on my face?”

“ thank you for being you.”

“ ah your welcome?”Noah looks confused

Jude chuckles to himself. Jude thinks to himself it’s too early for a heart to heart.

“ what’s on your mind my Dane?”

“ just thinking about how grateful I am to have you”jude said screw it because he wants to keep his word to be more open.Jude is shocked that Noah is still here after the talk last night about zero. He didn’t yell or walk out .If zero was his husband last night and not Noah jude would be wondering where he spent the night at.

“ oh..well I’m lucky to have you too Dane “ Noah kisses Jude’s cheek.

The intercom goes ok.

“ hey dude rise and shine.”

“ that Mike”

Noah hops up to let mike in.

Jude gets up and gets dressed in a pair of jeans and one of Noah’s Zelda T-shirt .Jude didn’t want to stand out .he wants to look like one of the boys.

Jude walks out to see 3 men he has never seen before besides in pictures.They don’t seem very happy to be here.

“ ah this must be the new Mr. nice to finally meet the guy that stole my teammate .” The 30 something Chris Pratt look alike says with a edge of hatered that made jude want to turn around and go back to bed.

“Mike don’t be a dick. You can walk right back out that door guys.” Noah says crossing his arms

“Ah hey” jude says from across the room

“ hey nice digs. Yeah still live in the hood though” mark says.

Mark is shorter than everyone else in the room. He looks like he’s might be part Asian to Jude.

“ longtime no see pussy whipped ”

Jake says as his looking around the living room and drops his bag on the floor.

“ hey I get it I have been busy if you guy want to be a asshole to my husband you can all leave.”noah say

Jude doesn’t feel very welcomed at all. After a few seconds of awkward silences. Everyone starts to laugh and properly greets jude with a hand shakes and a hug which catch jude off guard. After the last congratulatory hug , hand shake and apologies jude feels like he can be the hostess with the mostest as Noah would put it

“ did you plan this” noah say.

“ you could have told us asshole.”Mike says with a smiles

“ yeah your getting cursed out the next time you see my lady “jake say

“ what are we chopped liver” mark says

“ I’m so sorry It was a last minute thing. “ Noah says

“This is my fault. I rushed him into it” jude says

“ how about we do this can we have a dinner here to make up for it.” noah say looking to jude to see if he’s cool with the idea.

“ I don’t see why not. Not sure when we can do it with the up and coming season.”

All the gamers seem willing to come for dinner and didn’t mind waiting.

“Good now that that’s settled so who’s ready to get there ass whooped?”Noah says with a smile.

“ man get out of here with that shit” Mike says

“Not a chance dude”mark say

Jude notices Mark keeps looking at him.

As the guys set up the living room how they like it, Jude notices that everyone has there own gamer chair and yeti cup with there perfered drink in it. Jude steps out the way and just watches as they move furniture .when did noah put things on the legs of the couch to make it glide across the floor with out scratch the floor.

Jude smirks and nods his head at noah ingenuity.

“ don’t worry we will put it all back”mark says with a smile and a wink.

“ watch it” noah says from across the room.

Noah makes a gesture that means I’m watching you to mark. Jude has no idea why .

Jude ‘s face must have showed it.

“ really man you didn’t tell him” Mike say

“What that in a nother life mark and I where more than just friends for like 5 seconds”

“ what?”jude say

“ dude what were you thinking?”Jake says

Jude gives Noah a look that he knew he need to talk to him in private.

Jude heads to his office.

“ don’t start with out me”

“Someone in trouble”Mike says

“ man I hate to see what the punishment for this is going to be” Jake say

“I’m sure it will be epic “ Mark say with a smirk.

Noah follows Jude to the home office.

Noah closes the door behind him.

Jude takes a seat at his desk.

1 note · View note

travelingtheusa · 5 years

Text

NEW YORK

18 Sep 2019 (Wed) – We spent the day getting ready for our move. We went food shopping and stopped in at Bagel Boss for lunch. I don’t know how that place stays in business. They are soooo slow. It must be because they are the only bagel place around. At 3 p.m. I drove over to Travis & Sam’s to watch Lincoln. Sam had work and Travis was taking the boys to karate. We reviewed their finances and discussed options to resolve their issue. In the meantime, Paul was watching Caiden back at the camper because Miranda and Kenny went to Meet the Teacher Night.

It was quite cool this morning. The heater is not working right. It turns on and then shuts off. This is an issue we will have to resolve before the weather gets colder.

17 Sep 2019 (Tue) – It’s been a fairly busy week. I attended a memorial service for a member of the American Legion Post on Thursday. Gus Luhrs, past post and past division commander, passed away at the age of 86. He served 20 years in the Marine Corps and was in the Korea and Vietnam Wars. He was the bartender at the post for many, many years. I will miss him.

We went to a dinner celebrating the 100th birthday of American Legion Post 411 on Friday the 13th. It was held in the Marconi Lodge; not the post. I guess they wanted to give everyone a chance to enjoy the celebration and not worry about set up and break down. I was disappointed that few of the guys wore uniforms. Not too long ago, everyone would have proudly worn their uniform. The times, they are a-changing. There were about 60 people at the event. The food was ok but the company was great. It was fun to see all our friends from the post.

Caiden decided to skip church this Sunday. Afterward, Paul and I went to the Bayside Clam Bar for lunch. The warm days are waning and I want to enjoy as much of the waterfront as possible before it gets too cold.

12 Sep 2019 (Thu) –I had lunch with my sister, Susan, today. We met at the Cheesecake Factory in Bay Shore and both enjoyed salads. Later this evening, I attended a memorial service for an American Legion friend, Gus Luhrs.

11 Sep 2019 (Wed) – Wow. Things have been very, very busy. We have spent time watching Caiden which takes full effort. He likes to play pillow fights and pulls me into these all the time. It’s either here in the camper or on the couch in his house.

I had lunch with my daughter, Gina, today. We met at Cheesecake Factory and caught up on how things have been going since we last saw each other.

Later today at 5:00 p.m., Paul and I went to a 9/11 memorial conducted by the Town of Islip next to Town Hall. There were 15 fire departments represented there. Lots of firemen and a bagpipe and drum band played songs that left you with a lump in your throat.

5 Sep 2019 (Thu) – We celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary yesterday. We had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. We saw a posted sign that said they give a 20% military discount on Mondays. We now have our new best eatery on Mondays!

We had my brother, Dennis, and his lady, Denise, over for dinner on Tuesday (September 3). I made chicken picata, potatoes, and green beans. Everything came out perfect. They stayed for two hours. It was a very pleasant visit.

Caiden started school yesterday (Noah started the day before on Tuesday and Hudson started on Wednesday). We all walked Caiden down to the bus stop and waited over a half hour. The first days of school always sees the bus come late. It was almost an hour late returning at day’s end; although there was a legitimate excuse – the town was out and picking up debris one block over and on our block. That held up traffic all over the area. Caiden seemed to enjoy himself on his first day. His teacher’s name is Mr. Lolo. Can’t wait to meet him.

1 Sep 2019 (Sun) – We took Caiden with us to church this morning. He was very fidgety and complained that it was boring. Not sure how much longer he will go with us to church before he decides it’s not fun. We spoke with Pastor Doug and scheduled October 20 for Lincoln’s baptism.

After church, I let Caiden do some exploring and playing on the playground behind the building. Then we went to the Clamside Bar & Grill at the East Islip Marina for lunch. We all took a walk around the pier then returned home.

Paul and I spent the afternoon doing yardwork. As Paul cleared out some of the brush, I got a good look at the trees down on that back fence. It looks like a much bigger area was crushed by our neighbor’s tree than it first looked like. And he still hasn’t started clearing anything away. I’m not sure what we are going to do about that.

After naps, we sent out for pizza for dinner. Hmmm Hmmm, good!

30 Aug 2019 (Fri)

– Paul and I took Caiden to my sister Susan’s house today. We spent the day swimming in the pool and visiting with Susan & Bill and Shay & Pat (her daughter and boyfriend). The weather was lovely.

29 Aug 2019 (Thu) – Good news! I had an appointment at Sloan Kettering this morning to find out the results of the PET and CT scans I had on Monday. After only ten days on the chemo, the lymph nodes have already started to shrink. My response to the therapy has been so good that I don’t have to come back for a month. I thought I was going to have to go in every week for 5 or 6 weeks.

After the doctor, Paul and I went to Red Robin for lunch. I had a margarita and cobb salad. Paul had a beer and burger. We were kind of giddy with relief and thoroughly enjoyed the meal. Following lunch, we stopped at Shop Rite and picked up some groceries then returned home to continue the yard cleanup.

28 Aug 2019 (Wed) – It was cool this morning. We had to wear jackets when we walked Bonnie this morning. The summer is coming to a close. There’s a kind of sadness and yet a feeling of excitement as we build up to the holidays.

There is a spider that builds a web outside my bedroom window every night. I first spotted her during that thunderstorm last week. When the lightning flashed, she was illuminated on her web. She seemed to be floating in midair. She comes out every night and stays until early light the next morning. I watched her this morning as the sun came up and she climbed up and away to her den for a well-deserved sleep. She is an orb weaver and measures about an inch and a half in length. What a beautiful specimen of the insect world!

27 Aug 2019 (Tue) – We went to church on Sunday. Caiden decided to take the day off so he did not go with us. Everyone missed him.

On Monday, I went to Sloan Kettering and had both a PET scan and a CT scan. They sure keep those rooms cold. Brrrrr! Since I had some radiation, I couldn’t go near pregnant women or small children for 24 hours. I had to wave across the room to Caiden rather than get my Caiden hug. At 4:30 p.m. today, I was sure to get my big hug. And it came with a great big smile!

This afternoon, we drove to the V.A. in Northport. I wanted to establish myself as a cancer patient and see about getting medicine as we move around the country rather than having it mailed to me every three months. The doctor referred me to hematology. There was no answer at the department so I have to wait for a call back. I got an appointment with Audiology for October. Ugh. I hate the thought of being here that long. But, unfortunately, I think I will be here. The doctor wanted to schedule me for a mammogram but I said I’d go with my regular radiologist. She did schedule me to come back for a pap smear but I think I’ll just see my own gynecologist instead. She seemed to be somewhat flustered by me. She wanted to do all this medical stuff and I kept turning it down. She wasn’t sure what to do. lol

24 Aug 2019 (Sat) – The air is full of the sound of generators, chain saws, and leaf blowers as everyone cleans up after the storm. Seems like there are tree removal and PSEG trucks all over the place. A company has been working on removing the trees from the two neighbors on the south side. We think they took out 11 or 12 trees in total. We finally got power back on around 2:30 p.m.

We met with the counselor this morning. Afterward, we drove to the Clamside Bar at the East Islip Marina and had a late breakfast. It is nice to sit by the water and watch the boats come and go. There weren’t many people out on the water considering that it was a beautiful, clear Saturday and summer is fast coming to an end. You’d think everyone would want to be out getting in their last licks for the season.

When we finished our meal, we went home and took Bonnie for a walk. Then we drove out to Mastic Beach and toured the William Floyd Estate. What history exists in our own backyard! William Floyd was one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. Nine generations of the family lived on the estate from 1718 until they gave it to the National Parks Department in 1976. They originally had 4,400 acres. Over the years, family inherited the property and divided it among heirs, with just 673 acres remaining on the estate today. The Floyd family was much involved in politics and several prominent people visited the estate to include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. During the Civil War, the family fled to Connecticut while the British occupied Long Island. The house was pretty much trashed when they returned after the war but the Floyds were able to restore it. The estate began as a two-story, 6 room house. Additions were made over the years until it ended with 25 rooms, 13 outbuildings, and a family cemetery.

23 Aug 2019 (Fri) – Wow! We had a hum dinger of a thunderstorm blow through last night. The phone pinged a warning that a severe storm was going to hit in 15 minutes and everyone should seek shelter on a lower level in the interior of the house. That was different. I’ve gotten many storm warnings but never one that told me to get to the middle of the house. They must have expected tornadoes although the warning did not say that.

At about 9:45 p.m. it began to rain. Shortly after, the wind picked up. Then the skies opened up and the thunder and lightning started. We lost power after about 15 minutes. We sat and watched the transformer on the pole blow. Then another one blew down the block.

Finally, the storm passed and we all walked outside to see what kind of damage had been left behind. Kenny had gotten out of work just after the storm ended. He reported having to take a crazy circuitous route to get home because of downed trees and wires. There were trees down at either end of the block. The next block had a tree land on a car. Over on the main road (Saxon Ave), there were two trees down at opposite ends, thus closing off the road to through traffic. People were trying to go down the block. When they couldn’t get through, they turned and went down our block only to discover they couldn’t get through that way either. Our neighbor in the back on the south side had five trees go down. Two landed on our fence. Another tree came down on our fence in back on the west side. That tree was also from a neighbor’s yard. All our trees stayed put for this storm. lol.

We had gone over Trap’s house earlier to help him with an electrical problem he is having at the house. Paul and he worked for over an hour but couldn’t solve the problem. Sam and I went food shopping with the baby while the two older boys stayed home. We picked up pizza on the way back home and shared a meal with them before going home. Luckily, we got home before the storm hit.

21 Aug 2019 (Wed) – The church had their annual outdoor service on Sunday. We took Caiden with us. I guess the outdoor setting was too much for him. He wanted to go play and squirmed and fidgeted throughout the entire service. Afterward, there were all kinds of foods in a potluck meal. Everything was very good. I really enjoy those potlucks!

I really messed up today. I was scheduled for a PET scan at Sloan Kettering this afternoon. The test requires you to fast for six hours prior. I was watching Caiden and he asked for something to eat. I got him a snack out of the refrigerator and without thinking, popped a piece of cheese in my mouth. Yikes! When I got to the cancer center, it turned out I was supposed to be there at 1:15, not 2:15 p.m. Fortunately, the 2:15 appointment had shown up at 1:15 so they let me take the later appointment. Unfortunately, I had eaten the cheese and couldn’t take the test. I had to reschedule for next Monday.

I started chemotherapy on Monday. I am taking Ibrutinib once a day. So far (knock on wood), I am not having any side effects. Reading all the warnings, I have been fully expecting diarrhea and vomiting. Maybe it will come after the chemical builds up in my body. I have to admit that I am afraid of this drug. It interferes with the production of white blood cells. This lowers my resistance to infection. I have to be careful about keeping my hands clean and avoiding sick people. It is something I have to learn to live with since I now have to take this drug for the rest of my life.

The saga with trying to get Miranda financial help goes on. Social Services turned down her request for financial aid as well as food stamps. The department has a requirement for certain categories of persons to be referred to New York State HQ for examination when applying for Medicaid. We have to wait and see what happens there.

17 Aug 2019 (Sat) – We saw the counselor this morning. She was empathetic to our situation and gave us some suggestions for dealing with our adult children and their issues. Afterward, we drove to Bayside Clam Bar at the East Islip Marina for lunch. It is a great time of year to sit down by the water and just enjoy the season. All too soon, the cold weather will be upon us.

We stopped by the thrift shop at church and helped move tables and chairs from the storage area to the door. Tomorrow will be our annual outdoor service and potluck. We were staging the items by the back door where they would be taken down to the yard. Paul found a pair of super cool looking glasses for Caiden. They look like some kind of futuristic robot apparatus. They have a battery pack and when you turn it on, blue lights come on either side of the glasses. They also have a magnifying glass that folds out in front of the right lens. He loved them!

16 Aug 2019 (Fri) – It’s been a pretty quiet week. I got my hair cut this morning. It was good to see my hairdresser. She moved down to the Carolinas years ago and comes up about every 3 or 4 weeks. She said it was too hard to start a new following down south so she just continues coming back to New York to see her customers. I am glad about that! She is the only one who can get my hair right.

I went to visit my niece, Jennifer, and her new baby, Ava. She delivered about a month ago. My sister, Susan, and her other daughter, Sharon, joined me. The baby is adorable. Susan picked me up in her new red Tesla, of which she is very proud. It rides pretty nice.

Later at 5:30 pm, we went over Travis & Sam’s to watch the boys while they tore up the carpet in the upstairs hallway and put down new flooring. First we played outside. Then we followed Noah and Hudson on their bicycles around the block (they rode; we walked). Then we drove them to a nearby playground and let them play for a while. Interestingly, Noah pulled a book out of the book exchange and sat down on a bench to read while Hudson climbed all over the playset. Two very different boys!

Finally, we capped the night with a trip to Carvel. The ice cream was delicious but needless to say, their parents weren’t too happy about all the energy they came home with after the sweet treats. It is good to be the grandparent! You can spoil the babies and not suffer the aftermath. Sweet!

11 Aug 2019 (Sun) – We went to church this morning. Caiden is spending the weekend with his other grandma so he wasn’t with us. It seemed like everyone missed him. Everybody we spoke with asked about him. He is pretty popular.

After church, Paul and other folks helped to unload furniture for the church’s garage sale in October. I went down to the thrift shop and helped them sort baby clothes. They got a donation with dozens of outfits. We put them in bundles of six and marked them at fifty cents for the bundle. It must have been clothing from a store that closed. There is no way they could have all come from one family. Many outfits were brand new, some with tags still attached.

We went to Sagtikos Manor for a tour of the historical home. The land was purchased from the Secatogue Indians in 1692 and a 4-room house was built in 1697. The home was purchased by a wealthy family and over the years, more rooms were added until it now has 42 rooms. It was fascinating to hear the history of the property. The Gardiner family, one of the wealthiest in the area, owned the home in addition to Gardiner Island. They also had several homes around the Island and in New York City. In 1963, the house was put into a foundation trust. The property was sold to Suffolk County in 2003. What used to be 1,400 acres is now just 10 acres of land. There is a cemetery, a walled garden, a carriage house, and a buttery on the property. British soldiers occupied the manor during the American Revolution. The newly elected president, George Washington, slept in the house during a tour of Long Island in 1790. There were many delightful pictures and prints hanging on the walls. The family kept everything and all the furnishings were from the period. We really enjoyed the tour. Here was something in our own backyard that we never explored.

10 Aug 2019 (Sat) – Caiden keeps us amused. He is a charming, sweet soul. I went over Trap’s house Friday night and got to read the boys bedtime stories. It was fun. We went bowling with them on Wednesday. They are two very ener- getic boys! The night was quite interesting. Hudson and I had the same score for almost the entire game. I pulled it out in the end and broke 100. I think he got eighty something. Pretty good for a 4-year old (or bad for a 67-year old). :-}

We’ve been keeping busy. Paul went down to the church and power washed the fence in back and the front entry way. We will be having an outdoor service next Sunday and Pastor Doug wanted the area to look nice. I helped out in the thrift shop for a couple of hours. There were a couple of boxes with baby clothes in them. I took them for Lincoln.

I went down to Social Services with Miranda. I am trying to get them some financial aid as well as food stamps and Medicaid. It took over an hour just to fill out the application form! We left without seeing anyone after sitting for a couple of hours. An agent called Miranda later and told her she did not qualify for financial aid. Her $160 a week disability check combined with her husband’s $177 weekly unemployment check is considered too much income. WTH??? That comes to $1,348 a month. Who can even find rent at that price? Plus electric, car insurance, phone costs, education loans, etc., etc., etc. The agent is sending forms to Miranda to fill out and submit. DIDN’T WE JUST DO THAT??? Talk about aggravation and frustration!!!

6 Aug 2019 (Tue) – We brought the truck down to Safelite Glass today to have the windshield replaced. We have had a ding in the passenger’s side since 2015 when we were in Alaska. It often interfered with the pictures I tried to take through the front window. This year, we got another ding in the driver’s side of the windshield. It was time to replace it. We dropped the truck off and walked up to Main Street. The café we were looking for was no longer there. We wound up having bagels and coffee at a deli.

At 3 p.m., I went in to relieve Miranda from childcare duties. I took Caiden to the playground at the local elementary school playground. He had a great time! I told him he deserved an Italian custard at Rita’s. When we drove there, we found the shop closed permanently! What a bummer. So we drove a little further down the road and “settled” for Carvel ice cream. Caiden was not disappointed.

We went to Cavanaugh’s Bar & Grill tonight. We met Joan & Peter, Pat & Fred, Ginny & Milton, and Johanna & Thom at the bar. The restaurant had a $14.99 special for a 20 oz. porterhouse steak. It came with onion rings, baked potato, and a vegetable. The food was very good. It was a fun evening.

4 Aug 2019 (Sun) – We gathered up Caiden and headed off to church this morning. Paul’s sister and husband, Joan & Peter, showed up at church, too. After service, we went to the Bayside Clam Bar at the East Islip Marina with cousins Lee & Donna and friends Fred & Pat. It was a beautiful day on the bay. I took Caiden down by the docks where we watched folks putting in and taking out boats and jet skis. He was very impressed with the jet skis.

After we dropped Caiden off back home, Paul & I drove to Willie’s Appliances, a scratch-and-dent retailer. We bought a washing machine for the house. The one in there now has gotten out of balance and dances all over the room during the spin cycle. When we got home, Paul switched out the two washers.

3 Aug 2019 (Sat) – Yesterday, we took the three grandsons to my sister’s house to swim in the pool and lunch. It was like trying to keep ferrets in an open-top box. It couldn’t be done. They were all over the place and not as obedient as we would have liked. Having additional adults to help out wasn’t enough. At any rate, I believe the boys enjoyed the swim time and my sister really went out of her way to provide a varied menu for everyone.

Today, we enjoyed an unplanned adventure. While scanning Facebook, I came across a posting of a friend who plays in a band. He advertised that they would be down at the East Islip Marina playing at the Bayside Clam Bar and Grill from 10 to 1. We went there for lunch. I had lobster roll and Paul had fried shrimp. The music was delightful, the bay breeze was balmy, and the sky was blue. It was so nice to sit and listen to the 3-piece band play while watching watercraft (boats and ski jets) come and go.

31 July 2019 (Wed) – I almost wound up in the hospital today. I took a new supplement – a proteolytic enzyme. Then I took the dog for a walk. About ten minutes into the walk, the palms of my hands started itching. At first, I thought it was one of those lucky itches. You know, the kind where your palm itches and you’re going to come into money (or pay money)? But then it got intense, almost burning. My stomach started in next. Although I got the heaves, nothing was coming up. I barely made it back to the camper. Then the vomiting and diarrhea started. I was so weak, I could barely stand. I lay there wishing Paul would come into the trailer so I could have him call an ambulance. The vomiting finally subsided and I lay on the bed trying to recover. Next, the bottom of my feet began to itch, then my whole body. As I sat there trying to scratch everything at once, red blotches started breaking out on my legs. At that point, Paul came into the trailer and realized I was having a severe allergic reaction. He ran down to the drug store and picked up some benedryl. That stuff is great! It worked almost instantly. For the rest of the night, I sat in the lounge chair nodding in and out. It was one scary experience!

We have been busy working around the house. The men’s softball league at church had the last two games of the season on Monday and Tuesday. We went down to watch. Our team lost.

Both Paul and I went for an annual physical. My appointment was on Monday. It turned out to be a Medicare Wellness Check. I spent an hour and a half answering questions from a nurse who input everything into the computer. I could have stayed home and put the information in the computer myself! What a waste. The nurse was very apologetic and said that Medicare does not allow for an annual physical exam. If you want to see the doctor, it has to be scheduled as a follow up to a condition or an illness. We went to the desk and changed Paul’s status for his checkup the next day. I made an appointment to come back for an EKG. I won’t get any bloodwork but Paul did. What a screwed up system! I was very happy with my health insurance before they forced us to go on Medicare. I can’t imagine what will happen if everyone gets put on Medicare like the current presidential candidates are touting!

28 July 2019 (Sun) – We took Caiden to church with us this morning. Afterward, we stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. We couldn’t get any fries (they don’t cook them until noon), so we cut up a pancake and fed it to the gulls. There has been a significant change in the kind of gulls prevalent on Long Island. There used to be black backed gulls all over the place. Now we don’t see any. There are laughing gulls flying around. I wonder what happened to the gull population.

When we returned home, we worked around the property. Paul cleaned out the gutters on the house and garage. I bundled up branches from the trees Paul trimmed or cut down. It was so hot. We were both drenched in sweat.

26 July 2019 (Fri) – We had dinner with my brother, Dennis, and his lady, Denise, at Chili’s Grill tonight. Dennis is working as an usher at Island 16 and gave us two free tickets. We can’t use them on a Friday or Saturday and are restricted from going to a Disney movie during the first two weeks of a new release. Otherwise, we can enjoy the movies for free. That was a very nice gift.

My sister’s daughter, Jennifer, delivered a baby girl on July 24. Ava Shea checked in at 8.9 lbs. I just love that name!

25 July 2019 (Thu) – We drove to Port Jefferson Station and had lunch with Travis and his family. He gets an hour for lunch and works close enough that he can go home for his noon meal. We shared McDonald’s while the boys showed off their pool and playing skills.

At 6:00 p.m. a French bulldog came running into the yard barking and barking. It wouldn’t let us touch it but it wouldn’t leave either. The dog honed in on Kenny and when we all stepped away, it walked with Kenny into the backyard where he secured it. Paul walked up and down the block looking for its owners (it had no collar), but couldn’t find any. At 6:45 p.m., Miranda and I drove to Bohemia to Maguire’s Comedy Club to watch a comedy laugh-off. My brother, Dennis, was performing and we went to support him. We had dinner and drinks. The food was excellent. The comedy was hit or miss. Apparently, comedy is not easy to do. We left before the show was over at 9:45 p.m.

When we got home, Paul told me that the woman across the street claimed the dog. It is not chipped and they take the collar off when they put the dog in its crate. It somehow got out and they didn’t miss it for several hours. Oh, well. It’s a happy ending any way.

24 July 2019 (Wed) – It was a busy day today. First destination was the TSA Pre-Check booth located in a Staples store. I brought my birth certificate, marriage certificate, and driver’s license. The clerk took my picture and fingerprints. The charge was $85 but is good for five years. What the pre-check does is to allow me to go through the security screening line at the airport without having to take my shoes and belt off, and to leave a laptop in its computer case. Next, we’ll have to get Paul the pre-check.

�� We then drove back to the camper to get Bonnie. We took her to the vet to see if we could find something that can be done about her chronic diarrhea. She has also been showing signs of arthritis in her paws. The vet prescribed Tylan for the diarrhea and gabapentin for pain. We’ll see if that helps.

After dropping Bonnie off at the RV, we went to the dentist where I got my teeth cleaned. Paul had been there on Monday. He has a small cavity that will need filling. My checkup was perfect!

23 July 2019 (Tue) - Well, the parents are back. Whew! What a week. There is a reason children are best raised by the young folks. Our 5-year old grandson sure had us running around from dawn to dusk. Caiden slept in the camper every other night, alternating with his bed in the house. We went through an incredible heat wave and, at one point, we just stayed in the trailer all day and night. Poor Bonnie had to be put out every time Caiden came in. She does not like him and for some reason, she tries to go after him. That breaks my heart because if she ever does bite him, we’ll have to put her down.

Ok. Some of the things we did over this past week. I saw a doctor at Sloan Kettering in Manhattan. The doctor said the disease is well advanced and I should have started two years ago when it was first discovered. She described the same options that Dr. Ahmed in Texas offered – a pill for the rest of my life, an intravenous protocol as a temporary stopgap and going on the pill after a time, and a new treatment whose performance is not yet known. I asked to have my case transferred to the satellite clinic on Long Island. If I had to go into NYC, it would drive me crazy! I had to take a train and two subways to get to Dr. Noy’s office. I don’t know how people can live like that – like cattle being pushed along by all the other bodies traveling underground.

We took Caiden to the library where he had a great time playing with the toys. We also went to playgrounds and chased each other around as his imagination conjured up monsters, pirates, and Darth Vadar from Star Wars. We drove to Port Jefferson Station and picked up our other two grandsons and took all three boys to the movies to see Toy Story 4. Poor Paul. Each boy had to go to the bathroom twice. Paul would take one while I watched the other two, then he would drop that one off and take the next one. They all had to go in the middle of the movie, too. While we enjoyed our time with the boys, we certainly won’t try doing that again unless there is at least one adult for each child and an extra grown up for back up. The energy level is incredible. It was like trying to keep ferrets in a box. Can’t be done. We took Caiden to visit my sister, Susan, in Hampton Bays. He loved swimming in the pool.

We were able to go to church last Sunday and this past Sunday. It was so good to see all our friends. The pastor announced our presence and the congregation clapped their greeting. We enjoyed catching up with everyone.

20 July 2019 - Haven’t forgotten you! Just been super busy watching our grandchild while his parents are gone. My blog will be back in a few days. Thanks for your patience!

12 July 2019 (Fri) – We got a call from our son at 1:30 p.m. that he had been scalded and needed to be picked up. Apparently, he had tried to open the radiator cap while the car was still hot. Our truck was in the shop to have the real pinion seal repaired so we borrowed Miranda’s car and drove to Commack to get him. He had been drinking and refused to go to the clinic with us. The car was towed away and Travis just walked away. We left and drove to the shop to pick up our truck. I cooked dinner tonight.

11 July 2019 (Thu) – We left West Point at 9:55 a.m. Although the distance to Bay Shore was only 102 miles, it took us three hours with all the traffic on the road. We pulled in around 1 p.m. After set up, we visited with Miranda, Kenny, and Caiden. Kenny drove Caiden and me to Lake Grove where we got their cell phone problems fixed. We had pizza for dinner.

10 July 2019 (Wed) – It was a lot of driving around today with very little results. First was the KOA in Plattekill. We were looking for another campground besides the one we are at that is near West Point. It was a very nice campground. The manager said he could also coordinate bus tours into New York City as well as the surrounding area. That peaked our interest! We wanted to bring the group to the city but didn’t want the hassle of trying to shepherd 44 people around all the people and traffic.

We then drove to the U.S. Military Academy. First stop was at Thayer Hotel Restaurant. We went in and had lunch, then stopped by the check-in desk to ask for the group sales manager. The coordinator came down to see us. Although she wasn’t the one to coordinate our kind of group (she’s does weddings, birthdays, and celebrations), she gave us contact information for the other coordinator.

We then drove off the base to the Visitor’s Center. Although there was a tour desk in the center, they told us to go across the street to the Bus Tours Office. We went over there and were given a website to check out. It has the various tour options listed. Then we drove back on base to the West Point Club. The woman we spoke with was on the verge of going to a meeting but gave us a website to check out for menus and various meal options. We looked at some of the rooms available in the club.

After wandering around the grounds for a bit and trying to look in some of the buildings (they were almost all locked), we headed back to the campground. So when we get internet again (the cell phone and wifi signal in this campground is almost nonexistent), I’ll have to investigate the options for touring the U.S. Military Academy.

9 July 2019 (Tue) – We left Watkins Glen at 8:55 a.m. and drove to West Point, stopping for a quick bite to eat at Wendy’s. We pulled into Round Pond Recreation Area at 2 p.m. It is a military campground associated with West Point Military Academy. We had thought it would be good to have the caravan stay here but this campground would not be good for our group. It is a little too rustic for some folks, the sites are close in some quarters, and the campsites are spread out around a large pond. In addition, the water and electric hookups are on the wrong side of our RV. I’m not sure all campsites have that issue, but ours does. There are no sewers but they do have a dump station.

Once we were set up, we grabbed the laundry and threw it in the washers in the laundry room. There were three machines in the room; one had a sticky note on it that said “Ate $2 July 9.” I surmised that person lost $2 in the machine today. So we didn’t use it.

After we put the laundry away, we took a walk with Bonnie around the lake. It is very pretty here. I love all the greenery. We have been on the west coast for over a year and around desert and cacti. I didn’t realize how much I missed the trees. It’s lovely.

8 July 2019 (Mon) – We drove to Corning Glass Museum this morning. They have really expanded the museum since we were here 48 years ago on our honeymoon. We spoke with the group sales coordinator and got the information for the museum, a tour, a glass making experience, and a catered meal. We then drove down the street to the Rockwell Museum. Their tour takes 45 minutes to one hour. We may leave this museum for folks to go to on their own. We’ll see.

We drove by a couple of campgrounds and gathered information on availability for group camping. The town of Watkins Glen campground – Clute Memorial Park & Campground – looked very promising. They are located across from the beach on Lake Seneca.

We had lunch at Sorges Restaurant in Corning. I had a cheeseburger wrap. It was ok but nothing I would buy again. We then drove around Lake Seneca, stopping at a couple of vineyards for tastings. When we got back to the KOA, we went in and got contact information for the owner. We also picked up a few souvenirs for the grandkids. It was a fruitful day.

7 July 2019 (Sun) – We packed up and left Bath at 10:15 and drove to the Watkins Glen KOA, which was only 40 miles away. When we pulled in, we recognized that we had been here back in 2007 when we drove up to pick up our first fifth wheel RV. The part they put us in at that time was brand new. They have added some other buildings and cabins since then. They wouldn’t let us into the campground until 12 noon. We had to keep ourselves busy for five minutes then passed through. The wifi in this park is non-existent. In addition, the cell phone does not work well either. We must be a valley or something.

After set up, we drove into the town of Watkins Glen. It is very touristy. Watkins Glen State Park was packed with people. We stopped at CPT Bill’s Seneca Lake Cruises to get information. There was a restaurant next door that is also owned by CPT Bill’s. We stopped in there as well to find out about group meal options and costs. After walking along the boardwalk of Seneca Lake, we drove up into the state park to look at the campground. It was too tight with narrow turns and lots of trees. It would not work for our group.

We stopped for lunch at Nickel’s pit BBQ. I got ribs and Paul got wings. We didn’t care for either for the food. It was overdusted with dry rub and actually seemed to be gritty. After lunch, we drove to Watkins Glen International. It is a NASCAR race track. In town, they painted the crosswalks in a checker flag pattern. The street signs have race cars on them. We had trouble finding an entrance into the park. After driving around the place, we finally discovered an open gate. The office was closed. There were cars racing on the track – we could hear them. There is a campground at the track and we wanted to find out about it. Finally, we discovered an employee who answered our questions. He said they only allow camping during special events. Guess that won’t work for our group either.

6 July 2019 (Sat) – We went into the campground office first thing this morning to get information about group reservations for the caravan. Then we drove to Letchworth State Park. Letchworth is called the Grand Canyon of the East. It was over an hour away. Although we thought it was such a great place when we came here 30 years ago, it didn’t look so great today. You couldn’t really see the gorge or canyons or river because of all the trees. I guess having just come back from seeing the national parks out west made us a little jaded.

We then stopped at a campground near Letchworth to check out the place for the caravan. They didn’t have everything we wanted for the group so we won’t be camping there. We had lunch at the Iris Glen Inn. It was the house of Mr. Letchworth converted to a restaurant. The upper falls were visible outside the window. The food was good. The drive back was under rainy skies.

5 July 2019 (Fri) – We packed up and left Lockport at 9:15 a.m. We drove 12 miles to a nearby campground to dump the tanks. The Elks Lodge recommended dumping at the nearby waste treatment plant but when we went to look at the site, it turned out you would just open the spigot over a grate that covers a collection tank. The cover had bits of toilet paper and other debris on it. Ugh!

It was an easy drive to the KOA in Bath. We stopped at a Pilot station and got lunch at Subway. The campground is a little tight. It is pretty big with over 200 campsites. We are parked on the grass in a pull through. A couple used to be managers at the Watkins Glen KOA and bought this KOA in Hammondsport/Bath in February. They were selling pulled pork sliders for dinner. The baked beans were too sweet, the cole slaw was bitter, and the pulled pork was very dry.

After we got set up, we drove to the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum to gather information for the caravan. We then drove down the road to Bully Hill Vineyards and enjoyed a small snack in the restaurant. We sat out on the deck and watched a thunderstorm grumble and growl its way across the sky. Down the road was the Finger Lakes Boating Museum. Their complex used to belong to Taylor wines. We were there about 8 years ago and had a wine tasting. Since then, Coca-Cola had sold the wine division. Sales decreased and Taylor wines were sold to a couple of different owners until, today, only their dessert wines are being sold (Taylor Flagate and Port). The Taylor Wines complex is now mostly closed with parts of it being sold off. The boating museum owns one of the buildings and is in the process of buying another two of them. It will be a pretty big museum in two years.

We returned to the campground just before the skies opened up and the rains poured down. Sheba spent several hours hiding in the closet.

4 July 2019 (Thu-Independence Day) – It was a quiet day for us. We went over Kevin & Joy’s daughter’s home for a barbecue. Their son-in-law, Justin, made a variety of delicious appetizers to nosh on before grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, and coonies. Coonies are a popular barbecue food for the upstate folks. It is a kind of mild flavored sausage. That led to all of us talking about different foods peculiar to areas around the country. It was a funny discussion.

3 July 2019 (Wed) – We went to two wineries this morning. I found wines I liked (the Niagara wine has a wonderfully distinctive taste) but Paul did not find a good one. We went to Tom’s Diner for lunch. It was small but the service was good. We both had salads that were huge! At 4 p.m. we drove to Buffalo to visit a campground there. With all the information we are collecting, we are starting to form an idea of how we want the caravan to run in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area. Since we are thinking about using a tour bus, we want to keep the cost of the campground down. There are not many nice campgrounds in this area. Just the two resorts on Grand Island with sites over $100 each.

We met Kevin and Joy at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. The food, as always, was great. We enjoyed their company very much. They invited us to join them at their daughter’s house tomorrow for a BBQ.

2 July 2019 (Tue) – We drove into Niagara Falls today. The intent was to find a nice restaurant in which to have a dinner for the caravan. It was incredibly crowded and there was construction that made navigation around the area difficult. We got frustrated and finally gave up. We drove into town and had lunch at the Pearl Street Grille & Brewery. It was rated #1 of 234 restaurants in Niagara Falls by Trip Advisor. I don’t know what criteria they used to rate these restaurants, but this was certainly NOT a #1. There were six booths, two tables, and six chairs at a counter. They served pub food. I got Beef on a Weck. We’ve seen that on several menus now and I decided to try it. It turned out to be a roast beef sandwich where they dipped the roast beef in au jus then put it on the roll. It only made the bread soggy (and I HATE wet bread). The meat also had some grizzle in it. Paul got a tuna melt and it came without any cheese. We really didn’t feel the place deserved to be rated #1.

After lunch, we stopped at the Underground Railroad Heritage Center. They mentioned Harriet Tubman frequently but had very little about her in the center. It was very small and basically boasted of how the folks in Niagara Falls helped escaped slaves cross over into Canada.

We then drove to Youngstown to Old Fort Niagara. The group tours manager was not in and the clerk gave us her contact information. We have to call her tomorrow. When we stepped out, we saw the Buffalo trolley shuttle. It provides a shuttle from Niagara Falls to Buffalo with 14 stops along the way. We asked about a tour and the bus driver gave us contact information. We’ll have to contact that lady tomorrow, too.

1 July 2019 (Mon) – We brought the truck to Ford to get it inspected this morning. Kevin & Joy met us for breakfast at Bob Evans. After breakfast, we went back to the campground where they are parked. After a brief visit, we returned to Ford to get the truck. There were (supposedly) several lights out that they had to replace. We paid $139.12 and went on our way. We drove into Buffalo to the Buffalo Naval and Military Park on the Eric Canal. They had three ships there: The USS Croaker (a submarine), the USS Sullivans (a destroyer), and the USS Little Rock (a missile cruiser). There was also a small museum on the second floor of the visitor’s center and gift shop. We spent three hours climbing up and down stairs as we explored the three ships. It was fun.

We drove to the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery for a late lunch. The food was excellent. On the way back to the Elks lodge, we stopped at Lockport Locks & Eric Canal Cruises. They have a very nice program for lunch followed by a two-hour ride on the canal. It will be a definite venue if we do the New York caravan in 2021.

30 June 2019 (Sun) – We drove to several campgrounds today to check space availability and options. Of the four we stopped at, two are possibilities. One charges $102 per night and the other charges $113. Yeow! That’s a lot of money. There’s a possibility we can negotiate prices at one of them because we have to call back to speak with the owner.

We also stopped at the Niagara Power Plant to see about a tour. The manager was out and will be in tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have to call back.

We stopped at a restaurant on Lake Ontario for lunch. We sat up on the second floor out on the deck. It was too windy to put the umbrella up but there was a brisk wind blowing that kept the sun from feeling too hot. As we were eating, there was a sudden CRACK and a tree across the street split. A large trunk with wide spread branches came crashing down. How it avoided hitting the power line next to it or the cars parked in front of it, is beyond me. There was a guy walking his dog in front of that tree not two minutes before. The angels were watching over everybody.

29 June 2019 (Sat) – We left Youngstown at 8:45 a.m. Although the sky got cloudy, the rain held off. The drive took us through Pennsylvania into New York. We stopped at a travel center when we crossed into New York. It was crazy! The place was so crowded. There was only one facility on the west side of the thruway. Those on the eastbound side had to cross an overhead bridge. We each got a slice of pizza.

We arrived in Lockport at 1:30 p.m. We are staying in an Elks Lodge in the back parking lot. After set up, we went in and paid for our site. At 3:30 p.m., Kevin & Joy, a couple who was on our Utah caravan, met us and we all went to an early dinner. The food and company was good. After we returned to the lodge, Paul and I went food shopping to pick up groceries and to Pet Smart for Bonnie’s food. When we got back, we looked through brochures for activities in the area.

1 note · View note

yunathun · 5 years

Text

THE END-TIMES ATTACKS OF THE SPECTERS & SHEDIM-(DEMONS)

FROM THE KING JAMES BIBLE-(KJV 1611) FROM THE BOOK A RACE OF DEMONS REFINED 2017 FROM THE BOOK SPIRITUAL CRIMES

PRESENTED & INTERPRETED BY: MR. J.R.WILLIS

THE ATTACKS OF THE SPECTERS & SHEDIM:

2 BARUCH 26-30-(THE 8TH WOE)

9 And in the eighth part a multitude of specters and attacks of the Shedim-(AN EXPLOSION & INCREASE OF DEMONIC MANIFESTATIONS AND ATTACKS/POSSESSION UPON MANKIND).

DEMONOLOGY 101

DEMON- An evil spirit or devil, especially one thought to possess a person or act as a tormentor in hell. An evil supernatural being; a devil. Also called: daemon or daimon an attendant or ministering spirit; genius.

In this chapter I will be providing you with a brief and short crash course on demonology. I will explain to you who these inordinate spirits are and endow you with a list of demonic names compiled from Johann Weyer. I warn you to not take any of this information that you are about to read lightly or as a joke. These wicked and dark beings are to never be conjured, worshipped, or played around with and to do so is to commit blasphemy against our Great and Holy Father. They are like Lucifer; ancient, highly intelligent, powerful, and evil incarnate. I have listed them to you as a truth seeker, child of Father Ahayah, and most of all to educate you on the true enemies of mankind.

***IMPORTANT NOTES***

THE RELEASING OF THE ANCIENT DEMONS OF NOAH'S TIME HAS HAPPENED IN OUR TIME-(THE 9TH BOUND ARE NOW HERE):

The Book of JUBILEES Chapter 10: 1-11

JUBILEES Chapter 10:

And in the third week of this jubilee the unclean demons began to lead astray the children of the sons of Noah, and to make to err and destroy them. And the sons of Noah came to Noah their father, and they told him concerning the demons which were leading astray and blinding and slaying his sons' sons. And he prayed before the Lord his God, and said: 'God of the spirits of all flesh, who hast shown mercy unto me. And hast saved me and my sons from the waters of the flood, And hast not caused me to perish as Thou didst the sons of perdition; For Thy grace has been great towards me, And great has been Thy mercy to my soul; Let Thy grace be lift up upon my sons, And let not wicked spirits rule over them. Lest they should destroy them from the earth.

But do Thou bless me and my sons, that we may increase and multiply and replenish the earth. And thou knowest how Thy Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day: and as for these spirits which are living, imprison them and hold them fast in the place of condemnation, and let them not bring destruction on the sons of thy servant, my God; for these are malignant, and created in order to destroy. And let them not rule over the spirits of the living; for Thou alone canst exercise dominion over them. And let them not have power over the sons of the righteous from henceforth and for evermore.' And the Lord our God bade us to bind all.

And the chief of the spirits, Mastêmâ-(SATAN), came and said: 'Lord, Creator, let some of them remain before me, and let them harken to my voice, and do all that I shall say unto them; for if some of them are not left to me, I shall not be able to execute the power of my will on the sons of men; for these are for corruption and leading astray before my judgment, for great is the wickedness of the sons of men.'

And He said: Let the TENTH PART OF THEM REMAIN BEFORE HIM, and let NINE PARTS descend into the place of CONDEMNATION-(HELL).' And one of us He commanded that we should teach Noah all their medicines; for He knew that they would not walk in uprightness, nor strive in righteousness. And we did according to all His words: all the malignant evil ones we bound in the place of condemnation and a tenth part of them we left that they might be subject before Satan on the earth.

So what we learn from the Book of JUBILEES is that Great Father Ahayah bond 90 percent of the deceases spirits of the nephillim-(DEMONS) into hell and ALLOWED 10 percent of them to remain on the earth to be under the control of satan. With this 10th being under satans direct control he could place these demons upon heads of state and governments upon the earth to keep his dark agendas in advance against the CHILDREN OF ISRAEL and the overall destruction of humanity.

Now what many dont understand is that these 9 parts of the demonic forces bond in hell during Noah's time have been releases with demonic technology such as the CERN HADRON COLLIDER which is a star gate machinery that speeds up the smashing of particles-(ATOMS) which then opens small PORTALS into the second heavens allowing the once bond demonic spirits to enter into our realm-(THE 1ST HEAVEN) therefore unleashing a plague of new evils unto the world. Over the past 25 years they have done just that with the HADRON COLLIDER and other tools of sorcery.

The turn of the 20th century-(1900's) saw an explosion in technology from the automobile, airplane, microwave, radio, television and finally the ATOMIC BOMB. For the past 7000 years or so-(POST FLOOD ERA) man had been utilizing horse and carriage, and animal/horsepower to get most of farming work done, transportation, and boats for long distance travel. All of a sudden with WORLD WAR ONE-(THE FIRST WOE) mankind was able to travel great distances in a matter of hours or days by car and aircraft.

Knowledge during this time would be increased GREATLY and it would NOT be from man's on wisdom but it is because of the knowledge and technology given to man by once bound FALLEN ANGELS and DEMONS.

Daniel 12:4:

“But thou, O’ Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall RUN TO and FRO-(TRAVEL OF THE WHOLE EARTH BY AIRCRAFT-SHIP-TRAIN-END TIMES TECHNOLOGY OF THE FALLEN ANGELS), and KNOWLEDGE shall be increased-(DEMONIC TECHNOLOGY-ATOMIC BOMB-CERN HADRON COLLIDER-ANTI MATTER WEAPONS-URANIUM TIPPED BULLETS-ECT).”

***IMPORTANT NOTES***

THESE ARE STAGES OF THE BIRTH PANGS:

We are witnessing biblical prophecy occur daily all around us from the MASS DEMONIC POSSESSIONS of people that we are seeing as crimes committed among the people become more deadly, sinister and barbaric, WARS & RUMORS OF WARS as the entire world is at world in the MID-EAST with america being engaged in 8 wars world wide right now, A 3RD OF YOUR WATERS & OCEANS ARE NOW DEAD with 60% of all animal life now estimated to have become extinct in just over the past 35 years. Supernatural weather, & disasters, high level volcanic activity and earthquakes now occurring now all over the earth in divers places are all now common. PLAGUES & PESTILENCES with new man made demonic diseases such as ZIKA, BUBONIC PLAGUE, EBOLA, HIV/AIDS, BIRD AVIAN FLU and to be more precise BLACK WOMEN are the HIGHEST new HIV/AIDS contractors in the US.

LAWLESSNESS among the people, the love of money, pleasures and not the LOVE OF THE MOST HIGH is rampant on the entire earth as the whole world now possesses the SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST. SODOMITE-(HOMOSEXUALS-A SODOMITE PLAGUE OF DEMONIC SPIRITS THAT SPECIALIZE IN THE SPREADING OF HOMOSEXUALITY) run all parts of your government and control your country this is why you are forced to see these monsters all throughout your media and they even force their despicable lifestyle onto our babies and young children demonically influencing the youth with a reprobate spirit dragging them ALL STRAIGHT TO HELL.

For this TRUTH that I speak of to you many shall hate-(THIS INCLUDES PAGAN CHRISTIANS) and shall be against and deny as Lord Yashaya told us before he died-(MANY SHALL HATE YOU FOR MY NAMES SAKE). The Bible has never been more active and alive in any time period in the history of mankind and it is in my honest opinion, THAT WE ARE HERE. All that needs to be fulfilled now is the MARK OF THE BEAST RFID CHIP and the total NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON THE GREAT-(AMERICA) which has all been prophesied by Great Father Ahayah.

***CONCLUSION***

THERE SIMPLY IS NO DENYING WHAT'S HAPPENING IN OUR WORLD TO TO HIDE AND RUN AWAY FROM THIS TRUTH SHALL BE AT YOUR OWN DEMISE. WE ARE HERE MY PEOPLE. ITS TIME TO COME BACK TO THE MOST HIGH BECAUSE NOT MUCH TIME IS LEFT AND THE LORD HAS DECLARED THAT 90 PERCENT OF YOU SHALL PERISH-(DEATH). YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF 90 PERCENT. THAT MEANS EVERYONE THAT YOU KNOW WHO ARE NOT TRULY IN CHRIST SHALL DIE.

ALL OF THE WICKED PEOPLE YOU SEE ON TELEVISION, FAMILY AND FRIENDS, ALL OF THEM, SHALL NOT MAKE IT. WAKE UP PEOPLE BECAUSE ITS TIME AND WE ARE HERE.

NOW WHO SHALL DENY THIS REPORT?

J.R.WILLIS AUTHOR: A RACE OF DEMONS REFINED 2017 AUTHOR: SPIRITUAL CRIMES 2018

AUTHOR: THE PROPHECIES

AUTHOR: DAEMONOLOGIE YEAR 2020

#DEMONS #DEMONOLOGY #DAEMONOLOGIE #EVIL SPIRITS #SPECTERS #GHOST #BLACK EYED CHILDREN #SPOOKS #APPARITIONS #HAUNTINGS #SPECTRA #SHEDIM #DGINN #GENIES #BOOGERS #HATMAN #SLINDERMAN #POLTERGEIST #UNCLEAN SPIRITS

2 notes · View notes

yourmynx-blog1 · 6 years

Text

The Friendzone

This is something I found floating around the internet, originally from wendycorduroy. While this isn’t my story, it’s something that I feel needs to be shared.

Thoughts on the friendzone

When I was 5 years old my best friend was a boy named Kyle who didn’t know how to knock on doors so he made dinosaur noises outside my window to wake me up in the summer until I demonstrated how to ball his fists and slam them against my doors. We collected caterpillars in my trailer park and built them houses while we traded Pokemon cards. He wasn’t the only one, there was Ben, Mitch and Noah, but Kyle’s the only one who hurt me, because when he tried to kiss me and I asked him why, he told me “because you’re a girl and I’m a boy, shouldn’t we like each other?”

I missed him so much and I wondered why he couldn’t just be my friend like he always was.

In the first grade there was Rich and Joseph and I got sent to detention with them almost every day with a smile on my face. We built block towers and sang to my teacher’s Lion King soundtracks when she’d turn the lights off during lunch time. One day they got in a fist fight over me at recess and I wondered why they felt they needed to share my friendship, like it was something they owned.

In the second grade Zach and I played Yu Gi Oh under our desks during free time and I got moved for talking to him constantly. Everyone in the class would tease him and I for talking, asking when we were going to date already, asking him if he’d kissed me, and he stopped being my friend.

When I was 11 I met a chubby boy with the name of a colour, who wore puffy vests and unwashed t-shirts, with greasy hair and bright blue eyes and a smile that hid hurt behind it. People didn’t like him because he was silly, but I liked him because he was silly, but I liked him because I was also silly. He became my friend the day he bought me 5 giant roses and asked me to be his girlfriend, and I declined but promised him I’d be his best friend because I’d always wanted a best guy friend that stuck around. We burnt our feet on the concrete during the summer and walked home with the sunset silhouetting us. He talked often about how he loved me, but never blamed me for being me, even though he refused to move on. That boy dyed his hair jet black and sat on the end of my bed playing songs to me on guitar, and all the pent-up rage from before didn’t show until the first time he slapped me across the face and called me a dumb cunt.

In the 7th grade there was a boy named Ryan who sat next to me on the bus and talked to me about manga. He’d ask me personal invasive questions but I didn’t mind because it was attention and I love attention. I was dating another guitar player with curly brown hair, one who was much more kind-tempered than the other, and Ryan mentioned how much of an arsehole he was every day. I wondered, why, why does he think the love of my life in an arsehole? But when I asked him, he just told me, “girls only date arseholes. There’s no room for nice guys like me,”

I wondered, if he was so nice, why did he say such mean things? He never stopped talking with me, taking me to movies, hanging out with me, you know, being friendly. I thought we were friends, but then, how many times had I thought that before? How many times I had bonded with a boy, thought they got me, only for them to ask me if I wanted to make out?

How come when I told Ryan I was coming out as a lesbian, he stopped being my friend and said “damnit, the one girl I really want to pound into a mattress and she’s only interested in chicks!”

There was a boy in my junior year who stayed up all night with me until the sun rose, talking about life, past loves, hopes, dreams. Beneath a million twinking starts spanning forever, he brushed long brown hair out of his eyes and listened to me talk about the history that made me. Then he asked me if I’d ever consider dating a guy, and complained about how he’d never get laid.

When I told him no a couple hundred times, he found new girls to listen to.

I would sit on the couch and play Zelda with Dakota, and he’s talk about all my favourite games with me. He was the closes thing to support I had, and the letters and poems he wrote me were always so kind and friendly, but he’d put his arms aorund me on the couch, and no matter how many times I told him I was uncomfortable, he’d still come over every day and do it.

“Do you know how it feels to love someone and not have them love you back? Don’t you know what it feels like to be friendzoned?”

When I meet guys who talk about the friendzone, who talk about the girls who don’t give “nice guys” like them a chance, I always wanted to just say...

When I was 10 years old I met a girl whose brown hair fell across her shoulders and whos eyes sparkled when the sunlight hit them, whose voice was like velvet and whose scent was like moutain smoke, who made me dizzier than a fly combing a sugar hill. I’m 18 and I still love her, and she knows and she doesn’t love me.

But my first thoughts upon hearing her rejection were not “what a bitch” were not “she just wants a douchebag and not a nice girl like me!” were not “I’m going to keep pushing her until she dates me,”

They were, “she is the best friend I have ever had, and I am the best she’s ever had, and I would hate to take that away from her,”

So before you play the victim, Mr Nice Guy, before you angrily throw your fedora on the ground and blame the girl you claim to adore so much:

Put yourself in the sheos of a girl who through she made a wonderful friend, only to find out that he just wanted her for sex. That he just wanted her for a relationship, a girl who was just an object to win, a prize, a girl who’s trust you’ve just shattered.

Maybe she friendzoned you, but you girlfriendzoned her first.

GirlFriendZone. That’s a term I’m keeping.

#friendzone #incels #fuckbois

38 notes · View notes

wellplacedrocket · 5 years

Text

I Visited the Mormon Temple Square and it Really Reminded Me of BioShock Infinite

I don’t go on a lot of (read: any) religious touristy sort of adventures, so maybe the Mormon Temple Square isn’t all that weird in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t give me hints of Columbia, the city in BioShock Infinite. Hear me out on this.

I want to caveat before I go further that it’s probably gonna seem like I’m really picking on Mormons here. I’m not. Mormonism is absolutely no weirder than any other religion, and there are plenty of Mormons (probably most of them) who are much smarter, more hardworking, successful, and better to their fellow man than I am. If you roll your eyes at scripture of Moroni, but turn around and worship Jesus or Vishnu or Odin or Buddha, and follow the World of God as explained to you by Muhammad, then your cognitive dissonance is so thick, so dense, that it must throw off compasses. I don’t think religious or spiritual people are stupid for being that way.

Anyway.

I was in Salt Lake City with a few hours to kill, and figured the Mormon Temple Square would be the one thing I couldn’t get anywhere else, so why the hell not? Let’s get my Mormon on. Many of the buildings in the Temple Square are made with this gorgeous white granite that pops up nearby, and so to the eye a lot of it looked like the White City of Gondor.

The visitors centers are small museums that lay out the history, scripture highlights, and current tenants of Mormon theology.

As a kid, I was raised Catholic-lite, but I’ve never been to the Vatican, and I wonder if there’s similar stuff anywhere else among worldwide Christian churches. That Noah’s Ark museum in Kentucky, maybe? The tone of much of this stuff seems to be to reassure outsiders that hey, Jesus is still just the best! He’s the best, you guys. We’re not any different from your local bake sale-having church people at all! In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much that explicitly tries to contrast with other Christian sects whatsoever, until you get to the Book of Mormon (the actual Book of Mormon) stuff that takes place in the Western Hemisphere.

A lot of this stuff came across to me as a “here’s how to be” kind of children’s book in museum form. It’s not really propaganda, I guess, because conduct prescriptions are what religions are supposed to do. However, the exhibits and artwork they had showing important people in Mormon scripture and the paramount religious events in their lives started giving me weird, familiar vibes.

A 19th century New Yorker who has some sort of religious awakening, begins to preach, gathers a cadre of like minded true believers, establishes a hyper-ardent offshoot Christian sect in the U.S., insists upon racism as one of the pillars of this new theology, is revered as a prophet to his people, gains power and respect (which he abuses), and begins an exodus of his followers out of American society to found their own civilization which will eventually prove hostile to the U.S.? Oh, you thought I was describing Joseph Smith or Brigham Young? Well, surprise, it’s (also) Zachary Hale Comstock, villain of Bioshock Infinite.

I’m not the first to draw this comparison. Here’s a much better article than I could hope to write from an anonymous blogger who claims to be an ex Mormon. And Bioshock creative head Ken Levine mentioned in a Mother Jones article:

There’s a bit of Joseph Smith in [Comstock], a bit of Teddy Roosevelt…Roosevelt was a very progressive figure in many ways. But he was also what you’d probably call a neoconservative in his view of America’s role in the world. So I have trouble comparing Comstock to him directly. Also, I’d have trouble just comparing Comstock to Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. I mean, the American-centric nature of the religion that he forms has some similarities to Mormonism, but there’s nothing in the Mormon church that approached the level of sinisterness you’d find in a Comstock.

In the game (where the next bunch of linked images are from), Comstock is a religious figure with a hyper-nationalism for his own vociferously racist vision of America, which never actually existed and is more twisted than even our own real history. There’s a part of the game where you play through a museum dedicated to the history of Columbia, the city-state Comstock founded, and it puts a very religious sort of spin on the founding of the United States and points in its history. Abraham Lincoln is called “The Apostate” and is remembered as an insidious Satan figure, while John Wilkes Booth is a saint. The Confederate Army, being the true soul of America to these zealots, is led by the angelic spirit of George Washington. The locals are generally hostile.

All of this stuff is understandably batshit, because they were trying to write a villain in Comstock. I’m not saying Mormons are or were evil like this guy. I’m saying it seems pretty likely that the devs took Mormon lore, cranked the evil and steampunky sci-fi up to 11, and out came Comstock and Columbia.

The American founding fathers appear in Mormon religious works, notably in writings by Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the LDS Church, describing religious visions:

The spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them ... These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence ... I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them ... I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister [sic] to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The LDS Church is extremely PR conscious and has left doctrinal, institutional racism behind, but it’s a poorly kept secret that the early days didn’t look too good. Unlike the populations of other Western Territories (Colorado and California in particular), the Mormons mostly took a pass on the Civil War, though to their credit, there isn’t much evidence to suggest explicit sympathy for the Confederacy. However, here’s Brigham Young:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.

And now here’s Comstock:

What exactly was the Great Emancipator emancipating the Negro from? From his daily bread? From the nobility of honest work? From wealthy patrons who sponsored them from cradle to grave? From clothing and shelter? And what have they done with their freedom? Why, go to Finkton, and you shall find out. No animal is born free, except the white man. And it is our burden to care for the rest of creation.

The Mormons flirted with armed rebellion but eventually backed down when the United States and local native nations made it clear they were not fucking around. Joseph Smith, a 100% legit, honest to God prophet to his people, had some pretty dark things to say about the U.S., especially the godless northeast cities:

Nevertheless, let the bishop go unto the city of New York, also to the city of Albany, and also to the city of Boston, and warn the people of those cities with the sound of the gospel, with a loud voice, of the desolation and utter abolishment which await them if they do reject these things. For if they do reject these things the hour of their judgment is nigh, and their house shall be left unto them desolate.

And here’s Woodruff again, in a prophesy “confirmed” by Young:

While you stand in the towers of the Temple and your eyes survey this glorious valley filled with cities and villages, occupied by tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints, you will then call to mind this visitation of President Young and his company. You will say: That was in the days when Presidents Benson and Maughan presided over us; that was before New York was destroyed by an earthquake. It was before Boston was swept into the sea, by the sea heaving itself beyond its bounds; it was before Albany was destroyed by fire; yea, at that time you will remember the scenes of this day.

Well, here’s a scene in Bioshock Infinite that shows a time-travel flash forward to the future year 1984, what Comstock will do if not stopped. He floats Columbia right over New York and starts bombing:

How the hell do they not get shot down? Sci-fi weapons or shields, I’m guessing. Columbia imagines if a civilization of religious secessionists hadn’t decided to chill out in the end, the way the Mormons did.

If you need any more convincing of the connection here, in BioShock Infinite, one of the protagonists who the player spends a lot of time with and who drives the story is Comstock’s daughter Elizabeth. She is kept a gilded-cage prisoner and wants out of Columbia, and much of the action is about helping her to escape. SPOILER ALERT FOR A 5-YEAR OLD GAME: Elizabeth’s parentage isn’t what it seems, she was actually given the name Anna at birth. Well, there was a famous ex-wife of Brigham Young, one of 55, who decided she wasn’t about that life, alleged domestic abuse against Young and filed for divorce (both a huge deal for their time), and ultimately wrote an autobiographical account called Wife No. 19. This woman’s name? Ann Eliza Webb.

No doubt you could substitute any other religion and find similar parallels to BioShock Infinite in art and lore, but the Americanness of the LDS Church is what sells this idea to me, how both the real life Mormon church and the fictional characters and civilization draw from the cultural fundamentals of this country, as well as our absolute worst elements. The obvious difference is the Mormons wrestle with the racism and violence in their church’s past, and for sure try to do good works in the world today. Not so for Comstock and Columbia. But that’s part of what made them such compelling villains.

#BioShock Infinite #Xbox #Xbox 360 #Sony PlayStation #PlayStation 3 #PC #2K Games #Irrational Games #BioShock

1 note · View note