#and for the first time in my life the story of jesus' birth made me sad

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Today I learned I can't draw babies

[purpleajisai]

Madara Week Day 2 - Christ/Antichrist

The Saviour of this World and the Christ: A comparative analysis of Madara Uchiha and Jesus Christ

It’s Christmas time. Christians all over the world are preparing themselves for what they consider one of the most joyful holidays in the year: the birth of the Messiah, He who came to redeem the world. Meanwhile, the Madara enthusiasts are making a countdown for the birthday of the man who tried to save the ninja world by sacrificing his very self. In this meta, I intend to explain the connections, similarities and differences between Madara Uchiha and Jesus Christ that I’ve found over the years. I would also recommend to read “Is Madara our Lord and Saviour?” by @al-hekima-madara-blog for another very interesting meta on the topic. This is my contribution to day 2 of Madara Week, hosted by @uchiha-event.

A quick note before I start my rambling: I will be using the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible (Roman Catholic translation), but there shouldn’t be any problem for readers of Protestant background as the difference between the Bibles used by both denominations are in the Old Testament and our focus will be the New Testament.

“I am here to save the world”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 677

For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.

John 3:17

What is the purpose of Madara in this story? One would be tempted to say “because every shonen needs a villain”, but I think his purpose as a character was to expose the flaws within the shinobi system that ultimately corrupted a man who desired peace into someone whose sense of reality became so warped by the situations in his life that he started a war to achieve said peace. Madara didn’t make the Eye of the Moon plan to be evil and act dramatic, he made it with the final objective of launching an eternal dream that would guarantee no more conflict and the ideal life for anyone within it. He’s already been past judging the world, he wants to save it at the expense of himself. This is similar to how God is presented in the Old Testament compared to the New Testament: we first see a God who insists that his law is followed and that chastises those who trespass and disobey in several ocassions. But once we reach the New Testament, he becomes a loving figure that intends to save people from eternal doom in hell (”reality is hell”, anyone?). The point is that we have a man whose purpose in the world is to cleanse all forms of evil thorugh his being and who wants to bring salvation to anyone, regardless if the world agrees or not.

“I come here to bring you light and joy in a life that’s beyond this reality”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 626

Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live.

John 11:25

What does Madara mean when he says that “you can’t see it”? After following the storyline we conclude that he’s talking about the Eye of the Moon plan. Let’s add some tangents here, the people who were directly involved in the plan and helped Madara one way or another. They had no clue about what would happen exactly but they were convinced by the prospect of a peaceful life free of their struggles. In a certain way, they believed in Madara. The exact same thing can be seen with Jesus, who promises eternal life beyond the death of the physical body. Nobody knows how Heaven looks like but the believers trust him on that promise.

“I bring peace”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 661

These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world

John 16:33

Notice how Madara refers to the current state of the shinobi world as “Hashirama’s world”? In Christianity and the Bible, it is a common practice to separate “the world” and “the believers” as entities with entirely different mindsets and values. Madara sees the world as direct consequence of his nemesis, Hashirama, just as Christians see the evil in the world as the direct consequence of the sins of Lucifer. To “overcome the world”, when applied to Madara, refers to how he intends to use a power whose source is unknown (the power of the Sage of Six Paths) in order to end the paradox of Hashirama’s world. He is going to achieve peace to overwrite the current world and install his own world where the paradox is solved.

“I intend for you to acquire new identity within me”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 665

If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

I picked two of the letters in the New Testament in purpose, you may have noticed that the previous quotes come from the Gospel of John. Because the Gospel of John is a retelling of what Jesus did and said, whereas the letters (mostly from the apostle Paul) are reflections of the lives of the apostles after Jesus was gone. Similarly, Obito becomes Madara once Madara dies in the cave and walks in his shoes. Yesterday, I wrote a bit more about how Madara decomposed his humanity for the sake of his dream of peace. Here, we have Madara giving up his identity to anyone who embraces his goal, similarly to how Jesus signifies a brotherhood of believers. Madara also never writes down his autobiography or gets a space to present his POV, just as how all of what we know from Jesus is from the people close to him, not by his own word. In a sense, both become an entity for like-minded people to work towards a certain goal.

Thank you for reading this far, if you have any questions please use the ask box. It’s always a pleasure to have discussions and to talk about my favourite anime emo man.

[witchersmistress]

Stolen by the monster part 3

*gift credit to xo-tough-love-xo*

there is the link for the second part of this story for those who need a refresher or have never read it.

as per my usual. i do not give permission to copy my work or use my work in anyway without permission. so help me if you do, i will haunt you for the rest of your days.

Warnings: P in V, rough sex, drugging. cream pie, foul language, forced pregnancy, bodily fluids, body piercing's 😈😈😈

Word count: 1 k

Your POV

August pushes his body against mine, crushing me against the bed, giving me no time to think before he plunges into my pussy, using one hand to grip the back of my neck, forcing me to hold his gaze,  while the other tightens on my hip. His cock pounds into me without giving me the benefit of accommodating him first. I wince at the stretch caused by his cock. Feeling the bite of metal on my soft flesh. I lowered my eyes down to see silver barbells sliding in and out of your wetness. “Like what you see petal?” He gave a small chortle. My wide eyes met with his delighted stare “It's called a Jacob's Ladder” pulling it all the way out to show me the barbells coated in my juices. My eyes widened in shock to see not 1 but 6 silver barbells in his erect member. He gave a slight chuckle as he worked his hips back and forth against me, his heavy balls hitting against me with vigor.

The pounding motion made my eyes roll into the back of my head, those bars causing my cunt to flutter as they moved.. The overloading sensations of August brutally taking me, causes my body to become putty in his expert hands. Letting him use me desperately for his anger and release, the realization shamelessly turning me on. My clit throbs and aches, begging for his touch. August grits his teeth. “Sweet fucking Jesus, Petal. Fucking Jesus. Ain’t ever letting you go, darlin’. Ain’t ever.” 

His words flow through me, warming my craving heart. My pussy clutches his cock on his words. “Fuck. Fuck. Fucking…” he chants, nearing his orgasm, his mouth falling open slightly beside my face. The thought of him coming inside me  knocks me sideways. My body goes rigid. August reacts instantly, slowing down to an almost complete stop. Desperately, I rush the words out desperately, “August. Stop. I’m not on birth control.”

 I swallow hard in a panic, my heart pounding. “Stop. Please take… take my ass. I’m not on birth control.” His body comes to a complete stop, as if to obey my request, before he tightens his hold on me and rams himself deeper and deeper into me. Oh shit, a sense of determination behind his movements.

August POV

you panic-stricken words chant inside my head as I ram my cock into you with wild abandonment. “Please take… take my ass. I’m not on birth control.” The anger inside me boiling to a peak. Take your ass? you fucking ass? I never took your ass! Never. My need grows for you while chanting the words. “Not on birth control.” Sweet fucking Jesus, I almost lost it at that. you aren't on birth control. Well, you ain’t ever leaving me. you will leave this shit hole tonight with a permanent piece of me inside you. Growing, ensuring you mine. I come, I come so fucking hard I roar, my eyes seeing stars. My legs wobble as my cum floods my girl’s pussy, flooding you bare womb. “Oh, fuck, Petal. Holy…” I bite into your exposed neck, tugging on the skin. you pussy squeezes every drop of cum from my tender cock, milking it while you screech in ecstasy, sending a final unexpected spurt from my spent dick. I’ve never come so hard in my entire life.

My cock falls from you pussy, completely forgotten about. My eyes glance down your body, your juices drip down the inside of your thigh, and Petal’s body freezing in response, causing me to quickly step back, tuck myself in, and zip up. You sit up and move to the end of the bed.

 Your fists hammer at my chest as I remain stoically still during your little outburst, caught completely off guard. “You bastard! You mother fucking bastard, August! Oh, my god, you came inside me! I’m not on birth control, you prick. Did you not hear me? Did you?” you slide back  and stare up at me, my eyes trained on your delicate features contorted with rage. I smirk at you and shrug carelessly. you let out an angry huff and mumbles under your breath as you try to make your way off the bed “What was that?” I asked your eyes to land on mine, if looks could kill I would be a dead man walking.  You swing your legs off the bed, standing up “I'm going to the bathroom to clean up the mess you made” gesturing to my cum dripping down your slick thighs. I spun around, grabbed you by your biceps and threw you back on the bed.

“Like fuck you are. I’m keeping ya. You and my baby.” you struggle against my grip trying to get away “August i agreed to let you use me how you wanted but not like that, i can't be a mother, how would this work” i watched on as you slowly go down the rabbit hole with possibilities.

I slipped the sedative off the bedside table and injected you while you were down that rabbit hole. Your eyes open wide and shocked as you register what I've done. They narrowed on me as they grew heavy from the sedative running in your veins. “That baby i just fucked into you will be the best revenge against Ethan Hunt and petal you are just to pure to not be mine” tucking you back under the covers as you drift off into a dreamless sleep. Placing a kiss on your hairline

, I grab my empty syringe and make my way out of the room, leaving you and my baby much needed rest. For if you weren't pregnant yet, you certainly will be. 

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

The Gospel Message of Hope Triumphs over the World's Message of Hopelessness

by Sarah Holliday

Inspired by the book of Jojo Moyes, the movie “Me Before You” follows the young and chipper Louisa “Lou” Clark as she hopped from one job to the next. But her world flipped upside down when she became the caregiver of a young man, Will Traynor, who was left paralyzed after a motorcycle accident two years prior. Like many victims of a life-changing injury, Traynor was cynical, angry, and depressed. So, aside from general caregiving, Clark decided to help Traynor see life is worth living, despite pain and suffering.

They go through the year together and (spoiler) fall deeply in love. At first glance, the narrative seemed to depict that even a miserable person could experience joyous things again. Well, that’s not quite the case.

Traynor experienced happiness, fun, laughter, and love, but the final analysis revealed none of that was enough for him. Hyper fixated on the fact he would never be the active man he once was, but stuck as a quadriplegic, Traynor decided the only solution was to end his life by assisted suicide. Clark begged him not to. She said she loved him, and that his paralysis didn’t affect her. Nonetheless, the story ends with Traynor ending his life and Clark being left alone. I think the worst part about this ending was not that it seemed to advocate for euthanasia (I don’t believe that was the intention), but that it openly proclaimed a message of hopelessness.

We see pain, suffering, depression, anxiety, fear, and anger all over, and, unfortunately, suicide is a common escape from these soul-numbing emotions. When you live in a state of darkness and turn to a dark world, death seems like a simple solution. That’s what “Me Before You” demonstrated. It didn’t matter that Traynor had someone who loved him and made him laugh, because he saw no hope in a future being paralyzed. Clark couldn’t make it worth it.

Traynor represents countless people suffering around the world daily. Not all take their lives, but many give them away to alcohol, drugs, crime, prostitution, etc. Anything to numb the pain. Anything to cover up the deep chasm of loneliness. Anything to distract from the aches of mental or physical agony. Misery seeps from the soul and pours into every aspect of life, leaving no room for hope. Nothing short of a bottle, a pill, or a lie.

Suffering holds the mind in anguish, in a tunnel that, hopelessly, seems without end. The reality is that this world is fallen, full of sin and depravity. To some degree or another, the effect of sin makes suffering inevitable. And a fallen world cannot be the cure for itself, nor the problems it births. The only thing that overcomes darkness is light. The world will always fall short because it lacks the only hope amid suffering: Christ.

Traynor’s story is an example of the world’s message of hopelessness, but Joni Eareckson Tada is an example of the gospel’s message of hope.

Tada was 17 when she misjudged the depth of the Chesapeake Bay, dove in, and forcefully landed on her head, crushing her neck. The fracture between her fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae not only paralyzed her from the shoulders down but led to over 50 years of chronic pain. She said in an interview with Alisa Childers, at “times [the pain] is so overbearing that I can hardly put two words together in a clear sentence.” But despite this, Tada is quick to proclaim: “Jesus is worth it.”

When she was first injured, she was angry, depressed, and hopeless. But surrounded by Christian friends, Tada was encouraged to fix her eyes on Christ. She would never describe her experiences as “easy,” but rejoices daily in knowing Christ — the hope in suffering the world cannot provide. “In a strange way, I welcome the dark and difficult guest of pain,” she said. “[B]ecause I know it is the gash through which more grace will pour into my life… Nearness and sweetness to Jesus Christ is worth the pain. And that’s a hard thing to say when I feel like screaming.” I reflected on these two stories and noticed the stark contrast. In the first, Clark was clearly trying to be the solution to Traynor’s pain, to no avail. Nothing she did proved greater than the hopelessness Traynor felt. And by the world’s standards, what else is there to do with hopelessness but seek a way out? Without Christ, perhaps Tada would have been no different. But that is exactly the point.

Tada does have hope. She understands that Christ is the Rock on which we stand and our anchor in the storm. When the world only offers distractions or more pain, Jesus offers life. He offers peace, and joy, even through tribulation. In case people forget, Jesus is no stranger to suffering.

He was mocked and scorned; beaten and bruised; nailed to a cross with a crown of thorns. He took on the sin of all mankind and was alienated from God the Father. He suffered immensely, yet blamelessly, for our sake. Our God understands our pain and suffering. He understands what it feels like to be hated and mistreated. When He took on our sin, which severed His perfect communion with the Father, He understood deep loneliness. “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He cried out.

So, He understands whatever we could endure. But not only does He empathize, He is with us through it all. This He has promised:

“I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2).

“I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

“He will never leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). I look around, and I see hopelessness. It’s discouraging, truly. So long as I look at the world, hopelessness is all I’m going to get. But the moment I turn to my Bible, or redirect my focus to prayer, I see hope. My God is light that has overcome darkness, and He has promised to be by my side no matter what. The same is true for all who put their trust in Him. Christians know this life is not an endless tunnel. Quite the opposite, actually, because we know this story ends in victory, wrapped in the love of Christ in eternal paradise, where death, pain, and suffering will be gone forever.

There’s a story about a man whose paralysis crushed his hope. Nothing made the pain worth it. After two years, he decided to end his life.

Then there’s a story about a woman whose paralysis pushed her closer to Christ. After 50 years, she continues to rejoice in the hope that makes her pain worth it. She knows Who is by her side. Or, as she said, “This is the God that I love. He is so sweet. He is so very sweet.”

[squid-of-tism]

@jollysunflora

Hell yeah! Muse of life time!

•So I've never really put too much thought into the master classes. They just never really interested me, plus we only have one example each, so my autism brain would just always feel like there's not enough info when trying to analyze them. Honestly, that made it kinda fun to look into this class!

•So Muses are essentially just the ultimate passive class. I don't even use the active-passive theory in my analyses, but Lords and Muses are just that with the ladder being the passive one. I see Muses as just having an area of effect for their aspect in both the metaphorical sense and the semi-literal. The best way I can put my thinking into words that make sense is Lords completely use their aspect and Muses give others their aspect as well as influence the aspect around them.

•Life is the aspect of healing, positivity, rebellion, nature, wealth, energy, and optimism. It's plainly one of the most straightforward aspects. It represents the hand you've been dealt in life and what you do with it, and nature.

•A Muse of life is the ultimate healer. They represent all parts of Life and utilize it for the benefit of others and the aspect itself. when your aspect is literally healing and nature and your class is Influencing and working with said aspect, no contest, a pure hype man.

•I'm gonna be honest when I first read the reply I was caught off guard by classpecting Jesus lol. The Bible and Homestuck aren't really two things you see cris crossed, But after thinking about it, Yeah Jesus is a Muse of Life. Like, Even not acknowledging the miracles he performed (Healing the blind, multiplying fish a bread, healing a man with a withered hand), the overall story of his birth, life, death, and resurrection all align perfectly with a Muse of Life. I don't completely trust myself to summarize 4 books of the bible while connecting it to Homestuck, but the main parts are easier, He was the literal son of the creator of life, was born a virgin birth, healed those around him, loved thy neighbor, died, came back, left, and promised to come back. My guy, that's the most muse of life story out there.

[argeiger]

Stories That Give Us Courage

I have a secret to tell you.

Are you ready for it?

Okay, here it is.

I am afraid almost all the time.

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

But really and truly, as honest as honest can be . . . I am afraid almost all of the time.

I am also a Christian. I love Jesus and I am afraid and those two things are not supposed to exist in the same space.

At least, we’re not supposed to admit they exist in the same space.

He holds those in perfect peace who trust in him, right?

But I am afraid. I am not afraid of what will happen to me when I die, or that I’ll never experience love, or anything existential.

My fears are ordinary. Speaking in public. Meeting other humans. Embarrassing someone else or myself. Hurting someone’s feelings. Making mistakes that I can’t fix.

Job interviews.

Always, always job interviews.

Ordinary things.

When I was a preteen, sleepovers were out of the question. I would work myself up until I puked. Learning to drive was a nightmare. So was ordering a sandwich in Subway. And, as much as I have learned to cope with it, it has lasted into my adulthood. The birth of my first child was accompanied by a rush—not of love like all the mommy blogs talk about—but of pure, unadulterated terror that this little being was somehow going to die and that it was going to crush my entire life irretrievably and I would never be okay again.

That, by the way, is called severe postpartum anxiety and depression, and I finally—nearly a year and a half later—am on the proper medication to deal with it.

Thank God.

Also, I think you should know that I managed to keep my son alive, and we are currently tossing a tennis ball back and forth while I write this.

You should also know that I, who was afraid of sleepovers, traveled alone to Scotland and lived there for three months when I was nineteen, then to flew to Cambodia for another two. There is nothing in the world I love more than a good road trip, and I have done multiple cross-state roadtrips completely alone. And LOVED them.

I still hate Subway, but that’s mostly about their soggy bread.

Blech.

My point is that I have been afraid and continue to be afraid—and I have found courage, and I continue to find courage.

And a great, great deal of that courage comes from stories.

I am a voracious reader, and I have been since I was three years old and first learned to read. I devour books fiercely, and never more than when life feels too much to face. I have heard so many people scoff at fiction and call it escapism, but to me, it has never been about escaping my life.

Stories, above all, have given me the courage to live.

A passage from the Tale of Despereaux gave me the courage to walk into the biggest job interview of my life.

Samwise Gamgee helped me to walk through some of the hardest, most plodding years of my career.

Walter Mitty inspired me to seek a life outside of the ordinary.

Bernadette Fox gave me the pluck I needed to start again when I failed.

I believe, at the core of who I am, that stories are the way that God has designed us, as humans, to share courage. That when the night is dark and the world is heavy and so, so much of what is cruel is bearing down on us, we are meant to draw together and tell stories about people who were strong and weak and afraid and courageous and who made so, so many mistakes, and who were inherently human in way that gave us the courage to be human as well.

So that is my invitation to you. I am taking a year to look at and celebrate the stories that have given me the courage to live. I’ll be posting about them once a week, and a bit in-between, but I don’t want to do it alone. If you have stories that have given you courage, please share them. Tell me what they are, tell me why.

Gather with me, here, while the world is heavy. And let’s talk about the stories that give us courage.

[weebsinstash]

Really missed the werewolf/ABO posts!! Do you have more asks on that? Also hope one day we get back to the isekai emperor and male concubine with bakudeku discourse because that was juicy.

Honestly i didn't get sent a lot of asks on that stuff and I kinda stopped posting about the werewolf audiobooks for a while because I just, like, a lot of them follow the exact same formulas and I wasn't sure if I was boring anyone by sharing the drama (and also those stories cost money and I realized that I eas spending, decent amounts of money buying chapter unlock coins)

I have some asks about the whole Emperor baku/concubine izuku/Empress reader stuff and that still sounds so juicy. I dunno if you guys remember but I was getting HELLA into Chinese dramas a while back which combined with manhwa were the inspiration for that baku/reader concept and I still have one I need to finish called Legend of Yangxi Palace and there I'd also Legend of Hao Lan which looks good and has the same actress as the lead. Some of those dramas are kind of cut and paste but when you find a production house wirh a budget, jesus christ. I literally watched Legend of RuYi with my mom and the ending made us WEEP.

But yall if you want to hear more werewolf audiobook shit I was listening to a story a while back called Twice Rejected and it was SO CRAZY like I literally have to tell you this shit in bullet points

-protagonist is named Koko

-Koko's mom is a straight up selfish bitch who was in love with the Alpha of the pack and they turned out not to be chosen mates, and her true mate was, shit i don't remember his name but, Koko's dad. He wasn't wealthy and lived a humble life but was the packs Gamma (if you don't remember that's the wolf who's in charge of helping look after the alphas mate, the Luna)

-this isn't good enough for Bitch Mom and she tries to reject him but he refuses bc he wants to get to know her as his fated mate and she throws a tantrum over this

-one night she gets piss drunk and comes onto him basically out of loneliness, he literally tells her no multiple times because of how drunk she is but she keeps pushing because she feels rejected by the Alpha who is now with someone else and she wants someone to want her, and there's the mate bond and all so, daddy Koko caves

-bitch has the nerve to wake up "UGH you took advantage of me, I hate this, I hate you"

-she gets pregnant from that one time and her family basically forces her to marry the dad who I just remembered is named Mac. Mac Magnus? That name fucking sucks lmao

-Mac is actually such a good guy she does fall in love and she gives birth to twins. Absolutely LOVES the first one that comes out, her name is spelled either Janola or Hanola, the captions suck and I've literally never heard of this name before. But Hanola is a perfect clone of her mom

-unfortunately Koko was an extremely difficult birth, where Hanola was easy Koko took like 10 hours and hurt a lot, and she came out more resembling her father but, Koko also has, um. Dark eyes? It is a plotpoint of her irises "being so dark it's like looking into pure black orbs" and there are old folktales about these wolves being cursed. Um. How do I politely say "I guess Asian people don't exist in this world" because like people are literally looking at her eyes and gasp and they all avoid her like the plague like. Bro it's an eye color?

-its. It's basically kind of lowkey colorism/racism. Hanola is blonde hair blue eyed but poor Koko has dark hair and dark eyes and isn't as pale and her mom HATES HER IMMEDIATELY, like STRAIGHT OUT THE WOMB HATRED

-Mac always loves and supports Koko and chastises his wife for mistreating their daughter but uh he also like. Never fucking puts his foot down either so Koko was bullied even when he wad alive

-that's THE BACKSTORY. Chapter 1 literally begins with Koko's house on fire and her mom is physically fucking beating her, when she's like 5 or something by rhe way she's like literally a fucking toddler, because. Oh no, she did the grave horrible sinful error of. Freaking out over her favorite stuffed rabbit still being in the house and her father chose to go get it and. He died unfortunately

-LITERALLY THE ENTIRE PACK, COMPLETELY UNCRITICALLY, NOT EVEN FUCKING JOKING, SAYS IT'S KOKO'S FAULT HE DIED AND IT'S BECAUSE SHE'S CURSED

-Her mom literally forces her to sleep in the basement and barely even feeds her, beats her constantly, insults her, the entire pack treats her like fucking garbage, even her own sister blames her for what happened to their dad

-kokos mate turns out to be the alphas son, the same Alpha her mother longed for

-bitch ass Hanola, who Koko says has been around the block a few times, steals her mate just to fucking spite her, and her mom LOVES IT because, shit you not, she's still so like fucking, weird about the Alpha who never wanted her that she's like "YES now my daughter will marry his son in my place" like GIRL the projection!!! you had a loving husband who you never even deserved and he should've beat your ass for how you treated his daughter

-I like, only vaguely remember certain details because this happened so long ago but, uh, Koko's mate rejects her, takes her sister, and they even spread lies about Koko and like my blood was fucking boiling. Her mate Alpha orders her, as in she physically cannot resist, to watch them have sex, and THEN the SPITEFUL FREAKS go around the pack saying "that ugly slut koko tried to claim the Alpha as hers when he wasn't and she was even caught peeping on them having sex, what a freak and a pervert"

-by the way they just constantly insult her no matter what she does, calls her ugly despite her being an identical twin to Hanola besides hair and eye color, calls her useless, calls her fat even though she's literally malnourished

-THIS IS WHERE IT GETS FUCKING INSANE

-all of a sudden, Hanola turns out to have a very weak heart that she was concealing, and she needs a transplant within two weeks or she will die. I personally believe Hanola did this on purpose, because

-KOKO'S MOM AND THE PACK DOCTORS DEADASS ASK KOKO FOR HER FUCKING HEART BECAUSE, "well waiting for a transplant might take too long"

-they bully the fuck out of Koko until she agrees and they STILL TREAT HER LIKE GARBAGE. Koko is over here "if I'm so worthless and a mistake and killed my father, at least I can save my sister"

-THEY NEVER EVEN LET HER SEE HWR SISTER. THEY TELL HER SHE HAS GERMS AND WILL MAKE HER SICK. she never literally never gets to speak with her sister before she's supposed to die for her. They will not even let her do that and even accuse her of wanting to see Hanola to harm her even though Koko is still attached to her because they were close as children

-Koko is treated extremely well for two weeks, finally actually being fed and treated kindly because oh say stress might damage the heart Hanola is supposed to get

-this. This part is absolutely fucking crazy. It's literally the day of the fucking transplant and they say "nah koko fuck you, you can't even ride in the same car with us to the hospital where you're going to die, here's some money, get your own ride" like jesus christ cannot emphasize enough that they literally singlehandedly caused what is about to happen over sheer pettiness like how the fuck would you take excellent care of that donor heart and then not even help transport it safely to the hospital, like at least for Hanola's sake you think they would have

-Koko accidentally goes to the wrong hospital, and she's rushing around begging for money for a cab, desperate to, again, die for her sister

-SHE GETS HIT BY A FUCKING CAR

-She's passed out in the hospital for, unfortunately, 3 weeks. She rushes back to the pack and everyone accuses her of murder because her sister died. They literally surround her while her mother beats the absolute shit out of her saying she was a mistake and she wishes she had died in the fire instead of her father like her mom is literally dragging her around by her hair

-they don't even believe or listen to her and they reveal a shocking truth: before Hanola died, her last wish was for KOKO TO SUFFER TO DEATH in a real specific way

-in a lot of these stories, when a werewolf doesn't have a pack, they turn rogue, it changes their scent and everything, and it can make them go completely feral. Something something "our wolves belong in packs and we lose ourselves without them". Hanola's dying wish was literally for her sister to be cast out and turned rogue so she would literally slowly suffer insanity and die

-she's in the woods, as an outcast, and they're literally following her around making sure she doesn't reach another pack, they literally beat her and chase her off when she tries to get help from other people

-she gets away somehow, I don't remember how, I think the moon goddess literally teleports her to where her new mate is supposed to be and she winds up in a town where everyone immediately treats her like garbage just because of her eyes

-cue meeting her mate, the beta of the pack she's in, and he instantly rejects her as well because he instantly recognizes her as "koko magnus, the black eyed curse girl who killed her father"

-finally, she gets a new mate, Alpha Nile, who's last mate Erika unfortunately killed herself because she couldn't conceive an heir and the entire pack shunned her and treated her like absolute trash including Niles' mother who deliberately started rumors about her and eventually caused her suicide

-Nile uh, ok his full name is literally Nile Heaven and he actually met Koko as a child and didn't tell her his name, he only called himself "Alpha from Heaven" and comforted her when she was crying and said she wasn't ugly or cursed, just unique, and she would find someone someday (and it turned out to be him lol)

-but like literally everyone continues to call her a black eyed curse and she eventually has to win their respect but like she gets kidnapped by someone who's pining after Niles and is horrifically tortured and beaten and all of that and by the way Koko realizes just before the kidnapping, before she can tell Nile, that she's pregnant

-Koko was one of those "my wolf appeared super late or was originally super weak but I'm actually supernaturally powerful" and tbh I can't remember much of the plot from here but, it gets a happy ending, Nile's mother is forced to accept she was wrong and regret her actions after both Nile and his sister shun her and remove her form her position as Queen Mother and she even helps rescue Koko

-as one final kick in the teeth, this is one of those stories where the POV doesn't just go from ML to FL, it also bounces to side characters, and guess who we get to see again? Koko's BITCH MOM

-bitch mom deadass admits in her head she still hates Koko and thinks she's useless, but maybe the little doormat can be of use to her now that she's the mate of Alpha King Nile

-honestly it was deadass so infuriating, Koko apparently never went into extreme detail on how her mom participated in all of her abuse so like, guess what. Bitch mom shows up, "oh koko my lovely daughter I've missed you so much" and Koko is just like "who the fuck is this? Guards, take her away" and. Fucking. Nile and his fucking sister are just like "OH GOODNESS this ISNT YOU KOKO 🥺 you told US to accept OUR mom, you can't turn her away, she's YOUR MOTHER" like deadass I think have broken up with Nile over this. He straight up invites her mom to stay with them in the castle and the dumb bitch gets the highest quality amenities and treated super special

-deadass I don't even remember what happened to her mom, but I'm pretty sure I remember she did some dirty sketchy shit and died

And yeah the story ends with Koko and Nile having a newborn baby girl who they name Aurora and they live happily ever after and like, it was a well written story, just like. So many fucking chapters man, and when you have to pay to unlock, it really does add up

OH YEAH ONE MORE CURVEBALL. I made a post recently something like "I was deadass 80 chapters into this story and they suddenly swerve and give her a new love interest, this is 120 chapters, this is so late in the game"

Well guess why that bullshit was

"Hey you know this guy you rejected because he was being lowkey abusive as fuck and literally marked you by force and Alpha ordered you to not be able to leave his pack, basically robbing of free will, and also during this time he was "having trouble deciding" between you and an ex girlfriend who he caught cheating on him and he was just keeping you waiting in the wings and left you hanging for ages? yeah turns out YOURE JUST A SUPER SPECIAL WOLF WITH TWO MATES UWU now you can be SHARED by your new mate who is literally a vampire king who instantly treated you better and with more respect than the last fuckbag who bssicaply instantly agreed to treat your child with another man as his own child and make them the heir to his throne, and youre gonna BE SHARED with the old dickbag you literally rejected already but lucky you the rejection doesn't even count because HE doesn't accept it! Yaaay, no actual free will, yaaaay, you're literally with your new boyfriend who you love passionately and you're still feeling the mate bond with this the last bastard you literally ran away from, yaaaaay!"

Deadass, they let you get over ONE HUNDRED FUCKING CHAPTERS IN AND DROP THAT SHIT ON YOU. "Oh you thought she was gonna have a healthy relationship with the new guy? NAH FUCK YOU, BRING THE GUY IN HERE WHO MARKED HER BY FORCE" like. How fucking dare you make me pay money for this. Oh and also? She was also horrifically abused by her family but her sister finally comes around and defends her and apologizes for everything and her sister is MURDERED by the protags first mate who chose her sister over her because he decides "oh nah I actually the FL the whole time, I'm gonna make you miscarry and kill you"

The sister actually got brought back to life by the moon goddess too, MG was deadass "yooooo i am actually SO SORRY GIRL, i told you if you repented you could potentially have a better life and i even showed you possible visions of the future being happy with your mate but i couldnt predict how evil that mf who killed you was, im reviving you and sending you your sister's way for protection as an apology" and i kinda wanna just listen to a few more chapters just so she can find out her sister is alive again but other than that, like, fuck you with this "shared mate" bullshit one of them is legitimately awful

Also it was really sad when Sophie (the sister) miscarried because she was diagnosed with SEVERE endometriosis which my mom has actually, doctors told her I technically shouldn't have been able to be born, I was like her miracle baby, so it like. Legitimately ripped my heart out because he literally kicks her stomach and leaves her for dead in the woods after telling her he'll kill her if she tells anyone and then he killed her by poisoning her anyways (and the bitch who did it? The ex that the FLs second mate was going to leave her for because the ex was lying about him being the father of her baby when it was the man she cheated on him withs"

Oh and I just remembered. Even though Sophie miscarried and then was killed later on, Moon Goddes was like, you know what, this is on me, I'll fix this, and when she revives Sophie, she gives her her baby back 🥺 honestly probably the best MG I've encountered because most times she's just like "it is simply fate my child uwu" like fuck you, at least this MG admits she fucked up big time and immediately made up for it

So. yeah as you can see, tons of fucking drama over here in werewolf world, and I also have a new story on a new app where I think the FL is literally going to end with basically THE GOD OF SHIFTERS? get your fucking bag girl, hop on that shadow beast dick 👏

[achilleanfemme]

A Prayer at the Start of Advent

Heavenly Sovereign, 

Mother of Peace,

My heart aches and my heart yearns on this first day of Advent 2022.

Aching and yearning are two tremendously Adventen emotions. At the time of Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph, Palestinian Jews living under brutal Roman occupation, yearned for safety as they prepared to bring the Son of God into the world. Mary and Joseph ached because they knew that the time and place that they were bringing their new child into was not one of harmony, but one of violence and suffering. Yet they fled and fought, and with God’s help, baby Jesus was born. A new star in the midnight sky, a new dawn coming forth from an evil age setting on the horizon. The story of Christ’s coming is a story of hope in the face of immense grief.

Just one week after the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, it feels like we have entered into a new battlefield with the MAGA Right in the USA, and trans and queer lives are on the frontlines. 

I am afraid, Dear God. 

How is one expected to carry the weight of the fear of never feeling safe in public? How does one march onward when it feels like the future is narrowing and your existence is not a part of that future? How does one put on the armor of light in the midst of such immense darkness? I want to know, Beloved Creator. 

Please give me a sign. 

Jesus, King of Glory everlasting, please give me the gift of wisdom in the days ahead. I sense the vipers slithering just out of sight, gathering strength. I hear the past talking through me in my day-to-day interactions with people and I don’t like what it is saying:

“Give up. Retreat. Hide. Run. Lash out. Don’t trust. Don’t love.” 

If these words can cut like knives then please help me beat these blades into plowshares. Free me from the ghouls that haunt my innermost thoughts. Aid me in moving towards your pearly gates of love and liberation.

God of Mercy, I know that salvation is nearer now than it was when I became a believer. Grant me the courage to truly see the manger, to see the palm branches, to see the cross, and to see the empty tomb as symbols of what they are: a promise of ultimate mercy and unending love. I want to see Christ’s example of forgiveness and make it my own. Help me to let go of old wounds. Help me to want the best for the people that I despise the most for if they are living a prosperous, joyful life then that means that I am probably much better off too. I cannot see the path to this destination God, ask your Holy Spirit to light it for me. I do not want to hold on to hate, for if I did, I know the weight would break me. 

Lead me on, Father, lead me on.

It’s easy to see the growing darkness of the days in Advent as a sign of Death and Darkness. Help me to instead hear dusk as a call to rest, to renew. Just as you made the Sabbath, Lord, let this Advent be for me, a season of slowness, gentleness, and love. 

Help me also to keep awake, for Christmas is coming, and I can hear murmurings of the Chorus of Heavenly Hosts in the distance, singing, “Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Wager of Love, has come and He will never leave again. Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Amen

[knightofhylia]

Adamkvi: Peace and Joy on the Planet Earth

I am honouring Adamard 'Puka'. His tag is adamkvi.

History and Name:

He came to me as part of a Full metal Alchemist OC. Adamard is a combination of 'Adam' and 'Edward', since he started as an Edward export I wanted to keep the name. It is pronounced "ah-DAHM'-ard" His middle name, Llolineu is a mystery. I don't really know where it came from. It has been spelled also as Llolineau. I always pronounced it 'Lah-lahl-eh-new' but I think it is closer to "Tholl-eh-noh". Considering that Puka is from the UK, I wouldn't be surprised if the double L is supposed to be like the Welsh letter that we see often in Llewlleyn. It's pronounced more like a 'th' with the tongue behind the teeth as opposed to on the teeth with an L. Another interesting synchronicity with his name is that he is mostly known as Puka. I used to refer to Puka, his wife, and their partners as 'the goblins' because they were mostly all short fae creatures with a tendency for trouble. I learned later that púca is the old English word for goblin! interesting huh? His last name is Tracey, but I don't think that had any specific origin, I think I just picked that from a list.

Role:

in 2020,when I was working with my deities I asked them all what their 'role' was by pulling 3 Tarot cards (This is when my Zelda deck was all I had). His as follows:

The Hanged Man Surrender, release, waiting, sacrifice The World Change, luck, taking action, inevitable change King of Swords Intellect, objective, assertive

When I first pulled these cards I assumed everyone was 'a deity' but as I've gotten to know them all, Puka is more of a saint/prophet than a deity. He is godspoused to the spirit of the Life and is very close to a Yeshua/Jesus figure: an embodiment of a god on earth whose focus is to spread kindness, love, and justice.

Lore and Description:

Adamard has been both human and machine multiple times. He was drowned as a child by bullies and was made into an android. Later, he was changed back into a human .He is intersex and albino. He was a part of many experiments which lead to his clone, Cain, and his son, Beauramard. He was groomed by an Anglican offshoot cult to be their saviour, however, he was later disregarded after the birth of his child did not change the world as prophesized. He later married D'sukinz, the actual prophesized saviour, and raised their children together. His patron deity is Niseag and D'sukinz. He is the son in law of Hemy, and brother in law to Kaleitti and Junalahqi.

Appearance:

He is albino with pale skin, white hair, one blue and one pink eye. I never remember which is which tho. In his teenage years he was forced on hormones to 'fix him' so he presented more feminine. as he got older he presents more masculine/androgynous. His favourite colour is blue. He has scar on his neck and a scar/tattoo on his forehead.

UPG story:

Puka was actually a name given to him by a longtime friend of mine. I collect BJD dolls and have two of him. One day my friend commented saying he looked like a 'pukabear' and when I asked what the was they said 'I dunno but it's him!' I rarely use Adam or Adamard with him,I mostly call him Puka lol.

I mostly experience puka in my head so I don't have very many upg stories I guess. Sometimes when I get thrown into a laughing fit my husband calls it 'my puka laugh' lol. There is a still al to for me to learn about him! I also haven't worked directly with him in a long time.

Correspondences:

Animals - rabbits, hares, albino animals, Astrology - Virgo, Venus, Gemini, the Moon Beverage - Tea Color - Blue, Pink, White

Crystals: Rose Quartz, Pearl, Aura Quartz, Coral Emotions - Peace, Love, belonging

Epithets: The Auspistice, Peace Keeper, Flower - Rose, baby's breath, elfdock Fruit - Apples, Strawberries, Herbs - Damiana, Motherwort, Carrots Keywords - Love, Harmony, Rebirth Kvi - September Meme -

Metal - Iron, Aluminum Musical Expression - electro swing, indie folk, vapourwave

Number - 50, 38 Playlist - Lüzers Mythical Animal - Unicorn, Mermaid, Jackalope Physical Expression - Sex, Stimming, being flirty Sense - Touch Symbol -

[fullmetalanglican]

A religious Christmas

I am a single and a solitary person. I don't have a lot of living family, and I'm not close to those who remain: a niece, her son my great-nephew, a stepdaughter I'm estranged from after divorce and then the death of her father, my ex-husband, from cancer. I live alone with my cockatiel Sunny for company (and I had a lonely year between the death of my longtime bird friend Rembrandt and Sunny's coming home with me a year ago).

I don't say this to arouse pity, just to give you a picture of where I am. It has been a decade since my Christmas involved family dinners, gift exchanges, or children of any age. It's also been nearly that long since my Christmas involved any Christianity.

As a devotee of Antinous, I used to observe Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival that contributed some of its customs (lights, evergreens, gift-giving) to Christmas celebrations. Saturnalia is a topsy-turvy time that harks back to the golden age when Saturn and his wife Ops were the chief deities, before the decline into strife and war, hierarchy and oppression, when the gods' gifts of grain and produce were sufficient for human happiness. For a few days servants become masters, children rule over parents--and then it's over, back to the old grind.

Then Saturnalia kind of faded out, for me. It's been a couple of years since I really celebrated anything at the winter solstice. This year, however, I have actually observed Advent and am ready to welcome Christmas as not just a holiday but a holy day.

Advent is four weeks of anticipation, looking forward to the Second Coming, back to the birth of Jesus, and inward to the presence of Christ coming to be with us. In the early Middle Ages, some places observed a six-week Advent, from around St. Martin's day on 11 November--about the same stretch of time as between Samhain and Yule in the neopagan Wheel of the Year. This year I set up my Advent wreath and lit its candles every night during Evening Prayer; I'm going to try to get a picture of it this evening, the last night for this year, with all four candles lit.

Tomorrow morning at church we'll observe the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Then, in the afternoon, the noble Altar Guild and their helpers will change the hangings, set out extra candles, distribute greens and poinsettias everywhere, set up the creche and a Christmas tree, in time for the first Christmas Eve service at six p.m. (This happens whenever Advent IV lands on December 24th.) Later, the choir will sing a carol prelude and then Midnight Mass starting at ten-thirty.

I have spent many Christmas Eves attending and also singing at Midnight Mass. I used to be a member of the choir at my church, under my then-husband's direction, first as a volunteer, then as a paid performer. I would get the occasional solo on Christmas Eve, and almost invariably catch a cold and fuck up my voice when I did. I still tell myself, every year, "I don't have a Christmas solo, so I'm not going to get sick!"

I'm not going to Midnight Mass; I just don't think I have the spoons for it. Maybe next year... maybe not. But there's a Low Mass, no singing, at ten a.m. on Christmas Day, and I plan to be there, wearing a silly Christmas sweater. I bravely bought myself a proper ham to cook (wish me luck), and I have plenty of seasonal music to listen to. What is important this year is not whether I got any presents (I did get gifts from a couple of friends) or whether I partake of group jollity (did that at work), but the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, the story of the Creator of everything joining the world of their creations and living their life so that we created beings can join their world and live the divine with them. And that makes for a pretty good Christmas.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and good wishes for all celebrations at this time of year.

[writeles]

Choosing to continue...

“Wala namang mali sa’yo Les” “May flaws ka man pero ang tamang tao tatangapin yun” Lahat naman tayo di perfect but in God’s perfect time, makikita mo din yung para sa’yo” “Swerte ang lalaki na magiging jowa mo” “OO weird ka nga but that made you unique diba?”

Ito ang usually naririnig ko sa mga kaibigan ko. Feeling ko naman di nila ako ineechos pero at the same time, pakiramdadm ko sinasabi lang nila yun kasi kaibigan ko sila. I know, there’s something wrong with me. Alam ko naman flaws ko. Weird and complicated personality ko. I am very reserved with people I am not comfortable with. But with people close to me or I’m comfortable with, maingay ako to the point na pag emotional ako, I can be too loud that my friends and family always need to remind me to lower down my voice. I have a very bad temper. Ewan ang dali ko mairita sa mga bagay bagay. Medyo burara din ako and I hate doing chores pero marunong naman ako ng basic chores in all fairness to me. Medyo rude din ako especially with people I’m annoyed with. I have bold mindset na minsan di masakyan ng pangkaraniwang tao (I think). And I can be very intense at times. 

But at the end of the day, gusto ko pa din paniwalaan yung sinabi ng isa kong friend - May lalaki na darating sa buhay ko na kaya tanggapin lahat sakin. Kaya i-tolerate lahat ng kabaliwan at tantrums ko. Kaya mahalin ang kabuuan ko. Honestly, nawawalan na ako ng pag asa na darating pa siya. I always choose to believe na in God’s perfect time, I will meet him. Pero mas madami ng araw ngayon na parang pinipili ko nang wag maniwala. 

I never had a boyfriend since birth. I am 31 and I felt so left behind. Di ako takot tumandang mag isa pero takot akong mamatay na di man lang maka experience how it is to be loved by a man. I am grateful that God, my family and friends love me. My relationship with them is not perfect but I know they love me and God knows I love Him and my loved ones. Ngunit may sulok sa puso ko na naghahangad maalagaan at mahalin ng isang taong pipiliin kong mahalin. 

I admit, during my younger years, I was very picky. Until now actually hehe. Pakiramdam ko kasi madalas baka di na naman ako kaya panindigan. Kaya I build this very high and hard wall sa puso ko na walang matapang na nakatibag. I’ve experienced di mapanindigan in the past kaya masyado ako ingat sa puso ko na napasobra. It sucks when a person made you feel you are amazingly wonderful tapos di ka pala niya ganun kagusto. I’d like to think that I am a tough person pero sobrang hirap para sakin maka move on when I am betrayed. Kahit sa family and friends ko, masyadong masakit mapaasa na yung laki at lalim ng pagmamahal mo sa kanila, ganoon din nila ibabalik sa’yo. I’ve learned that you should never expect complete reciprocity in love but it just hurts every time.

I just want a man that I can connect with. That we share same mindset and perspective in life. A man that is willing and want to see my soul....

And I choose to continue believing that God will one day unfold the love story He wrote for me and him. I just remember, Jesus is the lover of my soul and it comforts me. Writing everything inside my chest right now made me realize that I have Jesus. The One who loved me first. 

[nepenthean-sleep]

I am going to tell a story of the time when I was in twelfth grade at a very conservative evangelical Christian private school in the Deep South, right after Trump won the 2016 election. I had Econ & Government that year, and one day in class we had a debate on abortion. Out of fourteen students, I was the only one to support abortion. I told my classmates a story, the same story that my mother had told me, about her friend, who I will call Linda.

Linda was 39 years old in 2001. She had a loving husband and a two-year-old daughter. Linda and her husband decided to have another baby. This was very exciting, and they were so happy to welcome this new child into the world. This pregnancy was important to them, because it was likely the last time Linda would have a successful pregnancy considering her age.

When Linda was in her first trimester, she noticed a strange lesion on her skin. She went to her doctor, her doctor took a sample, and the sample went to the lab for biopsy. Linda had advanced melanoma. Melanoma, on its own, is bad—it's the most serious type of skin cancer. But Linda was also pregnant, and when a pregnant person has melanoma, the cancer has a higher risk of metastasizing, particularly to the placenta (1: PubMed article on melanoma in pregnancy, 2017). This posed an enormous threat to Linda's life, as well as the life of the baby. Her doctor told her that in Linda's specific case, there was no way that the baby would survive.

Linda, being faced with a horrible situation, decided to have an abortion so that her two-year-old child would not be motherless. Losing that pregnancy was extremely difficult for Linda, but she was grateful that she was alive and could care for her daughter. Later, after chemotherapy and treatment, Linda was declared cancer-free. She was actually able to become pregnant again at 43, and she gave birth to a healthy child. Safe abortion access made that possible. Safe abortion access made her entire current family situation possible, instead of a tragedy.

I told this story to my classmates, and two of them said, to my face, that Linda should have just kept the pregnancy and died. That it was "God's will" for this to have happened. My teacher, who was a young woman with three children, said that cancer was one of the "punishments" we must face as denizens of a "fallen world corrupted by sin". Notably, none of my other classmates disputed any of this. They remained silent. Nobody else in my class dissented with what these other two classmates said.

To my classmates, Linda deserved to die, even though there was no way for her baby to survive. It was just the "price paid for suffering in a fallen world." I won't get in to how this doesn't even make sense theologically, since they believed Jesus had absolved everyone of sin already, but with nearly all aspects of Evangelicalism and conservative Christianity, it doesn't matter if things don't make sense theologically if the things in question are politically and ideologically pleasing to them.

These are the people we are up against. You cannot reason with them, because they refuse to understand. They cannot empathize with others, because they believe suffering is deserved and doled out to the deserving. To them, illness and poverty and pain is the result of living in a Godless world, and they say you just have to accept that and pray harder. I know these people. I knew them personally! I ate with them. I played sports with them. I studied with them. I prayed with them. I know these people! And these people will not be persuaded. They are unequivocally convinced they are 100% morally correct in all things. Placating, passive liberalism does not work to stop them. They will not listen and they do not care. They are here to enforce their beliefs on us all, and they will not stop until "every knee will bow and every tongue swear allegiance to [the Christian] God" in the exact precise way that they believe their white supremacist, cisheterosexual, patriarchial Christianity should be practiced.

I am warning you that today's overturning of Roe v. Wade is not the end. It is the beginning of this entire process, and it is happening quicker than you think.

[sillyfoxlady]

Ghosts of a Stolen Life

I was born from a cycle of violence. My mother nearly died giving birth to me. My father never showed up. My first failure.

My mother married a different man when I was 1. He became my dad. He was harsh but funny. He had a child with her. A perfect angel of a baby. Meanwhile, I was already losing favor.

They were violent and neurotic. But when you're young you don't know better. I played in a trash pit. Isolated from anyone other than family. Each day was peppered with humiliations. I accepted it, unable to do anything else. Don't think - obey.

They taught me awful things like racism and perversion. They prepped me to kill men should they try to attack - never try to disarm them, end them. They taught me to fear institutions and men alike. I became a ugly person, parroting every awful thing I'd ever heard and seen.

My teachers were cruel. Making me cry in a trash can. They'd scream at us or make us take out complaints to a tree outside. Trouble at school was another failure. I did well enough academically, but horrible interpersonally.

My parents started getting abusive. Beating us, gaslighting me, and torturing me. Telling me to eat my puke, laughing at the contents of my diary, forcing me to spend hours alone in my room on a regular basis. I tried to kill myself at 10 years old. I didn't have rope to hang myself and strung together a fish tank cord to my bunk bed. Too young to execute properly.

I was contemplating escaping into the desert, to die in the desert or at home by my dad's hand? Which was worse? My mother would smack me and choke me. He would scream and break things. They fought constantly. But it was all smiles and niceties when there were other people around.

Through their guilt, they returned to the church and insisted we children convert. They forced us to disavow anything other than christ, it was not safe to do otherwise. It made them stranger but less violent. I was convinced my father would nuclear murder my family so we could meet Jesus.

They forced me to cover for them. To pretend that everything was okay. To stop trying to get help - stop making them look bad. I developed an eating disorder, binging and purging. I started cutting myself in secret places.

In a small town you have few options, and even less when everyone can see that something is wrong with you. I had no money or grades for college. No compelling art to take me away from this hellscape. The only thing I knew how to do was obey and survive.

I joined the military, it was awful but doable. I served in Afghanistan and was complicit in the murders of men I'll never know. From behind a screen, I counted corpses and watched the families come to claim the bodies. I got worse, turning on everyone around me. I was pulled out of military for mental instability and deemed disabled. Another humiliating failure.

I started drinking heavily. A bottle of vodka or two daily. I got hooked on drugs, meth specifically. Spinning and burning the clear elixir. I was in and out of psych wards. I spiraled, down, down, and further still downward. I even got arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, although I was never charged. I lost my teeth. I wear dentures at 30.

I got clean and started fresh. Moving several times with my three cats. With many false starts and relapses. But I managed over time. I cried for years, drowning in my misery. I started taking medication, and it all became bearable incrementally. A slow unwinding of mental blocks and stunted development.

I found love by surprise and even got married - he's funny and hardworking. I'm a mother now to two kids. I got my spirituality back, even if it's in a different form now. I'm still not okay, not completely. But my story is slowly getting brighter and brighter.

I wonder at my purpose. Or what my life is meant to be. Am I simply a failure or trash or a cog in the cycle of violence? Or can I be more? I hope so, even now.

There's tension now, bleeding into every crevice. My parents want to forget and move on. But I can't. It's remnants are branded into my being. Everything I will never be, every possibility stolen from me haunts me. A version of myself never to come to light through no fault of my own. I grieve for my potential self. Who I should've and could've been.

Every time I find myself getting sucked back into the catacombs of my childhood, a tiny hand or a tender voice reminds me of the love I've managed to find and create.

I laugh every day. I smile and play with my children. I adore my husband and his family. I'm no longer trapped and abused and unwanted. I am me, finally.

[yhwhrulz]

Today's Daily Encounter Friday, February 2, 2024

God is Faithful to His Promises

"Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him."1

Twenty-five long, drawn-out years. More than three hundred months. Thirteen hundred weeks of waiting. Nine thousand one hundred and twenty-five days of a long process before the promise. This is the time that the father of faith, Abraham, and his wife Sarah had to wait before God's promise was fulfilled in their lives.

This is the gap between Genesis 12:4, the time of the announcement, and today's passage, the time of fulfillment.

We have the privilege of being able to read Abraham's story in one sitting. He and Sarah had to live by faith day after day, waking up for nine thousand mornings, training themselves to trust! The couple kept this promise, waiting for God's word to be fulfilled, while waiting with outstretched hands and Sarah's barren womb.

Abraham is known for several qualities: the father of many nations, the father of faith, and the one who was blessed to be a blessing.

Abraham was a man in the process of waiting. As each decade progressed at a faster rate, he looked at Sarah's strands of silver hair and weakened body, kept waiting, and refused to waver in waiting.

Reading history with speculative eyes, we might be tempted to ask God, "Why didn't He bring Isaac sooner?" Why did God take so long to fulfill His promise? Twenty-five years of waiting cannot be anything good for one's own well-being.

However, God's plan for Abraham, like His plan for us, is often an invitation to wait in the right way, God's way. Before circumstances change, there is often a change first in our hearts.

Maybe you're waiting for a promise to be fulfilled and wishing for your situation to change. Many of us walk with the womb of hope, eager to give birth to life. Perhaps your prayer practice was once a window through which you could peer out and expectantly observe what the Lord would do, but, while you wait, it has become a wall.

Even if your perspective seems bleak, even if the heavens seem blocked and closed, you can decide to show Jesus your face, even if you feel that he hides his.

Today, look back and acknowledge God's faithfulness in the past. Fix your eyes on the cross and allow God to reveal Himself in your present as you walk forward in faith, one step at a time!

Suggested Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, when I go through deserts, times of waiting, and drought, I confess that I feel barren and empty of blessings. However, I know that I am blessed in abundance, and I ask you with all my heart to show me how to renew my perspective in times of waiting, and remember all the promises you have made to my life, so that your beautiful presence will help me restore my trust in you. I pray in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

Genesis 21:1-3 (NVI).

Today's Encounter was written by: Rosina N.

NOTE: If you would like to accept God's forgiveness for all your sins and His invitation for a full pardon Click on: http://www.actsweb.org/invitation.php. Or if you would like to re-commit your life to Jesus Christ, please click on http://www.actsweb.org/decision.php to note this.

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[andnowanowl]

Since "Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation" is suspiciously not available in the US in the form of an e-book, I purchased a physical copy and wanted to share it here for anyone else also unable to get access.

GHASSAN ANDONI

Physics professor, 58

Born in Beit Sabour, West Bank

Interviewed in Beit Sabour, West Bank

Despite his slight frame, Ghasssan Andoni has a strong presence, and commands attention whenever he speaks. Ghassan is a physics professor and activist. He lives in the community of Beit Sahour, which is nestled in the hills just east of Bethlehem and one of the few mostly Christian communities in Palestine. In total, Christians make up around 2 percent of the total population of the West Bank. Legend has it that the residents of Beit Sabour are descended from the shepherds who visited Jesus on the night of his birth; Sahouris jokingly claim that it was their notorious talent for gossip that spread the story of Jesus so widely. We visit Ghassan often during the spring and summer of 2014 at the modest but cheerful apartment where he lives with his wife and twenty-four-year-old son. The family has decorated the apartment in purple and white, and Ghassan has used his metalworking skills to build a small elevator to take groceries from the first floor to the third.

Ghassan's life has taken him from a refugee camp in Jordan, to universities in Iraq and England, to a war in Lebanon. Even when home in Beit Sahour, he has been extremely active. He played a key role in the community's campaign of civil disobedience during the First Intifada, and be helped found the International Solidarity Movement, an organization that brought thousands of international volunteers to Palestine during the Second Intifada. His activism led to his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. These days be lives a relatively quiet life. commuting to and from Birzeit University where he teaches. Still, he has no doubts be will become active again when the time is right.

DO I BELONG HERE OR DO I BELONG THERE?

My family has been in Beit Sahour for many generations, as far back as we know. I was born here in 1956. I have two sisters and three brothers, and I'm the oldest male. I grew up in the home that my father built in the early 1950s. He was a teacher then. My mother worked in the home. When I was a child, if I looked out at the hills from my home, there was nothing there except trees and fields. I grew up in a fairly closed community. It's a society where if you run into someone in the street, that person is probably a cousin or an aunt or uncle. On the one hand, this made me feel very safe growing up. But on the other hand, I've always spent a lot of my time here on social obligations. Every week there are weddings, baptisms, and graduations. Since my family is connected to thousands of others here, we're expected to be there when others are celebrating or when they're sad. All of these gatherings can be exhausting.

In 1962, at the age of six, I left Beit Sahour. My father got a job as an accountant in Amman, Jordan, and so he bought a house there and we all went to live with him. In Amman, the paradox was that my family had ahome that was on the border between a middle-class neighborhood and the very poor Al-Hussein refugee camp.² So my home was at the border of two ways of life, and I was always wondering, Do I belong here or do I belong there?

At that time, conditions in the refugee camp were very bad. The houses were made of thin iron sheets with asbestos covering the outsides. There was sewage in the street, which was really just a narrow dirt path. Many of my friends were from the camp, so I spent real time in those slums. Of course, my family wasn't comfortable with that. In Beit Sahour, I can't remember having a fight with anyone. But in Jordan, I had to be ready every time I walked to the shop. I'd always meet a couple of people who wanted to bother me. I didn't like beating people up, but I also fought when I had to. I learned that it was not the size, it was not the muscles, it was the daring heart that won. I learned not to think of the consequences, just jump into a fight. Every time I came home, I had a new scar somewhere.

Three or four of our neighbors were Christian families. That's why my father bought our home where he did. But my father was very secular, so he didn't put me in a private Christian school. I was the only Christian kid in the government schools that I went to. The schools were not obliged to provide me with a Christian religion teacher, but I had the right to go out and play during religion class. But it's boring to play by yourself. So I asked to sit and listen in religion class.

I wanted to know more, so I started to read and memorize the Quran. Our religion teacher wanted to justify his own ideas by taking a verse from the Quran and throwing it in our faces. I started arguing with him and quoting my own memorized verses. He got annoyed and asked me to just go outside to play. I was much younger than others in my class, because I was accepted into second grade in Jordan at the age of six. I did well in school, but in fourth grade I was still a little kid, and there were people sitting beside me who were fourteen years old because they had failed classes. One of them, a Bedouin,³ was actually married. He was fifteen years old I think. I had to learn to stand up for myself.

I spent my summer vacations in Beit Sahour. In the camps, it was a struggle all the time, but in Beit Sahour, I felt safe and comfortable. I had lots of fun with cousins. It was like a respite for many years.

In 1967 when I was eleven, I traveled to Beit Sahour to visit my grandmother and aunt. It was an easy trip then, because there were no checkpoints at the time. My father could just put me on a bus. One day during my visit that year, I walked down the street to buy some coffee for my aunt. While I was walking back, the Israelis started shelling the village it was the start of the Six-Day War.⁴ There were no buildings where I was walking, so I had to jump into a field and cover myself until it was safe to move. I was probably crying. I remember maybe twelve or fifteen bombs exploding nearby. When I got back to my relatives' house, I learned that one of my neighbors had been killed.

I saw the soldiers coming into Beit Sahour with their weapons. Everybody was scared. Some people were saying the Israelis would kill us, we should leave, and others were saying we should stay. But it was over in a week. I still remember an injured bird that had been trapped in my relatives' house after the bombing ended. I caught it and cared for it while I was waiting to go home. After a couple of weeks, the Red Cross arranged a bus ride for me and others back to Jordan. I tried to take the bird with me back home. I held it in my hands on the trip back, but it died on the way.

A CIVIL WAR IS SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULDN'T LIVE THROUGH

Struggle was the norm when I was young. I never lived a peaceful life. But the problem is, I started liking it. It started thrilling me. It was like someone throwing you into the sea and you have to find your way to the shore and you have to struggle hard, hard, hard. When I returned to Jordan, I continued hanging out with my friends in the refugee camp for the next few years. Things in the camp were changing, starting in 1970. When I was around fourteen, I started seeing weapons in the streets of the camp, and I started seeing banners of liberation organizations. I was seeing the birth of the Palestinian revolution. The environment changed dramatically. I saw people smiling, talking. I saw a sense of pride. When the guns appeared, everybody found himself. Suddenly, the kids stopped fighting each other. We started mostly playing with toy guns. Slowly the phenomenon spread all over, and I started seeing people with real guns and wearing the traditional keffiyeh.⁵

I started learning. I took every opportunity to go to the various offices of different organizations and just sit and listen to people talking about refugees and the origins of the camps. Then the friction started between the PLO and the King's Army.⁶ The line was drawn with Jordanians and Palestinians against each other, and Palestinians started getting fired from their jobs, including my father. Then we had gunfire in the streets, gunfire and bombs every single day. I went to school in the morning and then when the fighting started, the school would discharge us and we students would make our way back home, sometimes hiding and sometimes crawling to avoid fire.

Soon, there was destruction everywhere. It seemed like every single home in the neighborhood was hit by bombs and gunfire. It was even worse in the camps. One bomb would destroy four of those shacks. Our home got hit by shells as well, five or six times. It had holes in it, but it didn't fall down. But we lost our water tanks, and then we had to hunt for water, and that was risky. I think it was the Iraqi army that eventually started bringing water tanks on trucks. But they brought the water to a place very far from our home. We had to take a container, go to the distribution site, get the water, and then make our way home.

In the final days of September 1970, we suffered a severe bombardment. We were hiding in the basement and the ceiling started coming down on us. So we had to run and seek shelter in our neighbors' cellar. The cellar was actually a small rocky cave and protected, so there were about ten or twelve families from the neighborhood stuck in that place. It was summertime, so it was hot, and it was dark. We spent two nights there. Nobody slept. When the Jordanian army came, we were all in that cellar. A civil war is something that you shouldn't live through. I mean a war, okay, but a civil war, I don't think anyone should experience it.

After the PLO was defeated and the Jordanian army reoccupied Amman, all the men were asked to gather in a certain square. All of us were taken, everyone from the age of thirteen until the age of eighty. I was still fourteen, and that was my first experience of detention. They took us to a desert detention center in Jordan. I stayed there for fourteen days. It was ugly—really, really ugly—the way they treated us. We were rarely fed. I saw so many scenes of beatings and torture. I remember the guards examined our shoulders for marks that might be left from carrying a rifle.Anyone with a mark was taken, and we didn't see him again. After fourteen days they just started releasing us gradually, starting with elderly people and then very young people, and then I was released together with my father and we went back to our home.

When I came home, I cried. Everything that we owned in Jordan was destroyed. Our home was almost totally destroyed and our car was destroyed. We were a shattered family, and we thought we didn't have a future in Jordan. It reminded me of 1967. It was my second experience of being invaded and having someone take over.

A group from the Beit Sahour municipality managed to come to Jordan and give some assistance to the Beit Sahour families that had been living in Amman. My uncle was part of that assistance group. Seeing my uncle and getting some help was the first nice thing that had happened in a long time. My father asked him to try to get us a permit to go and visit Beit Sahour. And he did. It was probably three months after our detention that we came back to Beit Sahour. We were very lucky, because my family had property in Beit Sahour registered in our name, so we were able to get residency IDs to live in the West Bank. Otherwise we might have spent our lives in Jordan.

"IT'S LIKE A TINY TERRORIST"

I came back to Beit Sahour in 1970, when I was in the tenth grade. Beit Sahour as a community hadn't changed much since the occupation began in 1967. In fact, the occupation worked to strengthen the community. When you live under rules that don't represent you, you keep your traditions as a safeguard. If you have a problem, you solve it internally instead of going to court, because you don't trust the authorities. So, in a way, occupation actually strengthened some of the tribal aspects of our society—not just in Beit Sahour, but all of Palestine.

My father bought a knitting machine to manufacture clothes in our house. My parents would travel to Tel Aviv to sell the clothes they assembled. After some time, my dad opened a clothing shop. I think it was tiring for him and my mother. They didn't have any weekends, because they were always in Tel Aviv buying fabric or selling clothes. Meanwhile, I registered for school in the village. That was a period when I was studying, but I was also politically active. I started inciting demonstrations against the occupation with a few others, going to gatherings, and talking politics. And the violence inside me from spending so much time in the refugee camp was still there, so I caused trouble in school. The teachers liked me because I was smart and got good grades, but at the same time they were very annoyed by the way I treated them. My friends and I played a lot of tricks on our teachers to make fun of them. A few times I locked the headmaster in his office so that he wouldn't disrupt our demonstrations.

In 1972, my tawjihi exam year, I was arrested.⁷ The Israelis crashed their way into my home just after midnight and asked for me. My mother opened my room, and they looked at me. I was tiny. I was sixteen at that time, but I looked like I was fourteen, so the arresting officers didn't believe they had the right guy. One of them said, "What's that? It's like a tiny terrorist."

So I was taken and interrogated, and I spent four months in prison. I was the little kid there, and it was hard. I was a minor and I was put in jail with adults. The interrogators would beat me until I fainted. But in jail my world became much bigger. I met people from different places, from villages, from refugee camps, from cities, people with different accents, people with different cultures. Everybody took care of me. I was the little Christian. I liked the other prisoners very much, and I left prison feeling that I needed to do something for them.

When I was released, the tawjihi exam was in a month's time, and I had studied nothing. So I decided to do it the next year. But then one of my relatives sort of challenged me. He said, "You can't do it, you're not ready." I hated anybody telling me I couldn't do something, so I took the exam right away, and I earned higher marks than my classmates.

YOU DON'T SHUT UP IN TIMES OF WAR

After I passed my high school exams, I went to Baghdad to study physics. It was the most challenging topic in school, and I like challenges. Also, I learned about religions early in my life, but they never gave me answers. I started looking more to science as the way to understand what was around me. Iraq when I lived there was paradise. I lived the best times of my life there. Then in 1976, a couple of years after I started college, I volunteered to go to Lebanon during the civil war.⁸ I was twenty years old. I'd been raised as a committed nationalist, and I believed at the time that I needed to liberate Palestine through guns. I believed that I shouldn't stay silent about what was going on in Lebanon, the refugee camps, and the massacres. So I volunteered to go. I went with my best friends who I had met in Baghdad. My family didn't know. I actually wrote several letters and gave them to somebody to send—one every two weeks—saying that I was getting some training in one of the factories in Iraq and that was why I couldn't come back to visit that year. If my mother knew I was in Lebanon, she would have had a heart attack, so I thought, Why put her in that situation?

We were part of a unit and we got some weapons training because otherwise we would have probably died immediately. You have to understand the environment. The minute we stepped into Beirut, we were in a battlefield.⁹ If a Palestinian refugee camp was here, then a few meters over was a Phalangist Christian neighborhood.¹⁰ There was no place you could be where you were not part of the war. My group was supposed to protect Palestinian refugee camps if they were attacked and help the civilians cope by providing some medical aid and food. Sometimes we would go out and look for snipers. There was no clear long-term plan, but we had something to do. Every minute there was shooting, or someone every minute injured, or people trapped somewhere who needed to be evacuated.

One of the most tragic things that I faced was when Maronite militias managed to overrun a refugee camp called Tel Al-Zaatar.¹¹ Many of the men in the camp were killed. We met the women and children coming out of there after being under siege for eighty days. They were starving. They looked like ghosts. That scene shocked me. So after seeing those refugees, my friends took me to Al-Hamra Street, which was where all the nightclubs were. It was neutral territory. You could sit there and the one you had been fighting in the morning was sitting next to you with a drink.

I never killed someone as far as I know. I never saw someone, pointed a gun at him, and shot him. When there were enemies, what we would do is to engage in heavy shooting to prevent them from shooting In the fighting, my friends and I were pretty much useless. We weren't trained enough to protect anybody. But I think we compensated for that by helping people. I cannot stay silent when my flesh and blood is being attacked and killed. Otherwise I will not have peace inside knowing that happened and I did nothing.

After spending three months in Lebanon, I started thinking, What the hell are we doing here? It was obvious to me that in Lebanon, nobody could achieve any kind of victory. So why fight? I saw a few of my closest friends lose their lives. I was ready to die, but it was extremely hard to witness the death of my friends.

Also, my image of the ideal freedom fighter that I had developed in prison started to have cracks in it.

Being a soldier is a specific lifestyle. You have a gun, you fight, you kill and sometimes get killed, and you get a salary at the end of the month. As a soldier, you just do your job, but people like me who volunteered would sometimes ask a hell of a lot of questions. It seems as though people often think, In times of war, everybody should shut up. But no, in times of war, everybody should speak. That's what I believe. You shut up in times of peace, but you don't shut up in times of war. After three months, I decided that I wanted to continue my studies. I didn't want to be commanded by people who didn't accept questions and didn't answer them. So I went back to Baghdad.

By 1977, I was twenty-one years old and done with my bachelor's degree. I didn't want to stay in Baghdad or Lebanon. I was very committed to the Palestinian cause. I knew that the only places I could be effective in the Palestinian resistance was in the occupied territories or in Jordan, and so I decided to go back, even though I knew I could be arrested by the Israelis or the Jordanians because of my time in Lebanon.

We knew that because there were so many Jordanian students at our university- some of whom probably worked for the Jordanian secret service that the authorities knew about our trip to Lebanon. I was always back to the West Bank, and this time I suspected it would be worse. They took my passport at the airport in Amman and summoned me to interrogation. I lied, and I don't feel proud of that, but it was necessary. I almost got away with it, but then one of my friends came into Jordan earlier than expected and the intelligence connected our stories. The officer said, "I'm not going to arrest you. I'll give you one night of sleep and then tomorrow you come to my office, beg me to listen to your story, and tell me everything you know, and maybe I'll allow you to go home to Beit Sahour. Otherwise, I might arrest you." When he let me go, I just took off. With help from one of my uncles, I was able to bribe an officer at the bridge over the Jordan River and cross into the West Bank the next day.

WHEN IS THIS GOING TO STOP?

Ten days after I arrived in Beit Sahour, in the summer of 1977, I was arrested. Israeli soldiers came to my home at midnight and I was taken to Al-Muskubiya in Jerusalem.¹² I spent three months under interrogation. At nights, I would be taken to the old stables the police used as cells and there would be questioning with beatings. They had some information about the Lebanon trip, but they weren't sure about it. They asked about names that it wasn't possible for them to invent, two names in particular of individuals who had come to Lebanon with me but weren't part of my group of friends. But they didn't have enough information to know that I was in Lebanon. They were guessing. After the initial questioning, I spent at least forty-five days in solitary confinement, then they released me without asking me another question. I don't know why. It was eithera mistake and they forgot about me, or it was a punishment or some kind of revenge. I'm still puzzled about this.

I came back to Beit Sahour, but I had trouble settling in. I spent a couple of years trying to figure out what to do next. Then I was arrested again at age twenty-four. At this point, nobody in my family knew I had been to Lebanon—that was my secret.

I was taken back to Al-Muskubiya. Instead of taking me to one of the cells, I was taken to the yard. My hand was cuffed to a water pipe that was so high I couldn't sit. I had to be standing all the time, and they put a sack over my head. I was left there for five consecutive days and nights, standing, no sleep at all and without anybody talking to me. The pain in my legs was bad because all the blood sort of settled down there, and I got disoriented after five days and nights without sleeping. Every now and then I would collapse from exhaustion and I'd be dangling from my wrists. After that I was taken immediately to the interrogation office. I was afraid. Every now and then they'd strike me in the head without warning, so I was tense all the time. I remember the only thing in my mind was, When is this going to stop?

In the interrogation center they wasted no time. The interrogator told me about the confession of the man who had been with me in Lebanon. He said, "Listen, I don't need your confession." At that time, Israel had issued what was called the Tamir Law. Tamir Law was an amendment to the laws of the military court laws that allowed the judge to sentence people based on the confessions of other people, not the accused. If the judge was convinced that the informant was telling the truth, then he didn't need the confession of the accused. The interrogator told me, "Listen, you are going to court whether you confess or not. We have enough evidence to send you to jail for a long period of time. It's up to you to decide."

So I told them about my involvement. I said I'd volunteered to do humanitarian work in the refugee camps in Lebanon, and that, after spending three months there, I decided to go back and continue my studies. The interrogator said, "We know that you did more, but we'll accept your confession." And I signed my confession and it was sent to court. I was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of probation. After the sentencing, my family knew that I had been in Lebanon. My mother told me that she had sensed there had been something wrong and she never believed the letters that I sent, but she was happy that I was safe and that she saw me in front of her and not in a grave.

TOTAL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

After I was released from prison around 1980, I got a job teaching at the Lutheran school in Beit Sahour.¹³ It was around that time that I met a woman named Selwa-she was studying at Bethlehem University then.¹⁴ We got to like each other. She was one of the prettiest girls in Beit Sahour. Before too long, Selwa and I got married.

Then in 1983, I managed to get a scholarship from the British Consulate and went to do my master's degree in physics at the University of Reading in England.¹⁶ I didn't like Reading. It's a very conservative town and there was a big drinking culture. I also don't like British tea. I got used to Iraqi tea where you get the tea and boil it until it's black like tar and then you pour some of the tea in a cup with some water and ten spoons of sugar. I got addicted to it, and so British tea seemed tasteless. But I completed my master's degree. My wife didn't come with me, but she visited two times.When I finished my master's, I returned to the West Bank. Then I

talked to a university in Amsterdam, and they invited me there to pursue my Ph.D. and do research with them. But when I applied to leave, I was refused. The Amsterdam university communicated directly with the foreign ministry in Israel and were sent a letter that said without any reservations, "If Mr. Andoni leaves the country, he will be a threat to the security of the state of Israel." So I was forced to stay. I was living an ordinary, frustrated life. Something inside me was boiling.

Not long after that, in 1987, the First Intifada erupted.¹⁶ Suddenly the environment changed. A few months before the Intifada, people in Beit Sahour had been busy going to parties and shopping. Suddenly, everybody was talking about occupation and politics. Everybody became a committed nationalist and a lover of Palestine. Yesterday, they were shopping in Tal Piyot and the day before they were in Eilat giving money to Israel.¹⁷ Now these same people were in the streets in the thousands. I had seen small demonstrations that started and ended, but I hadn't seen a whole nation standing on its toes as they were in 1987. I was inspired.

And then it really began-demonstrations, marches, occasional clashes with soldiers and settlers. Soldiers came and abused people. We started organizing, and I started to have meetings with my friends and community leaders. I didn't want the common way of doing things where somebody throws a stone and the soldiers come and attack them. To my understanding, we were trying to convince the Israelis that occupation was not sustainable. In the back of our minds, some of us thought—and I was one of them. I knew that we needed to move carefully towards total civil disobedience. I can't claim that I had done any reading on this. I knew about Gandhi and the civil rights movement in the United States, but I had never studied them in-depth. But it was obvious to me that with thousands of people, the approach could be powerful. There was almost a consensus in Beit Sahour that in order to ensure community involvement in the Intifada, we had to inject some democracy. And from that came the idea to let each neighborhood elect its own committee. And then out of those committees we would have a central committee that would have authority in town during this period. The elections were like the traditional Greek election. There were no ballots or boxes. It was out in the open. Each neighborhood gathered and agreed on the people to represent them. Then those committees decided on a group of four or five people to become the central committee. I was one of the members of the central committee. Since we didn't have courts, this committee had the power to determine law.

The business owners of Beit Sahour decided to stop paying their taxes to Israel. People were very enthusiastic about the tax strike. Almost everyone in town participated. The military government started confiscating people's cars as a way to pressure them to pay their taxes. Or they would confiscate everything in someone's shop or home.

One of the leaders of the strike, Elias Rishmawi lost around $100,000 worth of goods, and at that time $100,000 dollars was like $1 million today. But nobody gave into the pressure. Probably because Elias lost so much, others felt ashamed if they complained about losing $5,000. He set an example. It was during this time that the people of Beit Sahour gathered in front of the municipal building and threw out their identity cards. Our message was, we don't recognize Israeli authority, and if this ID represents their authority over us, then we don't want it.

The tax revolt led to a curfew for all of Beit Sahour. So schools wereclosed, universities were closed, kindergartens were closed, and we started realizing that this would go on for a long time. It wasn't going to be two or three weeks. So we established what we called underground schools. With little effort, different neighborhoods started organizing teachers and students and then opening schools in homes, apartments, any empty place, and students started going there. We realized that what our community was doing had to be reported so that it could spread to other communities. And that's why we started investing real effort in attracting the attention of media, people interested in the region, visiting groups, and fact-finding and human rights organizations. And this I can claim I played a major role in because I knew English, and I was a good communicator. We started an organization called the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between Peoples, a group designed to start a dialogue between Palestinians and people of other nationalities. International media started paying attention to our cause.

Perhaps as a consequence, the military started cracking down on our town. Beit Sahour was placed under a siege and nothing was allowed in or out. So then came the idea of victory gardens, just like in World War II. Suddenly each neighborhood had a garden. Beit Sahour was under siege, but everybody in town was sitting on balconies and having barbecues. That drove the soldiers crazy. And then came the idea of the cows.

EIGHTEEN WANTED COWS

I want to warn you that I've told this story so many times that probably each time something gets added in order to make it more funny. It's a community story, because everybody's added a bit to it. But the bulk of the story is true.

It goes like this. One of the hardships we faced during the First Intifada was a lack of milk. Most milk in the region was produced in Israel, and we were boycotting Israeli products. Some of the leaders of the Beit Sahour resistance decided to start a ranch, get cows, milk them, and provide milk to the community for free. In order to make it more symbolic, we wanted the milk to be distributed at three in the morning at the doorsteps of each family, and the bottle would be distributed by a young person masked with a keffiyeh. That was the concept. But we needed cows. Where would we find the cows? The only cows around were in an Israeli kibbutz.¹⁸ So we needed to buy cows from the kibbutz and bring them to Beit Sahour. Finally, a group of people who had some money volunteered to pay for eighteen cows. The group went together and bought the cows, loaded them in trucks, and brought them to Beit Sahour around midnight.

Now, the people who bought the cows were doctors, engineers, business people, university professors—not dairy farmers, okay? So the trucks arrive in Beit Sahour and someone says, "Guys, let's get the cows out of the trucks." But the cows didn't want to get out of the trucks. One clever man came up with the idea of making a loud noise to scare them. Unfortunately, the plan worked too well. The cows jumped out of the trucks and ran away into the hills. Imagine teachers, scholars, doctors, and business people in suits running after cows at midnight in the mountains. The story goes that one teacher—a small man—chased a cow and nearly cornered it before the cow turned around and started chasing him! So it was all chaos until neighbors were awakened by the noise and came out. They were Bedouin farmers and they knew about livestock, so they managed to control the cows and get them into pasture.

A few days after the cows arrived near Beit Sahour, the military governor of the region and a big force of soldiers came to town. Each cow from the kibbutz had a number branded on it to identify the cow. A soldier photographed each cow, a personal portrait with its face and number, like wanted criminals. The military governor said the cows were a security threat to the state of Israel, and if they were still there in twenty-four hours, he would arrest everyone. You would have to ask him why he was so upset. There was nothing we had done that was illegal. I think what bothered him was purely our defiance. Anyway we figured, Let's stick to our plan and see what he does. The military general didn't take the cows, but he arrested a few people for punishment and threatened the villagers who were providing water for the animals. So the pressure was mounting, and finally we decided to evacuate the place. There was a hidden cave that would be suitable for the eighteen cows, and we decided to move them there.

It happened that the owner of the land that the cave was on was a butcher, and if those cows were discovered, he would say that he'd bought them for slaughter. There was nothing illegal about this, so that was a good cover. And we kept up with our milk deliveries.

The military governor couldn't let go of the problem of the cows. He knew he was being disobeyed, and he wanted badly to know where the cows were. So he laid siege to the town, and he started a search from home to home, from hill to hill, from cave to cave in the entire area of Beit Sahour, searching for the cows. Even helicopters filled the air above the hills, trying to see if there was any strange movement. In town, soldiers walked around with photos of each cow, stopping people in the street and asking them, "Have you seen this cow?" The people they stopped would joke, "Well, the face is familiar. I'm not sure. The nose I remember was a little smaller."

The search continued for a couple of days. Finally the soldiers arrived at the butcher's place, but the cave was well hidden so you couldn't discover it easily. They looked carefully and found nothing and were about to leave when one of the cows made a noise. So the soldier who heard the noise went back to the cave, looked here and there-nothing. Then hefound another cave and stuck his flashlight into it and here were the eighteen wanted terrorist cows sitting there. So he started shouting “Eureka, eureka!" When the military governor arrived, he asked the butcher, if he had enough money to buy eighteen cows, why didn't he pay his taxes? At that time, the tax revolt was still in process. The law allowed the military to arrest anybody for forty-eight hours who didn't pay taxes. Then he had to be released, but they could arrest him again. So he started this procedure against the butcher. Forty-eight hours, released for a day, forty-eight hours, released for a day.

So we moved the cows to farms in Beit Sahour and in nearby villages. The cows were distributed at different homes, two in each place. That was less threatening than a single mob of cows, and the governor was finally satisfied that he should stop there.

But three or four years later I was summoned to the headquarters of the regional Israeli civil administration. When I arrived, a man stood to greet me. It was the military governor. He had done well with the cows, so he was promoted very quickly. I didn't know why I was summoned, but after he finished speaking about all sorts of things, he said, “Ghassan, I want to ask you a question. Where are the cows now?" I couldn't help but laugh. He was obsessed with the cows even years later.

WE MIGHT BE ANNOYING, BUT WE'RE GOOD-HEARTED PEOPLE

During the first two years of the First Intifada I was in and out of jail. I started getting arrested more and more under administrative detention,¹⁹ I was beaten frequently. I could figure out immediately that they didn't I have enough information to be able to squeeze me. So I didn't lie, butI didn't volunteer information. They would detain me for eighteen-day stretches, which was the legal limit at the time before receiving a military charge. Then two days later they would come and arrest me for eighteen days, and then release me.

Finally, the military governor's assistant wrote me a summons for "day arrest." I had to sit at the civil administration building from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, and was then released after the Beit Sahour curfew. I had to find my way back to my home from Bethlehem, so if any soldier saw me walking the streets, I might have been shot. It continued like that for about ten days. All of my brothers were jailed at some point, too. In total, I have been to jail nine times, around four years all together. I think the Israelis targeted me because I was very successful in bringing attention to the Intifada. In fact, at that time, Israel was upset about the focus on Beit Sahour, because any small activity in Beit Sahour was like a big explosion outside. We managed to do the tax resistance and to convey the image of the Boston Tea Party, and it was covered in the New York Times. We also managed to get a United Nations Security Council resolution proposed that called Israel to stop the siege on our town and return all the goods taken in tax seizures. We forced the Americans to use the veto against the proposal. So that was really probably one of the main reasons that I was targeted with those harsh imprisonment measures-they wanted to disrupt this work because it was really annoying to them.

Still, I managed to build relations with the Israeli society, so Beit Sahour became somewhat protected. We had a lower number of casualties because the army couldn't enter Beit Sahour without seeing many foreign and Israeli journalists and activists. I started establishing relations with Israeli peace groups, which have wide connections outside. Then I started working with Palestinians living in the United States and England. When the media focused on me, more people became interested in communicating with me. Suddenly, everybody who wanted to come to Palestine either on a fact-finding mission or in a delegation wanted to meet me. So I began to develop a huge network.

I LOOKED AROUND AND SAW GUNMEN, MILITIAS, TANKS, AND SUICIDE BOMBERS

I was very busy in the years after the First Intifada. My wife and I had a son in 1990. I felt thrilled, happy, and more responsible. I also started working as a physics professor at Birzeit University.²¹ And I was trying to carry forward with the sort of resistance we had established in Beit Sahour in the Intifada. I helped to start international outreach organizations such as the Alternative Tourism Group as well as a Palestinian economic development organization. My days were very long. I used to leave home at three in the morning to have time to answer e-mails for activist organizations I was involved in, and then go teach all day, then more activist work, and I wouldn't come home until midnight. By the late nineties, I was depressed all the time. Nothing much was changing, and I thought we as Palestinians were going in the wrong direction. And my activism was making it hard to spend as much time in my community as I wanted. Then the Second Intifada erupted in 2000, and it was different than the first. Everybody was shooting each other, and I had to reconsider how the principles we put in place in the First Intifada would apply to this new one, which was more violent, I looked around and saw gunmen, militias, tanks, and suicide bombers. What the hell could we do in such an environment? But then I thought, Why not try something? I had to find a way to engage. The hardest part of any conflict is when you feel trapped between two powers, waiting to be the victim. In 1970 in Jordan I was in the middle of a conflict, but I was young, so I couldn't engage. SoSo I didn't want to repeat that experience again. So during the Second Intifada I started working with other Palestinian, Israeli, and American activists. We invited people to join what we called at that time International Solidarity Campaigns.²¹ It was an experiment.

We started with a very big action that attracted attention to us-we took over an Israeli military camp in Beit Sahour that had been bombarding Palestinian homes. We gathered around a hundred people—Palestinians, some Italians, some Israeli anti-Zionist groups, a German delegation, and a few Canadians, and we marched into the camp. The soldiers were taken by surprise, especially since they saw some Israelis with us. They didn't know what to do. They moved to the back of the camp in order to get away from us. And then a Canadian removed the Israeli flag and put up a Palestinian flag, and we declared the place liberated. After three hours, we left. There was a huge reaction to our demonstration, and we started receiving more requests for people to join in similar protests.

We decided to expand and do a campaign every two weeks. We would remove roadblocks, conduct lie-ins in front of Israeli tanks, and other things like that. We were practicing non-violent protest even in the middle of great violence. I started working with an activist named Neta Golan, and then a month later, Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro came and wanted to join forces and we started planning for a big campaign. Then someone suggested calling it the International Solidarity Movement, and we thought, Why not? Every day I received forty or fifty applications from people who wanted to join. ISM raised no money—everyone paid their own expenses. We started screening people and doing trainings. I think we managed to get around 7,000 internationals to come and take part in the Palestinian struggle. Amazingly, people who were coming were university professors, lawyers, all different ages, not just young people and activists. During the First Intifada, I was jailed a lot. But, during the Second Intifada, I didn't go to jail. I benefitted a lot from the relations I established inside Israel, which provided some protection. There was an attempt within Israel to outlaw the ISM and arrest us all, but I met with members from the Labor Party in Israel and convinced them that the ISM might be annoying, but we were good-hearted people. But even if I was less vulnerable to arrest, we were all exposed to terrible violence. The army tolerated us until about 2003. That year, maybe twenty ISM volunteers reported to us that they'd been subjected to live ammunition fired very close to them. There came a point when it seemed like the soldiers started hunting us and trying to freak us out. And then Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall were killed. Brian Avery was shot in the face, but he survived.²²

The work with ISM was very tough. At different points, we were all, including myself, at risk of dying. I was away from my family all the time it was a round-the-clock job. There were lots of problems between the activists I had to solve, and I felt responsible for those who died. I trained Rachel Corrie here in Beit Sahour. The hardest part of my life was when I met Rachel's family, her mother and father. They came and had lunch at my home. They are great people and they started assuring me that I did nothing wrong. I faced a hard time with Tom Hurndall's parents at the beginning, but then we became very close friends. His mother is now the development director of Friends of Birzeit University, and she wrote a very powerful book called My Son Tom.

I'm proud of the work I've done with ISM and other organizations, but around 2005 or 2006 I suddenly felt that I should stop working with foreigners and Israelis and I should make the journey back to my own community. I'd been focused on reaching out to the world and traveling a lot since 1987. I was emotionally drained. So in 2006, I told the other co-founders of ISM that I was still with them, but I could no longer do administrative work. I went back to university life and became closer to my students and community. And that's what my life has been for the last ten years. When the time comes, I'll find my way to engage.

When we talk to Ghassan in July 2014, he is skeptical about the possibility of an emergent Third Intifada. He tells us, "I don't see an Intifada happening now. You smell the Intifada, you smell the emotions of people. I don't smell those emotions now. To have an Intifada, either you have glimpses of hope, or you are desperate enough to want to die. The First Intifada, hope moved us. The Second Intifada, desperation moved us."

---

Footnotes

¹ Beit Sahour is a city of around 15,000 located just east of Bethlehem. It's population is approximately 80 percent Christian.

² The Jabal Al-Hussein camp is located northwest of Amman. It was originally established in 1948 for 8,000 refugees. Today it houses nearly 30,000.

³ From the glossary -

Bedouin: An ethnic group with historical ties to the Arabian Peninsula. The Bedouin were traditionally nomadic, desert-dwelling, tribal peoples who speak Arabic. (Blogger's Note: Not sure why this is in past tense, some Bedouin are still nomadic.) Today, approximately 40,000 Bedouin live in Palestine, many in Area C of the West Bank.

⁴ From the glossary -

Six-Day War: A conflict in 1967 between Israel and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. At the time, Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan. Following heightened tensions, border skirmishes erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian guerillas who launched assaults on Israeli military positions from Jordan. After Egypt built near its border with Israel, Israel launched an air-assault in June, destroying Egypt's air force. The conflict drew in other neighboring states and led to a land-war victory for Israel over six days of fighting. After the fighting ended, Israel occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights.

⁵ The keffiyeh is a head scarf traditionally worn by Arabs. In the late 1960s, it was adopted as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

⁶ The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan took control of the West Bank following 1948, and it also hosted over 400,000 refugees from the 1948 war. By 1970, approximately 60 percent of the population of the greater Jordanian-controlled territory was Palestinian. In 1970, tensions between the Kingdom of Jordan and representatives of the Palestinian people such as the PLO led to civil war.

⁷ An exit exam for high school.

⁸ The Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975 between a number of factions, but especially the PLO and Palestinian refugee militias, Lebanese Muslim militias, and leftist militias on one side and Maronite Christians (with the support of both Israel and Syria) on the other side. The war was partly precipitated by the arrival of the PLO among the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in southern Lebanon in 1975. Attempts to drive out the PLO led to massacres in Palestinian refugee camps.

⁹ Beirut is the capital of Lebanon and was the site of the most intense fighting during the Lebanese Civil War. Today, it is a city of 361,000.

¹⁰ The Lebanese Phalanges Party is a political party that grew out of a Christian paramilitary force formed in 1936 (a youth brigade inspired by fascist youth brigades in Europe at the time). The Phalangists were a major force in the Lebanese Civil War.

¹¹ Tel-Al Zaatar was a UNRWA camp in northeast Beirut with around 50,000 Palestinian refugees. Maronite Christian militias sieged and destroyed the camp in August 1976.

¹² Al-Muskubiya (the Russian Compound") is a large compound in Jerusalem that now houses a major interrogation center and lockup, as well as courthouses and other Israeli government buildings.

¹³ The Evangelical Lutheran School of Beit Sahour was established as a co-educational primary school in 1901.

¹⁴ Bethlehem University is a Catholic co-educational school founded in 1973.

¹⁵ Reading University is located in Reading in southern England. It serves over 20,000 students.

¹⁶ The First Intifada was an uprising throughout the West Bank and Gaza against Israeli military occupation. It began in December 1987 and lasted until 1993. Intifada in Arabic means "to shake off."

¹⁷ Tal Piyot is a shopping center in Jerusalem. Eilat is a city of 50,000 at the southern tip of Israel. Eilat is an important harbor town on the Red Sea and also a popular resort and travel destination.

¹⁸ A kibbutz is a collectively run farm.

¹⁹ From the glossary -

administrative detention: A legal procedure under which detainees are held without charges or trial. Some forms of administrative detention are legal under international law during times of war and while peace agreements are negotiated between opposing factions. Many of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are held by the United States in administrative detention indefinitely, and the procedure has also been employed in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican Army and in South Africa during the apartheid era. Administrative detention was employed by the British against Jewish insurgents during the British Mandate of Palestine, and the Israeli military adopted the practice at the formation of Israel. In 2014, Israel has held as many as 300 Palestinians in administrative detention. Though each term of detention is limited to a set number of days (usually a single day to as many as six months), detention can be renewed in court, meaning detainees can be held indefinitely without trial or charges. Though article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention grants occupying powers the right to detain persons in occupied territories for security reasons, it stipulates that this procedure should only be used for "imperative security reasons" and not as punishment. During the Second Intifada, Israel arrested tens of thousands of males between the ages of fourteen and forty-five without charges.

²⁰ Birzeit University is a renowned public university located just outside Ramallah. It hosts approximately 8,500 undergraduates.

²¹ The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded by Ghassan Andoni and other Palestinian, Israeli, and American activists in 2001. The organization calls on citizens from around the world to engage in nonviolent protests against the military occupation of Palestine.

²² Rachel Corrie was an American ISM volunteer who was killed by the Israeli military in Rafah in 2003. She was crushed to death by a bulldozer while trying to defend a Palestinian man's home from demolition. Tom Hurndall was a British photography student who was shot by an Israeli sniper in Rafah in 2003 (after a nine month coma he died in 2004). Brian Avery was an ISM volunteer who was reportedly shot by Israeli soldiers while walking with friends in the West Bank city of Jenin.

[project1939]

(A snowman comes to life in Ford Television Theatre, top, a machine that records every sound in history on Tales of Tomorrow, bottom left, and Grandpa explains why the world has gone to pot because not everyone is a real Christian like he is, from This is the Life, bottom right.)

Day 90- TV and Radio: 

TV: 

This is the Life, “The Greatest Gift,” late December, 1952. 

The Ford Television Theatre, season 1, episode 13, “Heart of Gold,” December 26th, 1952. 

Tales of Tomorrow, season 2, episode 13, “The Bitter Storm,” December 26th, 1952. 

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, season 1, episode 13, “Late Christmas Gift,” December 26th, 1952. 

Radio: 

This is Your FBI, episode 404, “The Sunshine Syndicate,” December 26th, 1952. 

Space Patrol, “Last Voyage of the Lonesome Lena,” December 27th, 1952. 

Bergen and McCarthy, “Rosemary Clooney at Camp Pendleton,” December 28th, 1952. 

The Chase, “No Contact,” December 28th, 1952. 

This is the Life was a religious show made by Lutherans. I thought it might be interesting (and scary?) to watch a religious show from 1952. This was a Christmas episode, and at first I was actually somewhat impressed with it. It was mostly the birth story of Jesus, but it wasn’t told in a pompous or overly sanctimonious way. That is, until the end. Then the narrator/Grandpa decided to chastise us all for not focusing on Jesus enough over the holidays. He almost verbatim said, “If everyone else were as good of a Christian as me, the world would be a most wonderful place indeed!” Blech. 

The Ford Television Theatre was a Christmas special that was cute at times. It was also the kind of Christmas show the judgey Grandpa above would have hated. It was all about Santa and a snowman and the idea of letting children make-believe and be creative. Two kids built a snowman that came to life, and he taught them to embrace their imagination. The snowman looked a little creepy, but the actor who played him was the loveable Edmund Gwenn, who was Santa in Miracle on 34th Street! 

Tales of Tomorrow was so frustrating! It’s been one of my favorite shows of 1952, but it really jumped the shark here. A cynical untrusting man invents a machine that can pick up soundwaves from anything and anywhere, including the past. Well, it’s Christmas time, right? What does it mean when he and his family start hearing people speaking Aramaic in a crowd from about 2000 years ago? Yeah, I knew it was coming long before the cards were played, and it was just as horrible as I feared. 

I’ll quickly also say a word about The Chase. I listened to the final episode from 1952 today. It’s been one of my favorite shows, and I know I will listen to more episodes once this project ends. One of my favorite memories of the last 90 days was listening to the episode “Long Distance.” It was hands down the best episode of radio in the whole project- over 200 episodes! 

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