#and i didn't have a good answer lol

[guinevereslancelot]

i was sooo cringefail at my job interview 😵‍💫

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[onboardsorasora]

https://www.tumblr.com/overtake/746762194848563200/your-post-about-max-liking-daniels-ig-just-opened could u write something based on this?

I have had this ask for so long, sorry bestie- my brain was doing a thing at the time lol. lol thank you @secretdonderwolk for the unintentional prompt

His phone vibrated in his pocket, three times for three messages. He had an idea about who this was, he hoped it was his sister complaining about something. Or even Seb– even though he sat across from him at lunch. Seb could be annoying like that, but that was also because Daniel had been annoying like that first. 

Putting his phone on the table, he saw the screen light up with notification banners from Instagram. There was the broad one about how many thousand likes his post workout selfie had gotten. But then there was the secondary banners about replies and DMs. A familiar user name peaked up at him; 3_MaxV_3. 

Daniel rolled his eyes then flipped his phone on its screen. That kid, because he was a kid, with his scrawny body posing with a sideways cap in one picture, in a couch with dogs in another. But mostly in a race suit at a karting track. That kid had been messaging him for weeks now. He did the same thing repeatedly; Daniel posted a thirst trap photo (he looks damn good and it shows he’s working out) and then Max would be in the replies sending one thing the 💯emoji– three times of course. 

Daniel never responded to him after the first time, which was an accident, but the kid seemed to have taken that interaction as an open door to send Daniel reels of memes he already saw when he scrolled mindlessly through tiktok. He was surprised that a seventeen year old wasn’t on tiktok and was instead using instagram, but that also didn’t matter to Daniel. One less platform for this kid to find him on.

“Your new boyfriend again?” Seb teased with a snort.

“First of all, ew. He’s like still in diapers, mate.”

“I dunno why you let him annoy you so much. He’s harmless, still like in junior formula or whatever.”

“Don’t they call it like formula 3 now or something?”

“Who the fuck knows anymore. They change the names of this shit every year. Come I’m not allowing you make me be late for engineering.” Seb stood from his seat while Daniel cackled.

“I was one time!”

“One time is more than enough I think.”

— - —

Daniel pressed post on the thumbs up selfie. He’d gotten a podium today and wanted to commemorate after a long day. The first notification came quickly after. 💯💯💯 Daniel had become used to the routine by now, he already assumed that the kid had his post notifications on. It was weird but Daniel didn’t think too closely of it.

He did notice a difference this time. His username was different; maxverstappen_33. Daniel clicked into his profile, not something he did but there was a change in the routine and he was curious about why.

Lots of karting pictures met his eyes, pictures on podiums and in the garage. There were a lot more sponsor logos than before and Daniel couldn’t say he wasn’t impressed. He himself knew how difficult it was to even get sponsors to talk to you in karting, much less to invest. 

While he was scrolling through the rest of the profile, careful not to double tap anything of course, another notification banner from maxverstappen_33 popped up. “You are so beautiful Daniel.”

And well… that was new. Normally he’d get a lion or capybara video by now. MaxV had taken to sending him videos of quokkas recently too. Daniel had never given him the impression that these videos were appreciated or cared for– though he had watched a couple of them– so he didn’t understand this step up to shooting his shot.

Daniel closed out of the profile and then the app. He needed to get some sleep.

— - —

They’d told him to record a video for some kid getting his super license soon. That was new, but maybe Seb had been the one welcome in the new drivers in the program. It was quick with well wishes for some kid named Max. 

Daniel had wondered initially if it was MaxV, or rather Max Verstappen. But Vicky had told him nothing more and MaxV was supposed to be going to formula 2 now anyways. No way Red Bull would be making such a stir over a kid.

When he got out of the sim he had a bitchload of notifications. Red Bull had tagged him in something and people were congratulating him. Ace. He went to his DMs to see a new message from Maxverstappen_33;

‘Thank you for the video. It was lovely Daniel.’

Well, shit.

— - —

It happened slower than he thought it would have. But quickly in the grand scheme of things. Daniel stepped out of his motorhome, zipping up his race suit and thanking the handler to his left for his hat. It was shoot day today with the whole team, including the boys from Torro Rosso.

Daniil slotted in beside him and Daniel dapped him up. This would be their second year as teammates and Daniel was excited for the year to come. 2016 felt like the year maybe, to take the championship fight to Mercedes. The car was quick in the sim and Adrian said the wind tunnel tests have been phenomenal. Daniel was ready.

What he wasn’t ready for, was the guy who stepped right in front of him. Blonde hair, electric blue eyes. Familiar as fuck face pulled into a smile. 

“Daniel! It is great to finally meet you after all this time.”

Daniel hadn’t ever considered meeting MaxV in person, the kid that’s been sending him 💯 emoji what felt like weekly for the last maybe two years. If you scrolled through their DM it was very one sided. But here he was, very caught out at the very real and very eager kid waiting for his reply. This would probably be the first time he ever did reply.

“Enchante, Max.” Daniel grinned and glanced over a Daniil when Max’s face flushed with a blush.

He didn’t think about it the rest of the day. Not when Max kept telling jokes and whipping his head around to see his reaction. Not when Max would hold Carlos’ hand and pulling him into close hugs only to turn and look to Daniel’s reaction.

Daniil was having a field day and he knew Seb was going to learn about this somehow.

He didn’t think about it. Because Max was a kid or whatever and it was weird.

Max sought him out fairly regularly after that, bolstered by being in the same company and paddock. Invigorated at the fact that Daniel responded to him every time.

— - —

Daniel heard the news but he hadn’t quite believed it. He knew RedBull did driver swaps, apparently ‘all the time’ but he didn’t think he ever saw it happen mid season like this. 

He walked into the garage to see the host of cameras and mics. The identical RB12 no longer sported Daniil’s number but now had a large 33 plastered over it. The garage was also sporting the new 3|33 decals. Daniel knew that marketing was having a field day.

He stepped off to the meeting rooms to wait for the crowd to clear, fiddling on his phone. He’d never admit it, not even under the pain of a slow as fuck pitstop, that he was interested to see what the hubbub was about. What could possibly be so good about Max that they would do such a public shaming of Daniil.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but he tweeted a bit and posted a new picture to instagram during the time. The notification banner popped up; maxverstappen_33☑️ 💯💯💯

Daniel grinned to himself, still surprised that Max had kept this up. Still apparently had his post notifications on. The door opened. 

“Daniel that picture was lovely.” Max sat in the seat across from him in the conference room. His RedBull polo was a little askew, and he was smiling widely.

Well, shit.

[booasaur]

The Dragon Prince - 3x08 || 4x08

[coquelicoq]

what i love about the Famous Actor Natori Shuuichi of it all is that...it's not just that he's famous and therefore widely recognizable wherever he goes. like yes that is very funny because he was an exorcist before he became a famous actor, which means he CHOSE, on purpose, a day job that would make it harder to hide his double life/secret identity from the hordes of his adoring public, but it's more than that. it's not just that he's famous, it's that he's famous specifically for being an ACTOR, aka a person whose job it is to dissimulate, to make believe, to inhabit roles and emotions other than his own. like he decided he was going to become as visible as possible (which again was literally not necessary! he could have gone into any other career for his day job!!) but in such a way that everyone would see him but no one would see him - they would just see his various made-up personas, including the Famous Actor Natori Shuuichi persona. i can't decide if he's a genius or if he just made so many absurd decisions that they canceled each other out and circled back around to working out. he's either playing 9-dimensional chess or he's eating the pieces. too soon to say.

[somegrumpynerd]

Started reading The Bad Wingmen by @topazshadowwolf and @paddie-ut and it utterly possessed me for a few days so I needed to draw some of my favourite bits

[sysig]

You’re new to the Princess-Rescuing business, aren’t you? (P1 | P2 | P3) (Patreon)

[majimasleftasscheek]

hi i got my ramen shop standee and the arcade machine keychain a while ago and they are AMAZING quality, they arrived just in time for a convention i cosplaued majima at and it was such a fun little addition to my bag. if you don't mind me asking what manufacturer do you use for all your stuff :0? they're super high quality compared to some manufacturers I've seen people recommend

I use vograce! it's not everyone's fav choice from what I gather from various other creators but my personal experiences so far (and I've ordered so much crap lol) is very good. they're a lil pricier than others too but I go to them cuz their products are good, they have a decent moq, and their customer service is very helpful/responsive

if you're interested in acrylic stuff, I would rec them. they have a ton of other products too that I haven't necessarily tried yet but they also offer sample services (sometimes free, sometimes a fee depending on what it is) so that's super helpful. and if you ask em, they'll provide proofs of items before they make em so you can check the art or whatnot (very helpful to make sure they don't make something backwards lol esp if there's text involved)

rn I'm having them test some buttons and I'll be going to them for my booby mousepads too cuz me and a friend collab'd to make some and they turned out very good

[gfwooyo]

what do you think of all the 911 negativity? i was so excited about this whole plot but the negativity is kinda bringing me down a little:c

i'm sorry its been getting to u :( i haven't gone into the tag and luckily i haven't seen that much on my dash but when i do honestly i just roll my eyes and keep scrolling bc it all seems so ridiculous. i like staying in my happy bubble and just screaming and throwing up with my best friend bc we could not be more on track for buddie <3

i'm glad ryan's getting to do some lighter stuff this season bc he's been wanting it and i'm thinking s8 he'll get heavier stuff again (hopefully reckoning with his childhood and catholic guilt and sexuality) and i really truly could not care less about the ppl who don't like his storyline rn bc i've been talking abt eddie having trauma from his catholic upbringing for YEARS so this is a massive win for me personally (as a fellow repressed queer latine raised catholic in texas). and marisol well. she's there. but the writers aren't investing any time in making us care about her so i'm not worried abt her sticking around and if all she serves as is a plot device for eddie to confront his religious trauma then i'll deal with having to see them together bc SOMETHING had to be the catalyst u know

tommy's a cool guy and he's sweet and buck likes him so i'm happy he's here while buck finds his sea legs but im not terribly attached and i still believe he's leading directly to canon buddie

and there's a lot of negativity at hypothetical scenarios that could hypothetically happen in the future too it's like. can y'all just unclench and have fun 😭 personally i find it more enjoyable to hope and possibly be let down than expecting terrible things constantly

u just gotta curate your space online, avoid the negative people, and surround yourself with other excited people bc it really is contagious 🫶

[melverie]

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh today I've been constantly experiencing the urge to un-private today-in-the-devildom & start writing for it again

[ofpd]

ok so im not sure that this is articulate for ppl who aren't calendarheads like me but the jewish and islamic calendars are both calendars in which a year is 12 lunar cycles, and the difference is that the jewish calendar has leap months whereas the islamic calendar does not. so every 2/3 years, the jewish calendar actually has 13 months, and so each time there's a leap month, the jewish and islamic months become out-of-sync by one month. the jewish leap months are timed so that the calendar is in accordance with the metonic cycle (the way that the lunar and solar cycles always align in the same way they did 19 years previously). which is to say, since the jewish calendar was standardized, there have been cycles of 19 years wherein there is a leap month during the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years (sidenote—you can find what year we are in the cycle by dividing the jewish year by 19 and taking the remainder. for example, this year is 5783, and 5783/19=304r7, so it's the 7th year in the cycle, and not a leap year). but last year was the 6th year in the cycle—it was a leap year. so, it shifted the jewish calendar wrt the islamic calendar, and it put the month nissan (the month in which passover is celebrated) in alignment with the month of ramadan. this year, ramadan and nissan will stay in alignment. and next year, the 8th year in the cycle, ramadan will be in alignment with the leap month itself, which is inserted before nissan. so, it'll take 12 more jewish leap years before nissan and ramadan co-occur (if you look closely, you'll notice that it takes 33 years for 12 jewish leap years to occur, and you might recognize 33 as the number of years it takes for the islamic calendar to fully cycle around the gregorian calendar. which, of course, is not a coincidence!). as you can see, most of the gaps between leap years are 3 years long, but at the current part of the cycle, it's 2 years long. ANYWAY all this is to say that if it were a 3-year gap rn we'd be able to reuse that he is risen/he is not/he is off-limits until sunset meme for 3 years instead of just 2. sad.

[saltpepperbeard]

Yuri on ice 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

WE WERE BORN TO MAKE HISTORRRRRRYYY

[dykefever]

wolfstar tumblr has started again to claim that we shouldn’t describe sirius as short and feminine because it’s “heteronormative”, that we shouldn’t describe remus as tall and masculine because it’s, you know, un-canon (a terf’s?). it feels like terfs are coming to the fandom and we are going back to the time back then when popular writers who turned out terfs were dominating the fandom. seems the fandom is adopting the old terfs’ claims again and even shamelessly applauding it. how are you bearing these days, laura. as for me as a trans person who hates jkr and her holy “canon”, it’s horrible. feel like everything the few good people (such as you) in the fandom had tried was vain. sorry for disturbing you.

well it's been about three or so months since i last made a post about this stuff so sounds about right that more terfy posts are coming out all surrounding height discourse. it's a cycle in the r/s fandom and im afraid these terfs and transphobes aren't coming to the fandom they've all probably been here a while because this fandom is rife with them due to the source material and general politics of the people that write the fic (liberals who are so totally for gender neutral bathrooms but transwomen make them obviously uncomfortable irl)

i've already talked a bit about how harmful and also dumb this line of thinking is re: short and fem s so i'll link this post on gender essentialism i made but i'll say again it's just so tedious how it's often the same people who don't seem to inspect where their assumptions are coming from. people stick terfs dni in their bio and perhaps disagree with the openly transphobic lawmakers but that doesn't mean their biases against trans people don't exist. transphobia is far more insidious than that!

like people seem to go: short s -> s is "whiny" and "annoying" -> he's feminine (whether he actually is or not) -> thus he's being written like he's a girl and that's bad because that's heteronormative

the media heuristic that exists that "whiny" and "weaker" men (ie. complaining, relying on their boyfriend/partner for things, idk being the fucking little spoon) are women-coded does not mean you shouldn't make any character whiny or annoying or whatever because then you are essentially making them a woman and that's Bad -- the response is to unpack the very idea that there are certain traits connected to men and women and when applied to people of the opposite or other genders somehow still has a connection to an innate gender of 'man' or 'woman'.

also, s characterisation is varied but not as prolifically dramatic and bad as people seem to say. they're latching on to the 'feminine short s characterisation' where he acts dramatic as if i have not ready many a fic where he is tall and stereotypical masculine with similar personality traits. however, these traits are viewed differently when packaged differently. the difference is s wearing a skirt or being perceived as feminine in a way that they do not view as aligned with their perception of how gender should operate.

whether intentionally transphobic or not, the shorthand people use in these discussion always ties in with this belief that there are innate gendered characterisitics that if acted out in certain relationships makes them heteronormative. i am afraid that's not how queer relationships work! they are still gay even if one of them is short and the other tall and one is fem and the other masc like? you can dislike certain relationship dynamics but that doesn't make them inherently problematic or homophobic or anything. i avoid plenty of r/s fic because it's not how i personally view them. i don't try and morally justify my dislike because i don't like how they wrote r i just click out. as for saying one thing is canon and another is not like idgaf whatever!! most of canon is quite horrible and problematic and of course we are all engaging with it to some degree but to use it to argue something as meaningless as height should be adhered to. well i'm scrolling away frankly.

idk people are always telling on themselves in these discussions and you can pretty much always track one degree of separation between them and a pretty outward terf. i block and unfollow a lot of people but at the end of the day i engage with far less content than i used to because it sucks seeing so much transphobic and often anti-queer discussion. it's exhausting and it's why so many trans people especially transfem people leave this fandom. people can slap anti-jkr in their bio as much as they want, a terf is still a fucking terf.

[aerodaltonimperial]

if anyone has any good reward systems (preferably ones that don't include buying things, because, sole breadwinner), i am forcing myself to finish a project that while i did not technically have a deadline on, was expected six months ago, and could use something to help motivate me. at this point i'm subsisting on guilt, spite, and this very misplaced belief that at some point working really hard is rewarded and acknowledged (lol! so naive) which is obviously not true and mostly i just really need to finish this so i can be done and it isn't hanging over my head any longer.

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

I've only ever seen 'you get to kill one person as a baby' alternative history polls, but I think there's a more interesting version so let's play 'change one event in history'! (Go for what you think would do the most good or what would be the most chaotic choice. It's a thought experiment we're not the morals police!)

Very brief (and grossly oversimplified!) explanations under the cut.

unfortunately my education has been very eurocentric and I'm pretty hopeless at the nuances of history pre-19th century; this is as diverse as i could make it (which is not very diverse at all). Please feel free to add in the tags!

1) This assassination set WW1 in motion (triggered/enabled the first declaration of war)

2) Emmanuel de Grouchy was a general in Napoléon's army. Before the Battle of Waterloo he'd been given the order to cut off the Prussian General Blücher, but Blücher had already got to the battlefield so de Grouchy went off on a pointless search with his 40-50k soldiers instead of joining the battle, which many consider a significant reason for Napoléon's defeat.

3) i.e., make trouble after Columbus leaves for America but before he arrives there.

4) Georg Elser attempted to set off a bomb during a Hitler speech at a beer hall. (There were other attempts on Hitler's life both before and after this, I just picked this one). The explosion failed to kill Hitler as he had moved his speech up half an hour and was gone by the time the bomb went off. It killed seven Nazis and a waitress. Elser was arrested, sent to a concentration camp and murdered days before its liberation at the end of the war. This has nothing to do with the question, I just hate that everyone only knows about the Stauffenberg one.

5) This position allowed Stalin to pick functionaries for key positions in the Soviet Union and thus pave his way to becoming Lenin's successor.

6) likely preventing the USA from creating a functional atomic bomb before the end of the war.

7) Günter Schabowski held the famous press conference which communicated the GDR's intention to allow East German citizens to cross into West Germany again without having to apply for government permission. Asked when this would come into effect, Schabowski replied, visibly uncertain, "to my knowledge, that is immediately. Right away". This led to crowds overwhelming the Berlin border crossings. The officers stationed there had received orders to mark the passports of all those crossing with a stamp that would barr them from re-entry into the GDR, but did not uphold this and instead simply opened the barrier as they feared violence would break out. This became the night the Berlin Wall fell.

8) The battle was a huge deal for German propaganda both at the time and later on and made especially Hindenburg a war hero, but I mostly picked it because I figure it'd be easiest to get them both at once during a battle. Both men were central to the decisions the German Empire made in WW1 (to such a degree that people have argued they effectively led the country) and both played a role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power: Ludendorff lent his credibility and fame to Hitler's Munich Beer Hall putsch in 1922, and Hindenburg went on to become the last president of Weimar Germany and appointed Hitler chancellor in 1933.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Hello! 🧡 I'm curious how you balance viewing scripture as infallible while also not taking parts of it (Genesis in particular, to reference your recent post) literally. I've heard some people say that Genesis is meant to be a poetic version of creation and therefore not entirely truthful: sort of like a kids' story, how some details could be fudged without losing The Point. I get why God wouldn't give us all the details, and it's not like this is necessarily a core doctrine issue, but I guess what I'm asking is if scripture is infallible, why would it give an incorrect account?

Hey Anna! I'd love to talk about this! It's one of my favorite issues in the world, actually, so please be prepared for a whole lot of passion from me 😆

So the bottom line, like I said in my previous post, is that I believe that all Scripture is true and infallible, but that it ought not be read literalistically. This is not the same as saying that some Scripture is less true by virtue of using poetic language, nor that I believe that details have been fudged. For me (and others who interpret Scripture as I do), it comes down to analysis of Biblical language, style, and genre.

So okay, let me start by defining my terms:

History = A text detailing true events that actually happened. These accounts may use symbolic, metaphorical, or otherwise figurative language in the service of conveying these events. A history is also not necessarily complete in its detail or exact in its chronology unless the text itself makes those claims (ie it's possible for histories to backtrack and tell events again from another point of view; this is pretty common actually.)

Biblical figurative language can take a variety of forms depending on the genre of the text we're discussing, however in general it is used to express truths that cannot be expressed in other ways. I'm gonna quote Lewis again here, as I think his discussion of Biblical symbolism in Mere Christianity is really great and relevant. This is from book three, chapter 10 (Hope):

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of "Heaven" ridiculous by saying they do not want "to spend eternity playing harps." The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity.

Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

Figurative language is used throughout the entire Bible. It's in discussions of heaven, like Jack illustrates here, but it's also frequently used in the Epistles ("I have been crucified with Christ") and, in the Gospels ("You must be born again.") It's heavily employed in the prophetic books, Psalms, and the wisdom literature (not even gonna pick an example, it's everywhere). It's used frequently throughout the Pentateuch (God "bore [the Israelites] up on eagle's wings"). It is used in Biblical histories ("[Samson's] soul was vexed to death"), though not to the extent that I believe it's used in Genesis 1-11. Sometimes the text telegraphs that figurative language is about to be used, but certainly not always.

None of these things are any less true than the things described in what we might call "plain" language. Rather, imagery is a tool that helps us understand the deeper truth of a thing; it "expresses the inexpressible" without causing us to doubt that the images are about something real. Sometimes, the language even tells us something that occured spiritually/from God's perspective, but which did not literally happen in the physical world (again, "I have been crucified with Christ.") I think it's clearly a mistake to conclude that the presence of figurative language means that the story is merely figurative or that it's incorrect.

So I read the Genesis 1-2 creation account as a largely figurative account of historical events, and I think it's written that way in order to convey God's perspective of creation. Certainly a human perspective on creation would be (a) theologically un-useful and (b) impossible for an ancient person to understand.

To expound on point (b) a little bit: even a modern person, with all the geological, paleontological, chemical, and genetic evidence that we have, simply cannot comprehend the expanse of what we call "deep time." Modern scientists must communicate these things in metaphors: they use 24-hour clocks in which each minute is thirty thousand years and football fields with geological epochs marked off at the various yard lines in order to try to express that which the human mind is fundamentally not equipped to grasp. The Bible should and must tell the story of creation from God's perspective, and to do that it must use figurative language.

Thus, "Days" are figurative days, but as such they convey greater truths about the way that creation appeared to God: it was gradual and periodic and God was patient, yet it did not seem to take eons to him. It was like a week of diligent work that produced good results.

Likewise, when the text says that God speaks light and land and life into existence, we can read that as a statement of God's incredible, beautiful power over creation. The moon likely formed in the "Big Splat," when another planet collided with proto-Earth and flung debris into space (I'm not even gonna touch the formation of the sun-- waaaaaay outside my wheelhouse). To God, these things were as simple as saying, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night" and then making them. The complex natural processes involved were simple before the Almighty God.

Likewise, the billions of years that are took for life to evolve, from self-replicating auto-catalytic molecules to microbes to multicellular life that arose from endosymbiosis and horizontal gene transfer, and then all the way down the epochs of history: the beautiful Cambrian Explosion, trilobites and the first chordates, then Tiktaalik propping itself up in shallow water and its tetrapod descendants stepping onto land for the first time; those strange, fascinating club-moss forests of the Carboniferous, dinosaurs and archaeopteryx taking to the skies, the K-T extinction event and then mammals picking up the torch and growing larger, whales returning to the seas and their vestigial legs disappearing, life, life life... All of that, to God, was two days of creation in which he spoke and natural processes produced the glorious array of life that existed when Adam and Eve came to be. He had authority over all of it. He said "Let the earth bring forth living creatures," and it did! God made them as surely as if he had sculpted them from clay with his hands, as miraculously as if He had spoken a word and they had existed in a split-second.

It's all true! All truth is God's truth! Every word of Genesis is God's truth, not despite the fact that it's written using figurative language, but because it is. We can understand truths that science alone can't account for - that in all the vastness of protein sequence space, God formed rubisco and ATP synthase: not by random chance, but through loving providence using randomness as a tool. We can see deep time as God sees it, not as a yawning abyss that we can't begin to properly conceptualize, but as a week in the mind of our great God who transcends time.

(My concluding paragraph is going to be somewhat harsh toward YE Creationists, but it cuts to the core of why I feel so strongly about how we read Genesis. I'm going to put it under the cut so that no one has to read it unless they want to; I'm not trying to attack anyone. I hope you know that I say all these things out of a place of deep, deep love.)

Returning to what Jack said: "If [people] cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them." YE Creationists would have us read Genesis without allowing for any figurative language; they would disregard the scientific method in order to do so. To my thinking, if a creation in seven 24-hour days were the intended meaning of the text- if we were, like children, meant to take everything in it entirely literally- then God would be a liar, because then he would have created a world in which the speed of light and geologic strata and the fossil record and even the evidence of our own DNA and physiology are all lying to us about how we were created. I could not love such a God.

But because I, like Jack, like millions of other Christians, can read the text of Scripture and interpret the figurative language it uses, I can instead marvel at the wonder and glory of our Creator-God, to whom epochs are like days, who can speak natural processes into existence. Scripture is history and it's poetry and it's all true. All truth is God's truth.