#but it's still all connected to the fear of vulnerability and divided selves

[burneddownthegym]

i need to talk about it

[chasing-lightning]

There’s a certain clarity that comes in the spaces between breaths—a clarity so sharp it cuts through the haze of everyday existence, leaving behind only the rawness of being. In those moments, the world feels unmasked, stripped of its pleasantries and artifice. It’s just me and the stillness, and every thought I’ve been trying to outrun is there, staring back, daring me to look deeper.

We live so much of our lives in avoidance. Sidestepping truths that lie in wait beneath the surface, choosing distraction over confrontation, silence over the messiness of expression. It’s easier, isn’t it? Easier to fill our lungs with routine, to breathe in expectations and exhale compliance, all while pretending that the hollow ache isn’t spreading, reaching inward like roots seeking sustenance in barren soil.

But there comes a time when even the silence turns on you—when the quiet is no longer a reprieve, but a mirror. A reflection of everything you thought you’d buried. It’s in these moments that I find myself most vulnerable, most human. When the armor of apathy slips, and all that’s left is this fragile core, pulsing faintly in the dark.

I’ve tried to silence it. Tried to drown it in noise, bury it in words, crush it beneath the weight of rationality. But it never goes away, does it? The core remains, stubborn and unyielding, whispering truths I’d rather not acknowledge: that I’m lonely in a way that people can’t touch. That I’m tired in a way that sleep can’t mend. That I’ve been searching for something indefinable, chasing ghosts in the mist of memory, longing for a resolution that will never come.

Maybe we’re all like this, stumbling through a landscape of echoes—of past selves, past choices—haunted not by what we did, but by what we didn’t do. The missed chances, the silences that swallowed our words whole, the eyes that looked right through us when we were desperate to be seen. I carry these echoes with me, wrapped tightly around my heart like barbed wire. And every time I try to reach out, to connect, the wire tightens, biting deep, reminding me why I learned to keep my distance.

But distance is a cage of its own making. The walls may protect, but they also isolate, turning each day into a succession of disjointed moments that blur together in a haze of half-felt experiences. I’ve been here too long, in this self-imposed exile, afraid to breach the divide, to risk the sharpness of contact. Because people—they have a way of slipping through the cracks in your defenses, of finding the soft, unguarded parts you didn’t even know were exposed.

So I keep my distance, and the world spins on. People pass by in a blur of muted colors and indistinct voices, like ghosts of a life I’m only half-invited to. It’s not loneliness, exactly. It’s more like a state of being untethered—watching others find anchors in love, in purpose, while I float aimlessly in a current of half-measures and forgotten dreams.

But every so often, in the quiet between breaths, something shifts. There’s a break in the fog, and I catch a glimpse of something deeper. Something true. It’s in the way the light catches on a stranger’s smile, fleeting yet sincere. In the hushed pause before a word is spoken, laden with meaning that will never be fully understood. In the tremor of a hand reaching out—not in desperation, but in hope.

And for a moment, I feel the urge to reach back. To abandon the safety of solitude and step into the uncertainty of connection. But the urge falters, caught on the jagged edges of hesitation and fear. What if I break? What if I let someone in, only for them to find nothing but empty rooms and abandoned corridors where once there was a heart?

There’s a danger in opening up, in showing the world the fractures you’ve tried so hard to mend. But there’s also a danger in staying closed off. In becoming so used to the quiet that it swallows you whole, until even the echoes fade, and all that’s left is a hollow shell, echoing the sounds of its own emptiness.

So I take a breath. Not a breath of resignation, but of resolve. A reminder that I am still here, still capable of feeling, of wanting, even if it’s only in these small, uncertain ways. The air feels thin, laced with the chill of unfamiliarity, but it’s real. Real in a way that numbness can never be.

Maybe I’m not ready to cross the divide just yet. Maybe the gaps between myself and the world are still too wide, the wounds still too fresh. But I can stand at the edge. I can listen to the quiet, let it wash over me without turning away. I can watch the world move on, knowing that I don’t have to join it just yet, but that I’m not completely lost to it either.

And in that, there is a strange sort of hope. A hope not for grand transformations or sudden awakenings, but for the small, slow unfurling of self. For the courage to sit with the pain and not shy away. For the willingness to feel it in all its raw, aching reality.

Because maybe, there’s something waiting in the quiet. The faint stirrings of life in a place I thought was beyond saving. And that’s enough for now. Enough to keep breathing, to keep searching, to keep holding on to the fragile belief that somewhere in the stillness, I will find not only the echoes of who I used to be, but the shape of who I’m meant to become.

[thechildoflightning]

Vergilius

Title: Vergilius

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairings: none

~~~

Summary: Vergilius. Vergil. Virgil. Different spellings for the same Roman poet.

For some reason no one talks about the fact that Virgil's name does in fact fit the dark sides naming pattern.

-

Or: Logan and Virgil have a discuss about the name 'Virgil' and what it means.

Warnings: none

[ao3 link]

~~~

Vergilius

It’s after a meeting with Thomas- who is once again panicking over the simplest of decision making, though to be fair, a large part of that is Virgil’s responsibility as well- when Logan corners him.

Virgil recognizes the situation for what it is right away. Logan gets this shine to his eyes, not quite a twinkle, more of a glimmer. Virgil knows what that look means. Logan is curious and he wants answers and he won’t leave until he gets them. 

It's one of Logan’s best traits, his determination and dedication. It’s also one of his worsts.

“Why Virgil?” Logan asks, once he’s fully entered the room and checks that they are alone. (Logan’s not subtle to begin with, and it’s Virgil's job to notice the things others don't, he’s not going to pass over Logan’s sweep of the room for what it is. Logan’s making sure that they are truly alone).

“What?” Virgil replies, “Logan I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’ve literally done nothing.” A brief course of panic. “Wait, why- Logan is something wrong?”

“No, no, no,” Logan confirms, and Virgil relaxes. He lets his muscles and fists untense from where they were coiled and ready to strike as if he had the physical ability to fight every single problem away. 

“Not ‘why, comma, Virgil,’” Logan clarifies, “why Virgil.” Or attempts to clarify, because Virgil is now even more lost than before. 

“Why the name Virgil?” Logan asks, “Why not change it completely.”

Virgil blinks at Logan. Once. Twice. 

“What?” Virgil asks, completely thrown off balance and one word rebuttal coming off slightly harsher than he intended. He trusts Logan- he does- but vulnerability has never been his strong suit and his name- well… but Virgil’s working on it. He is. He’s trying. 

(Why does he feel like trying is never good enough).

“I don’t understand why you would keep it. I thought you would have changed it,” Logan remarks, oblivious too or plain ignoring Virgil’s inner turmoil.

Logan’s dismissal of his name stings more than Virgil’s ready to admit, and he realizes he has to do something fast. Because Virgil is his name, of course it is, and he’s not getting rid of it. But Logan- are the other light sides mad at him for keeping his name? Do they think it ties him to the dark sides that much more?

(Virgil’s so tired of being a dark side. So tired of everything he does being marked bad. He’s still having to relearn that he is not fundamentally a bad person after all these years).

“Logan,” Virgil says weakly, not sure how to build his defense on this particular subject, “Logan it’s my name.”

“I know,” Logan agrees, “and I would have thought that you don’t like it. You have already taken small measures to change it. I thought it was strange you stopped at that. Do you not wish to change your name? Am I mistaken?”

“I-” Virgil stutters, trying to gather his thoughts on the matter. Because Logan’s right. Virgil doesn’t like his name, doesn’t like how it rolls off the tongue. Too many syllables, too much weight, too much history. 

Virgil is a small change. But it’s so so so much better. 

Virgil is Virgil. 

“I- I mean- yeah- I don’t like my original name. But Virgil- Virgil is better.”

Logan considers him for a moment, watching Virgil with a steady gaze before giving a slight nod.

“Alright,” he agrees, “as long as it works for you.”

Virgil nods, and thinks that’s it. 

But Logan hovers in the rooming, leaning forward slightly. Virgil can practically see his mind racing. It’s obvious he has something to say. 

Virgil raises an eyebrow. 

“Yes Logan?”

“May I ask two questions?” Logan asks, “the second might be uncomfortable or invasive. You may refuse to answer at any time, even if you give me consent to ask it now.”

Virgil mulls over the words and reminds himself that this is Logan. He would never hurt Virgil intentionally. Unintentionally- sure, but it’s happened in the past. It could certainly happen here. 

But Virgil’s willing to take that risk. 

He nods. 

“I don’t understand why Virgil is acceptable to you,” Logan prefaces, “Virgil is nothing but a shortened version of Vergilius, and both names along with Vergil- spelled with an ‘e’- are all alternate titles for the same historical poet. They seem so completely connected together that I don’t understand how you could find one comforting and the other repulsive.”

Which is fair. Like Logan said, Virgil is one of many spellings, but all the spellings refer to the same name. It’s like when people sometimes spell Kaitlyn with a “c” or a “i” instead of “y”. Alternate spelling, sure, but the same name. 

That’s all Virgil has done, switching from Vergelius to plain old Virgil. 

“So,” Logan continues, “My question for you is wherein lies that difference? What allows you to be comfortable with Virgil but not Vergilius?”

Virgil has an answer. He’s thought about this for quite some time himself, even if he had never expected anyone to ask him about. But Virgil represents anxiety, and he double, even triple checked his own name, his own reasoning to determine that he was completely satisfied with it. 

Now how to explain it in words?

“We all started with names,” Virgil says slowly, “Intentionally or not, Thomas assigned us names that fit us when we were formed. Right?”

“Yes- well not exactly,” Logan responds.  Virgil raises his eyebrows at him. “The names Thomas gave us represented how Thomas perceived us when we formed, not necessarily are true authentic selves.”

Virgil gives a small nod of acknowledgement. 

“Fair enough,” he allows. “So- Logan, a question for you. Why were you named Logan?”

“Logan. Logos. Logic,” Logan reciters, “the principle of reason and judgement.”

“Right,” Virgil agrees, because his has always been one of the easiest to make sense of. “And I’m Virgil. Again with the Greek and Roman origins. Potentially coming from the term ‘vigil,’ to keep watch. As anxiety that’s my job. Then the connection to the poet- which sure that takes us closer to Roman’s territory but the few times Roman and me have actually gotten along is when we’ve mixed his creativity and the way I feel emotions- specifically surrounding anxiety and fear- to create art.”

“Yes,” Logan agrees. 

Virgil nods and considers how to continue. He knows what he wants to say but he has to think about it for a moment and calculate the proper way to present his feelings to Logan. Logan wants facts, knowledge, logic. That isn’t Virgil’s default and it takes him a minute to speak Logan's language. 

“Your name fits your role. My name fits mine. It’s not a name I chose, but I feel that it fits me well. It- my name allows me to be more than anxiety. Anxiety has always restricted me, made me be one thing. Virgil gives me the freedom to choose and be myself while still providing comfortable familiarity. I don’t have to limit myself to a simplified emotion. I can just be… Virgil.”

Logan studies him for a moment, eyes sweeping across his body as if searching for a lie. 

“Okay,” he eventually says, “I can understand that. But then why not keep Vergilius?”

Virgil gives a weak smile. 

“I thought that would have been obvious.”

Logan frowns. 

“Your name doesn’t make you a dark side.”

“But it matches the undeniable pattern,” Virgil points out. 

Logan hums but doesn’t protest. It’s not like he could. Virgil’s right. 

Roman. Patton. Logan. 

Remus. Janus. Vergilius. 

“It hurts,” Virgil admits finally. And it’s hard to admit but he’s trying to be vulnerable, trying to open up and he’s going to give Logan the benefit of the doubt. (Even so his heart beats louder and his breath grows slightly shorter and his fingers and toes curl tight and tense up). “It hurts to know that somewhere in Thomas’s subconscious, he sees us as good and bad.”

Logan's frown grows deepens. 

“That’s an over simplification of the complex roles each of us carry out.”

“I know,” Virgil says. He didn’t once upon a time. He used to truly believe that there was good and bad and that he was bad, that he hurt Thomas no matter what even when he tried his hardest to be good. But those days are mostly behind him. Mostly. He still had some bad days. “I know that Logan. But Thomas hasn’t always seen it that way.”

“Do you think Thomas sees you that way now?”

A few weeks ago Virgil would have said yes- that Thomas only thought he hurt them and would be glad to get rid of Virgil and the pain he brought with him. 

Now though…

Thomas told him that he was wanted, that he was needed, that he was loved. 

What a strange concept. 

“I-“ Virgil hesitates, “I think Thomas is learning to see shades of gray.”

Logan nods. 

“And you are of course aware that Thomas was raised religious.”

Virgil snorts. 

“No shit Logan, it wasn’t like I was there for all of it or anything.”

“You weren’t?” Logan friend, eyebrows knitting in, “I was certain you had formed by then, am I-“ Logan pauses, clears his throat and adjusts his glasses, “right. Sarcasm.”

Virgil quirks a smile and gives a small nod.

“Got it in one teach.”

Logan straightens his posture, hands coming to rest in front of him and head up. Virgil recognizes it as Logan’s “I’m about to give you a shit ton of info posture.”

“Okay then. Well then you are aware that Thomas was raised with the awareness that things were either good or bad. Thomas was raised with extremes. And as he grew, he eventually started to learn about shades of gray. But as a very young kid it’s hard to see things as nuanced and detailed as they actually are. Add religious teachings that emphasize that good and bad are opposite absolutes and it makes sense that a young Thomas’s brain divided us that way. But that does not mean we still are that way.”

Virgil is- quite honestly Virgil is touched. He’s used to putting up strong walls, ready to fight back against whatever tries to hurt him. He’s still getting used to the idea that people actually want to interact with him and being validated so strongly by Logan almost makes him glow. 

“I know,” Virgil says softly, “I know. The world isn’t black.” Vergilius. “Or white.” Something entirely new. “It’s grey.” Virgil. “And I- I’m not exactly sure where I fall now. I’m not- I’m not a dark side, but I don’t think I’m a light side either. I’ve uh- kinda created my own little space.”

Logan looks at Virgil with his piercing gaze. 

“Ah. I understand now. Thank you Virgil.”

And for some reason, Virgil thinks Logan really understands it. His name, and so much more.

(There’s so much more than light or dark).

“Yeah sure. Anytime.”

Logan gives him a final nod and turns to exit, leaving Virgil to his thoughts. 

Just before Logan passes out through the doorway, he turns around. 

“Virgil?”

“Yes.”

“You have a nice name. It is- admirable that you chose to keep parts of it and alter the rest to best define you.”

Warmth. warmth everyone, sleeping across his body and into his heart, through his entire being. 

“Thank you,” he manages. 

And then Logan is gone.

If this is what being accepted is like- well, he might want to get used to it.

~~~

Taglist Below

-message me to be added or removed-

@mewithanie @eddies-spaghetti @lemonyellowlogic @savioursailor @goldteethandacurseforthistown @gattonero17

[theopentable]

The Wisdom of the Desert (Part 1)

THE WISDOM OF FLIGHT

‘It was said of Abba Theodore of Pherme that the three things he believed to be basic for everything were poverty, asceticism and flight.’[1]

In the fourth century many Christians fled from Rome to the deserts of Egypt. These Christians would come to be known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

Why did they flee? Had Rome become too dangerous? One way of answering that is to say that quite the opposite is true - Christians had rarely, if ever, had it so good. Christianity had always been a minority movement on the fringe of respectable society. Being a Christian was a dangerous and tumultuous affair. Persecution was par for the course. Martyrdom in Rome was commonplace in a world where emperors stood as gods.

Christianity, however, changed forever following the Emperor Constantine’s conversion and the Edict of Milan in 313 as Christianity ultimately became the official religion of the Empire.

‘When Constantine declared tolerance for the Christian religion in 313 after his conversion at the battle of Milvian Bridge and subsequently supported the outcome of the Council of Nicaea in 325, the number of practicing Christians rose in the following decades from 3 to 30 million. It became quite advantageous to be a Christian, as Constantine was constantly pouring money into building churches and supporting the bishops financially, a fact that changed the whole character of the early Church.’ [2]

Christians were now faced by the temptation of becoming too comfortable and settled in a world in which they had become the most fashionable, respectable and employable of citizens virtually overnight. Important Early Church Father St John Chrysostom wrote,

“Plagues teeming with untold mischief have come upon the churches. The primary offices have become marketable. Excessive wealth, enormous power, and luxury are destroying the integrity of the Church.”

As Christianity began to be shaped more and more by empire Christians turned their back on society and went out into the desert. This was the real danger of Rome. Society, Thomas Merton wrote, “was regarded by the Desert Fathers as a shipwreck from which each individual man had to swim for his life.” [3]

The Desert Fathers and Mothers drew upon the traditions of those going out into the desert – Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus. They embraced a way of going deeper and intensifying spiritual practice. They took St Paul’s exhortation especially seriously:

“Do not model yourself on the behaviour of the world around you, but let you behaviour change, modelled by your new mind.” (Romans 12:2)

The Desert Monks fled from a number of things that were at odds with their sense of the sacredness of life:

From the social systems of their day

From conformity to religious mediocrity

From the misuse of power, privilege, status and dignity

From speech [4]

From thoughts (‘logismoi’ – a technical Greek term in monastic literature for the chains of obsessional fantasy that can take over our inner life [5])

From women and bishops (you might end up getting ordained!)

From possessions, property and conventional family life.

We would be gravely mistaken, however, if we presumed that these desert monks and nuns were running away from responsibility or from relationships. All of this flight is for a greater purpose. Rowan Williams writes how rather than any form of avoidance these desert parents were instead ‘entering into a more serious level of responsibility for themselves and others and that relationships are essential to the understanding of their vocation.’[6]

The wisdom of flight that the Desert Parents embodied was for the sake of a deeper, rigorous form of engagement.

‘Numbers of those baptised rose dramatically; standards dropped dramatically. The Church began to compromise between “the things of God and the things of Caesar” (cf. Luke 20:25). The voice of the desert’s heart replaced the voice of the martyr’s blood. And the Desert Father’s and Mother’s became witnesses of another way, another age, another kingdom.’ [7]

While there was much that they chose to let go of, to flee from, they became given instead to prayer, work, to sharing the faith and what they saw as a new form of martyrdom – not the red martyrdom embodied by followers of Jesus prior to Christianity becoming the religion of the Empire, but rather the white martyrdom of complete dependence upon God as they faced up to the demons within. The new battleground for these Christians was the human heart.

‘What they fled with greatest fear was not the external world, but the world they carried inside themselves: an ego-centredness, needing constant approval, driven by compulsive behaviour, frantic in its efforts to attend to a self-image that always required mending.’ [8]

Christine Valters Paintner expresses the way that the desert is a place of deep encounter rather than being a place of superficial escape. The desert strips us down to the sacred essentials:

‘The word for “desert” in Greek is eremos and means “abandonment.” It is the term from which we derive the word “hermit.” The desert was a place to come face-to-face with loneliness and death. Nothing grows in the desert. Your very existence is, therefore, threatened. In the desert, you are forced to face up to yourself and to the temptations in life that distract you from a wide-hearted focus on the presence of the sacred in the world.’ [9]

Here, in the desert, normal securities are relinquished. You are confronted by your own morality, aloneness, limitations and vulnerability. And yet this is precisely the context for transformation, a way of being broken open, ‘a doorway to an encounter with a God who was much more expansive than anything believers imagined.’ [10]

In the uncompromising stillness of the desert they sought to undo internal knots and to allow Divine Light into the shadows of the human heart through poverty and detachment, chastity, conversion of life, obedience, stability, silence, solitude, attention, humility and compassion.

Struggle and toil is a touchstone of life in the desert:

One of the Fathers asked Abba John the Dwarf: “What is a Monk?”

He replied: A monk is toil. The monk toils in everything. That is what a monk is.” [11]

The concern of the desert elders, Paintner identifies, was what poet John Keats called the ancient task of “soul-making”: the challenge of waking up to the true nature of life and remembering who we really are, the divine inheritance of human beings. 

This was the quest of the desert elders. This was the wisdom of their flight. The journey into the desert was ultimately a journey into the heart; to learn the ways in which human lives lose connection with themselves, with Divine Love and how they might return to love and truth. 

This is the great struggle and quest all human beings know: the struggle to live a meaningful, loving, and authentic life. This is what we all want. We won’t all go to the desert and yet the wilderness will still come to us in the various human forms of loss, change, searching, uncertainty, deprivation, struggle, loneliness, and vulnerability. Brene Brown reminds us that the wilderness can often feel unholy because we can't control it, or what people think about our choice to venture into the heart of it. And yet she also says that it turns out to be the place of true belonging, ‘the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.’ [12]

Perhaps then we can be guided the grace and experience of these unusual desert hermits, by the spark of their lived-wisdom that might lead us into greater courage, insight, compassion, into encounters with God, and perhaps even our own ‘transformation into the fire of Love.’ [13]

But here is a final, and critical point by Thomas Merton. Merton explains the these desert elders didn’t go out into the desert in order to be extraordinary. Rather, they fashioned lives among the rocks and sands into the be themselves, their ordinary selves, forgetting the things that divided them from themselves:

‘There can be no other valid reason for seeking solitude or for leaving the world. And thus to leave the world, is, in fact, to help save it in saving oneself..The Coptic hermits who left the world as though escaping from a wreck, did not merely intend to save themselves. They knew they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them.’ [14]

The wisdom of the desert is that we might become our ordinary selves in order to pull the whole world to safety.

[1] Theodore of Pherme 5.

[2] Kim Nataraja, “The Desert Tradition” in Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation Through the Centuries (Nataraja, editor, 2011), p.92

[3] Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

[4] ‘One day, as Abba Macarius was dismissing the gathering, he said to the brothers at Scetis, ‘Flee, brethren!’ One of the old men asked him, ‘Where could we feel to that is further away than this desert?’ Macarius put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Flee that.’ And off he went to his cell, shut the door and sat down.’ (Macarius 16)

[5] Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert (2003), p.63

[6] Williams, p.62

[7] John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Father’s and Mother’s (Treasures of the World’s Religions) (2008), p.16

[8] Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

[9] Christine Valters Paintner, Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated and Explained (2012), p.vi

[10] Ibid., p.ix

[11] John the Dwarf 37

[12] Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness (2017), kindle loc.430

[13] Nataraja., p.106

[14] Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

[pitiless-achilles-wept]

Shake It Off: Love and thanks to the cast of SAA 2019

Hello friends, I've just returned from a week in Washington DC where I spent a few days at the Folger Shakespeare Library followed by a few days at my all-time favorite conference, the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America. I would say that it's like Comic Con for Shakespeareans but there's a lot less cosplay (no, we're not a Ren Faire) and a lot more intellectually crunchy panels featuring the newest scholarship by brilliant scholars in the field. Some people in my position would, I'm sure, not be so invested in attending an academic conference that they spent the night before their first chemo treatment completing the paper in time for the participation deadline (perhaps the most on-brand thing I have ever done). They're occasions that we often grouse about, after all: the timing is bad; the flights and hotels are expensive; the schedule is too packed; the program doesn't have what we want on it; we have to grade/prepare lessons/do admin work when we get home. Admittedly, this is a more fun conference than many and I see a lot less general grumpiness about it than some I could name (*cough* MLA *cough*). It does share a little bit of the carnival atmosphere of Comic Con, culminating in a dance on the last night that could feel hokey (and does to some people...the conference is divided pretty sharply between dance-attenders and dance non-attenders) but which gives me the kind of warm feelings of kinship that you get from dancing at a wedding. Like: ah, nerdy as they are, this is my family.

[Below the cut: thoughts and thanks to the members of my profession.]

Perhaps this trip was kind of a weird thing for someone with Stage 4 cancer to be doing. I have, potentially, precious little time in this world (even in the best case scenario it's far less time than I'd anticipated) so why spend so much of it on work? The simple answer is that, with less time, it has become all the more important to spend it doing the things that make me feel the most like myself. And that means a trip to a rare books library where I can spend 8 hours a day combing through 400-year-old plays in search of annotations. It means doing a survey cross-indexing my list of plays against the library catalog while listening to all the Girl Talk albums in succession. It means the giddy satisfaction of closing out the library and going to happy hour with my fellow researchers. It means 10-hour conference days where I work hard and play hard and take copious notes in appreciation of my friends' and colleagues' fantastic minds (and maybe sneak a nap in my hotel room during the late-afternoon slump). And it means closing out the weekend with a community that has stepped up in incredible support of me in the time since I've made my diagnosis public in a way I did not expect and am profoundly grateful for - a fact which is the point of this post. I found myself in the hotel bar somewhere in the neighborhood of 2am on Sunday morning, quite literally weak in the knees from so much dancing, guzzling water and keeping company with colleagues who I've come to call friends as we all, exhaustedly, said repeatedly "we should go to bed" and subsequently did not. There was a real last-day-of-camp vibe that infused the whole thing with preemptive nostalgia for the time--so soon!--when we would not be together in the same place. This is the thing about assembling in person only for a few days every year. There is never enough time to catch up one-on-one (or even many-on-many) among the events of the days. It's both the best and worst part of attending a conference where your colleagues are also friends. You're left wanting more time, more conversation, more connection. Many conversations and much of the friendship continues over various forms of social media, which I have a very deep attachment to and which has helped me make it through these years of instability and separation from people I care about. Some people regard social media or blogs (like this one) as a stand-in or poor substitute for the intimacy of real-world friendships. But for someone like me who became a teenager at the same time instant messaging apps came into existence (shoutout to AIM!) and who has had the repeated experience of developing a friendship or a friend group only to have to bid farewell to its members they are a godsend. They are a conduit for intimacy, fostering it but not replacing it. At this conference I had the unusual and somewhat surreal experience of having people--some of whom I knew well, some of whom only in passing or from Twitter, some not at all--reach out and thank me for writing and sharing so much of myself. Some of them had been through something similar, either on their own or with a loved one. Others hadn't but wanted me to know that my experience had affected them and that they were on my side, hoping along with me for things to get better. I was moved almost to tears several times because, in that way that happens when you write and then post into the void, I wasn't sure anyone was listening. But they were and responded with manifold kindness. It seemed somehow symbolic of my experience with the academic profession overall. It can seem cold and empty, as we are all separated by space and time (especially the lack of it). And when we speak into it not as a professional academic but as a person the likelihood of getting any response, let alone a positive one, seems so slim. That is, I think, why revealing so much of myself on here seemed somewhat risky to me and would to many people. We cultivate very carefully our professional selves, even in casual interactions, because the line between the personal and the professional is so blurry in academia. Often we use this fact to impute great skepticism to our readers (our colleagues); better not to show any vulnerability in case someone, some day, may want to hire you and who would want to hire a vulnerable human being? But in this case I've seen the other side of that grey area. I found a wealth of empathy where I did not expect it. And that as much as anything has made me want to keep working, to keep writing, to stay in this academic community. Your continued and continual support has really sustained me. I do recognize, however, that one reason I'm able to share all this is that I have a secure job. I think I would still be posting about my experience in any case simply because it isn't in my nature not to share thoughts on the most important thing in my life. But I also know that it's my privilege to be able to do so, to even have the choice. And it is a choice that I have made in smaller ways in the past too. I still recall several years ago during one of my turns on the academic job market when I received an unsolicited email from someone I did not know (although we had a friend in common) informing me that my Twitter account was unprofessional and that I was likely writing myself out of a job. Of course, I cracked my knuckles and wrote a pointed reply about how I had quite literally written a dissertation on the concept of the public sphere and thought very carefully about what I wanted to put in public or not and, what's more, that it was only for me to decide and not for him to arbitrate. (For the record, I do not consider my account "unprofessional" since it is a purely personal account from which I sometimes tweet about work-related things. Also for the record, this person wrote back with an apology.) But that fear, stoked by incidents like that, would keep many junior people (or even senior people) from publicly showing their wounds--literal and figurative--in a situation like this. I am glad to be able to speak. I am more than glad that someone is listening. As I return home from the conference, prepared to resume chemo again on Thursday, I feel sadness and trepidation, sure, but I do also feel energized and supported, raised up by a larger community of far-flung friends, colleagues, acquaintances; people I've never met face-to-face and people who are an integral part of my daily life. Friends, academics, Shakespeareans, you are a wonderful bunch. Thank you for making this trip and this conference an occasion to recharge and return to fight another day.

[spirituality-and-alien-contact]

Why Has God Spoken Again to the World?

The world is changing. If one cannot adapt to this change he or she will become a victim of it. We are here to be of service and contribution to others and to a world in great need.

Why do you think God has spoken again to the world? This is a serious question for it presents to humanity a change in thinking, a change in behavior and a change of how one looks at the world around them, themselves and each other. I know my thinking has changed drastically in the last 10 years and for me, I feel I am looking at a world so unlike the one I grew up in because of technological advancement, people keeping more to themselves, an increase in frustration and anger leading to violence at times. Religious division and division all around us based on race and what one believes leading to more violence which always leads to more violence. Here in the states that feeling can literally be cut with a knife. For me, God has spoken again because the world is facing change on a level never seen before and I can feel this and speaking to others, they too can feel this. But what does it mean?

“This book contains the opening words of a New Message from God. In the pages that follow, God is speaking to humanity anew, providing a warning, a blessing and a preparation for the great change that is coming to the world.

God has spoken again at a time of great need and difficulty worldwide. This is a Divine answer to the growing crises of war, unrelenting climate change, religious conflict, and human suffering and deprivation now escalating around the world.” from “God Has Spoken Again” received by Marshall Vian Summers.

God Has Spoken Again The Word and the Sound Are in the World “There is a New Message from God in the world. It is a Message from the Creator of all life. It is a gift for all the peoples, nations and religions of the world. An unprecedented crisis is spreading worldwide. A crisis of political, economic and environmental change and upheaval is now gathering force, threatening the stability and future of humanity. This is not the end of times, but instead a great transition to a new world reality.

We now stand at a turning point that will determine the life and future of every man, woman and child on Earth. It is at this time that God has spoken again. A Messenger has been sent and a mission is now underway to prepare the human family for the great change that is coming.

God is now calling across the world, calling into every nation, culture and faith community; calling into the halls of government and religion; calling into the darkest place where inner suffering and physical deprivation are deepest; calling for the spiritual power of humanity to awaken and emerge at this turning point in the history of our world.

God Has Spoken Again is the beginning of a new communication from God to humanity. What you hold in your hands are the opening words of this New Message from God.”

With so many things occurring in our world many of us still live our lives business as usual. Yet, how long do you think we can keep doing this? The world is changing at such a rapid rate that we too must change with it. We must begin to see that the solutions needed must come from the individual for there will be thousands of solutions needed from mankind to just survive the Great Waves of Change and intervention from races from beyond our world. Yet, where will this change that is so needed in our world come from? There is a preparation that God has given to each of us to prepare our inner life as well as our outer life while we still have time. It is called “The Steps To Knowledge” and it has been given to the world as a blessing for God loves the world and humanity. We all have 2 minds. The surface mind which is our personal mind/intellect to navigate this world to survive and advance and then we have a deeper mind/intelligence which God has given each of us to guide us and to protect us in this world. We have disconnected our selves from our deeper mind which is our true self and we know little about. I like to think of it in this way: Just as we have disconnected our physical selves from mother earth by wearing shoes or sneakers we have lost the ability to heal ourselves naturally by wearing shoes because we are not “grounded” in our world. By putting our bare feet on the ground which is called grounding we re-connect with the earth naturally and many unseen things begin to occur naturally which help us to become more whole again and natural physically. So, we literally have disconnected physically from our world just as we have disconnected ourselves spiritually from who we truly are and why we are truly here because of ambition, denial and conditioning and the fear which drives us and the fear that holds us back. We have disconnected ourselves from nature both from within and without. We have become unnatural and live an unnatural life physically and spiritually. God has spoken again to the world to change the course of humanity from living an unnatural life to a natural one. This is such a gift if you can truly see what it means.

“Yet the Revelation is in the world. God has spoken again, for the first time in over a thousand years. The warning has been established. The blessing has been given to the real power that humanity has to navigate the difficult times ahead and what this could mean to build human unity and cooperation at a level never seen before in this world—built now out of sheer necessity, built now out of compassion and responsibility, built now in such a way that humanity has a chance, a great chance, but not a chance that will last forever.” from “The New World.”

Growing up as a boy I always imagined what it would have been like to live during the times of Jesus and to have walked side by side with him as an Apostle. For my faith was strong so I thought. Yet, now we are all living at a time of Revelation where God has spoken again to the world through its Messenger Marshall Vian Summers. Many of you who read this may think I am crazy to “believe” in something like this. One friend I know has even called me a blasphemer. But as I have mentioned earlier what humanity is about to face and is facing is not about belief but about experience from within you and all around you. So I went to Estes Park Colorado in the year of 2016 to meet this man Marshall Vian Summers for myself because at that time I trusted no one and nothing until I had experienced it for myself. I can tell you it was not in vain for Marshall in my heart is a Messenger from God sent from the Angelic Assembly who watches over this world and is where the Jesus, the Buddha, and the Mohammad have come from and who support the Messenger for this time.

Why has God Spoken Again? Because God wants humanity to align our will with the Creators Will. This is much easier said than done for it takes great work and practice to unlearn many of the things we have been conditioned to believe and have made a part of our lives through idealism, imagination and fantasy. To learn anew means one must unlearn the things of the past. To do this we must know where we have come from to know where it is we need and must go.

“Considering what has been said thus far, it becomes quite apparent that you cannot learn greater things by building upon old ideas and limited concepts. An old mind cannot conceive of new things. Indeed, to learn a Greater Community Way of Knowledge and to find the greater purpose which has brought you into the world, you must not only have a new set of ideas and a greater perspective, you must actually have a greater mind. This greater mind will seem ancient but new to you at the same time.”

To face what is coming one must know what is on the horizon for the human family.

“In the coming decades, the climate will change more dramatically than is currently forecast. Nations will run out of resources. Food production will be curtailed because of great environmental impacts. Regional wars and revolutions will erupt but without resolution, leaving nations incapacitated to deal with even their current circumstances, yet alone the demands of the future. Religions will become more fractured and divided as people feel threatened and only want to associate with their group—their ethnic group, their social group, their religious group, in opposition to others, who also become polarized in the face of great change and uncertainty.

This begins a long period of decline and disintegration as nations now become more isolated, seeking alliances perhaps, but more regionally isolated, and unwilling or unable to assist one another through the great challenges to come. A growing humanity will face the loss in many places of food, water and energy necessary to sustain civilization as they have known it.

This is not a set of problems and converging situations that technology alone can resolve, for technology will be overwhelmed. These are the great converging waves of change, change happening on every level conceivable, all at once. This is the vulnerability that humanity has created over decades of neglect and irresponsibility.” from The New World.

So, for me God has spoken again to take us out of our distorted cycles of thinking and acting and ignorance to guide us into a cycle of living naturally…to live a life of certainty at the level of Knowledge. We have ALL been caught in the web of our own thinking and cycles of behavior which have shaped our lives into who we think we are and how we see the world and others. Many of these cycles of thinking and behaving have come from our upbringing and how we were raised and taught by our parents and other loved ones and even friends and religion. Yet, to be happy I/we must be with Knowledge. Happiness is not a behavior-“Genuine happiness is a sense of self, a sense of wholeness and inner satisfaction.” To be truly happy and to live a natural life is to know and feel your purpose which you have brought with you. To know why you are here, who you must meet and what you must give through service and contribution to give the gifts you brought with you from your Ancient Home. Here, each form of giving is coming from a deeper place within you and will carry lasting value and meaning in the world into the future.

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