#exodus is really the appropriate term for this

[cryingoflot49]

BOOK REVIEW

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

    First off, let me say that if you haven’t read Thomas Pynchon’sThe Crying of Lot 49 more than once, you’re not in a good position to be talking about it. This has nothing to do with how intelligent you are and has everything to do with how Pynchon’s prose operates. The book is full of noise. By that I mean non-sequiturs, irrelevant information, plot threads that are abruptly dropped and re-appear almost randomly at unpredictable times, disorienting grammar and all kinds of other things. This is appropriate because a major theme of the book is communications theory and the entropy that interferes with the transmission of information. This may be hard to grasp the first time through, but once you see the broad outline of the novel, you can begin to sort out the noise from the message and maybe even begin to consider what message Pynchon is attempting to convey.

My personal take on the story is that it is not simply about one thing; it is about many things and the reader has to evaluate the bombardment of information thrown their way on their own terms to get a sense of what it all adds up to. But while it may be about many things, communications theory being one of them, the easiest theme to grasp ahold of is the identity crisis of Oedipa Maas and what her exodus out of the shallow suburban lifestyle says about America.

So who is Oedipa Maas? She is a housewife in Southern California, married to a disc jockey named Mucho Maas (you have to know Spanish to get the joke and even then it isn’t funny). Her ex-husband, Pierce Inverarity, has just died and named her as co-executor of his will, something that sends Oedipa down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that causes her to re-evaluate what her life in America really means. “Inverarity”, by the way, is Scottish vocabulary meaning “a clever or knowledgeable person”; this is the type of Pynchonian fascination for obscurity that makes the writing so intriguing. She heads off to San Narciso, a town built around Inverarity’s factory and then goes up to Oakland and San Francisco on a journey to learn as much as she can about a secret society. Along the way, she encounters a string of men who each provide her with a piece of a puzzle she tries to solve. The dilemma is that there is no certainty that the pieces, when assembled, will add up to a coherent picture. They may actually be pieces of different puzzles, accidentally assembled to make a confusing conclusion. They may not even be pieces of a puzzle at all, instead being unconnected bits of information that Oedipa is sticking together to form her own story. Oedipa may very well be a paranoic, a person who makes connections between things that are not connected. She may be delusional or she may be having a psychotic breakdown. In the end, the novel does not provide any definite answers so the reader has to decide for themselves.

For the sake of brevity, I will leave out a lot of information and list some of the high points in the plot and what I believe they represent in terms of constructing a statement about Oedipa’s journey. Oedipa visits San Narciso and meets up with her lawyer who takes her to a bar where they witness a ceremonial distribution of mail. After finding a mysterious symbol on the bathroom wall, a trumpet with a mute in it signifying “silence”, she realizes she has stumbled into the domain of a secret society called W.A.S.T.E. which is run by an underground mail service called “Tristero”. In Italian, “tristero” can mean a holding room like a storage closet, a warehouse, or the room in a post office where the mail waits to be taken away; it can also mean “a sad man”, a meaning which ties in directly to the final scene of the novel, an auction where lot 49 is “cried”. Lot 49 is a collection of counterfeit stamps in Inverarity’s collection that appear to have been issued by Tristero.

After a day’s outing at a beach, a chance encounter with an acquaintance of her lawyer’s, Oedpipa learns that Inverarity purchased the bones of a military platoon that had been drowned in an Italian lake; he bought the bones from the Mafia and used them as material for manufacturing cigarette filters. This further leads Oedpa to attend a play at night, vaguely reminiscent of Titus Andronicus, about an Italian prince who gets unjustly disinherited from the king’s throne when his father dies. A secret organization named Trystero comes to his defence and goes to battle against Thurn and Taxis, the people who are in power. Trystero loses and the dead soldiers are dumped into a lake. Their bones are later harvested and made into black ink for use in the illegitimate king’s pens.

This detail of the play may seem obscure, but I think it is deliberately buried under a ton of noise in the prose to make it difficult to locate. The named “Tristero” changes to “Trystero”, the importance of which is that “tryst” means “a secret meeting” with a “trystero” being a man who engages in such meetings, usually for the sake of secretive sexual practices. The name “Thurn and Taxis” also bears significance since it refers to a real aristocratic family in southern Germany who extended their power by building the first trans-European mail system, believing that controlling long-distance communication is the key to controlling the continent (and now we have the World Wide Web, to whose benefit?) The words “thurn” and “taxis” in German also have a vague connection to ideas of surveillance and control. But the real meaning I am getting at here regarding communications theory is related to the bones in the lake. Inverarity uses the harvested bones for cigarette filters while the king in the play uses them to make ink; here we have a contrast between the transitory, ephemeral smoke of spoken words and the permanence of the written word. The entropy in the system is that spoken words, like smoke, disappear immediately, fading into nothingness as people forget them while the written word can, theoretically transmit information across long periods of time. However, the entropy herein is that lies, distortions, misinterpretations, or misinformation can be transmitted and mistakenly regarded as truth. One hundred percent accuracy can not be guaranteed. Everything we think we know about the past could be wrong.

After the play’s finale, Oedipa approaches the director, Driblette, in the dressing room and confronts him about the existence of Trystero. He dismisses the idea of their existence, telling her that as a director, he is like a film projector, projecting his inner mind onto the play’s actors and controlling their movements as he sees fit. He has no interest in conspiracies or secret societies, but he does send Oedipa on her way to seek out alternate copies of a book that anthologizes dramas; the book contains the original script for the play and alternate editions of it each have their own omissions hat Oedipa interprets as clues to solving her mystery. The idea of projecting reality onto the world also corresponds to two passages involving Oedipa, one in the beginning where she is interpreting a painting by Remedios Varo, and one near the end where she is considering the possibility that she is delusional.

Then Oedipa travels up to San Francisco to find a scientist named John Nefastis who has invented a Maxwell’s Demon box, a contraption in which positively and negatively charged molecules circulate in equilibrium by sorting out the strong ones from the weak. Nefastis explains that there is no connection between the entropy in the second law of thermodynamics and the entropy in communications theory except for the fact that the same algebraic formula is used to explain both laws. Hence, it is only through a symbol that a link can be formed between the materiality of physical motion and the non-materiality of contents in the coding, transmission, and decoding of information in communications, the meeting ground of form and content, the vessel that moves information from transmitter to receiver. The balance between positive and negative molecules in Maxwell’s Demon is a state in which there is no noise in the system so that perpetual motion is inevitable and certainty can be expressed in language. Oedipa tries to determine if she is a “sensitive”, a person who can communicate with the demon in the box, but there is too much noise in her system; she is disconnected from ultimate truth and certainty.

So she spends all day and night traveling around San Francisco in search of more information about Trystero and encounters the symbol, seemingly everywhere she goes. She finds the symbol wherever society’s outcasts, riffraff, and unwanted are located, alongside the the mentally or physically disabled, the ugly people, the unhappy, the homeless, the lonely, the unloved, the lumpenproletariat more or less. As the sun rises, she encounters a drunken sailor on the verge of death who gives her an envelope marked with the W.A.S.T.E. symbol, explaining his letter is a love letter written to his lost wife; he tells Oedipa that his dream of reuniting with her is the only thing that has kept him alive for so many years. He asks her to drop it in a secret mailbox under a freeway which resembles a garbage can ( a waste container?) from which she follows the postman who collects the mail and delivers it, then returns her to the apartment of John Nefastis.

The sailor’s fantasy of reunion directly links to what Oedipa’s psychiatrist, Dr. Hilarius advises her while in the throws of a psychotic breakdown. She approaches him to sort out whether or not she is going crazy in her pursuit of Trystero. She suspects it could all be a fantasy, but he advises her to hold onto her fantasies because, like the sailor, our lives have no meaning without them. There is no ultimate truth and there is no destiny for each individual. This realization is what led to the shattering of Dr. Hilarius’s illusions resulting in his nervous breakdown. Oedipa may be having delusions, but those delusions are the only thing giving meaning to her empty life. After randomly encountering some anarchists and fascists who all appear to be linked to Trystero, ready to start a revolution and overthrow the government, she decides her sympathies lie with Thurn and Taxis and the rest of the book is about how she pursues what she believes to be her rightful inheritance of her ex-husband’s estate. But wasn’t the prince in Driblette’s play wrongly disinhertied from the throne? Maybe she is one of the losers of America like all the lonely people she saw in San Francisco. Is Trystero closing in on her? She wants to believe she is destined for something great, but there is no way she can know what is true. And neither can the reader; there is too much noise in the system, too much going on, too much information, too many patterns that may be imaginary so that we can never know with any certainty or clarity what it is all about. But if we clear out all the interference in the prose, there are messages there, or are we, as readers, creating patterns, misinterpreting words, finding order where there is none? Is America a nation of people like Oedipa? A nation of people who think they are destined to be rich, famous, powerful, special in some way when the reality is that we are all a bunch of nobodies? Are we a nation that fantasizes about greatness to protect ourselves from the truth that we aren’t anything special? Or are we a nation of haves and have-nots where the haves have everything and the have-nots have nothing but dreams?

Who Knows. In the Greek drama Oedipus was prophecized to kill his father and marry his mother, but he set out to prove the prophecy wrong. But circumstances drove him unwittingly to do what he did not want to do; he had a destiny and the destiny caused him to be blind in the end. Oedipa Maas, in the context of the narrative, has no mother or father that ever gets mentioned. Could that mean she has no destiny? No prophecy to fulfill? Does that liberate her or cause her to be blind despite it all? There can be no answer to these questions, no conclusions, no certainty, no truth, no closure. The communication system doesn’t allow for it. The deconstructionists have won. The Socratic phenomena has no noumena. Maybe you can contact Thomas Pynchon and ask him what it all means. Haha, then again, maybe not.

Reading Pynchon novels takes commitment. This is no literary one night stand. If you do not come back again and again to his writings they will never mean anything to you. But if you choose to build up that relationship, it will clarify and become a lot stronger. Now go read the book again before you try explaining it any more.

[cellgreys]

Tales of xillia 2 milla costumes

Yet they always do when someone says that. After all that crap, we're not finished here. I hope you'll go after the Waymarker with a similar sense of fervor. Good fight to introduce our old friend with. Overall, aside from Rideaux's relative unpredictability, he still doesn't have a whole lot of health or defense, and his elemental weaknesses will be his undoing. It sends out the four magical buzzsaws like normal, but then they change into tornadoes. One arte that is significantly changed is Dancing Bayonet. A few are upgraded, and he does have access to his Mystic Arte, though evidently he did not feel the situation appropriate to use his not-so-trump card right now. He's vulnerable to a lot of elements, and has a wide variety of close and long-range melee artes, though all of his moves generally have a longer reach here. Speaking of the big man, if you chose to fight him way back in Nia Khera, you should have an idea how Rideaux fights. The goons themselves are very much more annoying than they are deadly, but they can throw out healing items (as can a few other human enemies), so you'll want to take them out as soon as possible, hopefully while the AI is keeping Rideaux and his Fauxmatus busy. Give it your all, for Alt Milla's sake.Īlso, Rideaux has a bunch of his goons along for this fight. However, the only way to use it in this fight is if you lose this fight, and are sent back to the menu screen, where you can set it. Since it very much relies on the power of The Four, Alt Milla never got it. In addition, she also has access to her Mystic Arte. The sooner you can get TP-reducing accessories, give them to Milla. It's basically Jude's Healer and Restore in a single move, but beware the AI will drain through Milla's TP really fast. It's Milla's healing move (all characters have at least one), and as well as removing negative status effects from any characters in the blast radius around Milla. All except Undine are straight elemental-damage dealing moves, in their expected categories. So, what's different about Original Milla? Well, she has the power of Efreet, Undine, Sylph, and Gnome at her disposal. In addition to that, it's genuinely a fun, chaotic boss fight with a ton of action and a great battle song. One of my favorite fights in the game, if only because we finally have the one, the only, the original, Milla Maxwell tagging in for us. Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the abyss!Īh this fight. Milla gives us a brief demonstration of The Four. Our.old friend goes over to Elle, who is still holding Alt Milla's sword. How nice of you to join us, Milla Maxwell! Goddammit! Still, she can't give up.not now. This is not good, but we can't abandon Milla, not now. I see you're quite a hit with the kids, phony.ĭamn. You miss Maxwell, don't you? Your beloved wandering spirit. There's no need for you to feign anger, Jude Mathis. Just prior to this, Milla took a swipe at Rideaux, but, continuing the theatrics, he knocked it away and backflipped. Rideaux pulls an Albert Wesker and sends Jude and Alvin flying across the room with the palms of his hands. First of all, you need to have a living circuit. Would you still think I was bluffing if I said Spirius was founded by Kresnik, the first human ever to summon Maxwell? If only the arte weren't so messy. Spirius knows the calculatrics arte for summoning Maxwell. 4 fight, and holds his own pretty damn well. Rideaux proceeds to get himself in a 1 vs. Technically, the Crest is superior to Milla's Elemental Ribbon in terms of raw stats, but the elemental protection the Ribbon gives here is more advantageous than the minor stat gain the Crest resulted in. In the back left corner (from where I currently am), there are a couple chests with a Wind Crest and a Reverse Doll in them. Hey, maybe Marcia's bodyguards were worth a damn. Uhhh.wasn't this Exodus' operation in the first place? Who the hell wasted these guys? Some of the survivors mutter about a man in red attacking them, but for all we know they're making excuses. Part 22: The Woman Who Returns Part XXII: The Woman Who Returns

[touchreceptors]

TIME TO LEAVE, BUT FIRST

alright guys, I’m not happy about this, I know the exodus from tumblr was a long time coming but because there hasn’t been any good alternative and because i never anticipated shit on this scale, I didn’t do any back ups and I still have tons of stuff sitting in my likes that I need to reblog to make sure those posts get saved when I import this blog ;A;

but it has to be done, and so I’m going to do it.

I don’t even post or reblog much “adult” content (i haven’t seen any flags go up on the content I’ve posted or reblogged recently) but I do like my occasional smutty fanart and i did like discovering new content and new fandoms here and reading everyone’s tags when they reblog stuff from me. I’m SO sad that some of that is going to go, RIP

anyway, here’s what’s going to happen:

My tumblr will stay up (if it’s allowed to stay up, hahah fuck you staff) but I probably won’t be hanging around as much anymore - if pretty gifs and art are still around i’ll maybe pop in occasionally for those

Pillowfort.io is being recommended as a good alternative and I’m excited to start using it, but it’s still in development and I don’t have an account yet. I’ll update with more information once I have it

I will be transforming my old, unused Wordpress account into a backup for this blog in the meantime, and you can find/follow/reblog from me there at touchreceptors.wordpress.com 

I’ll probably start importing this weekend though, and not just yet, and that’s because

I have a fuck ton of likes I still want to reblog so I apologize profusely in advance because starting tonight your dashes are going to be flooded. I’ll try to queue stuff as much as I can but in light of the Dec 17th deadline (and since I’m going to try to import this blog before that) this is inevitable. I am so so sorry. Please feel free to unfollow if the flood bothers you (expect an influx of MDZS, Natsume, and aesthetic posts, mostly) - no hard feelings, other people are probably gonna be deleting their blogs anyway and I’m just trying to save all the content I want while I can

You can also find me on twitter as touchreceptors and on dreamwidth as hupostasis 

I have no plans to back up @fyeahsuzalulu at this time. If you’d like to help out as admin or similar, please contact me via tumblr message or twitter.

Even shorter summary:

This blog will soon be backed up to touchreceptors.wordpress.com until a better alternative can be found

Starting shortly, I will most probably flood everyone with reblogs. Sorry and feel free to unfollow.

Twitter: touchreceptors (fastest way to contact me if you need something)

Dreamwidth: hupostasis

Ao3: touchreceptors 

[eli-kittim]

A Critique of Contextual Theology: Are the Meanings of the Biblical Texts Changeless or Adaptable?

By Author Eli Kittim

——-

What is Contextual Theology?

Is all theology contextual? Do different contexts have the role of attributing theological meanings to Christian texts? Or is there a subtext that does not change? And, if so, what are some of the criteria that assign meaning to theology, particularly to Christian theology?

First of all, what is “contextual theology” anyway? It’s basically a way of doing theology that takes into account both past and present contexts, be they anthropological, biological, psychological, philosophical, or otherwise. That is to say, it reconsiders the cultural milieu or the Sitz im Leben (i.e. the “setting in life") in which a text has been produced, as well as its particular purpose and function at that time. Contextual theology, then, considers both the traditions of the past, which received the revelations, as well as those of the present, and reassesses them within the framework of today’s socioeconomic and political context. In other words, the term contextual theology is a reference to the way in which Christianity has adapted its teachings to fit the successive cultural periods.

Some Examples of Contextual

Theology

For example, the early church fathers were heavily influenced by Greek thought, so their interpretation of scripture was largely derived from Platonism (e.g. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc.). That was their particular form of contextualizing theology. Every book of the Bible was composed and edited within a specific context, be it the Exodus, the Law given to Moses at Sinai, the Babylonian Exile, or the occasional letters of the New Testament that were prompted by some crisis. And we could go on and on. Aquinas’ philosophical conceptions were heavily influenced by the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works. Not too long ago, existentialism provided the impetus for a new type of theology, and so on and so forth.

It seems as if Christian theology has hitherto been articulated in the context of the life and times in which the texts were interpreted and read. Hence the shifting theological paradigms, down through the ages, appear to be byproducts of this cultural phenomenon. As time passes, people’s ideas about theology seem to change as well. Questions associated with the quest for the historical Jesus, the nature of the triune God, and the like, arose out of much debate and discussion that often included diametrically opposed contexts. As the church councils began in the early part of the 4th century, one contextual paradigm triumphed over another. Similarly, various paradigms and approaches to scripture began to shift during the reformation and counterreformation. At the end of the day, who is to say which was the true one?

A Brief Introduction to Contextual

Theologies

Contextual theology, therefore, is a response to the dynamics of a specific cultural context. People from a different cultural worldview, such as Latin or Asian or Arabic culture, have distinct economic and social issues. That’s why there are so many contextual theologies, employing various interdisciplinary approaches, to try to explore these different sociopolitical issues, such as African theology, Minjung theology, Liberation theology, and so on.

Let’s briefly define some of these theologies to get a taste of their doctrines. Minjung theology (lit. the people's theology) is based on the South-Korean Christian fight for social justice. This theology has developed a political-gospel hermeneutic to address the Korean reality. From this point of view, Jesus is seen more as an activist for social reform than as a spiritual teacher.

Another branch of Christian theology from the Indian subcontinent is called Dalit theology. It places heavy emphasis on Jesus’ mission statement, which some theologians call the Nazareth Manifesto (Lk 4.16-20), namely, the proclamation of “good news to the poor,” the release of prisoners, the “recovery of sight to the blind,” as well as letting “the oppressed go free.” From this perspective, Jesus is identified as a marginalized Dalit (i.e. a servant) whose mission is seen as liberating individuals not only from their sociopolitical and economic oppression but also from racial segregation and persecution. But does this theology really capture the core message of Jesus’ mission? Is Jesus really a political “liberator” who is solely interested in an economic and political system that guarantees equality of the rights of citizens? Or are the impoverished those who are not materially but rather spiritually poor? Although the physical dimension of these Biblical passages cannot be denied——after all, many were physically healed of all diseases, according to the narratives——nevertheless, given that the sermons of Jesus emphasize sin and the issues of the heart, one might reasonably argue that he’s referring to the prisoners of sin, and that the recovery of sight might be a metaphor for the truth that “will make you free” (Jn 8.32).

Similarly, many contextual theologies misinterpret the Beatitudes as political manifestos. Notice that Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” not the materially poor (Mt. 5.3). Moreover, he doesn’t say blessed are those who are physically hungry and thirst. Rather, he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (v. 6). So, we have the poor in spirit who will inherit “the kingdom of heaven” (v. 3), and those who hunger for spiritual righteousness who “will be filled” (v. 6). It beggars belief that any theologian can misinterpret this pericope from the Sermon on the Mount as nothing more than a social concern for the materially poor, while promising some sort of Marxist political and economic liberation for oppressed peoples.

This is precisely how Liberation theology interprets such passages. Liberation theology was developed in Latin America and was employed politically as a “preferential option for the poor.” It is true that the Bible is concerned about the welfare of the poor and needy. But it is not a political manifesto designed to liberate them through some new political system. To see Jesus as a prototype of Adam Smith or Karl Marx is to miss the point entirely. Although the Bible certainly addresses these issues and urges us to be equitable and compassionate, its primary message is soteriological, urging us to be born again: “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12.2); be “born from above” (Jn 3.3)! Clearly, this is a *spiritual* message that has few political implications. It’s also important to note that Jesus did not want the crowds to politicize his message (Jn 6.15 NRSV):

When Jesus realized that they were about

to come and take him by force to make him

king, he withdrew again to the mountain by

himself.

The Excesses of Feminist Theology

A subset of this view is Feminist theology, which is primarily concerned with the oppression of women. The aim of feminist theology is to liberate women from a hitherto patriarchal society by giving them equal rights among the religious authorities and clergy. This theology attempts to reinterpret patriarchal language and imagery about God, while reevaluating the status of women in sacred texts. Feminist reinterpretations of scripture will often reject the male gender of God and will omit using male pronouns to refer to this figure. Feminist theology will often call into question authoritarian, pontific, or disciplinarian images of God and replace them with “nurturing” and “maternal” attributes.

This theology has inevitably led to the excesses of various sects who even describe Jesus as a woman. For instance, the “Dongfang Shandian” (aka Eastern Lightning) is a Christian cult from central China which teaches that Christ has been reincarnated as a woman, and that the saints are engaged in an apocalyptic battle against China's Communist Party. However, these are gross exegetical errors which take liberties in manipulating the language of the original text to suit their theological needs.

Case in point. In his recent book “What Jesus Learned from Women,” author James F. McGrath took a simple verse (mentioned only once in the entire Bible; Rom. 16.7) and turned it into a novel where both Paul and even the great Jesus himself have come under Junia’s spell. The implication is that both Paul and Jesus may have gained valuable knowledge from a woman named Junia. It’s all based on a single, isolated verse which doesn’t even hold a single shred of historical, textual, or literary evidence to substantiate the claim. Not only does it contradict Paul’s explicit statement in Galatians 1.11-12—-in which he says that his gospel is not of human origin and that he “did not receive it from a human source”——but it also subordinates the status of the miracle-working Son of God to that of an unknown female follower, who supposedly taught him everything he knows. Unfortunately, this one-verse doctrine is equivalent to speculative fiction. It simply doesn’t meet scholarly and academic parameters.

Problems of Contextual Theology

The Contextualization process is employed in the study of Biblical translations as regards their cultural settings. Hermeneutically speaking, contextualization seeks to comprehend the origins of words that were used by the Hebrew and Greek texts, and Latin translations. However, it has also allowed secular and political groups to read their own message into the text by expanding the cultural contexts so as to accommodate such meanings. Given that modern liberal contexts are intrinsically alien and sometimes even contradictory to the authorial intent of the scriptures, the contextualization process of attributing cultural or political “meaning” to a text can have dire consequences.

The omission and replacement of the words of scripture with more “context appropriate” terminology with regard to race, gender, inclusive language, sexual orientation, and sociopolitical considerations, coupled with large-scale contextual *reinterpretations,* not only violates its integrity but it also represents a desecration of the text, which actually expresses a fundamental equality of all people whose identity is derived exclusively from Christ: “There is no longer Jew or Greek [race], there is no longer slave or free [power structure], there is no longer male and female [gender]; for all of you are one [equal] in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3.28 NRSV).

Even though the Biblical texts were created within a cultural context and not in a vacuum, nevertheless the verbal plenary inspiration——the notion that each word was meaningfully chosen by God——supersedes the cultural milieu by virtue of its inspired revelation, if indeed it is a revelation. In that case, the language from which the text is operating must be preserved without additions, subtractions, or alterations (cf. Deut. 4.2; Rev. 22.18-19). Therefore, It is incumbent on the Biblical scholars to maintain the integrity of the text. One thing is certain. The New Testament was not only significantly changed by the Westcott and Hort text, but it has also been evolving gradually with culturally sensitive translations regarding gender, sexual orientation, racism, inclusive language, and the like. Contextual theology has broadened the scope of the original text by adding a whole host of modern political and socioeconomic contexts (e.g. critical theory) that lead to many misinterpretations because they’re largely irrelevant to the core message of the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus!

——-

[bittcrblue]

archiving some of my deirta meta here to come back to later:

Okay, here we go. Some context before we start re: my own personal Deirta headcanons - Deirta is an arcana cleric of the Luxon of appropriately high level, but she doesn't really do anything with it beyond religious ceremony. She was a cleric of Lolth, before the exodus from the Underdark to the surface. And in a past life, she was born in the Ghostlands in poverty.

All of this combines to make an Umavi who is, despite the fact that she could fairly be described as a zealot, almost agnostic. She knows what it means for a goddess to speak to you, because she has heard it. The Luxon doesn't speak. What does that mean? Tilt the issue and look at it again - the Luxon was championed by Leylas Kryn to bring their people to the surface and out of hardship and slavery. I think that she likely didn't originally believe in the Luxon as a being so much as she believed, fervently, in her friend and messiah. Faith, proper religious faith, would come later, after being reborn, after seeing a new society be built, after watching how much everyone changed in the progression from Drow to Kryn. If anything, she believes that the Luxon will finally speak once they've all reached their final forms, but she doesn't worry about it too much, frankly.

To circle back to the problem of our boy Essek - he is consumed by the hunger for knowledge. What is the Luxon, how does it do the things it's doing, what does it want from them? What are they giving up, when they sign themselves away for eternal rebirth?

You're getting this sense of the gulf that exists between essek's desperate, feverish, kinda fanatic desire to understand and know what the luxon is and Dierta's concerns being more about understanding essek and understanding all her people and all the facets of lived experience, in this very embodied way, for lack of a better term. And that's because to my mind, Deirta doesn't really... care. The Luxon is a pretext for the advancement and perfectionment of the society built by her rebellion, and her role as an Umavi, as she is reborn and reborn, is to take those original values - those 4000 year old values - and try to see what parts of the people's lives don't mesh. She who has lived all these different childhoods and lives, what slippped through the cracks that she can find? And what can they put in motion to fix it?

And in a way it's a little psychotic! Think of all the souls and lives lost because Essek removed the beacons from their usual place. And Deirta's response is - do you are about them? Why not? What is it that you care about, and can this be moved to aid our society in some way? Those lives are lost, and it is a tragedy, but wheel's gotta keep turning, babes. All this in a very nondirect way of course - she's a philosopher, not a general. She exists politically, but then she always has.

You're right that Essek has a very personal relationship with the Luxon, or could have one. But Essek is also very, very withdrawn from his own people, and is isolated in his home. He doesn't have friends, or family - in canon - that he can turn to, that he can better himself for. So instead he turns to the Object Of Faith itself. (And it's for that reason that Deirta really likes the Nein, even if she hasn't met them, because she can see that they're forcing Essek through character development :D)

[ajoblotofjunk]

Okay! I was tagged in several memes while I’ve been in anxious despair over the last four or five days trying to get 9 to 5 done, so expect an influx of meme answers. Hee.

For this one I was tagged by @snowymary, @bethanyactually, and @twelvemonkeyswere .

Instructions: tag 10 followers you want to get to know better.

Gender: female

Star sign: Virgo

Height: 5’ 7″

Sexuality: Heterosexual (I am honestly the straightest person I know, hee)

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Favorite animals: Wolves. Yes, really.

Average hours of sleep: I operate best on 7-8 but lately I seem incapable of getting more than 5-6. 

Current time: 13:25 (did I update this right before I posted so it would be accurate? Yes I did.)

Dogs or cats: Both! They’re great in different ways.

Number of blankets you sleep with: Just the comforter on our bed.

Dream job: Anymore, I really don’t know. I like the job I have a lot. It pays well, I’m doing interesting work, I have great coworkers, and it’s for a company not doing harm. Can’t ask for more than that. Unless someone wanted to pay me to just write whatever fic I wanted. Hee.

When I created this blog: I have no idea how to find this out.

@bethanyactually discovered for me that it was November 2010! Which was ten years ago! What!

Follower count: 710 (wha...when did that happen?! I apologize to all of you for whatever this is I’m doing here 😂)

Why I made this blog: Because everyone was making their “ooh look at this new non-LJ fannish platform we’re all going to decamp to” exodus and I wanted to not get left behind.

How I came up with my url: I stole it from a quote from The 10th Kingdom. Since I had no plans to be here long-term, and I knew whatever I would do here would be ridiculous at best, “a job lot of junk” felt appropriate. Hee.

[asymptotichigh5]

Energy, the economy, and everything else.

I’ve been meaning to address this subject somewhere for a while. For the longest time, I hesitated on what the best medium to achieve this would be : on one hand, a Facebook status needs to be short and concise, which is not necessarily my forte and of course, there is also the fact that it would quickly be washed away in the storm of social media posts that has become 2020. A YouTube video then occurred to me to be most appropriate, but it would be long, my camera sucks and I hate video editing. So, I finally turned to this blog, which I had abandoned for quite some time. Surprisingly, there was an article in my drafts I had started writing almost 5 years ago about exactly this topic titled “A physics crash-course for politicians: a recipe not to kill us all”, but it was a bit too dramatic and I might get called off for taking political stances, when in reality there will be none in this post (which is surprising, for any of those reading this who know me). Anyway, this article will be the first in a series, which I might or might not continue, depending on interest, even though I did promise a friend of mine to carry through the entire message the whole way through, hopefully I’ll be able to do this with some of you actually reading all the way through, though that might be too optimistic.

Energy is a concept which is as important (if not more) as it is misunderstood by the general public. Most people don’t consider energy to be a considerable issue in their daily lives, but hopefully by the end of this post you will understand that energy is what allows you to live your 21st century carefree lifestyle. It turns out that most of us consider energy to be a bill to pay at the end of the month, or an annoyance to pay for when we fill our cars with gasoline at the pump, but energy — before being a bill to pay, or a commodity — is a physical quantity. A quick look at Wikipedia will give you a definition of energy which appears to be rather circular. Perhaps a more appropriate definition of energy for the sake of this post is the following:

Energy [/ˈɛnədʒi/, noun] : a physical quantity quantifying the ability to change the environment, or the ability to do work.

By “change the environment” we refer to the ability to perform any kind of change at all. Letting a ball fall involves energy, heating up water to make a cup of tea involves energy, me typing on this keyboard at this very moment also involves energy, etc. The SI unit for energy is the Joule, which at the human scale represents a tiny bit of energy (roughly speaking, it is the energy required to lift a medium-sized tomato (300 grams) by 1 metre. This unit has the annoying nuisance of being too small, so for the rest of this post we will talk about energy in terms of MWh (megawatt-hours), which corresponds to 3 600 000 000 Joules, which is a hell of a lot more medium-sized tomatoes lifted, or in terms of kWh (kilowatt-hours), which corresponds to 3 600 000 Joules. It is a good exercise to try to understand the MWh in terms of human work to put everything into perspective. To this effect, the BBC actually had a great documentary which appeared in 2009 about electrical energy consumption in the UK which performed an experiment in which a tiny army of people were forced to pedal to provide electricity to an average-sized house with an average-sized family having an average-sized consumption of electricity. While the documentary has great shock value, we need not hire an army of 80 cyclist to get the right orders of magnitude. An 80 kg man carrying 10 kg of supplies with him and climbing 2000 m up a mountain spends roughly 0.5 kWh to go up the mountain. Similarly, digging up 6 m${}^3$ of dirt to make a hole 1 m deep takes roughly 0,05 kWh of energy. By comparison, 1L of oil provides 2~4 kWh of (usable) mechanical energy.

Of course, using the oil to drive up the mountain, or to fuel an excavator to dig up the holes is a no brainer. Oil, or more precisely the machines it feeds, are not constrained by fatigue, do not form unions, do not complain that the ruble is too heavy, or that their legs are tired. It is also incredibly cheap by comparison, even if the human workers going up the mountain or digging up the hole are not getting paid at all. Assuming the cost of a slave to simply be the sustainance cost of a human being (i.e. minimal clothing, food and shelter) it is still a couple of hundred times cheaper to use a machine instead of a person to perform tasks, whenever possible. The reason why slavery ended is not because all of a sudden people grew a conscience out of thin air, or because we are so much better or educated than our ancestors ; it is simply stupid to have slaves in a world where you have access to a dense source of energy, because using this energy for mechanical work is many times more efficient and cheaper than owning slaves. This heuristic argument is also what ultimately explains the correlation between the abolition of slavery and the first industrial revolution (although the latter was mostly fed by coal as opposed to oil). In other words, the huge disparity in the efficiency of dense energy sources is what explains that mankind has historically always transitioned to sources of energy which monotonically increase in energy density.

But just what makes energy so important? Well, the answer lies in the definition. Since energy is ultimately the driver for any transformation of the environment, energy is by definition the main driver of the economy, too. In fact, the availability of a large supply of energy is what has allowed the development of modern society as we know it: paid holidays, retirement benefits, social security, social programs, your trip to Thailand last year, the variety of food you find at the supermarket, the fact that you even have disposable income to spend however you wish, free time, your ability to pursue long years of study, etc. Without the access to a cheap, reliable source of energy, this would all be impossible. Without realizing it, on average, we can calculate an equivalent amount of slaves used by any human on Earth today, given our estimates on the output of energy a human being is capable of delivering above and the total energy consumption of the planet. Doing the math, we find that an average human lives as if he/she had ~200 slaves working for him/her constantly. If we look at developed nations, this number jumps to 600 to 1500 equivalent slaves. This is an outstanding standard of living compared to what any of our ancestors ever knew. And so, it’s not that our generation is 200 times more productive than previous generations of humans, what has been driving the economy for the past 220 years is not humans, so much as it is the increasing access to a park of machines which has driven GDP growth since the industrial revolution. In fact, this can also be seen in developing countries, where an increase in development is immediately accompanied by a rural exodus driven by the introduction of machines to perform the heavy work in the fields. This allows for a widening of the pool of workers, which can then be free to use more machines and increase GDP.

So what sources of energy have we been exploiting in the last 220 years? Worldwide, the mix looks a little bit like this: 

Notice that most of this mix (oil, gas and coal) are sources which are fossil fuels. In essence, what this chart is saying is that we owe all of the societal progress of the past 220 years to fossil fuels. Of course, the use of these fuels has the annoying consequence of releasing CO${}_2$ into the atmosphere which — as we know — has some rather undesirable consequences for the future of humanity. This chart also tells a story about how people have completely misrepresented and misunderstood the problem. Most people think that the energy crisis will ultimately be solved by replacing the carbonated sources of energy by “renewables”, even though the later are basically invisible in the above chart. Luckily, a world where we live only with renewable energy is entirely possible: it’s called the Middle Ages. The impossibility of replacing these carbonated sources with “renewables” is an important point to treat, and deserves an article of its own, but in the end its cause is the same as what has driven this discussion so far: energy density. We shall come back to this important point in a subsequent post. For now, let us finish driving the point home in establishing the unequivocal link between energy, specifically oil, and GDP.  Energy availability is the main driver of the economy, this is simply because the economy is nothing other but the collective transformation of stuff into other stuff by humans. This, and the fact that 50% of the world-wide oil consumption is used to transport goods or people from point A to B is what explains the following correlation between oil and GDP: 

In light of global warming, the question becomes one in which we are forced to arbitrate between real GDP growth and carbon emissions. It is literally that simple, yet it is difficult to grasp what this means. GDP growth is an abstract concept most of us don’t really understand, and most people advocating for giving up growth don’t fully grasp the consequences of what it will mean for all of us. Very really, what it means is diminishing real wages and purchasing power by a factor varying between 3 or 10 over the next 30 years (we will come back to these figures eventually in another article, too). Now, most people will point out that we can and should just take all this wealth from the oligarchs and the billionaires out there, and this is true and should definitely be done, but it will unfortunately still not be anywhere near enough to solve the problem. Orders of magnitude are a bitch and maths sucks, especially when they contradict your political opinions. In real terms, giving up growth means to take your current salary, and divide it by 10, and ask yourself whether you are really ready to live with that. The questions on left and right are at this point so irrelevant that it is stupid to even ask them. Both of these models of thinking completely rely on a pie which is ever increasing and in which the living standards of everyone eventually rise. For the right, this is obvious, but this holds true even in a leftist society, in which the social programs and everything that goes with it relies heavily on economic growth and an increase of the economic pie. This view is flawed, as in very real terms in order to protect ourselves from climate change, the only way is to considerably decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, in other words, considerably decrease global GDP.

(Un)fortunately, whether the politicians decide to take global warming seriously or not, the problem will auto-regulate eventually. You see, there is a tiny and obnoxious problem regarding our addiction to fossil fuels: we are running out of them. We should point out that not all fossil fuels are equal: this is not only true from a carbon emission perspective, but also from a transportation point of view. Indeed, only about 10% of the coal produced yearly is actually exported, because it is inconvenient to transport. Gas presents a similar problem, given its physical form, which is not sufficiently energetically dense to be easily shipped without compression (which itself involves energy). This leaves oil as the main source of energy which is actually exportable and tradable. ��And so, not only is oil vital due to the fact that it is the only source of energy which can reliably be used to for transportation, it is also the only option when looking at trading energy internationally. However, oil production has been already past its peak in most countries with considerable oil reserves. From a European point of view, the problem is actually worse as the energy consumption in Europe has been stagnating and in fact decreasing since 2005, when we reached peak consumption.

Incidentally, this explains why there has been no -- and there will be no -- economic long term real growth in Europe in the future, and it this has indeed been the case ever since 2008. In fact, most of the economic growth which has happened in Europe ever since is due to the trade of goods which increase in value over time (such as housing), which gets further gets inflated as there is a surplus of liquidity which has been continuously injected into the system since the introduction of quantitative easing. We will come to this problematic in a latte post. Similarly, we observe analogous curves of decrease in variation of energy consumption in the countries of the OECD (source of data: BP Statistical Review 2017), which means that this halting of real economic growth is not to be expected anywhere else in the OECD either.

During a recent discussion with a close friend of mine, he pointed out that the decrease in consumption in energy could be explained by the fact that the economy in developed countries had essentially become an economy of services, and that thus, this correlation between GDP and energy consumption and production was flawed, but this reasoning is wrong. First, because many of these services introduced involve or depend strongly on developments in e-commerce and industries attached to the development of the Internet and computers. However, the digitalization of the economy has not led to a decrease in energy demand, but in fact quite the opposite, if anything it has considerably increased our energy dependence. Second, the data simply states otherwise across the board. For instance, the chart below depicts an evolution of the percentage of people working in services and the amount of tons of CO${}_2$ released in the environment per capita in the World (data is from the World Bank).

Of course, the fact that these are positively correlated in the world and these countries is expected. In the world, because supporting the increasing living standards of the people working in the service sector necessarily comes out of an increase of the economic pie, which can only mean that the energy consumption (thus, at first order, the tons of CO${}_2$ in the atmosphere) increased. In European countries, the CO${}_2$ per capita has been reduced, partly to a negligible population growth, but also due to the delocalization of the most polluting elements of the economy to developing countries. Nonetheless, the general worldwide trend is clear: more service sector employment correlates with higher output of CO${}_2$, which implies higher energy consumption. But of course, by the reasoning above, this is hardly surprising.

Most of the time, the decline in the rate of growth of oil production is dismissed by saying that we will always find alternative forms of petroleum which will remain exploitable and will secure us with more oil. However, these alternative sources, such as bituminous sands and are problematic to exploit, require more energy input to be exploitable and are of lesser energetic quality. Similar decreasing curves of consumption and production have been appreciated for gas as well. Coal remains an exception to this, but it is not easily tradable, which implies that only 8 countries (including the US, China and Australia) really can consider exploiting coal for long term energy consumption, but given the climate consequences this poses, this is hardly a desirable outcome.

And so ultimately, it is not even a question of deciding whether or not we want to transition out of fossil fuels or not. The decrease in fossil fuel consumption will happen whether we like it or not — and by extension, so will the inevitable shrinking of the economy. The problem is that it might not happen fast enough to avoid catastrophe, which might already be unavoidable. What this also means is that the questions we should be asking ourselves as a society are not so much whether we should adopt liberal or leftist policies, but rather how we optimize the distribution of resources in a world where the economic pie decreases year by year, but no one seems to be wanting to have this discussion seriously.

[heavyweightheart]

i’m pausing seeking the straight and narrow at about 4/5 of the way thru, bc i need to read for class and also bc i started to notice how sick it was making me feel, emotionally-physically. so here’s my premature review:

this is an incisive and thorough analysis of weight loss and “ex-gay” groups in evangelical contexts, and in secular. she doesn’t fall into false equivalence btwn the two groups to make the work artificially cohesive; she discusses similarities and differences in depth. she has a foucauldian framework that’s really useful in understanding these two institutional systems of social control. 

BUT, in her effort to have a social scientist’s removal from her subject, she throws gay people under the bus. she uses the language of “ex-gay” culture, including constant use of the word “homosexual,” which in this context must be understood as pathologizing, medicalizing, stigmatizing. in her attempt as a researcher to respect the language and views of her subjects, of these homophobic groups and the gay ppl w/in them, she validates them. it’s possible there’s strong criticism and rejection of exodus international at the end of the book, but it would be a departure from her approach throughout the rest.

she’s clearly more familiar and comfortable with critique of weight loss programs, and we glean from her analysis an appropriately condemning attitude toward those. but as a straight woman writing about sickening levels of homophobia and cult-like indoctrination of gay people, the attempt at impartiality looked a lot like simply adopting their externalized and internalized homophobia. she does give the “pro-gay” (her adopted term!) side some attention, and it’s to be understood as the default perspective, but........... not nearly enough.

so, really good book in many ways. unique. her prose is fabulous. definitely anti-fatphobic. but weirdly not anti-homophobic, so proceed with caution.

[dustydahlin]

Anointed - Your New Identity in Christ!

Subject: Your Identity as anointed. How a deeper look at what it means to be anointed can lead you to a deeper relationship with God!

“But you have been anointed by the Holy One... But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him” (1 John 2:20, 27).

To better understand our identity as anointed, I want to tell you about my recent promotion. 

I recently received a promotion at my pest control job. I am still working in the same career. I am still in pest control. But my new position has imposed two significant challenges. Firstly, I have had to completely shift my mindset. I have needed to completely shift my overarching perspective of pest control. While it is still the same business, I cannot view the job anymore as a technician. I have to change my thinking to that of a manager. BIG SHIFT!

Secondly, I have been challenged with new insight into the inner workings of the business. It is like the curtain has been rolled back, and I have been allowed to see what goes on behind the scenes. This insight, or revelation, would not have come without my new position. This promotion has granted me to see things that I would not have otherwise seen.

This little story about my new position is helpful for two reasons: 1) it demonstrates how my new position requires a change of mind, thinking, and overarching perspective. And 2) it illustrates how my understanding of the “inner workings” has been enlightened. You see, too often, we have made teachings about our new position in Christ – our identity – nothing more than positive, biblical confessions or declarations that point to who we are. (And I understand this because, after all, our identity is OUR IDENTITY, Right!?) It seems, though, that the biblical teaching on identity should offer the same insight as my analogy. Our new position in Christ requires the same two challenges. It would be better, more theologically appropriate, if we paused for long enough to ask the question, “what does this gift of identity say, first, about the Giver of the gift? And what responsibility, or demand, does our identity place on us?” In the same way I experienced those two changes, a biblical understanding of our new identity as anointed requires the same. When we seek to ascertain who we are in Christ and everything about our new spiritual position, we must ask “what does our identity say about God, and what does this new position require of me?” Answering these questions will be the focus of our study, today.

(Reference work from Douglas Buckwalter about the Bible’s identity statements being a compendium of early Christian belief. The Bible’s presentation of Christian identity is clearly given to illustrate a revelation about God, His actions toward mankind, and His expectations for how believers are to live. Click here for my full article.)

Before we can answer our questions, we really need to start with “What is anointing? And what was the historical and cultural understanding of anointing with oil?” Anointing (χρῖσμα [chrisma] and χρίω [chriō]) simply means to smear, daub, or rub.

Background

In the ancient middle east, in both pagan and Hebraic practice, anointing was used as a toiletry. “The fierce protracted heat and biting lime dust of Palestine made the oil very soothing to the skin, and it was applied freely to exposed parts of the body, especially to the face” (George B. Eager). In line with this, it was used as a perfuming agent to cover bad odors. The heat and manual labor encouraged the use of anointing as perfume, especially for celebrations and social events (Jacob W. Kapp). The ordinary usage, in short, was that of covering foul odors and perfuming. Also, people would abstain from anointing with these fragrant oils as a form of the morning. All these practices can be seen in the Bible: Deut. 28:40; Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam. 12:20 and 14:2; 2 Chron. 28:15; Ezekiel 16:9; Micah 6:15; Daniel 10: 3. It is very clear from Exodus 30:23-25 that the anointing oil was intentionally made to be fragrant and pleasing to the senses.

As pertains to its religious usage, it was especially used to consecrate “an individual or object… for divine use” (Louis Goldberg). This is evident throughout the Bible. It can be specially noted of the consecration of the tabernacle, and the items therein (Exodus 40:9-11). It was, also, used to consecrate people for divine use. This can be witnessed of Aron and his sons in Exodus 40:12-15. Anointing with oil was used as a symbol of God’s choice to consecrate (or “set apart” for a particular purpose). It is a wonderful and exciting revelation of a God who chooses to use His people for His sacred work. ​

Similar to the concept of consecration, Anointing with oil was also used as a symbol of inauguration. Anointing in the Old Testament was used to demonstrate God’s choice to elect people to a special office. This sacred practice can be seen in electing kings (1 Samuel 9:16 and 10:1, 1 Kings 1:34, 1 Kings 1:39), prophets (1 Kings 19:16, 1 Chron. 16:22, Psalms 105:15), and priests (Exodus 40:15, Numbers 3:3, Exodus 29:29, Leviticus 16:32, Leviticus 4:3). The anointing of the priests - the high priest especially - was the most common religious practice among the Jews (William Smith). It was a very sacred symbol. It conveyed the revelation of God’s choice for electing a people, or individual, to an office. This was not just a profound revelation of God choosing to use His people for His soteriological agenda, but it was also understood as endowing people with power.

George B. Eager states, “Among the Hebrews, it was believed not only that it effected a transference to the anointed one of something of the holiness and virtue of the deity in whose name and by whose representative the rite was performed, but also that it imparted a special endowment of the spirit of Yahweh.” This understanding can be seen in 1 Samuel 16:13 and Isaiah 61:1.

When John was inspired to write this passage in 1 John 2, He knew the people receiving this revelation would have had these things in mind. Anointing was familiar to them. Very familiar. They would have had the above concepts and practices ingrained upon their hearts and minds because the act of anointing was very culturally relevant to this audience. Although we do not know when 1 John was written, we do know that “It is called ‘general,’ because it was not written and sent to any particular church, or person, and not because it was for the general use of the churches, for so are all the particular epistles but because it was written to the Christians in general, or to the believing Jews in general wherever they were” (John Gill). 

The reader’s ancestral and cultural understanding of anointing with oil, and their understanding of the broad (non-specific) target audience, would have had a great impact on their minds and hearts. Firstly, before answering our main question, it is important to note that John would not have known all of those who would have received this Epistle. Whoah! He did not know all of those that would read this inspired Text. It makes one wonder how he could have so confidently declared, “you have been anointed!” He did not know them! But he did know the reality was the Believers’ new identity was established upon their conversion. Upon placing faith in Jesus Christ, the Christian is made new (ref. Eph. 1:13-14 and2 Cor. 5:17). They are given an entirely new identity in Christ. No exceptions. Every single believer is a recipient of God's anointing.

How incredible is it to know that you have been anointed? God has covered you with His Spirit. He has poured over you the oil of empowering so that you may walk as Jesus walked, live as Jesus lived, die as Jesus died, give as Jesus gave. “You have been anointed.” You are just as anointed as any other believer in the Body of Christ. No one is more or less anointed than anyone else. We are equals in the Kingdom of God. We are anointed for His glory!

{The “anointing that you have received,” is written in the Aorist Indicative Active. This demonstrates a single, effective, one-time action. It “states an action that occurs without regard to its duration. It is analogous to a snapshot which captures action at a specific point in time. In the indicative mood, aorist can indicate punctiliar action (happens at a specific point in time) in past” (Precept Austin). This only further intensifies the dramatic work of God, upon salvation, to anoint His people with the Holy Spirit. Reference Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18, and Acts 10:38 }

​

With the cultural, historical, and grammatical information given above, we can answer our question. “what does this say about God, and what does this require of us?”

Theological Implications - what does this say about God?

​First, it should be obvious that it reveals a God that covers His people. He is present. He is near. He covers us. God gives the Holy Spirit to his people. Being identified as anointed reveals an Anointer who cares.

The readers of John’s letter would have, no doubt, understood this in terms of the common use for anointing. They would have connected the fact of anointing was used to cover foul odors. They more than likely would have seen this to reveal a God who beautifies. Moreover, this conjures to mind the idea that the Holy Spirit covers the foul stench of our sin. This is incredible! How amazing is it to know that we are covered - and not with a temporary anointing that can be washed off with water. Rather, we are covered with God Himself. God permanently covers those who place their faith in Him. What a good God!

Also, in line with its historical and cultural context, it reveals something about the choice of God. It shows how the Almighty chose to elect us to a particular office. All believers. All those anointed by the Holy Spirit. It highlights the choice of God for the election. It was God’s Choice. It was His desire. It is the plan to elect you to participate with Him in His redemptive plan. Heaven’s prerogative was to partner with the Redeemed to extend the invitation for salvation, hope, life, and love to the world. This reveals a God who calls and qualifies all Believers to a sacred calling. He is not waiting for you to qualify yourself. He is not waiting for you to know your Bible better. He is not waiting for you to get your graduate degree. He is not waiting for you to feel qualified. He chose you! He elected you to be a part of His royal priesthood. The moment you gave your life to the Lord, He anointed you. He chose to ordain you to His great and glorious purposes. ​

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Going deeper, it shows a God who consecrated you. It demonstrates a God who set you apart for divine use. He made you holy unto Himself. Like when God chose to consecrate the tabernacle with anointing oil, He also consecrated you for sacred use. You have been set apart for service to God. He chose you!

It also presents a God who chose to empower you. It shows that God not only qualifies you to serve Him, it promulgates how God also equips you. In the same way as Jesus was “anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power,” so are you (Acts 10:38). Being that our identity is that of anointed and being in Christ (in the Anointed One), God chose to place “the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1-4). And again, this choice is seen in Jesus’s statement to the disciples. He declared, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). He chose to call, elect, and empower you.

“for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” ( 2 Tim. 1:7).

Lastly, this reveals another facet of our God. He chose you to take ownership of a particular calling and purpose. He chose to elect you to the office of priestly ambassador, and He chose to give you ownership over it. He places the responsibility upon us to steward our calling. The Old Testament and the New Testament are full of examples of men and women who succeeded and/or failed to steward what God had given them. This includes king Saul, judge Deborah, king David, Samson, king Ahaz, Eli, Eli’s sons, Peter, Paul, and many others. God chose to elect many priests, kings, judges, and prophets who failed to steward the office to which they were called. Many others succeeded. This demonstrates, further, how our identity as anointed reveals the fact of God’s choice to give us ownership of our calling and purpose. God gave us the freedom and responsibility to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling” (Eph. 4:1-7).

​

This leads us perfectly into our next question…

Practical Expectations - What does this require of me?

First, it requires the refreshing revelation of the fact that God chose you! Understanding our new identity as anointed from a proper cultural framework, we can identify a heavenly expectation. Being anointed of the Holy Spirit tells us that God expects us “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” God requires us to “live up to what we have already attained” (Phil. 3:16). Being anointed. Being elected to a special office. Being given a high calling and sacred purpose. Being anointed of God shows us that we are called to serve God and minister God’s love to others. God’s exceptionless expectation for us is that of priestly ambassadors. ​

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matt. 28:18-20).

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us…” (2 Cor. 5:17-20)

Second, it requires you to take ownership of that to which God has called you. No matter where life has brought you. Wherever you are. Mountain top or valley. Stream or desert. You have been anointed. You have been entrusted by God. Convenient or not, God has elected you and appointed you to an important office. You are called to serve God by sharing Jesus with the world around you. You have been set apart for divine use. No exceptions. Your new identity demonstrates the potent reality of responsibility. God asks that you take ownership of that to which you have been called!

You are anointed wherever you are. You carry the Presence of God with you. Where you are in life is where you have been sent as a priestly ambassador. To your family. To your co-workers. To your boss. To your wife. To your children. To your barista. To your waiter. To your social media following. To your kids. You are to minister the love, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ everywhere we are.

It doesn’t have to be scary. It doesn’t have to be complicated. This is simply doing good. Sharing your faith. Explaining your hope in the face of trial. Going “out of your way” to pray from someone. Dying to self. Loving as Jesus loved. Living as Jesus lived. Giving as Jesus gave. ​

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:9-10).

Additional Recommendations:

Vines Expository Dictionary 

Baker’s Dictionary of Bible Theology

Bibles

Militant Thankfulness: An Essential Practice to Experiencing a Full Spiritual Life

Bible Study Tools

[mason-mem]

more pages of Serres’ Malfeasance

FROM LANDSCAPE TO COUNTRY

From tribe to homeland, from the rustic farm to cities, and from these to nations. The latter sometimes revere the tomb of an unknown soldier, not so much to remember the horrors of war, as the inscriptions claim— it would be better to forget those—but to bow before the vile remains that sanction the urban or national appropriation of the soil. My book Statues and Robert Harrison's The Dead develop this insight at great length. Leland Stanford built our campus on top of the remains of his beloved son, just as Romulus built the eternal city on the corpse of his brother.

Millions of young people, whose remains rest in military cemeteries, in the shadow of bronze statues erected for the foul glory of the very people (were they clueless or criminal?) who sacrificed them, marked with their blood, their corpses the nation's property. Born on the soil of their nation, they died on it and for it, and now they sleep in it.

THE LITTLE-KNOWN MEANING OF A FEW WORDS

I have briefly described actual individual or collective behaviours, without paying much attention to the words I use such as clean or one's own, place or location. Let me start then by clarifying the meaning of some of the terms signifying property. Note: the verb "to have" in Latin has the same origin as to inhabit. From the mists of time, our languages echo the profound relation between the nest and appropriation, between the living space and possession: I inhabit, therefore I have.

Appartenir4 comes from ad-per-tinere, which means to hold or to be linked to. The English words tenure and tenant also describe an inhabitant who dwells. We hold on to our habitat; we value it. To inhabit is to have. The relation between "appertain to" and "apartment" is similar; they imply the grip, the solid link I have just mentioned between the body and its nest, between life and place, which is the very subject of this book. From the Latin ligare (to bind) come the words ob-ligation, re-ligion, neg-ligence ... all links that bind one to a reference, a point, or a place. I belong to a space where such-and-such a place belongs to me.

What do we mean by the French word for place, lieut Its magnificent and little-known etymology, the Latin locus, refers to the sexual and genital organs of the woman: vulva, vagina, and uterus. Sic loci muliebres, ubi nascendi initia consistent (woman's places, where the beginnings of birth are situated;5 Ernout and Meil-let, Dictionnaire e'tymologique de la langue latine, Paris, Klincksieck, 1885, p. 364b; I quote this in passing as ev­idence for readers who might think I am fantasizing). The word topos (rojiog), which expresses in Greek the same meaning, of course preceded the Latin and refers to the same delights. We have all inhabited the matrix, the first place, for nine months; all of us were born by going through the vaginal canal, and a good half of us seek to return to the original vulva. The lover says to his loved one: "You are my home," the neonatal place, of birth and desire. It is our first place, warm, humid, and intimate.

The term lodging, of a different, Germanic origin (Laube, entrance hall) leaves the Latin tenancy behind and signifies a hasty construction of leaves, for instance a tent, called in Latin tabernaculum. The Jewish religion celebrates this mobile habitat every year, pitched here and there, as in the desert of the Exodus; here we have a nomadic tent that looks like a rental. I'll come back to this.

With reference to sites that are outside the body, our language says "here lies" for the place where our ancestors rest; I am coming back now to consider the country and the aforementioned landscape. In Egypt, in the City of the Dead in Cairo, the poor have invaded a huge cemetery where they haunt the graves; it is a necropolis, a metropolis. There I understood that the first house was built near the tomb of the loved one whom the poor wretch did not want to leave. The here of the "here lies" did not in fact designate the funeral site; on the contrary, it signalled that there is no place other than the site rooted in those bodies. The site does not indicate death; death designates the site, and often its limits. This is another inevitable link.

Ultimately, here we lie down, to sleep, to love, to give birth, to suffer and die. We return to etymology: the French verb coucher comes from col-locare, to sleep in the same spot, to share a location. The original vulva, the final tomb . . . this third location designates the bed, the pallet, precisely the place to be born and die, but also to sleep, copulate, be ill, rest, dream. . . .

My very language displays the three themes of this book, which proposes that there are at least three fundamental sites: the uterus, the bed, and the grave. Do we really know what we are saying? To inhabit therefore haunts the nests needed in moments of weakness and fragility, the embryonic state, the risk of being born, the infant at the breast, the caress in the amorous offering, sleep, peace, rest. . . requiescat in pace: fetal life, the love act, the darkness of the tomb, the horizontality of night.

Everything else—the ability to cope with daily life and standing on your own two feet, economic or culinary activities, public comedy, politics, the heat and cold of the desert—depends on those intimate necessities that bind us to our nests with the strongest possible links. Exposed to space, our strength emerges from our weaknesses that lie in those places from which they spring forth. The primary need: to live here. To inhabit, to have; how to describe the strength of the link that unites them? He who lacks a "here" where he can lie down does not have the strength to stand up for very long.

These words do not refer solely to spaces occupied by humans, for let me remind you of the real origin: every living being takes refuge in such nests and emerges from them. Oysters and clams, titmice and wasps, hares and moles, boars, chamois, izzards ... all inhabit a shell, hive, nest or burrow, wallow, shed, as I have mentioned before. And so plants grow in sites where the altitude reproduces the cold or heat of their latitude. Here is the proof: when their environment changes, either they die or they must go to hothouses, hotels protected by a glass roof that imitates the effect known by that name. Anthropomorphism aside, let us then consider those places as slices of inhabitable space, a division practised also by animals, vegetables, algae, and mushrooms and even by monocellular beings ... a division that is generally necessary for life to continue. Apart from our maps, land registries, or nautical charts, we could imagine many more such vital divisions.

Let us return to humans. What happens when this nest, this place, is lost? Again, on this point our language is quite precise. The person whose pecuniary resources are dwindling is called poor, the famished deprived even of bread are indigent; those who roam without a roof, without a place, are miserable. Human misery marks the limit of possible life. Those who have a place have. Those who have no place have nothing, strictly speaking. Do they still exist? They have fallen below the level of animals. I will return to this subject in the end.

THE NATURAL FOUNDATION OF PROPERTY RIGHT

Necessary for survival, the act of appropriation seems to me to have an animal origin that is ethological, bodily, physiological, organic, vital . . . and not to originate in some convention or positive right. I sense there a collection of urine, blood, excretions, rotting corpses. . . . Its foundation comes from the body, alive or dead. I see those actions, behaviours, postures as sufficiently vital and common to all living beings to call them natural. Here natural right precedes positive or conventional right. Rousseau is wrong when he writes, "The first who after enclosing a piece of land thought of saying 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society."6 Describing an imaginary act, he proposes a conventional foundation of property right. A few centuries before him, Livy, in the first book of his Roman History, might have said more concretely: "The first, Romulus, who having enclosed a piece of land by plowing a furrow around Rome, and thought of saying 'this is mine,' found no one to believe him, but on the contrary found a twin brother, a rival, a competitor, someone with the same desire . . . and opposed him." Livy understood this sudden jealous reaction quite well and ascribed it to a double, a twin. Romulus therefore killed Remus, who had turned up so conveniently, and hastened to bury him under the walls of the city, which made him its founder, owner, master, and king. The bloody remains of his crime polluted the earth he thus appropriated, according to what I have just called the natural or living law. Romulus remained faithful to the wolves that reared him. Although from a historical perspective it is just as wrong as Rousseau's tale, the Latin historian's account expresses an anthropological truth that refers to bestial customs described in ethology; these customs are still obvious to the passer-by on streets full of dog piss.

I foresee that laws emerging from animal life and behaviours will slowly but surely wrench themselves away, break loose, and free themselves from their origins. They may finally forget their origins to give birth to a set of conventions or cultural legislations. The so-called natural law becomes, little by little, positive.

How? In two ways: first, by changing the most horrifying practices, such as crimes, violent invasions, stinking trash . . . and evolving toward what I call soft signs, and finally by freeing itself from those marks. This is the theme of my book.

BLOOD, CORPSES:

PEASANT AND SACRIFICIAL CUSTOMS

Most of the rituals performed in antiquity, throughout what was called, erroneously or out of ignorance, the inhabited world, revered the gods pertaining to the cult of ancestors. Fustel de Coulanges describes this in his book The Ancient City. Sacred was the name of the Earth that they walked on, haunted, and cultivated; sacred because it contained the historical remains of descendants buried there. The cultivated Earth, the pagus, from the tilled plot of land, owned by the descendants of the ancestors buried there, was the origin of the pagan religion, as the term itself indicates. The domestic altars bring into the household the remnants of the dead and the gods of the pagus. In the second generation, Numa, the successor of the founding king Romulus, becomes a priest instead and establishes the rites in question. On the heels of the first murder come religions.

THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS: A HORRIBLE TRAIL

When I read the pious Virgil or the divine Homer, I count the enormous number of sacrifices offered by kings, warriors, priests, and travellers. First of all, there was Iphigenia, killed for wind;7 next the children of Athens, devoured by the Minotaur; they precede the bulls, pigs, calves, heifers, and kids whose throats are cut on the altar stone. The suovetaurilia sacrifice multiplies the mass graves of animals; holocausts burn all their limbs. Disgusted by the bloody trail whose abomination abundantly soiled the space they traversed, I track the travels of those ancient heroes: slimy, unpleasant trails. . . . What smells of burned flesh, which bone yards did they leave behind? Did they know that their passage was marked by garbage of whose function they might have been unaware? They were purifying, so they said. . . .

I must really translate into Latin Rousseau's saying, even though he is plenty Roman already. In that language, "The first who enclosed a piece of land," the word lustrare is used specifically; it means to travel all over a place, go around its periphery, circle it, inspect it. The same word for closure also means to clean, to purify. This purification occurs through sacrifice; is this bloodshed used to clean, or to soil? The victim to be bled is led around the object to be cleansed, surrounds it and confines it as it passes by; and so the oxen turned around the altar before dying. With this ritual and sacrifice, lustration becomes both spatial and bloody. This plot of land full of blood and hideous limbs appeared pure to the ancients, while to me it looks soiled, dripping with suffering, reeking of a foul stench. They called it enclosed, and I say appropriated: a bloody appropriation on top of corpses.

The first who bled a child or a pig after having led him around such a spot, and flooded this spot with the blood of the victim, succeeded in enclosing it and made it into a temple. Let me now give a Greek translation. Belonging to the same family as lobo-tomy or a-tom, the word repivd) (temno) in Greek means to cut. Just so, the term temple means the closure of a place that is sometimes sacred, sometimes profane. Translated into French, it becomes cloitre (cloister). Translated into Polynesian, "here" is taboo, elsewhere, yours. When you go to a Pacific island you will see the word taboo in large letters on the signs indicating private property. Don't enter here, this place belongs to someone. Another enclosure. When in ancient times the human or animal sacrifice flooded the altar, the temple, or the square with the victim's blood, the horrible outflow marked in red the place of the god. Or that of the hero: Remus' blood spreads over Romulus' Rome. It is his. Blood signals the inner space. No one has the right to enter this templum tabu, this taboo temple. Do you want to desecrate it? Well then, soil it! The "natural" foundation of property right is followed by the religious foundation. Yes, Numa succeeds Romulus.

Finally, nothing is shut more tightly than the temple of Vesta, located long ago in the Forum in Rome. A round structure, it admitted only chaste priestesses. In the back, a small door opened up through which the vestals regularly expelled the ashes of their pure and perpetual fire. They called it the stercorian door— in other words, the anus. As we know, the word stercus _ means excrement; the (scatological) term scoria says the same thing in Greek and Latin. Situated outside the city that Romulus appropriated in earlier times, the temple threw its refuse into the city. Thus they signaled the boundaries of the temple.

After urine, blood. And after blood, we have ashes. After nature, after the paganism of the pagus, we have polytheism. TWO ENDINGS OF RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION

Here is the first example of a softening, a first narrative of liberation. We no longer realise what upheaval was introduced, at least among European peoples, by their progressive conversion to Christianity around the first century of our era. Suddenly, a conversion. As I reread the old Latin of the mass, I remember the lavabo} When I was an altar boy, I gave the priest the water for purification—not blood, but water. Not blood, but wine. The priest, his hands under the flow of water, recites the ninth verse of psalm 26: "Lord, do not let my mind or my life perish among men of blood" . . . cum viris sanguinum. . . . Of course, I will no longer kill a human being or an animal as sacrifices; nothing is taboo any more. There will be nothing sacred, only what is holy. Nothing dirty is left, only what is clean and proper. At the altar as at the hotel? There is no more property?

Here we have another conversion. This Holy Land, no longer sacred but holy, we will no longer tread on, no longer work it either by hand or by plough. We will barely inhabit it because it no longer lies here; it takes place somewhere else, far away, toward Jerusalem and Bethlehem and the rising Sun, the birthplace of Abraham, Sarah, the Holy Virgin, and the Messiah, all men and women who will never appear in our genealogies. Our very earth has been desecrated, or rather secularised; in other words, it has become ordinary, analogous to any other, plunged into a homogeneous and isotropic space. Lying before us passively, the earth has even become objectified . . . objectifiable. Hence our sciences will be able someday to study it, observe it, and measure it.

A very few of us will get to know this Holy Land, only after a long pilgrimage. Pilgrimage or peregrination is derived from per-ager, to travel to the other field, another agriculture different from mine, which therefore is no longer mine. What is more, this so-called Holy Land no longer harbours any remains of the one who was raised from the dead, leaving his tomb empty, containing neither corpse nor mummy; even better, he is the one whose Ascension—or Assumption in the feminine—we celebrate but whose departure leaves nothing behind on earth. There is nothing there, not the least scrap of cloth, not the smallest relic, not the smallest mark implying a story. Daughter of the religion whose prophecies created history, this religion is based on the life of a person leaving no trace whatsoever that would allow us to infer a history. Ancient history ends here; I'll discuss the end o/geography later.

Called holy before, this Earth now also loses its sacredness because it contains no more remains—no more blood, a little bit of wine; no corpse, no stench, no signs of appropriation any more. It is finally cleansed, finally dis-appropriated, de-territorialized. On the universal face of the world, the grand old Pan, the son of all the dead, is dead. With the resurrection of the new god Jesus Christ, there is no longer any marked place. There is no more space, no more history, no more time.

Our only hope left now is in the heavenly Jerusalem, completely absent from this world. Our world lies elsewhere. The holy land no longer even lies in the Holy Land; it can no longer even be found on earth, henceforth referred to as "here below." Like a dispossessed traveller, wandering and roaming, a transient pilgrim, a tenant, our being is not there; it does not come from there, does not go there, but only passes through.

Here are the new answers to the four classic questions concerning place: neither ubi, nor quo, nor unde, but qua.3 We now have a new spatial, religious, or anthropological foundation for tenancy. No longer is there a here or appropriation; we live as transients or tenants, deprived of a fixed abode.

We can call this the first end of property; it is abstract, theoretical, virtual, whatever you want

IMPURE BLOOD

However, here is evidence of a regression at least from this achievement. Indeed we have a second narrative, or second example, to the contrary; the homeland of the Marseillaise10 with its soiled and dirty furrows, soaked (hence appropriated) by the impure blood of its enemies, reveals an anthropological or even animal, and in any case racist, regression toward the archaic pagus. Do you dare to tell me, privately or in any other way, who has impure blood? Do they know what the French are saying? At the top of their voices, they sing this national anthem; what it signifies takes them back even before antiquity, indeed toward those archaic rites whose gestures again mimicked the bestial behaviors of hyenas and jackals. This represents two regressions at the same time. Dirtied by blood, this country belongs to them. Buried under the furrows, the dead by the millions found the homeland, sufficiently soiled by their own pure blood and by the impure blood of their enemy brothers; and so appropriation, twice founded, has returned.

The national anthem becomes a religious hymn, although archaic, falling short of Christianity with its discreet monotheism. But be assured; our fellow citizens belt it out only at trivial encounters, sporting events in the past and today at media or financial gatherings. Like victory, the terrain changes hands with each match and every half-time. It is paid in rent.

4. In English "to belong," but also "to appertain to."

5. Varro, On the Latin Language, vol. 14 (http://www.archive.org/stream/ onlatinlanguageoivarruoft/onlatinlanguageoivarruoft_djvu.txt).

6. Discourse on Inequality, second part, beginning (rendered by translator).

7. A pun in French: pour du vent, "for wind," referring to the ancient Greek myth. Iphigenia is to be sacrificed in order to appease Artemis, who stopped the wind from blowing; this was preventing Agamemnon, who had offended the deity, from travelling to Troy. The colloquial expression c'est du vent means "it is just hot air."

8. From the Latin verb lavare, "to wash."

9. Ubi, quo, unde, and qua are Latin adverbs related to places. They refer to the sentence above, "Our being is not there, it does not come from there, does not go there, but only passes through"

10. The French national hymn, La Marseillaise, is a call to arms to the French to "drench the furrows with the impure blood of the enemy."

and for the  chaverim

[twitchesandstitches]

Where did Soundwave's faction of the Decepticons go after abandoning Unicron-crazed Megatron & what exactly have they been up to? Who else would be among their membership? Are they on friendly terms with any other races (organic or otherwise)? Does your AU version of Soundwave also have a fondness for elephants?

You know that plot detail in IDW when Soundwave worked out that the Decepticons are actually pure evil and have been tormeneting innocent organics for eons and have done nothing but made the universe worse? Soundwave had a similar realization here, and took the ‘Cons most sympathetic towards organics and closest to going rogue (Generally the younger ‘Cons, or the ones that would nomally have gone Autobot by now, along with the more friendly and benign Decepticons like Thundercracker), and high tailed it out of there.

They’ve since joined up with the Cobalt Stingers, though they haven’t gotten much attention there as late. They are pretty important figure, and it can be assumed that any ‘Con associated with the Stingers was part of Soundwave’s initial exodus. He likely is something of a leader and authority figure on their home world of Treasure Planet, assuming he’s not a spymaster as per his usual role.

Thus, he has created a sort of informal new Cybertronian society as part of the Cobalt Stingers; many new Transformers have been born (either through robo-pregnancy, artifice or whatever feels appropriate to the Stingers) and they’ve had a massive population boost. New Transformers are on the rise!

In general, ‘Cons that are at least relatively okay or nice to organics will have a place here. Some of the less malicious Predacons from Beast Wars (Skorponok and toyline-specific characters that can be interpreted as being less murderous) would be good! Knockout and the Stunticons were a major part, too. Pre-Drift Deadlock, before going Autobot, may have been among their ranks, as well as Thundercracker. Some of the Scavengers from IDW, at least the less ‘organic genocide is a sensible idea’ would also be good! Basically all the ‘cons you can figure would have the sense to drop Megatron when he’s obviously possed by Fem Robot Galactus would apply here!

And of course... Soundwave’s family. Ravage, Frenzy, Rumble and the others are all still with him.

Soundwave and his fellow ‘Cons here are friendly enough with organics, if often in a detached way more from different experiences than feelings of superiority. Soundwave in particular feels the minds of all around him, so he CANNOT really think of them as being lesser. He knows their pain too well. As they are part of the Stingers, they are just one species among many, and they are growing to regard the other organics as kin. Even if as something of a condescending way, and with regard to the classist way the Stingers can work within their own society.

Soundwave loves elephants still! One of his potential alt modes is a robotic elephant beast mode, considering it the most noble of organic life, and he likely maintains a herd of elephants as a hobby.

[badmousestuff-blog]

Unheard Voices of WANA

PragerU: The most persecuted population in the world are Christians

Prager U is correct.

SUBSCRIBERS: 0

Ok, jokes aside, this is a serious topic, I hope you watch till the end.

Last month CPGB-ML released this reactionary article, it’s been a common trend of their online presence and really stinks, but then I also remind myself I am in a left that is no longer respectful of these vulgar, outdated gestures, and the left of today truly is a very progressive bunch. We fight for the rights of gendered minorities, stand with people at the forefront of racial oppression, far outside simply the economic realms. They say that oppressions align, and when you look at the left of today, you really see that.

But as time goes on, there can be a tendency for our viewpoints to become clouded with a prevailing dogma.

This is a video about one of them.

This is West Asia [or “the Middle East”] and North Africa, a region collectively termed WANA or MENA, it is home to many different ethnicities that are not of Arab Origin. Some you know, some you don’t. Within here are numerous ethno-religious minorities. Assyrian Christians, Coptic Christians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, just to name a few.

2 years ago, Caabu did a study to find out the nature of racial profiling in the UK. Only 1% of respondents listed the Middle East as being linked with Christianity.

Image:https://i.imgur.com/JHYsKPj.png

Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/racial-profiling-british-people-muslims-arabs-support-security-anti-terrorism-attacks-survey-caabu-a7966666.html

The on the ground reality is that millions of Christians live and breathe in the Crescent, it is after all the birthplace of the Yahweh religion.

Contrary to the very bland, pastiche Christianity that tends to fill the Western temples, Christianity in the WANA is distinctive in being very diverse. To the followers, the faith is particularly sacred and, in many times, a physical part of their identity, in a similar way to how Irish Catholicism in the north might be.

Images to use:

http://www.just-images.com/media/k2/items/cache/768cfd00cdf8b0455e0493699392583d_XL.jpg?t=-62169984000

There are maybe somewhere around 16 million Christians in West Asia, a number that has been gradually decreasing throughout the 20thcentury, and largely this is due to a considerable amount of persecution and repression, including genocide, and within all this, they have very little access to representation.

Source:https://harpers.org/archive/2018/12/the-vanishing-christians-in-iraq-syria-egypt/

Which to PragerU’s credit, they’re right, when we’re talking about religious minorities, Christians are one of the most highly persecuted. But I know that these people are being insincere here. Dennis and his entourage represent, or at least promote, is what could only be described as the white man’s Christianity, the collective Western tradition of Imperial, Crusading, Nation conquering religion of Manifest Destiny and Got Miht Us [what is this? Couldn’t find anything on google]. Malcolm X was not wrong when hecalled Christianity a white man’s religion - that was all he could see at the time. And all of these people’s religious conceptions would appear highly unorthodox if they were to ever go and visit these groups.

Yet how often is it that you see right-wing commentators and outlets picking up on Christian oppression in the global south to regurgitate their hatred and vitriol and encourage further discrimination against Muslims in the west [Show following tweets]:

https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/953302360637493248

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1058426287948218368

https://twitter.com/StefanMolyneux/status/993593881341059072

Just a quick search on Breitbart, and you’ll see how many times they’ve covered the plight of Assyrians and Copts alike [show screenshots]:

https://i.imgur.com/VM3DnAg.png

https://i.imgur.com/CMi3eyo.png

And when right-wingers do resort to the lowest of the low of arguments (whataboutism) in order to get their points across, the Left responds in a very appropriate and effective manner… (gurning)

“What about the crusades?”

I can’t be the only one thinking this…

There’s a contradiction here that we need to talk about.

On the one hand, we’re advocates of intersectionality and dynamics of oppression, looking out for the nuances of thought and removing ourselves from binary choices and assumptions. But on the other, we can’t help getting away from very Euro-centric conceptions of various topics. In other words, we do choose binaries here.

Christian = Oppressor

Muslim =  Victim

Many Western leftists tend to look at religion through this lens. They incorrectly view Christianity as a global oppressor, completely overlooking the many cases where this isn’t the case and thus ignoring many groups who are severely marginalized, particularly when it comes to some indigenous groups like Assyrians and Copts.

When discourse gets going, it picks up like a steamroller. And after a while, we forget about the fact that we’re just regurgitating a dogma.

For us, “Islamophobia is racism” might be fine to say, because we realize that in Western society, Islam is heavily racialized and so those that may “look Muslim” are also targeted. But often, expressing this to a WANA Christian can rightly come off as reductionist, especially when that’s the few times they’re given attention here in the West. Add this onto the fact that when WANA Christians want to speak up about their oppression, they’re often accused of being racist themselves, along with other accusations of bad faith.

how the criticism and mentioning of muslim persecution towards christians [?] is all seen as islamophobia = racism which to them is fine but to us its scrutiny - the wording of the first line

Just as Islam has largely been racialized in the west, the same formula applies to Muslim majority nations regarding how Christianity is viewed. When attacks are caused in the west by Islamists, Muslims in the area are rightly quite terrified and anxious about upcoming reprisals that might be made against them. We do not, however, see why an attack from a White Supremacist against Muslims would also result in a similar effect to Christians in the East. Even though Religion might not even be uttered in these atrocities, Anti-West rhetoric has been heating up over the last 70 years, and with it the false assumption that Christianity is intrinsically Western. The result has been the demonization of WANA Christians as 5thcolumns to western Imperialism.

The effects of the Left’s lack of vigour can be observed. quite harshly.

Assyrian Christians are one of those ethno religious minorities indigenous to the region and have faced over a century of persecution and genocide.

Many of us know about the Armenian genocide of 1915 by the Ottomans – which is still denied by Turkey today, and still not recognized in the UK and US . But what many of us don’t know is that at least 300,000 Assyrians were also victims, alongside the Armenians.

·         Images:https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/5ff06342-7a14-4ce6-89d2-c59a04deb676.jpg

A book that discusses the 1915 Assyrian genocide in detail is Year of the Swordby Joseph Yacoub:https://global.oup.com/academic/covers/pop-up/9780190633462

In 1933, in the village of Simele in Iraq, after waves of anti-Assyrian propaganda, the Iraqi Army slaughtered 6,000 Assyrians and decimated over 60 villages.

Image: https://i0.wp.com/www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/simele-massacre-survivors.jpg?resize=789%2C460&ssl=1

Sources:

https://medium.com/@DeadmanMax/the-simele-massacre-in-iraq-a-legacy-of-trauma-and-british-neglect-ae21d96afe4d

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/simele-massacre-1933-assyrian-victims-still-seek-justice/

Both the atrocities of 1915 and the Simele Massacre in 1933 is what prompted Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to later coin the word ‘genocide’.

Image of Lemkin:https://www.ushmm.org/m/img/2453436-700x468.jpg

After the assassination of Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul al-Karim Qasim (KASIM) in 1963, the following decades saw the rise of Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party in Iraq, and what came with it was a new wave of violent anti-Communism. Many communists were killed and imprisoned, effectively culling the Iraqi Communist Party – of which a sizable percentage at the time were Assyrian.  In fact, the party’s first secretary was an Assyrian named Yusuf Salman Yusuf, who was found hung over a decade prior, on 14thFebruary 1949.

Image of Qasim:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Karim_Qasim

Image of Yusuf:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusuf_Salman_Yusuf

Source:https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/alexander-a/2008/xx/iraqcp.html

With this, and general increasing repression towards their identity, thousands of Assyrians fled the country between the 60s and 70s.

The most recent mass exodus was from the Iraq War. In 2003, there were around 1.5 million Assyrian Christians in Iraq. That number is now less than 275,000. It was only five years ago [2014] that IS committed a genocide. Christian homes were marked with the Arabic letter “N” [show image] for Nazarene, to denote Christians, followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/for-christians-symbol-of-mideast-oppression-becomes-source-of-solidarity/

The population of Assyrians is now between 2 - 4 million, with most of them in the diaspora. There are half a million across Europe, Australia and Canada, and around 400,000 in the US.

https://unpo.org/members/7859

The lack of vigour in the west to understand their plight and the plight of other minorities can be felt severely.

A large portion of the diaspora in the US were supportive of Donald Trump during the 2016 election, a politician who appears to be completely against their interests, the very group that would be the first on the pecking order of deportation. And in due course, that is what the reality has been for them, now after putting in their pledge to live and work, they are now thrown asunder and betrayed by whom they thought they could trust.

Yet just as the opportunity might arise for a show of solidarity, left wingers from across the spectrum were largely silent, and many liberals even said they deserved to get deported, effectively defending their genocide. Did anyone even think about asking their story?

[show initial tweet, and responses to it]

https://twitter.com/VivianHYee/status/882599546244747264

and the comments here:

[show article, then the comments]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/27/detroit-judge-halts-deportations-of-more-than-1400-iraqi-nationals-nationwide/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.46e259345883#comments

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/09/michigans-iraqi-chaldean-community-is-fighting-to-protect-dozens-of-people-from-deportation.html

We [western leftists and liberals] further egg on this anti-Christian backlash in the way we discuss these topics via previously mentioned binaries. For instance, take a look at the travel ban. Eventually, it hurt everyone in the region, regardless of its initial intent to target Muslims. Liberals, instead of taking on a general anti-xenophobic stance, instead increased anti-Christian sentiment by mocking the insertment of preferences towards Christians (which again, never materialized). Take a look at the way that John Oliver and Stephen Colbert discussed the travel ban, for example. And while trying to mock Republican politicians, Colbert inadvertently mocked Syriac patriarchs and made off-handed comments about them and their language.

“While his administrationhas reducedMuslim refugee arrivals 93 percent compared to the final months of the Obama administration, it has still slashed Christian refugees 64 percent. He has also cut Syrian Christian refugee arrivals by 94 percent and those from Iraq by 99 percent. He has admitted just 20 Syrian Christians in all of Fiscal Year 2018.”

Source:https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-has-cut-christian-refugees-64-muslim-refugees-93

Source 2:https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/08/13/trump-admits-only-23-christian-refugees-from-mideast-in-2018/#175295838dd7

The right has been the stickler when it comes to appropriating leftist talking points, as I’ve spoken about numerous times. The EU used to be a more conservative tradition, opposed by many factions of the left including Tony Benn, but after sections of the Right-Wing discourse took it by their shoulders all the left could seem to do was go “No, EU good” in response. The EU is an undemocratic monolithic entity that controls large hegemony over the continent. This is what the left has always been against, and how we seem to have been shuffled into the Pro-EU corner to own the Right is baffling, how dare we allow them to take charge of the narrative.

Many on twitter were stunned a while back with the revelation that Alt-right youtuber Braving Ruin, formerly EdgySphinx, was of Egyptian descent, in other words he’s not white, in a movement almost entirely made up of White Nationalists this seems like a baffling contradiction. It’s not.

He’s a Copt. Another Christian minority native to Egypt that have been increasingly targeted in recent years <quickly show various screenshots of articles from NPR and others about this to prove the point>.

In November 2018, seven Copts were killed by gunmen and 19 more were wounded. “All but one of those killed were members of the same family, according to a list of the victims’ names released by the Coptic Orthodox church, which said among the dead were a boy and a girl, age 15 and 12 respectively.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/03/egypt-attack-gunmen-kill-coptic-christians-bus-ambush

It was from Braving Ruin’s own testimony that we find what led him towards the right was very much so a conflict of his knowledge.

Because for all we try and ignore the issue, these groups are dying. There isn’t that convenient option for the displaced, vulnerable diaspora, coming to a place where they no longer fear being lynched. For them, when they arrive to see a Left whose only regurgitated knowledge has been Eurocentric, they gravitate towards the side that is saying “The Left hate Christianity”. While this might sound silly to you, these minorities don’t have that privilege. And when the right-wing are the only ones talking about their issues, with mostly silence or dismissal from the left, what more would you expect?

We’re not even presenting faux dramatizations of anger. We’re completely turning our back to their voices in favour of pleasing narratives.

One of those narratives that has sprung up in recent years been the conflict in Northern Syria.  There can be a good case made for Kurdish autonomy, and this is in part something that has galvanised support from Leftists in the West towards the issue. Yet it ignores that there are serious issues with the new governments and hegemonies that have taken root, going far beyond US funding.

You may have seen the images below of protests breaking out in Northern Syria against the school closures. (Show Images)

PYD authorities ordered the closure of Assyrian schools that refused to teach the DFNS-Rojava curriculum on August 7th, 2018. Members of the Assyrian security force, Sutoro, opened fire to disperse the crowds, but were overwhelmed. (Show Video)

https://www.assyrianpolicy.org/news/assyrians-in-syria-protest-pyd-s-closure-of-schools-in-qamishli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOS5VKckUpA

Western leftists, rather than question the establishment, instead drew attention to the flags that they were holding. Those are Syrian government flags yes, but it does not mean they are fanatical supporters. In the essence of oppression, anti-Imperialism requires the use of certain representatives as a rallying cry, which is the very reason why Assad still has so much support.

https://www.assyrianpolicy.org/news/kurdish-self-administration-in-syria-release-assyrian-journalist-souleman-yusph

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Christian-journalist,-betrayed-by-the-indifference-of-the-West-over-Syria-45312.html

Despite the oft claimed assertion of the progressive and inclusive constitution, we should know by now that on paper does not always mean in practice, actual reports from the ground level by Assyrians are skeptical to a high degree. The school protests have come after a series of attempts to impose an aggressive series of actions largely targeted at minority groups, including seizure and occupation of property, forced reparation payments, and all manner of targeting and assaults.

On paper, the MFS (Syriac Military Council) are allied with the PYD. But were you aware that the council is mostly made up of Arabs and Kurds, not Assyrians? And that the groups claimed to have been showcased as examples of Syriac-Kurdish unity are in fact on the fringes of Assyrian opinion?

In a similar situation, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq have forcibly removed mayors and are occupying Assyrian towns. Assyrians have protested consistently, to, again, little coverage or outrage on an international level.

Image:https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Assyrians-outside-the-Kurdisch-Regional-Government-office-in-Stockholm-protest-against-the-removal-of-the-Assyrian-mayor-of-Alqosh-north-Iraq-e1501247282519.jpg

Source:

http://www.aina.org/reports/erasingassyrians.pdf

We can talk romantically about the Kurds. But why should their self-determination come at the expense of Assyrians?

As Westerners we have this privilege, we can pick what we like from the orient, but ignore the darker sides of the conflict. Anti-Imperialism is a no brainer, but there can be a tendency amongst some leftists to end up ignoring how imperialism often affects the most vulnerable – indigenous and minority groups. It’s not “too complicated” to talk about this. There’s also the case of generally just needing to listen women and minorities without an immediate assumption they all have an alternative, reactionary agenda. They do have a voice, big and small, and the least we could do is respect that in line with our standards.

And we may also want to even look at our standards in how we might engage with folks who have not regretted their participation in butchery vs the coverage of the Yazidis who who have faced a very recent genocide.

There was recent discussion surrounding a British ISIS bride who was extensively interviewed by a variety of Western outlets, portraying her as a victim. Yet she had no regrets for what she did to communities ISIS subjugated via violence. Western narcissism gave this ISIS bride more coverage than to victims of genocide like Yazidis, who recently protested outside the White House [show tweet]. Again, the only coverage given to them was except from far-right outlets [show breitbart article].

https://twitter.com/Free_Yezidi/status/1106623531939438597

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/03/19/trump-admin-yazidi-protest-outside-white-house-youre-not-forgotten/

I don’t make this video with the intention of bringing about more hatred towards Muslims, yet I can’t help but feel disheartened that this is even assumed. There arenuances we need to start to come to terms with, that will include understanding the different power and privilege dynamics outside of the West, and how that might affect the mindset of the diaspora. Some leftists say this is too complicated to discuss, but it never stopped you before.

You must be able to breach the topic of understanding both Western Islamophobia, and Islamism in the Middle East, without caving into a Western reactionary narrative or allowing right-wingers to continue to fill up the void in these discussions, which they already have done so quite successfully.

So, it’s time we as leftists take back these narratives and rectify our ignorance on the situation instead of continuing to allow the right-wing to dominate this. It’s simply not right to ignore this problem because “conservatives already talk about it”, when we know their intentions are not for the betterment of all, especially when it comes to the oppressed. We cannot grow as a movement when we are pushing so many people away.

So how can we help? The first thing would be to remove Eurocentric understandings of race and religion from our mind, to realize how dynamics work in the global south. And as with everything else, keep up with what’s going on in the region, discuss these issues with your friends, family, comrades. Use your platform to raise awareness. Reach out to and listen to these people and don’t speak over them or use them as props for ideological or partisan fighting.

It may feel good to say, “Jesus was a brown Jewish socialist from the Middle East!” as a “gotcha” to the Conservatives, but we know they don’t really care about that, and more to the point what are you doing for the Christians of the region right now?

Organize with them, declare statements of solidarity, make this a part of your activism. Let them know you’re there for them when they need it. These are marginalized, oppressed people with real, pressing concerns, and deserve more than token appreciation.

The left has brought about, in recent times, a grand spectrum of inclusivity to more oppressed groups. If it wishes to continue this line, then we must start strengthening ourselves and asking the difficult questions. There need not be any slander of groups here. 1 can be split into 2, and we must break away from our Eurocentric understanding of global geo-politics in all aspects if we are to build ourselves and our credibility to the larger world.

Like I said, its never stopped you before.

[funkymbtifiction]

Glow Quicktypes

UNOFFICIAL TPYING BY: wackydeli097 

Ruth Wilder: ISFJ

Ruth’s dominant function is introverted sensing; her first reaction to a new situation is to try to relate it back to her knowledge base in the tropes and traditions of theater. In the first season, she struggles to create a character for herself, until Zoya comes to her in a flash at the patio store (inferior Ne). She then begins to really build that character through Si: she needs direct, tangible experience to flesh out Zoya (which she gets when she crashes the Russian Jewish family’s party to practice her accent). She is concerned with getting the details of her performance just right, and she constantly tries to fit G.L.O.W. into a larger narrative of theatrical themes that she has studied so intensely for several years. She isn’t a natural risk taker, but her partnership with Sam Sylvia (an ENTP) inspires her to tap into her lower functions and try out new ideas and experiences.

Ruth is a people-pleaser and often compares herself to others; she tells Sam, “I get very anxious when I feel like I’m behind in a group setting.” She views G.L.O.W. as a team and invests a lot into building camaraderie with her costars, especially after her friendship with Debbie implodes. In the first season, she has a very hard time asserting herself because of her guilt over that betrayal.

Debbie Eagan: ESTJ

Debbie is dramatic, and she’s often manipulative, but that doesn’t make her a feeling type; in emotional situations, she’s often at a loss of how to react appropriately, and she doesn’t have a clear understanding or handle on her own emotions. She has a victim complex in relationship to Ruth (unhealthy inferior Fi), even though the two of them have wounded each other a lot over the years. She’s manipulative because she’s spent a lot of time painstakingly studying emotions (Si) and working that into her logical framework; she knows the game and how to play it (Te), which is why she’s been very successful in her career. She can easily switch off her emotions to focus on the task at hand.

She’s an unhealthy Te user, though, which leads her to be excessively harsh, most notably when Ruth finally stands up for herself and fends off a sleazy TV executive in season two. Debbie is not sympathetic to Ruth’s feelings at all. She flat out says that those are the rules of being a woman in show business. She chastises Ruth for being selfish. In Debbie’s mind, Ruth acted illogically, and what’s worse, she presumed that the rules didn’t apply to her, that she was above having to deal with these situations.

Debbie absolutely expects other people to put their own feelings aside to get the job done because that’s what she’s done for so long. Her unhealthy introverted sensing has led her to make a lot of sacrifices without really considering alternatives; up until G.L.O.W., Debbie has pretty much played by the rules and maintained the status quo, even though, as Ruth observes, she’s been miserable within it for a long time. She gave up her acting career to care for her son, but also to coddle Mark’s ego over having a wife who’s more ambitious and successful than he is. As much as Debbie lays the guilt trip on others (er, Ruth), she’s also extremely susceptible to guilt herself (unhealthy Si), which is why she would have stayed in her marriage forever.

Debbie tends to take everything a bit too far; her tertiary Ne comes out in those moments of being especially over-the-top. In healthier outlets, she brainstorms story lines and expands on the soap opera tropes that she knows well (Si-Ne). But Ne also rears its head in times of emotional duress. When Mark has his secretary call to ask her the brand of their bed, Debbie loses it; she impulsively decides to sell the bed, then everything in the house, eventually marking it all down to $5 because she can’t deal with consistent or reasonable pricing; she just knows that she wants it all gone because the memories are too painful (Si), so she says “screw it, this doesn’t make sense, nothing is going according to my plans anymore, so burn it all down” (Te-Ne).  She’s constantly fending off the threat of her own emotions, too afraid to go into a vulnerable place because when she does, she slips into self-loathing and has a hard time yanking herself out of her emotional spiral. It’s a lot easier for her to repress her feelings – until they get too big and messy to handle.

Sam Sylvia: ENTP

Sam’s primary cognitive function is extraverted intuition; he deals in possibilities. We see this in action as he’s determining the cast in season one. He talks through all of his reactions to them out loud, with little regard to their feelings (low Fe) and he launches into ideas of possible characters; he takes an idea and runs with it, expanding it, complicating it (Ti working with Ne), mapping out a larger story arc that goes way beyond wrestling matches. That outrageous sci-fi plot indicates that he’s decided to take this potentially hokey wrestling show and transform it into something that fits into his autership, his internal framework that guides his film-making (Ti). He isn’t the best at follow-through, however (which is why he relies so much on Cherry and Ruth). This scattered tendency intensifies in season two, when he’s in an Ne-Fe loop over the threat of losing creative control. He becomes manipulative and petty as he fails to handle this stress. He starts lashing out emotionally, regarding Ruth with suspicion and publicly castigating her.

His inferior introverted sensing isn’t all that noticeable, except in his awkward attempt at parenting Justine involves giving her old photo albums… of relatives she’s never met and doesn’t even know how she’s related to them (again, low Fe). His idea is that Justine will want to know her family’s history and that the photos are a way to communicate that with her and establish a familial connection; he just has a very poor grasp of Si (and Fe) and doesn’t bother with the details. 

Bash Howard: ENFP

Bash is full of big ideas. His dominant function is extraverted intuition; he loves exploring possibilities, delighting in helping the GLOW girls create characters and explore costume options at the show’s inception, and as the show progresses, he thrives in the brainstorming and story boarding sessions. He believes in his vision of GLOW and is optimistic about his ability to bring that vision to life. He’s not the best with details (inferior Si); in season two, when a TV executive calls him and wants to come to the finale’s taping, he neglects to get the guy’s name and he turns to Debbie to figure it out.

His auxiliary introverted feeling is most obviously expressed through his eccentricity, which places him pretty far outside the kind of life his rich mother Birdie expects of him. Even though he knows this (and Birdie is not subtle, frequently withholding his allowance when she wants to express her disapproval of his choices), he doesn’t compromise; Bash is going to live his life on his own terms and adhere to his own set of values. This is a big part of why the girls open up to him so quickly; he is completely earnest and genuine, both in his love of wrestling and the way he values their individual potential, talents and needs.

That doesn’t mean that he’s fully developed his Fi, especially when it comes to his own emotional needs. In the finale of season 2, he tells Rhonda that he doesn’t fully process his emotions, but as we’ve seen from earlier episodes, this really isn’t the case. Bash has a strong understanding of his emotions, but he is reluctant to express them openly. He keeps his depth of feeling to himself, heartbreakingly so in the later episodes of the second season. This tendency to repress and internalize his emotions is compounded by the terrible reality of the closet and internalized homophobia in the 80s; Bash is either bi or gay, and he’s at least emotionally involved with Florian, his butler/best friend. When Bash gets the phone call that Florian has died (it’s heavily implied that he had AIDS), he walks away from Debbie at the bar, chokes back tears, hangs up the phone and doesn’t tell a soul. He buries all of those feelings deep inside and suffers alone. Instead, he acts with self-sacrificing chivalry towards Rhonda, which is baffling on the surface (”Rhonda just married a millionaire with no pre-nup!”), but this is his mode of coping with his complicated feelings about Florian; it’s a bruise too painful to touch or admit, so he chooses to hide further behind a mask of a heterosexual marriage.

Sheila the She-Wolf: ISFP

Sheila is living life as her most authentic self (dominant Fi). In the first season, when her roommate Ruth is struggling to create a character, Ruth praises her Method acting. Sheila swiftly corrects her: this is not a costume and it is not an act. Later on, she explains that she feels that, spiritually, she is a wolf. She doesn’t offer any further explanation of this spiritual connection to wolves; it’s enough that she knows it and that this is her truth.

Although she’s very aware of how unconventional she is, Sheila doesn’t care too much about how other people react to her appearance because authenticity is much more important to her; she has a strong sense of self and she’s compelled to express it physically, through her clothes and makeup. That indicates a strong use of her two dominant functions, introverted feeling and extraverted sensing.

Sheila has a lot of surprising talents and abilities. In season one, she reveals her ability to play piano, though, hilariously, she only knows the theme from Exodus. In season 2, she saves the day for Ruth and Debbie by typing their PSA with astonishing speed and accuracy. These unexpected talents aren’t necessarily related to MBTI, but her lack of explanation is; she simply springs into action whenever one of her skills is needed (Se), without feeling the need to narrativize how or why she knows these things.

In season 2, we see some of her inferior Te come out under stressful conditions, when Sam projects his own anxiety about losing control of the show onto all of the wrestlers and makes them compete against each other for a spot on the show each week. Sheila picks up on this quickly and adjusts to these new circumstances (Se-Ni) in order to protect herself. For example, while everyone is practicing for the week’s audition, Sheila pounces on Rhonda and covers her mouth to prevent her from revealing anything about their plan; this seems out of character for Sheila, but she’s read the situation and becomes suspicious of others (Ni-Te). She becomes competitive to preserve something she really cares about (Fi-Te); of all the wrestlers, Sheila is probably the one who truly needs this the most, because where else will she be actively encouraged to be a wolf? Sheila knows this and she’s going to fight and scrap and do whatever it takes to ensure that she can stay, even if that means somewhat harsh treatment of her teammates.

Carmen Wade: ISFJ

Carmen is warm and caring, and she shares her encyclopedic knowledge of wrestling (Si) to help her teammates develop their characters and more fully understand what they’re doing and why. In season one, Carmen is hesitant to upset her family’s expectations and demands on her, so she keeps her wrestling a secret. This is because she knows how they’ll react (Fe), that they view wrestling as a male-only activity, but also because she’s so passionate about wrestling and is unwilling to compromise on that just because her family disapproves. Wrestling is an integral part of Carmen’s sense of self; she’s passionate about the sport and its history, including her family’s history in wrestling, even if they don’t want to see it that way at first (one of my favorite moments is when her dad shows up to cheer her on and leads the crowd in chanting “Machu Picchu!”). Attaining that parental approval is important to Carmen, even though she’s willing to pursue her goals without it.

Carmen is hard-working and devoted to her area of expertise, and she uses that knowledge as a means of helping others. She organizes a team outing to watch a wrestling match so the others get that first-hand experience of what it means and what it’s about (Si again). In season 2, she is so supportive that she stretches herself too thin (in classic ISFJ fashion); she is so busy helping the others improve their wrestling moves that she doesn’t fully develop her own storyline for the week. She also shows difficulty in pivoting and improvising in the moment (inferior Ne) when Sam cuts their audition short.

[kabane52]

Thinking Through Divine Embodiment

This was in response to some Facebook comments, not everything below might make sense standing alone, but it became way too long to put on Facebook.

While there are Fathers who refer the theophanies to the hypostasis of God the Father, I think that's mistaken- the view of Justin and many others as far as I understand them is that theophanies are of the preincarnate Son. The one tough bit would be Daniel 7, but I think the enthroned figure is the Son, as described in Revelation 1. The "Son of Man" is a figural reference to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement and carries in it the double-ascent of the High Priest- once for himself, once for the nation. So the vision is of an enthroned Lord Jesus receiving His Church to glory to reign in the Communion of Saints for the millennium. I've made that argument elsewhere, but this is what I think Revelation is about. Daniel 7 certainly includes both ascents- of Jesus and the Saints- in its prophetic portrait, but the actual person who was seen enthroned was the Son.

Theologically, I think this is because the Father always acts through the Son in the Spirit. One might conceive of the Father as something like the inner being of a star, that which produces, in its very nature, its radiant and fiery character. The Son is the radiant and flaming star itself, and the Spirit is the carrying of these rays outwards to illumine and heat all else. It's an analogy, but I think a helpful one. This is consistent with the pattern of trinitarian action in the New Testament, and I take the economy to reveal the immanent God, understood in terms of the divine energies developed Christologically. The Son is the visible, concrete revelation of the Father, the Spirit radiates the glory from His face and makes Him present to us. If we think in terms of creation's symbols, the Spirit is signified by things like wind, fire, and water. You cannot hold these things in your hand or point to a stable particular and say "there it is." But you can do this with the source of the river and fire (pinpointing the particular starting point from whence it burned). The concrete hypostatic presence of Jesus Christ allows us to really gaze upon the glory of God. That glory is gazed only in and through the Holy Spirit- as personal as the Son- but strangely less "graspable."

And so when we think of an instance of God's direct revelation, that which one would point at is the hypostatic Son, generated from the Father and revealed through the communicative act of the Holy Spirit who always manifests the Son. Think of how the air is the necessary- and yet, totally unnoticed unless we call attention to it- medium by which our speech is communicated. Even space itself is a thing, not "nothing."

All creation is sustained in the active, flowing, presence of God constituting it as what it is and giving it its properties. When I read of God's glory filling a spatial setting, then, what I take it to mean is that the existent things in that setting were actualized in their capacity to radiate with the glory of God which was their constant sustenance.

So here is the big question: why the particular shape of the divine body? "You saw no form" is often misread as "there is no form to see." This isn't true. We are explicitly told that Moses beheld the Form of the Lord. The form of the Lord was that which was hidden in deep darkness, concealed from Israel for their own protection. At night, they could see the fire through the cloud, but only as we might hear a drumtrack playing through thick walls. I am struck by how this actually does anticipate later Platonic and Aristotelian formal realism. Here's why- it is when Moses enters into the cloud to behold the Divine Form directly that he perceives the pattern by which the tabernacle is built. The tabernacle is given in seven speeches corresponding thematically with the seven creation days, and is a microcosm, beginning from the Earth in the Courtyard, ascending up the mountain of the altar, into the starry heavens with the seven-branched menorah (sun, moon, five moving stars, the planets seen with the naked eye) which is called by the same word which names the heavenly lights in Genesis 1. But one ascends beyond the heavens, too, to enter into the Heaven of Heaven's, where God reigns with full presence. This is the ark of the covenant in the Most Holy Place, which is the footstole of the Lord's throne. Besides Him are the two cherubim, signifying the whole council of God as seen in Isaiah 6, 1 Kings 22, and elsewhere.

And so we find that it is when Moses enters into the darkness to behold the light directly- to see the Form of the Lord- that he finds the forms of all other created things. These forms are the divine logoi, summed up in the Logos. The logoi are those particular chords in the infinite music of divine life which are played creatively. God, being infinite, has infinite ideas of creatures which could be but are not. A five-headed red elephant could exist, God could have played that chord creatively- but He did not. There is no logos of a five-headed red elephant, for no such creature exists. But if God chose to make such a beast, that set of energies interwoven in that particular way would be called a logos. Moses beholds the forms, the logoi, of all creatures in the vision of God. And since the logoi are personally summed up and declaratively manifested in the person of the Logos, the Son, Moses beheld the person of Jesus Christ prior to the incarnation.

The revelation of the Form of God is a major characteristic of the new covenant. Job's story is a miniature version of the whole story of the human family. Brought down to death, he is raised up and more glorified than he was before, with a doubled kingdom and making intercession in the council from whose proceedings he had been shut out in the beginning of the book. [prophets are members of the council, Job's intercession for his friends is clearly prophetic, cf Gen 20, Ex 32-34, etc] And Job sums up this dynamic: "My ears had heard of you, but now mine eyes have seen you." The old covenant is aniconic, the new covenant is iconodulic. In the old covenant, as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 3, the words of God are read to the people for whom a veil covers Moses' face (he's playing on "Moses" as the Torah book and "Moses" as the prophet), but in the new, the people behold the glory of God with unveiled face.

And in the Gospel of John, this is perhaps the central theme. John 1:1-18 sums it up: the Son was eternally face to face with the Father, whom no one had ever seen- it was God the Only-Begotten, who dwells at the Father's Breast [as does the Beloved Disciple to the Lord Jesus in John 13, the only two places where the word for "breast" is used, IIRC] who "expressed" or "exegeted" the Father. The Son who shared eternal glory with the Father now makes that known so that "we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." That language is an echo of the LXX of Exodus 34, where God's Name is visibly manifested to Moses in glory. And thus the theme of the vision of the Father in the face of Jesus: "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." This is situated in relation to the old covenant's dichotomy between sight and hearing. Deuteronomy says that Israel saw no form but heard the divine voice. Jesus says to the apostate sons of Israel that they have neither heard His voice nor seen His form. The incarnation makes manifest the form of the Lord to us because all apprehension is a two-way street. The thing apprehended manifests itself in a sensible manner, the thing apprehending utilizes its natural capacities in receiving such a manifestation. And so when the one who eternally beholds the Glory becomes a human being, we can see the glory too. In thy light shall we see light. And if His words abide in us, then we shall understand His words truly.

The incarnation of the Son thus is something which, while not necessary metaphysically, is particularly appropriate for God to accomplish. There is no humiliation or suffering in incarnation. Human nature is beautiful. The suffering is in the freely willed embrace of our pains and sorrows. This is key, because it reminds us that the body, with its very particular shape, is of immense significance. It is shaped and molded the way it is for specific theological and symbolic reasons. This is how God corporealizes those whom He fashions after His Archetypal Son.

I'm going to put out an article in the future about the specific and detailed symbolic content which can be found in the structure of the human body, but for now, all that matters is that there is such content. Creation is revelatory. It's not a barrier to revelation, it is the precondition for revelation. Everything in creation manifests a particular property had infinitely by God. The sky is blue because God has eternally known in Himself the deepest and most profound blue, a blue so beautiful that we would weep uncontrollably at its sight. Visual apprehension is not something unholy. Why should it be so for the body? And if this is the sort of body proper to our being created in the image of God, why should the Son, when appearing even prior to the incarnation, not appear as a Man? He is the archetype of man! That is why the Logos, enthroned upon Ezekiel's Chariot (which is a visionary ark of the covenant in motion) is "in the likeness of a man."

The doctrine of incorporeality is really, as I think I mentioned above, a doctrine of divine infinity. We tend to associate embodiment with limitation. We are spatially at X point and thus not Y point. I would note, however, that the miracle of bilocation is not a divine parlor trick. Bilocation is that miracle whereby the person's body, through the Holy Spirit, is really spatially present at more than one locale. It is only possible through participation in the Spirit of God who fills all things with Christ's presence. As with all of the divine negations, in a sense God in His essence transcends both the affirmation and the negation. He transcends the category altogether. But I would want to distinguish that apophatic predicate- which belongs to essence and is the ontological root for the infinite but really apprehensible (never totally, but always journeying towards fullness) - from the self-realization of the divine nature by the divine persons in relation to each other- the divine energeia, the actualities, the energies. That an actuality is an activity and an activity must have multiple subjects tells us that to exist is to exist in communion. The energies (which I will call below the "glory" for convenience) are infinitely rich and various. Space is a theater for communion. Rather than seeing it as the context for large, empty gaps, let's think of it rather as the medium according to which things are properly related in communion. Think about the richness of human interaction created by the variety of spatial relations that two embodied persons can have with each other. Various degrees of distance or closeness communicate different things, body language demands a spatial context, and meaning is woven through the integrated fabric of space and time- the verbal communication being the temporal and the bodily the spatial. Space creates the possibility of having relational properties like X feet to the left or Y inches above.

But we recognize that everything I just described only can occur because of the opening found within the infinite sea of divine glory. It is the ocean of glory that has the intrinsic potential (not in the sense that means a thing is at some distance from its final cause, but in the sense of dunamis, the possibility of a thing's being accomplished or made because of a capacity that a hypostasis possesses) for creation.

Consider, on the theme of the ocean, this analogy. Let us imagine a vast ocean which was totally conscious and in self-control of all its motion. If a wave rose, it was because the ocean wished. If the sea became still, likewise. Take creation to be a vast whirlpool in this infinitely vaster ocean. It would make no sense at all to think of a whirlpool without the ocean, but you can easily think of the ocean without the whirlpool. The living sea actively creates this particular whirlpool, with all its contingent specificity, precisely out of its having the potential to generate whirlpools from its being ocean, though nobody would say it was less of an ocean without whirlpools.

Now, consider the eschatological destiny of creation in this image as the infinitely fast swirling of the water so that it creates an entirely white water spout, ascending forever upwards.

This is like the Eighth Day for us- God's glory will be all in all.

So what might a theophany be, on this analogy? [I know this analogy might be totally useless to everyone- I think in very visual terms for better or worse.] A theophany would be something like a smaller water spout emerging, by the active sustenance and will of the living sea, in the context of the cosmic whirlpool. I take it to be analogous for the following reasons:

-The living sea is a living sea in virtue of the motion of its waters, so that an emergence of a perfectly swirling water-spout within the broader system- not predictable from its regular patterns (which were called by some silly clownfish its "unbreakable laws")- manifests the quality and character of the ocean of being in which this comparative lily-pad (vast as it is when considered in itself) floats. In other words, it bears an intrinsic relation to that which is made manifest.

-The particular character of the swirling water spout is formed only in view of its context in the cosmic whirlpool. That is, if the whirlpool had a somewhat different shape, the spout would have a somewhat different character.

-We speak of the spout as a distinct revelatory act by which the quality of the living sea beyond is made manifest. Yet, the whirlpool in which it is made manifest is entirely constituted by that sea. The living sea gives it every property it has. It gives it the motion it has, the water it has, the beauty it has. It is entirely a product of the sea's sustaining work. So it is true on the one hand that the living sea permeates the entire whirlpool and is present to each point of its space and on the other that the perfectly spinning water spout is a revelation of the living sea within the cosmic whirlpool.

-And so we have on the one hand incorporeality- being understood in the sense of infinity- and on the other, the reality of theophany.

And so also for the revelation of the preincarnate Son in a human likeness. The Father and Son see in each other always every beauty that is possible to be seen. The form of the giraffe, the idea of the color orange, and the perfected form of the human body are known from all eternity with such intensity that one would think- if these things were known according to the finitude belonging to our sort of being- that they were the only thing ever contemplated. But God is such that He gazes upon and rejoices in an infinite variety of distinct beauties with a perfect specificity belonging to each. Each is rich in its own proper way.

At last, we are at the end. The question is "how does the Son appear corporeally before the incarnation?" There are two criteria which must be satisfied.

First, any proposed answer must explain how the theophanies were revelations of God as God. There is not a hint of evidence in the Bible that these visions of God were visions of something created. Stating that a vision of God as God contradicts some other text in scripture doesn't get around this. Stating that the incapacity of real vision of the uncreated follows deductively from a premise that is found in Scripture doesn't get around this. Each text must be properly interpreted so that the unity of the whole is intrinsic to the parts. If you think that the glory-light of God in scripture is a created symbol and not God, show us where this is taught. This is just a non-starter.

Second, the answer must affirm the classical Christian doctrine that God is incorporeal. This is a criterion because I am firmly committed to the tradition of the Orthodox and Catholic Church of East and West, and the Holy Fathers spoke with one voice in this subject.

Here's the answer I would provide:

-Visible manifestation is proper to God, being an intrinsic part of the trinitarian life. The Father and Son gaze upon each other in glory and beauty.

-The particular shape that is the human body is not arbitrary, but has rich symbolic significance and exists eternally as a specific beauty in the mind of God in which the Father, Son, and Spirit rejoice together.

-On account of the infinity of the divine mind (to conceive of possible worlds is essentially to speak of those things which are conceivable to God), there are an enormous variety of different ways in which He could have made a beautiful and good creation which really signified and manifested His own life and beatitude. For example, He might not have made a giraffe and instead made a flying donkey with golden feathers and a birdsong of unimaginable complexity. Or He could have made both. Point is, there is nothing that entails that the way God made the world is the only possible good way He could have made it.

-No matter which of the possible worlds was brought into existence, those things which were given concrete particularity would have their formal basis in an eternal beauty present to the mind of God. The creation of this or that thing really manifests something about what God is like.

-The visible revelation of God the Word, thus, in the likeness of a Man is a capacity which God has intrinsically- and the particular mode of manifestation comes from the fact that God created this world and not another, and so manifests Himself visibly and spatially in ways which reveal His unbreakable bond with that world.

-Incorporeality simply states that God, altogether transcending spatial categories in His essence, flows florth infinitely in His operations, sustaining the creation constantly as what it is by His personal and intimate presence at every point of it which still does not circumscribe Him. "Heaven and Highest Heaven cannot contain you" Solomon says. This text tends to be ignored by certain biblical critics interested in positing a very rigid corporealism among the biblical authors. But to state that God cannot be contained even by what is presumably the vastest (if the Heaven of Heaven cannot contain God, then certainly nothing less can, the argument goes) is to state that He fills all things with His presence, which is the classic Christian doctrine. The trick is in integrating that with the theophanies, which I have tried to do above.

[afairerplace]

some thoughts on jess & rory (but mostly jess)

Can I just say that Jess Mariano has possibly THE most believable and satisfying character arc on Gilmore Girls? He starts out as, quite frankly, an abrasive jerk. He’s surly, unpleasant, and has no earthly idea how to handle his emotions- or other people’s, for that matter. But we as the audience are understanding to an extent, because 1) we experience something of his softer, better side through his interactions with Rory and 2) we know a lifetime full of turmoil (absentee dad, drug-addled mom struggling to get clean, revolving door of would-be stepfathers) went a long way towards making him in to the difficult character that he is. 

We know there’s a sweet, intelligent guy buried beneath Jess’s rat’s nest of issues. Will we ever get to see that guy survive and thrive, though? That’s the question haunting his arc from the get-go. In early seasons, the answer appears to be a definitive “not right now,” which imo makes him a very frustrating character. He has so much potential! And yet he’s so failing to live up to it, instead squandering the (many, generous) chances he’s offered and leaning into his issues. 

The last we see of him as Rory’s boyfriend, Jess has backed himself into a corner and as a result is angry, scared, and completely at a loss as to how he should deal with the situation. He’s unwilling to work with Luke, unable to communicate with Rory (or anybody, let’s be real). Is it surprising that, upon burning all his nearest bridges, the kid who is told to get lost when he screws up too badly, the kid whose instinctive response to difficult situations and emotions is to shut himself down and other people out- is it really surprising that he chooses to bail?

Not surprising, no- but not excusable, either. Jess will never be a good guy unless he learns to deal with his baggage, mountainous though it may be. He’s at the age where it’s high time for him to start. We, like Rory, hope that his cruelly impromptu exodus will end up being a successful journey to find himself. And the best part about Jess is that it is! But to the show’s credit, it isn’t presented as something instant or easy, so that we can readily condone the horrible thing he did to Rory and to Luke. 

We see the ways in which he hurt the two of them, and we see that he’s still an emotionally-stunted jerk in his next few appearances on the show, albeit one who has awakened to the fact and is starting to do something about it. Jess ambushes Rory out of nowhere, loudly proclaiming his feelings for her in one of the most selfish, abrasive ways possible- but he’s at least sorting through his emotions rather than packing them away, making an effort to communicate rather than simply shutting down. He snarls at Luke when trying to steal back his car, and later grouches his way back to Star Hollow for his mother’s wedding- but he’s at least opening his hermetically-sealed heart a crack to the people who love him most. Jess is still not a good guy, by any stretch of the imagination, but he is clawing his way towards goodness, even if he’s still obviously terrible at it.  

By the time he makes his final appearances in the series, Jess has truly become a good guy. Is he a perfect guy? No, not by a long stretch. But he makes an effort to resist Logan’s hostile needling, even if he succumbs to bitter barbs in the end; he calls Rory out on her actions at a time where she’s desperately in need of it, although in an unnecessarily aggressive fashion that’s admittedly driven by Logan’s aforementioned behavior, and even has the presence of mind to soften his tone when he registers how upset she is. And when he realizes Rory is using him to get back at Logan during Truncheon Books' open house, his last moment in the original series, he keeps his (completely justified!) anger in check to bid her a bittersweet farewell. Not to mention his actions earlier in the same episode, where he embraces Luke and Luke's daughter and pays back his uncle in heartfelt appreciation of all Luke did for him. 

Jess Mariano begins his time on Gilmore Girls as a bitter, angry young man incapable of communicating his feelings or participating in healthy relationships. He ends it having done a complete 180, not without difficulty, not without effort, but with the appropriate amount of fits and starts it takes to grow into the upstanding, even admirable character he remains in the revival. What's so interesting to me is that Rory Gilmore's arc, the arc of the girl who is his love interest and catalyst for his own transformation, is very nearly his arc in reverse.

While Jess drags his own self kicking and screaming to the top in terms of personal and professional growth over the course of Gilmore Girls, Rory spends that time sinking lower and lower. The girl who once determinedly stuck to the course of academic success in spite of hostile high school classmates and a rocky start, grades-wise; who famously turned a deliberately dull assignment about pavement into a page-turner; who climbs onto her ex-boyfriend's roof to apologize for her bad behavior during their relationship- where is this girl by Season 6, let alone the revival? She's certainly not the girl we're seeing on screen. 

That girl is completely different. She's stolen a yacht and dropped out of Yale after receiving possibly the most nicely-delivered, well-meaning critique around; embarked on an affair with a married ex; and attempted to cheat on a later boyfriend out of revenge. Her self-absorption, inability to rise to the challenge, and penchant to carelessly trample over other people's hearts is only more acute in the revival. All of the drive and compassion that made young Rory so lovable to audiences and to Jess are all but gone from her character by the time we see her last- coincidentally (or not), by the time we witness Jess demonstrating those traits in spades. 

I think we're meant to see this as a chance for Jess to return the favor, to inspire Rory to grow in goodness as she once inspired him. I also think we're supposed to view this development in a positive light. But given that Jess's underlying issues arose from a lifetime of abuse and neglect, whereas Rory's arose largely from years of being coddled and spoiled, I can't help but feel the situation is more than a little unfair to Jess. 

And yet: "There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or a parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how would it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?" (Marilynne Robinson, Gilead)