#he was so obsessed trying to atone for his sins. so blinded by his own self righteousness. so filled with hatred after millennia of torment

[daeluin]

AND INARIUS

OH GOD INARIUS YOU POOR SUMMER CHILD. YOU SWEET DUMB CHILD. YOU ARROGANT IDIOT. I AM TEARING HIM LIMB BY LIMB. SHACKING HIM LIKE A RAGGED DOLL

[mrcspectr]

Hello!!! 👋

Here’s an Arther Harrow question: why the glass????? Like SIR, idk if I just missed it in the 6 times I rewatched the series, but I am still confused as to why he did it. Probably just small brain but I am confusion ^^’

Hi there buddy!!

I'd like to start with an interview that Ethan Hawke actually did, where someone asked this exact question.

And what's interesting is, you can really tie this idea into the conversation Arthur has with Ammit in Gods and Monsters.

Your scales lack balance.

I understand. I had hoped my penance might correct my imbalance, but I see now that's impossible. I accept the Scales regardless of the outcome.

They lack balance because of what lies ahead of you.

Then we must spare the world the pain I will cause. I willingly submit.

What lies ahead of you is your service to me.

How may I serve you in death?

Your death is delayed. I once relied on a servant whose Scales balanced perfectly. In exchange, I was bound to stone for 2,000 years.

But I have disciples all over the world whose Scales balance perfectly, awaiting your command. They are worthy, my Goddess.

But you are the one who set me free. You are the Avatar that I need. Serve me, and you will find peace. Do not let the pain of the past control you.

I've talked about it some in the past, but it's an interesting way of revealing some of Harrow's motivations when it comes to his relationships with the gods. Because he had this relationship with Khonshu, spent enough time with him and was abused by him. To the point that he was either cast aside or left him in a way that fundamentally affected his perception of himself and his own moral compass.

He's so caught up in his own obsession with justice and atonement, he potentially spends months to years searching for another god who's sole purpose is balance. He seeks the balance he doesn't feel within himself, because of his service to Khonshu in the past. And within that journey, he becomes as twisted and misguided as Ammit has become, the god who's been so blinded by her desire for preventing evil that she plans to wipe out even the possibility of growth and change in human beings. Who was imprisoned by another Avatar with "perfectly balance scales" for that same desire.

Arthur was willing to die and become a martyr for that cause. Putting glass in his shoes was just the start in the lengths that he would go to prove himself worthy, to wipe his sins clean. And it's hidden under his feet because he's trying to prove it to himself.

[fandom-thingies]

Worth a Try

Eret sits alone on the day L’manburg is reclaimed.

Not that they didn’t help with taking it back- of course they did, right? They have a lot to atone for, and they’d been waiting, waiting, waiting for an opportunity to take back a few of their sins.

So they did help take it back, stood atop a tower firing down at Dream and his allies, watched Schlatt’s infamously poor health come back to bite him in the most final way…

But they don’t stick around long, after that. They don’t stay for the presidential game of hot potato, the founders of the nation passing its ownership back and forth. 

They would have, normally, but.

Eret has worked with Dream, in the past. Everyone loves to remind them of it, and they often do so themselves, but something oft forgotten is that Eret knows Dream, knows the obsession he has with ending L’manburg, knows the methods he’s most fond of, that game of pawns and traitors he excels at so notoriously.

And Eret knows Dream gave Wilbur 11 stacks of TNT.

Now, supposedly it’s all gone. Various people have looked around and none have been able to find a trace of it, but Eret knows Wilbur, knows the message he wants to send, and before the battle, they checked somewhere no one else did.

Not many people know the podium is hollow, so not many people noticed when it stopped echoing if you hit it and started making a dull thud sound instead.

Eret notices a lot of things.

While Wilbur is taking his place on stage, Eret goes around the hill, digging toward the podium they’ve guessed to be filled full with TNT.

It takes them a while, but when they find it…

There’s so much.

The smell of sulfur is overwhelming, and they take a moment to pull their shirt over their nose before they begin to dig it out.

They don’t get it all, they don’t have time, but they find the blackstone room and the redstone that runs from it and they make dead sure all the explosives near it are broken.

Then, they dig into the room, because why not? Sue them, they’re curious.

What they find is… exactly what they expected and nothing they could have imagined, at the same time.

It’s unassuming, at a glance. Dingy, poorly lit, small.

It’s also a terrifying representation of Wilbur’s mental state, with the anthem scribbled on the wall in the messiest handwriting they’ve ever seen from the former president, who’s usually so neat and tidy.

There’s no button, which is odd. Perhaps he means to place it himself?

(Eret has no illusions he’s changed his mind. As they said, they’ve worked with Dream before. If he hasn’t extracted some promise from Wilbur to blow it all sky high no matter what, they’ll steal their crown from George and eat it.)

They stand for a moment, just taking in the place, before they hear blocks breaking from the passageway out and realize just how close they’ve cut it.

Hurriedly, they block up the hole they’d used to enter, hoping Wilbur won’t realize they’ve destroyed the TNT.

(Hoping he’s too distracted by his own thoughts to hear them close it)

Only moments after the hole is shut, he comes into view, breaking the dirt blocks that hide this chamber from sight. 

The day outside is far brighter than the hidden room, and the contrast makes it so all Eret can see of Wilbur is a dark silhouette haloed by the clear blue sky.

He doesn’t seem to see them at first, coming almost halfway down the passage before he stops, noticing their presence.

“Eret.” His voice is as calm as it always is, when he says it, but they can tell he’s surprised.

“Wilbur.” They greet in response.

“I didn’t expect to find you here. Come to blow it up yourself?” Eret sighs. The hostility in his voice is... not undeserved.

“Not quite.”

“Still trying for your redemption arc, then?” There’s venom in his tone.

“...as much as I can, yes.”

Wilbur deflates, and it seems like the anger in him has fled as quickly as it entered.

“Why are you doing this, Eret?”

The answer to that is… complicated. There are a lot of reasons. They don’t want L’manburg blown up, for one. It’s suffered rather enough, especially with some of Schlatt’s alterations. They also don’t see a better way to try and make up for what they’ve done than stopping someone else from doing the same, but neither of those are really why. The real reason, the truth of why they’ve spent days knocking on hollow objects and digging random holes in the ground until they finally found the bombs?

“I know better than anyone how much doing this will destroy you.” They say.

And that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? The unvarnished fact of the matter is there’s no moral motivation here, as much as they’d like to pretend. They just don’t want anyone else to feel the guilt they’ve felt, and maybe there’s a selfishness in that, but maybe it’s important, to acknowledge your mistakes and do what you can to stop others from making them.

Wilbur laughs, and there’s no humor in it.

“Of course that would be your reasoning,” and the anger in his voice is back, and Eret is preparing to respond, and Wilbur gives them no chance to before he continues. 

“Maybe I’m already destroyed, huh? Maybe I’ve already seen too much of what the world can offer to recover from it!” He swings a hand out wide, indicating the writing on the wall in an aggressive motion that makes Eret shrink back.

“I wrote a whole fucking song for this place, Eret! You were there, you know I did, you were in both versions of the damn thing, and what the fuck is left?” Wilbur inhales, before continuing in a softer tone, “What the fuck is left of it, Eret? I built L’manburg to be special, to be free from tyranny, and look what’s it’s become.”

“Schlatt’s dead, though. He can’t stop you from building it back up.” They counter, but Wilbur doesn’t falter.

“Yeah, and? We violently deposed him, Eret. He had a heart attack sure, but this was a coup through and through. We killed the rightful president of L’manburg. We’ve made ourselves just as bad as him!” 

...no?

No, they’re pretty sure that’s not how that works.

“Isn’t it the right of the people to rebel against rulers who treat them poorly? Schlatt had terrible policies, exiled his political opponents, taxed his citizens into starvation, and destroyed historic monuments,” they adjust their glasses slightly. “Didn’t he kind of have it coming?”

Wilbur stops. Blinks.

Eret suspects he’s never thought of it that way, before.

“But we still killed him. That’s still wrong.” He says, but he sounds... uncertain, now. Off balance.

“Well, we would have. He died before we could.”

“That doesn’t change the intent.”

“Fair enough.”

Eret pauses to collect their thoughts in an orderly manner.

“I still don’t really think it would have been wrong, though. Not any more than it would have been wrong if you’d killed me.”

Wilbur snorts, and says, “Just because you’re drowning in self loathing doesn’t mean you get to snap me out of my self destructive spiral. I’ve been doing just fine with it on my own, thanks.”

Sure he has.

They know terrible coping mechanisms when they see them, is all Eret is saying here.

He must see something of their thoughts in their face, because he continues almost immediately.

“You haven’t got any right to talk, anyway, mr. ‘it was never meant to be’.”

Ah. Hm. He’s got a point there.

Though, their own experience with this is what prompted them to confront him in the first place, so.

“I was wrong, when I said that. I was wrong, and you proved me wrong.”

They mean it, too. They’d been blind when they’d said those words, trying to justify what they were doing to themself by saying the revolution would never have succeeded anyway, and they’d been so fucking stupid.

Wilbur just laughs, though. He laughs for a while.

“You really don’t get it, do you, Eret? You were right, then! You were fucking right! None of this was ever going to work, not with Dream against us! He was always going to find a way to throw a wrench in the gears, and maybe Schlatt got to it first, but there’s no happy ending for this place!” He steps forward, and they realize how close he is to them. “There’s no way out, here! I’m going to press the button, Technoblade is going to summon withers because he’s the goddamn traitor, and Dream’s just going to sit back and watch and be just as untouchable as he always is.”

Wilbur takes another step closer to them, laying a hand on their shoulder, and though he’s only barely taller than them, those two inches feel like two miles, with the way he looms.

“I’ve been to this room, over and over again! Seven or eight times, I’ve been here, staring at this fucking wall and the fucking button, and I-!” He runs his free hand roughly over his face, and Eret sees something suspiciously like tears in his eyes.

“I can’t do this, Eret. I’ve given so much for this country, everyone has, and there’s just nothing left. I’m so tired, Eret. I’ve lost so much of myself to this.”

Eret raises their hand slowly, telegraphing the motions so Wilbur can pull back if he wants, and puts it over the one he’s placed on their shoulder.

They take a step and they’re basically touching him, and carefully, carefully, they reach their other arm around him until they’re embracing.

It’s not quite a hug, really. The position is a bit too awkward, especially with both of them barely fitting in the tiny room, but it’s close.

Wilbur stays tense, but he doesn’t push them away, doesn’t tell them to let go.

They hope it helps him, hope they’re right and he needs as much as it seems, and the evidence doesn’t seem to contradict that hypothesis.

It’s good, that this has worked. Good that they were able to convince him, to make him realize this isn’t the answer.

Click.

A moment of silence.

Wilbur laughs, a real laugh, not a pale imitation fed by anger and self loathing, and keeps laughing for nearly a full minute before he regains his composure.

“Oh, Eret,  you bastard.” He says, and they can hear the smile in his voice. “You broke the redstone, you glorious motherfucker.”

It’s then that Eret realizes what just happened.

Wilbur had used the hug as a cover to place a button on the wall and press it, not realizing all the TNT near the room was safely in their inventory.

That fucking prick.

Eret laughs then, too, fueled half by the sheer fear of realizing Wilbur actually did it, actually pressed the button, and it was only their having broken it that stopped L’manburg being blown up again, but the laugh is also coming from the desperate, desperate relief they feel because even if they didn’t succeed in convincing him, even if they didn’t change his mind, they still stopped him from making their mistake.

“Why even try to talk me out of it, if you already made it so I couldn’t?” He asks, bemused.

“I can’t exactly stop you from getting more TNT and trying again, can I?”

Wilbur tenses against them, before they continue.

“Please don’t, Wilbur. I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with it, but… give yourself a chance to heal, please. Schlatt is dead, and even if you’re right, and Technoblade is the traitor, no one is going to let him destroy this. Even if he breaks every block of this nation, we’ll put it back, because this place has never been the builds, or the podium, or the walls,”

“L’manburg is the people, and we’re not going anywhere,”

[banana-with-a-bow-tie]

** So, I've told you all of this to ask this question: If Ursula had somehow survived that abuse, if she was still alive today, and.. one day she would have to meet one of- or both her parents (if they ever finished their prison sentence and got released), would she still have to forgive all of the pain, heartache and suffering they caused her at such a young age? And love them? Is that what God would want her to do?

** Why would God still want her to show mercy to the two people whom he had given the sole responsibility to love and protect her when they did the complete opposite of that and destroyed her physically, metally and spiritually? There's no way she would ever have the will or the strength to do that on her own. **

** Will God still have mercy on the parents, even if they're not repentant? (Sorry this is so long)

The short answer is yes. God commands us to love our enemies, no matter how poorly they treat us (Luke 6:35). As for why He asks us to do that, there are a number of reasons.

First, because we have been forgiven. What happened to Ursula, and what continues to happen to millions of children around the world, is wicked and evil, but none of it compares to our sin against God. Every day we willfully rebel against the infinitely holy and just King of the universe. We blaspheme His name through our words and actions that defile His image and His image bearers. We try to take His place on the throne. We murdered His Son. We deserve God’s infinite, righteous wrath for our sins against Him, yet He bore that wrath Himself and made us righteous. What right do we have to be angry when we have been forgiven so great a debt (Matt 18:32-33)? We have been commanded to be as merciful to others as much as God has been merciful to us (Luke 6:36).

Second, bitterness is caustic. It poisons and controls you until the only thing you can feel is anger and malice and contempt and God commands us to put off such things (Eph 4:31). What harm can such bad feelings do to the people that wronged you? Maybe some, but mostly all you are doing is letting their abuse continue to control you. The desire for vindication becomes an idol you obsess over and as a result, you want and do not have, so you murder in your heart (James 4:2).

Finally, vengeance belongs to the Lord (Romans 12:19). God is ultimately the one Ursula’s parents sinned against (Psalm 51:4), so He is the one to whom they must give an account, not to any mere mortal. No amount of bitterness or anger could ever satisfy justice. No human efforts could ever give sin the punishment it deserves. Any attempt to do so is simply another manifestation of human pride, kicking God off his throne and relying on our works to do what is right. 

And when you think about God’s justice in that sense, it should simultaneously produce comfort and compassion. Comfort because you know God cares about your plight, He is not blind to injustice and will make right the wrongs done against you, and compassion because you realize what destiny awaits those whom God will judge. If Ursula’s parents never repent, they will not receive His mercy, they will experience His wrath forever in a lake of fire, knowing only torment and anguish without relief for every moment of their existence. We shouldn’t wish that fate on our worst enemies because not even God did. We were His worst enemies but He reconciled us through the death of His Son (Rom 5:10). 

Rather than eagerly initiating judgment at the first slight against His holiness, God took that penalty on Himself and made His enemies His friends-His heirs-sons and daughters in His Kingdom. Justice can be satisfied through the atoning work of Christ on the cross, abusers can become new creations, and their victims can become true family with a tender-hearted relationship. Isn’t that more freeing than living in anger all your life? 

[breakingarrows]

Rebuttals for Personal Satisfaction [My commentary in brackets]

VG247

Red Dead Redemption is a story of atonement [that the player can choose to disregard, despite the main narrative heavily pushing for Arthur to be redeemed (its in the fucking title!)], but John Marston never wanted to pay for his sins – he’s forced by government agents. Marston lived a bad life: he killed, he robbed, and he was often out for himself. In his head, he deserved to leave it all behind and live a normal life with his wife and son. [the opening third of RDR1 is Marston forced back into a life he wanted to leave behind in order to save his family and return to a life of peace and attempting to correct others immorality only to have his past immorality thrown in his face even when he tries to shrug it off] Red Dead Redemption 2 fleshes out Marston’s character, and we see him grow from a selfish, somewhat lazy outlaw into a family man. But while Red Dead Redemption 2 does a fantastic job of setting Marston up as the man we know, Arthur Morgan’s journey is more poignant. Most open-world games start us off with a character at their weakest. Rather than growing them through the story, we see characters grow in strength through systems: upgrade trees offer better abilities, allowing us to take on increasingly tougher enemies. Red Dead Redemption 2 turns all of that on its head. You start the game as Arthur Morgan, gang leader Dutch Van der Linde’s right hand man. You are the guy everyone goes to with their problems. If someone needs violence inflicted upon them, Morgan is the gang’s fists. He’s not the smartest person in the group – nor does he claim to be – but he makes a good blunt instrument and he is practically wise. Morgan’s stamina and health improve as you play (you can max out your stamina and health reserves early on), but the first handful of chapters have you playing as a man at his physical peak. He’s also at his most brutal. Morgan has a fierce loyalty to his leader and mentor, Van der Linde, and he is not afraid of inflicting pain on others to see his group thrive. [yet he is, when you take on the debt collector missions he is very clearly against it but does it for the good of the gang. He bemoans having to kill and writes in his journal about the conflict of good and evil wthin him, clearly pining for another life, even if his actions show he isn’t really that interested in it] As the game draws to a close [this is the problem, he doesn’t turn until near the very end, he wasn’t interested in becoming a good person until he realized he was going to die, which is a pathetic turn of heart], Morgan softens. An early scene sees Morgan collecting a debt from a sick man. You don’t realise it at the time, but this encounter seals our antihero’s fate. He contracts tuberculosis, a disease spread through the air when someone ingests the blood or spit of an infected person – in Morgan’s case, it’s a man who he just beat to a pulp over a measly loan. It’s a while before the disease takes hold, but the knowledge that his fate is sealed alters Morgan’s psyche. Unlike Marston, he isn’t forced to atone – he starts thinking back on his life, mulling over what is important, considering how far blind loyalty should stretch. Those considerations sow the seeds of doubt about Van der Linde, his delusions of grandeur, and his capacity for empathy. During the nineteenth century, tuberculosis became known as the ‘romantic disease’ because the afflicted were said to grow more sensitive as they edged towards the grave, and the slow progress of the disease allowed them to get their affairs in order. I can’t think of another video game where you are setting the world right before your demise. You can see this character growth in Morgan’s journal. Depending on where you are in the story, the writing changes, the pen strokes feel more rushed. It’s more obviously visible in his personality, and you can see it in his gaunt, pale face, and thin frame. In one touching moment, he admits that he is scared. Even your surroundings reflect Arthur’s journey. As the gang heads further east (towards the civilisation they hate and away from the bountiful landscapes they crave), your camp loses key people, and the surviving gang members retreat inwards. People stop trusting each other, and the environment reflects this transformation, becoming gloomier with each new settlement. Remember how Horseshoe Overlook allows you to see right across the plains below, into the wilds? Compare that to the camp in Chapter 6, nestled next to a dank cave and soaked in the soot of the nearby mining town. Rather than upgrading your lodgings as the game goes on, the camp – if you fully upgrade it – is as good as it ever gets in Chapter 2. [why is this only reflected in the camp and not in Morgan aka the player’s abilities? Morgan in Chapter 6 during non-scripted gameplay is just as capable as the one in the beginning, maybe even more so thanks to his improved cores and weaponry. It is only during scripted sequences in main missions that he suffers from TB and it affects gameplay, after the story wraps on that mission he jumps on his horse and is magically just as capable as before he contracted the sickness] Where most games are obsessed with our characters growing stronger, Red Dead Redemption 2 flips conventions on their head. It takes Morgan on a metaphysical journey of growth as his body degrades [but is only ever shown superficially], until he finally succumbs to the disease while staring out towards the setting sun [or can die in the camp in flames if he aka the player chooses to reject the main narrative’s arc]. These themes are what make Red Dead Redemption 2’s story something I’ll never forget, and it’s also what elevates Arthur Morgan into one of the all-time best protagonists in the medium. [Jesus that’s sad]

USGamer

Red Dead Redemption 2 is, defiantly, a stubborn game. Arthur walks at a deliberate pace, always lumbering like he's in no rush to get anywhere. When he swaps out guns, he needs to retrieve them from the saddle of his horse. Guns deteriorate too, so he has to clean them periodically so they're at their best. Even the skinning animations of animals, a common complaint in its direct predecessor, have almost quadrupled in length. In Red Dead Redemption 2, gone are the easy, chill open-world ways of Grand Theft Auto and everything else in the genre. With Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar is demanding patience from its players, and resounding attention too. And attention it earns. In Red Dead Redemption 2, we play as Arthur Morgan, a man who like the more-familiar John Marston, grew up in Dutch van der Linde's gang. At first, Dutch's gang feels like a family, with each member looking out for each other, having its own internal bickering like any family does. We care for them and hate them in equal measure [care for Lenny because he is young and hate Micah and Dutch because they are massive pieces of shit. Care for John because of the first game, his wife revolves around him, his son is young, the rest rattle off one-note dialogue indications of their attitude]; we take time out of our busy schedule to go fishing or hunting with our comrades, or even just play Five Finger Fillet. But the more you play, the more Dutch's gang feels like a cult. Red Dead Redemption 2 ends up not being just a game about the dissolution of Dutch's gang, but about the dissolution of the ways of outlaws and of the American Dream. Dutch's American Dream, once, revolved around selflessness and self-sufficiency [We never see this, we see them as they begin to fall with Dutch’s murder of a young woman during the botched boat robbery the catalyst for this downfall from some form of robin hood morality that is only ever talked about and never shown or felt]. Through Dutch and others, that ideology distorts into exactly the opposite. But it's the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 that's most memorable. Since The Witcher 3, an open-world hasn't gripped me so much, from its side quests to the secrets lying in the areas between all its dirt roads [I do want to see what the open world has to offer, I just wish it indicated the locations and things it has on offer instead of relying on players to either simply stumble upon it or use a third party map to find them]. Riding on horseback one night, I swear I saw a ghost train. Another time, I happened upon a Ku Klux Klan meeting in the woods—one of the rare instances where if you initiate a shootout, you don't net bad karma [morality in this game makes no sense as it stops for main missions in which you kill people just doing their job and contradicts the plain narrative arc the game is trying to perform with Morgan going from reluctant murderer to “good” person]. I robbed a shop in Valentine once, and it went horribly wrong; everytime I returned the shopkeeper still recognized me, and chastised me. In a side quest, Arthur and his ex-girlfriend attended a show. I sat and watched the entire performance of dancers and singers, which was about 20 minutes long. Red Dead Redemption 2's world feels like interactive theatre, where everything is ready to interact with you and most shockingly of all, remember you too. No action goes unnoticed. [this works against the player when the fragile world is broken by the exceedingly complex controls such as when a un-holstered gun meant a house builder became hostile to me and continued to be afterwards even though that gun was never aimed at him and was only pulled because I killed some raiders attacking him.] Of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 is maybe the frontrunner of this year's game of the year deliberations with the biggest caveats. Its control layout is clunky, and feels more designed for something like PC (which is odd, considering there is no PC release at the moment). The nagging knowledge of overworked employees from reports earlier this year comes to mind every time you see an overkill of detail or systems, like the overt sunlight bloom that's dialed up a notch too high for stylistic purposes. The shooting, like in all Rockstar games, is not really the main draw (though, I grew to enjoy the emergent action that happens outside of story missions). Red Dead Redemption 2 has no qualms being a slow burn. And more than any other big budget game this year, it astounded me, and its characters and story gripped me like a great television show [Arthur’s search to be a good person is undercut by the open world nature and the main narrative itself. Dutch’s fall from grace never compels because he was never sympathetic]. Even days after finishing the epilogue and feeling like my time with it was done, I hopped back in the other night with the hope of meeting more strangers on some unexplored neck of the woods. And mysteries, strangers, and more sure did await me.

[ppdoddy]

Wynton Marsalis

With the crescendo of public outcry and proliferation of opinions and justifiable expressions of outrage by so many experts, officials and popular celebrities, I fear there’s little room or need for yet another person voicing a commonly held opinion. I also believe that the everyday tragedies that are commonplace and routine to our everyday way of living, should be addressed when they happen, not when so much pressure has built up in the system that it must be let out. It’s also much more difficult to draw a crowd every day for the sanctioned and accepted forms of corruption and disrespect of Black Americans that are shouted from countless recordings and videos and even more powerfully whispered in the form of discriminatory laws, practices and procedures that result in unfair housing and employment practices, and more tragically, lengthy unjust prison sentences.

Much of this “cacophony of crazy” is executed officiously and with a warm and innocuous smile. Therefore, Americans of all hues pass quickly from anger to acceptance, and as months turn to years, our daily silence and inaction is willfully misread as endorsement and back we go to go the illusion that “we’re past this”, because the daily grind is more important than what we find if we just open our eyes and keep them open.

This particular tragedy, however common it’s become across these last decades, is perfectly symbolic of this specific time and place. And this global pandemic has given it a clear and more pungent stage. This murder is so distinctive because of the large size and gentle nature of the man who was murdered, because of the smug, patient and determined demeanor of his killer and of the other peace officers protecting the crime in full public view, and because our nation is always attempting to escape its original sin with the loud shouting of other serious, though less egregious, transgressions. This fully recorded public execution yet again demands our full attention and interest, IF we have the slightest remnant of belief in the morality, reason and intelligence required to realize, maintain and protect a libertarian democracy.

In each of the four decades of my adult life, I have addressed our myriad American social and character problems with an involved piece that always defends a belief in the progression towards freedom that my parents taught us was perhaps possible for all. Experientially, artistically, and spiritually, I’ve had a lifetime relationship - akin to obsession - with confronting this national calamity and conundrum.

As these decades have passed and our nation has retreated from the promises of the Civil Rights Movement that my generation grew up believing would substantially improve economic and social opportunities for those who had been denied by our ‘traditions’, I have spoken, written, played and composed about the toll that American racial injustice has taken on all of us—our possibilities, our presence and our promise. Those words, notes and more seem to have been wasted on gigs, recordings, in classrooms, in prisons, in parks, on tv shows, in print, on radio and from almost any podium from the deep hood to palatial penthouse in cities, towns and suburbs in every state and region of our country day and night and sometimes deep into the night for over 40 relentless years.

Just yesterday, I was walking with my 11-year-old daughter and she asked me, “Did you see the video of the man in Minneapolis?” “Yes” I said. I always talk to her about history and slavery and all kinds of stuff that she is not interested in - and probably overdo it for that reason. She asked, “Why did the man just kneel on him and kill him like that in front of everybody?“ Instead of answering I asked her a question back, ”If I went out of my way to squash something that was harmless to me, and stomped on it repeatedly and deliberately to make sure I had killed every drop of life in it, and then looked defiantly at you, as if triumphant. Why would I do that?” She said, “You hate bugs.” I laughed and said, “Let’s say it’s not necessarily a bug, just whatever I go out of my way to utterly destroy. Why would I?” She said, “Because you can.” “Yes,” and I further asked, “Why else?”

“Because you want to”, and then I said “Yes, but can you think of another more basic reason?” She thought for a while and just couldn’t come up with it. I kept it going saying and aggravating her,” It’s one of the most important ones.” After a few minutes she rolled her eyes and said, “Just tell me.” I debated with myself about telling her this last reason since it’s almost always left out of the national discussions when these types of repeated crimes by our peace officers are committed, but I figured, it’s never too early to consider the obvious. So, I said, “Because he enjoyed it. For him, and for many others, that type of thing is fun. Like them good ole boys in Georgia chasing that brother through the neighborhood to defend themselves.” It’s no more complex than that. She said,” hmmmmm....” unconvinced. And I said, “this type of fun is much older even than America itself.” I considered how different her understanding is of these things, if only just because of time, place and experience.

During my childhood, raw racism and pure absolute ignorance was just a fact, but so was enlightened protest and determined resistance. It was the times, the 60’s going into the 70’s. With our Afros and the consciousness music of James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, younger brothers were determined not to put up with any bullshit at all, unlike our ancestors, who we felt had willfully endured and accepted disrespect. And it was so easy to believe they were acquiescent in their own degradation because we didn’t know anything about the deep deep sorrow and pains of their lives, because they bore it all in silence and disquieting shame. Now, those old folks are long gone, and each passing day reveals the naïveté of our underestimation of the power and stubbornness of our opponent. Now, our ancestors loom much larger albeit as shadowy premonitions in the background of a blinding mirror that is exposing us all, black and white.

Racist mythology, social inequality, and economic exploitation used propaganda and physical lines of demarcation to create and enforce a state of mind. It was called segregation. Because my parents grew to adulthood in it and I was raised in it, I unknowingly believed in it, and even referred to myself as a minority. The late Albert Murray, my mentor and intellectual grandfather in Harlem, New York, dissuaded me from the segregated mindset with a penetrating question, “How are you going to accept being a minority in your own country? Is an Italian a minority in Italy?”

Well, let’s see. That’s a question our country has to ask itself. If we are plural so be it. But we aren’t. We are segregated in so many more ways than race and if we are to be integrated, a nasty question remains: whose genes will recede and whose will be dominant? Who is them and who is us? Mr. Murray once told me, “Racial conflict in America has always been black and white versus white.” We see that in the current riots that have sprung up around the country. There are all kinds of folks out there and always have been. Any cursory viewing of protests in the 60’s reveals Americans of all hues.

But when all is said and done, and all the videos and photos become just a part of a protester’s personal narrative kit to be pulled out for kids and grandkids as a testament of their youth. When the enormous collective wealth of America passes from one generation to the next, who of our white brothers and sisters now so chagrined will be out in the streets then? Playing loud defiant music in your bedroom means one thing at 15, but it’s very different when it’s your house. Who will be out there making sure that their darker-hued brother and sister in the struggle has enough opportunity to feed their family, and a good enough education to join the national debate to articulate an informed position in their fight for their rights and responsibilities and the financial security to enjoy older age with the comforts of health, home, and happiness? If the 80’s Reagan revolution is any indication, don’t hold your breath for the “post racial America” that we were supposed to have achieved without having corrected or even acknowledged any of the real problems.

The whole construct of blackness and whiteness as identity is fake anyway. It is a labyrinth of bullshit designed to keep you lost and running around and around in search of a solution that can only be found outside of the game itself. Our form of Democracy affords us the opportunity to mine a collective intelligence, a collective creativity, and a collective human heritage. But the game keeps us focused on beating people we should be helping. And the more helpless the target, the more vicious the beating. Like I was trying to explain to my daughter, something just feels good about abusing another person when you feel bad about yourself.

We can’t be feeling that good about our nation right now. Separated by wealth disparity, segregated in thought and action, poorly led on the left and on the right, confused in values of institutions and symbols of excellence, lacking in all integrity from the highest to the lowest levels of government, undisciplined in exercising the responsibilities of citizenship, disengaged and overfed on meaningless trivia and games, at each other’s throats all the time for every issue. We seem to be at a dead end.

It’s funny to think this whole experiment in democracy could end with a populace that is so polarized and self-absorbed that it can’t imagine atoning for the slavery and subjugation of other human beings and sharing enormous wealth (financial and other) with each other. But it wouldn’t be that surprising, because no matter how many times we find ourselves with the opportunity to right tremendous wrongs, we just keep coming up with the same wrong answer. It’s like having the solution to a math problem, not knowing the underlying mechanics to actually solve it, and lacking the patience and humility to ask for help-to learn. It’s the damndest thing to just keep doing the same wrong thing over and over again, and more forcefully wrong each time......or maybe, that wrong answer we keep coming up with—maybe it’s just who we actually are.

Life is not a book or a movie. It is itself much too complicated and simple to be understood from any one person’s perspective. Its truths come to their own conclusions that live as facts though lies may stand as temporary history. But George Floyd lying in the cold cold ground at this moment is a fact, as was the fact of Eric Garner and all of the other Americans who didn’t deserve to be killed by their peace officers. The murders of both men are eerily similar. And they, taken together though almost six years apart, are not even a referendum on the offending officers, but a view into how we can’t get past the illegality and illegitimacy of our courts and our politics that snatched back the North’s victory from the South in the Civil War. This successful legal and political wrangling to recast slavery as peonage and to maintain an underclass is still going on. Its victories, in effect, spit on the graves of 700,000 Americans lost on both sides in that conflict. And we refight our Civil War every day. It was interesting hearing Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Mayor of Atlanta and Killer Mike both reference the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement and this moment in one breath. They put this present moment in its proper context – a continuation of the struggle for human rights and civil liberties against the legacy of slavery and unapologetic racism.

These were Abraham Lincoln’s thoughts on slavery:

“I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republic an example of its just influence in the world, enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.”

Notice the list of corruptions that Lincoln laid out 160 years ago - there is no better definition of our current position. He must have come up out of the grave to tell us yet again. Sad as it is to say, contemporary Americans just may not be up to the challenge of democracy. A lot of countries in the world seem to be openly retreating from it. But that open retreat will be different here, for our credo of equality, freedom and the dignity of persons requires us to construct elaborate ways of eliminating stubborn problems that we seem to not have the will, wherewithal, and humanity to solve.

And it’s the slow, slow choke out of everything black: that fake construct of blackness that was invented in America for the express purpose of elevating an equally fake whiteness; that blackness that has been parodied and mocked and shamed, been raped and robbed and lynched, cheated and fooled and straight up hustled into slapping itself under the banner of entertainment, still seeking the attention and resources of its masters by hating and disrespecting and killing itself; that omnipresent blackness to be named and renamed again and yet again for the purposes of denying its very name and birthright, that blackness that shows up in everything from a bowl of grits and a Southern twang to a whining rock guitar and a piece of fried chicken, to The Constitution itself. Yeah, choking all the blackness out is going to be hard. Because it shows up as state’s rights versus federal authority, as the root of the electoral college and as gerrymandered districts and the modern repression of some people’s right to vote. That inescapable blackness is always a primary subject in the discussions that elect Presidents where it shows up as immigrants, criminals, and disavowed preachers. It’s clearly seen every day and night in our richest cities staggering down the streets in a tattered stupor with a sign saying, “do you see me?” and bearing the dates 1835, 1789, 1855 and all of those slavery years. And all those ghosts remind you that we rolled back Reconstruction, we denied the Afro-American heroism of WWI with the segregation of WWII, that we denied our citizens access to equal funding and equal housing and equal education and equal health care and equal opportunities and that we rolled back the gains of the Civil Rights movement under on the very watch of many of us that are alive to read this post. And that at each broken promise, said with a smile, “fare thee well brother, fare the well”.

That slow choking of all the blackness out of the American DNA will prove to be impossible because we are written into the original Constitution – albeit it as 3/5ths of a person. Black folks’ struggle, more than any other, has advanced the integrity of that document down through these bloody centuries. The challenge that faces our country now is what it has always been: Can we reckon with the idea that the opposite of injustice is not justice, it is corrective assistance. The question that continues to plague us across centuries, decades, years, months, days, hours, minutes and even seconds: Do we have the will and the intention to get that 3/5ths up above 5/5ths and create a productive society the likes of which has never been seen?

One thing I know for sure, that’s not ever going to happen with your foot on a black neck, and I’m not talking about the most current, obviously guilty police officer. This is about all of us rejecting the injustices of our collective past with consistent and relentless individual action that goes far beyond giving money.

This has been my response to injustice in our country and in the world across the last forty years:

Black Codes (1984); Blood on the Fields (1997); All Rise (1999); From the Plantation to The Penitentiary (2006); and The Ever Fonky Low Down (2019)

– Wynton

[eksbdan-blog]

New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/10/29/sacrifice-for-sin-sins-of-the-world-how/

How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World By His Own Sacrifice? Only one way. Part 2. The Messianic Secret

Sacrifice for Sin and the Real Messianic Secret

This is an article in a series. Please see:

Christ on the Cross Part 1: How can a person die in sacrifice for the sins of the world? Only one way.

Well, I think that’s a pretty ambitious opening to the treatment of a topic of theology that has become about as domesticated and prosaic as cosmology in A Brief History of Time. In that, you never have to deal with the implications of origins as long as you construct a reason that sounds at once sufficiently sciency and mysterious to account for it, like “quantum fluctuations.” Our theology is pious sounding, but in its explanation of Christ and the Cross, we find only God dying for “sin” and nothing more that would deal directly with how and for what sin(s). The only thing I’m doing is what I believe is framing the right questions. If we’re honest they are going to lead us to some very un-prosaic answers if what we are dealing with is very un-prosaic.

But did you ever stop to reflect on the fact that Jesus asked far more questions than he answered, with the intention of those receiving them supplying a correct answer? Did you ever wonder why Jesus always told those who received the blessings of his healing and teaching not to respond by going around saying “this is the Messiah, this is the Messiah, this is the Messiah? Even to demons? But if Jesus was only speaking a revelation of God with its depth ending in “I am God,” or “I am Messiah, or “just believe in me and you will be saved,” why all the intrigue? I know these are pretty radical things for him to say from what is, apparently, only a man. But do we really think that what is quintessentially radical in the identification of someone who is far more than a man is a name, a conclusion of identity, rather than a motivation for its acceptance or denial?

I speak of the “Messianic Secret” spoken of in scholarly circles,” first brought to a depth of discussion by William Wrede. See Matthew 16:16-20, Mark 1:43-45, Mark 8:27-30, Luke 9:18-21,Mark 3:11-12. But if we think that this secret is only found here, we would be way off about the extent and significance in the disclosure of the Father by Jesus. It’s not really found by our scholars anywhere else only because it’s obsessed with categorizations that help maintain boundaries that keep anything of the strange and remarkable out of reach of themselves and their pedestrian audiences. After all, if the truth was not fought and worked over, what would be their job? Jesus, however, has not kept these precious transcendent truths from the street because if he didn’t it would put him out of a job. He does it not because it’s low value in relation to one’s ego, but because it’s as precious as God himself and, for faith, it is God himself. And he’s not keeping it by confusion and relegation, he’s keeping it safe by giving it under another appearance. There is no parable, no story, and very few theological statements found in the Gospels that are uttered without the reporter assuming a subtext for which the reader is expected to engage. The Messianic Secret does not occupy only several verses there, the Messianic Secret is the Gospels.

A lot my meditation on the Cross is going to come at it asymmetrically, keeping this fact about us and our adversary, with the real truth that Jesus preached in mind, not that of the adversary. Why we don’t get it is habitually because of the way we have determined to use words. Not because of the biblicality of doctrines, but the biblicality of our assumptions about ultimates expressed by ideas through words.

We all know that after Christ’s resurrection and after the Holy Spirit founded the Church the Messianic Secret was surely not the method of evangelism practiced. The one crucial mission of the apostles became openly contending for and convincing everyone that Jesus is the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. But why was this a secret when Jesus was walking the earth? When his Person was on full display before everyone, and the full fulfillment of his messianic credentials were in the process of manifestation?

Well, obviously, as I said,  your not saved by a Truth until it is fully manifest for you, and he wanted the people to supply the answer that was coming upon them for themselves. But in Jesus’s work of throwing out Messianic symbol after symbol and expecting those sincerely looking for him to supply the signification, my question is if the image of Him on the Cross is not his greatest of such intentional messianic secrets that lives on as our judge as to our true affections for Truth.

Wrede thought that this strategy of Jesus was the same as his refusal to give answers to his parables, as in Mark 411: “And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.” So do I. But Wrede also thought that he was trying to reduce the confusion that was arising from the difference between what Jesus thought his messianic ministry and his non-messianic ministry. Thus does scholarship, at every available turn, attempt to sacrifice the theological and soteriological implications of the idea and confession of Messiah so that attention turns to issues which power effects only from the fringes of possibility.

But what if I were to tell you that, far from the case, the reason Jesus was doing this with those outside of his circle was not that he had a theological problem arising that he wanted to put the kibosh on, and not even just because he wanted people to admit on their own that he was the Messiah, but that he wanted them to admit theology and religion itself is all to be in every corner of the earth contained in that Truth of “Messiah?” This comes out beautifully in Matthew 16:13–16; Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:18–20:

Mat:16:13: “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

In reply, Jesus said “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Now,  this is very clear, is it not? I mean, take up any commentary for the cause and effect of this faith and you will find this rendered something like here, in the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible:

“but while Peter may be a rock in his role of confessing Christ (v. 16), he becomes a stumbling block in his role of resisting the meaning of that confession, namely, Jesus’ calling to the cross.”

John MacArthur does not buy that this is only about Peter. It’s about the confession of faith upon which Christ builds the Church. Here, he correctly identifies what that confession is, but won’t go past the Personal definition:

Jesus used a play on words here with petra which means a foundation boulder (cf. 7:24, 25). Since the NT makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation (Acts 4:11, 12; 1 Cor. 3:11) and the head (Eph. 5:23) of the church, it is a mistake to think that here He is giving either of those roles to Peter.

We can go way back to Adam Clarke, who does the same thing in a different way. Notice here that he correctly mentions and puts into the exposition a reminder that “Christ” means “Messiah,” and this refers to that confession upon which the Christ will build the Church. He actually quotes the great messianic prophecy of Psalms 118 in support. He calls this the “precious faith,” the foundation stone of it.

Please go to the next page…

Upon this very rock, επι ταυτη τη πετρα – this true confession of thine – that I am The Messiah, that am come to reveal and communicate The Living God, that the dead, lost world may be saved – upon this very rock, myself, thus confessed (alluding probably to Ps 118:22, The Stone which the builders rejected is become the Head-Stone of the Corner: and to Isa 28:16, Behold I lay a Stone in Zion for a Foundation) – will I build my Church, μου την εκκλησιαν , my assembly, or congregation, i.e. of persons who are made partakers of this precious faith. That Peter is not designed in our Lord’s words must be evident to all who are not blinded by prejudice.

This looks promising. Having identified the foundation stone as the confession of Messiah, the mountain, that the smaller rock, Peter, represented, Clarke continues in his commentary on verse 19:

The keys of the kingdom – By the kingdom of heaven, we may consider the true Church, that house of God, to be meant; and by the keys, the power of admitting into that house, or of preventing any improper person from coming in. In other words, the doctrine of salvation and the full declaration of the way in which God will save sinners; and who they are that shall be finally excluded from heaven; and on what account

Did you catch that? “Messiah” is equal to “the doctrine of salvation and the full declaration of the way God saves sinners.” But Psalms 118 is a messianic prophecy. Of such like are surely equal to “Messiah,” but Clarke implies that such revelation as Psalms 118 is not the way in which God saves sinners, but only by its distilled, doctrinal conclusion “you are the Christ,” or the person of “Messiah.”

You could go on and on and on. Messianic Secret? Its effect upon those outside Jesus’s inner circle is on full display here and it goes way beyond a few verses.

Of every conceivable opportunity to apply “Christ” to its most natural and unforced signification, messianic prophecy, they just can’t and won’t go there. This when they already know and believe John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The “doctrine of salvation” is “Christ,” the Personal idea? In other words, a religious proposition, something you can handle without any knowledge about it and still feel like your handing and loving something divine. None of these or any that you will find put “Christ” the equal of anything but another conceptual object to faith, whether the Person of Jesus, the Person of Peter, the idea of a theological conclusion or a “Christ” which simply means Jesus. Never to what the Bible repeatedly says is it’s only eternal, demonstrable, transcendent knowledge and the final revelation God gave to the world to forever stand in judgment over all those who would so vainly use the word “spiritual” or “faith” again.

The Messianic Secret is simply the intentional display by Christ of things which have a natural appearance and are switchable to stand either for another mundane thing or an eternal and holy thing. The unfaithful choose the mundane thing as conclusive evidence upon what value God places on eternal things. But basically Christ says “choose what is of the world and what is of heaven.” The only conclusive evidence of what is of heaven here is not “the doctrines of salvation” but God’s promises and supernatural fulfillments by Christ, and that kind of scripture is occupied by only one of its categories.

But Jesus won’t tell you this openly. It’s up to each person individually to set the ultimate value of what he sees spiritually. It’s not about what Adam Clarke, John Macarthur or anyone else thinks, its what you think. And trust me, what you think that is heavenly is not for this kind of faith again another person or object, whether form or abstract, which could allow you to take the thing as sufficient and miss its substance while still qualifying for Heaven. This is not anything about the pagan religion of things and ideas. This, for the first time, is about what knowledge, information, raw phenomenal appearances of the divine God solely ordained to demand representation by things and ideas in the world. Not “Jesus,” not “Christ,” not “the doctrines of salvation,” not a feeling, not tradition, not anything that can be taken as a self-contained revelation when it’s only a possible signing device for revelation.

The Messiah, that Person, and his confession, Him and the equal to him of his informational, prophetic entity, are set as the King, the ultimate leader over every notion of spirituality and its expressions by human beings from his point forward. Christ’s representative body on earth, the Church, was to be granted this key of understanding and by it exclusive heavenly access.

If no one answered Jesus’s messianic question, “what is the greatest truth and the greatest reason for faith in God possible” it’s still open for them. It’s not given to be a pandering religious conclusion and a doctrinal statement, but a spiritual question and then answer and above all. One which the world hates, and this rejection, since they have refused the ultimate, is the quintessential sin. There are other sins, but they are at best only symbols of this one.

That person who rejects or misdirects the Messianic Secret in their core doesn’t hate spirituality, “God,” purity and righteousness,  and “Truth” the ideas, when they have a choice over their meanings. What they really, really, really hate is Truth the certain Person bound inextricably to a single, certain Truth, of specialized and proprietary knowledge,  is going to be what will judge hearts. Judged for how it is known and regarded, and over which they have no further religious control.

Spiritual, unknown and viscerally reviled things hiding and lurking in the shadows that jump out and grab them and kill them is what they abhor. But they also want to be free to deliberately wander in places where these spiritual things hide and lurk in the shadows, just well protected from the things hiding there that jump out to grab them and kill them. They want to play around in the unknown and remain unscathed by its inevitable revelational threats. People want certainty and control over things not certain and out of their control, but also don’t want a certainty that makes them safe from its threat when what makes them safe involves them independently making the decision to search for it in places where the answers could be personally depreciating and uncomfortable, of foreign origin, unpredictable and not voted on.

This, of course, applies to spiritual truth, not usually physical truth, unless they are considered crazy. No one in their right mind would decide to deliberately put their bodies at risk and say for the sake of freedom “I will ignore that warning sign about the bridge being washed out and proceed at 70 miles an hour.” I’m talking about spiritual truth, where we really act crazy.

With spiritual truth, the threat is unseen and so are its laws. You can make them inside your head anything you want, but the cold, cruel reality is that the spirit is not an optional dimension that exists only in your imagination. It’s real, as real as the space in your head in which you are allowed to say “I am human,” and far more real and permanent than the physical space. Real self-preservation is not the protection of your physical body, it’s of your soul.

Is it any wonder then why Jesus rejected those who would not publically admit the one spiritual Truth that could save them spiritually but was also the most unmanipulable, obvious, demonstrated and axiomatic? That people with no self-preservation instinct for their spirits will not be saved when they demonstrated openly and willingly that they don’t really care about whether it lives or dies? That you keep driving at 70, because you hate confining, restrictive spiritual laws and conditions over you that can’t be changed but, still, somehow, in some way, of your own, believe that your obedience to spiritual law will allow you to live forever?

Well, you know, this is only the stuff of religious blather. What evidence do you have that there is such a spiritual sign “the bridge is out,” that there is such a threat, or even that there is a bridge or a car that you are spiritually driving toward or in?

Christ on the Cross is the greatest single event and image of human history after his vindication as Truth in the resurrection, Do you believe that? Yes? Then why? That is Jesus’s messianic question to you. Until you honestly answer that, and unless you show yourself for the real lover of truth you say you are, count yourself on the side of it as signifying just a man dying on a piece of wood, and on the side in which all men and pieces of wood fall after their self-satisfying function ends on earth.

Self-satisfaction does not get you satisfaction unless what satisfies is what ultimately preserves you.

Continued here: How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World Through His Own Sacrifice? Only one way. Part 3. Preparation for Sacrifice.

[renzanandsinghramananda]

Franken's Apology: A Jewish Perspective

By now the whole world has heard about Leeann Tweeden's accusation that, in 2006, not-yet-Senator Al Franken kissed her too aggressively during a skit rehearsal and later posed for an embarrassing "joke" photo where it appears he is groping her. There is plenty of discussion about these events all over the Internet, so I'm not going to go into more details here. Rather, I want to look at the ethics of his apology from a Jewish perspective. Why Jewish per se?  Because Franken himself is Jewish and has said that his Jewish roots are part of his approach to public service. (Read more on that...)    Although I am not his rabbi, I did know Rabbi Shapiro of Temple Israel in Minneapolis (who was), and can attest that Al Franken grew up in a positive Jewish environment. So I think it is fair to look at the issue from the standpoint of Jewish law & ethics. But first, three disclaimers: (1)  I do not speak for Senator Franken, and I have not discussed religion with him.  Therefore,  all opinions in this post are my own. (2)  I am not in any way, shape, or form trying to claim that what Franken did to Ms. Tweeden was OK.  If I thought that, there would be no need to discuss apologies. (3) I have been a Franken supporter since his first campaign in 2008 and I still am.  However, this does not mean I am blind to his faults, or that I enjoy raunchy sexual humor (Not!)  No leader is perfect.  Even Moses made mistakes. Forgiveness and apologies in Judaism Judaism teaches that for sins between human beings and God, it is enough to simply pray to God for forgiveness.  So, for example, if I eat a ham sandwich, all I need to do is acknowledge the sin, ask God for forgiveness, and hopefully not do it again.  However, if I harm another person - whether physically, monetarily, or through embarrassment --  I cannot be forgiven by God until I have made amends directly to that person.  In this, Judaism recognizes the right of victims to have their pain and suffering directly acknowledged. This is exactly how Franken has handled the Tweeden accusation against him. Within 24 hours of Tweeden stating her case on CNN, Franken issued a full public apology to reporters, as well as sending an apology directly to Ms. Tweeden, which she read and discussed on The View.  During that interview she said she accepted his apology and stated, "I sincerely think he took it in and realized that -- man, he looks at it now and says 'I'm disgusted by my actions'..." She also stated that it is not her intent to get him to resign, that the people of Minnesota should decide this.  All in all, she accepted his apology and change of heart as genuine. (Watch the full interview on YouTube) Unlike Weinstein, Moore, Trump and others, Franken did not retreat into denial.  There was no degrading of Tweeden, no calling her derogatory nicknames, no threats of defamation lawsuits,  no Twitter storm attempting to divert attention from himself, no coverup.  Franken fully owned his guilt and manned up to apologize. Twice.  I respect that. Publicly humiliating someone is a sin Let me point out that Jewish law takes a very dim view of embarrassing someone in public; it is, in fact, a serious sin that the Talmud compares to shedding blood (Bava Metzia 58b).   So even if Franken did intend the now-infamous photo to be a practical joke, the fact that it humiliated her made it a sin that he must atone for.  The same goes for the kiss, about which he says, "I certainly don't remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann." Some people have nitpicked this statement, claiming that he is denying her story.  I don't see it that way.  It is perfectly possible for two people to remember the same event in different ways.  What seems trivial in one person's mind can loom large in the mind of another.  For him it was probably just a rehearsal.  To her, it was devastating and made her angry for years. So why didn't he apologize back in 2006?  Because apparently he did not realize the seriousness of its impact on her until she told her story last week.  Some people have implied that he only apologized because he got caught, but this contradicts her own story on CNN, where she says she saw the photo after they got back from the USO trip.  For whatever reason, she did not confront him about it back then.  What matters now is that as soon as he became aware of the impact on her, he owned it. However, we should note that pillorying Franken  in a social media feeding frenzy is also wrong.  Ms. Tweeden has stated that it was not her intention to get him fired, she simply wanted to tell her story and get an apology.  She got that and has accepted it.  If the victim does not want to press it further, shouldn't we respect that?  Must we continue to drag both of them through the media? Is "joking around" an excuse? This brings us to the question of whether "it was clearly a joke" could be an excuse. The Jewish answer is no, not if it causes harm to the brunt of the joke.  In a discussion about embarrassment and nicknames, the Talmud (Baba Metzia 58b) says that one who calls someone a derogatory nickname -- even if he or she is used to it -- will spend eternity in Gehenna.  This may be hyperbole, but it does indicate the seriousness of humiliating somebody in public. (President Trump should listen to this.  Although he is not Jewish, one would hope that his Jewish daughter and son-in-law would point out it him.  Maybe they have but he doesn't listen?) Humor is always tricky.  What is funny to one generation can be downright disgusting to another.  Even from group to group or person to person, what is acceptable can vary widely.  To be sure, much of Franken's humor back in his Saturday Night Live (SNL) days was very raunchy and misogynist.  (Read more...)  SNL today remains a venue where comedy often crosses the line into offensiveness.  This is not to make excuses, it just is what it is.  Perhaps we should all take a long hard look at ourselves and how we feed into this national obsession with raunchy sexist humor. Again drawing on Jewish thought, Psalm 1:1 tells us not to "sit in the seat of the scorners," i.e., those who mock others. Good humor does not put others down. Franken's humor and the 2008 Senate race Here in Minnesota, when Franken ran for the Senate in 2008, his humor became an issue during the campaign.  The Republicans jumped on various articles and skits he had written or participated in (or sometimes just pitched but never produced) as "proof" that he was morally unfit to lead.  Even among Democrats, there was concern about his public image . Focus groups said loud and clear that they did not want Minnesota represented by a clown, especially a raunchy one. Here again, Franken looked at his behavior and sincerely apologized: “For 35 years I was a writer," he said at his nomination speech. "I wrote a lot of jokes. Some of them weren’t funny. Some of them weren’t appropriate. Some of them were downright offensive. I understand that. And I understand that the people of Minnesota deserve a senator who won’t say things that will make you feel uncomfortable." So a lot of the bad comedy material from the past that his enemies are now dredging up is old news to us Minnesotans, who elected him in 2008.  In 2014 he won the Democratic primary with 94.5% of the vote and the general election with 53.2% of the vote.  So obviously Minnesota feels he has grown beyond his past off-color humor and is now doing a good job representing us. Unfortunately, the rest of the country apparently hasn't followed Minnesota politics that closely.  A whole new generation, who weren't even born in 1975 when SNL began, are discovering anew that Al Franken the comedian wrote offensive jokes before he became a senator.  What they are missing is that during the campaign he promised to turn over a new leaf --and he did.  He went so far as to not tell jokes -- even acceptable ones -- suppressing his inner clown to take on the seriousness of governing in the Senate.  (Read more...) Is Franken unfit to lead? Now that the Tweeden story is out, certain people are calling for Franken's resignation.  Abby Honold, the Minnesota rape victim who helped Franken craft a bill that would help train First Responders to better help victims of sexual assault, called Franken to say he was no longer fit to sponsor it.  For the good of the cause, Franken turned it over to Senator Amy Klobuchar. But I find myself wondering if Honold is really right.  Is Franken really unfit to lead on women's issues or anything else? Recall again that the Tweeden case, as well as his sexist humor in general, occurred before he was elected to the Senate. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 14 women staffers who worked for Franken signed a statement saying that he never acted inappropriately towards them: “Many of us spent years working for Senator Franken in Minnesota and Washington,” their statement read. “In our time working for the senator, he treated us with the utmost respect. He valued our work and our opinions and was a champion for women both in the legislation he supported and in promoting women to leadership roles in our office.” So it would seem that he really has turned over a new leaf.  I find myself thinking about how, in many recovery programs, the best outreach counselors are those who have been there.  Ex-alcoholics, ex-addicts, ex-gang members, ex-convicts -- the list goes on of people who can speak convincingly to offenders precisely because they once were offenders themselves.  In a follow-up interview on CNN, Tweeden herself blames our culture, and said that change is going to come "not from the victims coming out, and talking about it, I think its gonna come from the people who may be doing the abusing that don't even realize they are abusing because it is so a part of the culture..." . (Watch the  video) So why can't  Al Franken be an advocate for women's rights?  It would seem that a man who himself once degraded women on the stage and in his writing -- but who has since repented and reformed -- would be the ideal person to convince other men to do the same.  In other areas we support --even praise! -- ex-offenders who do such education and outreach.  Why should  this be any different? Take Alan Alda, for instance.  If  you watch the early seasons of M.A.S.H., there's a great deal of material that comes across as sexual harassment.  Then, partway through the series,  Alda became a feminist. And if you watch the episodes in order, you can see the show evolve into a more respectful treatment of female characters.  Having followed Franken's career here in Minnesota, I have seen a similar evolution in Franken's attitude.   As I write this, the news just broke that Senator Franken does not intend to resign.  Frankly (pun intended), I'm glad.  So far, he is the only one of the many powerful men recently accused of sexual misconduct who has had the guts to take responsibility and admit his mistakes.  That shows courage and strength of character. We need more of that kind of leadership.   from Notes from a Jewish Thoreau http://ift.tt/2hGdNuN via IFTTT from CoscienzaSpirituale.net Associazione "Sole e Luna" via Clicca

[libramoon2]

[evening dionysian]

working title: [evening dionysian]

Dancers dance musicians play Enchanting sylph narrates stories while seductively moving to sinuous back beat, tick of chimes. Occasionally emphasizes subtle percussions with intense expressions, leaps, cunning stumbles, falling to crawl into spellbound speech. Scheherazade myths, archetypal passion escapades, poignant weeps, salient shouts to power. Exquisite meditations on mystic climes, spirit and form. Merry masks, sparkly costumes, paint and glitter as embellishment to the tellings. Theater as intimate ritual. Anything could manifest.

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Pisces murky androgeny Libra emits graceful beauty Scorpio at home in passion Deeply attractive Complicated self-hatred urging service and demeaning. At core strong self-belief expressed intuitively. Stories from the collective well, mystic ether, imbued in earth, exhaled by flames. Centering, sense memory trances exhibits as sinuous performance.

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This world is ending …

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Even happy families share dissonance, complex histories, emotional triggers. Happy families learn to thrive, profound mutual respect as guide, resort to good humor for smoother passage. Why fight, divide strength from where it is better spent? Folk who pull together by choice rejoice in shared communion.

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Outside self-circumscribed worlds Diverse perception of views Sight with wide spectra of hues

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She heard him crying, a lost child in the night. In her prophetic heart she knew only she could comfort him. But she was only a child who was never allowed to be lost. How could she comfort this lost boy when she had no freedom to reach out? Late in quiet dark, after her people, asleep, would not be checking on her, she opened her window and made daring escape. Wandering in the outside dark, she listened for his cries. At first she discerned wind among leaves and branches, small creature forays, clash of metal against pavement, perfumed strains from afar. Then, yes, whimpers, ragged rhythm past exhausted weeping. He was huddled, hidden, on the alley side of a cold brick building. Seeing him, frightened, lost, she did not know what to say. He smelled of rancid sweat and fear. She did not know how to speak. She cried. She emptied herself of every caustic tear, every regret held for guilty ransom, every sadness kept inside so no one would fuss. He looked up at her watery face and asked with amazed concern: “Are you lost, too? Because if we are lost together, really we have found each other. We don’t have to stay scared and alone.” She looked around, realized that in al her blind wandering she had lost her way. She had no idea where they were. She knelt beside him. They smiled and hugged. For that precious while they became beloved kin. Perhaps some special night they’ll meet again.

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Mythy visions to transcribe; thought fragments to form. Myths we live, and how to rewrite them.

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She knows she has awakened. Every effort of her body pinches, aches, demands refuge in self-talk, reason, mental override of pain. Carefully, she measures out tools of destruction, what she must carry in her pack into the city, to her place of destiny. Doing what one can to make sense, have meaning. Life is short, ugly, pointless, unless you get that call. Trying to act cool with familiar friends, laying low, hiding from everything that doesn’t allow relevant existence for dregs like us. Recognition? Commendation? A scrap of real notice? To sacrifice this humorless joke to Godly cause, that’s got to be imbued with meaning, to be holy. How not find zealous courage, so dishonor numbing a drug, one point of focus. All my sins, my impoverishments, inadequacies, forgiven in ultimate atonement. God can love me. I am made pure in His sight. A tool, a weapon, no matter how lowly, bestowed sacred purpose in this great fight. My parents, my kin, vindicated, their suffering denied nobility avenged. Cleansed in adventure’s icy plunge, only ever young in throes of romance, a chance for breathless rush of brief immortality.

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. question everything accept or reject with clear awareness and flexibility

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. purity of essence is to will one thing

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. She didn’t like her skin. So hard to blend in. She didn’t like her body, jutting awkwardly, too bulky, not compliant to conscious control. She ached to let her spirit free from matter’s burden, to ooze out onto open air. Her envisioned wish took her to aerial glee, and no more. “What would I see, outside of eyes, no biological boundaries?” Her attention, turned to this yearn for omniscient sight, was caught, held strong and seduced. Ever present, ever expanding through every crevice of her consciousness, she became inured to matter’s inadequacies. She desired entirely. No one could reach her, though no one tried. She trance-walked through her duties and habits with none to notice any lack of aliveness, lack of any impish spark within her eyes. Self-consumed, obsessed, absorbed in apotheosis, physical possibilities no longer matter. Her spirit no longer held to this room, this body. Blind to her unseeing world, enraptured in unfiltered light, colors far beyond our rainbow.

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. A brave and learned man hired out to guide a motley assortment through a narrow, rocky passage to a settlement in need of laborers. At this time, he was a stranger to settlers and these prospective immigrants. He had an idea of joining their project, but felt nag of doubt enough to only commit as far as hiring out for specified work and pay. This Job – this man who gave his name as Job – was curious, clever, aloof because caught up in thoughts complex, calculating, critical, cynical, contemplative, entertaining. He spoke as necessary for terse communication. He listened as if a subtle etching of rain on sand. He sucked in sounds and all their meaning to nourish his chattering brain. Though his behavior, demeanor, presentment appeared distancing, others tended to respect his leadership, his abilities. Even those who mocked or boisterously complained in private camaraderie in which he did not join agreed that he bested them at coming through. After their passaging, safely gathered at the settlement, words and gestures of gratitude lauded upon him were spontaneous and sincere. As settlers and new arrivals met together to discuss their common project, ask questions, give opinions, figure out teams and chores, Job continued his passage. Busy in their plans and adaptations, no one noticed him disappear.

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. Capture my imagination Take me for a ride self-discipline, acknowledge without judging

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Philip, he so tired, exhausted, can’t bear the nattering. Silly people, spew of soft-heart advice. Stupidly happy people, smug in their hugs and white smiles. Philip recedes into deep, dark hate – so mired and convoluted spirals down his mind. Lethargic impulses, held back, kicked down, pounded to weakness as he grew in twists and turns. “Don’t look at me.” He hears his silence scream. Horrid beast snarls, whimpers. Philip aches to hide from his own mind, beastly child whining, cringing around cutting steel for comfort. Snappy, happy babblers burst like saliva balloons, insult, annoy. “Don’t speak to me. Don’t daintily pretend you understand; oh so precious extended hands, limpid eyes question, judge, sentence to demented status. “I am fine, or will be when you all leave me alone. Ignore my retreat into secure solitary recrimination, whip lash of vengeful sin. You know you don’t really want to be let in, to feel the wrath I am. Scatter, you flesh-covered delusions who choose to disturb my sleep, my darling nightmares’ stomping victory. You clearly don’t need my input to be complete. Complete fools – go do your better things. Enjoy your day. I’ve no more to say, to share.” Aloud? Allowed? He allows himself to voice complaint aloud. And the folk crowd ebbs out beyond his self-fixed point. “Express your truth,” he silently affirms. People may listen.

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Imbibe trance Fall into story Record intimately

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Become one story Imbibe trance intimately Record while falling

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face shifter. story spinner. dervish zeitgeist possessed. defined by shades, by shadows, by negation.

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Sammy scary loco crazy. They say he got the paranoid schizophrenia. What he got is commandos tracking his thoughts, grinning. Party of demons who been with him, telling him what to do, clever talk when he needs to answer some fool. He’s got my nightmares, but can’t shake them awake. No one wants to listen to me or him when we say what’s real. They want us to be kids, whatever that is. They want us to make them feel alive in their self-comforting fantasies about responsibilities. What is Sammy responsible for or to? Because he suffers disability, because he can’t break through Hell’s circles, flames of purity. I walked from Hell. My mind still burns. I am strong, a born survivor. He survives as he can. Is that weakness, or alternative dimensions habitated? I am amazing, mobile, continuing, sensibly explaining, harmoniously relating, conversing like a pro. I struggle. I hurt, it feels unbearably. I work until I want to scream, become explosive screaming. I stifle, call up mania to work on. Efforts only I applaud – amazing me! Nothing spectacular to entice the jaded they. Sammy is spectacular. I am seriously amazing. I won’t let them blind me.

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. They walk in and out of patterns, broad swath of night. No designated home; no one has to accept them. They walk. Dust, dirt, soot, effluvia collect, protect in the sense of repel. In safe dark none encounter to harass. Those alive by day buried in bed. They walk without notice or plan. This is their closest approach to sleep, hypnotic glide through distance. Landscape undifferentiated by visible presentation. Footsteps feel clearly what comes under, it seems by instinct — or possibly familiarity. They walk on perhaps forever with no where to stop. Pit stops. Beg for food or find leavings. Play merry fool, eyes gleaming, lips voice hands form expressive grand soliloquies, hoped fee implied (implored). Sustenance they afford varies by mood of kindness, unswayed by desperation. Exhaustion only dulls, removes any attractive shine. As air blows colder, nights freeze over, they seem to dissolve into neverwere. Empty shadow, haunted tingle bereft of cause. “They were never us, nothing like us.” Unspoken song bears rhythms of walking unseen.

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She awoke in a body, young, womanly, driving consciousness on hold somewhere like dreamless sleep. It was her occasional brief invasion to feel in touch with mortal concerns. She is to be a bride, again. Foolish, innocent yet of so many regrets and betrayals to come. She is ready to exult in the veil and it symbolic lift. Happy to perform, darling of her audience of familiars. Happy day, swept clean of trepidations, of all yesterdays and their burdensome effluvia. Today is always hers. These ceremonies, traditional duties and pleasures, bind her to cults, cultures, accumulated lore and intuition. Not creature, but weaver – still she is inseparable from the story. Today she again assumes bridehood. Tonight, awash in festivities, again she removes her spell of possession. This new bride returns to a familiar world, changed. No longer civil child nor spiritual supplicant, she has ascended. People see her differently, treat her with more deference, more distance even as they proclaim her their precious chosen intimate, ply her with cherished secrets as if her allegiance would add value. Her bearing carries an air, an enhanced spirit, a subtle awareness, unspoken by any inner voicing. Language is a human art.

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Gathered on picnic table benches behind the home, hot in sunshine. Karen explains, fact by fact, how Gus became her inseparable soul. They beam together. He gives consoling hand to shoulder as she grieves children left with their father, her ex’s condemnation, stern paternal assertion of power. Saving his kin from this unrepentant whore. Karen cries, again – unrehearsed habit. She carries sadness; leaks occur. Gus hardly speaks. His troubled eyes, weary stance, gentle pull and pass of their pint bottle as he glances with deep countenance to each face around is eloquent conversation. Sweat smells, condensed alcohol, burnt tobacco, drying shit from local dogs, passing fumes from the road out front, all permeate, help set the mood. They treat the stranger in their midst as a friend of long acquaintance, just another straggly member of a morphing crew. “Ain’t we all strangers of long acquaintance – everybody a wrapping of layers, appearing in colored bits along our drowsy companionship. Strange friends, welcome distractions, smoky mirrors that let us see as we discern.” Bonnie and Denise giggle at Big Dan’s pedantic speech. They solicit contributions for their liquor store expedition. Enough gets thrown in to make it a go. Go, girls. We’ll be waiting, celebrating what we can because here we are.