#it's just that other jews' opinions on this matter might be much different than mine

[hilacopter]

would it be shitty if my goy ass learnt hebrew to understand the hebrew posts even though I'm not planning on converting or would that be as chill as learning any other language

Personally I think it's totally fine if goyim want to learn, but keep in mind I'm a pretty secular Jew and the reason I know Hebrew is because it's my first language anyway so I might not be the best person to ask. You should probably ask diaspora Jews who have learned/are learning Hebrew, and said Jews plus others are also welcome to reblog this post with their opinions on the matter.

[eretzyisrael]

From a Justin Amler Facebook Post

It seems everyone is an expert on Jews these days...except Jews!

We have a 75 year old organisation called UNESCO continuously telling us about our history, even though we're 4000 years older than they are.

We have the majority of countries around the world telling us that our 3000 year old capital of Jerusalem isn't actually in Israel, even though none of their countries even existed for another few thousand years after we proclaimed ours.

We have a plethora of organisations who pretend they stand up for indigenous people, telling us - the indigenous people of Israel - that living in our own land is unacceptable.

We have the United Nations telling us what we need to do to achieve peace, even though they've never actually solved any conflicts themselves.We have the European Union telling us how labelling tomatoes is the road to peace, even as their own members tear each other apart.

We have the Arab world...oy the Arab world... telling us about human rights, while their streets are filled with blood and conflict.

So, at the risk of being controversial, let me, a Jew, tell you about the Jews... this ancient group of people that somehow have been hanging on to the knife-edge of history, as the pages of time turn.

We can be frustrating and full of it! We really can. Just ask John Kerry. Or Obama. Or Biden. Or the UN. Or the British. Or the French. Or the Arabs. Or the waiter at that restaurant, who had to move three tables across the floor, add six chairs and change the ingredients of the dish you just ordered.

We eat weird stuff, like gefilte fish, which is a mixture of all kinds of fish, along with road tar, goblin’s eyes and fairy dust. It’s a bonafide crime against humanity! 

We are argumentative. No, really we are. We argue day and night – and that’s when we agree. When we don’t agree… well...you might want to clear your calendar for the next month. You see, we’ve been arguing since pretty much the beginning of time.Abraham argued with God. The Israelites argued with Moses. The prophets argued with the kings. The students argued with the rabbis and the rabbis argued with each other. And have you ever seen the Knesset??

We can be an insecure bunch, often at odds with the world and even with each other. We try a certain path – and if that fails, we try another path. And if that fails, we go back to the first path. We’re still trying to find the right path – sometimes driven more by hope than conviction.

To our mothers, we are geniuses – destined for ultimate greatness – a definite catch! We can do no wrong. Imagine the disappointment when we do!

We are fitness freaks – and you’ll always find us at the gym – or more likely at the coffee shop next door, having a slice of cheesecake and a cup of coffee – ready to hit that workout...after one more bite...In married life, the husband is number one. And whatever the husband says goes...straight out the window. Sometimes our wives ask our opinions, even though those opinions have already been decided.

We can be a people of contrasts and uncertainty. We’re both left and right, and sometimes even extreme left and extreme right. We can be our own best friends and our own worst enemies. At times we’re a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Maybe that’s why we call ourselves Jew…ish.

Every Jew in history has the answers to everything – according to himself. And I doubt there’s a single one among us who isn’t convinced they can do a better job than the Prime Minister of Israel, whoever it is this week.

We get criticised a lot, but despite what is said about us, the truth is that we’re our own strongest critics. Why do we get singled out among all the nations of the world, and denied the same rights as them – I don’t know… Perhaps that’s more for our critics to answer than ourselves. Because every nation that achieves victory on the battlefield get to dictate the terms for peace, except us. When we are victorious, we have to beg our enemies to accept peace. And yet we are the ones called warmongers, even though there is no people in history who have sacrificed more to achieve peace.

Peoples have come and gone throughout history, yet we’re still here. Because unlike some others we value life too much, and we cling to it with everything we have. As long as there is the smallest breath in us, the faintest light, and the tiniest slimmer of hope, we will not succumb to the darkness of the night.

It's true that in many ways, we are divided - just look at the latest Israeli government! And even among us, there are many Jews and many who profess to be Jews who sow division and distrust of one another, trying to divide us among artificial and superficial things like colour and ethnicity and geography.

But in other ways, we have never been stronger, because as different as we are to each other, we are also the same. And despite our many flaws, our sense of community is strong. When two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg was left an orphan in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, we wept together. When Sergeant Ronen Lubarsky died from wounds sustained in a terror attack, Jewish hearts from around the world grieved together. When little eight year old Leiby Kletzky was killed by one of our own in New York, we looked up to the heavens together, asking why?

And when the State of Israel rescued over 14000 Ethiopian Jews in just 36 hours and brought them home to Israel, our hearts swelled with a pride that could barely be contained in our ever expanding chests. Because each tragedy is a tragedy that we all feel together and each joy is a joy we all celebrate together. And each crisis we will face, as individuals and collectively, with the United Nations, with the Arabs, with the world itself – we will overcome. Together.

Others will always try to define us, using terms such as creed, or race, or colour, or ethnicity, or religion. But what they can't understand and will never be able to understand is that we have an invisible bond that connects us from every corner of the world and across the entire expanse of time, from Abraham until today. It is a bond that cannot be broken, try as our enemies might - and they have. Because every Jew today is my brother and my sister and it doesn't matter if I'm in Tulsa or Toronto, in Melbourne or Mumbai, or in Jorhat, India or Jerusalem, Israel. 

So let me tell you about the Jews. 

We may not be your average nation, but average was never in our destiny. 

We may not be a perfect nation, but perfection was never sought.What 

we are is a people, the Jewish people, and there is nothing on this earth that will ever change that......

___

https://israelforever.org/interact/blog/about_the_jews/

Adapted from an earlier article of mine

[evilwickedme]

I know we're not supposed to care about being good or bad jews, but can I ask? I'm scared to even mention I live in israel because last time I mentioned something I was harassed and accused of not caring about others. Just for stating what country I live in. I wanted to reblog a meme about Israel being filled with cats, and I relate to that because cats are everywhere, but I was scared to be harassed again. I blocked all the tags but I still see this everywhere. Do you have like, any advice?

Right so I guess this answer is gonna be complicated and simple at the same time? cause I’m obviously very open about living in Israel but like, relatively to how long I’ve been on the website - cause I joined tumblr in 2010, which is a full decade ago - I spent most of my time on here not being open about it and not talking about. Like if you paid attention you might notice that I was mutuals with a lot of Israelis who are people I know in real life (@thelordofthecats is one of my best friends, for example, and he has being Israeli in his bio) but my blog was tiny and nobody was really paying attention. I think I had managed to gain 400 followers or so by 2017, which is when I really exploded by joining jumblr and I had several relatively viral posts getting hundreds if not thousands of notes per day for a while there. And the thing is I wasn’t outspoken about being Israeli because I had a friend in high school who had several thousand followers and was actively harassed for months at a time for being Israeli and I just didn’t want to bring that attention to me. I often just plain delete controversial statements and honestly I’m not that shy about it because if I don’t agree with something I said why should I keep it up and have people come at me with “receipts” over something I don’t agree with or even just generally leads to people having so called ammo against me? So for a long time I was avoiding conflict altogether. But once I stopped avoiding conflict and became very, very outspoken about antisemitism - basically in response to CDM and the Jewish pride flag issue, and that feels like ages ago, but that was what brought me into the jumblr sphere for good - there was no real reason to hide the fact that I’m Israeli because I was already inviting trouble as is and I might as well be clear about my position as someone who lives where I live and how that obviously influences my opinions.

And okay this is clearly a bit of a wall of text but my point is that I didn’t so much choose to divulge that I was Israeli as much as there was no longer any point to hide it. If I was going to get messages telling me to burn in an oven anyway there was no real difference if it came because my parents decided to have me here and not in the States or because I dare to be Jewish, period. And a lot of that has calmed down recently - I’m not nearly as active as I was in 2017-2018, not just in jumblr but in general, as a combination of me really getting into fandoms such as TMA that go on my sideblog @queerastronauts rather than this one and of university really kicking my ass and working basically whenever not studying, so I’m not really getting any attention except for once in a while having someone reblog an old post of mine and it getting a dozen notes or so before dying off, whether in a positive or negative light (mostly positive light, thank God). But I can’t, like, go back in the closet about being Israeli - people know now, there are 2,145 of you who follow me and most of you followed me during my intense jumblr phase - so I’m sort of stuck with it now.

So, uh, I guess it’s just weighing your risks. Say what you will about tumblr, I do think that the culture has shifted over the last couple of years towards unfollowing or blocking people we don’t like instead of getting into pointless arguments with them. Or at least, that’s what I see in my personal sphere. If I see someone posting antizionist or exclusionist or whatever content I don’t agree with I just unfollow them and then I’m done with it. And if you’re a big blog, you have to weigh the risks. Big blogs tend to get hate no matter what - someone once reblogged a post of mine and called me out for being a Taylor Swift fan, of all things, and like, if that’s the worst you got against me, I’m not really bothered. So you have to decide whether or not you’re willing to also get hate for this. And it’s a pro-con situation but the truth is you don’t want the virulent antisemitic antizionists following you anyway (I’m not saying all antizionists are antisemitic, chill, I’m talking about a specific yet undeniably common type of antizionists).

Also, if you reblog that meme about the cats in Israel I posted which is honestly objectively hilarious, that’s not the same as coming out as Israeli anyway, because it’s enough for you to know someone in Israel or have visited Israel to know that’s true.

Also, if someone is being a dick towards you, point them towards me, and I will F I T E T H E M

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Sophie the Christian

I’m a bit busy this week, so I dug out an old piece, something I wrote for a creative nonfiction course when I was a freshman in college. It’s interesting to see how my voice as a writer has shifted since then! This essay was previously posted on the University of Iowa blog The Anti-Cuttlefish in September 2013.

It’s a steamy July morning, and my hand is slick and wet from not only my own perspiration but also the cool sweat of my iced cocoa, which is now sitting in a puddle of its own creation on the stone picnic table behind Eli’s, the coffee shop down the block from my high school. I wipe my damp palm on the leg of my capris, sorely tempted to get back in my car, turn up the air conditioning, and retreat for home, but instead I continue to sit on the hard bench, sipping at my chocolaty drink. I’d already agreed to meet my former classmate here, and it’d be rude to leave before she arrived, although the weather and my own nervousness are trying to convince me otherwise.

My fingers brush against the edge of the letter folded in my pocket. I don’t have to unfold the paper to know what it says; I’ve read it several times in the few days since I received it. It’s from the girl who’d sat next to me in Expository Writing class. Her name is Sophie, just like mine, and she’s eighteen, just like me, but in the letter, she pointed out the gaping difference between us: she, like nearly everyone else in our corner of Illinois, is Christian. I’m Jewish. In pink gel pen, she expressed a desire to meet and read the Book of John with me, to “learn more about each other’s religions.”

I consider myself to be an open-minded person, one who enjoys talking about different opinions and beliefs. But as Sophie the Christian sits down next to me on the bench, greeting me with a cheery “Hello!” and a brilliant grin, I can only hope that the smile I force onto my face hides how reluctant I am to meet and talk religion with her.

One day when I was eleven or twelve, I discovered a file on the house computer full of letters that my parents had sent to my teachers over the years. Among them was a letter directed to my kindergarten teacher, in which my mother reported that two girls had confronted me at recess, telling me that if I didn’t believe in Jesus, Santa, and the Easter Bunny, then there would be monsters under my bed forever. As I read, my fingernails dug into the palms of my clenched hands. It didn’t matter that the memory of that specific event had long since faded from my memory, preserved only in this old Word document. The lesson that those girls had taught me had plenty of reinforcements: the girl in second grade who shouted at me that Jesus was the son of God, the boy in fourth grade who asked me where my God was and challenged me when I said that He was everywhere and in everything, the countless classmates of all ages who stared at me like tourists stare at the gorilla at the zoo when I told them what I was. I almost wished that I were the gorilla. No one ever asked an ape to defend its beliefs, and perhaps the solid glass wall that kept the gorilla separate from prying humans was a greater comfort to it than the insubstantial but equally transparent cultural wall that kept the other humans separate from me.

The gorilla has other gorillas in its enclosure to keep it company. I’ve never gone to school with another Jew. In my glass habitat, I have always faced the gaping, sneering tourists alone.

But Sophie’s countenance is a lot more welcoming and friendly than the usual tourist’s, and I find myself having a much better time than I expected to at the picnic table behind Eli’s, even if I find the total blissful submissiveness she expresses when she explains her connection to Jesus a bit disconcerting. (At one point, she tells me about a book in which the author learned how to fear and respect God through his relationship with his abusive father. She finds the idea inspiring; I find it frightening.) She asks me questions about my customs and beliefs, and I’m plenty willing to give answers. She never tells me that I’m wrong, and I give her the same courtesy, until she wonders aloud about people in other religions. How come so many thousands of people don’t listen to God’s word? What possible motive could they have for not believing the truth?

I tell her that people of all beliefs—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists even—think that they’re doing the right thing, that what they believe is the truth. She looks confused for a moment and then opens her Bible, eagerly pointing out to me the verses in which God says, “This is my son,” and asking me if I think that God is a liar.

I don’t think she understands.

During my meeting with Sophie, as I look at her idealistic eyes and enthusiastic smile and listen to her explain her beliefs with such incorruptible certainty, a thought keeps running through my head: we are identical in name and age, and yet we are so different in thought. I wonder how it might have been, if I were Sophie the Christian and she Sophie the Jew, if I had been baptized and she Bat Mitzvahed, if I had had her raising and she had had mine. Would we still have met at Eli’s for iced cocoa? Would I have brought my Bible to show her the Book of John, or threatened her with monsters under her bed? Would she have tried to explain to me that people in all religions think that they have it right?

Would I understand?

[mineofilms]

...Perhaps...

A WARNING... Not a POLITICAL take... I am all about the "perhaps.." Perhaps we need change. Perhaps we need more from our leaders... Perhaps we need more than we can actually handle... Perhaps...

Just imagine if Judge Dread life was real. A cop can arrest you, sentence you and execute you on the spot with no lawyer to defend you...

Or if American society was that of the show "The Man in High Castle," where the US loses WW2 and is divided between a Nazi-run East and Middle and Japan occupies the West Coast of the former United States.

We all would be singing a different tune then.

In the show, Blacks and Jews are murdered off in Nazi America in the same fashion as they are in Poland.  Gathered up, robbed, work until they die or off to the gas chamber they go.

In the West Coast Jews are murdered and Blacks are treated as if it were the year 1900.

In the show this is law and society excepts it.

My point is. We need change but be careful in which how we go about that change...

It's a WARNING... Not a POLITICAL take...

It's not about black lives, it never was. It's about ALL LIVES. We need to do a better job.

However, I am not gonna be guilt-tripped into having to pick a side. Regardless if it is right or wrong...

Everyone is trying to make people choose... Bully and Guilt Trip them into a narrative that few actually want to be involved in.

Some actually cannot be vocal. One's take is gonna piss off someone anyways. It always does...

Does this suck, yes... However, I personally have 30 things in a day that directly affects my wellness.

This subject isn't one of them. It's not that I don't care. It's that I cannot care for the state of my own well being and sanity.

Yet, I am considered part of the problem because I choose me 1st above all, WTF....

I get the issue, but because I choose not to contribute I am the asshole, FK this, FK you...

I am just trying to stay sane, not blow my brains out, overdose, and try to function at some semblance of normalcy.

It's not like I make great money doing easy IG/Only Fans shit and wait for the free money to come in.

I have to struggle every day. I don't have time or energy for this, but yet I am part of the problem, whatever??? FK this, FK you...

The short version is others are putting pressure on people to have a side and use their platform to speak out where they normally would not. That's my issue with all this.

Its still bullying. Its still idiocracy at its finest. It has been the hip thing to accept these days...

Take a bad idea and try to conform others to think it's good. Car Salesman / Sheepeople Mentality and people circum to the pressure of this philosophy in fear they might lose out.

If others do not understand that then they really do not understand what personal struggle really means.

When you have literally nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Use all of your mental energy to try to figure out how you're going to survive the day, sleep and do it all over again, come talk to me about how much your life sucks...

I go on social media to escape these realities not have my timelines flooded with opinions or people playing devil's advocate. Doing something just so they do not get ripped on social media for it. Come on....

Some Social Media content creators (made up word) are so afraid they are going to lose their meal ticket they will have a say in something they either do not want to contribute to or do not fully believe in just so they do not lose followers/money, under the umbrella of "You do not want to be on the wrong side of history." Equals More Bullying...

I am not saying what happened is right. I am pissed as well and even if I had a dog in this fight I would be worrying about me and my own 1st over being another body in the crowd either putting others in danger or myself.

Peacefully protests. Go for it. You have the right to do that. Just like I have the right to stay away from this and protect and respect my own life and the people/things in it.

If you want me to respect your outcry and rage then respect my right to protect what is mine. This includes my mental well being.

Seeing all this negative stuff affects me. The only way I can stay clear of it is staying clear of it and removing those people that I do not believe to be sincere with their posts on the subject.

Again, not saying that people shouldn't protest, post and voice opinions. I am just saying you want me to respect what you are doing then respect what I am doing or choose not to do.

I know few will read this but this will be my only, REAL, statement on the matter. I am not going to defend my words.

Everything I want to say and promote is here...

You have a large pool of people. 10%, perhaps, of them are there for the right reasons. The other 90%, perhaps, are just there to be a terrorist for their own purposes.

With the umbrella of that will create change...

Now I saw a video of Killer Mike, a black rapper, make one hell of a speech in the right direction. I loved what he said...

"And now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize...”

I'm also seeing a lot of fake celebrities talking stupid, not doing anything or giving money to causes that actually help...

No, they just throw a bunch of videos and posts in their social media talking about humanity and change, but do not actually do anything and bully everyone else that, "white silence is violence..."

They usually never have a take but now all the sudden, do, and try to make you feel bad because you elect to stay silent so you do not wanna piss off either side and alienate people.

They are actors and models just doing enough to look like they care. Some do, but cannot relate. Some relate but don't care. Some think just because they post that they are doing their part.

Under the umbrella of change and "bring awareness."

People have heard... People know... People are "Aware." Their actions clearly State they really do not care. They really don't care and the ones that do cannot really do enough to make change.

A big middle finger to those that only bully or shame the ones that try to protect what is theirs which is not others or yours but theirs.

Don't feel like you have to post or make statements about this. We all do not have to play to the narrative... Play to the beat of your own playlist.

If someone calls you out. Just remove the comment. Block them if you must. Do not give them room to poison you, your forum and what is yours, that is not theirs.

They want a reaction. Do not give it to them. It's a trap...

You don't wanna be on the wrong side of history? Well, history is written by the winners of wars. There will either be no history or the history that is written will paint things in a different light.

Albert Einstein said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." He also said; "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." 

Perhaps... by David-Angelo Mineo 6/1/2020 1,319 Words

[tediousoscars]

2019

Predict-o-meter: This year: 9/11; Total: 108/134 (83%)

Welcome, welcome one and all to this year’s diatribe concerning all things Oscar.

With one glaring exception (see if you can spot it) this year’s class is solid with some soaring achievements at the top and a lot of really solid work through the middle.

So without further ado, let’s get to it ...

- THE CONTENDERS -

1917. In most war movies the MacGuffin is winning: a skirmish, a battle, a campaign, or, ultimately the war. In “1917” the goal is to call off an attack; to avoid a battle. Most war movies focus on the big picture: strategy, troop movements, etc. “1917” focuses on a single soldier embarking on a single mission for a single day. “1917” is not most war movies. The Germans have executed a strategic retreat and established a new defensive position. A zealous British commander is in hot pursuit, but Command has learned - through the new-fangled technology of aerial photography - that he is charging into a trap. No telegraph lines have yet been laid to the forward position, and radio is not quite a thing yet, so the only way to warn the commander is to send soldiers across no-man’s land, across the previous German line, across the French countryside to deliver the message in person. What follows is a quixotic quest full of constant fear and tension across a landscape made bizarre by the ravages and awful logic of war. It is a saga of commonplace heroism, of a man randomly plucked from obscurity, given an awesome, nigh-impossible task, and rising to the occasion for no other reason than it is his job. The film is expertly paced and while moments of sheer panic are rare, moments of relaxation are nonexistent. Though the time-honored message - war is hell - is definitely there, it is not driven home in the typical, ham-fisted way, and the final scene in which our hero collapses against a tree and gazes out at an idyllic sunlit pasture feels more triumphant than any victory brought about by explosions and bullets.

Jojo Rabbit. I often like to go into these films with no knowledge in order to avoid preconceptions, an approach that was a little jarring in this case, at least at first. In “Jojo Rabbit” director Taika Waititi creates a vivid, slightly out-in-leftfield world that will be familiar to fans of Wes Anderson (particularly “Moonrise Kingdom”). However, Anderson’s Boy Scouts have been replaced (as the vaguely authoritarian and hierarchical children’s organization central to the film) by the Nazi’s Hitler Youth. The opening scenes in which an excited 10yo Johannes "Jojo" Betzler bounces around his room in full Nazi regalia chattering away with his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (“C’mon, now ... Heil me!”), as he prepares for Nazi training camp are downright off-putting at a visceral level. For a second I thought I’d stumbled into an unironic production of “Springtime for Hitler.” But soon enough you realize that you are seeing the world through Jojo’s young eyes, and that he is a sensitive, insecure boy who is desperate for acceptance. Jojo uncritically accepts the worst Nazi propaganda about the Jews to the point that when he actually meets a Jewish girl he asks where her horns are (“They don’t grow in until you are 21,” she coyly replies). What follows is a complex tale of human drama told from a persistently childish (in the best sense of that word) perspective. The fact that it doesn’t just fly apart into an incoherent mess is a testament to Waititi’s skill as a director (WHY was he not nominated?) and a story that starts out uncomfortably off-putting ends up being thought-provoking and heartwarming. This film defies all expectation and should not be missed.

Little Women. A fresh take on a much-beloved classic, “Little Women” follows a family of 4 sisters through late childhood and early adulthood as they struggle with questions of marriage and career through the lens of an 18th-century culture that has quite definite opinions on these matters. The sisters are well cast and have good chemistry. Two of them - Saoirse Ronan as Jo and Florence Pugh as Amy - were nominated for their trouble. Throw in Laura Dern as Marmee and Meryl Streep as the irrepressible Aunt March and you’ve got a powerhouse cast that drives the film forward and keeps things lively. The storytelling is deft throughout, but for my money the best part is at the end when Jo suddenly and inexplicably agrees to marry a minor character from early in the film that she didn’t even seem to like. It all feels very out of character and more than a little deus ex machina, until the coda showing Jo haggling with her publisher over the publication of her book. When he insists that the main female character must be married (or dead, either is fine) by the end of the book, she reluctantly agrees but asks for more money in return. “If I’m going to sell my heroine into marriage for money, I might as well get some of it,” she declares, adding a nice meta twist that makes Jo’s sudden nuptials not only understandable but downright delectable.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. Director Quentin Tarantino (nominated) returns to a vein he previously mined in 2009’s “Inglorious Basterds”: The alternate-history black comedy. This time out, however, the group upon which he unleashes ahistorical vengeance is not the Nazis, but the Manson Family. Set in 1969 Hollywood in a reality not too far from our own, “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” follows Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio in a nominated role) as an aging TV cowboy who flies to Italy to make Spaghetti Westerns in an attempt to salvage his career. His constant companion, stunt double, and manservant is Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, also nominated), a man of immense talent, but no ambition, who is content to carry Rick’s water as long as it doesn’t interfere with his generally zen lifestyle. What follows is a fascinating character study of the two men as they navigate the politics of Hollywood. Rick, in particular, pursues relevance with the panicked desperation that only middle-aged white men can achieve. But the show is consistently stolen by Pitt’s portrayal of Cliff as some combination of ronin samurai and burnt-out hippy. In every situation Cliff knows exactly what to do and how to do it at the same time that his motivation seems to be little more than, “Well, why not?” It’s breathtaking to watch. The Manson Family, for their part, play a minor, oblique role through most of the film, only to fall victim to Tarantino’s signature cartoonish uber-violence in the film’s climax. Never before has someone being set on fire been this laugh-out-loud funny. “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” is like a rollercoaster: don’t over-analyze it, just enjoy the ride. And it is a very enjoyable ride.

Parasite. This is another film I walked into with no foreknowledge and ended up being very pleasantly surprised. “Parasite” is a film from Korea that at its core is about income inequality, but the lens that it uses to examine this phenomenon is unique. “Parasite” follows the Kims, a downtrodden, working-class family of four barely scraping by in the slums of Seoul. Son Ki-Woo is very smart, but can’t afford to attend college like his friend Min-Hyuk, so when Min-Hyuk has a chance to study abroad he asks Ki-Woo to pose as a college student and take over his position tutoring the daughter of the rich Park family. Ki-Woo does so, and through a series of increasingly hilarious hijinks the entire Kim family becomes employed by the Parks in different capacities. The contrast between the capable, sensible, but poor Kims and the clueless but rich Parks is played to maximal comic effect, and you think this is an enjoyable romp and you pretty much know where it’s going. When all of a sudden, in the middle of the second act, the entire film takes a jarring left turn and sends you careening into bizarre, unexplored territory. I won’t spoil it for you, but director Bong Joon Ho richly deserves his nomination for crafting such a compelling story that completely defies expectations.

- THE PRETENDERS -

Ford v Ferrari. This is the true story of how legendary driver and car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) teamed up with the Ford Motor Company to take on Enzo Ferrari and win Le Mans. Central to the effort is the cantankerous Ken Miles (played with verve and gusto by Christian Bale), a British driver and engineer who is obsessed with racing to the exclusion of almost everything else, especially social niceties. When an ambitious, young Lee Iacocca proposes that Ford buy the ailing Ferrari, only to be humiliated by Enzo himself, Henry Ford II (aka “The Deuce”) declares war on Ferrari’s beloved racing team and their dominance at Le Mans. Shelby is recruited as one of a very few Americans to have ever won that race, and he insists on bringing along Miles as one of the few people who share his burning, all-consuming passion for racing. But Ken’s brash, irreverent style conflicts with Ford’s corporate image, and there ensues a protracted battle between Shelby and “the suits.” This is all handled deftly. The interpersonal struggles are well-motivated and feel real, the racing scenes are exciting, and the ultimate, somewhat mixed climax feels very satisfying. Definitely a very good movie, just not a great one.

The Irishman. Pacino. De Niro. Pesci. Keitel. Scorsese. Must be a gangster movie. This time around Scorsese takes on True Crime by studying the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of one-time Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (played by Al Pacino in a nominated role that is more than a little ironic given Hoffa’s frequent anti-Italian tirades). The titular Irishman is Frank Sheeran (De Niro); a Teamsters driver, turned scam artist, turned Mob enforcer, turned Hoffa confidant and Union Local President. All of the clichéd gangster tropes are here: the steak dinners, the smoke-filled rooms, the bizarre, posturing pseudo-conversations where nothing is actually said, but everybody “gets the message,” the sudden, brutal violence. All of it. And it is all executed expertly, being second nature to this team by this point. But for my money the film really revolves around Sheeran’s daughter, Peggy (played by Lucy Gallina as a child and Anna Paquin as an adult). Even as a child Peggy sees through the bluff and bluster of Mafia “honor” to its brutal core of senseless violence, and she holds her father in distain for it. This particularly rankles Sheeran’s Don and protector Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci, also nominated), whose lifelong efforts to curry favor with Peggy come to naught. And when Peggy takes a shine to Jimmy Hoffa, seeing him as an honorable man helping people live better lives, Russell’s knickers are well and truly twisted. After Hoffa’s disappearance (the film makes no mystery of it, but I won’t spoil it) Peggy and Frank become fully estranged. Towards the end of his life Frank feels compelled to make a furtive attempt at reconciliation, but offers no remorse nor even any understanding of why Peggy stopped talking to him in the first place. The film ends with Sheeran alone and forgotten in a nursing home, being interviewed by some FBI agents still desperately trying to close the Hoffa case. They point out to him that all of his compatriots are dead, running through a roll call of the characters we have been watching for the past two hours. “Who are you protecting?” they ask. Sheeran has no answer, but offers no assistance, for in the end his loyalty was all he ever had.

Joker. Not since 2012’s “Les Misérables” has a movie been as monotonously bleak as “Joker.” Purportedly the origin story of Batman’s nemesis, “Joker” is a Chinese water torture of debasement and degradation. There’s no real theme or plot; just drip drip drip of indignities piled one upon the other. For hours. The titular Joker doesn’t even emerge from the tortured psyche of Arthur Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix in a nominated role) until the film’s waning moments, and even then he is literally just a crazy clown with a gun; hardly a suitable foil for the Batman. Phoenix gamely portrays an abused, antisocial misfit, but the skill with which he applies his craft is not put to any greater purpose. There’s no redemption here, or even a moral, just misery piled upon a man who has always been miserable and always will be. Each year there are at least one or two nominations that I cannot understand. With “Joker,” not only do I fail to understand the nomination, I can’t even understand why it was MADE.

Marriage Story. Meet the Barbers, Charlie and Nicole. They are beautiful (looking exactly like Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson - both nominated) and accomplished: he a playwright and director in New York’s theater community, she a star of stage and screen and Charlie’s favorite leading lady. When Nicole is offered a TV pilot shooting in Hollywood she decides to take son Henry with her, but removed from Charlie’s directorial dictates and suffocating ambition she decides to never go back. What follows is a bi-coastal divorce proceeding and custody battle that pits two people against each other who actually like and admire ~90% of the other, but just can’t reconcile the other 10%. The Barbers have different goals and agendas, but no real animus towards each other. However, the only system available to them for moving forward is one designed along ruthless, winner-take-all grounds. This leads to much conflict and soul-searching. Eventually, through introspection and growth, they manage to achieve something approaching a conscious uncoupling without scarring Henry too much in the process.

So which SHOULD win?

There were a lot of very good, enjoyable films in the class, but only 3 that really made you think about film as an art form and its capabilities: “1917,” “Jojo Rabbit,” and “Parasite.” Of these three Jojo Rabbit was both the most thought-provoking and the most straight-up enjoyable. My pick for the best movie of 2019 is: Jojo Rabbit.

But which WILL win?

“1917” appears to be the favorite, with “Parasite” a potential dark horse. I’m going with “1917,” and I can’t quibble too much; it’s a really good film.

And in the other categories ...

Best Actress: Renee Zellweger looks like a lock for her role in “Judy.”

Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern should win here, not for being the mother of the Little Women, but for being the glamorous, “take no prisoners” Hollywood divorce lawyer in “Marriage Story.”

Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix should follow in Heath Ledger’s footsteps by winning an Oscar portraying the Joker. While I am loathe to see this depressing trainwreck of a film garner any accolades, I must grudgingly admit that Phoenix gives a powerful performance. Still not worth seeing the film, however.

Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt should run away with this category. His performance definitely IS worth seeing “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.”

Best Director: Again this is a race between Sam Mendes for “1917” and Bong Joon Ho for “Parasite.” And again “1917” is the clear favorite and “Parasite” is the dark horse. The Academy has taken to splitting Best Picture and Best Director of late, but I’m going to play it safe and choose Mendes.

Best International Feature Film: “Parasite” should earn its richly-deserved Oscar here. As well as ...

Best Original Screenplay: Look for “Parasite” here. It is definitely very original.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jojo Rabbit. I would have loved to see Waititi nominated - and even win - for directing, but he will have to settle for winning for his writing. Something tells me he’ll be fine.

Best Cinematography: 1917

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Bombshell

That’s it for this year. Until next year, save me an aisle seat

[redsoapbox]

MY ALBUMS OF 2019

Redsoapbox is five years old this weekend, during which time I have blogged over 150 reviews/interviews/opinion pieces. Many of these, together with my work for Wales Arts Review, New Sound Wales, Buzz magazine and From the Margins, make up the bulk of my debut collection Pop Hack. A revised and updated version, for the first time in print form, will be available by Christmas ( Watch out for updates on the blog). One of the annual features that I’ve most enjoyed compiling is my choice of Album of the Year and it’s that time of year once again folks. Before revealing this year’s shortlist (as has become the custom, the winner will be announced as the clock strikes twelve on New Year’s Eve!) here are the previous recipients of the award.

2015  -  Trouble In Mind: Jodie Marie

2016  -  You Can’t Go Back if There’s Nothing To Go Back To - Richmond   Fontaine

2017 -    Zero Moon - David Corley

2018 -    Asking For Trouble - Dan Bettridge 

So, it’s delicately poised at  Wales 2 the Rest of the World 2. Here’s my 2019 shortlist -

Fontaines DC:  Dogrel

‘Dublin in the rain is mine / a pregnant city with a catholic mind’. And so begins Dogrel, the irresistible debut from young tyros Fontaines DC. Frontman Grian Chatten, his rebel yell influenced by the cities rich literary tradition and the dramatic song staging of Shane MacGowan, throw’s a flurry of big punches early on in a successful attempt at shock and awe. “Big”, “Sha Sha Sha” and “Too Real” are all thundering tunes that rattle your cage. The first time you play this record, it’s possible to believe that you’re listening to an all-time great album unfold in real-time. Ultimately, though, Dogrel burns itself out before the close, but there’s no doubting it remains a powerful debut and a certain contender for album of the year.

The Delines:  The Imperial

Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed debut Colfax (2014), Willy Valutin and his country-soul combo issued a limited-edition bonus album Scenic Sessions (2015), the unexpected result of a summer recording session initially booked with the sole intention of cutting the group’s next single. The band had already set aside a dozen or so songs for their second album proper, which was scheduled for release in 2016, when fate took a hand. The band was halfway through recording their new album when singer Amy Boone was knocked down outside a convenience store in Austin and seriously injured. It suddenly looked as if Scenic Sessions, once intended as little more than a superior stop-gap, would become the final chapter in the Delines story.

One thing was sure, there was never any possibility of Vlautin drafting in a new singer. The Richmond Fontaine frontman had only formed The Delines in the first place as a vehicle for working with Boone, delighting in the qualities she brought to her interpretations of his downhearted ballads. With his alt-country outfit Richmond Fontaine officially disbanded, Vlautin concentrated on re-working his latest novel, counting down the days until his friend was ready to return to the studio. Thankfully, after nine surgeries, Boone was able to re-join the band and work re-started on The Imperial. It was, of course, well worth the wait - The Imperial is an impeccable collection of heart-breaking character studies, Boone’s well-worn, country-soul whisper vividly bringing to life the despondent tales of Vlautin’s three-time losers. “Cheer up, Charley”, “Holly the Hustle” and “Eddie & Polly” are stand-out vignettes, but there is no filler here. The Imperial is a solid gold comeback.

Armstrong - Under Blue Skies

I reviewed this sublime re-issue on TBM/Country Mile (with no less than 8 extra tracks!) for New Sound Wales. You can read it here - www.newsoundwales.com/cd-reviews/armstrong-under-blue-skies/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ochnWdLJN3Q

Night Flight: Night Flight*

Night Flight’s debut album, notwithstanding a terrific review in PopMatters, seems to have gone somewhat under the radar, which is a deep disappointment given that it’s an outstanding piece of work. The band wisely used their two excellent pop/rock EPs Wanderlust (2017) and Carousel (2018) as a departure point for an elegant and emotional debut that is best heard with the lights turned down low and a whiskey chaser near to hand. Although sometimes compared to Elbow, Night Flight are more akin to a seventies soft-rock band. Their beautiful new single “Mexico” makes you believe that AOR can be king again in the 2020s.

* the loophole I’m using to include the album is that although it was available to stream in December 2018 it wasn’t released on CD until this January. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuOk2Wgr_KM

Swimming Tapes: Morningside

I’m sorely tempted to just write see Night Flight above and save on the man-hours! In fact, London’s Swimming Tapes’ beautifully manicured dream-pop, particularly on tracks like “Passing Ships” and current single “Mirador”, positions the band somewhere between The Beach Boys and Real Estate in the great scheme of things. There are, however, comparisons to be made with Night Flight – the classic songwriting, rooted in pop’s pre-punk past, for one, the fine-grained musicianship, another. I saw them play a wonderful set at Swn in October (as I did Night Flight the year before) before a smallish crowd. The times will change, though, and the race is on to see which of these bands plays a stadium tour first.

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

Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains

Back in 2009, David Berman singer/songwriter with cult Americana outfit Silver Jews pulled the plug on his critically acclaimed band after twenty long years and six assured albums. Nothing very strange in that, you may think: Bands run their course, musical differences set in and people fall out. Except in Berman’s case, there was an altogether more unusual motivation for his walking away from the music business. Posting on the group’s message board, Berman “confessed” to the fact that he was the son of the union-busting lobbyist Rick Berman, a man dubbed by CBS’ 60 Minutes programme as “Dr. Evil”, due to a career spent representing the likes of big tobacco. The singer described his father as a ‘despicable man, a human molester and a scoundrel’, declaring that he’d previously thought that the band could provide ‘a refuge away from his world’. He jokingly promised to turn his hand to ‘screenwriting or muckraking’.

Except it was anything but a laughing matter though, as the opening track “That’s Just The Way That I Feel”, from Purple Mountains memoiristic debut makes painfully clear – ‘Course I’ve been humbled by the void / Much of my faith has been destroyed / I’ve been forced to watch my foes enjoy / Ceaseless feasts of schadenfreude’. Berman had long been battling depression and the album’s lead single “All My Happiness Is Gone” painted an even bleaker picture of Berman’s state of mind – ‘Lately, I make strangers wherever I go / Some of them were people I was once happy to know… I confess I’m barely hanging on’.

Tragically, David Berman was unable to hang on to life. He was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment this summer, three days before Purple Mountains were due to embark on a scheduled tour of North America. The medical examiner’s verdict: suicide.

Does it matter in the end that Berman’s last work and testimony represents a career-high, or that his music as a whole will survive until the time comes when our species is swept back into the sea? It’s worth calling attention, however, to Berman’s thoughts on his last communication with us - ‘Mine is not a cry for help, but an offer to provide a kind of it’.  

Silent Forum  - Everything Solved At Once

The long-awaited debut album from blog favourites Silent Forum is an absolute stormer. A full review can be read at https://www.walesartsreview.org/ 

You can also read my brand new interview with the band at

www.newsoundwales.com/interviews/silent-forum/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U92eAaNr04

Peter Bruntnell: King of Madrid

Peter Bruntnell has been around a long time with, depending on how you figure it, somewhere between 10 and 14 albums to his name. I can’t claim, though, to have ever heard a Bruntnell record (although there is a possibility of having chanced upon a track on an Uncut freebie down the years) until this year’s sublime “King of Madrid”. And even that was a fluke! As a Juror for the Welsh Music Prize (WMP), I get to listen to any albums released through the qualifying period by Welsh artists, and Bruntnell’s album appeared, along with eighty or so others, on the 2019 longlist. It didn’t take me more than a track or two to realise that I was listening to an album that might be the AOTY, never mind Welsh AOTY. The opening track, the soaring, six and a half-minute sweetener, “Broken Wing”, is a master class in songwriting and the album as a whole reveals a true craftsman working at his absolute peak.  

You might be wondering, given the glowing recommendation above, why there was no sign of King of Madrid on the recently announced WMP shortlist. It turned out that Uncut magazine’s claim that Bruntnell was born in Wales, made when nominating his Nos Da Comrade (2016) as their Americana AOTM, was, sadly, incorrect. Bruntnell, as you might have guessed from that album’s title, had spent much of his life in Wales, but having been born in New Zealand and residing now in Devon, he was not eligible for the honour this time around. The silver lining for me, of course, was that an artist that I’d missed out on for many years was finally on my radar. Make sure he’s on yours!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUi1oxhlr6U&list=RD_AXJlX0zPZs&index=2

The Murder Capital: When I Have Fears

The Guardian may describe Dublin’s finest as purveyors of art-punk (and there is certainly no denying the force of nature that is “More is Less” or Feeling Fades”) but for me, The Murder Capital’s atmospheric debut is a cast-iron case of Indie-Noir. When I Have Fears is hugely impacted by the suicide of a close friend (an official band statement confirms that every lyric on the album relates in one way or another to that terrible event) and singer/songwriter James McGovern should be saluted for somehow navigating his way through unbearable pain to deliver a singularly devastating record. What also impresses about When I Have Fears, is that it’s in no hurry to get from A to B – some tracks weigh in at nearly seven, slow-paced minutes. This doesn’t always work, but I applaud the grand ambition at play here. The album finishes big, too, with both “How The Streets Adore Me Now” and, particularly, “Love, Love, Love”, which wouldn’t be out of place on Joy Division’s Closer, being colossal tracks which signpost the band’s extraordinary potential. 

Oblong: Hollalluog

Llanelli’s bilingual post-punk trio Oblong may well be the most underrated band in the U.K. Their debut album Brilliant…Gwd (2016) was fast and furious from start to finish, with one melodic masterpiece following another. Incredibly, they repeated the trick on Hollalluog (which translates as almighty) with storming tunes like “Giro Day” and “Light Sleeper”, both contenders for track of the year. And yet they still failed to secure themselves a slot on the shortlist for the 2019 Welsh Music Prize. If you do nothing else after reading this AOTY list, give this band a fair hearing, you won’t be disappointed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsLW0ZAgVVQ&t=114s

Amy Speace - Me And The Ghost Of Charlemagne

When you’re described by Folk Radio as ‘one of the great contemporary Americana singer-songwriters’ and when the much-admired Mary Gaulthier claims that your work has reached ‘a level of absolute mastery’ then you can’t just put out an album once a year for the sake of it -  you have a certain reputation, a standard of excellence to maintain. Just as well then that Speace’s latest album more than lives up to the hype. Produced by Neilson Hubbard, featuring regular collaborators Kris Donegan and Will Kimbrough on guitars and Eamon McLoughlin on violin, Me And The Ghost Of Charlemagne is a beautifully crafted, tenderly sung record that, thanks to Speaces’ lyrical dexterity, always hits home. Stylistically, Speace has much in common with the legendary Mary Chapin Carpenter, especially in terms of song texture/structure and vocal tone, as can be heard on the wistful title track below. It’s an album rich with new material, but the cover of Ben Glover’s “Kindness”, rightly held back to the close, will not soon be forgotten.  

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

Liz Brasher -  Painted Image 

North Carolina’s Liz Brasher is a marketing department's dream - a star in the making from the moment you see her. More important than how many units you can shift (someone fetch the smelling salts for the a&r reps) is, of course, the quality of the music itself. Brasher’s 2018 Outcast EP left no-one in doubt as to her potential, but the guitar-toting chanteuse has really delivered the goods on her debut album. Gospel, soul, country, pop and blues are all combined to memorable effect on Painted Image. A stellar career awaits. 

[romancatholicreflections]

29th Oct >> Daily Reflection/Commentary on Today’s  Mass Readings (Exodus 22:20-26; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-30)for Roman Catholics on the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Commentary on Exodus 22:20-26; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-30

“LOVE – AND DO WHAT YOU LIKE” is a statement attributed to the great St Augustine. He did not say simply, “Do what you like” but “LOVE, and do what you like.” The word ‘love’ changes the meaning of the statement completely. We have a similar theme in today’s Gospel. It touches on the very heart of the Christian message and indeed of all human living.

We are at a stage in Matthew’s Gospel these weeks where Jesus is being challenged by various leading groups among the Jews. Jesus had just reduced a group of Sadducees to silence, much to the delight of their rivals, the Pharisees. Now it is some Pharisees who approach him with their own question, a question much debated among themselves: “Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?” Unlike other encounters, there is not necessarily any malice in this approach. As a Rabbi, influential with the crowds and known by many as someone with a mind of his own, they wanted to know Jesus’ opinion.

There were over 600 different laws and much time was spent in arguing over trivial details of observance. This question is about going to the very heart of the matter. Among so many laws, was there any one which touched the core of people’s relationship with God? Was there one which summed up what the other laws were trying to say?

One plus one equals one

Jesus often answered people’s questions with one of his own but in this case he gives an answer. And he cites not one law but two. He first quotes the book of Deuteronomy which says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.” Jesus says this is the “first and greatest commandment”. Probably Jesus’ hearers would have had no problem agreeing with that. He then goes on immediately to say, “The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.” For Jesus’ listeners, this commandment would have been seen very much as a secondary requirement. And, as we know, the word “neighbour” could be taken in a highly restricted sense. The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s gospel indicates that Jesus had a very different understanding of who our neighbour is, although it is not raised here.

Concern for people

God’s special concern for people and not just for worship of Himself is already expressed in a telling sentence from today’s the First Reading, taken from the Book of Exodus. Compassion and sympathy are to be shown in particular to the stranger, the widow, the orphan. “If you are harsh with them, they will surely cry out to me, and be sure I shall hear their cry.” Further, money lent to the poor should not require interest; a garment taken as a pledge must be given back before sunset if that is all its owner has to cover himself with during the cold night. “If he cries to me, I will listen, for I am full of compassion,” says the Lord.

Undoubtedly many people would have felt little compunction in not doing these things to people they regarded of no account provided they themselves were fulfilling all their direct obligations of worship to God in terms of prayer, fasting and alms-giving and other ritual observances in temple, synagogue and home. Jesus – echoing what the Old Testament already is saying – affirms that religious observance is not enough.

Jesus was making a significant change in linking these two commandments together as one and inseparable. From the rest of the New Testament it is clear that one cannot love God without loving one’s brothers and sisters at the same time. Nor does one love others just for God’s sake or to please God or observe a commandment. One is expected to go much further. One does not go to God through others but one seeks, finds and loves God IN others. “As often as you did/did not do it to the very least of my brothers and sisters, you did/did not do it to me” (Matt 25:40).

Jesus identifies himself with the hungry and thirsty, with the naked, the sick and those in prison (irrespective of their crimes). Jesus identifies himself with those in most need of love and compassion. He is also to be loved in the leper (nowadays the AIDS victim, the alcoholic, the drug addict, the homeless), the outcast – and even in the enemy who threatens me.

A way of life

These “commands” to love God and those around us are not really commands. Love is not love unless it is free and spontaneous. What Jesus proposes are not just commands or rules but a whole approach to life and to our relationship with others.

There is only one “commandment” consisting of two inseparable parts. The key word is “love” but there are really three loves involved: love of God, love of others and love of self. Ultimately, love of God, the source of all being and life, comes first. Then comes, as a natural outcome, love for all those in whom God dwells and whom God creates. Because they are the objects of his love, they must also be the objects of mine. Lastly, there is the love of self. I also am worthy of being loved.

Turning things round

Strangely enough, to implement these loves effectively, we may have to reverse the order: love of self, leading to love others, leading finally to love of God.

In a way, the most basic love is love of myself. “Love your neighbour as yourself,” says today’s Gospel. On the one hand we might think this is an unnecessary command. What people do not love themselves, think about themselves, worry about their welfare? At the same time, we have been taught many times not to be loving ourselves, not to be selfish and self-centred. And it seems that a great many people do not really love themselves very much at all. Quite a number actually hate themselves and a large number have a low level of self-esteem. They do not like very much what they see in the mirror.

Many secretly dislike themselves and would dread people getting to know them as they see themselves. “Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?” was the telling title of one of Fr John Powell’s popular books. The book sold millions, so it obviously struck a chord in many readers’ minds.

Why do we spend so much money on clothes, make-up, appearance, image? The cosmetics business is a huge industry involving billions of dollars. Why do so many chase various status symbols to show that they have “arrived”? The part of the city in which I live, the model of my car, my clothes and accessories – all carefully chosen to enhance my image and make me look better than I feel I really am. So much of advertising is directed to this inner fear.

Why are we afraid to let others know what we are really like? Why are we so shy to stand up in front of a crowd or ask questions at a meeting or make a speech? Why do people go around looking for status symbols that will make them seem more important in society? We know the obsession of many people for “famous brands”. A man got a suit made (cheaply) in Bangkok and when he went to collect it, the tailor pulled open a drawer with all the most famous labels. “Which one would you like?” he asked. So the man walks out wearing a cheap suit but with the prestigious label conspicuously sewn to the cuff. Did he walk taller because of that? What about the phoney Rolex and Omega watches they sell on Hong Kong’s sidewalks?

Why do so many try to be one of the crowd, why do so many escape into alcohol and drugs? Why do so many, especially the young, even destroy themselves by taking their own lives? In a world of plenty, of endless means of entertainment and pleasure, why is the level of teenage suicides so high? Ultimately, it is because so many people inside have little love for themselves and think that no one else really loves or could love them either.

Loving others

If we have difficulty loving ourselves, it will be difficult to reach out in love to others. We will be too busy worrying whether others are loving us, or at least the facade we present to others. And indeed that is the case. Individualism is rampant. Freedom means “doing one’s own thing” and to hell with everyone else, except for a small number around who enhance my self-esteem.

It even affects the way we often behave in church, having very little sense of community. How many of the people around you here do you know? And what have you ever done for any of them? And what have they ever done for you?

When I love myself, I accept myself totally as I am, recognising both my good qualities and my deficiencies and making no effort to hide them from others. I do not really mind what people think of me. That is really their problem, not mine. And, because of that, I have plenty of time to think of them and their needs. Then I have the freedom to reach out and be concerned with the well-being of others. In short, I can begin to love my neighbour as I love myself and because I love myself.

Loving God

And then there is the question of loving God. Saying “I love you God” is one of the easiest things in the world. But it is difficult to speak realistically of loving God, if I have no real experience of what love is, the experience of loving and being loved by people. Only then can I begin to see that God is present in all truly loving experiences. “Wherever there is love, there is God.” My whole life can be lived in a sea of love, given and received.

Then the commandment of Jesus begins to be realised. I begin to be aware that when I am being deeply loved by another person, it is in fact also God’s love that I am experiencing. “Where there is love, there is God,” says the First Letter of John. All real love is a manifestation of God’s presence.

Most of the time, God shows his love for me through the people that enter my life. He loves me when they love me; and I am loving him when I love them. In the end, there are not three kinds of love but only one.

This person – this me – with all my strengths and weaknesses, this person with whom I have learnt to be perfectly comfortable, lives a life of loving and being loved. At the centre of it all is the source of all love – God.

Finally, we need to say that this love is not necessarily an emotional and romantic love. It is a love, as the First Reading indicates, which involves treating every single person with deep respect, with justice, with compassion. It reaches out even to those who behave badly or wish to harm me. It is a deepdown desire that wishes that every person experience what is the very best for them. It is a way of relating to people that helps them also to become more caring and loving – of themselves, of others, and of God. As Paul tells the Thessalonians today, “You observed the sort of life we lived when we were with you…and you were led to become imitators of us, and of the Lord.” That is the core of all evangelisation. It is not just a question of “converting” people and getting them to the baptismal font as Catholics. It is rather gently to lead them so that they find the God who loves them and find God in loving those around them.

What I am to myself becomes what I am to others and vice versa. And together we all go to God as he comes to us. In love.

[brishu]

Everybody’s Heart’s in the Same Fucking Place

My shift at the Park Slope Food Coop is usually the first Saturday of the month (A Week). I am the squad leader for the 8:30 PM Food Processing shift and, for the past 9 years, I have amassed a spotless record of showing up drunk. Sometimes I wonder if a non-shift encounter with any of my squadmates would make them think, “There’s something different about you right now.” Under my drunken helm, nobody’s cut themselves on a cheese slicer or box cutter or tape roll blade. And for the most part nobody’s emerged from the coop’s basement after two and a half hours getting bossed around by a booze-soaked contrarian nursing any grievous emotional injuries. Actually, more often than not, somebody doing a make-up or holding up their end of a shift swap enjoys their time so much that they try to join our squad. 

But this is the Park Slope Food Coop and the self-righteousness is as abundant as the kale. I am not the first grump to notice that some people base their most cherished beliefs on whose approval they gain. Why would you want to brutalize the planet to access natural gas when you can oppose it and feel like you’re marching right alongside Mark Ruffalo? Would you rather your foreign policy views align with the sneering, bomb-happy conservatism of Norman Podhoretz or the serene brilliance of Noam Chomsky? These are obtuse dichotomies, to be sure. So here’s a specific one: I am skeptical of the gun control movement. Less than 10 minutes of research can tell anybody who wants to know that more than 1 million AR-15s get sold each year. For those who might stagger in horror at a number that high, I’d ask you to take a moment and consider some other information that sales figure connotes. Personally, I’m extremely reluctant to demonize that many people I don’t know. Setting aside the implicit interpersonal dynamics lecture and moving from cursory research to wonkier statistics, we can learn that mass shootings account for less than 1% of gun deaths in a given year. In 2017, 39,773 people were killed by guns in America. 23,854 or 60% were suicides, and of the 14,542 or 37% that were homicides, 117 fatalities fit the legal definition of “mass shooting.” If this sounds like I’m trying to minimize the horror inspired by mass shootings in America, it’s because I am. Does this mean I side with gun owners over victims of these atrocities? No, it does not. It means I reject the notion that those are the two sides pitted against each other. And I will assert that fear of losing a loved one in a mass shooting is about as mathematically sound as treating a lottery ticket like a reliable path to wealth. But there’s actual likelihood, and then there’s media-spurred terror. So I’m not exactly raring to see a penstroke turn several million law-abiding citizens into criminals just because an incident I heard about in the news upset me.

Anyway, I only mention this because one time a young guy doing a make-up on my Food Processing shift started lecturing me about the correlation between Scandinavian rights to bear arms (according to him, they have none) and the number of gun-related deaths they suffer there. And yes alcohol was a factor but I got really pissed off at this guy. In retrospect, I should have been patient and respectful as he regurgitated his boilerplate arguments. But I guess I was too busy getting rankled by his presumption that only cretins unworthy of respect could harbor views as indifferent to human suffering as mine, instead of thinking, “Hmm, this guy seems pretty smart and he’s rocking a terrific playlist and everyone on his squad seems to like him a lot so maybe there’s more to his viewpoint than my kneejerk assumptions have led me to believe.” So I unleashed a bunch of other data and upbraided him for being so obtuse that he presumed my suspicions about anti-gun rhetoric amounted to my being a MAGA-head. The basement got tense and I apologized for making things awkward for everyone and changed subjects to talk about movies (whereupon our anti-gun crusading dried mango bagger announced that he was boycotting Miramax’s ouevre. Good for him.). 

For years, our shift occurred the night before the Superbowl and the night before the Oscars and we worked hard to stock the shelves upstairs with enough cheeses, olives, nuts, dried fruits, teas and spices to sate the frenzied consumption that is de rigueur on these particular Sundays. Eventually, A-Week Saturday rotated away and it was up to some other squad to work like Santa’s unpaid elves to meet the demands on Pepper Jack and Brie. But somehow our shift remains on the one Saturday night when I refuse to exert myself (or get shitfaced): Marathon Eve. 

So last year I swapped shifts with someone who liked our squad so much that she joined. My policy is that as long as you show up with some regularity, you’re welcomed warmly on our shift. We care about each other’s families and careers, opinions on matters political and artistic, and general well-being. This is less some sort of management strategy enacted to optimize productivity than a simple extension of the good will I feel toward nearly all people and certainly all Food Processors (even the Pulp Fiction boycotter who pronounces Weinstein incorrectly). Now. At our shift in August, the subject of the coop’s long, tortured debate on carrying Israeli products came up. I love this subject, even though I disagree with almost every other view anybody has on it. I don’t agree with ardent supporters of Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions, and I certainly don’t agree with the ultra-orthodox Jews who consider all criticism of Israel tantamount to Naziism.

My first exposure to this debate was at a General Meeting in the summer of 2012. The meeting was held in the ballroom of Congregation Beth Elohim, of which we are members. People I expected to shoot down anything anti-Israel (because they looked like elderly Jews) stood up passionately decrying coop complicity in Israeli policies they already unwillingly supported by paying taxes. And then some younger people with tattoos and gender fluidity vibes stood up in defense of selling Israeli products. The debate was passionate but civil. I found all arguments convincing and simply loved being in a room among people who cared so deeply about doing the right thing. Ultimately the boycotters advanced their initiative one more rung along the coop’s bureaucracy, and the next General Meeting would include a vote on whether to have a coop-wide referendum to BDS or not to BDS. 

This meeting got so much publicity that the coop needed to rent a larger space, so 1,600 or 10% of all Park Slope Food Coop members filed into the auditorium at Brooklyn Tech. BDS advocates who were not coop members stood outside leafleting attendees, while school buses ferried several minyanim of ultra-orthodox Jews. Unlike this meeting’s predecessor, the tone was not civil and the arguments were not convincing. They were hystrionic pleas that transparently appealed to each speaker’s own moral vanity. Lost in the debate was any consideration for practical details like how much it would cost to stage a coop-wide referendum, or have the BDSers found alternative, morally acceptable sources for vegan marshmallows? And meanwhile, it became very clear, very quickly that the measure to hold a referendum was going to get voted down. So the series of speakers dabbling in petty-demagoguery was a depressing waste of time. 

Two months later, at a meeting I did not attend, the issue came up again, and aroused such anger that a physical altercation occurred. After that, the subject was banned from future General Meetings. While appreciating the moral passion on all sides, my personal view was that people who wanted to boycott should, but they had to acknowledge that other coop members wanted to buy these supposedly blood-soaked products and depriving them of that right felt like some kind of tyranny too. 

Anyway, the tortured history of the debate comes up every now and then and I always love hearing what other people think, and also amplifying my own view that the passions that made the debate inflammatory are part of what makes the coop so special to me. So during our August shift, the woman who had swapped with me on the first Saturday of November, 2018, said with no compunction whatsoever that Israel was guilty of genocide. And despite my inebriation (that night I had done most of my drinking at a dear friend’s surprise 60th birthday party), I was able to express disagreement with this term, and assurance that, whereas many people would hear that and go through a series of internal reactions that would result in antipathy toward the issuer of such a serious charge, I understood that her beliefs were motivated by a desire to do the right thing, whatever that may be. Now she may have thought that I was just another Jew defending the indefensible. And I may have thought she was just another self-righteous ignoramus who prizes wokeness over common sense. But speaking for myself, nobody’s just another anything. In my consumption of online commentary, I see a lot of “[that] tells you all you need to know about her.” And it amazes me that this is an acceptable way to rest your personal case against a person who is always more complex, and usually well-meaning, than you presume when you decide that one view, or one errant phrase is a full representation of another person’s soul. That the practice of basing a holistic view of another person on one political position is so blithely unexamined suggests to me that anxieties underlying our need to close our minds are the real problem. 

I got annoyed with my fellow squad member. In truth I’m still kind of annoyed, both with her, and with the consortium of opinion that sent her forth believing that accusing Israel of genocide is the right thing to do. And it would be more comfortable for me to let my annoyance snowball into full-blown contempt (spurred at some level by the same anxieties which lead to over-eager mind-closing), to tie her incorrect view of my people’s national homeland to the neuroses her parenting has visited on her daughter, even to her insufficient appreciation of my marathon running, all of which are trumped up charges to be sure. Plenty of people would do exactly this, with no real consequence. They’d condemn this person because her version of doing the right thing is in opposition to theirs. Where is the conscience that holds condemnation at bay? 

Either way, while I feel alright about being able to see the light in this person despite my ethyl-clouded mindframe augmenting the shadows cast by her risible political views, I still struggle to find the balance between advancing views I know to be correct with being more of a conduit than a catalyst. And it also feels unfair that I agonize over this stuff only to see significantly less introspective people exert greater influence. But none of that will stop me from getting rip-roaring drunk before my next coop shift.

[mythandwords]

Some days are just painful

I apologize for the length of this post. I had to. I simply had to.

Had a very long discussion with my mother just now. She’s 74. She’s saddened that statues are being torn down. And you know what? That’s hard to hear. I’m glad it’s OK to agree to disagree with someone, I really am. I’m glad that I can still love her and disagree with her opinion. 

Because I know that I am not going to change the mind of a 74 year old woman - even if her best friend’s family (my Godmother) did escape Nazi persecution in Germany in World War II. Even if her husband is Jewish/Catholic and was turned down for jobs just for his Jewish sounding last name. Even if her entire life experience says what’s happening right now is wrong - she’s hung up on the destruction of property and not what that property now signifies. She’s hung up on the idea that this destruction is sad and worthless. 

In some ways she’s right. Destruction of a statue does NOT fix the problem - nor does it alleviate the pain and suffering of the many relegated to a less than equal position in society because of their religion or race or sex or abilities. That is just truth. No statue can ever replace what happens to good people every day.

Do I agree that the statues should remain? No. They need to go. Particularly as some of them aren’t really the 100+ year old statues we are led to believe...they were actually built in the 1960s. And that’s another story for another time. 

It’s got to be enough to say - enough is enough. I’m tired of seeing this. I’m tired of the racism, the ridicule, the anti-Semitism, the anti-everything for all the gods sake. This is no longer a fight where “black lives matter” or Jews are asked, specifically, to bathe because they “aren’t as clean as others,” or Muslim women shouldn’t be allowed to wear whichever religious dress they prefer, or where anyone not heterosexual is marganalized, or where those with different abilities are not treated equally. Because, gods-damnit it, we are - at the end of the day - all equal. Yes our skins are different, yes our religions are different, yes our sexual orientations are different, and yes we are all differently abled. Ask any freaking three-year old. They can spot the differences with the best (and worst) of us.

For the love of all the gods, this is the 21st Century. This is about being human. This is about working hard and striving to become what we most want to be. This is life. It’s different for us all. But it should be different because we CHOOSE it to be - not because someone else doesn’t like the way we do whatever we do or are whatever we are. 

I’m tired. I’m sick and tired of the weird echo tunnels that exist in so much of society. You think yellow is the best? You can surely find people who believe that too. And then you can all congregate together and believe yellow is the best. And, eventually, you can start bashing on pink or blue or green. But they’re all still just colors. They’re all equal at the end of the day. No matter what your personal opinion. 

And just how the fuck do you change anyone’s mind on that? How do you make people see?

You can’t. Not always. People are allowed to believe whatever the fuck they want - even if they disagree with you and your opinion and your friends opinion. You can’t dictate what other people think. 

What can you do? You can teach. You can teach our children that difference is to be embraced. You can teach those people still on the fence that violence does not begat violence, that might does not make right, that the loudest voice is not always the best. You infiltrate, my friend. And you legislate.

Does violence have a place? Certainly. I am hardly going to allow violence against me and mine to go unpunished, nor am I likely to allow it against anyone else. But violence for the sake of violence or because of the threat of violence never works. Never has, never will. 

Please. Before you continue to condemn or condone those who are different from you...take a moment, just one, and consider life in the 21st Century. Consider the kids - all the kids - coming up after this shit-fest we call 2017. What will their world look like? Are we doing to have another race war? Religious war? Intolerance war????

Go forth and seed the world with possibility, my friend. Seed the world with the belief that something better is always looming on the horizon...and no, it’s not a fucking meteor. We have within our power the ability to change the world. Even if it is one person at a time. 

Nobody said everyone needs to be a warrior right on the edge of battle. Thank the gods. I suck with a sword. Gimme a bow or dagger any day. But we all have something we are good at. And we can use it to stem the tide of hatred that seems to flow so freely of late.

[iamastrongchristian-blog]

Why Preaching Is Powerful

1. Preaching Attacks the Root of Man's Problem

Sin Is the Root of All Our Woes

The world is full of sinners on their way to Hell. No matter how good you are, your sins are manifest to God. Anyone who thinks he is righteous before God is suffering from one of the highest kinds of deception.

The only thing that gives us a right standing before God is the blood of Jesus. Unfortunately some teachings in the body of Christ have led to the deception that we are semi perfect beings who have a right to be in Heaven.

Let me give you a few examples of people I know you respect. You will notice that as they got to know God they became more humble and even uncertain of their standing with God. 

The Apostle Paul graduated downward in his opinion of himself. He moved from being the highest of the apostles to the worst of sinners. This is real growth in humility.

i. First, he saw himself as not being inferior to any of the apostles.…

  for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles…

2 Corinthians 12:11

ii. He later considered himself as the least of these same apostles.

For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

1 Corinthians 15:9

iii. After a while, he stopped comparing himself with the apostles and likened himself to the least of the saints.

Unto me, who am less than THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

Ephesians 3:8

iv. Finally, at the end of his life and in one of his last letters, he did not bother to compare himself to an apostle or a saint. He had concluded that he was the chief of sinners.

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save SINNERS; OF WHOM I AM CHIEF.

1 Timothy 1:15

Job

Job was described by God as an upright and perfect man who eschewed evil. However when Job came into contact with the Lord he realized that he was actually a very evil person. He said, “I abhor myself.

”I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. WHEREFORE I ABHOR MYSELF, and repent in dust and ashes.

Job 42:2-6

Peter

The Apostle Peter was fishing one day when the Lord showed up. When he realized that the one standing by him was Jesus, he was filled with a sense of sinfulness and he said, "I am a sinful man". The presence of God always reveals our deepest corruption.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I AM A SINFUL MAN, O Lord.

Luke 5:8

Daniel

Daniel was a holy prophet greatly loved by the Lord. However when he came into the presence of the Lord, he said “my comeliness has turned in me into corruption”. Once again you see a holy man of God who realizes his sinfulness when he is in the presence of God.

And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my “COMELINESS WAS TURNED IN ME INTO CORRUPTION.” and I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground. And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.

Daniel 10:7-11

All this goes to prove that there is none righteous, no not one.

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Romans 3:10

It is the presence of this pervading sin that is destroying the whole world. Sin is the reason for all the problems in the world. Sin is the root cause of all our woes. That is why preaching is the most important remedy for the problems of mankind. Preaching attacks man's problem at its very root.

Sin Leads All Men to their Death

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and SO DEATH PASSED UPON ALL MEN, FOR THAT ALL HAVE SINNED: ( For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

Romans 5:12-15

Death has passed onto all men because of sin. The sin in our lives leads to death. The Bible also says when sin is finished it brings forth death.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: AND SIN, when it is finished, BRINGETH FORTH DEATH.

James 1:15

Death is the inescapable end for all human beings. The very fact that we die indicates the presence of sin. Every time you see someone dying, remember that sin has completed its work. Death is the only natural consequence of sin.

Sin Is Behind All the Causes of Death

The presence of sin opens the door to all the known causes of death including the cancers, HIV, incurable diseases, sickness, accidents and old age. The diseases of this world can all be attributed to our sinfulness.As you will notice, none of the human attempts at helping mankind have eradicated the presence of sin and death. So preaching is the only solution that offers life to a human race sentenced to death.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

John 1:4

No hospital can promise you life. No medical cure can offer you life. The UN cannot solve your problem of death. There is a death sentence on all of us and only Jesus can give us new life. Jesus said, “I came that you might have life”.

The Death Sentence

I remember watching a documentary of a young man who had been sentenced to death in America. It was a sad and moving true story of this black man who was alleged to have killed a policeman. He denied ever killing the policeman and many people believed that he was truly innocent.

For six long years, legal battles raged, as lawyers, family and friends tried to get him off death row. Finally, his options ran out and there were no further appeals that he could make.

It was an amazing documentary. They filmed this man up until a few minutes before his execution. His family and friends were invited for a last dinner. They all gathered around and had dinner with him.

Finally it was time for them to go and they hugged him one by one till no one was left. He was then escorted to a private room where he had the opportunity to talk to his pastor and then to his lawyer. Within an hour, the execution had been carried out.

After the execution his lawyer and his pastor were interviewed. I remember in particular the question his pastor was asked.

“What was the last thing you said to him?” someone asked.

The pastor answered, “I told him that all of us were under a death sentence, the only difference is that most of us do not know the day of our execution.”

As I pondered over those words, I thought to myself how true they were. We are indeed under a death sentence. All of us will have to die whether we like it or not. It is just a matter of time till the sentence will catch up with us. It is only Jesus who can deliver us from this death sentence and give us new life. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

This is why preaching is so important. This is what differentiates preaching from all other kinds of human assistance. Preaching ministers life to condemned people! Jesus said, “the words I speak onto you are spirit and life.”

2. Preaching Releases the Power of God

For I am not ashamed of THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST: FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Romans 1:16

HE SENT HIS WORD, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Psalm 107:20

I once had a visiting preacher from Switzerland who made a remark about my church. He said, “Your church is like a giant youth group”. He continued, “There are so many young people in your church.”

Up until then, I had not really noticed that our church was full of young people. Initially, I thought it was not a compliment for someone to say that my church was full of young people. However, as time went by, I realized that it took the power of God to get young people into church.

You see, young people are full of energy and youthful lusts. There are certain desires that are found more in young people. When the church is full of young people, it is a sign that the power of God is present.

The police cannot change young people. Moral codes cannot restrict wild young men. The fear of going to prison doesn't even seem to inhibit people today. However, I know something that has the power to convert the most hardened sinner. Is it not amazing that people who would not listen to anyone parents, teachers or advisors are “arrested” by the Word of God and are changed forever? Truly, the preaching of the cross is the power of God.

From a very early age I have served the Lord. I have followed Him with all my heart. What could make a young man like me give up his profession and become a preacher? This is the power of God at work.

Preaching always releases power and that power has the ability to change people. That is why you must be a preacher. This is because preaching has the ability to release power.

3. Preaching Gives Hope

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures MIGHT HAVE HOPE.

Romans 15:4

Many people come to church with hopeless and discouraging situations hanging over their heads. As the “Word of God” comes to them, discouragement and hopelessness are driven away. Like chaff before a strong wind, discouragement and desperation are forced to fly away. The preaching of the Word of hope keeps men alive.

The Mouse Survived because of Hope

I once read about an experiment in which a mouse was put into a deep bucket of water in a dark room. There was absolutely no light in this room. After about three minutes, the mouse drowned in the bucket.

A mouse of similar weight and size was put in the same bucket of water and in the same dark room. This time, a little glimmer of light was allowed to seep through. This second mouse kept swimming for about three days before it finally drowned. What was the difference between the two mice? The thin ray of light that the second mouse saw gave it so much hope. The hope for survival kept the mouse swimming. This is a wonderful story that illustrates how hope can keep a man alive until his miracle comes.

We hardly talk about hope, but without hope there can be no faith. Faith is the assurance of the things you are hoping for. As people receive hope through preaching, faith is built up.

4. Preaching Saves Lives.

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching TO SAVE THEM that believe.

1 Corinthians 1:21

God has chosen that by the foolishness of preaching, people should be saved. Preaching saves lives.

The Anointing of Jonah

In the last days, the anointing of Jonah the preacher will be released on men. The anointing of Jonah was sufficient to convert hardened sinners to the ways of God. Nineveh was a city of wicked people and Jonah was initially afraid of preaching there. The entire city was eventually converted when Jonah preached. Jonah did not perform any miracles. He did not slay anyone in the Spirit nor did he have strange manifestations of the Spirit. However, he had a strong preaching anointing and it was strong enough to change an entire city.

I see that preaching anointing coming upon your life! You shall preach to thousands! Men's hearts will change when they hear you preaching. People will be saved when they come under your preaching ministry.

The book of Genesis shows us that people lived much longer than they do today.

And all the days of Enoch were THREE HUNDRED SIXTY AND FIVE YEARS:

Genesis 5:23

And all the days of Methuselah were NINE HUNDRED SIXTY AND NINE YEARS: and he died.

Genesis 5:27

And all the days of Lamech were SEVEN HUNDRED SEVENTY AND SEVEN YEARS: and he died.

Genesis 5:31

As sin increased, life became shorter. The Bible is very specific about how God shortened life from hundreds of years to one hundred and twenty years.

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be AN HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS.

Genesis 6:3

It seems life was shortened even further from one hundred and twenty years to seventy years.

The days of our years are THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Psalm 90:10

The earlier generations were having “four hundred year” birthday parties. They had children when they were hundred and fifty years old. Today we are overjoyed if someone gets to the age of eighty. By the time someone is forty, he seems to be an elderly person. Why has the body begun to give up so early?

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Genesis 6:1-3

900 years was reduced to 120 years because of fornication with the sons of God! Fornication shortened the lives of the people by 800 years. 90% of their lives were taken away because of fornication. The Bible declares “when sin is finished it brings forth death.” Think about that. Eight hundred years was cut off because of fornication. Do you see how sin shortened our lives?

As you can see, the problem is spiritual and not physical. That is why physical remedies cannot be the solution for mankind. It is a sin problem. And the solution is the preaching of Christ Jesus and Him crucified.

When “sin is finished”, the agents of death i.e. heart disease, lung disease, cancer, sickle cell disease, skin diseases, HIV, tumors, accidents, fights, kidney failure begin to make arrangements to kill us - whether by making the kidney stop, or by causing a car accident. Everyone has a different method by which the death sentence is carried out.

When Christ came to this Earth, He knew He was dealing with a complex problem. That is why He didn't just heal everyone. He knew that the problem was deeper. He knew why certain ailments had fastened themselves onto certain people. It was not just an issue of being ill. He knew that there was more to it than that!

When the Lord looked at our situation, He thought of the best way to help us, the best way to lengthen our lives. God planned the best way to save us from the things to which we were bound legally. That is why He came around preaching, teaching and healing. It pleased God that by the foolishness of preaching, He would save people.

Preaching and teaching solves your problems. First of all, your spirit is redeemed. You do not have to go to Hell anymore. Thank God that by the power of preaching, your soul will be saved from eternal damnation.

When preaching has powerfully saved your soul, other areas of your life begin to be affected as well. After the soul has prospered, your health will be affected by this salvation. Your financial life is also affected after the salvation of your soul. God's Word begins to heal and solve all problems from within.

Beloved, I wish above all things THAT THOU MAYEST PROSPER and be in health, EVEN AS THY SOUL PROSPERETH.

3 John 2

Thinking naturally, you realize that if a person decides to do away with fornication, he reduces his exposure to the HIV infection and therefore death. When you hear the Word of God, and decide to marry instead of running around with different people, you reduce your exposure to many diseases. Preaching and teaching saves our lives in many ways we cannot even imagine.

Because of the Word of God, we decide to stop smoking and drinking alcohol. This extends our lives automatically by many years. You are at far less risk from cancer, heart disease, HIV, gonorrhea and depression when you live in line with the Word of God.

A preaching tape can save your life. I believe in listening to preaching tapes. You will discover that the Word you get from the tape is “life to all who find it and health to all your flesh.”

My son, attend to my words…For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

Proverbs 4:20, 22

Expose yourself to preaching and you will be exposing yourself to many blessings. Jesus came preaching and teaching.

He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Psalm 107:20

The healings were just signs. When people came just for signs He told them they were evil. He taught us that loving signs and wonders without loving His preaching is an evil thing.

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:

Matthew 12:39

Preaching starts churches! God wants more preachers! God wants you to preach! Preaching and teaching will heal your marriage. It will reduce the tendency to fight; it will bring peace. Preaching will prevent divorce. Preaching changes lives!

Furthermore, by these few pages, my son, be admonished, because of making many books there is no end!

by Dag Heward-Mills

[warriorgays]

sometimes I think about Liebgott and my intense attachment to him and the… discontinuity, I guess (?) that I feel between my understanding of Liebgott and fandom’s understanding of Liebgott.

like, I am 100% not trying to discredit anyone’s headcanon or attachment to him as a character. we all have our own backgrounds and we bring that to our interpretations. that’s legit. someone else’s opinion of him is just as valid as mine. I thought about putting this under a cut b/c I didn’t want to seem like I was pushing my interpretation on anyone, and then I decided not to, and then I decided I had to just because it got so fucking long. okay. here goes.

but like, for one thing, I’ve seen a loooot of posts/fic/etc that seem to imply an attachment to Webster is the default. like of course there’s a connection between them, even people who don’t think of them as OTP have a strong sense of a tie between Liebgott and Webster. and I… do not? I had this conversation with a friend the other day, I flat-out don’t think Webster really respects Liebgott and that kind of bothers me. the scene with the commandant, Webster’s attitude is just so dismissive and hypocritical, it angers me every time I watch it. and The Last Patrol just seems like… it’s politics. it’s Webster playing politics to get back in the group, and Liebgott being a player in it. I’m not knocking that, it’s a dynamic like any other and sure, Webster can want to have friends just like any other person. but The Last Patrol is like the LAST episode that comes to mind if I’m laying out my characterization for Liebgott (okay maybe not literally, but comparatively), whereas, given the percentage of Webgott fics in the fandom, it’s probably one of the defining episodes for him in a lot of peoples’ minds. I just don’t understand it as a ship.

which, hey, again, I don’t need to understand it–Lord knows I have a fair number of ships that make people scratch their heads–but it’s a weird thing to be conscious of, because I know that puts me in the minority of Liebgott fans.

the other thing is that I don’t think I’ve ever thought about Liebgott without his Jewishness being central to my interpretation of him. not once. which isn’t to say that I think of him as “just the Jew” or even that I always think of him in religious terms, because I usually don’t. there’s a lot of different ways to be Jewish and I think Liebgott definitely fits a certain type, for those who are familiar with the types.

but like… for every Liebgott ship I have (and I have many), and every verse, I have an idea of how Liebgott would feel about this kind of interfaith relationship–and because I got real tired of that real quick, I have a few ships where I’ve arbitrarily decided that I want the other person to be Jewish, whether by birth or by choice. (although I’ve never written the latter kind, because tbh I really don’t think most people would be interested in a fic that’s that invested in Jewish themes.) and every fic I’ve written in canon has dealt with his reaction to the Shoah, and honestly, one of the main reasons I haven’t written much post-canon Liebgott fic is because I am really really loathe to take a character who, in canon, expresses a desire to marry a Jewish girl and have lots of children, and decide that I’m not going to give him that, especially since post-war he’ll know that almost a full half of the world’s Jewish population has been wiped out.

and like, it bugs me sometimes when I see people paint him as just The Angry Guy because the war means more for him than for most of the men he’s serving with, it’s intensely personal in a way it’s not for the others. and likewise it bugs me a little too when I see people stress his “Germanness”–it’s the same thing with Erik Lehnsherr, people play up his national identity and often don’t critically examine the way in which his ethnoreligious identity complicates that–and he’s not even German by birth! He speaks German. His family is probably of German or Austrian extraction, but there were a lot of Jews in the first half of the 20th century who would identify with their ethnoreligious group over any European nationalist identity, because the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th were some of the most deeply, violently antisemitic periods of the history of the world.

and–well, okay, it’s a universally accepted fact that fiction, whether original fiction or fanfiction, treats bilingual characters in totally unrealistic ways. so no matter what it’s probably unrealistic for a California-born person to revert to German when saying things like “My god!” or “darling,” but far be it from me to tell people they shouldn’t write it. but anyway, there are indications in canon that German isn’t Liebgott’s primary language or that he’s not totally fluent; he asks people to slow down a few times, isn’t familiar with one or two words, and remarks that Webster (definitely not a primary speaker) knows it as well as he does. but I’ve often wondered if it’s possible that his familiarity with German is at least partially due to familiarity with Yiddish. I mean, they’re different languages, and it’s not obligatory for every Ashkenazi Jew to know Yiddish, but still, it’s something that would be interesting to explore, their relationship to each other and his relationship to them and how that might change during the war.

and that’s just the kind of thing that I don’t think other people think about a whole lot when it comes to Liebgott. the non-Hanukkah related Jewish things. like I have occasionally read Webgott fic when I’m really jonesing for Liebgott content, and I’ve read almost all of the Liebgott fic in general, and… idk.

here’s a short list of questions I’ve asked myself about Liebgott: “has he ever worn tzitzit? is there a mezuzah on his door? does he try and pray after he finds the camp? what does he talk about with the prisoners afterwards? does he help any of them finish the Shema as they are dying? does he ever wrap tefillin? does his family get the Forverts? how did he feel about America First activists? the Soviet Union? the Non Aggression Pact? what religion does he have printed on his dog tags? how does he feel sitting in the convent in The Breaking Point? does he read Hebrew? What song does he prefer, Hinei Ma Tov or Oseh Shalom? has he ever kept kosher, and how does he feel about keeping kosher, because ffs there’s more than bacon? what’s his favorite holiday–Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanuka, Tu BiShvat, Purim, Pesach, Lag B’Omer, Shavuot, or that one that no one ever remembers? How does he feel about the fact that about half of America’s Jews live in New York and he’s on a whole other coast? is his family Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox? labor, socialist, communist, Zionist? how often does he go to shul? what does his family eat on Shabbos? how strictly do they keep Shabbos? sweet or salty gefilte fish? do they live in a Jewish neighborhood? what’s his Hebrew name?”

and I often feel like, if I asked most people any of these questions, they would have no idea whatsoever what I’m talking about. which… hey, that’s life. I had to study a lot to understand what all of these things mean. but now that they’re a part of my life, they’re a part of my life, and the fact that I can ask myself these questions about Liebgott, and come up with answers, are totally wrapped up in the reasons I identify with him and love him so much. and even beyond these simple(ish) questions, I approach him in writing with a whole lot of spiritual, ethical assumptions and references behind me, and I’m often concerned that a lot of those things are missing, and that if I’m not being annoyingly, blatantly obvious, people will miss the flags I put up that say hey! this is a Jewish character! this is important! it strikes me that a lot of people just don’t know very much about Judaism; I’ve read some things in fic that make me go ???? because it’s obvious people are trying but it just… there’s a discord. like we’re operating on different wavelengths, and the sounds we’re hearing aren’t the same. people use Hanukkah things because they know about Hanukkah but they use it in ways that don’t… make sense, even if they’re not technically wrong, or they’ll bring up fun facts about Judaism/Jewish law/the Bible that aren’t consistent with Jewish interpretation.

idk. I thought I would reach some kind of conclusion by the end of this post but I haven’t. I just want to talk about Joseph Liebgott 5ever and I never know if the person I’m talking with knows the same Joseph Liebgott that I do.

[makeamericasfate-blog]

EDITION NO. 2: KIRSTYN

Interviewed November 21st, 2016

So, I went to bed before all the results were in. But I believe by 7:30 there was something like a 76% chance of a Trump presidency, so I was like “Fuck this, I’m going to bed.”  So, I went to bed and I woke up and I’m like “Well shit.” and the first thing I remember seeing was that I had several notifications. All of my friends who lived abroad were just like, “Dude, you guys totally messed up.” and I was like “Well, don’t blame me.” I work in high school. I teach honors and AP kids so I didn’t expect there to be like much unrest within my classes because they’re good kids… and I was right for the most part but like what happened in the halls before class and between class was really disturbing for me. I saw kids screaming “Go Trump!”, chanting “USA USA USA”, but that wasn’t the disturbing part. The disturbing part was when I saw some kids chase this Hispanic kid down the hallway. They were screaming at him, saying they were going to make him pay.

That’s when I kind of thought, Ok, what’s going on here?  Because surely it’s not good.  I have one class of sophomores and then another three classes of seniors.  With my sophomore class, I had a black girl, a black boy and this tiny, little, shrimpy kid of Middle Eastern descent. All three of them were on the verge of tears. This is my very first class of the day. To sort of just have to look my kids in the eye, give them an answer about what’s going on when I don’t have one.  That was probably one of the hardest moments I’ve ever had to face as a teacher.  Here’s the kids looking to me wondering if it’s going to be okay and I have to tell them when I don’t know if that’s going to be the case so for them. For my little sophomores. I sort of just gave them a little talk like “Hey, I’m here for you no matter what. If anybody tries to tell you that you are anything less than a valid human being because of things beyond your control, be it race, religion or sexual orientation, they are wrong.” And then for my AP classes we actually had a really respectful discussion about what was going on.

I found it interesting and a sign of the times that it was the minority kids who were concerned for their future and very concerned about the goings-on.  A lot of the white students, particularly the white males, just sat back and rolled their eyes a little bit.  I feel they were kind of oblivious to the gravity of what was happening around them.  I came home from school thinking, well, that was one of the roughest days I’ve ever had to go through–just because as a teacher, it’s a very emotional profession. You absorb the emotions and problems of the kids whether you like it or not.  So, I came home and my dad asked how was school today.  I told him it was really kind of awful, that I had Muslim students crying in class because they were afraid. And my dad goes “Well, why were they afraid?” and that kind of smacked me in the face and I asked, “What do you mean why are they afraid?" He asks if it was because of Trump or something like that.  Yeah! They’re freaking terrified!  Trump said he wanted to label all the Muslims and round them up and have a shutdown on Muslim immigration.  He’s like “Well, that’s kind of upsetting.”

And I said, “What do you mean ‘that’s kind of upsetting?”  That’s terrifying, especially when you’re just a kid like that. And then I turned on the TV and I saw at one school there was a group of kids in the lunchroom that were chanting “Build the wall”. And all the Latino kids in the room were crying and that was when I went to my room and I started crying. I don’t know how to help these kids other than just to tell them I’m there for them, but what good is that going to do if the rest of their country isn’t?  

In my school, half the kids are white and affluent. The rest of them could be said to have come from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. They came from situations very different from the typical white bread, cookie cutter Suburban kids that you would think of.  I do think they are oblivious but I can empathize in that I was one of those kids before I went away to college. The high school that I went to was pretty white and I was in all the honors classes which typically recruited either rich or middle class white kids.

I was in a bubble and that bubble didn’t really get popped until I went to school in the middle of blue collar Hicksville in probably one of the most liberal environments I’ve ever been in.  I didn’t get a reality check until I met people with stories different from mine who I was able to learn from. And I think I kind of saw the wheels turning a little bit in my students when my black students and my Latino students were talking about their concerns. I don’t think it dawned on some of my privileged students that there’s issues that other people face that they had have never thought of before.  So, whether that stuck with them, I’m not sure, but I think it was an exposure to something that they previously were not familiar with.  

I feel like perhaps, and I know I’m speaking in broad strokes here, but I feel like a lot of white people are kind of afraid of losing their privilege and I don’t think they see it as losing their privilege because a lot of them don’t really know that they’re privileged but I feel like they in this election and when I say ‘they’, I mean the electorate that supported Trump. That they were kind of afraid of things changing for the worse. I think that they saw in Donald Trump, a chance for stability, at least on their ends, a chance for things to perhaps go back to the norm that they once knew. In that sense, I feel Hillary for a lot of people represented a challenge to the belief that they’ve held for so long. And I think they might have found this sense of comfort in Donald Trump.

I think it was someone on Twitter who described Donald as a mangled, apricot, hell beast.  I think that pretty much hit the nail on the head.  He is not somebody who I think we can describe in just one sort of broad-stroke, he has many different faces and he knows how to use them. I’m not so sure that that’s for the benefit of anybody but him. He has a way of spinning things and a way of distracting from things. I find it a little bit concerning.

So, I think that it’s kind of convenient that Donald picks and chooses what to talk about. I think he is a master of spin and I think he’s a master of telling the public not necessarily what they want to hear, but things he wants them to hear. He does a very good job of deflecting criticism in the sense that he meets criticism with something else for people to project that criticism onto. I don’t think he has the temperament. I think he is an overgrown toddler, one who knows how to work the public around him.

I think he knows how to sway popular opinion to go towards him. I think that’s what largely attributed to his victory, because he knew what to say, he knew what the people wanted to hear and he said it and he veiled with a little bit of racism there. Just a ‘little bit’.  It would be one thing if the people didn’t see it, but the fact that the people saw it and it didn’t matter to them, that’s what kind of concerns me a little bit.

He does know how to sway the media and sway opinion, sort of tell the people what they want to hear to further his agenda.

I am not 100% sure that Donald is the monster some people believe him to be. I know one popular thing to do is to compare them to Hitler and a lot of people say, “Well it’s too soon to see. Blah blah blah, give him a chance.”  But, if we look back in history, Hitler did not run on the platform of “killing the Jews”. That was not how he advertised his campaign. He sort of ran the idea of we need to take Germany back, we need to make it a great place for Germans again. He put a lot of the blame for Germany’s lack of greatness on the Jews and one of the very first things that he did to help Germany after he was elected was he put a registry of the Jewish people into place. From there, it just kind of further devolved. The fact that we’re kind of seeing these ideas at least being talked about, that deeply concerns me. You know the old adage, ‘Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.’. For me, just the fact that we learned about the Holocaust in schools, we learn about what factors contributed to it, we learned about Hitler’s rise to power–the fact that there’s so many parallels already, that deeply concerns me. Do I think it is too soon to say? Yes. I don’t think we’re going to be able to make very fair inferences until Donald is an office and working with Congress but I can’t help but wonder if we’re headed down that path.

I wonder how much of what he says, he actually believes. I don’t know.  We do have checks and balances against the present President but we all are dealing with the Republican-majority Congress. The imbalance of, I don’t want to say the imbalance of power, but the imbalance of ideology.  Maybe even though the ideology is too strong of a word.

I remember during the primaries I was in France.  I cast my absentee ballot from there because was no way in hell that I wasn’t going to vote for Bernie Sanders in spite how far away I was from America. I thought it was very interesting what sorts of media the French and the Europeans were exposed to. When my friends’ co-workers were talking to me about the election, they asked me if I was voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. I told them I’m voting for Bernie Sanders and they asked me who that was, which surprised me because my Facebook Newsfeed was flooded with articles about Bernie. I looked around in all the mainstream media in France were barely even mentioning Bernie and when they did, it was only a few lines and I found it very interesting what was escaping the United States in coming abroad for everybody to hear here in France.

I found it a little bit tiresome actually because as the resident American of the school, all the election questions fell to me. I was like a zoo animal for them.  I was the authority. I also found it interesting, the differences between how the Americans and the French view their responsibility as voters and to the electoral system. My kids requested that I deliver them a lecture on the primary elections. I introduced the candidates from both parties and they were like “Ok that’s nice, you’ve shown us a Republican candidate and the Democratic candidates but what about the other major parties?”. And I said, what other major parties? These are the only two major parties that we have. Their jaws dropped. In many European countries, there are several political parties to choose from, it’s not just one or the other. They were shocked about that and then they were also shocked that so many American people didn’t vote. The teacher who is there in the classroom, the actual French teacher of the classroom who was in the room with me at the time, she said she was about 99% sure that there was an actual penalty for French who didn’t vote. My kids were very surprised that Americans just treated voting as a chore instead of a chance to voice their opinion.

I’m not sure what really makes an American anymore. I’m not sure. When I was just a small one, I was always told that Americans are brave and courageous and we’re all of these great things, like the best country on the planet. After going abroad and stepping outside of my bubble, I don’t think we’re the greatest country on Earth. I think that there’s a difference between patriotism and nationalism and America hinges on taking pride in nationalism rather than patriotism. The United States of America is built on a bunch of white dudes chasing the natives off their own land and that’s a theme we’re kind of seeing repeated today. To say that the United States embodies kindness and giving and loyalty and all that other good crap– is that really true when our country only exists because we stole and murdered and plundered and pillaged? What is our country built off of and what are we trying to say that we were built off of? I feel that the America that we sort of glorify and take pride in is not necessarily the same as the America that an unbiased reading of history would provide.

That we’re a sanctuary, that we’re the world’s superhero…that we’re always the one to come save the day, when actually we were one of the ones stirring pots in the Middle East and putting our hands in places where they don’t belong.

I made a little Batman reference the other day in reference to Trump. I said he is not the President that America needs but he is the one that it deserves. I think that as much as I detest him, we have in my opinion, two faces to America. There’s the one face that’s the young people, the millennials if you will, the ones who are sort of enlightened to the fact that there’s a lot of bad stuff going on right now, there’s a lot of problems that need to be fixed–that’s the one side.  And then there’s the other uglier side, the one of the previous status quo. the people who are still buying into the old, outdated notion that the 50s were the time that America was great. All this old, traditional crap that ‘America represents’ and is now manifesting as nationalism. They still believe that America is the great savior of the world and choose to turn the other cheek in terms of oppression. They are the voice that’s louder so to say that Trump doesn’t represent America is inaccurate, he does; but he does not represent the parts of America that I identify with and he does not represent the part of it that is going to make any positive difference in the lives of Americans or perhaps even the world at large.

Right now, all I want for America for us to make it through the next four years. Donald Trump did not get elected to the presidency because a bunch of people just woke up and decided one day, you know what, “Let’s all ignore racism and ignore this suffering of minorities and vote for this guy.”.  Trump got elected because of certain thought systems and poor education and in some cases, slanted education that is being given in a lot of schools and through a lot of curriculums today. My hope for America is that we can correct these flaws in thinking and flaws in the education system that have allowed these thought processes that have led people to believe that Donald was not only a good candidate, but a good human being.

I hope that we can sort of correct those thought processes and build a more educated country overall. We as a country are not smart. We are not great at all. It sort of shows by our choice of president. We thought that he was the best representation of us and have how we want to be seen in the world and how we want people to view us and how we want people to interact with us and he was our best hope of achieving that. What the hell made us think that? We need to take a step back and figure out why people made that choice and undo the education or lack thereof that caused that.

I think my life be a little bit different already since he got elected. Being a white woman, I do already get some sort of the misogynistic behavior thrown at me. For my friends who are minorities and my friends who are Muslims and my friends who are Mexicans; I feel that that’s going to be a lot harder for them. One of my friends the day after the election, she was walking on the street and this complete stranger came up to her and said, “You know I could rape you right here if I wanted to, because if my president can get away with it, then so can I.”

You see this behavior rearing its ugly head, it really does concern me and makes me wonder, should I be worried? I already am worried to a certain extent. I take birth control, not because I get around, but because I have health issues better alleviated because of it. I’m already looking into getting an IUD because I’m worried about the future of rights to my own body given the sort of track record that Trump and Pence both have when it comes to women and how to deal with women’s rights to choose in terms of birth control, abortion etcetera.

That’s already started to be a concern for me. I’m concerned for my minority friends as well. This sense of nationalism, this sense of fear that I’m sort of seeing now with people, it’s something I’ve seen before with two different instances.

I was in France for the November 13th terrorist attacks and I was living in a primarily Muslim neighborhood. After it happened, my Muslim neighbors were afraid because there was a big uptick in the anti-Muslim sentiments in France. That’s not quelled entirely.

After the Brexit vote, Polish people and Eastern European immigrants in the U.K were being harassed as well. They were getting bricks thrown into their windows. Some of these people were even born in the U.K. To even see these are things starting to repeat themselves in front of my own eyes I mean, America is my home it’s not like when I was in France I could just hop on a plane and get away from it all, I’m stuck with it now. I have to see it through whether I like it or not. It’s kind of a struggle for me because I’ve already seen these things happen before and I’m scared of where it’s going to go from here.

[vertonima]

Fine, I’ll come off anon then. I’m submitting this because it’s going to be too long to fit into an ask. The way I see it, Mark’s video was about endorsing a basic human right, respect. That isn’t to say that you have to agree with people with opposing viewpoints or sit back and watch them take over. You can treat someone with respect and still disagree with them. There’s a big difference between actually respecting someone and treating them with respect. 

Felix is a douche. Plain and simple. He deserves what he got because what he did was hurtful and stupid and unbelievably misguided. The very comment that he made afterwards, “I feel partially responsible” is laughable. He paid those boys to hold up the sign with that exact message and, regardless of whether he didn’t “think they would do it”, he is fully responsible. He needs to own up to his actions and accept the consequences. 

That being said, do I truly think of him as a nazi? No. I think while the message he portrayed was 100% wrong, hurtful and discriminating to a minority, I don’t think he is a nazi. He made a mistake. An honest, true to god, very human mistake. I’m sure we’ve all said some things we immediately regretted afterwards or insulted someone. His just happen to be far more public. This is not me defending him in anyway shape or form. I have lost respect for him but I will not dehumanise him or knock him down to a slur.

The fact is, Felix is immature. Undeniably so. The very way he acts shows that he’s impulsive and reckless and quick to jump to things without thinking them through. He’s not able to see the repercussions of his actions until said action is done. Again, I am not condoning what he did in anyway shape or form because it was wrong. He fucked up. I never really liked him as a YouTuber and I certainly like him a lot less now and have lost a lot of respect for him. But there it is again. That word - the key thing in this entire shit storm of a situation. 

I would like to define the word respect:

Respect:

1. a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

2. due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.

Obviously you are not going to apply the first one to Felix or anyone like him. Because you shouldn’t. The behaviour that he condones is in no way deserving of respect in the context of the first definition. But the second one is where it gets interesting, and, in my opinion, I believe that this is the definition of respect Markiplier was talking about.

due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.

This definition is much more fitted to this whole situation. By respecting someone’s feelings, wishes or rights, you are treating them as everyone deserves to be treated. Now, that doesn’t mean that I am in anyway condoning Felix’s actions/attitude nor that of anyone who shares his views, but simply saying that reducing someone to a phrase or word as Mark stated is equally wrong.

I know that Felix reduced Jewish people to a death threat and that is a horrible, wrong, hateful action. He should have been more careful and respectful especially because of his large audience and impressionable people. But we cannot reduce people to a single word, calling them a hateful slur or dehumanise them, especially not based off of one action.

Again, I know this isn’t the first racist and oppressing thing that Felix has done and I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again; I DO NOT CONDONE HIS BELIEFS OR ACTIONS.

But with that being said, I do not feel the need to reduce him to calling him a ‘Nazi’ or sending him death threats based off of a very honest mistake he made and has sincerely apologised for. I know he doesn’t deserve anything good after that video he put up but he deserves everything he got. Disney dropped him as did YouTube and I am very glad they did. Maybe this will teach him that his actions do have consequences because that’s something he needs to learn.

While his views are very, incredibly wrong I do not believe that he meant anything hurtful by it, not in the way people thought. He thought it would be a joke. And that is wrong. I know that is wrong. Jokes about these matters should never ever be made because they are not funny. However, there is a difference between a joke that he might of found funny (in his own sense of humour) and a joke made with the intent to purposefully hurt and discriminate against a group of people. I know he did this anyway but I feel he did it inadvertently. He wished to portray something for a video and provided a stimulus for that theory. It was a stupid arse way of going about it and the entire thing was callous and crass and overall handled disastrously. But I don’t think he had bad intentions.

Again, I know, I know, what he said isn’t right. It isn’t and it never will be. Even having any part of sending that hateful message to anyone is a horrible act and should never ever be condoned. That being said, I don’t think Mark is condoning that. He’s simply saying that we need to treat everyone with respect and a way to share their opinions and view points.

That does not mean agreeing with them or supporting them or condoning their words or actions. That simply means listening and hell yes, disagreeing. You can respectfully argue a point. You can respectfully tell someone, “No, I do not agree with you and what you believe is wrong”. Just like they should treat you with the same respect. You can hate someone with all your heart and condemn them. You can fight against them with all you have and then some and still respect them.

Overall, this entire situation was handled horrible. Felix is a horrible role model and I do not condone anything he says. I’m sorry if this offends you or anyone else as that is not my intention. I’m trying my best to see both sides of this story and I am more than willing to hear out your view point as you have heard mine. 

I apologise for the length of this submission and for the fact that I have still probably missed some very important facts. I do not believe that my beliefs on this matter are the only ‘right’ ones in any way at all. I hope you take the time to read this and consider my view points as I’ll consider yours. 

Hey, no I see what you’re saying! Sorry if I sounded/was being rude, I am just on my last straw of nerves right now.

I never really liked Felix either, but I always loved Mark. He has always been positive and a good role model. The video didn’t tick me off as much as his unwillingness to say he made a mistake. I feel he shouldn’t of said that if we hurt/disrespect people we disagree with then we are no better than them (This includes Nazis, racists, sexists etc. The person who punched Richard Spencer, an Alt-Right Nazi who said he wanted to eradicate blacks is not as bad as Richard Spencer because he punched him is my example). I understand in the case of hey this person was rude to me, so I’m gonna be totes rude back. Yeah if I am rude to them, I am no better than them, but this is entirely a different case for people who had been abused, oppressed etc. People who are avidly racist, sexist, anti-jews/Nazis do not deserve respect from good people. Unless they can change for the better, they don’t deserve respect and a chance unless they are willing to change. His video was really naive and not really well thought out before he went ahead and posted it.

What Mark was saying came off wrong to a lot of us, me included and after reading all of his responses to people here on Tumblr I have actually decided to give him another chance. I feel like some of the stuff he was saying in his responses to people should of been put into the video. Making that kind of video was risky, it always is because there is always going to be people who will call you out when you’re wrong. It needed to be way more well thought out than 7 minutes. I just feel like he needs to apologize for the misunderstanding and revise and say what he meant to say about everything better. He came off very wrong in the video to a lot of us and I know he doesn’t mean to hurt or upset anyone.

I also get the “Don’t be too quick to label people” part because yes, people say stupid things. People say racist, sexist, horrible shit when they aren’t even exactly a racist and or sexist person. I have said some shit I regret saying and have apologized to those people and they have forgiven me. People make mistakes and I know he addresses that stuff in his video, but like I said. His message came off way wrong to people than it was supposed to be. He made a mistake by saying that we are no better than the bad guys if we treat them as such, which I know now is probably aimed more at hey don’t be quick to judge someone because they said a stupid shitty thing because they might not actually be a racist, sexist fucker, but at the start it really didn’t sound like that. To me, and many others.

I recognize where I went wrong and have forgiven him and will learn from that. 

For what Felix did, yes I agree with you. He was a stupid fuck and deserved to lose Disney and YouTube, but I do think he is trying to at least apologize for it, make up for it. He will eventually, but that doesn’t make what he did or said okay. I do not condone anything he did either. 

People fuck up, it’s human nature. Do people deserve respect? Yes. Do Nazi’s like Richard Spencer deserve respect? No, because he will never give us the respect we deserve back so why should we give it to him? That will only egg him on to be more bigotted and fucked up. 

Treat people however you would like to be treated, but if someone is avidly oppressing you/abusing you, then no. They don’t get your respect. 

I’m glad we had this talk and I apologize again for being hostile and rude with my response to your ask earlier.

@dark-days-dark-nights-xx forgot to tag you in case you didn’t see this! If you already read it, I apologize!

[raisingsupergirl]

Faith in God, Not Man (My Supernatural Courage, pt. 2)

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians." This was the quote from Gandhi that echoed in my mind after I came to the conclusion that I couldn't support BLM because of some of the extreme actions associated with the movement. How could I, in good conscience, say such a thing when I held Christianity at the core of who I am? There aren't many labels that I mind, but hypocrite is by far the worst. I can't tolerate it. And so, a lot of reading, prayer, conversation, and quiet thought ensued. And, well, I've come to at least some sort of conclusion. But lets talk about the journey before we get to the destination.

First, there's the reading. And the Holy Bible seems like a good place to start. A couple verses in the Old Testament (Leviticus) stood out to me, which stated, "You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly," and, "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Of course, these verses are nestled among the "old" laws commanding things like don't eat the meat of an animal with the blood still in it, don't tattoo your body, and don't shave your sideburns, all of which I violate. So, while they're great advice on treating EVERYONE equally, maybe they're out of date. Maybe we should be looking toward something a little newer...

How about 500-1,000 years newer? That tends to be new enough for most Christians, even though the New Testament was written a little over 1,900 years ago. And if you read it, it feels a lot more in line with current Christian standards (trust Jesus, love your neighbor, have faith and hope for the future, etc.). Unlike the Old Testament, which cautions the early Jews from mingling with other cultures and religions (because of their tendency to adopt literally every belief they encountered, be it outlandish sexual practices, child sacrifice, or just worshiping wooden poles), Jesus encourages Christians to interact with all peoples. We're to find our strength and courage in Christ, being bold and unafraid in order to share the Good News without reservation. In an ancient culture where racism and slavery were not only commonplace but also praised, early Christianity seemed incredibly inclusive. All that to say there's no credible basis for racism in Christ's gospel.

And those tenets of racial equality are ingrained in my heart and my head, so... why have I had any trouble at all with fully supporting the Black Lives Matter movement? Well, as I said previously, I've actually never had a problem with the sentiment. If someone said to me, "Black lives matter," I'd proclaim, "They absolutely do!" But if someone asked me to hold a sign and march on Washington, I would probably pass because of the controversial tactics and outcomes I've seen associated with BLM. And seeing reports of people like Terry Cruse cautioning against idolizing BLM and letting it go to far, only to have people condemn him as a white supremacist in black skin, well... it's a little unsettling.

Then again, maybe he IS biased against black people. How am I to know? Perhaps the statue-tipping, syrup-condemning protesters are right. Perhaps our society needs to be torn down in order to build up something greater. But... just kidding. There IS no "but." I can't see the future. I can't fully separate myself from the zeitgeist veil in order to perceive all things clearly. But (okay, maybe there IS a "but") neither can you. Oh, did I mention that I'm an extreme skeptic?

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians." Maybe Gandhi was on to something, except... there's no real evidence that Gandhi said it (skepticism has its perks when paired with Google). An Indian philosopher said something similar in the 1920s, and it could be said that Christians in the 20s look a lot different than they do today. And even if it was Gandhi, that was just one man's opinion at the current time. I love Christianity. It is the fuel that drives me to be a better person and gives me hope during uncertain times. And despite the fact that there are plenty of professing Christians who spread nothing but pain, fear, and discord in the world, I have no problem wearing the Christian label myself. Then how in the world can I profess a love of equality and a condemnation of racism if I don't fully buy into the BLM movement? Well, I was confused on the topic for a while, but now I have my answer.

It's because I follow Christ, not Christians. I have a gold standard. Christ never changes. His immortal words never change (I have plenty of evidence to support that claim). There are those who will always start fundamentally evil things like the Crusades and the KKK in his name, but ultimately, there is no corrupting his gold standard. He was God incarnate, and he spoke only truth. Unfortunately, there is no human institution that can make the claim to have that same, unchanging fail safe, BLM included. Some will argue with this sentiment, pointing out that the BLM website offers a central belief structure that makes their righteous intent clear, but I'll challenge those people to seek out the evolution of that creed. It now hits extensively on topics that reach far beyond the original focus, and who determines how much it will change in the future? Is it divinely inspired by God? Doubtful, since the creed shows no evidence of any spiritual or religious affiliation (I'm not saying it should. I'm only stating that it doesn't). Another potential gold standard for BLM might be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but even he wasn't infallible, and there are even some in the BLM movement who condemn him for not being inclusive enough (due largely to the fact that he was a Christian).

Gosh, this is a hard topic. It's hard to write about. It's hard to think about and pick out all of the threads. I'm probably not right (in fact, I KNOW I'm not 100% right). Maybe I'm completely wrong. Do I believe black lives matter? Yes. Do I believe proclaiming, "Black lives matter," is more helpful right now than proclaiming, "All lives matter?" Absolutely. Black men and women need to be lifted up. The community needs to be shown extra love and support in this time of healing and restructuring. And I'll have no problem affirming those things for the foreseeable future, which (at least for now) I think is enough. I can support the black community without aligning myself with the official BLM organization. It's the same reason why I don’t claim a specific Christian denomination, political party, or cola brand. I'm free to hold many beliefs in common with other people without holding them all. I'm free to wholly follow Christ without wholly following all Christians. And that's what I'll continue to do.

Lastly, it truly makes me sad that many will read this post and either agree blindly or condemn wholeheartedly. These are MY thoughts and beliefs. They should stimulate beliefs of your own, which may or may not be the same as mine. But even if they're not, they probably won't be much better or worse in the grand scheme of things. Don't die on an obscure hill, please. I wish you followed after Christ as hard as you could (since he's my only source of infallibility), but you don't HAVE to. That's the beauty of it all. I can love you, lift you up as an equal, and even praise the spirit of what you're doing without supporting all of your actions or life choices. And the reverse is also true, so I ask for your grace and respect as we continue to navigate these uncharted waters together. I don't know what path our future will take, but I know the ultimate destination, and even if I occasionally stumble or veer off course, I have complete faith in the compass at the center of my life.

[newssplashy]

On this matter, I had decided to keep my thoughts to myself. I had a special relationship with the man standing trial. If I had been a judge and he had been brought to my court, I would have recused myself. But I was a journalist, who was expected to report the news irrespective of who was involved.

Great men and women, they say, are like eagles. They don’t flock. They are spotted one at a time. Once in a while. It is even rarer to witness their trial. Only a few centenarians see such events once in their lifetime. I witnessed one in my youthful days and wish to tell this rare tale in detail.

The year was two thousand and eighteen. The court was a state called Ghana. The potential jury was about 30 million men, women and children. And one hapless man was helpless in the merciless court of public opinion.

Criticisms, like volleys of gunfire from a formidable army determined to crush an unyielding enemy, were fired from all directions. What came was more than just criticism. Tongues hotter than pepper, sharper than circumcision razors and more poisonous than the deadly venom of a viper came cutting like a sharp knife in boneless meat. The target was treated like a congenital and unrepentant criminal. Some Jews might have been kinder to Hitler than some Ghanaians were to this man.

Those who showed some form of solidarity with him were described as brainless idiots. There was not a better time to attack Christians. Those who maintained silence were not spared either. You were either with him or against him. There was no midway. This was where I came in.

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On this matter, I had decided to keep my thoughts to myself. I had a special relationship with the man standing trial. If I had been a judge and he had been brought to my court, I would have recused myself. But I was a journalist, who was expected to report the news irrespective of who was involved. I was part of the news team that covered the stories of this man and the reason for his attack. So I could say my duty was fulfilled. But people wanted more than the news. They wanted my opinion. Was I that important? And did my opinion matter that much?

Not really! At the time, I was a young man of exactly the same age Jesus Christ attained when he finished his mission on earth. In a country where success was synonymous with wealth, there was not much to my name except my journalistic fame, thanks to my stubborn refusal to tame my tongue in the affairs of my lame country.

As a journalist, I considered my role as that of the “gadfly” described by Socrates in his famous defence, The Apology, when he stood accused by the Athenian state of corrupting minds with his teachings. Socrates said he was “a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God; and the state is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life.”

Buoyed by the disproportionate curse and blessing of youthful exuberance, I acted like the innocent child in Hans Christian Anderson’s classic The Emperor’s New Clothes. I said it as I saw it, with very little or no regard for political correctness.

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But I did not speak on every issue, even when I was very qualified to do so. Early that year, someone had called me a “hypocrite” for failing to comment on Kennedy Agyepong’s video about my colleague investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas. He claimed my colleague was exposed and if he had been someone else, I would have made “noise”. When the issue of investigative journalism ethics came up concerning Anas’ work, I was one of the most qualified persons in the country to share an opinion on the subject. Considering the atmosphere in Ghana at the time, however, it was wise to keep my thoughts to myself.

The reason for the pressure on me to speak on the banking saga that rocked Ghana that year was because the condemnation had whittled down to one great man. He was a pastor, who had built a citadel of order and sanity (a church) in an empire of chaos and filth, literally and figuratively.

He was one of the greatest preachers the nation had seen and would ever see, one of the very few Church leaders who had a huge following without miracles at the centre of their magnetic fields. His church, the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), had employed over 1000 pastoral and administrative staff in Ghana alone. The Central University had employed about 397 people. Central Aid, the largest non-governmental scholarship scheme in Ghana had awarded scholarships to nearly 4,500 Ghanaians irrespective of their religious and ethnic persuasion since 1988. He had saved many lives through his church’s direct financial support to hospitals in Ghana.

ICGC was the biggest institutional donor to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital’s Children Cancer Unit. For eight years, the church had continuously supported the unit with funds every month. Christ Temple also sponsored 14 charities monthly to undertake activities ranging from free surgeries to Bible translation to helping the physically challenged. The list appears endless.

In fact, it was easier to swim across the Atlantic Ocean with a 50kg bag of cement tied around your neck than to find ten people who had, through individual initiatives, impacted and influenced the nation more positively than him. His name was Pastor Mensa Otabil. He presented himself as a sign post to Christ, and did not project himself as the Christ.

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“If you have my photograph on your wall, then I guess I’m handsome enough to be on your wall,” he told his congregation. “But if you need help in the night, call Jesus, not me, because even if you have my number, I might be sleeping and would not hear you.”

Pastor Mensa Otabil had disdain for mediocrity. And he had the guts to question the status quo, which was an unwritten offence in Ghana ranked higher than high treason. For being who he was, he was loved and hated. Revered and resented. In almost equal measure.

This was the man who was in the centre of the storm. His offence?

Seven banks in the land had collapsed under disturbing circumstances. Those who had enough expertise in the sector said the banks were mismanaged. Some of them had borrowed money from the Central Bank to revive their operations. Those monies, according to a leaked report (which was being challenged), were misused. Part of that money was used for other investments, other than the core functions of the banks. Dr. Mensa Otabil was the board chairman of one of the failed banks.

The reason I was being hounded to speak was not because I had any expertise in the banking sector. It was because my callers knew Pastor Mensa Otabil was my role model and mentor in many ways. That was not a secret. I adored him. What was not widely known was the fact that he was also a father to me. He was one of the people who encouraged me, especially when I came under the wrath of the nation, when the attacks rained on me like fire and brimstone.

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To be clear, I was not attacked because I had stolen from somebody’s barn. Neither was I attacked because I had mounted another man’s wife. In Ghana, in those days, different reasons motivated attacks. It was more about the person involved than the issue at stake. If they “meant” someone, they would pray that their prey should stray. In Twi they say, “Y’abɔ wo ato hɔ.”

On one occasion I was widely attacked because I questioned why an Africa CEOs forum was being held in Europe, and not in Africa. On another, I was attacked because I exposed the misdeeds of a business empire that was built on dubious and corrupt contracts from the state. For instance, I provided proof of how a contract that was supposed to cost less than one million cedis was awarded at a cost of over 62 million cedis. My attackers, led by the Ghana Journalists Association, accused me of attempting to destroy Ghanaian businesses.

Now, back to my tale: On the issue of the collapsed banks, Ghanaians had reason to be upset. The money used for the bailout was their money, the taxpayers’ money. Depositors’ funds had been jeopardised. Besides, some of the people who had lost their jobs as a result of the failed banks found it difficult to keep their bodies and souls together. So I didn’t fault people who were angry. It was their right to express their minds. I did not defend those who supervised the collapse.

On the criticism of the players, it was understandable that Pastor Mensa Otabil would arouse more interest because of what he stood for – excellence. He himself was critical of society and its shortcomings so people were bound to criticise him more than the other “ordinary” persons involved. That was expected.

But it appeared there was something more sinister in the trial of Pastor Mensa Otabil than his role in the banking saga. The spontaneous gloating and sadism, which greeted social media when his name popped up, raised questions I needed answers to before I could respond to their call to join condemning him.

I wanted to know why every arsenal employed came down to one man. There were seven banks, so if Dr. Mensa Otabil was Chairman of one board, why were all the rest of board chairpersons left out? Why did people not care to even know their names? Their roles? Granted each board had five board members, it was safe to say there were 35 other board of directors. Why was everyone left out completely?

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If the answer is that Pastor Otabil should have known better and given better advice based on who he was, why was Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, owner of one of the collapsed banks, left out of the attacks? He was not “ordinary” here. When I was too young to impregnate a woman, Dr. Duffuor was the Governor of the Bank of Ghana. And when I was old enough to own one, he was Ghana’s finance minister. [Dear feminist, please, my wife is mine and I’m hers. So shelve your monocle!]

If there was one person who should have been held to the highest of standards in the banking crises, it was Dr. Duffuor.

No?

I also wanted to know if the nation was really outraged about the misuse of public funds. One ill-informed bloke who called me out was highly applauded when he saidI would have made noise if the GHS610 million loan to Capital Bank had been given to Zoomlion. Had I not shown the nation how a single fraudulent contract given to Zoomlion to manage the sweepers in Ghana had cost the state more than GHS2.2 BILLION CEDIS? Nobody stirred over this revelation. Nobody lost sleep! They accused me of hating the owner of the company when I persisted.

And if they were outraged about the plight of the 800 Capital Bank workers, why were they not outraged by the fact that the above contract gave Zoomlion GHS500 per worker per month and allowed the company to keep GHS400 and pay the poor worker GHS100 cedis or $22 a month? Was this not slavery? Or were Zoomlion’s victims, numbering about 45,000, donkeys?

In 2017, why did a section of society (especially journalists, led by the Ghana Journalists Association) attack me for exposing wasteful and fraudulent contracts worth more than ONE BILLION cedis awarded to the Jospong Group? Was that not the taxpayers’ money?

So it appeared the calls on me to comment were calls to do one thing: attack Dr. Mensa Otabil. Like Julius Caesar, they came to bury Otabil, not to praise him. They needed me to prove that I was bold. But I told them it was good to be bold and fearless, but sometimes it was better to be a coward. I would not publicly attack a father who would have reached out to solidarize with me if I were in the centre of the storm.

Besides, I had no point to prove to anyone. My convictions did not thrive on the validation of the crowd. I was not going to be part of the jubilant pallbearers of Mensa Otabil. I respected their right to condemn him, and they should also respect my right not to offer an opinion after reporting the news.

The call on me to condemn Pastor Otabil was also unjustified. Unlike the stories I had personally investigated, the banking reports carried by the media were solely based on portions of a leaked report. No one had owned up to it. I, like the other journalists, could not independently verify or stand by the claims in there. Rushing to judgment came with consequences I was too familiar with. People did not take my comments, even those on social media, lightly. The RLG CEO and the Zoomlion CEO had, on separate occasions, sued me for defamation based on my Facebook comments. I was happy to meet them in court because I was armed with published and unpublished facts to defend myself.

State institutions were investigating the matter and had promised to deal ruthlessly with whoever was found culpable. If Dr. Mensa Otabil was found culpable and was to be shot or hanged, as some people had suggested, I would still learn lessons from his successes and failures as a fallible mortal being who dared to dream.

Before he was found guilty and sentenced to death, Socrates said: “I dare say, Athenians, that someone among you will reply, ‘Why is this, Socrates, and what is the origin of these accusations of you: for there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All this great fame and talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men.’”

From Otabil’s trial, I would learn that if I distinguished myself from other men and women, I would be judged harshly should I fall short of the standard. Knowing my society, I would learn that I would be judged maliciously. But the fear of harsh and malicious judgment should not stop one from aspiring to the highest virtues such as excellence and integrity. One must not fear death and refuse to sleep.

Great people who have shaped the world were not without blemish. They did not have clean sheets of success. They recorded failures. They had their ups and downs. They had their weaknesses. And their sins. Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.”

I shudder to say he was wrong. The balance sheet of posterity has a way of offsetting our good deeds against our bad deeds and presenting to generations that come after us the dominant character of our lives.

Nelson Mandela had failed marriages, but he is not remembered for that. Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr confessed to his wife of his infidelity a month before he was killed, but his iconic status in the world outshines some saints. Mahatma Gandhi’s statue still stands defiantly in the university of Ghana despite protests against its erection. Those against it said Gandhi was a racist, but his service to humanity outbalanced the accusation of racism against him. The day after Kwame Nkrumah’s overthrow, the Daily Graphic carried a story attributed to a Ga chief in Accra. The headline was: “The Fall of Nkrumah More Spectacular Than the Fall of Satan.” Nkrumah is the most vilified Ghanaian head of state but he is our most popular President ever, and remains one of Africa’s greatest men of all time.

As we trudge wearily across the slippery stage of life, trying to distinguish ourselves from the crowd, we are watched keenly by a sea of spectators who are ready to celebrate our fall. May we not abandon our call even when we fall. We must give life our all. And fight on until history remembers us in its glorious curtain call.

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