#pietistic

[frank-o-meter]

“Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race.”

Toddy (Robert Preston) in “Victor/Victoria” (1982)

[sinefine]

who’s been there for you more than me? (also from eli.)

" don't. " she spats, " don't do that. " he just struck a nerve. she’s heard similar phrases before from the one responsible for the curse she lives with now. the last thing she needs is another version of him echoing those same exact words to her. elliot cardale was both hospitable and charming, likable in many ways. but the girl wasn’t blind to the fact that he could also be calculating and holier-than-thou at times. she never knew which side of him she was going to get. which only made it difficult for her to fully trust him.

" i met someone. someone like us. " delilah admits. " he doesn't feed. every time i've invited him to come here with me, he has refused. and you know what? somehow it's been working for him. " maybe it can work for me, too. she says internally, but the hope in her eyes manage to do all of the speaking for her. " i think we should just stop all of this. " tracking down evil doers, draining them of their blood, and ridding them of their souls. it was nice at first, but lately she’s been feeling off. different. she wonders if consuming all of these people with negative energy is doing more harm to her than good.

random sentence starters, still accepting. ( @pietistics )

[chronal-anomaly]

the holy reverence that lena talks about Time with sometimes...

[denouemente]

@pietistics: no trespassing.

trespassing my asshole. natalie peeks at the intruder between the heavy toes of her boots, squinting as her eyes hone in on the man who starts to take shape. brown hair. glasses. just like basically every other brown - haired man she's seen. she scoffs, hands resting on the armrests of the chair she's commandeered as she lets her head fall back. “ sure. whatever you say, bud. ” she says, eyes closing — though, just as quickly as she closed her eyes and lay her head back, she pops back up, looking at him with squinted eyes.

“ if i'm trespassing, then you're trespassing. ” she comes to this place often, an abandoned office building near her home. so technically, he's correct. but if she's trespassing, then surely . . . natalie drops her feet to the ground and leans forward, arms now resting on her knees. “ there's like, ten other rooms down the hall. you couldn't have picked one of those? did you just like, look at me and decide you had to have this room? ”

[unsister]

[ 📞 ] ‘ you’re lying. ’

       POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK,    THAT IS ALL THIS WAS.   a platinum strand of hair is wrapped and then promptly unwrapped around an elegant index finger.    propped between her chin and shoulder is the disposable cell with its hum of static and malice emanating through the speaker   (    looks like someone found my note!    )   she had hoped he would consider it a parting gift and she was rewarded by the high chime in her pocket.   

       talking in circles,    this is what she does and she is quite the show woman when she puts her back into it.   ❛   eli,    don't be so dramatic.   ❜    eyes of coal rolling back into her head   ━    this was like asking an angel not to fall.    WHAT WAS IT THEY SAID ABOUT BEAUTY AND CORRUPTION?    sighing into the receiver she takes the device into her hand finally pressing it into the shell of her ear.    ❛   you can admit you called just to hear my voice...   ❜    more subterfuge,    a way to lessen this knife's point of severity.   she knew she was a target but she had the advantage of being one in motion. 

       ❛   but i'm not telling you where i am,    what would be the fun in that?    ❜    outside the train window the world passes by in a blur of sunshine and green.    cheek against the glass her breath further misting up her view.    ❛   i know you like a game of cat and mouse.    you just might be surprised to learn you're not the only one here with claws.   ❜   although she had never gotten close enough to him to use the non-metaphorical sort.    he knew better than most,    her words laced with venom after nearly dying from exposure.   ❛   any last words before i toss this phone in the bin?   ❜  

PHONE CALL PROMPTS ˖ ✃ ( accepting !

[fernsehn]

You can basically bet your life on the fact that as soon as a tv show/movie starts to deal with explicit themes and ideas of christianity, it employs the most infantile concepts and perspectives on and of those ideas.

Which is such a shame to anybody who has ever embarked on a spiritual (christian or other) path that goes beyond a childish belief system and digs deeper into mysticism etc..

Those movies/tv shows aren't "wrong"... In a way, they just copy the prevalent concept of non-believers what it means to belief in a "christian" god ...or whatever. Mostly it's a a very strict black/white belief structure that's typical for what you believe as a child. You could also argue that many who call themselves practicing christians, never go beyond that stage.

The actual more mature, more chaotic, more complex B E L I E F s are so much more interesting and complicated.

Faith in many/most cases isn't just a dumb excuse to ease yourself into accepting death LOL. I mean...yes, there are a lot of dumb christians but ...that level of idiocy is reserved for the infantile bunch with their ongoing projection of daddy issues onto god and their obsession with formalities and whatnot. Anyway...people do not only trick themselves into some shit. They all know that death will come for them. What makes them believe is a freedom in the here and now that is not fixated on the idea of paradise or ressurrection (which is a thing that noone can fully grasp in any detail) AFTER death, necessarily. A freedom rooted in a deep sense of belonging, not to a group or even a set of rules. But a belonging to the whole, to everyone and everything. ;-)

[extr4normal]

@pietistics, you're making a big deal out of nothing. isa & eli.

her brain halts in befuddlement. was she making a big deal out of nothing? the girl may not have a lot of real life experience under her belt, but getting shot at felt completely abnormal. then again, her father did warn her about the world outside of their locked doors. even after deceiving her, making her believe she was human when she's no where close to being that anymore --- father still knows best.

❝ wait, i thought, er... isn't shooting people wrong? ❞ the girl yells out from behind the random civilians vehicle she's been hiding behind for a few minutes now. the only thing uncovered were her chocolate optics peering over the hood. the brunette shakes her head in disbelief. she's unable to even fathom why someone she doesn't even know would want to bring her harm. ❝ what did i do? if i did something wrong you can tell me. please. let me fix it. ❞

[yandere-wishes]

⭒ㅤׂ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ʟɪꜰᴇㅤׂ ⭒

⭒⌒★ Yandere! X-Men x Reader ★⌒⭒

゜。♡ 𝓔𝔁𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓘 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾 ♡ ｡ ゜

˚୨♡୧˚Magneto - Erik Lehnsherr | مگنیتو - اریک لنشر 

Techno graces your body in lieu of veins. Wires coiling like arteries should. You use it to mimic him, embody him, be him. His starry-eyed parody. Erik needs you to be more, to be everything he -and everybody else- could never be. You are synthetic and sacred in every way, you are the future he so desperately craves. 

He can't help seeing them when he looks at you. The reverend wraiths of tortured adoration speak to him through your eyes. He sees a bit of everyone inside you, Charles, Raven, Rogue... their faces flashing like holy ghosts. You have too many constellations inside of you, all on the verge of erupting. It keeps him up at night, especially when you're curled up on your side of the bed, asleep and oblivious. 

"You will save us, little one, you will be the savior we have longed for"

He feels the centuries rolling through him, desperately lost, trying to find his way back to a home he never even knew. Maybe that's why he kneels, brushing his lips across your knuckles tracing each vein in hopes that'll lead him back to a place he's only ever seen in his dreams. I'll stay lost, I'll wait for you to find me. He knows you will, you'll do anything for him. He's sure of it. 

Genosha asks for a queen, demands it really. It's funny how these things work. Funny how those who rule the world are so intent on destroying it. Kingdoms aren't built in a day yet they can so easily be toppled in one. In turn, Magento asks you. Who else? It's his one cardinal tenet, you are the savior he could never be. The one his people, your people, need. Erik rolls your name between his lips, relishing as the syllables melt on his tongue. There's a magnetic pull to 'queen' it tastes like a hallowed prayer. "My queen" he whispers in your ear, his tongue sending sparks up the cartilage shell. Magneto pins you to his lap, keeping you tethered to his strong body. His fingers run lines up your hips indulging in your presence. You don't squirm although he suspects you want to. his lips lower, kissing your jugular and savoring the ungainly moan that slips past your pretty lips. "M-Magneto" He's only now realizing you've never called him by his birthname, maybe cause in some way you find it treacherous that he should bear such a human thing. He may see you as salvation, yet you've always gazed at him with the pietistic eyes of a zealous worshipper. 

"Use your power, feel the magnetic pull flowing through you."

"You're overcomplicating it again, master, I just need to command that which I need lifted."

You've always been a rebellious student. The sardonic irony isn't lost on him, Magneto finds it fitting that he should master such an intricate pupil.

He wonders if you can forgive him for the bodies he's scattered in your name. From this far up he doubts you notice the broken bodies littering the concrete. He'll do it all again, anything to keep your distractions at bay. His kind needs a leader, not another sanctimonious hero.

You will be their savior.

You will be his queen.

♠️🂱♠️Gambit - Remy Lebeau | گمبیت - رمی لیبو

Remy wonders if the king ever longs to be stacked with the queen. Holding his breath every time the cards are shuffled. Praying that this time, this time for sure, he'll be next to her. Gambit's holding his breath too. There's a lively lilt when you giggle, he wonders if you truly grasp how much he means every word. "Mon Cheri, you know you're the only one for me." It sounds so childish, so jejune and Gambit knows he's too old for school-boy crushes. But he can't help it, he's desperate too, just another aspirant king vying for the attention of his red queen. 

You once told him the blacks of his eyes remind you of a starry night sky back home. He thinks about that too much. About the sting of your hand on his shoulder and how good it felt sitting crooked in his bones. So that's why an ace surpasses the king. There is only, one who holds power. Maybe it's never been about the queen or the king or the royal house. It's been the Ace all along. Remy only has one heart, he knows he only has one ace too. There was an ace of hearts on your nightstand this morning, you don't recall how it got there. 

Remy's kisses are too explosive, they hold all the weight of a dying star. Yet the force never ceases, it feeds off the detonations only growing stronger, you think you'll be consumed in this kinetic nova he calls love. 

-`X´- Cyclops - Scott Summers | سیکلوپ - سکات سامرز

There's a shutter of loneliness crawling up his spine. He knows you feel it too. Scott bends and breaks under its crushing weight. You've always been there, tangible, solid. You're the living metaphor for a rock in a raging river. He just can't find the right words yet. You can't see his eyes, you can't withstand his power. But you can be there holding his hand through it all. 

'Is this selfishness'? Scott wonders and he kisses you under a dying moon. He's never had anything to call his own, nothing that stayed for long anyway. He's snuffed out his desires his whole life. His place is with the X-men, playing the no-choice hero of a thankless story. But you, you're still here, you never left. Even now you stand still as his lips taint yours. He feels your fear, undue thing that it is. But he can't let you go not when everything is always marred in endless red monochrome and melancholy. Not when the only blessing the universe had ever given him comes in the shape of you. He's so tired of only ever knowing the life of a perfect toy soldier. 'Stay' he begs you between each kiss, each touch. Please just stay. Ease his pain.

 

☽✭☾ Wolverine - Logan Howlett | ولورین - لوگان هاولت

He's been alive longer than he cares to count. Running from one hell to another. He remembers your ghost, essence weaving between places too blurred to be graced with a name. But he remembers you, he swears he does. It's just that time is so fickle and so few can withstand its crushing tides. 

"How have you been, Logan?" 

"I..ah... fine, just fine." 

When he looks at you he can't believe the changes. There's no trace of the rosy cheecked little girl who used to chase demons in the snowbanks. Playing hide and seek with every stray in the neighborhood. That's good, he thinks, he likes this refined dignitary better, somehow it brings out your eyes. There's a feral gaze when he looks at you, he thought he was over that. He feels the pulsing of his heart reverberate through his claws. It brings back something less than memories, something nostalgic, yet all so distant it may as well have been the sent of his childhood home. It's not right he thinks, as his claws trace your curves trying to feel something he knows is lost. You quiver, trying to make yourself smaller and he knows, he knows he shouldn't do this. But there are just so many pieces missing and he's never tried to look for any of them. Maybe just this once he can delude himself into remembering. 

˚ʚ★ɞ˚ Nightcrawler - Kurt Wagner | شب خزنده - کورت واگنر

Not too long ago this used to be fine. He's always been better within shadows, letting the soft dark weave around his body. Obscurity has always felt like a second home, a haven in everything but consistency. You speak in italics, talking and talking without understanding what he shoulders. If he didn't deem it blasphemy, Kurt would gladly dub himself Eros.

You would be Psyche. Oblivious, sweet Psyche.

Kurt longs to kiss your cheek, he knows it'll only starve him for more. He wonders how soft your hands will feel. If you'll You cradle his face nails tracing the sharp point of his ears, his fangs, the jagged scar he got from dreaming of you in the danger room. Will you grace him with a kiss? Something to relinquish the anguish stirring within. This should be fine, you're talking to him, laughing with him as he remains hidden within the dark. And yet how can he see this as anything less than retribution? You're so close, just a breath away. If only he could reach out and...

۵𓋹۵ Apocalypse - En Sabah Nur | آپآکلپژ- ان صباح نور

Your heartbeat sounds all too familiar. He used to hear it a thousandfold walking down the Bazaar's street. It's dead now, the noise, the rapture, the music. He wonders what went right for your heart to beat to such a lost tune?  He remembers once hearing that pain travels through families until it lands on the right generation. He's glad fate picked you. He's glad you share the same ancient burdens.

He puts the stars in the sky.

You've been warned against worshipping false idols so blindly.

Yet how can one not fall at his feet?

He who makes the earth tremble and mighty cower. 

He who seems to know everything you do not. 

Your fingers thread through his hair. It's too black, like staring at a moonless sky in December. You wonder if the eternal ebony is what gives Apocolypse his cynical edge. He laughs at the comment as he melts into your familiar touch."Thank you" he mutters. His pride laces every word twisting them into something metaphysical. Nur wonders if you catch the true sentiment behind the words. If the sand and stars make it through. 

You're too archaic for this time Nur thinks as he watches you run across the fields. The other mutants are there, persistent in the games you all play. In his time he'd have already declared you his wife. Do you know the ancient ceremonies? Would you have gifted him gold or flesh? The yearning builds in his throat. Maybe he should have stayed dead. 

Apocolypse lingers the days away in your room, plotting, scheming. You keep him hidden like a blood secret. He's the only one who seems to understand where your power comes from, where you come from. " I could win against you...someday" Your fingers glow igniting a forgotten glow, Nur can't help but laugh as he traces the curve of your spine. " I don't doubt you could, beloved." His blue lips are on the length of your neck. Everything about you screams dead nostalgia. You've followed him through lifetimes. Smiling as you dragged him across the sand dunes just to watch the sunset. How he longs to carve you open and feel your heart between his teeth. 

He's choking on sand.

Drowning in stardust.

Nur feels like he's swallowed the sun whole. Devoured Ra and spat out his holy bones. He still feels the sting of its rays seeping through his teeth. He's divinity and desperation are all in the same breath. Apocalypse and Nur are just two sides of the same daric. You stand in front of him, tracing the blues of his face, kissing the reds of his eyes. An excavation into the lost, unearthing that which could collapse the world. You enjoy him, savor him, keeping his gold essence on your tongue locked behind rose-tinted lips. You beg Nur to dig through your bones, open you up, unseal every crypt. He obliges, kissing the hollow of your bones until his teeth graze your unsteady heart.

"And what will you do once you meet the real world?"

"Oh, nothing, the real world will have to meet me first."

There is so much blood, he doesn't remember doing this. You stand beside him watching the sand in the hourglass run out. He is Apocolypse bringer of destruction, the end of worlds, funny how he needed you, frail sweet thing that you are, to remind him of this. It's only when he looks at you, really really looks at you that he realizes how many things are still the same. Twisted deformed yet still they harbor their old shapes. Apocolypse kisses you under the shade of a palm tree hoping it'll mean something in the end.

Hoping everything can just go back. 

[bijoumikhawal]

hello! i hope it's alright to ask you this but i was wondering if you have any recommendations for books to read or media in general about the history of judaism and jewish communities in egypt, particularly in ottoman and modern egypt?

have a nice day!

it's fine to ask me this! Unfortunately I have to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of books on Egyptian Jewish history have a Zionist bias. There are antizionist Egyptian Jews, and at the very least ones who have enough national pride that AFAIK they do not publicly hold Zionist beliefs, like those who spoke in the documentary the Jews of Egypt (avaliable on YouTube for free with English subtitles). Others have an anti Egyptian bias- there is a geopolitical tension with Egypt from Antiquity that unfortunately some Jewish people have carried through history even when it was completely irrelevant, so in trying to research interactions between "ancient" Egyptian Jews and Native Egyptians (from the Ptolemaic era into the proto-Coptic and fully Coptic eras) I've unfortunately come across stuff that for me, as an Egyptian, reads like anti miscegenationist ideology, and it is difficult to tell whether this is a view of history being pushed on the past or not. The phrase "Erev Rav" (meaning mixed multitude), which in part refers to Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and converted to Judaism, is even used as an insult by some.

Since I mentioned that documentary, I'll start by going over more modern sources. Mapping Jewish San Francisco has a playlist of videos of interviews with Egyptian Jews, including both Karaites and Rabbinic Jews iirc (I reblogged some of these awhile ago in my "actually Egyptian tag" tag). This book, the Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, is avaliable for free online, it promises to be a more indepth look at Egyptian Jews in the lead up to modern explusion. I have only read a few sections of it, so I cannot give a full judgment on it. There's this video I watched about preserving Karaite historical sites in Egypt that I remember being interesting. "On the Mediterranian and the Nile edited by Harvey E. Goldman and Matthis Lehmann" is a collection of memiors iirc, as is "the Man in the Sharkskin Suit" (which I've started but not completed), both moreso from a Rabbinic perspective. Karaites also have a few websites discussing themselves in their terms, such as this one.

For the pre-modern but post-Islamic era, the Cairo Geniza is a great resource but in my opinion as a hobby researcher, hard to navigate. It is a large cache of documents from a Cairo synagogue mostly from around the Fatimid era. A significant portion of it is digitized and they occasionally crowd source translation help on their Twitter, and a lot of books and papers use it as a primary source. "The Jews in Medieval Egypt, edited by: Miriam Frenkel" is one in my to read pile. "Benjamin H. Hary - Multiglossia in Judeio-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll" is a paper I've read discussing the Jewish record of the events commemorated by the Cairo Purim, I got it off either Anna's Archive or libgen. "Mamluks of Jewish Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate by Koby Yosef" is a paper in my to read pile. "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type A particular trend of mysticisme in Medieval Egypt by Mireille Loubet" and "Paul B Fenton- Judaism and Sufism" both discuss the medieval Egyptian Jewish pietist movement.

For "ancient" Egyptian Jews, I find the first chapter of "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD” by Simon Schama, which covers Elephantine, very interesting (it also flies in the face of claims that Jews did not marry Native Egyptians, though it is from centuries before the era researchers often cover). If you'd like to read don't click this link to a Google doc, that would be VERY naughty. There's very little on the Therapeutae, but for the paper theorizing they may have been influenced by Buddhism (possibly making them an example of Judeo-Buddhist syncretism) look here (their Wikipedia page also has some sources that could be interesting but are not specifically about them). "Taylor, Joan E. - Jewish women philosophers of first-century Alexandria: Philo’s Therapeutae reconsidered" is also a to read.

I haven't found much on the temple of Onias/Tell el Yahudia/Leontopolis in depth, but I have the paper "Meron M. Piotrkowski - Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period" in my to be read pile (which I got off Anna's Archive). I also have some supplemental info from a lecture I attended that I'm willing to privately share.

I also have a document compiling links about the Exodus of Jews from Egypt in the modern era, but I'm cautious about sharing it now because I made it in high school and I've realized it needs better fact checking, because it had some misinfo in it from Zionist publications (specifically about the names of Nazis who fled to Egypt- that did happen, but a bunch of names I saw reported had no evidence of that being the case, and one name was the name of a murdered resistance fighter???)

[macsimagines]

Can we have headcanons for yandere Bonten hanma, ran and sanzu who's girlfriends like to sit in their laps and play with their hair? (Maybe a touch of NSFW PLS)

Thank you!

Last one because I think this is has been in my ask box for a fewdays and I want to make sure to do things on a first come first serve basis.

TW: YANDERE BEHAVIOR, MINORS DNI, NSFW

Yandere!Hanma Shuji

Indulges in it once in awhile, but only if you two are in private. He does love to be serviced by you but he doesn't want you doing anything in front of anyone and making him look weak.

Big on his image in front of his underlings. But when you're alone, and you got on that itty bitty skirt you know he loves, the one that hikes up just the right way when you straddle his lap and he gets a peak of those pretty panties you've got on, he'll let you do whatever you want.

The way your fingers massage his scalp while hes cupping your ass and sin and punishment making sure to grab a good handful, makes him feel like hes in heaven.

Probably sucks a few hickies onto your collarbone, enjoys the soft mewls he'll get in response, and the feeling of you grinding down on him.

"You got on top, baby. What did you think was going to happen?" He'll smile, loosening his tie and leaning back, "C'mon, don't stop now. Put on a show for Daddy."

And you pout those pretty lips at him, but do relent to his demands, slowly unbuttoning your own top... Playing with Hanma's hair is basically an invite to let him play with you too.

Yandere!Ran Haitani

You better be wifey if you're going to play with his hair. He takes very good care of it and is EXTREMELY particular about his do, boo~.

BUT if you are someone who is blessed with the honor of playing with that luxurious head of hair, then be prepared because.... he's going to pass the fuck out.

I know you probably wanted something sexy but he's the type of guy to put his face on your chest and just sleep while you braid away at his hair or brush it back with your fingers.

He doesn't even like it when you pull on it during sex. That cut was expensive and he doesn't need you mucking it up.

BUT, on some days when he manages to not pass out and you're massaging away at his temple with his face planted firmly in your boobs, he'll probably moan out a few; "Right there, baby," or maybe "Just a lil'more sweetheart."

Might thank you later for the good head massage with one of his own, albeit a massage that primarily focuses on your ass more than anything.

"You like to play with my hair, and I like to play with your ass. It's only fair right?"

Yandere!Sanzu Haruchiyo

Probably makes you do it. Like maybe the drugs aren't hitting right, and he's feeling a little off, maybe he needs some love and someone to calm his nerves down.

So he'll just pick you up and plop you right down onto his lap and hide his face in the crook of your neck. "Make the headache go away, baby."

And you'll work your magic fingers and soothe the thumping in this poor baby's (absolutefuckingmenance) brain. All the while whispering something like; "My strong man, needs a break huh?"

Of course he'll nod and wrap his arms around you milking your love and attention for all its worth. Then when its over he's back to being a total douche.

Will put on hand under your skirt and the other one is probably pulling at your shirt, trying to keep you from leaving. "Don't be like that, baby~ I just wanna thank ya fer takin' such good care of me~"

"S-Sanzu! I was only trying to help! Quit gettin' handsy!" But he's already got his fingers hooked in your panties and is licking away at your neck where he knows you're sensitive.

"It's happenin', Y/N. Stop bein' so pietist, and let me at them tits, sweetheart."

[whencyclopedia]

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a Danish philosopher and is considered to be the first existentialist, influencing such notable philosophers as Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). His works are a reflection of alienation, angst, and absurdity, and include Either/Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), and The Concept of Anxiety (1844).

He was embraced by his fellow existentialists for his belief in the importance of the individual against an apathetic, hostile society. However, unlike other existentialists, his body of philosophical works has a strong theological vein. Denise Despeyroux, in her book The Philosophers, wrote that Søren's life was filled with painful experiences, which colored his works – works that displayed "great dramatic and poetic power. They are filled with parables, aphorisms, fictitious letters and diaries as well pseudonymous and fictitious characters" (110). She added that his struggles with religious questions served as a "potent stimulus" for other writers and thinkers of his generation.

Birth & Education

Søren Kierkegaard was born on 5 May 1813 in Copenhagen, Denmark, to an affluent family as the youngest of seven children. His father, Michael Kierkegaard, was a successful businessman, while his mother, Ane Sørensdatter Lund, had been the one-time maid of Michael's first wife. Søren claimed his father was the most influential figure in his life. Unfortunately, he suffered terribly from anxiety and inner turmoil, and this Søren 'inherited' from his father. Michael was deeply religious, a member of a pietistic form of Lutheranism, and was convinced that because of his past sins – he had once cursed God – none of his children would live past the age of 33, the age of Jesus Christ when he was crucified. Coincidentally, five of Søren's brothers and sisters, as well as his mother Ane, would die before Søren turned 21. Only Søren and his brother Peter survived. To Michael, it was a sign of divine retribution. According to Jeremy Stangroom in his The Great Philosophers, Søren maintained that his childhood was "insane" and "he had come into the world as the result of a crime" (100). Regrettably for Søren, his father passed on his "pessimistic and gloomy religious outlook to his son" (ibid).

Despite a chaotic childhood, his education was "surprisingly normal," attending a distinguished private school – the Borgedydskolen – where he was considered an outsider, "lonely, aloof, and intellectually the superior to his classmates" (ibid). Hoping to become a pastor as his father had suggested, at the age of 17, he entered the University of Copenhagen, where he studied theology, philosophy, and literature. In 1838, while he was attending university, his father died, leaving him with a large inheritance. After graduating in 1840, he began the life of an independent thinker and writer, but it would be a life consumed by inner torment and angst, evident throughout his writings.

Shortly after graduating, he made the mistake of getting engaged to Regine Olson, ten years his junior. He regretted the engagement the moment it was made. One year later, in 1841, he broke off the engagement, believing that his melancholic temperament made him unsuitable for marriage and he considered her to be intellectually incompatible. The affair with Regine had a lasting effect on Søren and would appear in both his journals and other works. Free from an unwanted engagement and with a large inheritance, he was free to begin a career as a writer. Oddly, throughout his life, he only left Copenhagen three times, spending most of his free time walking the streets of the city or attending the theater.

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[hdslibrary]

Fat Tuesday

We say it with love: This book is chonky. It is a collection of four German devotional works from the 18th century bound together. The first of these is the extremely popular (as in, this is the 27th edition popular), Güldenes Schatz-Kästlein der kinder Gottes, by Lutheran Pietist Carl Heinrich von Bogatzky.

The photos don't quite do its proportions justice, but you get the jist.

Bogatzky, Carl Heinrich von. Güldenes Schatz-Kästlein der kinder Gottes. Die 27ste und durchgehends neu-verm. Aufl. Halle : in Verlegung des Waysenhauses, 1769-1770.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Pietistic Vs. Biblical Sanctification

How many of us try to clean ourselves up before approaching the Lord's Table, as if there were some degree or level of purity that we could reach that would make us acceptable to God? The command to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself should be sufficient to make you recognize your utter inability to do so. In all likelihood, the thinking that we have to make ourselves right and acceptable before God before he will accept us probably derives its origin from the influential but flawed theology of Pietism. For what man could ever clean himself up enough to make himself acceptable to God? And if he could clean himself up to that degree, then what further need would he have of a Savior or the nourishment of the Lord's Supper? He would be self-sufficient. The whole point of both the gospel and the Lord's Supper for Christians is to continually recognize our own spiritual bankruptcy and dependency on the…

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[dhaaruni]

These southern cultures developed what anthropologists call a “culture of honor tradition” in which males treasure their honor and believed it can be diminished if an insult, slight or wrong were ignored. “In an honor culture you have to be vigilant about people impugning your reputation and part of that is to show that you can’t be pushed around,” says University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign psychologist Dov Cohen, who conducted a series of experiments with Nisbett demonstrating the persistence of these quick-to-insult characteristics in university students. White male students from the southern regions lashed out in anger at insults and slights that those from northern ones ignored or laughed off. “Arguments over pocket change or popsicles in these Southern cultures can result in people getting killed, but what’s at stake isn’t the popsicle, it’s personal honor.” [...] By contrast, the Yankee and Midland cultural legacies featured factors that dampened deadly violence by individuals. The Puritan founders of Yankeedom promoted self-doubt and self-restraint, and their Unitarian and Congregational spiritual descendants believed vengeance would not receive the approval of an all-knowing God (though there were plenty of loopholes permitting the mistreatment of indigenous people and others regarded as being outside the community.) This region was the center of the 19th-century death penalty reform movement, which began eliminating capital punishment for burglary, robbery, sodomy and other nonlethal crimes, and today none of the states it controls permit executions save New Hampshire, which hasn’t killed a person since 1939. The Midlands were founded by pacifist Quakers and attracted likeminded emigrants who set the cultural tone. “Mennonites, Amish, the Harmonists of Western Pennsylvania, the Moravians in Bethlehem and a lot of German Lutheran pietists came who were part of a tradition which sees violence as being completely incompatible with Christian fellowship,” says Joseph Slaughter, an assistant professor at Wesleyan University’s religion department who co-directs the school’s Center for the Study of Guns and Society.

[iibislintu]

thinking of that obscure pietist theologian who once wrote, "God provides humans with everything they might ever need: food, housing, healthcare, community, everything. if something doesn't seem to be being provided to a person, the question is always, how are we other humans blocking its way."

[plaudite-amici]

Kaum konnte er wieder ausgehen, so besuchte er seinen lieben Goethe [Freitag 1. März ?], nachdem er sich durch mich hatte anmelden lassen. Ich war bei diesem Wiedersehen zugegen, und es rührt mich noch jedes Mal, wenn ich daran denke. Sie fielen sich um den Hals und küßten sich in einem langen, herzlichen Kusse, ebe Eines von ihnen ein Wort hervorbrachte. Keiner von ihnen erwähnte weder seiner, noch des Andern Krankheit, sondern Beide genossen der ungemischten Freude, wieder mit heiterm Geiste vereint zu sein.

Heinrich Voss, Goethe und Schiller in Briefen (1895)

So no one tells me they kissed in canon????? I had to read this in random 19C Schiller biography (it’s Harnack (1898), it’s pretty good btw) which quoted this without telling me where it’s from and figure the rest out myself???

Also, in another American biography (Boyesen, 1878), this scene became:

Great was the joy of Goethe when his friend riveted from his illness. Everyone knows that he was not a demonstrative man; but the first time Schiller visited him, during his convalescence, entering his study unannounced, he sprung up and clasped him in a long embrace.

So firstly: I’m really tired of this American pietist uptightness. A kiss is a kiss you cowards!

Secondly: even if Voss is not the most reliable, that this is written down at all means

1) either they would just kiss in front of third parties, and the kiss in question here sounds really intense, I’d say French kiss really, and they’d just do it, which suggests that people must have gotten used to it, which suggests a whole other level of ““demonstrativeness””, and down the rabbit hole we go, gods, what did the Weimar people actually put up with can i join?

Or, 2) if Voss just made this up, it really doesn’t help the case, because why?? Why would you find it necessary to make this up? That you find it in you to say “I was really there and they really kissed my gods I need to tell y’all about it”? Once again, o ye poor people of Weimar, what have you seen??? Also, if the published version is more gossip than real, why on earth would Otto Harnack, university professor and respectable scholar, just quote it word for word, in a serious scholarly publication? Either case this would suggest that it’s something taken for granted?

So in conclusion, the kiss is canon, if not this one then kissing in general would be. And I’m feeling things about it.