Yes, poor people insist on eating cheap food and refusing to learn to cook. They wouldn't want better even if they did have the resources, that's just how they are by nature.

Thank you for correcting those ignorant Jason stans. Their headcanons of Jason being a good cook and enjoying fancy food are so seriously harmful.

Cass (who canonically lacks a lot of home skills and greatly enjoys eating other people's food) is one of the best cooks. Bruce (canonically a terrible cook who can't even make a sandwich) "does okay"—sure, it's your headcanon. Alfred, the classy British guy, is logically a great cook and "super posh". We can sum up Tim's unimpressive cooking skills just briefly.

But we need an entire section describing your headcanon about how Jason can't cook and needs to stick to "poverty comfort foods", because he comes from a poor background.

Inside the Eastern Bloc: A Brief History Of The Ex-USSR

“All victories inevitably come at a cost.” ‑ Mikhaïl Gorbachev, HBO Chernobyl

Nikola Tesla Boulevard on a summer evening, Serbia - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

A Tale Of Winners & Losers

Nothing feels more hopeless than a self-destructing world around you. We often forget how easy we have it, snuggled in our cocoons of excessive love and smothering. Sometimes, we need to be remembered who we are and where we come from. Not too long ago did our grandparents struggled and fought for their basic needs. Of course, now, with our technology, we don’t even have to worry about the basic survival priorities of the past. With the simple click of a button, we can have everything delivered to our doorstep without even raising an arm.

 Ah, doesn’t it feel good to taste the sweet fruits of our capitalistic labor? Isn’t it great to be the “winners” of today’s world? Sometimes, we tend to forget that our victories come at a great cost. Sometimes, we forget to humanize our enemies. They too can love, laugh, cry and fear. They too, are humans like us.

Propaganda poster of Yuri Gagarin - Photo Source: @soviet.propaganda on Instagram

Watch Out For The Communist!

Let me ask you a question: How many times have you heard the word “communist” on the news? My guess of your answer is quite a few times. Although rare, sometimes it is used simply to describe the people that identify with the socialist Marxist-Leninist ideology. Most of the time though, it is used as a pure and simple insult. An insult that describes everything we don’t understand, fear, and dislike. 

This exact description though is exactly what our grandparents were told about the red flag-carrying “commies” over in the eastern bloc. When the canons of wars tear through the skies, governments tend to create a sense of unity within their population to, somehow, justify the war on a national scale. They dehumanize their enemies and convince us that we must fear the others, and win this war at all cost (as they did with Vietnam). 

But when we don’t even know who our enemies are, how can we fully grasp what’s at stake?

Propaganda poster of Lenin’s revolution - Photo Source: @comrade_quotes on Instagram

Rise Up, Comrade!

Before getting into the modern Soviet Union (the 1970s-1990s), let’s focus on the beginning. If you went over to the former republics of the Soviet Union in 2021, you would notice how terrible everything looks. Potholes, crumbling buildings, outdated trolleybuses, and subway cars, beaten up Lada’s plowing through knee-deep puddles under the unimpressed look of the driver’s face. 

When you come to witness this spectacle in person, it is easy to assume that the Soviets must’ve had it rough back in the day, and boy you would’ve been right. Once the Tsars were no more, the new Soviet party lead by the revolutionist Vladimir Lenin promised a bright and equal future turned on the workers and the equal distribution of their labor. However, this promise wouldn’t be easy to achieve. What followed afterward were decades and decades of purges, wars, hard work, and brutal leadership by our good ol’ friend Comrade Stalin. Some argue about Uncle Joe’s good intentions, but this is not what I want to focus on. Here I want to talk about the last soviet’s aspirations and dreams, the ones our western leaders promised to crush for our freedom.

Haludovo Palace of Kirk, Croatia - Photo Source: @socmod on Instagram

For The Happiness Of All Mankind

The 1970s was a great time to be a Soviet. If you were a citizen, you would’ve been able to move into brand new apartments, get a stable job in any industry you wish, get all the food you can eat, obtain the diploma you wanted, have access to healthcare, you would even be able to get a brand new Lada, and all for free! Yes, you’ve read that right: for free. 

Communism in the Soviet Union wasn’t about a totalitarian regime and oppressing its citizens (as the western propaganda wants us to believe), it was about universal free access to one’s every need. Now of course there were some questionable policies such as limited free speech and limited access to the outside world beyond the iron curtain (however more and more freedoms were given to the Soviets in the 1980s with the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev into office). The Soviet Union wasn’t lacking behind in technology either, in fact, it was the world’s second industrial and military superpower back in its heyday! They even sent the world’s first man into space. 

This is what the real Soviet Union was about: unity and comradeship. They truly had a will to build a greater future for humanity and like us today, they had reached such a level of comfort that a bright future was taken for granted by everybody in the USSR. 

However, this candor belief in a great future would suddenly come to a brutal end.

Edge of the Chernobyl Red Forest, Ukraine - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

Porridge With A Side Of Radiation

It’s April 26th, 1986. In a small town of the Ukrainian SSR, citizens are eating breakfast and preparing for yet another routine day. Children are headed to school and parents, to work. Some of them could notice smoke coming out of the industrial site nearby, and others had heard rumors about a possible roof fire that started in the night. 

However, nobody seemingly cared as everybody went on with their day none the wiser. At the same time on the other side of town, ambulances are flying in one by one into the general hospital, carrying firefighters from the smoking site. Nurses run outside and discover men with unusual burns, screaming in pain. Nobody knew what was happening and they all tried to assist them to the best of their knowledge. The citizens didn’t know it yet, but only 3 kilometers away from their homes, the worst nuclear disaster that mankind would ever experience had happened. 

Today, this event is simply known as “Chernobyl”. Of course, back then, they had no clue about what was actually happening, and Soviet bureaucracy would immensely delay the travel of information up to the top state officials. It took them a full 3 days before they evacuated the town of Pripyat, and on the same occasion, creating the famous 30 km exclusion zone (which is still in place today). Of course, by then, it was already too late. Most of the citizens had already received a fatal dose of radiation that would affect their descendants for generations, and make their land uninhabitable for hundreds of years. 

This event was a true shifting point for the USSR, as the Soviet leader Gorbachev took the opportunity for the first time in Soviet history, to be as transparent as possible with its citizens and to the world. He finally admitted that the Soviet Union is about to crash.

Palace of Yugoslavia, Serbia - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

A Russian Traitor

Gorbachev told the shocking truth to its citizens. The country’s banks are empty, and for years the Union was living off the reserves accumulated in the past decades. The Soviet Union wasn’t producing anymore, and instead, became buyers. The self-sustaining system they had built before was no longer in place and everybody would have to brace for the rough years coming ahead.

 This news naturally came as a true shock for the entire population, and suddenly all hopes of a bright future were lost. The citizens learned that the good years are over, and from now on, they should expect misery and poverty. The Cold War and the Afghanistan War had ruined the country’s economy, the former leader Leonid Brezhnev had lost the leadership with his lazy ways and had become too comfortable in his spending. 

However, amid all this chaos and confusion, not a single second did anybody think the Soviet Union would simply collapse and disappear. They truly believed in the strong and powerful nation they had built in the past 69 years, and never imagined one second that it would come to an end. They thought they would simply fight through the rough years and rise again as they had done in the past century. 

One politician though had another idea of how things would turn out. Boris Yeltsin, a man rejected by the Soviet party for having ideas too far away from the communist ideology, was grooming republics for their independence and made deals with the Americans without the knowledge of Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Party. This is how bad the bureaucracy had gotten. They became so out of touch with their own reality that on December 8th, 1991 the Belovezha Accords were signed by Yeltsin and two other figureheads (without the knowledge of Gorbachev), essentially ending the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Soviet mosaic bus stop in Kalmykia, Russia - Photo Source: @realbaldandbankrupt on Instagram

Shock Therapy

It’s Christmas Day, 1991, and the Americans have won. The Soviet Union, which they had fought for decades to end, finally ceased to exist. The dreams that were built, the futures seemingly so bright that was promised to its citizens, all disappeared on that one fateful night. What was a great victory for one side of the world, was a terrible event for the other. They had lost their nation, their future, their security. 

They had now entered a decade of banditry, crime, and chaos. They were living through what we now refer to as “Shock Therapy”. The shift from communism to capitalism was so brutal that there were no more police to ensure safety. No more government to tell you what you can and cannot do. No more authority existed which left space for anarchy. The now ex-Soviet citizens were promised better times with the arrival of democracy but were only betrayed by the incompetence of their new leader that only brought them crime and misery.

Deteriorating children’s playground, Moldova - Photo Source: @kuca_ky_ky on Instagram

Crumbling Streets & Broken Dreams

Nowadays, the cities of the former Soviet Union seem to be nothing else than vast jungles of crumbling concrete. The brutalist blocks that were once the pride of a powerful nation, are now nothing but the symbol of a lost past and broken dreams. Elders remember the good days when they lived in a stable country, and the youth, forever and ever seduced with the exotic lifestyle of the Americans, see no future in their country and only dream about moving to the sunny beaches of California. 

Ironically, the ex-Soviet generation fancies the lifestyle of those who caused their end, but we cannot blame them either. They truly don’t have much of a future in the former eastern bloc, and their old enemies seem to thrive more than ever now that their 20th-century nemesis had been eliminated for good. In the victories we win, we forget to remember the fate of our opposing forces. 

On the surface, it may only seem like we are ending a powerful and evil regime, but underneath the surface, we fail to consider that we are also ending the peace and unity that existed in the nation. 

We must recognize that we are not only ending a government but also all the hopes and dreams attached to it and that sometimes, we must put humanity first and political interests second.

The Genex Tower of Belgrade, Serbia - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

A Word For The End

Thank you for reading my blog post about what I’ve retained from my trip to the former USSR. Please note that this is not meant to take a political side, but only to focus on the human aspect of the events. Either you’re a communist or a capitalist, everybody deserves a future and secure access to food, housing, education, and healthcare. 

I have seen and met people who were deeply saddened by what they went through, and by the loss of their native country. Please remember that the government doesn’t always represent the population. A nation is 1% leaders, 99% normal people trying to make it in the world just like you and me.

If you are interested in learning more about the former Soviet world, I invite you to check out the YouTuber “Bald and Bankrupt”, which explores former USSR republics. He is the one that inspired my trip to the Ukraine last month. 

If you are into music, I suggest you check out “Sovietwave”, which is a musical genre based on the nostalgia of the dreams and aspirations that the soviet people once had.

Thank you for reading and have a good day. 

До свидания!

Novena for the Month of May

My grandmother was born on the 25th of August 1937. She grew up with five other siblings (she is second to the eldest), all of which are female, to a Spanish mother and an Ilocano father. She lived a simple childhood in their town, and like any other typical Filipino child during her time, one of her earliest memories was when she managed to place her right hand over her left ear, which meant that she finally qualified for elementary school. There she would learn how to sew, knit, garden, manage poultry, and many more. 

A picture of a brusque lady, Norma is usually seen playing a competitive game of softball in the muddy fields of her hometown—wearing her bloomers, and is often picking fights with the boys in her class, like that one time when she punched an aviation officer’s son during recess for making fun of her elder sister. Leaving a reddish and swollen mark on his nose, my grandmother got called to the principal’s office, forced to explain herself in front of the aviation officer after her incident with his son. In a coy and mischievous manner, my grandmother, who was then 10 years old, explained that his son was simply wrong for assuming that he can make fun of anyone he likes just because his father is in position—and that the school doesn’t need students like him. Putting the aviation officer to shame, my grandmother was punished for her disrespectful act by receiving more homework and schoolwork than the rest of the kids for a week.  

She always looked forward to her math classes, enjoying the challenge that it gave her, and would often compete with her sisters at night to see who would finish their maths homework the fastest. Under the warm light of their lampara, they fought, laughed, and pestered each other as their mother watched them while waiting for their father to come home for dinner. Living most of her childhood years under the Japanese occupation, most nights for her and her family consisted of dimmed lights, quiet conversations, and tightly shut doors and windows, fearing that they might be seen and located by the Japanese soldiers. Her father, often wary and vigilant, slept near their house entrance, in case intruders try to come in.

She lived in a simple bungalow. The outside façade of their house was full of herbs, plants, and flowers that her mother grew, they had a basement containing pigs and poultry for their livelihood, and their main house consisted of two bedrooms for her parents and her sisters, a living room, and a kitchen. She would often recall the homeliest part of her childhood home: the kitchen. There, she spent most afternoons with her mother, who was frequently sick, learning about Kapampangan dishes, house chores, and life lessons. She distinctly remembers the short bamboo poles placed at a corner of their kitchen, where their glasses were placed for drying.  

Growing up, she looked up to her grandfather, Tatang Kiko, and would always visit him in his home after school. He is frequently seen riding his kalabaw with a wooden cart attached to its back, which they called gareta, containing fruits and vegetables that he harvested as a farmer and sells on the market located at the heart of their town, or bayan. He was kind to her, giving her apples, mangosteens, and even tomatoes to bring home for her sisters, taught her majority of what she knows about gardening today, and even showed her the proper way to ride a kalabaw. Almost every day, during her elementary and early high school days, she would visit her Tatang Kiko, and would enjoy his company and humor. She found a sense of comfort with his presence, a feeling that she had a difficult time finding in her own home, because of the tension within her family caused by her mother’s sickness and their poverty-stricken life. 

One hot summer in the month of March, when the camachile (Manila tamarind) trees were in full season and being picked by the local children of Floridablanca, my grandmother was on her way to visit her Tatang Kiko after a long day in school. Taking her usual route in the sandy roads of their baranggay, one of the local vendors of their market ran towards my grandmother, bringing with her devastating news. Her Tatang Kiko was on his way home from a kaningin session with his friend; he was seated at the trunk of his friend’s truck filled with sugarcane. As it passed by the rocky portion of the mountain, he fell out of the truck. His friend, still clueless, continued to drive his truck, not knowing that he ran over Tatang Kiko. 

My grandmother, crying, dropped all her stuff on the ground and ran as fast as she could to her Tatang Kiko. Not once did she stop to catch her breath; she kept running until her heels and ankles developed calluses. She reached the mountain, and there, she was faced with his dead body, his white shirt covered in blood and his lifeless eyes staring at nowhere. Holding her Tatang Kiko with her bloodied hands, my grandmother lost one of the most important people in her life within an instant. Screaming for help, not once did she let go of her grandfather, crying in his arms. She went home without any fruits and vegetables that day.

In the early 1950s’, my grandmother met my grandfather, who was then a Liberal Arts major, and my grandmother a fourth-year high school student. She met my grandfather while he was on vacation in her hometown at his brother’s house. My grandfather courted my grandmother for about a year. Within those days, they enjoyed their afternoons together, picking camachiles, mangoes, and whatever is in season, and had those for their merienda. Sometimes my grandfather would let my grandmother sit at the back of his bicycle as they explored the town, going to places such as the palakol river, this place called “Riverside”, and many more. At the end of the day, my grandfather would escort my grandmother home, oftentimes receiving stern looks from my great grandfather, something that my grandmother laughs a lot about now. 

My grandfather lived in a large house together with his three other siblings: the eldest brother a priest, his second brother a pre-med student, and his youngest sister an elementary student, who will later on become a nun. My grandmother always talks about the big foyer in my grandfather’s childhood home, and how beautiful it was; it had huge black and white marble tiles, large windows, tall white walls, and beautiful antique furniture. There, my grandfather would often play the violin, accompanied by his second to the eldest brother who plays the piano. My grandfather’s family was influential during that time, because his brother was a priest, which was deemed as a high status and position back then. 

My grandmother wasn’t able to go to college because her parents couldn’t afford then, and so she went to beauty school, which proved more affordable. After she and my grandfather finished their studies, they got married and had four children. They lived a simple life, moving from town to town, until they finally settled down in a small city by the bay. There, they bought a big empty lot in a small barangay for 10,000 pesos and built their home there. Throughout the years, they both worked hard--my grandmother as a government employee, and my grandfather as a Base employee--in order to sustain their four children. Soon enough, all of their four children graduated college and started their own lives.

When I was born, I lived in my grandparents’ house until I was five. Back when I was two, my grandfather died because of gastric cancer, and left my grandmother devastated and depressed. During those years, I spent most of my days with my grandmother, because my mother had to work. She wasn’t loving, nor was she sweet and soft spoken, she was short-tempered, and would often shout at me and my cousins whenever we’re playing at her garden, saying that if we ruin any of her flowers, she’ll spank us and send us home. I used to not like her because of how different she was from my mother who was gentle and nurturing. As a kid, I often dreaded it when I had to visit her, because all she did was scold me and my mother. But as I got older, I started to understand her more, over and beyond her harsh external. 

She is very religious, as most of our grandparents are, and goes to church every morning, much less nowadays due to her weakening health. Sometimes she gets a bit vocal, especially to our housekeeper and other people serving us. She has the habit of insulting them—her intentions are good, but she has a harsh way of showing it. She cooks a lot of kapampangan dishes too, that’s why I never leave the house with an empty stomach. One time, I asked her why she makes such a big fuss about what meals are going to be prepared for the day, and her answer was simple and short: “I don’t want my family eating bad food, because it’s bad for the soul.” Despite us two not getting along most of the time, there are times where she makes me realize things too.  

One evening in May, as I was reading a novel in our living room; my grandmother approached me and asked “Marunong ka ba mag basa ng Tagalog?” (Do you know how to read Tagalog?) And I told her that I can. I asked her why, she walked towards me and said “basahin mo yan,” (read that,) as she placed a small booklet on our coffee table. When she left the room, I took a look at what she placed on the table; it says: Novena ng Santa Rita (Novena of Saint Rita). She is a devotee, and even offered her house once as a place for the almost five foot tall Santa Rita relic. It made me laugh at first, but then I realized that I’ve read lots of books, but I have never really taken the time to read anything about my religion, regardless if I believe it or not.

A few weeks after that evening, my grandmother was sent to the hospital because of a major blood infection. She was straddling life and death, and the doctors weren’t sure if she’d survive. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry and that I’m ready to listen to and bond with her. And as I recall that short-lived connection that we had in the living room, I felt regret; I should have asked her what that novena was about, why she’s so attached to our religion, what she feels whenever she prays—all these questions that I never bothered to ask because of my closed mind.

She survived that hurdle and is enjoying her life at 83 now. Though she isn’t as sharp as she used to be, she is still the strong woman that she was when she punched that boy in her class. This is the story of how I got to know my grandmother, not only as the person that I see in the kitchen, but as the strong figure that keeps our family together, and a role model that I will forever look up to. 

Nowadays, I talk to her about stories from when she was young—the stories that I have written here—and spend as much time with her as I can. Sometimes, I would join her in the kitchen and help her with her work. And I stayed, no matter how harsh her criticisms may be. And on rare occasions, I join her in her praying rituals too, without sulking. 

Out of the Blue: To the Rescue

Cover art: @redheadgleek​

Beta extraordinaire: @hkvoyage​

Links: AO3, FF.net 

Author’s Note:

This chapter was the most exciting one to write. I hope you enjoy reading it too!

Chapter 9: To the Rescue

"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed."

"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth with energy. "You have reduced him to his present state of poverty--comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and ridicule."

(An excerpt from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

 The day of Sam and Mercedes’ wedding, Blaine was woken up at a quarter to four in the morning by the PI, who informed him that Chandler had gone to the restaurant at night, broken in and started a fire. It had all gone too fast for the PI to prevent it or put the fire out without too much damage. “Must have used gasoline or something, the fucker!”

However, the PI did have all the proof needed to convict Chandler for arson, so that was a plus.

“He’s gone somewhere else now. Jack’s following him. I have to stay here until the firefighters arrive.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

Not even ten minutes later, the phone rang again, this time around to tell Blaine that Chandler had wreaked havoc at the church. Again, the PI had failed to prevent the damage. He did have proof of Chandler’s misdeeds, though.

That rat! That fucking bastard! Who the hell does things like that! He’ll pay for this! But first, I need to fix it. I won’t give him the satisfaction of having ruined the wedding. No, sir.

“Enough!” Blaine hissed. “Tell me where he’s heading now!”

“I think he’s going to the bakery. Mulberry Drive 224.”

“The both of you, go there as fast as you can and grab Chandler BEFORE he ruins the wedding cake. I’ll call the police and then I’ll be on my way to Lima, too.”

Before he left his parents’ house, he shook Cooper awake and told him what was happening.

Coop, once he was awake enough to pay attention, swore under his breath, and then took a wad of cash and his credit card out of his wallet and handed all of it to Blaine. “Go and fix this, Blaine. I don’t care how much it will cost. You need to save this wedding. Oh, this is all my fault, I should have used my influence to put Chandler behind bars for what he did to Kurt. The guy’s crazy!”

Blaine shook his head. “This is not your fault. If anything, it’s mine! I should have contacted our PI long before now, and I should have put two and two together.”

“No use arguing now,” Coop said. “Go!! I’ll make your excuses to Mom and Dad, and I’ll come to the church as fast as I can so I can help out, too.”

Shortly after seven in the morning,, Blaine was surveying the damage at the church. The minister and his wife were with him, sad and subdued.

“And to think we were worried about ever raising enough money to repair the roof,” the wife whispered, and started crying, her hand over her mouth.

The minister took her in his arms to comfort her, and said, “This looks worse than it is, Doris. Nothing some cleaning and scrubbing and painting won’t fix.”

Blaine took his chance. “Reverend, I’ll pay for everything, also the roof and any other repairs the church might need, if you can help me save the wedding today.”

The minister patted his arm. “No need to bribe us. We love Sam and Mercedes, and of course we’ll do our utmost to get this mess cleaned up in time. I’ll contact everyone I know, and I’m sure they’ll all chip in.”

Blaine grimaced. “It’s not just the church.”

He explained about the restaurant burning down, and saw the minister frown, deep in thought.

Then Doris suggested, “We could use our garden, right, Jim? And the ladies of our congregation could help out with the food. It won’t be much, and it won’t be fancy, but at least it’ll be something. Maybe we could have a barbecue? We can use our grill, and Mr. Rogers will lend us his, too, I’m sure.”

The minister nodded, a slow smile stealing over his face as he squeezed his wife’s hand.

“That sounds wonderful,” Blaine said. “I’ll arrange for meat and fruit and vegetables and so on to be delivered to your house then, ma’am. Also the wedding cake, which is thankfully unharmed. Could you please make me a list of everything you ladies will need?”

He followed the minister to his house, inspected the garden, which was certainly big enough and then some, and helped Doris compile a list of food for the barbecue.

“We’ll also need decorations,” she said hesitantly. “For the church, and for here in the garden. And lights. Crockery and silverware. Tables and chairs too. I could ask the parishioners, but I don’t know…”

“On it,” Blaine promised. “Here’s my cell phone number. If anything else comes to mind, you text or call me, okay? Or if there is any problem, just holler and I’ll fix it for you. All right? That’s kind of my job, problem-solving, and I’ve got all sorts of handy connections.”

She nodded and smiled at him. “Sam and Mercedes must be very good friends of yours for you to go to all this trouble.”

Blaine smiled back. “Sam’s a great guy. And he deserves a perfect wedding.”

From then on, the rest of the morning was a blur of activity. Blaine tackled the decoration issue first, knowing they’d need all the time they could get. Remembering how the loft and terrace had looked at that first wedding Kurt had organized, he searched for a beautiful gauzy fabric to hide any imperfections with, and bought the shop’s entire supply of it. He also stocked up on string lights, table cloths and runners, centerpieces, napkins, china, silverware and glasses, and bought a mountain of food, dozens of champagne and wine bottles and fizzy drinks for the children, as well as cooler boxes and refrigerators to store everything in, and sent it all over to the minister’s along with the wedding cake.

While handing the delivery boy a tip, he got a phone call from Sam, and knew that he had to trust the ladies of the church to organize and carry out the rest of the tasks there, because he couldn’t go back to the church and help. Sam’s predicament sent him in another direction.

Sam was usually so relaxed and zen that Blaine hadn’t immediately recognized the voice on the phone, panicked as it sounded. The gist of the matter was that Sam’s best man had disappeared. He’d been staying with his parents for the weekend, but according to them, he hadn’t returned from the rehearsal dinner they’d had the previous evening. His bed hadn’t been slept in. He also hadn’t called or texted, and his phone went straight to voicemail. His suit was hanging on the wardrobe next to his bed, but the wedding rings were nowhere to be found.

“What am I gonna do?”

“You don’t need to do a thing, Sam,” Blaine assured him. “I’ll handle this. All I need is for you to send me a recent picture of the guy that’s missing. I’ll also need to know his full name and his birth date and what he was wearing last night. Oh, and his telephone number. Maybe we can track his cell phone to find him.”

Blaine hurried to his car, and rummaged in the glove compartment for a pen and a piece of paper so that he could jot everything down.

Sam was silent for a minute. “Wow. You always know what to do, don’t you? All right, it’s Michael Robert Chang Jr., born on the 28th of April 1982. I can’t look up his number on my phone while I’m calling you, so I’ll text you his number later. What was he wearing yesterday? I really can’t remember. I’ll call his mom and get back to you, okay?”

“Just give me her number, that’s faster,” Blaine told him. “Text me both Michael’s number and his mother’s. And a picture, please.”

“Kay. And what do I do about the rings?”

“Easy. Tell me what jeweler the rings are from, and I’ll get you new ones. And I’ll gladly stand in as your best man, unless you’d rather ask someone else.”

“You will?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver!”

Blaine jotted down the jeweler’s name and address and rang off. After a short call to Mrs. Chang, he compiled an e-mail with all the information plus the photograph, and sent it to his PI, asking him to track down the missing best man.

He was already buckling in and starting the engine to head to the jeweler’s when his phone rang again.

“Ugh, what now?!” he grumbled, but he accepted the call.

It was the minister, who told Blaine there were protesters in front of the church.

“Protesters?” Blaine asked. “What are they protesting against?”

The minister let out a long sigh. “Mixed marriage.”

“Seriously? In the twenty-first century?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I told them to leave, but they wouldn’t budge.”

“Okay. I’ll sort it out, Reverend, I promise. In the meantime, tell your people to stay away from those nutcases, in case they become aggressive.”

“I will. Thank you so much.”

Blaine tapped with his fingers on his dashboard and groaned in frustration. Chandler, while being led away by the police that morning, had laughed and shouted at him, “Good luck fixing this mess! I’ve got some more surprises in store for you!”

Well, he certainly hoped that this was the last unpleasant surprise.

He called his friend Wes, who worked for his father, the mayor of Westerville, and explained the situation.

“You’re in luck. It’s outside of my dad’s constituency, but our riot control team has a training exercise near Lima today, so I’ll brief them about this situation and send them over, and it can be comped as extra training.”

“I’ll pay for everything. I want this wedding to go off without a hitch.”

“Are you the best man or something?”

“Yes, I am. Thanks, Wes, I knew I could count on you!”

At the jeweler’s, they explained to him that they couldn’t provide him with two replacement rings on such short notice. When Blaine told them that he only needed the order form for the original rings and could head to any other jeweler with that information, they backed down quickly. “Well, we can’t offer you the exact same rings, but we can show you a selection of very similar ones.”

Blaine looked at what they had. For Sam, there would be no problem. His ring was a simple band of white gold, which they had in stock. All that lacked was the inscription. Mercedes’ ring was more intricate, but the rings on offer did resemble the picture on the order form.

Blaine chose the one that looked most like the original, though in platinum and with more diamonds, and whipped out Cooper’s credit card to pay for both rings.

The jeweler looked over the moon, until Blaine insisted on both rings being engraved straight away. “The original inscription, please.”

“But… but… That takes hours!”

“You have until a quarter to three,” Blaine informed him, settling down on the plush sofa in the jeweler’s waiting room. “I’ll wait.”

While he was at the jeweler’s, he checked in with everyone.

He briefed Cooper about Chandler’s misdeeds, and urged him to go to the church asap to see if anything else needed to be arranged. “Already there, bro! I’ll handle things at the church, don’t you worry.”

He asked his PI for updates, and just after noon, he got word that Michael Chang Jr. had been found in Faurot park. Drugged, unresponsive and suffering from hypothermia, but otherwise okay.

Blaine asked for Michael to be brought to the nearest hospital, and called Mrs. Chang to tell her the news.

Then he contacted the minister again to tell him a riot control team was on the way, and to know how the clean-up and decorating was going. The minister sounded a lot happier than last time he heard him. The riot team had already come and taken the protesters away, and everyone from the neighbourhood was helping out. Both the garden and the church were starting to look festive.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“I think we do, yes. Thank you!”

After twiddling his thumbs for a while, it occurred to Blaine that Mercedes and Sam would need music, too, for their first dance and the ensuing party, so he called Thad, who’d started a band after he graduated and was always looking for gigs. Thad and his band mates weren’t yet booked for that day, and agreed to play at the wedding.

“Sure, dude. We’ll be there! What’s the song for the first dance?”

“I’ll give you the groom’s phone number, you can talk through the setlist with him. Best stick to a cappella singing or bring your own power supply, ‘cause the party is in someone’s garden, and we wouldn’t want to cause a blackout.”

“Right.”

“I’ll pay you guys tonight, when you arrive, okay? See you then!”

Finally, the rings were done, and Blaine paid for the engraving and gave the jeweler a hefty tip for doing it so quickly.

The smell of grilling meat hit his nose when he stepped outside, and his stomach growled. He’d forgotten to eat breakfast that morning, and in the meantime it was – he checked his watch – half past two. Also, he still had to shower, shave and do his hair and put on the suit he’d brought for the occasion. Which was at his parents’ house in Westerville. There was no way he’d be able to drive there and get back to Lima on time. But he couldn’t show up unkempt and unshaven either.

Think, Anderson.

But his energy was depleted, and instead of hurrying to sort this out, too, he sagged against his car and passed a hand over his eyes.

His phone rang, and he grabbed it sluggishly. It was Cooper.

“Hey squirt! If I know you, you’re still out there somewhere in your sweats and with your bedhead, right? Well, seeing as you’re cutting it close, I’ve brought your suit here, and I’ve asked the minister if you could use his bathroom to get ready. Oh, and I’ve ordered pizza. You probably haven’t eaten a bite yet all day.”

Blaine let out a shaky laugh. “Thanks, Coop.”

“No problem. Get here pronto, and there still might be a meat lovers pizza for you.”

Blaine felt much better once he was all spruced up and had some food in his belly. He followed Sam into the church, noting that the protesters were gone and that any trace of the vandalism had been wiped out or camouflaged.

As the bride came down the aisle, everyone sitting in the pews was smiling, so he hoped with all his heart that all the hiccups had been dealt with now, and that the wedding would be smooth sailing.

Wait, did he say everyone? Kurt was looking straight at him, and seemed put out about something.

Blaine inclined his head and smiled hesitantly at his crush, who responded with a fierce glare.

What was that about? Oh… Had Blaine missed a best man cue? He pulled his attention back to the ceremony, but no, the minister was still talking, and all he had to do at the moment was stand there and listen.

He liked the minister’s sermon. He spoke of love not being a feeling but a commitment, something to work on every day. It was no-nonsense and poignant, and the sentiments expressed struck a chord with him.

He couldn’t help stealing a glance at Kurt every now and then. Kurt was wearing a light grey tuxedo, and looking so much like Blaine’s daydreams about them getting married that it made Blaine want to go and kiss him.

The exchanging of the vows and the rings came and went, and Mercedes didn’t seem to have noticed her ring was slightly different from the one she’d chosen.

Still, Blaine didn’t breathe easy until the ceremony was over and everyone was in the minister’s garden, laughing and talking and queuing at the buffet.

There had been no more alt-righters outside the church when they all filed out, the garden looked like a dream and the food smelled amazing, even after that large pizza Blaine had gobbled up earlier. Now he hoped that Thad and his band mates would arrive on time, and then there would be nothing more to worry about.

Thad did turn up, and Blaine bopped his head happily to the music as he worked up the courage to ask Kurt to dance, moving closer to him where he was chatting with the bride.

When he got within hearing distance, he was dismayed to hear that Kurt disapproved of him as the replacement best man. Kurt’s assessment of him stung, but Blaine had to admit that he had a point. Blaine had lost his temper around Kurt on several occasions, and yes, he had been rude.

Determined to make up for past mistakes, Blaine pasted on his most charming smile as he endeavoured to catch Kurt’s attention and then asked him to dance.

Kurt blushed, actually blushed, when he saw Blaine, and his mouth fell open when Blaine held out his hand for him to take.

After Kurt’s diatribe, he’d expected to be turned down flat, but miraculously, Kurt said yes, and moments later, Blaine was in seventh heaven with Kurt in his arms.

He didn’t feel much like talking, wanting to soak up every aspect of this dance so he’d be able to relive it a million times in daydreams. However, he made an effort to be sociable by praising first the ceremony, then the wedding dress, and then Kurt’s prowess, when it turned out Kurt had made the dress himself. Wow, was there anything he couldn’t do?

Kurt let out the cutest giggle at the compliment, and it made Blaine giddy. He was making progress here, wasn’t he? Real progress!

Yet there had been that glare earlier, and Kurt darkly referring to horrible things Blaine had done.

Before he knew it, Blaine had asked what that had been all about, and then wished he’d held his tongue,, because Kurt looked spitting mad again, and brought up the incident at the wedding where they met, and… What? The way Blaine had treated Chandler? Shouldn’t that be the other way round? Chandler was by no means the victim here!

But when Blaine said so, Kurt’s retort made it seem like he thought Blaine and Chandler had been dating at one time. What kind of lies had Chandler been telling him?

Must not lose my temper… Must not lose my temper…

Blaine kept his reply short and to the point, and as soon as he’d set Kurt straight, he strode out of the garden before he could blow up entirely.

Ugh, that little weasel! What on earth did he tell Kurt? And is there no end to his manipulation and sabotage?

By the time he reached his parents’ house, he was a little bit calmer, and had decided to send Kurt an e-mail with the cold hard facts and the evidence. Heaven knew there was enough of it by now. And then Kurt could decide whom he wanted to believe.

It rankled how Kurt was so ready to believe the worst of Blaine and the best of Chandler. But at least on that count, Blaine had the truth on his side. The rant at the wedding, however, had been entirely Blaine’s fault, and he’d apologise for that once more. And he would strive to conquer his temper. He would.

An hour and a half later, he re-read what he’d written, checked the attachments, and then logged into Cooper’s work mail account to find Kurt’s e-mail address. It wasn’t stalking, okay? It wasn’t. Blaine didn’t plan on writing to Kurt ever again, but he deserved to know the truth. And Blaine deserved… closure.

After this, he’d stay away from Kurt. He was determined not to seek him out again. He’d leave the initiative up to Kurt.

Yeah, tell that to someone who’ll believe you…

ECLECTICLE 7/25

I took a field trip last weekend. Fortunately I decided to hit the road early. It was Saturday and there would be traffic on the way to Napa -- that was expected. Napa is popular this time of year. Heck, Napa is popular every time of the year. I had been invited to the Culinary Institute of America at Copia to attend a masterclass on hamburgers given by George Motz - hamburger historian and burger scholar. Initially I was on the fence about going. I mean let’s face it. How much can a person learn about Hamburgers (apparently A LOT!), plus my week had been, up to that point, a bit stressful. But it was a friend I wanted to spend more time with, so I said yes to the invite. 

The grey cloud cover of the East Bay morning provided a comfortable chill to the air as I climbed into the driver’s seat of the car. I double checked the details of today’s excursion, copying the address to feed into my phone’s navigation app. One hour and a few minutes. Just enough time to take in a podcast and finally get some “Alone Time”.

I have always enjoyed spending time with myself. Alone. Not having to be on. Giving my brain space to recharge or work on some conundrum that is nagging at me -- all thorny and difficult to untangle. I seem to be prone to having a number of those issues. Not unlike many others I am sure.  Even if I am reading, or just staring off into space, or even driving north to make hamburgers in the wine country, I can really put my mind to solving a tough problem when I have few other distractions save the whirring of the perpetual motion machine between my ears.

Some folks I know find it hard to be alone. Even downright scary. They seem to equate being alone with being lonely. Those are two different concepts though. Lonely is a feeling. A sadness based on a lack of connection. You can feel lonely in a crowd of people. Being alone, however, is different. It is that physical place where no one's expecting anything. You can operate on your own time -- on your own schedule. You can take the time to figure out what the heck you just argued with your significant other about or plan what your making for dinner. Both very worthy problems to sort out.

Driving up Hwy 29, catching glimpses of the foothills in the distance, covered with a melange of sun kissed golden hues interspersed with evergreen and orange, the windows are down and I’m feeling the warm fresh air on my face. My thoughts are on the road, the podcast and the task of purposefully not stressing about a couple of last week's challenges. I am alone, at least for the next 30 minutes, and am very glad I said yes to this adventure. It is important to look for those little openings of solitude that present themselves. Those chances to be bravely and happily alone.

+++

I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to learn how to be alone and not defined by another person.

-Oscar Wilde

+++

If you’re new here, ECLECTICLE Is my “Eclectic Listicle” of the recent things that have been happening in my world. It is a regularly occurring place to toss out items of interest and information. My hope is that you will enjoy it and find something useful. So, let’s get going. 

+++

Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place. Alone. To figure everything out.

-Unknown

+++

What I’m eating:

One of the best things about living in Northern California is the cornucopia of foods inspired by and directly from a multitude of cultures. Last week the wonderfully talented Chef Nora Haron had a mainly Southeast Asian inspired bakery pop-up. The FYUB pop-up (The name of her new venture) was in partnership with new coffee spot Orbit Coffee and Doughnuts. The baked goods were filled with great flavors, new tastes, and even gluten free options. My favorite item? The butterscotch cookie!!

What I’m reading:

This water recycling project in the West Bay looks like a really good thing. Glad things like this are happening. Especially in a state that has a history of drought and water shortages.

Massive recycling project to save 30 million gallons of drinking water per year 

Ummmm...Because BUTTER

Astronauts Carved Out Of Butter For Ohio State Fair

I think the last hybrid fruit I got excited about was the Pluot. I am actually intrigued by this. Is it worth braving a Trader Joe's? Hard to say 😀

Cherry Plums Are the Delicious Fruit Hybrid We Never Knew We Needed

This is such an important read. Solving the issue of food justice requires a host of solutions. There is no silver bullet. The start would be setting the right premise and asking the right questions. This article by S. Margot Finn is an awesome place to start.

What the Food Movement Misses About Poverty and Inequality

What I’m Listening to:

Author and scholar Ijeoma Oluo talks about her family’s creativity with food growing up poor, her work around race and teaching her kids resistance. Just so much to listen to and unpack. And extra added bonus, I love the recipe for pasta puttanesca!

Podcast: Cooking By ear

Episode: EP9  Ijeoma Oluo and Puttanesca

Mary Magdalene

Or, The Unrepentant Sinner

Summary: The Duchess makes a social call to a new friend and they discuss the unsavory life of an exposed girl thrown into British high society.

Rating: M -  Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.

Words: 1525

Notes: So, here we are. This time I swear to the Lord above it is going to be a one-shot. You hear me, God? One-shot.

And if you thought that eating Tide pods is a post-Millenial thing, let me introduce you to Goethe. The coolest thing an European aristocratic youth could do in 1799 was to kill themselves over unrequited love. Or ‘political despair’, whatever that is.

Enjoy! Pero no mucho.

(I’m tagging @lizeboredom just because. Sue me.)

“The world’s delight is sweet and lovely, its way of life is soft and adorned. For the world’s allurements I burn willingly - I’ll not shun their voluptuousness.”

~ Carmina Burana (XIII Century)

“Where were we, again?” An older lady takes a cup of tea sitting on the coffee table and brings to her lips.

The woman was absolutely stunning, despite going on years and the weight of a viduity, with a fair, smooth complexion, pale skin that seems to have never seen a working day in her life and a curly, black hair fashionably styled on the top of her head.

“You were telling me about the time you arrived at the house of your natural father, Your Grace.” Her companion responded.

“Of course.” The lady nods, reminded. “My sickly and horridly poor mother had only just died, after keeping my noble parentage hidden my entire life.

“I resent her over it to this day, as a life of a noble bastard is much superior than the living proof of the misdemeanors of a loose seamstress. But I must admit the woman had her use, as she had levered with my father to take me in upon her death.

“If not for that carefully worded, strategic delivered letter, I doubt I would be welcomed on the manor that warm summer afternoon. I would be just another orphan girl at the spike. My mother provided more dead than she ever did while alive.

“Good thing Vincent was never the kind to assert authority, too, bleeding heart like no other. Perhaps if he was, he would have thought to keep the bastard on her rightful place, but he clung on to an idea of family, and my arrival seemed to be the last straw for him to grasp.”

“Perhaps he thought it to be a blessing.” The interlocutor weighed. “A daughter that late in life! For a dying line, no less. Some families can only dream on being so fortunate.”

She chuckled dismissively. “If only I was a man, perhaps I would tend towards your line of thought. But no, I was no saving grace. Indeed, the late earl had to go to great lengths to assure my right of succession. Nevertheless, if nothing else, undeserving I was not.

“You know the law of the land. Women shall hold no property. It would not be so simple to solve like a simple letter to the Prince Regent, I had to work if I wanted my birthright to be recognized. And as soon as I stepped foot in Edgewater, I started assessing my assets.”

“You seem savvy for a peasant just off the hovels.” The companion comments.

A sombre look passes through the face of the Duchess. “Poverty is a cruel mistress. I lacked just about every gift one must have to prosper within the upper echelons of society, except for wit and determination. I would not return to the miserable life my mother bequeathed me. I was certain that while I breathed, I would fight.”

“And fight you did.” The other noted. “What about the rest of the family?”

“My grandmother, Dominique, was willing to go to great lengths to help me. She tried to convince me it was a labour of love, but for all her age, I was wiser. Her hatred against my stepmother knew no bounds, and the sentiment was reciprocate. She would be out on the streets if my father happened to pass. A sympathetic, and dependant, figure on the head of the family was a necessity.

“My greatest threat was my stepbrother. My actual brother, half-brother that is, had died the prior summer on a hunting accident. Ever since then, Edmund had been filling the position of heir to the estate, but the man was absolutely inadequate. No wit to speak of, nor charm, and a small dog passing as hair.

“If it was only him, it would be only too easy. No, the danger laid with my stepmother. Vincent had let his wife walk all over him for the better part of two decades by the time I arrived, Henrietta had a comfortable station at the manor and was not about to lose it all to me without a fight.”

“What about the Duke? How does he fit in with the story?” The conversationalist questioned.

“Yes, I am getting there.” The Duchess tattles slightly annoyed. “I met Tristan at my first gathering at the manor. By then, I was involved with our neighbour, Ernest Sinclaire. A handsome man, charming on occasion, shamelessly wealthy. His greatest flaw, however, was a pathological sense of sociability.”

The interlocutor chuckled. “Was he too talkative?”

The woman could not help but laugh at the notion. “Much the opposite. Sour like rotten passion fruit. Ernest could not be bothered to interact with his fellow human beings. If he was so inclined, you could count it to be an admonishment.”

“What makes him memorable, then?”

“Looking back, I believe his demeanour was more related to shyness than haughtiness. He had been orphaned at a young age and had no relatives or close acquaintances other than my father and grandmother. Moreover, as such, he was fun to tease.

“In fact, more than fun, it was incredible useful. Ernest and Tristan had an intense rivalry, probably over the fact that Ernest was young and handsome, two things the Duke intensely desired to be, while actually being loud and boisterous, traits the young landlord despised over any other.

“By showing favour to Ernest, I became all the more desirable to Tristan. By the end of that summer, I was engaged to the Duke, telling Ernest it was the designs of my family and I could not do a thing.”

“What did he do about that?” The other asks, with a sober tone, fitting to the subject.

“What all the young men of his time were doing.” She says, with a disconcerting coldness. “He killed himself. A shot to his head and a depressive journal explaining, in detail, what led him to the act. Just like in The Sorrows of Young Werther.”

“How ghastly!” The companion gasps.

The Duchess shrugs. “If he wished for death, he got his bullet’s worth. If you are so inclined to pity anyone, pity the living. For the dead, there is nothing to be done.”

Faced with the constrained silence of her companion, the noblewoman continues her tale: “Of course, for a will to come to fruition, someone has to die. My marriage was not enough.”

“You killed your father?” The companion inquired, taken aback.

“Of course not. Once married, I had fulfilled the designs of the earl’s will. I was the heir, and a Duchess, and so I had no hurry for him to die. But die he did.” The woman takes a sip from her tea. “Hunting accident, as fate has you. It was not in my best interest having my father dead. Henrietta, herself, was on a different mind.”

“But if you were recognized as heir and had fulfilled the conditions for inheritance, wouldn’t you stepmother be thrown on the streets upon viduity?” The conversationalist wonders. “Or did she believe to have in you an ally? A charitable, devout soul, if nothing else.”

“No, of course not. Henrietta was brash, not a mule. She thought she could question the will on court, on grounds that my father had another match in mind, and dead men don’t tell tales.” A small pause pass before the Duchess continues, “If it came to fail, I suspect she would try to pin the murder on me.”

“But she could not.” The interlocutor says with certainty and the Duchess hums her agreement. “What did you do?”

“Have you ever heard that between two people there are no secrets?” The noblewoman asks, an amused smile on her face. “Henrietta did not commit the murder herself. She put her child to do it, and he complied with her designs. But Edmund was a good Christian, he felt legitimately conflicted about the crime, and so he confessed his wretched emotions to a sympathetic ear.”

“You?”

She snorted. “God, no. He confided on his fiancée, Theresa Sutton. However, I would say it would have been better if he went straight to the constable. It was a careless decision, certainly, as the girl was ambitious and had a clear sight of how increasingly unfavourable that match was becoming. She had signed up to be a countess, after all, not some lukewarm relative of a Duchess-Consort.

“She bartered the information with me for my help on the marriage market. I set her up with some old-and-grey marquis, acquaintance of Tristan’s, who soon made of Theresa a wealthy, wealthy widow. My stepmother was hanged for orchestrating the murder of her husband and trying to usurp the title of a peer of the realm. Edmund was spared of such a fate, but was deported to Australia. The last I heard, though, was that he did not make it to the Cape.”

A spell of silence befell the two of them before the companion asks, “What of the Duke?”

“I was a dotting and dutiful wife to Tristan.” She hummed. “I was, indeed. I kept his properties flourishing, his bed warm and was a darling companion on every social engagement of his. I gave him two beautiful daughters and a healthy son. In all, I have been a bastion of propriety up until his untimely death.”

A sip of tea and a wicked smile, the Duchess whispers: “The lead I put on his food notwithstanding.”

The two of them chuckle darkly.

“But enough about me.” The Duchess say. “How about you, darling?”

Food (and class) in Harry Potter A (lengthy) guide for fans who aren’t British

After another user asked me some questions about British food as it appears in Harry Potter I decided to make a post about it, as no doubt other foreign readers have similar questions. I will talk about EVERYTHING so sorry if you have to scroll through loads of stuff you know to find what you want, but I have written it to be accessible to literally anyone and I don’t want to assume people know what something is just because I do.

Also, it was impossible to make the post without referencing class. The fact that it was impossible only goes to show how it’s probably impossible to understand the books in depth without an understanding of class in Britain. The whole texts are encoded with references to class which are so subtle (much like class itself) that even I, who grew up being encoded in the same way, had to analyse the texts to find them. At some point I’ll make a post about just class, but for now we’ll stick to the light-hearted topic of food!

Foods eaten at Hogwarts:

Main courses:

Probably to give a subtle wave to the fact that Hogwarts is the magical version of a public school, nearly all the food consumed there is traditional and British. A public school here is NOT a state-maintained school, it is a private, extremely expensive, prestigious, boarding school, e.g Eton, which only the children of people with a lot of money and a lot of influence attend. By default, these people are usually upper class or aristocracy. (Obviously in the wizarding world money isn’t a factor in school attendance, but nevertheless that is what Hogwarts is modelled on.) There is never any mention of processed foods at Hogwarts except chips and a few common desserts. Here is a list, with explanation, of foods mentioned there:

stew/casserole (meat and vegetables cooked together with stock for several hours)

roast beef and chicken (the two most commonly eaten meats here, I would say)

pork/lamb chops (cuts of those meats with a bit of bone through the top)

sausage (usually made with pig meat in the UK)

bacon (here it is larger and softer than in many countries)

steak (a cut of beef, usually expensive)

boiled (in water until soft, no skins), roast (in the oven until brown, no skins) and mashed (boiled and puréed, no skins) potatoes

chips (not crisps, of course, but rather fat French fries)

Yorkshire pudding (pancake batter which is cooked in a muffin pan in the oven until risen and crispy; originated from the county of Yorkshire and usually served with roast beef)

PLEASE NOTE THAT ‘PUDDING’ IS NOT NECESSARILY SWEET, NOR A MOUSSE-LIKE SAUCE THING. I MADE A BLOG POST LAST WEEK ABOUT ‘PUDDING’.

peas (usually small and taken out of the pod, a bit like petit pois, – garden peas; occasionally larger and softer – marrowfat peas; sometimes mashed up into a purée – mushy peas, which are usually served with chips)

carrots (peeled and either boiled or roasted)

gravy (like meat jus, but nowadays normally made from a flavoured powder that you add water to and stir. It’s brown and fairly thick)

ketchup (this one annoys me because no-one I know says ketchup – it’s tomato sauce, at least in the north)

sprouts (brussels sprouts )

steak and kidney pie (pastry filled with steak and kidney in a gravy)

PLEASE NOTE THAT PIE IS USUALLY SAVOURY HERE. We do have fruit pies, but if someone says ‘pie’ a British person will picture a savoury thing, probably with meat in it.

steak and kidney pudding (steak and kidney in gravy encased in suet pastry, which is a crumbly, soft pastry made from just suet, flour and water. It is steamed, not baked, usually)

sausage rolls (a staple of British lunchtime foods – sausagemeat wrapped in a flaky pastry and eaten hot or cold)

jacket potato (also called a baked potato, it’s a whole potato baked in the oven with the skin still on until it’s crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, and is usually served with cheese in it)

porridge (oats cooked in milk or water, often called oatmeal in other countries)

marmalade (jam made from citrus fruits, usually orange)

PLEASE NOT THAT JAM IS NON-CITRUS FRUIT AND SUGAR COOKED UNTIL IT SETS INTO A SPREAD.

Desserts:

jam tart (a small, open pastry case with jam in it)

ice cream (the most common flavours here are vanilla, chocolate and strawberry)

apple pie (pastry case with sweetened apples)

treacle tart (pastry case with a sweet, thin filling made from golden syrup and breadcrumbs, not treacle)

éclairs (popular French cream cake – long choux bun filled with cream and topped with chocolate)

jam doughnuts (dough fried in oil and filled with jam, most often strawberry)

jelly (called jell-o in some countries – flavoured gelatine)

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH JAM – AMERICANS CALL JAM JELLY.

rice pudding (short grain rice cooked for several hours in milk and sugar until it forms a thick mixture not unlike sweet porridge)

custard tart (pastry case filled with an egg, milk and sugar mixture which has been baked until set)

spotted dick (steamed suet pudding, which is like a warm sponge cake, filled with raisins and served with custard)

chocolate gateau (fancy chocolate cake with cream on top)

trifle (layered fruit, jelly, sponge cake, custard and cream – a classic)

mint humbugs (a hard mint to freshen your breath after eating)

At Christmas:

roast turkey (the meat we traditionally eat at Christmas)

chipolatas (tiny pork sausages)

buttered peas (just peas with a bit of butter on the them)

cranberry sauce (cranberries and sugar cooked together until set – served with savoury foods like turkey – it’s not as sweet as jam)

turkey sandwiches (literally the entire country eats this on Christmas night to use up some turkey)

Christmas cake (very rich, dense fruit cake topped with a layer of marzipan and then a layer of icing)

Christmas pudding (hot, very rich steamed pudding made from dried fruits, nuts and suet, often served with brandy sauce)

crumpets (these aren’t a Christmas food, they just happen to eat them at Christmas. They are round, flat buns, though not exactly bread, with holes in them, that you toast and butter. Often people eat them for breakfast, or, like in the book, as a snack at night. They are savoury, not sweet)

mince pies (small pies filled with a mixture of dried fruits, sugar and brandy – sweet, not savoury – they were made with minced meat a few hundred years ago, and the name mince pie has stuck)

fudge (a type of sweet made by heating sugar, butter and milk until it sets)

During the Triwizard Tournament:

bouillabaisse (French fish stew/soup that hardly anyone here has heard of/would try!)

goulash (Eastern European stew made with meat and paprika that a lot of people have at least heard of and would try!)

blancmange (French dessert which is a basically white, almond-flavoured jelly that some people have heard of and a few would try)

It’s necessary to mention here, how the fact that Hermione knows what the bouillabaisse is and has tried it is a DEFINITE indicator of class. She is upper middle class. I’ll talk more about why when I do a class post, but for now it’s enough to say that no working-class child, unless they have family ties to France or have learned about it in French at school, would even know what it was and would be very unlikely to try it if given the opportunity. You can’t read that scene, as a British person, and not understand that Hermione comes from a cultured, moneyed background.

It’s also interesting to compare these foods with the foods usually served at state-maintained schools at the time HP was written: we are talking about fatty, greasy, processed rubbish with no nutrition at all, e.g. turkey twizzlers, nuggets, pizza, chips, hot dogs, cakes. You do still find such foods in state schools but normally alongside more healthy options. Since Jamie Oliver’s war on school food things are a lot better, but the point is that the food at Hogwarts is a clear nod to the privilege of the pupils: working-class kids wouldn’t have been able to eat things like that at school. My primary school (ages 4-11) served stew sometimes, with overcooked vegetables, but that’s all, and my secondary school served pizza, hot dogs, nuggets and chips every day and that was it.

Foods mentioned but not eaten in the Great Hall:

sherbet lemons (real sweets, they are strong, lemon-flavoured hard sweets that contain a powder that makes your tongue fizz)

custard creams (biscuits made from 2 square simple biscuits with vanilla cream sandwiched between them)

Foods eaten at the Weasleys’:

Food is one of the main ways by which the Weasleys are coded as working-class. Everything they eat is either a comfort food your grandma makes or some cheap thing you eat and don’t mind but wish was something else.

corned beef sandwiches (corned beef is beef which has been processed and salt-cured and has the mushy consistency of cat food. It was popular during the war, when meat was scarce and rationed, and is associated with poverty and lack of better meat. That isn’t to say that people don’t like it, but it is true that many people don’t)

Speaking of processed meats, the Weasleys eat a lot of sausage and bacon, which are very popular but also available cheaply.

chicken and ham pie (this is the only time I can think of that it is mentioned that the Weasleys were having a ‘proper’ meat, as in unprocessed, and if I remember correctly it was for Harry’s birthday, so a special occasion. It’s pastry filled with chicken and ham in a white sauce and is the sort of thing your grandma probably made)

boiled potatoes (they do have boiled potatoes at Hogwarts, but alongside other types of potato.)

It’s hard for me to explain why, but boiled potatoes, specifically, have a working-class connotation. You are definitely more likely to eat boiled potatoes in a working-class family. Here are 2 anecdotes form my life about boiled potatoes to illustrate my point!

1. I know someone from a privileged background. Her father was an electrical engineer who held government contracts. She went to a grammar school (a school that’s free but you have to pass a test to go to) and lived in an affluent city where one of the main public schools is. As soon as she opens her mouth you can hear that she’s from an upper middle-class background. I once discussed cooking dinner with her and said I was making boiled potatoes. She scoffed and said she never did as she couldn’t see the point – if she has boiled them she might as well mash them.

2. At university my friend started going out with a guy from a solid middle-class background. His parents had a second home in South Africa, where his father worked for part of the year. They were staunch Tories (supported the political party to the right of the centre). She and I once discussed making dinner and she said it was her turn to make it tonight and the guy wanted sautéed potatoes. Her exact words next were “he’ll just have to make do with boiled, I’m too tired”.

Somehow the fact that the Weasleys eat boiled potatoes makes them working-class, an under-class. It’s somehow seen as lazy and simple by people from higher classes.

rhubarb crumble (stewed rhubarb topped with a flour, butter and sugar mixture that goes hard and crumbly, usually served with custard)

Again, this is a working-class mainstay. Many people used to grow rhubarb in their gardens because it grows easily and is hardy in our weather. Add a bit of sugar and it’s an almost free dessert.

chocolate pudding (not to be confused with chocolate pudding in American terms, ours is a suet pudding made with chocolate and served hot, usually with a chocolate sauce)

Foods eaten with the Dursleys:

a bun from the bakers (could be either a sandwich made from a bread roll or a sweet bun such as an iced bread roll, without more info it’s not clear. The word ‘bun’ is used to describe many things, and it’s different depending on where you are in the country. For example, I would never say ‘bun’ and mean sandwich but I know some people do. I personally picture an iced bun).

knickerbocker glory (an ice cream sundae)

fruit cake (dense cake made with dried fruits, like a dressed down version of Christmas cake, seems quite old-fashioned now)

roast pork (a joint of pork roast in the oven, often with a layer of fat over it that goes crispy)

soup (a common starter)

salmon (usually a whole fish, baked or poached)

lemon meringue pie (the French dessert anglicised – a pastry case filled with a layer of set lemon cream and topped with meringue)

grapefruit

I want to pause at this point to point out how clear it is that the Dursleys are higher class than the Weasleys. For one, Uncle Vernon just buys whatever he fancies from the bakers for lunch but Ron (and presumably the whole family) are given sandwiches made by Mrs Weasley, containing what they can afford. Secondly, roast pork and salmon are expensive and only eaten by people with more than the basic amount of money and even then really only on special occasions. Sometimes people will have a salmon on the buffet at their wedding, for instance. It’s a far cry from processed meats and chicken and ham pie. Not least because you can make a decent pie out of even poor quality meat, but to make a good roast, especially if you are trying to impress your boss, you need a good quality joint. Thirdly, if on a diet it’s unlikely someone working-class would eat grapefruit for breakfast. I know working-class kids who wouldn’t even be able to identify a grapefruit. Moreover, the fact that they served the meal to Vernon’s boss in three courses, followed by after-dinner mints shows that they either are middle-class, or, more likely, trying to appear so. The Weasleys just have their main course and pudding, even on special occasions. I don’t think I’ve ever had a starter in my life except for in restaurants. Furthermore, at the zoo Dudley and Piers get ice creams and Harry gets a lemon ice lolly. I don’t think there is any more striking a symbol of a working-class person in the 90s trying to treat themselves than cheap lemon ice lollies! All ice cream stands had one and it was always the cheapest thing. By doing this, Vernon is showing that he views Harry as a lesser-class than himself and Dudley. Lastly, while Petunia is preparing the meal for Vernon’s boss, Harry is given bread and cheese for his supper. Bread and cheese conjures up images of Scrooge sitting in the dark eating alone because it was so cheap: Victorian levels of poverty and definite allusions to being a lesser-class.

On a side note, the Dursleys still got their milk and eggs from the milkman, a man from a dairy who delivered to people’s houses in the mornings. In those days lots of people still did, and you do still get milkmen now to a lesser degree. My grandparents got their milk from the milkman and so did my husband’s parents, up until at least 2000.

whipped cream and sugared violets (I had to look up sugared violets myself. I think I am probably too working-class, or possibly too northern, to have heard of them. They seem to be the head of the violet flower dipped in egg white and sugar so that it becomes hard. I have never heard of putting them in cream to make a pudding before.)

Additional foods relating to Hagrid:

birthday cake (usually sponge and covered in icing. In Britain, unlike many countries, you do not buy your own birthday cake: your parents usually get one for you)

rock cakes (these are real, though I grew up calling them rock buns. They are a basically a blob of cake cake batter with currants in, baked for a short time. They are like a cross between muffins and cookies)

treacle toffee (hard black toffee, often eaten around bonfire night)

stoat sandwiches (as far as I am concerned these are not real! I have never heard of anyone eating that! A stoat is small animal like a weasel)

Foods sold by magical establishments, e.g. Honeydukes/the Hogwarts Express:

these foods don’t exist outside HP, but could theoretically be made –

pumpkin juice

pumpkin pasties (a pasty is like a pie but the pastry is filled and then folded over, not topped with a lid)

chocoballs filled with strawberry mousse and clotted cream (clotted cream is thick, rich cream that has thickened naturally, not by whipping)

mulled mead (you can get mead, though it’s not common, and mulled just means it’s cooked through with various spices)

cherry syrup with soda (to us, soda is carbonated water, not pop)

these foods aren’t real but are based on real ones –

Drooble’s best blowing gum (wizard bubble gum)

liquorice wands (you can get sticks of liquorice

fizzing whizzbees (imo based on a sweet called a flying saucer, which is a     thin, rice paper-like shell shaped like a flying saucer and filled with sherbet

exploding bonbons (bonbons here are round and soft, sometimes with a powdery centre, which break apart easily and fill your mouth

these foods are real –

peppermint creams (icing sugar mixed with peppermint oil until soft but firm, often coated in chocolate        

mars bars (chocolate coated nougat-cream and caramel)

these foods aren’t real and aren’t really based on anything, as far as I can tell –

                                                  butterbeer

                                                  gillywater

                                                  sugar quills

                                                  ice mice

                                                  cockroach cluster

                                                  blood pops

                                                  toothflossing stringmints

                                                  pepper imps

                                                  cauldron cakes

these foods weren’t real before HP but now exist as part of the HP merchandise –

Bertie Bott’s every flavour beans (they are like jelly beans)

Chocolate frogs

Two final things. Firstly, on the topic of class it is worth noting that Lupin felt he had to apologise for only having teabags. Literally nobody who is working-class drinks tea in any other form than teabags 99.9% of the time. You can get loose leaf tea, which is seen as fancy, nicer and is certainly more expensive. I got some for Christmas last year, for instance. Nobody working-class would ever even bat an eyelid at someone offering them tea in bag form. It’s totally normal. The fact that Lupin apologises shows that he is acutely aware that he is more lowly than the average Hogwarts teacher. He is embarrassed by something that most of the population find normal. He feels under them, in class terms. Even though he knows Harry grew up without privilege (though the Dursleys themselves are middle-class), now that Harry is part of Hogwarts he has ascended enough in class terms that Lupin is concerned he will disappointed to have tea from a bag. This goes some way to showing how class isn’t just about money: it’s about tastes and habits.

Secondly, in compiling this post it became really clear that sausages are a leitmotiv marking times when Harry feels cosy, familial and homey. The first thing Hagrid does is cook him sausages, which represent being lifted out of the world of cold and hunger he is living in; becoming someone who others care about and want to care for. When he is rescued to the Weasleys in CoS and is blown away by the wizarding house and starts to feel at home and safe, the first thing Molly does is feed him loads of sausages. Sausages are often mentioned at breakfast at Hogwarts, especially when Harry is in a good mood. Perhaps it was unconscious and JKR herself associates sausages with feelings of family and at home-ness.

One final thing and that’s it, I promise. While writing this it struck me how different what I mean when I say “privilege” is from what an American means when they say it. I have mentioned this before, and at some point will do a blog post about it, but race is bound up so intricately with American history and life that words like “privilege” are encoded with images of skin colour. I bet the average American read “privilege” and pictured a white person, but in the UK that wouldn’t be the case. Skin colour has nothing to do with it. Here, “privilege” means what you have access to, how valid other people see your tastes and way of life, what you have grown up doing, seeing, eating, hearing, believing. It is bound up inexorably with how much money you have, what you do for a living and where you live and, crucially, with your family’s status historically. That one thing is the reason that comparisons between death eaters and Nazis don’t really hold up: HP is about genealogy and not ideology.

281

Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? Earbuds work wonders and they’re easier to carry around. Do you own a pair of white skinny jeans? I do. They feel like hell on earth when worn, but boy do they make me look good. Have you ever worn fake eyelashes? Just once. It felt like putting on insect legs. That sensation and an awful prom prompted me to remove them in just a couple of hours. What colors look especially attractive on you? Neutral ones. A Kurt Cobain look-alike runs up to you on the street and asks to have sex. You reply? If they ran up to me I’d probably have kneed them already before they even have the chance to say anything else.

Are you a fan of any independent films? Sure. Could you possibly write a successful novel? That was one of my goals as a kid until I learned I shouldn’t be allowed to do creative writing of any sort ever. Have you ever had an extremely messy roommate? I’ve never lived anywhere other than my house. What really grinds your gears? Profs who think they’re better than everyone, use their titles and achievements as an excuse to be a pain in the ass to students, and flip out at the concept of students leaving the class because they have another class to attend. Fuck you Pinky. I wish I could drop your stupid fucking class. Are you civil with your neighbors? Yeah I mean I’m not at war with them so civil is the best way to describe it. How much do you spend on make-up? $0. What are you gonna do/what have you done for the 4th of July? That’s summer for me so I’ll probs sleep all day or like bum around on YouTube. When's the last time your family had a cook-out? That’s not really a thing here. Are there any foods that make you gag? Fruit salads. Are you comfortable dancing in public? Only when I’ve had a few shots. Do you own any jersey shirts? I don’t think so. Have you ever had blonde highlights in your hair? NOOOOOOOO nope. Never want to resemble a white girl. Do you own a sandwich grill? We don’t. That’s a luxurious, extra thing you buy here only if you’re rich and wanna make fancy sandwiches. Do you regularly watch the news? I don’t watch much in front of a TV anymore but I definitely try to stay updated since that’s expected of us in college. Would you have any interest vacationing in Russia? Absolutely. Are you proud to be of the nationality you are? Definitely but I also don’t try to pretend like our government, poverty, traffic system, etc. are things to be proud of. They aren’t, but it won’t also make me feel ashamed to be a Filipino. Have you ever been to New York? No. I had a dream about it last night that felt incredibly real though. Have you ever had fried zucchini? I haven’t. Who was the last person you video-chatted with? I’ve only ever done it with Gabie but we don’t do it often ourselves. Of the two years we’ve been together, we’ve probably only done it twice or thrice. Do ski lifts make you nervous or do you like them? That’s not even part of our culture so forgive me when I say I have no idea what that is. Are you an active person? Active work-wise, yeah. I don’t exercise at all, if that’s what you mean. Do you save shoeboxes? I don’t but I think my mom does. What do you want the theme of your wedding to be? No theme. Just need it to be elegant, formal, and all-white. Have you seen Youth in Revolt? Nope. What's your race? Brown. Have you ever been caught passing a note in class? I was always against note-passing, but there was one time someone passed a note addressed to me and once I got it–and had no intention of reading it–my teacher thought it would be a great time to totally target me and called my attention and told me to keep it. I got pissed both at the person who passed the note and that teacher, who I think hated me for the rest of that year. Joke’s on her, I always got top grades in her class. Can you focus getting something done under pressure? Depends on the work. Have you ever had dandruff? No. Would you be comfortable discussing your sex life with a stranger? Yes. I’m way too open that I actually need to learn my limits most of the time. If someone compliments you, do you argue with them? I thank them of course but ultimately always doubt that compliment. Isn't it annoying when people do that? It can be but I get where they come from and why they feel the need to downplay it. Do you think sleeve tattoos look trashy? Not if it’s done beautifully. Have you watched NY Ink? No. Have you ever gone through a phase of crushing on EVERYONE? As a demisexual since birth, no. Do you have any clothes with spikes/studs on them? Hahaha no I don’t think so. If you had to get a portrait tattoo, who would it be of? My dog, if I HAD to. Do you have any stickers on any of your electronic devices? I have several stickers on my laptop, but only on the protector. Do you think half blonde/half dark brown hair is attractive? Whatever. Do you shop at TJ Maxx? No because we don’t have that here. Do you think love can ever be a mistake? Sure, if people claim that then I’m not going to invalidate it. Do you like the smell of men's colognes better than woman's perfumes? I’ve never compared both, plus I don’t get to smell men’s colognes a lot. Have you ever cut yourself purposely, for whatever reason? Yes. Do you know who Hank Williams III is? Unfamiliar. Can you remember what you last clapped for? I was at a documentary screening last Friday and the director was there, so we gave her a hand after the open forum following the film. Can you recall the last time someone called you stupid? No, but my mom might be able to help you with that. Have you ever given a pet to someone else? Never. If you have, did it make you feel sad? Have you ever liked someone you didn't want to like? Yep. Is your hair damaged? A little. It can get stiff as hell. When's the last time you watched an animated movie? Months and months and months ago. Would you rather be a mermaid or an angel? Neither.

Tw: suicide ideation, graphic language and content

obviously i want to start by saying that I have not been diagnosed with anything because i’ve never sought help so this is all my personal coping and dealing with it on my own and i just need to talk it out

so i started regularly working out about two years ago with some breaks in between, particularly about 3 months ago. I stopped working out for about 1-2 months, i can’t remember. my home life wasn’t great, my dad left without really telling me or my mom for like 3 months and we didn’t even really know if he was coming back (which i have to say, i dealt with it kinda, there was a lot of avoidance involved) and he came back after we had nearly not spoken more than 5 words to each other at a time,  expecting an apology from me for not speaking to him or supporting his endeavours after he abandoned his family and treated us like shit (probably my biggest stressor). 

so he came back, wasn’t great, i hated him being back, specially since he was not speaking to me and i certainly wasn’t going to speak to him (and i’m probably not going to, it feels like that bridge has been burnt). ANYWHO not the point. the point is that when he came back i didn’t even want to leave my room so there was no working out happening. my mental health went to shit. i was like, regularly thinking of how i could kill myself. and it’s like the universe wanted to line up little stories here and there about how suicide is always an option. midsommar, goo hara, sharp objects. and all of these things hit me like... a little too hard?? lol it’s like.. ma’am ya gotta relax. the universe seemed to be like... rooting for me to do it. i figured, i have access to narcotics, i have access to cleaning chemicals, i remembered the drano bottle in my basement (i have sharp objects to thank for that one). i looked it up and apparently will eat up your esophagus and that doesn’t sound super sexy tbh

it would not leave my mind. i had it planned out ONLY (i wasn’t going through with it, it felt like.. nice to know it was an option) i’d wait for my parents to go to bed and i would sneak out of my porch and either: (1) drink a bottle of drano and die painfully, (2) take a combination of pills, (3) take a combination of pills and once i’m fucked up enough, take the drano. I even thought of how i could get my hands on some fentanyl cause i figured that would be the least painful way and i wouldn’t even notice. but i obviously wasn’t going to do it, oh my god that would devastate my mom and Hailey! absolutely not! 

 anyways so i figured, you gotta do something. and i remembered, we’re in the middle of winter so i’m definitely not getting any vitamin D and I never even go outside so i’m for sure deficient and seasonal depression IS a thing. so i pick up a bottle of vitamin D3 hoping that would help, and it did (or maybe the placebo did) and i felt slightly happier. and i’m thinking.. hey today doesn’t suck, let’s not think about the fact that goo hara tried to kill herself twice and finally succeeded. then i’m thinking, what’s an exercise i can do in my room, quietly and comfortably so i don’t have to face the realities of my home life? what about a stationary bike? it’s quiet, you can do it while you watch tv and chill. so i went ahead and bought that one. i obviously wasn’t feeling working out but i have this thing that if i have it planned and written in a calendar, i HAVE to do it (just so i can tick that little box next to it). i planned to work out ONCE a week, and eat 2 veggies/fruits a day and you know what? that’s better than nothing so that’s what i did for a minute. then came the podcast.

i don’t remember the name and i don’t particularly like that type of content but it was one of those motivational dudes that just repeats the same advice about routine, and hard work, and ‘I’m an entrepreneur i’m my own boss, i run a whatever business’ shit. but he said something that struck a cord. he said ‘you’re not where you are because you’re not working for it’ (and i realize he said that from a place of privilege because you can’t really ‘hardwork’ poverty away but i HAVE that privilege and i’m doing fuck all with it). i’m sitting in bed or with my friends complaining about my job, hating my body, hating the city i’m living in and i’m doing FUCK ALL. like.. i hate my job but let me NOT apply for a single job. i HATE my city but let me make NO moves to change that. i hate that my job underpays me but let me not even ask for a raise. my body sucks its not digesting any food properly but let me just eat processed tim hortons every day and eat an entire pizza on my own twice a week. like what are WE DOING. 

and i don’t want this to come off as ‘a healthy diet an exercise will cure depression!!’ because it won’t but holy fuck has it helped. and ROUTINE. i plan my shit and i say i’m gonna do something whether i like it or not and i have to do it (it’s the calendar!) and the EXERCISE. it always stabilizes my mood, i’m less irritable, and less angry, and not so hopeless. i’m lucky so i see results fairly quickly so that motivates me and my GI track is now happier with me that i’m drinking water and eating nutritious food. and i’m not saying i’m cured now because while i don’t fantasize about my suicide as often, a terminal disease doesn’t seem like the worst thing. but at least death doesn’t feel like THE only option. 

i’m working through it, i’m keeping myself in check because i know what happens when i don’t. maybe i’ll seek help, but this seems to be working for now. anyways, i just wanted to get that out. it feels like.. one less thing to have in my mind lol. 

Thief // Park Jimin

- Part One: Doubt

summary: in which prince jimin doesn’t know that his future wife is not only trying to steal from him, but is also trying to kill him.

words: 3,284

category: prince!jimin au, fantasy au

author note: (this is long bc i added the first and second chapters together) I’ll try to update weekly if you guys want more. Tell me how you like it, theories about the characters, constructive criticism: anything! i really like this story but i’m nervous about posting it. I hope you guys like it!

- destinee

-

-

“One pint of mulled mead, please.” You smiled sweetly at the bartender.

He only narrowed his eyes. “Nice try. You can have one glass.”

You rolled your eyes and reached over the bar, shaking the bartender’s forearm. “Oh come on, Hobi! I did what you asked. You promised a pint of mead.”

Hoseok, the man only one year your senior, shook his head and laughed. “I meant in total. As in: one glass this week, one glass next week…” His cheeks lifted as he grinned at you. “Besides, you’re such a lightweight.”

“Am not,” You lied. Sighing in defeat, you turned around, leaning your back against the bar and watching the usual bustle of the inn. You was the only girl there, unless you counted a group of travelers dancing in a dim lit corner. The usual leering crowd sat nearby, watching the women with lustful eyes.

You rolled your own eyes and turned back towards Hoseok. “May I have a bowl of dates as well?” You offered him a cheeky smile.

"Are you going to pay for them?” Hoseok returned your smile, batting his eyelashes in a teasing gesture.

"Fine, just the bowl of dates as payment for my job. No mead.”

"How about a nice glass of water to go with your dates?” Hoseok jested, passing a bowl of dried fruit your way.

You grabbed a date and popped it into your mouth. “Anyway, what did you do with the money?”

Hoseok’s eyes widened. “Keep your voice down you fool.”

"A fool who got you an entire sack of gold.” You smirked. “Which means I deserve to know how you used my loan.”

"The inn isn’t making ends meet,” Hoseok admitted. His eyes scanned the near-empty tables. “I couldn’t pay the landlord without your help. Dirty thing to do though,” he recalled, glancing at you.

"Feeling guilty, Hoseok?” You chuckled before taking a sip of your water. “A few more sacks of gold and the sound of change will overpower the feeling of guilt.”

"Will it also cover remorse and regret?” Hoseok moaned. He ran a large hand down his face. “Tell me the speech again.”

You rolled your eyes and recited, “I only steal from people that I know one hundred percent don’t need the money. No peasants or poor people are stolen from. I don’t steal from the church, either. And lastly, I stole so it’s on my account, not yours.”

Hoseok nodded, “Your speech always gets me through.”

You laughed and handed him a date. “I’m your best friend. I’ll be the one to get you through.”

Hoseok snorted. “If you’re not rotting in the dungeons by then.”

You pouted. “You’ll come visit me before I rot, won’t you?”

The inn was quieter now, save for the two of you bantering back and forth. It was a cold night in the kingdom of Eden. Every villager had on a cloak, or some mittens, or at most a thick shirt to keep them warm. Luckily it wasn’t snowing yet, so people weren’t dying.

Eden was like that. The kingdom seemed to be separated into two classes: the rich and the poor. The rich lived close to the castle and the sea. They got the first of everything. They received the best jobs. Most of them worked under the king as nobles.

The poor side of Eden was where Hoseok’s inn resided. They called it Krull, and the housing there was shabby at best, cramped together and nearly useless against the bitter wind of a harsh winter. This provoked crime amongst the people. Selfishness and Homelessness went hand in hand as the villagers were pitted against each other in the poverty-stricken fight for clothes, food, and shelter.

You yourself had been in a fair share of fights. Your parents died in their own brawl with winter the year you turned sixteen. Since then it was up to you to find the means to survive.

That was when you found Hoseok. He was the son of an elderly innkeeper. Offering a place to stay was the best thing he could do for you, and he also provided you with a job at the inn.

Your parents weren’t the only ones who lost their lives. The population split in half. People lost their jobs, including you.

Hoseok was so sad to let you go, but he didn’t even get paid, so how could he afford to pay someone else?

You stayed around as much as you could. You was a great friend to Hoseok and comforted him the year his father died and he had to take the inn as his own.

So, Hoseok was one of the fortunate ones.

You found other means to survive. You were a common Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Only most of the time, you made the poor do something in trade for your “earnings”. If they could offer you something good, then you would bring them the money they needed. Only the shadiest people knew your work. They met with you in the darkest places close to the witching hour.

Save for Hoseok. Hoseok’s inn was a place one could talk about crime as loudly and freely as the pleased. You never worried about anyone overhearing your nightly escapades. No one who came into Hoseok’s inn cared anyway. Most of them were Your personal clients, just waiting for the night they could bring something you wanted, so you could, in return, get them a sack of gold.

You finished your dates before lowering your voice to a whisper. Hoseok, who had been wiping down a nearby table, came closer to you.

"Has that guy been staring at me all night, or am I just vain?” You subtly looked at a man who sat in the corner of the inn.

Hoseok looked at him and shrugged. “I haven’t noticed him, actually. He didn’t order anything.”

"He might want me for a job.” You said.

Hoseok frowned. “Or maybe he’s a creep and you shouldn’t approach him.”

"I’ll take my chances,” you shrugged. You stood up, your long hair shielding your face in it’s rugged and unkept way. Your strides were short, but your posture showed that you was someone who shouldn’t be messed with. Someone with pride.

You approached the man, a sneaky smile playing on your lips. “I couldn’t help but notice your staring.”

The man, large in his size, grumbled something under his breath before putting his hand inside his coat. You watched in boredom as he lazily pulled out a pipe and began to light it.

He puffed once. Then twice. On the third time, you stood to leave. You didn’t have time for people who played around.

"Wait,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I don’t want to talk with people around.”

You looked around the inn, but there was no one but the innkeeper himself. “Hoseok knows me. He won’t tell.”

"Fine.” The man rolled his eyes before taking something else out of his robe. This time, it was a large sack of gold thrown onto the table. Your eyes widened. No one who lived outside of the castle had money like this. He must be a man of the king, sent to catch you in a trap. You had never been more thankful that you had been vague to the strange traveller.

"This gold is yours if you can do something for me.”

You tapped your nail against the table. “No one in Krull has money like this. Where did you get it?” she inquired.

“I’m from Eden, that’s why,” said the man. “Our good ole king has gotten on my bad side, and everyone in this town says you’re the one to go to.”

"I’m not an assassin.” You blurted.

"You’re better,” the man agreed. “You can steal things right under people’s noses. You can make any lie look like the truth.”

"So?” You inquired, your eyebrows lifting in interest.

"So, we need you to get some information for us. We need you to be our eyes and ears. You find us one little kink in the royal family’s armor, and your job is done. Then you never see us again, and whatever happens later has nothing to do with you. You can also steal us a few goodies.” He slid a large sheet of parchment across the table, and you read the long list of documents and a few crown jewels she was to snatch. “Is this all?”

The man leaned forward and puffed smoke into your face. “Look, we want the people of Krull to have as much fairness as the people of Eden. In order to do that, lives need to be taken. Our job is to make sure that only guilty lives are taken, not innocent. So if we can find the King’s weakness, along with his son’s, we can succeed without much blood on our hands. Then, once the royal line is dead, the king’s nephew goes up. He is the one we want in power. He is the only one who has stood up for the equality of Krull.”

You scratched a loose splinter from the wooden table as you absorbed all of this information. Sure, you was a thief and a liar. But were you a murderer? How can you steal these documents and spy on the royal family, knowing it will aid in their murder?

"We need you on our side, because we can’t have you on theirs.”

You looked down at the paper and made your decision. You finally folded the paper and tucked it into the hem of you pants. “Fine. I’ll get you the papers. I’ll get you a weakness. What’s my deadline?”

"You have two months to find a way to catch the king off guard. I’ll be here every night till then.”

You agreed. “How am I going to get into the castle?”

The man chuckled. “About that. We rigged the raffle tomorrow. You’ll get picked.”

The raffle. Your lips curled in disgust. Every time a prince of Eden became of age, he chooses his wife from the raffle. The only catch is that the only names in the raffles were citizens of the south. Poor women from Krull. It was a way to keep “peace” between the two side of the country. You had your own feelings about the raffle, but they shouldn’t be spoken of aloud.

"I have to marry the prince?”

"Think of it this way, ” he winked, “you’ll be a wife and a widow within the same year.”

You felt like gagging. Then you looked at the sack of coins of the table.

You would be able to help Hoseok own the inn with no more debt. As soon as the prince died and his cousin took the throne, you could move back with Hoseok and continue your life in the now middle class Krull. Everything would be okay.

After a few more details of the heist explained, the man left and you walked back up to the bar.

"What was that about?” Hoseok asked.

You leaned your head on the counter, sighing, “Are you sure you don’t want to spare me a pint?”

-

-

He never thought he would question his family’s integrity. He never thought he would wish to be a peasant of the court instead of the very monarch that ordered them around. He often wondered what secrets would unravel if he were just a commoner. Just an onlooker. Just a pawn.

Because that’s what Jimin learned the most as he watched his father dictate the land as King. Eden was nothing but a chessboard, and if you weren’t close to the king, you were going to be taken off.

The young prince’s suspicions started when he was young. He supposed his brain always acknowledged it, but never quite noticed it. In his class the children had their own ranks.

Perhaps this should’ve put Jimin at ease. He was in the highest rank after all. Since Jimin was the prince, he got the first pick of everything. Children offered their lunch to him. He got to pick whichever friends he wanted. Jimin never brought his observations up to his parents. Maybe it was his brain protecting him.

Not now, it would advise him. Not yet.

Sometime between Jimin’s fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, his mother passed on. Heart attack, it was said. Jimin asked his father how that was possible. His mother was young, healthy even. She only got the best from her servants, didn’t she?

Jimin wondered why a family who got everything they asked for, couldn’t get the proper care for his mother. He wondered why she wasn’t treated like he was as a young schoolboy.

His father always dismissed his worries when Jimin brought it up. His father’s dismissal was the seed of doubt that was planted into the prince’s head.

-

Jimin awoke to a harsh knock on his door.

"Two hours till the raffle, Your Majesty,” Jeongguk, Jimin’s personal guard shouted from the other side of the wooden door.

“Got it,” Jimin’s softer, quieter voice said against the plush of his pillows.

He sat up, the silk white sheets falling off of his shoulders and landing in a heap in his lap. The cold morning breeze hit against the prince’s bare chest, causing goosebumps to spring up and a shiver to run down his spine.

Rather than close the window, Jimin simply braved the draft and swung his feet off of the bed, pushing himself away from the firm mattress with little difficulty. He padded to his wardrobe and chose his outfit for the day. A black and red silk blouse tucked into his black trousers. He wondered as he tugged his dress shoes onto his feet just how long this raffle would last.

He had heard about it all his life. Names of girls aged from fifteen to twenty would be written down and placed into a large glass bowl. Then His Majesty would pick one name: the name of his future wife.

She wouldn’t be of noble birth or high titles. Instead, she would be a citizen of Krull, where criminals and beggars live. A land where people have nothing but the clothes on their backs. A land where people kill each other to stay alive.

All his life Jimin was told that it was a great honor to take one of these girls and rescue them from the land of despair. Jimin’s own mother came from Krull. She became queen and had the only heir to the throne.

Jimin’s dark brows furrowed as he tried to recall memories of his mother. Any small memory where she seemed unhappy. Where she seemed homesick or lost. His mind drew a blank however, and he found himself longing to see her smile in person again. To see her again.

He glanced at his mirror. His features were not his father’s. He had his mother’s smile, her cheeks, her fingers, her ears, her nose…Jimin was his mother’s boy. He missed her.

Another knock came, startling the boy from his reverie. “Sir, you have thirty minutes. I suggest we go ahead and start making our way to the ballroom.”

“Right,” Jimin replied. With one more glance at the mirror, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and blinked the tears back. “I’m coming.”

-

When he opened the door, Jeongguk rose his eyebrow in confusion. “What happened?” He wasn’t used to Jimin not having a smile on his face. In fact, the younger boy tried to recall the last time he had seen Jimin look so solemn.

"I was thinking.”

"About your future wife?” Jeongguk asked as they began to walk down the empty corridor.

"No. About my mother.”

Jeongguk’s face softened into an expression of pity. Of course Jimin would want his mother to be with him at this time. “I’m sure she’s watching you. She would be proud.”

Would she? Proud of what exactly? Jimin wanted to reply. Instead, he offered his guard a soft smile, “Thanks, Kookie.”

Jeongguk grimaced, “Don’t call me that.” Then, realizing his mistake, he straightened up and cleared his throat. “Your Majesty.”

Jimin chuckled at the younger’s expression and pushed the doors of the ballroom open.

The grand space was filled with lavish decorations. At the bottom of the stairs, the ballroom was already prepared. Tables covered the right of the dance floor in fresh food from the castle’s private chefs. The dance floor itself was sparkling in that way freshly mopped floors do. Jimin almost wanted to peak and see if he could find his reflection among the gold tiles. He straightened up and descended the stairs, taking his time to appreciate the flower arrangements which surrounded the railings.

He and his mother’s favorites, Day Lilies, were the center flower of most of the decorations. A fond smile made it’s way onto the unknowing prince’s face.

It faded as Jimin made eye contact with his father. Where Jimin’s eyes were warm and youthful, his father’s were cold and dull.

“I see you’ve arrived,” the king said to his son.

“Yes, sir.” Jimin bowed, and waited while his guard did the same.

"They are preparing the names now. You may go sit until you are called. Guests will need to arrive before you pick your bride.”

“Yes, sir.” Jimin bowed again, and took his leave to the right of the floor, where two throne’s stood tall and mighty.

Honestly, Jimin hated that he sat in his mother’s throne. It was given to him on his coronation day. Still, some days he could swear her presence still lingered in the soft cushions pressed against his back.

Jeongguk stood upright in the shadows, keeping a watchful eye for any suspicious actions.

“Hey, Jeongguk?” Jimin asked.

“Yes?”

“D'you think Dad misses mom, too?”

Jeongguk stayed silent as long as the prince’s patience would permit him. His eyes lingered over the king, who sipped wine and laughed loudly with his advisors. Jeongguk’s gaze hardened.

“Jeongguk?”

"Honestly, Your Majesty, it doesn’t look like he does.”

And the seed of doubt suddenly grew, until a little sprout of worry pushed its way into the prince’s brain.

-

Jeongguk watched the prince’s face contort into something of pain, and he almost took back what he said. The king began talking, however, so Jeongguk said nothing.

Guests had began pouring in, and the king’s loud greeting voice caused Jimin to stand up and take his place around the floor. He bowed to his elders and shook hands with those below him. Jeongguk couldn’t help but noticed the unsteady gaze in Jimin’s eyes.

The time came all too soon for the prince. Soon enough, he was being escorted back to the thrones, where a large glass bowl was set upon a podium. Jimin was silent as his father told the story of Eden’s laws and why every man in the bloodline must take a wife from Krull.

Jimin smiled in all of the right places and did his best to hide his uncertainty behind his features.

The moment came too soon when Jimin felt his hand reaching into the bowl, brushing the many strips of the finest parchment. All filled with names of girls who Jimin didn’t know. His fingers clutched one paper dug from the very bottom.

“Y/l/n Y/n.” His voice spoke out on it’s own accord. It was soft in contrast to his father’s. It was welcoming and assuring toward the crowd as they cheered for their prince and future king.

Although now they cheered for their princess and future queen, Y/l/n Y/n.

-

- to be continued -

1: How tall or short do you wish you were? I wish I was at least 5′5″ 2: What’s your dream pet? (Real or not) Unicorn! and Michael could have a Dragon and Adrian could have a Dinosaur XD 3: Do you have a favorite clothing style? Not really I like almost all of them. 4: What was your favorite video game growing up? Super Mario Bros and Mortal Kombat. 5: What three things/people do you think of most each day: .... 6: If you had a warning label, what would yours say? 7: What is your opinion on [insert person/thing here]? 8: What is your Greek personality type? [Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric, or Melancholic] Melancholic I think 9: Are you ticklish? yes 10: Are you allergic to anything? Shrimp 11: What’s your sexuality? Pan 12: Do you prefer tea, coffee, or cocoa? Cocoa 13: Are you a cat or dog person? Cat 14: Would you rather be a vampire, elf, or merperson? Elfpire ;) 15: Do you have a favorite Youtuber? Not off the top of my head. though there is one that makes great Snowells videos! 16: How tall are you? 5′1″ 17: If you had to change your name, what would you change it to? 18: How much do you weigh? 130 I think 19: Do you believe in ghosts/spirits? yes 20: Do you like space or the ocean more? Space 21: Are you religious? Not really 22: Pet peeves?  23: Would you rather be nocturnal or diurnal [opposite of nocturnal]? Nocturnal 24: Favorite constellation? Orion 25: Favorite star? idk 26: Do you like ball-jointed dolls? love them! 27: Any phobias or fears? lots lol 28: Do you think global warming is real? YES 29: Do you believe in reincarnation? Yes 30: Favorite movie? Clueless 31: Do you get scared easily? I can 32: How many pets have you own in your lifetime? 2 Birds,1 snake,1 rat,1 rabbit,8 Dogs,7 Cats. 33: Blog rate?  34: What is a color that calms you? not sure 35: Where would you like to travel and/or live? Japan,Disney World,Kansas 36: Where were you born? Tacoma Wa 37: What is your eye color? Brown 38: Introvert or extrovert? Introvert 39: Do you believe in horoscopes and zodiacs? Yes 40: Hugs or kisses? cuddles 41: Who is someone you would like to see/visit right now? My Niece Cheryl who’s in Florida. but she’ll be over here soon! 42: Who is someone you love deeply? My Family 43: Any piercings you want? No 44: Do you like tattoos and piercings? yes 45: Do you smoke or have you eiver done so? I used to 46: Talk about your crush, if you have one! 47: What is a sound you really hate? Dogs constantly barking,especially small yippy one’s. 48: A sound you really love? not sure 49: Can you do a backflip? no 50: Can you do the splits? almost 51: Favorite actor and/or actress? Matt Letscher,Tom Cavanagh,Jessica Lange,Emma Roberts. 52: Favorite movie? already answered. 53: How are you feeling right now? 54: What color would you like your hair to be right now? idc 55: When did you feel happiest? when Adrian was born 56: Something that calms you down? 57: Have any mental disorders? Depression,Anxiety,PTSD 58: What does your URL mean? just things I like 59: What three words describe you the most? 60: Do you believe in evolution? I believe we used to be caveman but not that we evolved from Monkeys.  61: What makes you unfollow a blog? depends on my mood. usually if they have a differing opinion then me and are constantly harping on it.  62: What makes you follow a blog? whatever my interest is currently.  63: Favorite kind of person:Nice (not fake nice),same interests as me,doesn’t come on too strong (though I do tend to be friends with those kinds of people too),caring,open minded.  64: Favorite animal(s):The nice,cute,cuddly one’s.  65: Name three of your favorite blogs. 66: Favorite emoticon: no idea I do tend to use XD alot  67: Favorite meme: The Joe Biden one’s. 68: What is your MBTI personality type? INFP 69: What is your star sign? Taurus 70: Can your dog roll over on command, if you have a dog? he did in the beginning but we didn’t really feel the need to teach him it.  71: What outfit out of all your clothes do you like to wear the most? currently anything comfortable cause I’m fat and tight clothes are uncomfortable. so t shirts,long skirts,loose tops and Maxi dresses,high waisted Jeans or shorts.  Outfit wise I’ve been wearing My Bray Wyatt Find Me Shirt,Dean Ambrose Hoodie,Black Camo Jeans and Boots,alot. 72: Post a selfie or two? Nah 73: Do you have platform shoes? Yes 74: What is one random but interesting fact about yourself? 75: Can you do a front flip? No 76: Do you like birds? sometimes 77: Do you like to swim? No 78: Is swimming or ice skating more fun to you? I can’t swim and I’ve only been ice skating once. 79: Something you wish didn’t exist: Poverty 80: Some thing you wish did exist: A trade system instead of money. 81: Piercings you have? 2 in each ear 82: Something you really enjoy doing:Shopping 83: Favorite person to talk to: My Bestie 84: What was your first impression of Tumblr? idr 85: How many followers do you have? idk 86: Can you run a mile within ten minutes? idk 87: Do your socks always match? No 88: Can you touch your toes and keep your legs straight completely? No 89: What are your birthstones? Diamond and Pink Sapphire 90: If you were an animal, which one would you be? Cat 91: If a flower could aesthetically represent you, what kind would it be? I don’t know Flowers well enough. 92: A store you hate? Abercrombie and F(B)itch 93: How many cups of coffee can you drink in one day? 1 94: Would you rather be able to fly or read minds? Fly 95: Do you like to wear camo? just Jeans 96: Winter or summer? Summer 97: How long can you hold your breath for?... 98: Least favorite person?  99: Someone you look up to:  100: A store you love? Hot Topic I suppose 101: Favorite type of shoes: Boots 102: Where do you live? Washington 103: Are you a vegetarian or vegan? If so, why? No 104: What is your favorite mineral or gem? Amethyst 105: Do you drink milk? Rarely 106: Do you like bugs? No 107: Do you like spiders? No 108: Something you get paranoid about? 109: Can you draw: Kinda 110: Nosiest question you have ever been asked? 111: A question you hate being asked? this one lol prbly first kiss.  112: Ever been bitten by a spider? yes 113: Do you like the sound of waves at the beach? yes 114: Do you prefer cloudy or sunny days? sunny 115: Someone you’d like to kiss or cuddle right now:  116: Favorite cloud type: type?? 117: What color do you wish the sky was? idk I like when it turns Pinkish purple 118: Do you have freckles? No 119: Favorite thing about a person: 120: Fruits or vegetables? fruits 121: Something you want to do right now: Watch The new episode of Flash! 122: Is the ocean or sky prettier? ocean 123: Sweet or sour foods? sweet 124: Bright or dim lights? dim 125: Do you believe in a certain magical creature? like a Unicorn or Dragon,yes to both! 126: Something you hate about Tumblr: The Hypocrites.  127: Something you love about Tumblr: The Fan girls lol 128: What do you think about the least? Math prbly  129: What would you want written on your tombstone? Not sure,ask me when I’m depressed :/ 130: Who would you like to punch in the face right now? no one 131: What is something you love but also hate about yourself? My Stubborness 132: Do you smile with your teeth showing for pictures? Not unless I’m really happy.  133: Computer or TV? TV 134: Do you like roller coasters? Some yes 135: Do you get motion sickness or seasickness? No 136: Are your ears lobed or attached? attached  137: Do you believe in karma? yes 138: On a scale of 1-10, how attractive would you say you are? without Makeup....6 139: What nicknames do you have/have had? Shelle/Shelly,Shorty,Pockets,Levathia. 140: Did you have any pretend or imaginary friends? Yes his name was Fred. 141: Have you ever seen a therapist/shrink? Yes 142: Would you say you are a good or bad influence to others? idk depends on the person I guess. 143: Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts/help? Both. 144: What makes you angry. LOTS of things.  145: How many languages do you speak fluently? one 146: Do you prefer boys, girls, and/or non-binaries? ALL 147: Are you androgynous? no 148: Favorite physical thing about yourself: My Ankles 149: Favorite thing about your personality:  150: Name three people you would like to talk to right now in person. 151: If you could go back into time and live in one era, which would you choose? The 70′s 152: Do you like BuzzFeed? sure 153: How did you meet your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/partner? [If you have one.] Online.  154: Do you like to kiss others’ foreheads or hands for platonic reasons? Neither. 155: Do you like to play with others’ hair? If I’m dating them or their family yeah.  156: What embarrasses you?  157: Something that makes you nervous/anxious: Dude I have Anxiety everything makes me anxious!  158: Biggest lie you have ever told:  159: How many people are you following? idk 160: How many posts do you have on your blog(s)? 161: How many drafts do you have on your blog(s)? 162: How many likes do you have on your blog(s)? 163: Last time you cried and why: yesterday,I don’t want to get into it.  164: Do you have long or short hair? Long 165: Longest your hair has ever been: to my butt.  166: Why do you like, dislike, or have neutral feelings about religion? I have neutral feelings because I don’t think EVERYTHING about it is wrong but I definitely think alot of the followers are. (Especially Catholic) but I do believe in Jesus/God/Satan but in my own way. otherwise I don’t really think of it much.   167: Do you really care how the universe and world was created? yes 168: Do you like to wear makeup? Yes 169: Can you stand on your hands or head for more than thirty seconds? Used to.  170: Did you answer the questions you were asked truthfully? yep :P

On Providence

I keenly remember, during my first year of seminary, writing a card for a woman whose husband had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. At that time, I don’t think we knew that it was a glioblastoma (an always deadly cancer), but he was due for surgery and we wanted to write some words of encouragement. Some friends gathered a card and we wrote about providence from the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q27. What do you understand by the Providence of God?

A. Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.

Q28. How does the knowledge of God’s creation and providence help us?

A. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature will separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved.

As a word, “providence” can sound like the sort of platitude that people don’t want to hear in times of suffering. I have lost track of how many times I’ve heard people object to statements like “God has a purpose in it” or “everything happens for a reason.” But the doctrine of Providence is much more than a mere platitude. It isn’t a slogan to be repeated casually.

Indeed, Providence is a doctrine that is as precious as it is tricky. It raises hard questions about suffering—evils both natural and moral—or even the smaller difficulties in life. The exact nature of its relationship to these questions (and their answers) is beyond my present scope. Instead, I would like to explain why this doctrine is so precious and how I came to learn it intellectually and personally.

When I began my journey into Reformed theology, I was almost entirely self-taught. I would procrastinate on my school reading assignments by reading theological articles online. There were so many unfamiliar ideas and terms. I just read and read. As often happens when one begins to study Reformed theology, I started with the doctrine of Election but Providence goes hand in hand with it. As a result, it was one of the earliest doctrines that I learned.

My study of Reformed theology began in a time of great personal upheaval. I had just transferred to university from my community college. In addition, my family decided that we needed to leave our church due to changes concerning the conduct of worship and church life in general. (We went from a fairly normal evangelical setting to one where the singing had more in common with a performance, plus it was very, very loud.)

We ended up at a tiny Calvinistic Baptist church as it received an influx of new members from another local church—one experiencing conflict over subjects like predestination. The pastor of the conflicted church was a graduate of a Calvinistic seminary and when tension arose he was kicked out and a few families left with him. The church we all joined, incidentally, was experiencing its own trials of trusting God’s providence. The church's pastor (and only elder) was newly diagnosed with cancer. When we joined the church, he often wasn’t able to attend. After a few months, though, he went into remission and was able to return to the pulpit. When he was able to resume teaching and preaching, we started a Bible study covering all the basics of Calvinism—especially the sovereignty of God and how Scripture was structured by God’s covenants with his people.

This was the first time I had been in a church situation where theology was actually taught to people as something important to know. It was just assumed that everyone needed to know these things. Additionally, everyone wanted to know these things. It was a genuinely exciting time, and I thrived in it.

Thinking back, it’s not surprising to me that I ended up falling in love with the doctrine of Providence. I leaned hard on it for years. It was comforting to know that all was as it should be with every step taken being the ones I ought to have taken and nothing done thwarting God’s will. This would really hit home, though, some years later when my husband and I started trying to have children.

Providence Personalized

I lost my first pregnancy in February of 2014. It was a traumatic experience that included being diagnosed with a rare form of ectopic pregnancy. It was quite an emotional roller coaster that had begun with the doctor suspecting the more traditional tubal ectopic earlier in the pregnancy. Going from the diagnosis of a suspected ectopic pregnancy to a threatened miscarriage to a different form of ectopic pregnancy in the space of two months took an incredible toll on my mental health. (Few will—or want to—warn you just how terrifying pregnancy can be.)

In the aftermath, I developed panic attacks. My anxiety and sensory issues reached new heights. In October, I sought out a clinical psychologist who diagnosed me with ASD (autism spectrum disorder). 

Two years later, I became pregnant again. This pregnancy was uniquely challenging as I developed and struggled with a debilitating loss of executive function. Executive function is the term used to describe the cognitive processes involved in things like time management, completing tasks (even basic ones), etc. Executive function issues are common in autistic individuals, as well as in those with ADHD. It was easy for people to laugh off my issues as “pregnancy brain,” but for me, it was extreme enough that I wasn’t able to complete tasks I had done a hundred or thousand times before.

Sadly, that pregnancy also ended in a miscarriage. (It’s weird, very weird, to describe the simultaneous relief and grief that you experience when you have a normal miscarriage after a traumatic loss. It’s a dizzying blend of emotions.)

After that pregnancy, my executive function issues persisted. They were not as severe as they were when I was pregnant, but definitely still present. Eventually, I was diagnosed with ADHD just months later. It was really helpful to understand why I struggled with so many things that others did not. Once again, the diagnosis explained little things about my life that had always mystified me. (Things like why my brain feels itchy when I’m bored by something, why I can’t remember enough to retrace my steps when something is lost, etc.)

To this point, very little of my adult life had gone according to plan. But there’s a real possibility that any postpartum depression or anxiety without a diagnosis of my multiple conditions would have been crippling, or worse.

“We can be patient in adversity”

Finally, in 2018, I had my first successful pregnancy. I still struggled with my executive functioning, but this time I knew why and I knew how to work with it. The relief in knowing why things were the way they were was huge. My husband and I had a plan in place which made it easier to cope. Still, it was a challenging pregnancy.

I felt poor the entire time. My nausea got progressively worse. I ended up failing my glucose tolerance test at the beginning of week twenty-seven. The necessity for an endocrinologist referral to manage gestational diabetes was very disheartening—I had dreaded this possibility my entire pregnancy and had done what I could to mitigate the risks.

As week twenty-seven progressed, I waited (read: dreaded) for the endocrinologist’s office to call about an appointment while feeling increasingly poor. Then I got the phone call. I couldn’t come in on the initially offered day, so the nurse poked around. She asked if I could come in that afternoon, and I said yes.

I was in no state to drive at that time—too tired, too much pain in my hands. I called my husband at work and asked him to come home and drive me. At the doctor’s office, they took my blood pressure: 168/98. Though a high reading, I’m prone to white coat syndrome and I was pretty stressed about the whole gestational diabetes business. Wishing to not overreact, they took my blood pressure four times, hoping for better numbers, before sending me to my OB’s office.

“Don’t stop anywhere,” they said.

Despite this caution, I still wasn’t concerned. I sent texts to my mom, apprising her of the situation. I told her not to worry. I was sure they would just send me home with some blood pressure meds. But once I got in to see the on-call OB, he took my blood pressure (still high) and said pretty much the last thing I had expected, “You have preeclampsia with severe features.”

For those unaware, preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal deaths—the high blood pressure causes strokes, and your liver and kidneys can be damaged. It can also turn into full-blown eclampsia (the mother experiencing seizures). So I was sent directly to labor and delivery, hooked up to magnesium (in order to prevent the aforementioned seizures), and an ambulance was summoned. With no NICU available at my local hospital and no knowledge of when the baby would come, I needed to be sent to another hospital.

(There’s an escalating protocol when you have preeclampsia. They give you blood pressure medication intravenously and then measure your blood pressure. If it’s still high, they give you more. Eventually, if you don’t respond, they deliver the baby. When you’re as early in pregnancy as I was, the goal is to keep you pregnant for as long as possible without endangering the life of the mother.)

The ambulance came. At the new hospital, they repeated their attempts to bring down my blood pressure while the hospital’s OB gave me a pep talk. She didn’t want to deliver a twenty-seven-week-old baby so could I please respond to the drugs? Finally, my blood pressure did come down. There was rejoicing. Two days later I stopped responding to the medicines and my baby was delivered via c-section at twenty-eight weeks, two days.

“We can be … thankful in prosperity”

It was incredibly difficult to go through at the time. Gestational diabetes stressed me out horribly—my ADHD was in full force and needing to think about the details of food just sounded exhausting and impossible. In the end, though, there’s a strong possibility that the diagnosis saved me from a stroke—or worse.

In the days between my admission to the hospital and finally delivering my baby (who is currently a very healthy almost-toddler), I was struck by how very providential everything was. So many things worked out perfectly such that the disease was caught before either I or my baby suffered serious consequences. My experience brought me to reflect on Romans 8:28:

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

God used a diagnosis I had done my best to avoid and a doctor working on an unusual afternoon for earthly blessings: my baby and I lived! And so He taught me to be “thankful in prosperity.” However, it is also true that the context for Romans 8:28 makes clear that it isn’t simply a platitude to comfort people about earthly prosperity. The Lord has taught me to “be patient in adversity.” In the Lord’s providence, “good” refers to God’s plan of sanctifying a person. “Good” is not a guarantee of easy.

The last couple of years have been hard in so many different ways, and yet looking back I can see how it has been used for my sanctification. My faith has been strengthened by trials. My prayer life has improved through the saints praying for me and for my baby as well as the opportunity to return the act for the saints. All this calls to mind the command in James 1 to be thankful for trials because they strengthen your faith (James 1:2-4). How could that be so if God were not completely sovereign over our trials?

So here I sit, over a year later, incredibly thankful for the very trial that I had done my best to avoid. Life didn’t work out the way I planned, but since it didn’t, I’m far better equipped now to survive motherhood by relying on God’s providence. Sometimes I am tempted to mourn how thoroughly things didn’t go the way I wanted. But then I look at my baby and recall the deep, abiding truth that nothing has happened by chance. Everything has been and will continue to be in accordance with God’s fatherly hand.

“We can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature will separate us from his love”

These are just the events that I can trace out without supernatural revelation. I’m sure there are many more ways in which this is true—honestly, even in her short life, my baby has been through her own set of health misadventures, a few of which have made the truth of Providence known in their own right.

The way these trials have worked out not only to my earthly benefit but also for my sanctification has only driven home the comfort that comes from resting for the future in this precious doctrine. The knowledge that God’s providence is the determining factor of reality—even when the circumstances are terrifying or full of grief—is a light in the darkness (Psalm 23:4).

“For all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved”

Photo by Drew Mills

Fourth Sunday of Advent; Sermon, December 23, 2018

This sermon was preached by Deacon Sandy Horton-Smith

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

601 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, KS

Fourth Sunday of Advent Readings

Main Focus Text: Luke 1.39-55

In our gospel reading today, Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She travels from her home in Nazareth to the hill country of Judea, a journey of around 80 miles. She completes this days long journey shortly after she is visited by the angel Gabriel and she accepts God’s call to carry the baby who will be God among us. Elizabeth is also pregnant with an unexpected child. She and her husband thought they would never have a child of their own, but Gabriel came to Zechariah and gave him the good news that Elizabeth would have a baby boy. This boy, John, would have a special mission to turn many people in Israel to their God. And he starts even before his birth as he reacts to the voice of Mary greeting Elizabeth, leaping within her womb.

We don’t know why Mary made this long journey to see her cousin. Perhaps

she heard about Elizabeth’s unexpected pregnancy and wanted to be there to congratulate her and support her during her middle trimester. Perhaps she wanted Elizabeth to hear her news and help her as she worked through all that having this baby would mean and how it would forever change her life. Perhaps things weren’t very comfortable at home after she told her family about what was going to happen. Pregnancy in the very best of circumstances is a time of mixed emotions including happiness and fear. Mothers are filled with anticipation of the child to come, but also with worry about what may happen wrong. But Mary was not in the best of circumstances – a young, not yet wed woman with an unplanned, mysterious pregnancy. Mary finds in Elizabeth someone who shares her joy at these unexpected events and someone who believes that God is working out his plans through Mary and the baby she carries.

Elizabeth cries out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Mary responds to Elizabeth’s happy greeting by reciting a beautiful piece of Hebrew poetry, reflecting her joy in her pregnancy and her faith in God. This poem, the Magnificat, has been put to music by many composers throughout the centuries, including Vivaldi and Bach, and it is part of the sung mass for which many composers have written music. It’s called the Magnificat because that’s the first word of the poem in the Latin Vulgate – Magnificat anima mea Dominum.

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

It is a beautiful poem that declares a powerful faith that God has acted in the world and has fulfilled his promises to bless – in Mary’s own life and for his chosen people, Israel. This poem is very similar to one said by another mother in the second chapter of the 1st book of Samuel. Hannah, like Elizabeth, had been unable to have a child, but she prayed to God and promised that if she could have a boy, she would give up her child to be consecrated to serve in the temple. After the boy is born and she takes him to the temple, she says a prayer: My heart exults in the Lord, my strength is exalted in my God. Hannah’s child was Samuel who would grow up to a great prophet in Israel, the one that God appointed to chose a king for Israel – first Saul and then David. Hannah and Mary both give their sons to serve God’s plan for his people.

In Mary’s poem, there is one line that really attracted my attention as I read through it to prepare for this sermon. One line that didn’t ring true. Did you hear it? “ He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” I don’t think it was any more true in Mary’s time than it is today. The Emperor and the Roman gentry were hardly struggling to find their next meal. And there were many hungry then as there are now. We live in a world now where the rich just seems to get richer and richer. The top 10% of U.S. households hold 76% of all the wealth while the bottom 50% have only 1%. Nearly half of the world’s population lives on less than $2.50 per day. 22,000 children die every day due to poverty according to Unicef.

But Mary, like all mothers, fulfills many different roles and here she is both poet and prophet. What she says contrasts strongly with what is, as she proclaims, like all good prophets in Israel, what should be. She is pointing toward her son’s ministry in which he feeds those who are hungry, 5000 at a time, and, over and over again, tells us that we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger. She is proclaiming that with the birth of her son there will be a new kingdom in which there will be upheaval in the way things were and the coming of a new way.

Mary is, as Elizabeth said, “she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord”. Does Elizabeth mean the promise made by the angel? That Mary would bear a child who would be holy and called the Son of God? Or does she mean the promises of God to his chosen people, Israel? We heard it in the words of the prophet Micah. That from Bethlehem, one would come forth to rule in Israel. “And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.” And so the hungry will be filled with good things. This a promise of a king to come and a savior for the nation.

Mary is carrying the child who will reign in a new kingdom and turn the world order upside down. Her son, Jesus, preached a message contrary to the power structures of the world in which he lived. He said that the least among us would be the greatest. That the one who serves will be first before those who are served. That those who are poor, those who are hungry, those who are weeping will be blessed. All of this contrary to the world he lived in and the world we live in today. So how are we to make sense of any of this? We see with our eyes and know from our experience that the hungry are not being filled and the rich are not being sent away empty. William Paul Young wrote in his novel The Shack, “There are times when you choose to believe something that would normally be considered absolutely irrational. It doesn’t mean that it is actually irrational, but it surely is not rational. Maybe that is where faith fits in.” It doesn’t seem rational to believe that the hungry are being filled and the rich sent away empty. But Jesus promised that there would be a new way, a new kingdom beginning in which these things would be true. He turned many of the world’s expectations upside down and asked us to believe that what seemed irrational was actually the truth of God’s kingdom. We have faith that there is a different way and we are called to live in that different way. 

Bishop N. T. Wright has written many, many books about the bible and theology, but the theme of many of those books is the idea that God’s new kingdom began in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago and we are living in it now. It is a kingdom under construction in which we are kingdom citizens. St. Paul told us that the church is Christ’s body and each of us is a member of that body. We serve as the hands and feet, ears and eyes, of Christ in the world. We are tasked with working out the kingdom plan while relying on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now there’s not much that we can do to make the rich go away empty. They have the money to fill themselves many times over with anything that they desire.

But we can speak through our own lives and choices to shine a light on the wealth inequalities in our culture. We can speak out about the injustice of the vast difference in the pay of corporate CEOs and the minimum wage workers employed at their companies. We can vote for elected officials who will enact fair tax structures that won’t benefit the very wealthiest of the wealthy. But when it comes to helping the hungry to be filled with good things, we are able to do a great deal. Our Happy Kitchen feeds a warm and filling breakfast to anyone who stops in on Tuesday morning. We collect food for the Flint Hills Breadbasket the first Sunday of every month. We haven’t been collecting as much food lately as we used to and we clergy should be reminding you about those Breadbasket Sundays more. So, remember to bring in food on Epiphany in 2 weeks for the baskets in the back! We collected over $1100 for the CROP Hunger Walk to help feed people through the Church World Service ministries. So St. Paul’s is doing some wonderful work of feeding the hungry, but we can always do more. Remember that we are citizens of that kingdom, that contrary kingdom that Jesus came to earth to start. And live a contrary life in the faith that it is not rational, but truth. Then your soul will magnify the Lord and your spirit will rejoice in God, your savior, just as Mary’s did.

The Patriarch – The Forgotten Hero of The Great Indian Joint Family

The pre-millennial generation in India are mostly born and brought up in families who migrated from their native villages and settled in cities one or two generations back. Almost every family has a proverbial Patriarch who ventured out of the ‘comfort’ or ‘distress’ zone of their native places and built a life from scratch in a new environment. The family tree grew upon the base they created. But the branches gradually forgot or never came to know about the Heroes who created that base.  However, I feel just two generations down, it’s too soon to forget them.

We became independent just 70 years ago and 50% of our population is below the age of 25 today, with confused sense of identity and hardly much knowledge about their national and regional cultural roots. However, it’s not their fault. The preceding generation failed to create that awareness in them or even the interest to be aware.  I feel, the generation X and the millennial, who are getting drawn to a life on ‘Cloud’ at a  byte-ing pace, should at least know who created their launching base, so that they do not get lost in the orbit, searching for their roots and where they want to go from there. Of course, I am talking about that part of the young generation, who now live in cities. It is the duty of the parents and grandparents of the urban millennial in every family to make them aware of their roots – roots in their family, in their country, in the world.  

Here is the story of the Patriarchs of my family – dedicated to the generation of sibling and cousins, who were born in the generation X and the Baby Boomers. Being the eldest grandchild, I had the privilege of being very close to both my grandfather and his brother. They shared their life stories with me. However, it might resemble the stories of Patriarchs in many other Indian families, irrespective of regions and states. I pay a tribute to them too through this story.  They did not only build a solid base for their families to grow prosperous post independence. They were true nation builders.

My paternal grandfather, to me, was one among many such heroes of pre-Independence India.  He was born as the eldest son in a typically poor family in a remote village of now Bangladesh. His parents were literate, but not much educated. He stayed away in a neighboring village at a rich, distant-relative’s house along with other poor students to study in the only high school situated there. There was no school in his native village. The distant relative, who was a rich landlord there, provided shelter and a very basic meal twice a day to such poor students as a social service.  The village lad would have his lunch and dinner in that charity meal. Sometimes, for an evening snacks of simple puffed rice and a piece of jaggery, he would walk miles to one of his maternal aunts’ house, barefoot. At that point in his life, sometimes, he did not even have a second pair of clothes. He would dry one part of his ‘Dhoti’, holding it in the air, while the other wet part would be tied around his waist after bath. His only strength to fight with abject poverty was his merit, grit and capacity to work hard. He was good in studies, especially in mathematics, science and English. He would always stand a rank among the first three best boys of his class. One among them was the legendary journalist Sri Vivekananda Mukherjee - the Editor of Jugantar – a Bengali daily from the Amrita Bazar Patrika group 

After he completed his high school, my grandfather’s mother gave him her only saving of 2 rupees and asked him to go to Dhaka - now the capital of Bangladesh. Despite being a simple village woman, she knew her son deserved higher education and progress in life and that was not possible if he stayed back in that backward village. Sadly, she did not live long to see her son succeed.

My grandfather went to Dhaka to his well-to-do maternal aunt’s home, as told by his mother. However, he did not get an honorable and welcoming treatment there. The very next day he just left. He went to Asanullah School of Engineering, now Bangladesh University of Engineering And Technology (BUET), where he wanted to study civil engineering. First few days, looking at his lackluster, poverty-stricken avatar, the guards at the college gate did not allow him to enter the college premises. He refused to go and kept going every day to the college and waited at the entrance. After a few days, the Principal of the college noticed him and asked him what he was doing there. My grandfather told he wanted to get admission in to the new batch of civil engineering. The Principal said, “The session has already started. How will you catch up even if you get admission?” My grandfather said, “I promise you, if you give me a chance, I will be one of the outstanding students of the batch you will be proud of”. Seeing his confidence and his excellent results in the higher secondary examination, the Principal asked him to come next day with a fee of 60 Rupees and assured to do something for him. My grandfather reached the Principal’s office on time next day, but without the admission fees. The Principal said, “I guessed it right, you wouldn’t be able to get the fees. We have a seat, vacated by a student. I have paid your fees. You can join the classes from tomorrow.” Those days there were people like him. He also arranged for his stay at the attic of his own house along with another poor student. The Principal made provision for his food twice a day from the poor student’s fund. My grandfather also got a 3 paisa grant for his breakfast from the rich-distant-relative, back in his neighboring village, where he attended high school.  However, he had to eat sitting at one corner of the charpoi, kept beside the table of the manager of the college canteen. He was not allowed to sit and eat at the main hall where other students from well-to-do families would sit and eat.

After completing his  3 years’ degree in civil engineering from Asanullah School of Engineering in Dhaka, finally my grandfather joined the railways (Assam Bengal Railways), the biggest industry in the British ruled, pre-independence India (The British government took measures for developing services such as rail, mostly as private enterprise and roads, electric telegraph and post etc in India primarily in the interest of expanding the export trade yielding dividends to British economy and for better governance.) Many important railroads, bridges and stations were built during my grandfather’s tenure in the eastern parts of undivided India. The bridge over Meghna river called Bhairab Railway Bridge was one such project, that was made under his supervision.

He retired as the Divisional Engineer of Sealdah division in Eastern Railway.

My grandfather migrated to this part of India much before the partition due to his job postings. His only younger brother, joined the freedom movement after his graduation in Science. He supported  famous Anushilan Samiti - a Bengali Indian organisation that existed in the first quarter of the twentieth century, and propounded revolutionary violence as the means for ending British rule in India. Consequently, he had to go to jail. When he came out of jail, it was difficult for him to get any government job in the pre-independence India. He tried his hands at a few business ventures such as selling bananas at the local market at a place called Akhaura  in Chittagong, where my grandfather was posted then, to supplying printing paper. Nobody bought a single banana from him. The locals knew he was a graduate and a freedom fighter and looked up to him with reverence. They considered buying banana from him no less than a sin as it would be an act of insult to a person of his caliber; they feared straight deportation to hell if they buy bananas from him. So, he had to abandon the idea of selling fruits and make a business out of it. When he started a business as a supplier of printing paper, the children in the family consumed the entire opening stock of rims after rims of paper by writing, drawing, making boats and paper balls to their hearts’ content Hence, he had to give up that business idea too.  Finally, my grandfather helped him to get work in the railway contract jobs. He also helped him with a seed capital to start his own business in the railways. My grandfather’s brother, my father’s uncle, started along with one of his friends the business of painting the railway posts. They both used to carry the ladders on their shoulders and went on painting the posts themselves. While he was working hard in the initial stage of his business as a railway contractor, my grandfather got him married; for a few years he took care of his wife and children under his custody till his younger brother was established and capable of taking care of them on his own. My grandfather also looked after his four sisters, got them married.  He had to take care of his nephews’ and nieces’ (sisters’ children) studies and marriages too. He helped them in their financial crisis. My grandfather was a salaried man and had started life from zero. But that did not deter him from doing his duty towards his family, brother and sisters.

My father’s uncle, my grandfather’s younger brother, whom I introduced above, was an enterprising, idealistic and hard-working man. He was a freedom-fighter. After lot of struggle, finally, he managed to establish a successful business of a saw-mill in Assam, along with a working partner, where the wooden planks of railway tracks were manufactured.  After my grandfather retired, he took care of the extended family.  He always stood by his elder brother to help him in his duties. My father gives his uncle all the credit for the turnaround in his life from an almost below-average student to an excellent student, ranking first in the class and scoring the highest in mathematics. His uncle took him under his wings, as his father was too busy a man to take care of his studies. That was the level of dedication, unconditional love and duty towards family members those days of these people. It was not vitiated yet by internal complexes, competitions, jealousy and other vices. Both the brothers, like many others of their generation, laid the foundation of the great Indian joint family together in the post–independence era of India.  

I am proud of these two men. Due to their vision, hardship, enterprise and dedication, the entire family got saved from perishing in poverty, lack of education and the huge upheaval during partition of India.

Joint family structure of family, gradually broke down into decentralized, nuclear families – either scattered all over the world or in the same address, due to many socio-economic changes in our lives.  But I am sad that we, the next two generations of these two great men, could not retain and respect, at least their idea of bonding, sharing and supporting, behind the foundation that they laid for their family. We, the current members of the extended families of the two brothers, do not almost meet, talk, celebrate, connect, relate or share, even if we live in the same cities or whenever we visit there, despite having tools to reach out such as phones, cars and social media apps. Besides rarely meeting on random social occasions on invitation, we get to know each other or see each other only on Facebook pages or Instagram through the ‘best foot forward’ part of us; our interaction has become limited to “likes” or stray comments. Mental walls have come up in the rest of the gaps, in the absence of proper personal interaction. 

We could have carry forwarded and developed the concept beautifully, in our times, in our context and culture, in our way, - a new way, while maintaining our individuality and present-day need for space and boundaries. We could have developed some special family festivals and traditions where we all could have come together after regular intervals and shared bonhomie. 

We have not created stories, traditions, festivals and memories about our extended families currently alive, that our children and future generations would feel proud about and learn life lessons from.  We have almost become strangers. We would perhaps leave behind a lonely, self-absorbed, detached generation to figure out life in their pseudo-global world, if they do not create a new world order and family structure for themselves. Because we are not giving them one.

TRUE STORY OF The Parable of the Prodigal Son.

JESUS SAID «

« Listen. It is a beautiful parable that will guide you with its light in many cases.

A man had two sons. The elder was a serious, affectionate, obedient worker. The younger was more intelligent than his brother who was actually somewhat dull and preferred to be guided rather than tire himself taking decisions by himself, but he was also rebellious, absent-minded, fond of luxury, pleasure loving, a squanderer and idle. Intelligence is a great gift of God. But it is a gift to be used wisely. Otherwise it is like certain medicines that, when taken in the wrong way, kill instead of curing. His father, as it was his right and duty, used to recall him to a more sensible life. But it was all in vain, the only result was that he answered back and became more obstinate in his wicked ideas.

Finally one day, after a fiercer quarrel, the younger son said: "Give me my part of the estate. So I will no longer hear your reproaches and my brother's complaints. Let each have his own and no more about it". "Be careful" replied the father, "because you will soon be ruined. What will you do then? Consider that I will not be unfair to favor you and I will not take a farthing off your brother to give it to you". "I will not ask you for anything. You may be sure. Give me my part".

The father had the estate and valuables assessed, and since money and jewels were worth as much as the real estate, he gave the elder brother the fields and vineyards, the herds and olivetrees, and the younger one the money and jewels, which the young man changed immediately into money. And after doing that in a few days, he went to a distant country where he lived like a lord, squandering all his money on a life of debauchery, making people believe that he was the son of a king, because he was ashamed to admit that he was a countryman and thus he disowned his father. Banquets, friends, women, robes, wines, games… he led a loose life. He soon saw that his money was coming to an end and that poverty was in sight. And to make matters worse, the country experienced a severe famine, which compelled him to spend his last penny. He would have liked to go back to his father. But he was proud and decided not to. So he went to a wealthy man of the country, a friend of his in his happy days, and he begged him saying: "Take me among your servants, remembering the days when you enjoyed my wealth". See how foolish man is! He prefers the lash of a master rather than say to his father: "Forgive me. I made a mistake!". The young man had learned many useless things with his bright intelligence, but he did not want to learn the saying of Ecclesiasticus: "How ill-famed is he who deserts his father and how accursed of the Lord is whoever angers his mother". He was intelligent, but not wise.

The man to whom he had applied, in exchange for the grand time he had enjoyed with the foolish young man, sent him to look after his pigs, because it was a pagan country and there were many pigs. So he was sent to pasture the herds of pigs in the farm. Filthy, in rags, stinking and starving - food in fact was scarce for all the servants and particularly for the lowest ones and he, a foreign ridiculed herdsman of pigs was considered such - he saw the pigs glut themselves with acorns and sighed: "I wish I could fill my stomach with this fruit! But they are too bitter! Not even starvation can make them palatable". And he wept remembering the sumptuous banquets when he acted the "grand seigneur" only a short while before, laughing, singing, dancing… and then he would think of the honest substantial meals at his far away home, of the portions his father used to make impartially for everybody, keeping for himself the smallest one, happy to see the healthy appetite of his sons… and he remembered the helpings his just father gave the servants and he sighed: "My father's servants, even the lowest, have plenty bread… and I am dying here of starvation… A long meditation, a long struggle to subdue his pride…

At last the day came, when his humility and wisdom revived and he got up and said: "I will go back to my father! This pride of mine is silly, as it deprives me of my freedom. And why? Why should I suffer in my body and even more in my heart when I can be forgiven and receive comfort? I will go back to my father. That is settled. And what shall I say to him? What has matured in my heart here, in this abjection, in this filth, suffering the pangs of hunger! I will say to him: 'Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you, I am no longer worthy of being called your son; treat me therefore as the least of your servants, but bear me to stay under your roof. That I may see you moving about… ' I cannot say to him: '… because I love you'. He would not believe me. But my behaviour will tell him and he will understand and before dying he will bless me once again… Oh! I hope so. Because my father loves me". And when he went back to town in the evening he gave up his job and begging along the way he went back home. And he saw his father's fields… and the house… and his father superintending the work… he was old, emaciated by grief but always kind and good… The guilty son seeing that ruin caused by him stopped frightened… but the father, looking round, saw him and ran to meet him, because he was still far away. And when he reached him, he threw his arms round his neck and kissed him. Only the father had recognised his son in the dejected beggar and he was the only one to be moved with love.

The son, clasped in his father's arms, with his head resting on his father's shoulder, whispered sobbing: "Father, let me throw myself at your feet". "No, son! Not at my feet. Rest on my heart, which has suffered so much because of your absence, and now needs to revive feeling your warmth on my chest". And the son, crying louder, said: "Oh! father! I have sinned against Heaven and against you, I am no longer worthy to be called son by you. But allow me to live among your servants, under your roof, seeing you, eating your bread, serving you, and you will be the breath of my life. Every time I take a morsel of bread, every time you breathe, my heart, which is so corrupt, will change and I will become honest… "

But the father, embracing him all the time, led him towards the servants, who had gathered together watching in the distance and he said to them: "Quick, bring here the best robe, and basins of scented water, and wash him, spray him with scents, clothe him, put new sandals on his feet and a ring on his finger. Bring a fattened calf and kill it. And prepare a banquet. Because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life, he was lost and has been found. Now I want him to find once again the innocent love of a child, and my love and the celebration of the household for his return must give it to him. He must realise that he is always my dear last-born child, as he was in his childhood a long time ago, when he used to toddle beside me making me happy with his smile and his prattling". And the servants did so.

The elder son was out in the country and he did not know anything until his return. Coming towards the house in the evening, he saw that it was brightly lighted and he heard the sound of instruments and dancing coming from it. He called a servant who was bustling about and asked him: "What is happening?". And the servant replied: "Your brother has come back! Your father had the fattened calf killed because his son has come back to him safe and cured of his wickedness and he ordered a celebration. They are only waiting for you to start". But the first-born was angry because he thought that such a feast for his younger brother was unfair, as he was not only younger, but had been also wicked. And he did not want to go in, on the contrary he was about to walk away from the house.

But the father, informed of the situation, ran out and reached him and endeavoured to convince him, begging him not to spoil his joy. The elder brother replied to his father: "And you expect me not to be upset? You are unfair to your first-born and you hold him in contempt. I have served you since I was able to work, and I have done that for many years. I have never disobeyed an order of yours, not even a simple desire. I have always been near you, and I have loved you for two, to make you recover from the wound inflicted on you by my brother. And you have not given me even a lamb to have a feast with my friends. You are now honouring my brother and you have killed the best calf for him, who offended and abandoned you, and has been a lazy spendthrift, and has now come back because he was driven by starvation. It is really worth while being a hard honest worker! You should not have done that to me".

The father then, clasping him to his heart, said: "Son! Can you believe that I do not love you, because I do not celebrate your behaviour? Your deeds are holy by themselves, and the world praises you because of them. Your brother, instead, needs to be rehabilitated both in the eyes of the world and in his own. And do you think that I do not love you because I give you no visible prize? But day and night, in every moment of my life, you are present to my heart, and I bless you every moment. You have the continuous reward of being always with me, and what is mine is yours. But it was fair to have a feast, a celebration for your brother who was dead and has come back to good life, was lost and has come back to our love". And the first-born yielded to his father's desire.

And that, My friends, is what happens in the House of the Father. And whoever feels that he is like the younger son of the parable, must believe that if he imitates him in going to the Father, the Father will say to him: "Not at My feet. But rest on My heart, which has suffered because of your absence and is now happy because you have come back". Who is in the situation of the first-born and without any fault against the Father, must not be jealous of the Father's joy, but must take part in it and love the redeemed brother.

That is all. You, John of Endor and you, Lazarus, please remain here. The others can go and set the tables. We shall not be long. » They all withdraw. When Jesus, Lazarus and John are alone, Jesus says to them: « That is what will happen to the dear soul you are awaiting, Lazarus, and that is what is happening to yours, John. God's bounty has no limit… »

… The apostles, together with Mary and the women, go towards the house, preceded by Marjiam who runs ahead frisking. But he soon comes back and takes Mary by the hand saying to Her: « Come with me. I have something to tell you, when we are alone. » And Mary follows him. They turn towards a well, situated in a corner of the little yard, and completely covered by a thick bower that from the ground climbs up towards the terrace forming an arch. Behind it, there is the Iscariot.

« Judas, what do you want? Go, Marjiam… Speak. What do you want? »

« I am guilty… I dare not go to the Master or face my companions… Help me… »

« I will help you. But do you not consider how much grief you cause? My Son wept because of you. And your companions suffered. But come. No one will say anything to you. And, if you can, do not commit the same sins again. It is shameful for a man and a sacrilege against the Word of God. »

« And will You forgive me, Mother? »

« I? I count for nothing as far as you are concerned, since you think you are so great. I am the least of the servants of the Lord. How can you worry about Me, if you feel no pity for My Son? »

« Because I have a mother as well, and if You forgive me, I will feel as if she did, too. »

« She does not know about this fault of yours. »

« But she made me swear I would be good to the Master. I am a perjurer. I can feel the soul of my mother reproaching me. »

« You feel that, do you? But do you not feel the lament and the reproach of the Father and of His Word? You are disgraceful, Judas! You cause grief to yourself and to those who love you. »

Mary is very grave and sad. She speaks without bitterness but with much gravity. Judas weeps.

« Do not weep. Improve yourself. Come » and She takes him by the hand and enters the kitchen.

Everybody is filled with astonishment. But Mary wards off any possible uncharitable remark. She says: « Judas has come back. Behave as the first-born did after his father's speech. John, go and tell Jesus. »

John of Zebedee runs away. Silence hangs heavy on the kitchen… Then Judas says: « Forgive me, all of you, and you, Simon, first of all. Your heart is so paternal. And I am an orphan, too. »

« Yes, I forgive you. Please, say no more about it. We are brothers… and I do not like these ups and downs of forgiveness and relapses. They humiliate both the offender and the forgiver. Here is Jesus. Go to Him. That's all. »

Judas goes away and Peter, not being able to do anything else, starts chopping wood with keen impetuosity…

Speech: Foreign Secretary speech at the British Chamber of Commerce

Good afternoon everybody, it is absolutely fantastic to be here in front of an audience of people who are dynamic, energetic, can do, and actually get out there make and sell things. Because sometimes I get a bit impatient when I hear people droning and moaning about the state of the world, and I hear them warn that the sky is about to fall on our heads, and I feel like saying come off it sunshine.

Every generation hears its prognostications of gloom, and yet look at us today. We are living longer than ever before. We are healthier than ever before. The air quality in London is getting better steadily, thanks to decisive action by the previous mayor, and for all I know by the current mayor.

Thanks to the miracles of commerce, the energies and enterprise of everybody in this room, we have access to technological comforts, some of which you’re using to take pictures of me or indeed consult in the hope of something more interesting. We have access to comforts that previous generations would have found absolutely mind boggling, and it is entirely thanks to free market capitalism that our food is better than ever before, and you are unbelievably full of beans and healthy.

And I am sure you all ate fruit for breakfast. Can you cast your mind back to breakfast? You’re all so young and thrusting that you probably don’t remember the time that I do, when pineapples came only in a tin with a gloopy syrup. And pineapples were thought so generally exotic 100 years ago that architects would place them as finials on the top of the top of railings or pillars or other architectural features. There are plenty of examples of those fruits outside this room on the streets of Westminster.

But today there is a force that brings the pineapple, the papaya, the guava and the melon to London every night on the 10.30 flight from Accra in Ghana. And actually I caught that flight myself in the last couple of weeks, I literally physically sat on top of 13 tonnes of chilled fruit, packed and ready to be distributed to the stalls of London, and I can tell you authoritatively that the same sliced fresh pineapple, retailing at rather different prices depending on whether it is going to Aldi or to Waitrose, is turning up in our shops the following morning. There’s nothing wrong with the differential in prices, by the way, it’s called branding isn’t it?

And what is the benign force of the wind beneath the wings of that plane? What’s allowing that to happen? Globalisation.

And today globalisation is a word that is acquiring negative overtones and it’s become a sort of taboo word in the political lexicon. And so this afternoon I want to reclaim globalisation. I want to show you all that this is a positive force and that a global Britain is a prosperous Britain. And the agenda of the Prime Minister Theresa May and the government is a cause that is more important than ever. Because trade for the first time in decades is declining as a proportion of the growth of global GDP. And for the first time we are seeing protectionist measures on the rise across the world. And as everybody knows and has been endlessly discussed, we are seeing a series of related but by no means identical political events, in which populations are said to be rebelling, against what had been seen as a settled consensus.

And people feel that they aren’t getting a fair suck of the sauce bottle, as they say in Australia, the wealth gap is growing. And so there’s been a temptation amongst some politicians to respond in what I think is the wrong way, by hauling up the drawbridge and to call time on globalisation. And I think that instinct is profoundly wrong and it makes no economic sense as I’m sure everybody in this room today understands.

Those pineapples are good business for Africa, and indeed the British company that exports them to London is the single biggest private sector employer in Ghana. It’s putting food on the tables of some of the poorest families in the continent of Africa. And those pineapples are good for this country too, good for the supermarkets that sell at whatever price they determine. Good for the hauliers that distribute them, the airlines that carry them that might not otherwise have much in their in their holds. Good indeed I might say for every parent who has been unable to persuade their kids to eat pizza unless it has been profaned with pineapple chunks as they now so often are.

History teaches us, and all the economic evidence shows, if we close our markets, if we put up barriers, then we raise the costs for those who can least afford it. We make our industries uncompetitive. We entrench complacency. We discourage investment in capital and technology. We stifle innovation. And of course we breed suspicion and mistrust between nations. And we should never forget the old truism that when goods and services no longer cross borders, then troops and tanks do so instead.

And by rebelling against globalisation we endanger a system that has been associated with 70 years of post-war peace and prosperity, and that has allowed billions to lift themselves out of penury by toil and enterprise. Back in 1990, 37% of humanity lived in absolute poverty. Today, thanks to globalisation, that figure is less than 10%, and that figure is all the more stunning when you remember that over the same period the world’s population grew by 1.8 billion people. And it’s no coincidence that this astonishing success of the global economy coincided with a period in history of unparalleled tearing down of trade barriers. You’ll remember with the completion of the Uruguay round and all that followed.

We are determined to bring back that moment, that inspiration. And under this government led by Theresa May, Britain is preparing once again to be the leading campaigner for that liberating and enriching force. And let me be absolutely clear, as I know you’ll want to ask questions about it afterwards. We can be that great free trading nation again. And we can be ever more internationalist, and indeed we can be ever more European.

But we can change our relationship with the EU from one of membership, to one of friendship and partnership. And to use that opportunity to create a regulatory environment that members of the British Chambers of Commerce have been crying out for, for decades, that precisely suits the needs of British business and commerce, of people in this room. And to be able, for the first time in 44 years, as I say, to fulfil the Prime Minister’s vision, and be the world’s leading campaigner for free trade. Because I don’t want a rerun some of the old arguments. Let me remind you that for all of this period of 44 years of membership, we consecrated our trade policy entirely to the EU Commission. An excellent body of men and women. But it is a melancholy fact that today Britain represents 20% of EU GDP, 12% of the population and yet we have only 3% of the bureaucrats in Brussels. And I’m afraid I can’t pretend to you that we’ve been turning it around in the last few years. In the last year, in 2016, the last year leading up to the referendum, only one UK national actually succeeded in passing the concours, the exam for EU services in Brussels. And with all due respect, how can those bodies expect to have the necessary understanding of the needs of UK business and commerce to do the deals that we need? So now we need to work with our friends and our partners to ensure that we have a strong EU and a strong UK, connected by a fantastic free trade deal, and one that is manifestly in the interests of both sides, and you will be familiar with the arguments there.

There’s a massive net balance of trade in favour of our friends and partners on the other side of the channel. We are not only the biggest single consumers of German cars but also of course of French champagne. And as I never tire of telling you, Italian prosecco as well. We are pro-secco and by no means anti-pasti. We’re absolutely relentless in our consumption of EU products and that will continue. But we will we remain supportive of the EU in all the other important respects in which the UK is currently supportive: on defence cooperation, on foreign policy coordination, on counter-terrorism, on intelligence sharing, rather as a flying buttress supports a cathedral. And it is simultaneously our task, and the historic task of global Britain, to create the conditions for free trade and prosperity, not just in Europe but across the world. And above all that means global security the bedrock of economic success.

You’ll have seen the Prime Minister’s recent successful trip to Washington where she and President Trump reaffirmed their 100% commitment to NATO. It means we have a vital interest in freedom of navigation and open shipping lanes. And that is why we will shortly have two giant aircraft carriers, 70,000 tons apiece, capable of projecting British power worldwide - including through the Malacca Straits, which channel over 25% of global trade. It means helping to fight corruption and bad governance across the world. Because that is the way we encourage companies to invest in countries like Ghana and to help drive those populations up the value chain. And my point to you this morning about global Britain is that it’s right for Britain too. As other nations rise out of poverty and become more prosperous, so they buy more goods.

And of course it’s right that we spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid, but it’s also a way of spurring on the growth of our export markets. And I can tell you of all the things that I’ve seen in my time as Foreign Secretary, one of the most moving things has been the way we are helping kids to go to school in some of the toughest environments in the world. And we are helping literally millions of girls to be educated in the Punjab. Six million are being supported through a DFID program. Everybody in this room should be incredibly proud of what we are doing. But it’s also a massive benefit not just to the people in that part of Pakistan. It means that you promote economic growth, you reduce infant mortality, child marriage, help to contain a rising population and drive up prosperity. But that support is also good for our country as well.

I was in the classroom, I asked the girls, I said who’s your favourite author? And what do you think they said? That’s right. Congratulations to the front row for paying attention. They all as one virtually shouted out J.K. Rowling. I then asked them various other questions to which I’m sure you all know the answers about who is the headmaster and so on and so forth, and they all knew that stuff. I hope I’m not being vulgar if I say that more sales of Harry Potter worldwide mean more business for UK publishing. Don’t they? And I hope it’s not too crude to say that means more jobs for people in this city, indeed more probably for all I know, more publishers lunches in Soho. I’m not saying that you can draw a straight line from an overflowing classroom in the Punjab to an overflowing restaurant in Dean Street, but the connection is there.

Nor by the way am I saying that the UK can solve all the world’s problems. Certainly not on our own, but we can and we do make a huge difference. And we set a moral and intellectual lead for others to follow, because there is another feature of the UK which I think people sometimes forget. And that is that Britain is the most global of all the developed economies. You know there are six million Brits, one in ten of the British population who currently live and work, who are permanently resident, abroad. I don’t know – perhaps it’s the legacy of Empire, or some strange wanderlust – but whatever the cause, Britain has a bigger diaspora as a proportion of our population, than any other large rich nation. They’re bankers and diplomats and peacekeepers and aid workers scientists and ski instructors and oilmen and teachers, snooker players, movie stars, rock musicians, artists, poets, water slide testers chicken-sexers, and for all I know perhaps the odd pirate and scoundrel as well. But their presence means that Britain is more plugged in to events in distant countries than any other nation of our size and wealth.

And my point to you this afternoon is that historic global quality of Britain linked umbilically not just to our friends and partners in Europe, but also to the 93% of the world that do not live in the European Union – shortly to be 94 % of course. That global quality of the UK is a fantastic benefit and potential future economic benefit to our country, and our task obviously is to ensure that the British people are ready to take advantage of the opportunities that are opening up. We have a government determined to make sure that Britain works for everyone, to ensure that everyone feels the benefit of our economic success and we’re concentrating on skills on education, extending the ladder of opportunity to kids who have been failed by previous reforms. We’re seeing the biggest program of infrastructure investment for more than a century: nuclear power stations, cross rail, high speed rail and HS2. We’re finally getting to grips our aviation crisis so that we come up with the right idea, in the wrong place in my in my view, but nonetheless we’re making progress. And I know that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, is determined to keep taxes low and the business environment as friendly as possible.

I think we have every reason as a nation to be confident. Many of you were wise enough not to believe those pre-referendum forecasts of economic calamity and since June 23rd the sky has obstinately failed to fall in.

The IMF predicts we will have the fastest growing economy for 2016. We have the fastest G7 economy although that didn’t last, with slightly changed figures. Like the Oscar ceremony, Germany seem to have scooped it for the time being, but we we’re right up there and the investment continues to flood in. Huge multi billion pound investments into our country. And of course we are getting the export ball back over the net. Who’d have thought this 20 years ago? Thanks to the efforts of people in this room we have a £1.1 billion trade surplus with, guess where? South Korea. It’s British cars being sold in ever growing quantities to that market. We export tea to China, bikes to Holland, boomerangs to Australia and sand to Saudi Arabia. We do still export wine to Italy and, I’m delighted to say, Nigel Farage to America.

It is the miracle of globalisation combined with British branding genius that means we not only, every night, import pineapples from Ghana but guess what? We take those pineapples and we chemically transform them, and we actually export pineapple jam to America. Can you believe that? Americans. And that’s even before we’ve done a free trade deal. It is an incredible fact that we have a trade surplus running with the United States of more than £30 billion. But they still don’t buy our beef, and indeed they refuse to eat haggis from Scotland so far. I think you’ll agree with me that if they can eat pineapple jam, they can certainly manage haggis.

I want to conclude with this thought: Britain is at its best, and all our history teaches us this, Britain is at its best when were at our most global in our outlook. And in my time as your Foreign Secretary it’s been almost overwhelming to discover that we have links and friends around the world that we have built up for centuries and in some ways and in some places that we have almost forgotten. Not least in those rapidly growing commonwealth economies but also elsewhere.

And of course we remain committed to our European markets, perhaps more so than ever, but we need to think globally again. Because a global Britain is a safer Britain and a more successful Britain. And above all a more prosperous Britain. And the same, in my view, goes for the rest of the world.

from Announcements on GOV.UK http://ift.tt/2lvxUw3 via IFTTT