#and forgiving our small foolish selves
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Don’t hold the younger you to the standards you hold yourself to today. You didn’t know as much. You were in a different headspace, with different things affecting and scaring you, facing challenges that seemed big at the time. Maybe you were even lonelier. What’s important is that you know better now, and you know more now. That’s something to move forward with, not something to curse the past with.
#leaving it be#and forgiving our small foolish selves#the healing (starts here)#growth in the self#comfort kindness family
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Jane Crocker, Roxy Lalonde
Act 6, page 4432-4436
gutsyGumshoe [GG] began bothering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 1:11
GG: Heyyy.
GG: Ahem.
GG: Ro-Lal?
TG: oopos sry
TG: was havin important chats
GG: Oh?
GG: With whom?
TG: w yet anather ineligible fuckin bachelor who elfe i have to talk 2
GG: Yeah.
GG: Um... which one, precisely?
TG: di stri
TG: insmufferable prick mf'r extroariadinnere
TG: *lol wow
TG: *extradinner
TG: *heheh yum
GG: If the chats and surplus dinners were truly important, I wouldn't want to interrupt.
TG: tchhhh
TG: of course not jus the usual bs
TG: chats with u always get precedance anyways
TG: unless this is more of u givin me shit about not believing me on all my sick tru facts
GG: Actually,
GG: That's what I wanted to talk to you about.
TG: i c
TG: go on..........
GG: You see, I was just the target of another assassination attempt.
TG: @@@
TG: fuck*!!!
GG: Two, in fact! One here in the real world, as I attempted to retrieve the mail.
GG: Luckily it was thwarted by a certain cat who shall remain nameless.
TG: hehehe oh man
TG: god cat
TG: bbf
TG: *good
TG: *bff
TG: *no wait
TG: *god wuz right
TG: fuckit
TG: *both spellins r true
GG: But in the process of being rescued from the explosion, I was knocked unconscious.
GG: And in my dream, there was another assassination attempt.
GG: This one I believe was successful!
TG: uhoh
GG: I'm becoming convinced that our "dream selves" are being picked off by violent hooligans.
TG: shit
TG: hooliginas
TG: * ...
TG: * yes
TG: but i think u mean
TG: batterwitch thugs
GG: Perhaps.
GG: The one who accosted me was a knife-wielding lunatic.
GG: And it's reasonable to deduce the same forces were responsible for Jake's death on Prospit as well.
GG: It looks like we are in the clutches of an actual caper. A real life mystery!
GG: Which under different circumstances would be quite exciting.
GG: But the truth is, I think we are all in great danger!
TG: well fuck
TG: i guess its time to take this shit up to RED ALART
TG: to where its been for like fuckin ever jane
GG: Yeah, yeah. :p
GG: But that wasn't all there was to the dream.
GG: Shortly before I was stabbed, I had a rather long gander at Skaia.
TG: a gander u say
GG: Yes.
TG: how good a gander
GG: I would say a pretty substantial gander.
TG: ok
TG: and during this totaly massive gander u snagged
TG: what did you see
GG: I saw things in the clouds.
TG: things
GG: Yes.
GG: Things.
TG: wut things
GG: Things happening in the future, I think.
GG: Many events pertaining to us. All of us, and other people I didn't recognize.
GG: It was a bit overwhelming.
GG: It made me feel small. Insignificant, relative to whatever it is we're about to involve ourselves with.
GG: And honestly...
GG: It made me feel pretty foolish too.
TG: foolish
TG: why foofish
TG: *sdjhf
GG: I began to wonder why I ever had the audacity to think I know much of anything about the world we live in or the journey we're about to take.
GG: Or to think I could ever rule anything out.
GG: I have a feeling that whatever I saw, it means you've been telling the truth all along.
GG: About everything.
GG: And I'm starting to feel like a complete idiot for doubting you.
TG: aw man :(
GG: I've been one great big horse's caboose, and I think you're owed an apology.
GG: Do you think you can forgive me?
TG: jane
TG: damn
TG: ur makin me feel like shit here
GG: Why?
TG: uuuun
TG: eh no reason
TG: just uh
TG: hey did u dl the game file i sent yet
GG: I did.
GG: And at this point, I guess I have no choice but to use it. I guess you were a step ahead of me yet again.
TG: why
GG: Because the one in the mail detonated in my most recent assassination attempt.
TG: WHAT
TG: of fuck those HACKS
TG: the old explobing game trick woh would stoup to such lowbrow shegnannagings like that
TG: *somany sweet typos
GG: :B
TG: that witch just mafes me FUCKINK FRUIOUS sometites
GG: Hoo hoo! The tactic was quite underhanded, yes.
TG: yeaaah
TG: uh so
TG: what were we talking about again
TG: soory im just worked up ovr it
GG: I don't blame you.
GG: Where we were, by my estimation, was a place wherein I was about to awkwardly attempt to swallow a helping of humble pie.
GG: To somehow make it up to you for my years of stubborn mistrust.
TG: hey jane
TG: wasnt that a bunch a splip infinitives...
GG: Hm?
TG: *split
TG: to awkwardly attemt
TG: to somehow make it up !
GG: Oh!!!
TG: lul so busted
GG: Oh gosh, what a doofus.
GG: You see?? I clearly don't have all the answers!
GG: I really had some nerve challenging anyone, on practically any subject.
TG: dont beat urself up too bad we both know that rule is bullshit anyway
TG: you hold yourself to too high a standard and those standards kinda leak out and start gettin applied to other people i guess sometimes
TG: you really dont have to apologize janey or eat humble pip or anything all youve got to do is maybe not be such a huge tightass all the time
GG: That's fair. But I would still like to make a gesture.
GG: Even if it's one partially motivated by self interest, seeing as I clearly have much to learn.
TG: ?
GG: I would like to give you a free pass for a day.
GG: It is good for twenty-four solid hours of absolute credulity from your best friend.
TG: ........
GG: :B
TG: ok waitin 4 u to say wtf youre exacly talkin about
GG: It means that starting now, whatever you tell me, I will have to believe you.
GG: I promise!
TG: o rly
GG: Yes.
TG: ooooooooooh................
GG: Um,
GG: Are you there?
GG: Ro???
TG: (shh)
TG: (thisis a dramantic pause calm ur tits)
GG: Oh.
GG: Hmm.
GG: Exactly how dramatic are we talking, here?
GG: Shall I go retrieve a magazine?
TG: RLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??????
GG: Sigh.
TG: kay then
TG: what do you want me 2 say
TG: for you to autobelieve in
GG: Hmm.
GG: Everything, I guess. I'd like to get completely up to speed, if possible.
TG: yeah
TG: but
TG: im pretty sure i already said everything
TG: want me to just
TG: sayit all again.....
GG: Some reiteration certainly couldn't hurt.
GG: But this time I won't work so hard to sift the fantastical from the plausible.
TG: so like
TG: stuffs i said about my mom or
GG: Sure.
TG: ok well fors tarters
TG: she really is the notable author u know
GG: Oh, I know that!
GG: That was always something I had no trouble believing, considering the public documentation even reclusive celebrities receive.
GG: And frankly, the family resemblance is obvious.
TG: yup
GG: Anyway, it would be disingenuous if I found your relation far fetched, since we're all apparently related to noteworthy people. It's just one of those funny things.
TG: true dat
TG: then
TG: what else can i talk about
TG: like her occolt majyyks and stuff
TG: because i dont know a whole lot about the mayjjykks
TG: besides th fact that theyre all real as shit can get
GG: Maybe we should start at the very beginning.
TG: ok
TG: but the begninning was a hecka long time a go
GG: Do you remember around when we first started talking?
TG: y
GG: And you claimed you were the one making my pumpkins disappear?
TG: hahAHA
TG: *aha
TG: y :3
GG: You later proceeded to try to prove to me that what you were saying was true.
GG: But none of your attempts thereafter would ever bear any fruit, pardon the pun.
TG: k but it aint pardoned because a pumpkin aint even a fruit
TG: its a big orange porch thing for holloween numbnuts
GG: Yes, I know what pumpkins are. It was a joke, silly.
GG: What I'm trying to say is, in thinking back to those days, when you couldn't verify your claims, it made me think the whole thing was a big ruse.
GG: And I think this unfortunately began a pattern of mistrust. It was always hard to rule out the possibility that you could be joking about other things as well.
TG: yeah
TG: but its not my fault i mean appeafrification tech is notoriously unreliable
TG: remember
TG: i xplained this
TG: i cant just always appearify stuff from you any time i want
TG: i can only take stuff im "allowed" 2 which is pmuch random
TG: like stuff that by takin id be messing up the time line cause that stuff is supposed to be there and serve some funciton it hasnt served yet
TG: so most of the time if i try all i get is slime on my end
TG: but pumpins 4 some reason are a lil easier to take i dunno why
TG: like they are specifically and arbitrorily unhinged from spacetime
TG: is spooooko
TG: *ky
GG: I couldn't begin to explain the science behind such a technology either.
GG: But I guess the important thing is, regardless of how or why it works, this is a story you continue to stand by?
GG: That is, you are still taking credit for the mysterious disappearance of all those pumpkins I grew years ago?
TG: f yeah
TG: i so gonked your gaurds jane
GG: ...
GG: Did you gank them when my gourd was down?
TG: * yes
TG: * yes i did exectly that
TG: snatched ur patch sucka!!!!!!
TG: hehe
GG: Very well!
GG: Then I believe that is what happened.
GG: That's all I am trying to say here.
TG: so
TG: ok
TG: u believe that
TG: now what??
GG: Now... nothing, really.
GG: You may continue to tell me anything you would like with the confidence that I won't doubt you.
GG: So by all means, go ahead!
TG: ok gotit
TG: so jane
TG: whas tit feel like 2 get stabbed by a bab guy
GG: Oh, come on!
TG: huh
GG: That is a question!
TG: yeah so
GG: It's not any sort of revelation, or statement for me to take at face value.
GG: Dadburn it. This isn't that difficult!
GG: And for the record, it's not great.
TG: whats not
GG: GETTING STABBED BY A BAD GUY. IT ISN'T ALL THAT PEACHY.
TG: yeah i bet
TG: musta suuuucked
TG: or
TG: dream sucked idk
GG: So, you're not in the mood to tell me things?
TG: no i am
TG: im psyched about u wanting to believe me and all
TG: but part of me still feels like i should prove it
TG: like i tried to once
TG: it was just frustratin i mean im a sciestist i should be able 2 prove my shit
TG: like
TG: subject my claims to the fuckin madrigogs
GG: Um...
GG: Madrigogs?
TG: *mad rigors
TG: u know what i mean???
GG: Yeah, I understand.
TG: i mean trust between friends is sweet and everything but i dont know if i wanta be the repipient of like a butt load of pity believins
GG: It's not about pity!
GG: It's more like a gesture I'm trying to make.
GG: Or maybe that's not quite right.
GG: It has more to do with setting things right for myself than making it up to you.
GG: Does that make sense?
TG: .............
GG: Shoot, I'm doing such a terrible job explaining this! :(
TG: (patiently sips bev rage)
GG: The bottom line is, I WANT to believe the things you say now.
GG: That's all you need to know!
TG: ok thats good
TG: i want that 2 buuuuuuut
TG: i still wanna prove it irregardlessly!!!!!!!`
GG: *Shudders uncontrollably at "word" usage.*
TG: whoops sry
TG: * still WANT TO prove it irregaurdlesally
TG: ^ all fixed tght as fuck
TG: so u down for one last try
GG: Sure!
TG: k lets get busay
TG: what you want 2c me disappearify
GG: I don't know.
GG: The baking chest, maybe?
TG: too big
TG: i got size restrictions here
TG: bigger stuff takes huge amount sof power to swipe
TG: so this gizmo i have has a built in size cap
TG: like somethin as big as you for insance
TG: i cant take
TG: believe me ive triiiied
GG: D'aw.
GG: That's sweet of you, I guess?
TG: was totes sweet of me to try and steal you for the hangouts but it dint work becuse of BUULBSHIT
TG: but i can take stuff somewhat smaller
GG: What are the restrictions?
TG: just dump your shit on the floor
TG: tell me everything thats there
GG: Well, what immediately catches my attention is this enormous book.
GG: I wonder how it squares with your size restriction?
TG: wut book
GG: My Unabridged Sassacre's!
GG: It's a very rare edition, and a precious family heirloom, so I don't know if it would make an ideal candidate for the journey.
TG: no no r u kidding that shit is perfect
TG: should be just the right size like big but just barkley not too big
GG: But what if it gets damaged!
TG: pshhhhh itll be set fire
GG: Oh! Silly me, what was I even worried about!
TG: errr
TG: ahahaha man
TG: * sent
TG: ** fine
GG: That wasn't even a Freudian slip.
GG: Doctor Freud just tripped over an errant phallus, tumbled down a flight of stairs, and broke his neck.
GG: And then his cigar exploded comically in his face.
TG: ffffFROLOFL
TG: jane ur funy
TG: (omg still lolig @ that word boner i made ooomg)
GG: It was spectacular.
TG: but 4 real i wont set ur fuckin joke book on fire jane
TG: it doesnt even do that even if it goes the worst kinds of wrog
GG: Couldn't we send Wise Guy instead?
GG: At least it can be easily replaced.
TG: jane
GG: ?
TG: jaaanae
GG: HM??
TG: FUCK wise guy
TG: ist would be SO LAME ass a giguinea pig book
TG: goddam who m i kidding i dont even no how to spell giguinea pig whilst sober
TG: coud be sober as a churchchrist and lookat it..... giunae.... guinea... idk shit looks intrinsnically fucked typographically speakin
TG: sooo FUCK that wrod and FUCK those parcicultar pigs
GG: No, I reject your proposal that we "fuck" Wise Guy, whatever that actually means, or for that matter, the spelling of any adorable rodents named after African nations.
TG: jane
TG: are u being a tightass again
GG: I don't... think so?
TG: we talked about this
GG: About what?
TG: about you benig a tightass
GG: I am not being a tightass!
TG: janey
TG: it seems 2 me
TG: that there is a (MATHS) % chance of you bein a huge tightass
TG: are u bein a huge tightass on me jane
GG: Oh god dammit.
GG: Take the book! What do I care!!!
TG: yessss thast the spirpit
TG: now u are believin w petrol
GG: I fail to see what offering up a priceless book for your wildly capricious science experiment has to do with my resolution to be less stingy with my beliefs, but alright.
TG: haha will u relax abt the book
TG: im only just teasing cause theres like practically a 100 percant chance this wont wonk like alwasy
TG: * wort work like always
TG: sooooo
TG: ready/
GG: Yes, let's just get on with it.
GG: It worked!
GG: The book is gone!
TG: oh no
TG: aaaawwwww shit
GG: What is it?
TG: shit shit shitsh it
GG: Did you receive the book?
TG: shoiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
TG: SHITSHITSHITHISTHITSHITSTHI
GG: Don't tell me.
GG: The book is damaged somehow, isn't it?
TG: ffuuuuuuuuuuuk :(
GG: Sigh. Is it at least SOMEWHAT intact?
GG: Or was it completely incinerated in transit?
GG: I just KNEW we should have used Wise Guy. I can't believe this.
TG: dont worry
TG: the book itself is topes fine :*
TG: *:9
TG: *dsjf :(
GG: Oh.
GG: Then what's the problem?
TG: fffff
TG: im so stupid :(
TG: so stupoid so stupud soos tupob :(((
GG: Will you tell me what happened??
TG: gotta go bbl
TG: well talk abt important stuffs l8r
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
TG: ps jane ty 4 believin me
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
TG: OH SHIT
TG: on last thing jane
TG: DO NOT RUN THEFILE I SENT U BEFORE I GET BACK
TG: i need 2
TG: uh
TG: just dont w/o me ok
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
TG: fuuuuuuuuiiiuickl :'(
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]
#homestuck#jane crocker#roxy lalonde#homestuck act 6#page 4432#page 4433#page 4434#page 4435#page 4436#homestuck act 6 act 2
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I decided to write a little ficlet about @self-insert-nonsense Resident Evil Village OC Elise. I hope y’all enjoy
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He did it. The famous Ethan Winters actually did it.
Elise had tried to pull him out of the Dimistrescu estate while he traversed the castle, but her foolish nieces had been chasing him around like chickens without their heads. She had elected to catch him if he managed to make it outside.
She was heavily regretting her decision.
Elise watched as the beastly form of her sister, a form she never knew existed, smash its way out of the castle to pursue the man. She tried to climb up the walls to stop either one of them from killing each other. That plan failed as Ethan fired his last sniper shot into the once-powerful Alcina Dimistrescu’s head, sending them both crashing down from the tower they were standing on and landing on the stone bottom. The sixth member of the strange Cadou bearing family waited until the Winters man fled the scene to see if what she had witnessed was true.
“Sister?” she muttered quietly, stepping over the broken stone. “...Sister? Lady Dimistrescu? ...ALCINA!”
The mixture of dust and its crystalline counterpart cemented her worse fears. Her older sister, the vampiric lord, Alcina Dimistrescu, laid dead. She froze only for a moment before rushing to search the rest of the now eerily silent castle, praying to anyone that could hear her pleas that the three Dimistrescu daughters were alive.
First, she found Bela, next Daniela, and finally, Cassandra. After seeing the remains of the last of Alcina’s kin, Elise had to choke back a cry. Her cries were referred to by her lover Heisenburg as Banshee Shrieaks, though her brother Moreau called them Siren Screams. Whatever her wails were, the Irish lord had to keep her true feelings buried within as to not alert Ethan that someone remained. Despite her reluctance to show her inner emotions, Elise’s brain was forcing her to remember every detail she had in regards to the Dimistrescu family.
Meeting Alcina for the first time. The tall vampire woman comforting her after being injected and surviving the Cadou parasite. Watching as three little botflies grew into beautiful young ladies. Tea parties, balls, hunts, every moment flooded her senses.
“That bastard!” Elise howled, smashing through a nearby window and climbing down the now empty castle’s walls. Heisenberg’s plan was already going to shit. Her lover wanted the Winters man as an ally for his uprising against Mother Miranda, the Ruler of the Lords, and Elise.
“That creepy crow bitch needs to go down,” he told her after all the lords returned to their domains. His factory wasn’t technically her home, but Heisenburg hated the fact she lived so close to his extremely Miranda-devoted brother’s land so they arranged for her to make the metalsmith’s home hers. “She’ll kill us once Eva is revived. I can feel it.”
Elise had traced circles on his bare sweat covered chest, only partially listening. “So, we’re going to release the army? Just like that? You’re a fool if you think that’ll work.”
“What?” he snarled.
“Let’s see,” Elise began to count on her fingers, “not only is half of that BSAA group knocking on our doorstep, but Captain Boulder-Puncher and his lackeys are hiding in the shadows, and that girl’s father is walking around free. Something you let happened.”
Heisenburg snorted. “All a part of my plan. You’ve heard the rumors about the Baker’s residence, haven’t you? Ethan Winters will aid us. He just needs a little encouragement.”
“I suppose that’s where I come in?”
“You’re the fastest out of the two of us. Besides, you can get near that mega bitch’s castle without being killed on site. That is where you chased him to, right?”
“It’s not like he wasn’t going to go there anyway,” Elise huffed. “If I was a man looking for his kid, a giant fucking castle in the middle of the mountains is the place I go to first.”
Heisenburg had let out a small chuckle, reaching for his cigar. “I guess you’re right.”
Elise stopped him and pulled his face close to her, her eyelids half-closed. “I’m going to need some… Encouragement, if I’m going to be running around after another man.”
Her lover let out one of his famous wolf-like grins. “And I’ll be happy to provide.”
All of that talk was worthless to her now. The Fifth Lord wished she would’ve slapped some sense into her man but it was too late now. Her sister the “mega-bitch” and her daughters were dead and Elise had no clue where their killer might’ve run off to. She crashed landed onto a pile of snow, sending white flakes all over the landscape.
“Impressive form as always, Miss Brighid.”
Elise whipped her head only to be greeted with the smirking face of a monstrously obese man. He had hidden away in a wooden cart and was currently scratching at his stomach mass. Elise bared her teeth at the man. “I don’t need your commentary, Duke, I need answers.”
The Duke didn’t seem phased by the woman’s harsh tone. “Always straight to business, just like your main squeeze, Lord Heisenburg.”
She could feel her eyelid twitching. “Duke.”
“Right, I’m guessing you’re looking for Mr. Winters?”
“Mister Winters?” Elise snarled.
“I treat all my customers with respect, Miss Brighid.”
“He’s a customer!?”
Elise never understood why Mother Miranda allowed this behemoth to roam the village. He held no alliance to anyone and sold to anything that held a purse full of Lei. Even after years sent replicating the files and notes Mother Miranda had on everyone and everything slightly related to the village and her cause, barely anything was written about the strange merchant. The most both Heisenberg and Elise managed to gather was that “The Duke shall be allowed to do his business with little supervision as he provides valuable goods for both the villagers, the Lords, and [Mother Miranda’s] cause”. Regardless of what former feelings she held for The Duke, the current Elise was struggling to not rip his throat out.
“But of course! The man has things to sell and items to purchase for his little journey.” The Duke explained, talking to her as if she were a child who needed her hand held.
“Those items led to my sis- Lady Dimistrecu’s death! She is- She was- Argh!”
Elise buried her fingers into her scalp. Her mind was seemingly whirling and spinning as it struggled to process its surroundings. Her feelings fluctuated from feral-like rage to sheer confusion to inescapable sadness. The Duke noticed and leaned in, his caravan creaking as he tried to look at the distressed woman’s face.
“I see the Cadou is still inflicting its poison into your brain. Are you feeling… What did Lord Heisenberg say… Fragmented? Perhaps I have a salve that can help settle your-”
“Shut up! Just shut up before I-”
The woman couldn’t finish her threat as a burning sensation rose in her throat. She gagged and stumbled backward. Elise managed to angle her head in just a way so the puddle of magma she vomited up didn’t touch herself in any way. Both she and The Duke watched the magma rapidly burned away the snow and dead plant life. Elise returned her gaze to The Duke and noticed the man was grimacing.
“Pardon my crudeness, Miss Brighid, but that was revolting.”
“I don’t take any pleasure either, Duke,” Elise replied, still trying to catch her breath.
“Luckily none of the locals saw that. The rumors about you have grown even nastier as of late. I believe they’ve begun to call you the- forgive my language -the Lady Whore and the Faux-Lord.” The Duke said with a sickeningly sweet smile.
“I know what you are trying to do, lardass!” Elise hissed. “Screw those mortal bastards and their pathetic drivel! They’re all gonna die anyway so what’s the point of trying to piss me off!”
The Duke chuckled. “This is funny. The old Miss Brighid would’ve instantly run to the village to invoke some personal justice against those who soiled her good name.”
“Well the old Miss Brighid didn’t have a killer father running amok, now did she?” Elise ground her teeth. “Speaking of, where is he? Where is the Winters man?”
The Duke leaned back and picked at his teeth with the help of his pinky nail. “I believe Mr. Winters was headed towards Lady Beneviento’s residence.”
Elise’s blood ran cold at that name. Her sister Donna Beneviento didn’t have any of her other siblings’ regenerative powers. She sadly had to rely on the body’s natural healing process and the medicine she crafted from her flowers. If Winters managed to land a clean shot on the silent maiden…
She has Angie and her hallucinogens if anything were to go wrong, she’ll be fine! Elise tried to convince herself. She had seen men who were the pinnacle of mental and physical health turn to sobbing, fragile-minded shells of their former selves due to Donna’s plants. Maybe she could get the jump on Winters instead of the other way around. But that wasn’t a bet she was willing to make.
I’ve already lost four family members, I cannot lose more!
“It hasn’t been a pleasure seeing you, Duke,” Elise glared at the man. Before he could say anything, the Cadou wielder shot off towards the mountains where her sister’s manor lied in wait. The cold nipped at her skin but Elise persisted.
I need to hurry. Screw Karl’s plan, I need to protect my family!
#implied sex#ficlet#major character death#resident evil village spoilers#lady dimitrescu#alcina dimitrescu#karl heisenberg#lord heisenberg#mother miranda#resident evil village#resident evil viii#resident evil 8#donna beneviento#lady beneviento#the duke#resident evil the duke#fanfic#angst
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Love Versus Materialism in Sword Art Online Alicization
*Warning: presumptive spoilers for a future season of Sword Art Online Alicization*
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Lingering the background of Sword Art Online Alicization has been the question of the nature of the soul. Early in the anime, the story established that scientists had narrowed down the soul’s nature to a light-based phenomenon they call a fluctlight. These fluctlights can be produced artificially and contained within computers. Leaving out the sci-fi embellishments, plenty of people today hold views of the human self similar to the one SAO Alicization sets up. There are a variety of theories, but one way or another these views all claim that our minds (or our perception of having minds), our sense of self, is ultimately a physical phenomenon. We are nothing but our bodies — there is no metaphysical or supernatural soul that transcends our bodies. But several aspects of the story contradict the narrative’s initially materialist stance on the soul and suggest it is incorrect to understand the soul in purely physical terms. Volumes 15 and 16 of the Sword Art Online light novels, Alicization Invading and Alicization Exploding, pick up where the anime left off. They effectively continue the discussion about love that began with Eugeo and Quinella, and through that discussion, the narrative pushes back against a materialist perspective on the soul.
The first development of note comes when computer expert Higa explains what happened to Kirito in the Underworld: Kirito had friends who died in the battle with Administrator, and at the time that he finally contacted the outside world, he was beating himself up over those deaths. “In other words, he was attacking his own fluctlight.” Just at that point, a power surge caused the system to act upon Kirito’s self-loathing, which rendered him catatonic within the Underworld (remember, he’s already in a coma in the real world). According to a computer scan, the part of Kirito’s fluctlight that normally contains the sense of self was just a big black hole. As a result, even though the rest of his soul is intact, Kirito was left a prisoner within himself. He’s suffering from something akin to depression, we might say, though taken to a sci-fi extreme: “He cannot process exterior input, and he cannot output his own actions… He might not be aware of who he is…unable to say or do anything…”
Higa then theorizes on how to help Kirito. “He damaged his own soul by excessive self-flagellation. So if someone else provides him with forgiveness…then maybe…” The narrator acknowledges that Higa’s idea is “vague, unscientific.” Higa admits to himself that what he doesn’t know about the soul far outweighs what he does know:
“Was the fluctlight a physical construct? Or was it some kind of conceptual phenomenon that couldn’t be explained with modern science? If the latter, perhaps Kazuto Kirigaya’s wounded and exhausted soul could be healed by some other power that surpassed science. Such as, for example, love.”
While Sword Art Online Alicization previously set us up to believe the fluctlight is a “physical construct,” the anime, at least, hasn’t directly weighed in on the question much. With Higa’s musing, the narrative explicitly raises the question it’s long been asking implicitly. Do humans have an immaterial spirit, or is our sense of self a purely physical phenomenon, something that can explained, quantified, and manipulated by science? The story offers a number of hints that the human mind is something more than science can explain, and that love, in particular, is a science-defying, reality-shaping force.
n response to Higa’s suggestion that Kirito needs love and forgiveness, Asuna volunteers: “I want to go in there and tell Kirito that he did good things. That through all the hardships and sad things that I’m sure happened, he did everything that he could.” She intends to go into Kirito’s world and save him from his own self-hatred by bringing him love. It’s a strikingly messianic development, bringing to mind the Savior who came into our world in order to provide us forgiveness and love and save us from a truly hopeless fate that we brought on ourselves. Later, the narrative adds another messianic parallel to Asuna’s character. It observes, “Her order of priorities had been set in stone years ago. She would commit any sin to protect Kirito–Kazuto Kirigaya. She would accept any punishment.” Of course, Jesus is perfect and didn’t sin in order to save us: “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Pet. 2.22). But he certainly was willing to accept any punishment for our sake: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us,” (Gal. 3.13) and “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5.21). Jesus himself was innocent of sin, but he took on the punishment our sins deserve in order to express his love for us. Similarly, Asuna is willing to suffer, to pay any price, because of her love for, and desire to save, Kirito. She’s no Jesus, but the Christlike echoes ring true. (Of course, one great difference is that Asuna enters the Underworld with a admin account that gives her all the glory and powers of a goddess, while Jesus “emptied himself” and entered our world an ordinary, humble baby (Phil. 2.7).) The entire endeavor of saving Kirito hinges on the soul and love being forces beyond the realm of modern science.
In a somewhat different way, love provides another opportunity to affirm the immaterial nature of the spirit when Alice meets Tiese and Ronie, the swordswomen trainees Kirito and Eugeo had worked with. Alice quickly realizes that Ronie was in love with Kirito. Ronie dismisses the idea, declaring she is unworthy of such of thing. Tiese steps in to explain how Kirito and Eugeo fought to protect them and thereby violated the Taboo Index. She and Ronie believe that if they had been wiser, Kirito and Eugeo would never have ended up getting arrested, and thus Eugeo wouldn’t be dead and Kirito catatonic. Seeing their own actions as the cause of what happened to Kirito and Eugeo, Tiese concludes “We don’t have a right to express any love to them.” When Alice protests that this perspective is wrong, Ronie answers that the villainous aristocrats “treated our bodies like their playthings, and now our dignity has been stained with sin!”
Alice counters that “The body is nothing more than a vessel for the heart,” and that the soul “is the one thing that truly exists.” Within the story, it’s technically true that Alice and the others are souls without bodies — they are artificially created fluctlights that exist within a computer. In real life, however, Christianity holds that humans are unions of body and spirit and that both body and spirit are significant. There can be no such thing as a soul without a body, except for the not-yet-resurrected dead. The greatest testimony to the significance of our bodies is the promise of resurrection. Jesus wasn’t a disembodied spirit — he was raised from the dead bodily. So also the Bible says that we won’t be ghosts floating around heaven: we, too, will be raised from the dead, our bodies and spirits reunited and transformed. Thus, Alice’s dismissal of the body may go too far, even though it’s actually true in the context of the story. But though her statement is faulty in the degree to which it dismisses the importance of the body, underlying Alice’s point is an affirmation that humans have an immaterial soul. We — and Ronie and Tiese — are not defined solely by our bodies.
Alice further argues, “The only one who can determine the nature of the soul is the self… Your body and appearance are entirely dependent on your heart… Nobody can defile your heart.” Her words bring to mind a point Jesus made, after the Jews complained that his disciples neglected to engage in certain hand washing rituals:
“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. …Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? …What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mk. 7.15-23)
Alice thus agrees with Jesus, correctly affirming that what is done to the body cannot defile the soul. The spirit’s independence from bodily defilement also indicates its immaterial nature. Jesus warns that truly corrupting evil arises within the heart, and although Alice expresses it quite a bit differently, she’s makes a similar point: the will of the heart takes precedence over the external and physical. We have the free will to decide what kind of people we will be. In arguing that the girls’ true selves were not defiled by what was done to them, Alice affirms the existence of an immaterial self.
As war begins, a series of incidents involving other Integrity Knights also point to the power of love, and concurrently continue the story’s argument for a dualistic view of the soul. When the story examines Deusolbert Synthesis Seven’s motivation to participate in the war, it looks at the Integrity Knight’s past. It turns out that throughout all his many years as an Integrity Knight, Deusolbert experienced dreams of a memory from before he became an Integrity Knight: “A small, pale hand, so white the skin seemed clear. A simple silver ring that glinted on its finger. The hand brushed his hair, touched his cheek, and shook his shoulder. There was a soft, gentle whisper: “Wake up, dear. It’s morning…” Deusolbert himself had always possessed a ring that matched the one on this mysterious hand of his dreams. After Kirito defeated Quinella, Deusolbert learned the truth about the Administrator and the Integrity Knights, and realized the hand in his dreams must have belonged to a real human, and that its owner is long since dead. Amid his deep grief, Deusolbert still answers the call of the leader of the Integrity Knights:
“He would fight to protect the world in which he and the owner of that little hand had lived, no matter how long ago it had been. In other words, the source of Deusolbert Synthesis Seven’s strength, that which made him capable of holding his ground before the charge of an invading army, was the power of the one emotion that should have been erased from his mind: love.”
This love, immaterial and unscientific though it seems, somehow endured the Administrator’s manipulative powers and goes on to affect the world by giving Deusolbert the strength to fight. And he is not alone in fighting for love.
During the battle, Integrity Knight Dakira Synthesis Twenty-Two sacrifices herself to save her commander, Fanatio, from Sigurosig, chieftain of the giants and one of the leaders of the invading army. As Fanatio processes her comrade’s death, the Integrity Knight thinks to herself about the junior knights she leads:
“She had placed them under her care to train and protect them. She gave them only harsh words of discipline, but they were her beloved brothers and sisters. And now they were protecting her and losing their lives because of it… ‘It will not happen!!’ she swore, to herself, to Sigurosig, to the world. She would not allow more of them to die. She would keep the other three alive, for Dakira’s sake. This determination became a firm Incarnation of Love that surpassed Sigurosig’s churning bloodlust and shot forth from Fanatio’s soul.”
In other words, as Fanatio battles an enraged giant, her love for her junior knights manifests as reality-altering power that turns the tide of the battle at that moment. Once again, the narrative highlights love as a world-changing force linked to the soul. The story never says so, but it’s hard to escape the inference that if love can accomplish these feats, it’s also going to be able to save Kirito.
Finally, there’s the last stand of Integrity Knight Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One. Eldrie cared deeply for his mentor Alice. He respected Alice a great deal, but also wrestled with conflicted feelings of wanting something more than just being her apprentice. He cared about her as more than just a mentor, but Alice didn’t see him in the same light. As such concerns distract him during the battle, he hears a voice:
“Your determination–
–your desire to protect–
–needs no payment in return, does it? Love is not something you ask for. You just give and give and give it, and it never runs out. Isn’t that right…?“
Thinking on this mysterious voice’s words, Eldrie ponders why he got so twisted into knots over wanting Alice’s affection. “What got me so confused?” he asks, “That I didn’t have enough strength? That I couldn’t monopolize her feelings? That I wasn’t able to protect her? What tiny, insignificant things…” This reminder that love doesn’t depend on getting anything in return helps Eldrie realize he can act on his love for Alice even if she doesn’t respond in exactly the way he’d hoped. Eldrie finds the strength to heroically sacrifice himself to protect Alice from a massive enemy attack. Through this epiphany, love once again proves powerful enough to alter the course of the battle.
By the end of volume 16, Kirito still isn’t out of the woods, but the narrative has provided strong reason to hope that love really is powerful enough to help his soul, powerful enough to do what science cannot. I imagine the topic will see further exploration, but even now the story has clearly challenged the science-based explanation of the soul that it previously set up. Fluctlights might be containable within a computer, but the seems to be that the human mind or self ultimately transcends such strictly physical parameters. It’s fascinating to see the story explore such a profound and relevant issue. I’m sure no one gets their view of the soul entirely from reading light novels, but fiction of this sort provides a helpful venue for exploring such a philosophical/scientific question. I look forward to watching how future volumes continue the conversation.
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Sword Art Online can be viewed on Crunchyroll.
#anime#christianity#sword art online#sword art online alicization#light novels#love#materialism#soul#articles#Author: Jeskai Angel
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Book Notes
I really love the School Of Life books, which I think are all written by Alain de Botton, an author who I also love. They are written in a very philosophical, psychological and insightful way. This one is particularly excellent.
Below is what particularly resonated for me...
Our capacity to understand our adult selves may depend on reaching back and making sense of a range of awkward and, at points, traumatic childhood events. We might discover that we were, in the background, deeply furious with, and resentful about, certain people we were meant only to love. We might discover how much ground there was to feel inadequate and guilty on account of the many errors and misjudgements we have made.
PRIVILEGE:
Money cannot on its own be the reliable guarantor of ‘privilege’ that it would, in a way, be simpler to imagine it was. It is true privilege when a parent is on hand to enter imaginatively into a child’s world; when they have the wherewithal to put their own needs aside for a time in order to focus wholeheartedly on the confusions and fears of their offspring; and when they are attuned not just to what a child actually manages to say, but to what they might be aspiring yet struggling to explain. It is privilege when a parent lends us a feeling that they are loyal to us simply on the basis that we exist rather than because of anything extraordinary we have managed to achieve; when they can imbue us with a sense that they will be on our side even if the world has turned against us and can teach us that all humans deserve compassion and understanding despite their errors and compulsions. It is privilege when parents can shield us from the worst of their anxiety and the full conflicts of their adult lives; It is privilege when parents don’t set themselves up as perfect or, by being remote and unavailable, encourage us to idealise or demonise them; it is privilege when parents can bear our rebellions and don’t force us to be preternaturally obedient or good and when they themselves reliably seek to explain, rather than impose, their ideas.
TRIGGERS:
Each of us is the recipient of an emotional inheritance, largely unknown to us, yet enormously influential in determining our day-to-day behaviour – normally in rather negative or complex directions. A lot in our inheritance works against our chances of fulfilment and well-being because its logic does not derive from the present; it involves a repetition of behaviour and expectations that were formed and learned in childhood, typically as the best defence we could cobble together in our immaturity in the face of a situation bigger than we were. Unfortunately, it is as if part of our minds has not realised the change in our external circumstances; it insists on re-enacting the original defensive manoeuvre even in front of people or at moments that don’t warrant or reward it.
RELATIONSHIPS:
Our psychological histories strongly predispose us to fall for certain types of people – and to avoid others. We look for people who in many ways re-create the feelings of love we knew when we were small. This can predispose us to look in adulthood for partners who won’t necessarily simply be kind to us, but who will – most importantly – feel familiar; which can be a subtly but importantly different thing. We may be constrained to look away from prospective candidates because they don’t satisfy our yearning for the pain we associate with love. We may describe someone as ‘not sexy’ or ‘boring’ when in truth we mean: unlikely to make me suffer in the way I need to suffer in order to feel that love is real. Rather than aim for a transformation in the types of people we are attracted to, it may be wiser to try to adjust how we respond and behave around the occasionally difficult characters whom our past mandates that we will find interesting. Many of us are highly likely to end up with somebody with a particularly knotty set of issues which trigger our desires as well as our childlike defensive moves. The answer is not to conclude the relationship, but rather to strive to deal with the compelling challenges with some of the wisdom of which we were not capable when we first encountered these in a parent or caregiver.
SELF-LOVE:
We may well be able to meet conditions, but we can’t quite forget the desire to be loved without them, simply for being ourselves, in all our original messiness and confusion. One will have to put extra effort into the delicate task of finding oneself valuable and worthy outside of achievement, not because of anything one has said or done, but just because one exists – which should always, of course, have been enough.
We should start to wonder how a self-loving person might behave, and try to look at matters as if they were in our shoes. When panic descends, we should try to reassure ourselves not with logical arguments about the grounds for hope, but by wondering what a person who did not loathe themselves might be thinking now. If we could reduce the element of internal punishment and attack, how would the situation appear?
PEOPLE-PLEASING:
The people-pleaser is someone who feels they have no option but to mould themselves to the expectations of others and yet harbours all manner of secret and at points dangerous reservations and resentments. They are terrified of the displeasure of others. This almost invariably involves an early experience of being around people – usually a parent – who seemed to be radically and terrifyingly incapable of accepting and forgiving certain necessary but perhaps tricky facts about their child. Perhaps our father flew into volcanic rage at any sign of disagreement. To present an opposing political idea, to suggest we wanted something different to eat, to be frank about our tiredness or anxiety, could threaten us with annihilation. There may have been a desire to keep a depressive parent in a good mood and to avoid adding a further burden to what seemed like an already very difficult or sad life. To survive, we needed to be acutely responsive to what others expected us to do and say. The very question of what we might really want became secondary to an infinitely more important priority: manically second-guessing the desires of those on whom, at that time, our lives depended.
We might find three paths out from these difficult patterns of people-pleasing. The first relies on reminding ourselves that our colleagues, partners and friends are almost certainly very different from the people around whom our anxieties evolved in childhood. Most humans can cope quite well with a bit of contradiction, a dose of unwelcome information or an occasional rejection, delivered with requisite politeness. The other is not going to explode or dissolve. We learned a very particular habit of relating to the world around a group of people who were not representative of humanity as a whole.
Secondly, we need to acknowledge the inadvertently harmful side-effects of our behaviour. We may genuinely have good intentions, but we are endangering everyone by not speaking more frankly. At work, we aren’t doing anyone a service by withholding our doubts and reservations. And in love, there is no kindness in staying in a relationship simply because it seems the other might not survive without us. They will, but we will have wasted a lot of their time through our sentimentality.
Finally, we can acquire the confidence to be artful about the difficult messages we have to impart. As a child we couldn’t nuance the messages we wanted to send out. We didn’t know how to craft our raw pain and needs into convincing explanations. Now, it is open to us to be firm in our own views – but extremely genial as well. We can say ‘no’ while indicating that we feel a lot of goodwill; we can say someone is wrong without implying that they are an idiot. We can leave someone, while ensuring they realise how much a relationship meant to us. We can – in other words – be pleasant without being people-pleasers.
CRITICISM:
Criticism is never easy. To learn that others judge us to be foolish, perverse, ugly or unpleasant is one of the most challenging aspects of any life. However, the impact of criticism is hugely variable – and depends ultimately on an unexpected detail: what sort of childhood we have had. The clue to whether criticism will be experienced as merely unpleasant or wholly catastrophic lies in what happened to us many decades ago in the hands of our earliest caregivers. For the more wounded among us criticism takes them straight back to the primordial injury. An attack now becomes entwined with the attacks of the past and grows enormous and unmanageable in its intensity. The boss or unfriendly colleague becomes the parent who let us down. Everything is pulled into question. Not only was the work subpar, but we are a wretch, an undeserved being, a piece of excrement, the worst person in the world, for that is how it felt, back then, in the fragile, defenceless infant mind.
Knowing more about our tricky childhoods provides us with a vital line of defence against the effects of criticism. It means that we can be on our guard, when we are attacked, against raising the stakes unnecessarily. We can learn to separate out the verdict of today from the emotional verdict we are carrying around with us and always seeking to avoid with the use of current events. We can learn that, however sad the attacks we are facing, they are nothing next to the real tragedy and the effective cause of our sadness: that things went wrong back then. As a result, we can direct our attention to where it really belongs; away from today’s critics and towards the unconvinced parent of yesteryear. We can forgive ourselves for being, in this area, through no fault of our own, fatefully sensitive – and, in essence, mentally unwell.
LACK OF AUTHENTICITY:
in our earliest years, we were denied the opportunity to be fully ourselves. That is, we were not allowed to be wilful and difficult; we could not be as demanding, aggressive, intolerant and unrestrictedly selfish as we needed to be. Because our caregivers were preoccupied or fragile, we had to be preternaturally attuned to their demands, sensing that we had to comply in order to be loved and tolerated; we had to be false before we had the chance to feel properly alive. As a result, many years later, without quite understanding the process, we risk feeling unanchored, inwardly dead and somehow not entirely present. Perhaps our mother was depressed, or our father was often in a rage. The result is that we will have learned to comply far too early; we will have become obedient at the expense of our ability to feel authentically ourselves. In relationships, we may now be polite and geared to the needs of our partners, but not for that matter able properly to love. At work, we may be dutiful but uncreative and unoriginal.
In the hands of a good therapist, we are allowed to regress before the time when we started to be False, back to the moment when we so desperately needed to be True. In the therapist’s office, safely contained by their maturity and care, we can learn – once more – to be real; we can be intemperate, difficult, unconcerned with anyone but ourselves, selfish, unimpressive, aggressive and shocking. The therapist will take it – and thereby help us to experience a new sense of aliveness which should have been there from the start. The demand to be False, which never goes away, becomes more bearable because we are regularly being allowed, in the privacy of the therapist’s room, once a week or so, to be True.
OVER-ACHIEVMENT / IMPOSTER SYNDROME:
To place high expectations on someone who still struggles with their coat buttons can, paradoxically, leave a child feeling hollow and particularly incapable. Unable to sense any resources within itself to honour the hopes of those it loves and depends on, the child grows up with a latent sense of fraudulence – and a consistent fear that it will be unmasked. It winds up at once grandly expecting that others will recognise its sensational destiny – and entirely unsure as to why or how they might in fact do so. The Golden Child cannot shake off a sense that it is very special – and yet cannot identify within itself any real grounds why it should be so. Its underlying longing is not to revolutionise nations and be honoured across the ages; it is to be accepted and loved for who it is, in all its often unimpressive and faltering realities. It wishes, as we all do, to be seen and accepted for itself; to have its faults and frailties forgiven and acknowledged, rather than denied or glossed over.
A life does not need to be golden in order to be valuable; that we can live in baser metal forms, in pewter or iron, and still be worthy of love and adequate self-esteem.
The cure for over-achievement involves pausing to address the psychological wounds that made hard work feel like the only defence against intolerable trauma. The recovering over-achiever should allow themselves to feel compassion for their earlier self, acknowledging how much they wish could have gone differently and grasping how their present so-called successful personality has been shaped as a response to grave wounds. The cure for over-achievement lies in mourning and analysis in an atmosphere of love. The over-achiever may eventually come to believe that they deserve a place on Earth whether they work or not. They are not there just to perform. The greater need is to connect and to understand.
SPLITTING:
The baby splits off from the actual mother a second ‘bad’ version – whom it deems to be a separate, hateful individual, responsible for deliberately frustrating its wishes, and in the process, protecting the image of the good mother in its mind. There are, in the baby’s mind, two people at large: one entirely good, the other entirely bad.
The tendency to ‘split’ those close to us is always there; for we don’t ever fully outgrow our childhood selves. In adult life, we may fall deeply in love and split off an ideal version of someone, in whom we see no imperfections and whom we adore without limit. Yet we may suddenly and violently turn against the partner (or a celebrity or a politician) whose good qualities once impressed us, the moment we discover the slightest thing that disturbs or frustrates us in them. We may conclude that they cannot really be good since they have made us suffer – and that the only logical verdict is that they are appalling. We may find it extremely hard to accept that the same person might be very nice and good in some ways and strikingly disappointing in others. The bad version can appear to destroy the good one, though (of course) in fact these are really just different and connected aspects of one complex person.
It’s a huge psychological achievement to accept other humans in their bewildering mixture of good and bad, their capacity to assist us and to frustrate us, their kindness and meanness – and to see that, far more than we’re inclined to imagine in our furious or ecstatic moments, most people belong in that slightly sobering, slightly hopeful grey area that goes by the term ‘good enough’. We should be gently reminded that no one we can love will ever satisfy us completely – but that this is never a reason to hate them either. We should move away from the naivety and cruelty of splitting people into the camps of the awful and the wondrous, to the mature wisdom of integrating them into the large collective of the ‘good enough’.
BREAKDOWNS:
One of the great problems of human beings is that we are far too good at keeping going. We are experts at surrendering to the demands of the external world, living up to what is expected of us and getting on with the priorities, as others around us define them. We keep showing up and being an excellent boy or girl – and we can pull off this magical feat for up to decades at a time, without so much as an outward twitch or crack. Until, suddenly, one day, much to everyone’s surprise, including our own, we break.
A breakdown is not merely a random piece of madness or malfunction; it is a very real – albeit very inarticulate – bid for health. It is an attempt by one part of our minds to force the other part into a process of growth, self-understanding and self-development which it has hitherto refused to undertake. If we can put it paradoxically, it is an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well, properly well, through a stage of falling very ill. The danger, therefore, if we merely medicalise a breakdown and attempt to shift it away at once is that we will miss the lesson embedded within our sickness.
The reason we break down is that we have not, over years, flexed very much. There were things we needed to hear inside our minds that we deftly put to one side, there were messages we needed to heed, bits of emotional learning and communicating we didn’t do – and now, after being patient for so long, far too long, the emotional self is attempting to make itself heard in the only way it now knows how.
Our emotional drive is made up of two strands: the first is a will towards ever greater and deeper connection; the second comprises a will towards ever greater and deeper self-expression. If the drive to emotional growth continues to be unattended, and perhaps even unknown to us, it can short circuit our whole lives in a bid to be heard. Fed up with waiting, it may simply throw us into a paralysing depression or lock us into a state of overwhelming anxiety.
THERAPY:
Therapy is a tool for correcting our self-ignorance in the most profound ways. It provides us with a space in which we can, in safety, say whatever comes into our heads. The therapist won’t be disgusted or surprised or bored. They have seen everything already. In their company, we can feel acceptable and our secrets can be sympathetically unpacked. As a result, crucial ideas and feelings bubble up from the unconscious and are healed through exposure, interpretation and contextualisation. We cry about incidents we didn’t even know, before the session started, we had been through or felt so strongly about. The ghosts of the past are seen in daylight and are laid to rest.
Transference is a technical term that describes how, once therapy develops, a patient will start to behave towards the therapist in ways that echo aspects of their most important and most traumatic past relationships. A patient with a punitive parent might – for example – develop a strong feeling that the therapist must find them revolting, or boring. Or a patient who needed to keep a depressed parent cheerful when they were small might feel compelled to put up a jokey facade whenever dangerously sad topics come into view.
We are, many of us, critically damaged by the legacy of past bad relationships. When we were defenceless and small, we did not have the luxury of experiencing people who were reliable, who listened to us, who set the right boundaries and helped us to feel legitimate and worthy. When things go well, the therapist is experienced as the first truly supportive and reliable person we have yet encountered. They become the good parent we so needed and never had. In their company, we can regress to stages of development that went wrong and relive them with a better ending. Now we can express need, we can be properly angry and entirely devastated and they will take it – thereby making good of years of pain. One good relationship becomes the model for relationships outside the therapy room. The therapist’s moderate, intelligent voice becomes part of our own inner dialogue. We are cured through continuous, repeated exposure to sanity and kindness.
We need, to get fully better, to go back in time, perhaps every week or so for a few years, and deeply re-live what it was like to be us at five and nine and fifteen – and allow ourselves to weep and be terrified and furious in accordance with the reality of the situation. It is on the basis of this kind of hard-won emotional knowledge, not the more painless intellectual kind, that we may one day, with a fair wind, discover a measure of relief for some of the troubles within.
‘GOOD’ VS ‘BAD’ CHILDREN:
The so-called good child has inside them a whole range of emotions that they keep out of sight, not because they want to, but because they don’t feel they have the option to be tolerated as they really are. They feel they can’t let their parents see if they are angry or fed up or bored because it seems as if the parents have no inner resources to cope with their reality; they must repress their bodily, coarser, more volatile selves.
The so-called bad child knows that things are robust. They feel they can tell their mother she’s a useless idiot because they know in their hearts that she loves them and that they love her and that a bout of irritated rudeness won’t destroy that. They know their father won’t fall apart or take revenge for being mocked. The environment is warm and strong enough to absorb the child’s aggression, anger, dirtiness or disappointment.
The good child is heading for problems in adult life, typically to do with excessive compliance, rigidity, lack of creativity and an unbearably harsh conscience that might spur on suicidal thoughts. The naughty child, on the other hand, is on the way to healthy maturity, which comprises spontaneity, resilience, a tolerance of failure and a sense of self-acceptance.
What we call naughtiness is really an early exploration of authenticity and independence. As former naughty children, we can be more creative because we can try out ideas that don’t instantly meet with approval; we can make a mistake or a mess or look ridiculous and it won’t be a disaster. Things can be repaired or improved. We can hear criticisms of ourselves and bear to explore their truths and reject their malice. We should learn to see naughty children, a few chaotic scenes and occasional raised voices as belonging to health rather than delinquency – and conversely learn to fear small people who cause no trouble whatsoever.
GUILT:
We don’t merely suffer the consequences of our early wounds. We are also often left feeling that, despite our distress, we’re not entitled to compassion or help, because – after all – nothing too bad happened. A fairer way to look at the situation is to move beyond either excessive blame or bravery – and to consider that we have been involved, together with our parents, in a tragic situation. No one meant for problems to occur. No one was evil. Nevertheless, serious damage did unfold. Without anyone meaning for this to happen, parents radically misunderstand their children and vice versa.
The parent fails to keep in mind the complexity of the inner world of the child, and children are very poorly equipped to explain the nuances of their emotions. The child’s picture of the parent is equally skewed and partial. If a parent is grumpy, the child sees the sullen face, hears the curt answer or a raised voice and assumes that they themselves must be the cause. It’s impossible for the child to imagine that the parent might be beset by a feeling that they didn’t know where their career was going, that they were under too much pressure at work or that they would never have a happy love life.
CONCLUSION:
It can take an immensely long time to realise emotionally, rather than merely intellectually, that the scripts we are following were formed many years before in circumstances that no longer apply. Becoming an emotional adult means learning to acquire a much wider repertoire of behaviour towards other people. Someone in authority can be mistaken; we can annoy someone and survive; we can calmly state what has hurt us and be heard.
#recovery#emotions#emotional healing#inner child#reparenting#trauma#emotional trauma#complex trauma#complex ptsd#cptsd#healing#growth#self love#therapy
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Worship from Home: July 9, 2017
This series aims to provide folks who can’t make it to church for any variety of reasons with prayers, songs, and sermons. My hope is that these posts will help you worship from home, knowing that others are using the same content and thus, though we may be miles and miles apart, we worship together. See this post for more information.
If you prefer to worship with different material, see this masterpost of sermons and full services online that should all be LGBT+ friendly.
Connecting the various scriptures for this week may appear difficult at first, but the central theme tying them all together is that of grace -- received rather than earned. Being the beloved of God is another theme. Moreover, as this webpage notes, “There is also a distinctly female note in the texts, and it might offer opportunities to explore a dimension of the Bible which is often overlooked.”
[Image description: a painting of Rebekah giving water to Abraham’s servant, who is acting as a go-between for Isaac the suitor. A camel can be seen behind Rebekah, whom she also watered. Rebekah will soon decide -- she is given her own choice! -- to go with the servant to take Isaac as her husband. She will leave the land and culture she knows to do so -- when are we like Rebekah, choosing to go where we do not know in order to follow the will of God?]
Let us worship God, together.
(The worship material is under the readmore – let me know if you are unable to access it!)
Gathering
Let the sound of this South African song, “Come Bring Your Burdens to God,” wash over you.
If you cannot listen, the English part of the lyrics goes like this:
“Come bring your burdens to God, / Come bring your burdens to God, / Come bring your burdens to God / for Jesus will never say no.”
Reflect: What burdens do you have right now in your life? Do you believe Jesus will take them -- will help you to carry them? Who else can help you carry them? Whose burden can you help carry?
Call to Worship
Blessed be God who creates all out of nothing;
Blessed be Jesus who gives all for nothing;
Blessed be the Spirit for whom nothing is impossible;
Blessed be God forever!
Creator Spirit, wellspring of our lives,
As your faithfulness is deeper than the deepest ocean
carry us safely on the tide of your love.
As the refreshing rain falls on the just and unjust alike
Refresh us with your mercy, who know our own injustice.
As a river flows steadily on, defying all the odds of stone and water
Flow over every boundary and border that separates us from each other.
As we were once held in the waters of our parent’s womb,
Hold us in the peace and power of your abiding presence.
As the waters of our baptism washed us and welcomed us
Renew us now in fullness of life and unity of love.
Amen, thanks be to God!
[source]
Confession
God who startles and upturns our expectations,
You do not reveal your Wisdom to the ones the world calls wise.
Rather, Wisdom dazzles the minds of infants; She dances with those we call fools and whispers Her secrets to those we shove to the margins.
Have mercy on us when we do not recognize Her among the downtrodden.
Have mercy on us when we do not recognize Her amongst ourselves in our own struggles with illness, with poverty, with oppression.
Have mercy on us when we fail to use your grace
to fight for justice and peace for all your Creation.
Have mercy on us when we doubt your promise
to lift our burdens from our shoulders
to take us in your arms as your Beloved.
Assurance of Pardon
God of Grace,
You make the fool wise and you call the unwanted your Beloved.
We give thanks and praise for your unending grace,
for the love and compassion you extend to us
when we are distracted by burdens or weighed down by doubts.
Assured of your mercy, we can move forward
striving ever onward to the full life you secured for us
and lifting others up along the way.
Amen.
Hymn: “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light”
Scripture
Genesis 24:34-67
Commentary on this passage (which is my personal favorite scriptural account of courtship): “The Old Testament readings...all celebrate the gift of love and marriage, though in quite different ways. Genesis introduces us to Rebekah, one of the great matriarchs of the Bible... Rebekah has an arranged marriage, perhaps the ultimate arranged marriage, since God plays a decisive part in it. ..." [source]
Song of Songs 8:2-13
Commentary on this passage: “The passage from the Song of Songs is unmediated and personal, and its unnamed woman singer is overflowing with anticipation and joy. It catches the sweet constraint of anticipation, the discipline of waiting for something eagerly hoped-for. It is perhaps one of the most difficult and yet most deepening aspects of our humanity: it is the last weeks of pregnancy, the last days of the school year before the holidays, the last long miles of the weary traveller’s journey home. ...Now is the time for singing! And who could disagree that, in truth, the singing is not more joyous, the source not more deeply carved into our being, because of the anticipation.” [source]
Hymn: a contemporary piece called “Come Away with Me” by Norah Jones fits the themes of the Song of Songs passage well.
Romans 7:15-25a
Commentary on this passage: “A whole sermon could easily explore the ways in which we don’t do the good we want to; rather do the evil we don’t want to. Are we driven by the need to justify ourselves -- either by our worldly achievements or by our spiritual perfectionism? What does it mean to let go of our striving? When are we most open to grace?” [source]
Matthew 11:16-30
Commentary on this passage: It "connects us again with Sophia, Wisdom, in both her strengths and her limitations, and again it’s worth reading the whole chapter, for in it we follow Jesus through the frustration with the crowds, so lacking in wisdom and unable to hear him... It is to the poor and vulnerable, the small and powerless that his word will speak; they are the ones who will receive the true wisdom of kindness, humility and gentleness. These are not what worldly wisdom thinks of as characteristic masculine qualities -- do we need to challenge our definitions, or even our church practices? Who do we admire, consider suitable for high office? Who lets the light in, if not the people whose need and vulnerability makes them transparent?” [source]
Hymn: “ ‘We played the flute,’ the children said”; text here, melody here
“Forgive us, Lord, what we expect!
We want a faith that we control —
Yet faith is not what we direct,
For it's your grace that makes us whole.”
Sermon
Option 1: a reflection entitled “The Right Yoke,” text only, pretty short
“In Matthew 11:16-19 Jesus addresses the crowd and describes the differences between himself and John. One is a bug-eating ascetic, the other enjoys celebrations and making wine at weddings. One lives in wild, isolating places, while the other surrounds himself with crowds of people and travels to the heart of cities. John and Jesus are dramatically different people; one rough and uncouth, the other accepting hospitality. Each implores their followers to repent and turn back to God. Yet for John and Jesus, their lifestyles were used as an excuse to reject the message. It might not matter if you’re an ascetic like John or outgoing like Jesus: if the crowd doesn’t like what you’re saying then they’ll come up with a reason not to listen.”
(Reminds me of how the messages and good fruits of LGBT+ folks are rejected or ignored in favor of denouncing our “lifestyles”)
Option 2: an audio sermon with transcript available; 12 minutes
This sermon focuses on the Romans 7 passage, so make sure to go back up and read that if you didn’t
“The calling that we have that I hope really ignites this parish is a calling to be yoked with God and God’s ministry of love and salvation for the whole world.”
Option 3: a video sermon on Song of Songs 8, no subtitles; 17 minutes
What is God calling us, the Beloved, to “come away” to? What makes us hesitate?
On fuller life and hope
Reflection
God our Beloved,
you hold out your hands, which bear the wounds of your love,
to accept us into your arms as one spouse takes another.
We will cling to you without fear,
for you will never reject us,
and you will never swallow up our selfhood in yours
but rather will delight in what we are,
the true selves you free us to be.
May we mold our lives to yours,
while learning to love ourselves as we are.
May we be yours forever, freed from the burdens of fear and doubt
and thus empowered to be your love to the world.
Amen.
Hymn: “I Am Your Bride,” contemporary piece by Danielle Rose; with lyrics
Prayers of the People
Compassionate God, you promise us your yoke is easy and your burden light.
You promise rest for those of us who are weighed down under burdens too great for us to bear.
We lift up the prayers of our hearts to you -- the burdens and pains, the sorrows as well as the joys.
Take a moment to pray for yourself, for those in your life, for others in the world, for Creation as a whole -- for whomever the Spirit moves you to lift up.
Amen.
Hymn: “Come to the Water,” with lyrics
Benediction
In your life, Jesus, you showed us that joy in banquets and good company can be a sacred thing.
We are ready to go out to expand the banquet of your love.
In the woman of the Song of Songs, we learn that passion and pleasure can unite us and lead us to God.
We are ready to go out to learn to delight in our own bodies, and to grow closer to one another, your people.
O Sophia, Holy Wisdom, beholding your choosing to share your truth with the cast-offs of society, with the naive and the ignored,
We are ready to go out to share the Wisdom the world calls foolish.
Let us go out with hearts transformed, with minds striving to improve while not fearing imperfection, with bodies ready to have their share of work and of rest, all for the glory of God our Beloved.
Thanks be to God!
Hymn: “Lead Me, Guide Me”, with lyrics
[ Image Description: a detail from He Qi’s piece “Song of Solomon.” An abstract type style is used; a gazelle and green mountains/hills take up the background; and the image centers on two figures, both with black hair and full lips. The one is facing the viewer, the other is turned in profile and her face is in front of half of the other figure’s face. Their faces seem to unify into one, with each contributing one eye, and half the lips; one contributing the ear, the other the nose. ]
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The Primary Blunder Supervisors Bring in.
Over the last few years, I have noticed an enhancing propensity for folks to mistake mistakes with sins. The necessary point in my scenery is not to affix the blame for a blunder on someone, however instead to find out what led to the error. When you slip up you may make use of the Sedona Strategy to assist you release the unfavorable mental fee that guides slipping up. They try to play the victim task, desire to seem best, and also fully reject any sort of engagement in making the mistake. The ones that certainly never found out or even accepted their synthetic pas never created that in to the business arena and never made a difference in their own lifestyle, or even the world.
. After that there are actually the personal errors that some folks lug around for a life-time; their grimy little secrets. Yet our team did not achieve what our team wanted, and major mistakes were actually made in attempting to do this. Our experts will acquire to the base of this, and also I am going to have whatever activity is required A company owner are going to really must operate harder due to the absence of a business identification.
You may consistently request quotes and review it along with four to 5 asks for as well as choose the best. Merryll Manning: Caught On Enigma Isle through John Howard Reid was actually released more than twenty years back in Australia. It is very important for you to be as well as prevent this oversight prepared for other expenses like assessment expenses, appraisal prices, financing handling expenses, etc There definitely are actually no mistakes, simply decisions you created based upon the perceptions you contended the time.
Even though the parts seem to be to suit, there will be actually identifiable evidence that an error was actually produced after driving the auto. If you do not catch identity burglary troubles early, you reside in for a world from injured as you aim to obtain your monetary life back in order. But, that is actually certainly not the blunders that we make that define us; this is how our company choose to get the parts of our lives after these blunders and move on.
To evaluate our own selves for our blunders is actually to create however another mistake, based on the very first, then bolster this. This is this self-condemning process which needs to be actually put aside to make sure that our experts can gain one of the most gain from our every error. BLUNDER 8: Utilizing Black Hat Search Engine Optimization Techniques- Improving your search engine optimization with techniques and also sneaky techniques would certainly not assist you for long. Independent oversight (where one party is actually incorrect as well as the various other recognizes or even ought to have recognized of the oversight).
After Disarray to Cash visited publish, as well as after duplicates were being actually offered as well as shipped, I discovered several blunders in that. The most awful was in the About the Author" section. Errors differ in degree and also style and also some could be more durable to recoup off compared to others. No one enjoys making a mistake nevertheless in some cases they may deliver a primary understanding expertise.
Bear in mind, no matter how many errors you make or just how slow-moving you advance, you are still way before every person who isn't really trying. The No 2 mistake that the majority of Foreign exchange traders create is to begin doubling up on a shedding business as well as, again, they produce this oversight for precisely the very same explanation. There are others that choose not to acknowledge the oversights that they carry out as well as criticize them on others. The trick is actually to maintain relocating and also pass over each personal real estate investing error that you make, especially early!
Therefore allow me provide you a run-through from the 10 most common errors I observe individuals producing when they to begin with approach a lady - and also this isn't merely students - this puts on routine people I observe when I go out. Move toward the individual and supply an earnest apology if your mistake has induced somebody to lose depend on in you. The Hynix courtroom clarifies the difference between a blunder from rule ... where the facts are recognized however the legal effects are not, or even are actually felt to become different than they truly are actually ...," Century Importers, Inc
Because there is a diffusion of responsibility, Schoemaker keeps in mind that team blunders are usually much easier to acquire over. The good news is, all of us create oversights every now and again, regardless of just how intelligent, just how properly trained, as well as just how knowledgeable our company are actually. However, through knowing just what the popular garage errors that car owner's produce you may avoid a unpleasant and/or expensive knowledge.
The issue along with blaming other individuals for our mistake is actually that our experts will experience the pain as well as repercussions from our oversight, but will not pick up from that, consequently bingo! Revealing in a non-defensive means what caused the error can easily help folks a lot better know why that took place as well as effective ways to prevent that down the road. Error # 4)) No Dating Funnel: A male walks up to a woman, customers a smart opener, get's her contact number, contacts her a married couple days eventually, he puts together a 1st date and afterwards they walk out. View that you perform certainly not deliver a severe repercussion for an oversight that was actually given good initiative.
In this write-up, I am going to consider the development songs innovation has made as well as just how that makes popular music making much easier. If you can easily mock yourself and also your broken initiatives, you will be able to stay in the good power required to attempt once more or even take the upcoming step.Mistakes are actually generally certainly not devastating. I am that I am today as a result of the excellent trainings I profited from habits I as soon as got in touch with errors." I no longer see them as unfavorable, lousy or foolish.
The list can go on and on. Nevertheless, my knowledge as a card-carrying member from the POPULAR CULTURE carries me to the verdict that the ultimate error is the fake . Permit on your own to dream and also think huge, attempt something deserving, make tons of oversights along the road-- as well as fill up your know-how box to the verge! Many people hesitate to also take a few small risks given that they may cause an oversight." So they don't attempt everything brand-new.
Although our company possess all listened to the terror accounts from individuals receiving taken advantage of by technicians that have actually made recommendations for repairs or solutions that were certainly not needed, you don't wish to jeopardize the opportunity that your mechanic is actually being actually sincere with you, even if you are actually being untrusting or inexpensive.
Mistake from law is a defense that the criminal defendant misunderstood or was actually unaware of the rule as it existed during the time. Since he wants our company to learn and obtain a variety of encounters in lifestyle, errors are real present from The lord that he has offered our company. Going out with errors of this nature usually trigger misconception and also going out with can easily also finish right here.
Funds oversights are actually infamously withstanding in people's minds, as well as commonly they locate this hard to forgive on their own or others for errors long past. For dealing with over a thousand package deals, packages, bags, envelopes as well as other factors a year, these primary shipping business miscalculate below one per-cent from the amount of time.
Perhaps you will like some brand-new perspectives concerning mistakes: Errors are justifiable and also legitimate: You could possibly point out there is actually no such factor as errors, yet our company are actually all quite utilized to that phrase. For this mistake I simply chose to have actually the inaccuracies dealt with, as well as a brand-new data generated, to make sure that future copies from guide would certainly be actually correct.
Bear in mind, no matter the amount of mistakes you create or just how slow you develop, you are still way ahead of everyone that really isn't trying. The No 2 oversight that the majority of Foreign exchange traders create is actually to start doubling up on a dropping profession and also, once again, they produce this error for specifically the very same reason. Here is more information in regards to yellow pages uk mobile numbers (why not try this out) visit the internet site. There are actually others who decided not to accept the blunders that they do and blame all of them on others. The trick is to always keep moving and also pass over each individual real property committing mistake that you create, particularly early on!
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1.0 out of 5 stars
This is not the book your looking for!
2.0 out of 5 stars
Inappropriate name for the content of this book
I'm a relatively new Christian who has really been diving into learning more about God and the Bible to understand what it's really all about. I heard about how this book has been so immensely popular and life changing and how churches always use it, etc. I can see why. Basically the purpose driven life can be summed up in a few words: you exist to serve the church. Lose any sense of self and your dreams, aspirations and passions to simply be a drone for the church. I couldn't even finish reading it before growing tired and weary of the message he appears to be drilling into our heads. Some good stuff is in there which I found rang true, but mostly it all boils down to give your time, energy and money to the church. How convenient since he runs one. There is nothing I read in here that teaches one how to use the bible and God to search for a purpose in your life as an individual. I thought this was a biblically based self help book to help us examine our lives and selves in a constructive way so we can live more fulfilled and aligned with God. Not the case at all. I'm not sure if I disagree with the Christian faith or the book exactly, but proceed with caution. Go to Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wish I would have had this book
I wish I had this book when I first became a Christian. I bounced around from one church after another with local ministers modeling themselves after the "name it and claim" it or "blab it and grab" ministers on television. Got a personal "word from God" before I knew what a "parking lot prophecy" was, long before I was even remotely grounded in the word.I could write an entire book about the damaging results of listening to that prophecy. It almost killed me. Finally gave up on church altogether. Started to read the bible for myself. For a long time, I was actually SCARED of church, and am still very leery. God causes all things to work together for good so I've read the Bible through more times than I can count now, but the journey could have been so much less painful if I'd read a book like this so many years ago.You may think this book is simplistic, but it's not too simplistic for new believers. Not at all. I Corinthians 1:17 says, "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;"It would be better if the author mentioned the Holy Spirit that resides inside each believer, but given all the phony stuff out there claiming to come from the Holy Spirit, perhaps it's better he didn't. I avoid charismatic churches like the plague, but I am also aware that the Holy Spirit resides inside me, and all faithful believers. Go to Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars
I would highly recommend this wonderful book to everyone
Initially I was hesitant about buying this book as the reviews from this book and the booklet are all mixed into the Amazon reviews! However I want to assure readers that if you look at the descriptions if you buy the book that is around 368 pages you will get the right book. I already read the previous edition on hardcover. This new edition has 2 new chapters! and also has links and web sites for each chapter to get a 45 min sermon for each chapter ! Also I got the Kindle version which give me the bible verse when you click on the link instead of having to flip to the back to find out what verse in the bible the verse is from ! I would highly recommend this wonderful book to everyone! This beautiful book clarified and strengthened God's purpose for our lives. Each chapter contains numerous passages from the bible that supports his points. This book would be perfect for Christians in the beginnings of their walks with God and for those who are mature in the faith and definitely for anyone who has not believed yet ! The information is relayed in a very easy to understand, conversational language. I would definitely recommend this great book to friend and family ! Go to Amazon
1.0 out of 5 stars
Be warned. Read the fine print, Literally!
BE WARNED: this book is about 2 inches by 3 inches; LITERALLY A MINIATURE BOOK. I thought I was buying the full 'normal size' book; so therefore I was highly disappointed.In MINIATURE size therefore; the book contains 1-quote per day. Again, just plainly disappointed. Go to Amazon
3.0 out of 5 stars
Everything was fine except I did not see that it was a ...
Everything was fine except I did not see that it was a miniature edition. $13.00 for a small inch by inch book? Way overpriced. But I should have saw that and not bought it. Go to Amazon
1.0 out of 5 stars
I can really only rate this book a one because in my opinion it's a totally unnecessary book. I had to read this for a ...
Forgive me for typos as I am writing this from my phone. I can really only rate this book a one because in my opinion it's a totally unnecessary book. I had to read this for a class assignment ( I went to a Christian college) and found it sorely lacking. It say 40 days, I read it fairly thoroughly in about 2. It was often repetitive because it tried to stretch things out that were really quite simple. Now don't get me wrong. Simple isn't always bad especially when it comes to Christianity and spreading God's word. But from what I gathered in this book, it deals very little with sin and instead focuses on forming a guilt within the readers about not doing enough in the church as in the building. Other than that it is a pretty feel good message with little conviction. I hated how he made use of the Bible, between the multiple translations, the improper citations, and the molding of Gods word to fit his agenda I could barely finish the book for the assignment. He quoted C.S. Lewis multiple times making it easy for me to say just skip this book and read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. so as I recommended in my paper on this book grab a Bible and get into God's word rather than read this completely unnecessary book. Go to Amazon
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