Stop over spiritualizing everything as a "battle" against the "forces of evil" or I am going to beat you with my fists, and unlike the nebulous authority and power you attribute to demons, I can assure you my fists are very present and actively intent on stopping this rhetoric

Apokatastasis - this one intrigues me tell me more 🤲

This is a Max and Daniel fic from back when I predominantly wrote them—it’s the most slash fic gen fic I could conjure up, I think, because the love in it runs deep for them, but its mostly familial. It’s about after the societal collapse following a staggeringly lethal plague, and Daniel (an angry and desperate to survive teenager), ends up taking care of a young Max who follows after him like a duckling (after surviving the religious murder suicide of the rest of his family and trying to follow others to look after him). It takes place over about ten years, until Max is in early adulthood and succumbs to chronic illness brought on by when he had contracted the illness. Daniel has great tenderness and familial affection for him that developed slowly. At the beginning he had seen him as a nuisance. Max, never having the chance to build adult bonds to another person, does fall in love with him without Daniel ever reciprocating. They’re living in the woods not terribly far from a deserted town they source many supplies from. The symbolism is predominated by a kind of death-of-god theology, a god that may have once touched that earth, but is deaf to cries and pleas for absolution or relief from devastation. Daniel cannot save his own family, who he abandoned out of fear of watching them die. He cannot save Max, who he is trying to make up for it for. It’s not bleak though, it’s full of a lot of natural beauty from the landscape and from human love. It doesn’t matter that he can’t get what he wants and keep Max alive, because the love will have always been there anyway. It does still include graphic depictions of violence and implied sexual abuse (before the main events of the plot).

Apokatastasis is a Greek word that refers to the idea of God restoring all things to a condition of perfection indiscriminately (and thus is referenced in some Universalist theology).

I know you've likely got this ask before, but what does "folkish" mean? (Sorry)

It's all good. It's a term that's not very well-known outside of certain populations, but it should be, so this is an opportunity to help with that. There's more to it than just defining it, as it has a particular history that I'm deliberately invoking when I use it. This is more info than you need but there are probably others who don't know it either so I might as well long-form it.

The word folkish is an English equivalent of the German völkisch (Wikipedia link), used by racist Norse/Germanic neopagans who simultaneously want to avoid saying völkisch and giving themselves away as ideologically connected to Nazi Germany, and can't help blurting it out anyway. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, a historian and expert on Nazi occultism, described it as referring to a "national collectivity inspired by a common creative energy, feelings and sense of individuality. These metaphysical qualities were supposed to define the unique cultural essence of the German people."

An oversimplified summary off the top of my head would be something like that it's a belief that race/ethnicity exists implicitly (i.e. not as a sociohistorical construct); that there is a 1:1 relationship between ethnicity and genetic ancestry; that there is a metaphysical aspect to race ("folk soul" or similar) expressed in the customs and traditions of that race; that preservation and advancement of the race is the mission of all of its members; and that the Aryan race is the highest and must consolidate and purify itself to "reclaim" its position at the top of the hierarchy through war, subjugation, and reproduction. These things are, especially when taken together, totally incoherent, and antisemitic conspiracy theory plays an important role in maintaining this belief system by providing a buffer between it and reality. Folkish people strategically keep some of these points quiet sometimes.

The idea of pre-Christian religion is important to folkish people whether they are pagan or not themselves because it's seen as a "pure" expression of the folk identity. Modern heathenry developed out of this constellation of beliefs and it forms the ideology of groups like the Asatru Folk Assembly.

Within paganism the most salient feature of folkism is the belief that all religious traditions that are identifiable with a specific cultural-ethnic group should only be practiced by people whose genetic ancestry is traceable back to that group. I.e., only white North European-descended people get to be Norse pagans, only Greek-descended people get to be Hellenists, etc.

Some people use it synonymously with "racist pagan" or "Nazi pagan" but while these are overlapping categories I tend to say "folkish" or "völkisch" when it's appropriate because there are many kinds of racism that aren't folkish, and very many folkish people are not full-blown Nazis (which is not a defense of them, there are many forms of scumbag that aren't Nazis). Folkism is a particular constellation of racist ideas that is especially relevant to pagans, especially Norse pagans, and it's necessary to be able to identify its influence in modern pagan ideas; likewise it's necessary to be able to identify racism in paganism that isn't folkism and conflating the two terms makes it harder to do that. I put "folkish fuck off" in my bio because writing "racists fuck off" doesn't tell anyone anything; a folkish person will see that and go "oh yeah that's not for me, I'm not racist, it's not racist to secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." But if I say "folkish" they know who I'm talking to and what I'm about.

For decades "folkish" heathenry was contrasted with so-called "universalist" heathenry (in this context meaning that anyone can join) but the term "universalist" has been phasing out of use because it already means something totally different in religion and philosophy and "inclusive heathenry" is the more common term now.

For in-depth reading, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's The Occult Roots of Nazism and Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity are good reads on the broad subject of völkisch ideas; Stefanie von Snurbein and Jennifer Snook are authors who have written about it within the context of modern heathenry.

holy SHIT yall I’m helping to lead a service at my church next week (I attend a Unitarian Universalist church its cool u should look it up) and I just spent like 4 solid hours finding a reading for the meditation I’ll be leading, plus compiling the other bits and bobs I’m responsible for and writing a bit of script and writing an EMAIL at MIDNIGHT because im sooooo good at procrastinating you wish you were me

anyways. i read like 4 hours worth of prayers and poetry and it was amazing i highly recommend it.

This is also why i was reblogging a bunch of poems and such from myself to add to my queer joy tag, because I’m planning on leading a service in June about queer joy so I’ve been compiling bits and bobs in advance!!

As you may recall, my parents joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation when we moved to Vermont. They encouraged me to ~get involved with community activities. I found the youth group utterly contemptible, but this woman ran a weekly meeting for writers, a sort of amateur ad hoc MFA workshop where one person would have their work close-read & subject to serious critique by a jury of peers. Being, well...me, I didn't catch the implication that this was a group for adults *only*, but Nancy was very solicitous, never condescending or patronizing, always a constructive critic. At 12 I didn't have friends my own age, and spending Saturdays with a group of mostly middle-aged-to-elderly writers in a Unitarian church who took me seriously & treated me as an equal was more important than I could have expressed at the time. Anyway! 94 is a long life; BDE.

every couple months I get really really into theology and I always start out by leaning towards christianity because it is familiar, and I think maybe this is meant to be maybe I am meant to believe in this. but then it makes me uncomfortable very quickly with how incredibly varied its denominations are, the concept of original sin, the belief of eternal damnation. the catholic need to worship a human (pope) and a manmade entity (the church) and the protestant arrogance. and like 30 other things. christianity is that thing that looks pretty, but is incredibly fear based. which isnt worth it imo. and being a universalist christian, which is more friendly, goes against the basics tenants of the bible. if you are going to have heaven and eternal hell, then there must be eternal punishment. and idk to me its just feels like christianity almost robs people of their agency, because they believe all are born sinful anyway.

A brief history of Unitarian Universalism (casual, with swears, have not fact checked as such but I think it’s correct): In New England back before US independence, there was Calvinism -- you know, that predestination thing, you’re already going to go to heaven or hell, but you should be good anyways so people will think you’re going to heaven, or something like that. Then there wasn’t. Then there was Congregationalism. Which was a lot more chill, but still very “fuck Catholicism”. And around this time, deism was on the rise: the idea that maybe God created the universe, then fucked off, and hasn’t been actively involved with anything since. Then, some people who were actually reading the Bible, because you can’t look down on Catholicism unless you actually read the Bible, were like... wait, maybe Jesus isn’t all that. You know -- the Savior, the Son of God, one third of the Trinity, all that. Maybe he was just, like... a prophet, or some guy who said some interesting things. A teacher. And other congregationalists were like: uh, what, no, Jesus has to be all that. If you don’t think Jesus is all that, how can you even call yourself a Christian? And they decided they couldn’t really be around each other any more. So the first group, which was mostly in Boston, started calling themselves Unitarians (because they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and instead believed in a one part God), and incidentally at some point also stopped calling themselves Christians because the other guys had a point, and the others called themselves the United Church of Christ (UCC.) Emerson and Thorough -- sorry, Thoreau -- were both Unitarians, as were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and pretty much everyone else from Boston in early US history. (We like to claim Jefferson, because his beliefs were kindasorta similar to Unitarian beliefs at the time, but as I understand it he was never actually part of a Unitarian congregation.) (Btw: if you’re lgbtq+ and Christian, they’re a pretty friendly denomination. If you’re lgbtq+ and Christian and you think the UCC is too liberal (in the religious sense) or you want a majority-lgbtq+ congregation, consider MCC, which is otherwise unconnected to all this. If you’re not Christian and are lgbtq+ -- atheist/agnostic, or maybe something else if you’re down with worshipping with people that aren’t specifically your thing -- Unitarian Universalism tends to be pretty good. As in: we have a bunch of gay/lesbian ministers and other religious leaders, and a few transgender ones. (Knowledge of less mainstream lgbtq+ identities can vary a lot between congregations and generations -- the younger generations tend to be more aware than the gen x’ers.) I’ve been involved with Church of the Larger Fellowship for most of the past year, which did zoom worship before it got cool and serves people around the world, and people like me who live a mile from a UU brick and mortar congregation but still can’t get their disabled ass over there anyways. Anyways, CLF has more POC on the worship team than most UU congregations (the denomination does tend to run pretty white), is very social justice oriented even by UU standards, and is somewhat more cool about general weirdness than most congregations, which again for UU congregations is saying something.) Then, at some point (sadly, I’m significantly more familiar with the history of the first U than the second) there was this other protestant denomination in the South (as in, the US South) where people decided that God was too nice to send people to hell for all eternity, so they started calling themselves the Universalists, as in Universal Salvation. All dogs go to heaven. Well, time passed, each denomination evolved in its own way. (In particular, Unitarianism caught humanism pretty hard -- the joke was the Unitarians believe in one God at most.) In the -- ok, I’ll look this one up -- in 1961, there was a big old merger, creating Unitarian Universalism, and in the process, everyone got together and was all...wait, so what are our official beliefs about God and stuff? Should we even have official beliefs about God? Maybe we can unify around some ideas around how people should treat each other instead. So they did: they drafted a set of Principles (broad-strokes guidelines on how people should act -- peace is good, truth is good, people have value, stuff like that) and a set of Sources (where UU’s get their ideas about God and morality and so on from, starting with direct experience) and left everything else up to the individual. And then a little while later, the tree-huggers got a seventh Principle and a sixth Source added in -- respect for the environment and Earth-centered religions, respectively -- so now the joke is that UU’s believe in one God, more or less. Currently there’s a movement on to add an 8th Principal that explicitly names racial equality and fighting oppression as something we value, since while the current Principles mention justice and equality, they don’t specifically name race, and the people of color who have stuck with the predominantly white denomination figure Unitarian Universalism can and should be doing better on that front. Unitarian Universalism runs religiously liberal (ie, decentralized, individualistic, non-authoritarian, non-dogmatic, inclined to believe science over the Bible) and politically progressive. Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be very politically active and concerned with social justice, mostly in a well-educated middle class kind of way: committees, Robert’s Rules of Order, donating to non-profits, Get Out the Vote, inviting in speakers and asking “questions” that aren’t really questions, forming partnerships with other congregations and community organizations, etc. Many UU congregations have put a Black Lives Matter sign out (and when necessary keep putting it out when it gets torn down or vandalized), shown up for the protests, opposed the weird immigration BS that’s been going on in the US recently, etc. In addition to more charity style work, like food pantries and homeless shelters.

Point is: yeah it’s got flaws (don’t even get me started on Unitarian Universalism’s flaws) but if you’re a social justice person and want to meet other social justice people who are doing things, Unitarian Universalism can be a good place to look for that. You get more done in groups.

You’re less likely to burn out, too. With marginalization, it’s complicated, right? Again, for LGBTQ+ people, it’s going to be better than most religious organizations. For people a little bit on the autism spectrum, you probably won’t be the only one. (If you’re unmistakeably autistic, people might be weird/ableist; it might depend on the congregation.) If you’re from a working class background or are currently kinda broke, you might run into some frustrations or feel like you don’t fit in; if you’re a poc or if you’re disabled (or your kid is) or you want a lot of personal support, you might struggle more -- this really might vary a lot, but at least the congregations I’m used to tend to assume congregants can mostly stand on their own feet, metaphorically speaking, and have some extra time/money/skills/whatever that can be directed out into the wider world. It can be a good place for pagans and Buddhists and other people who don’t want a church but are having trouble finding a church-like religious community where you can hang out with people on the same spiritual path. (Uh, for a while UU congregations were emphatically not churches and some officially still aren’t; others gave up and were all “eh, it looks like a church, whatever, we’re just a weird church.) Some congregations are more atheist-dominated than others -- many avoid Jesus language most of the time, some avoid God language most of the time (UU’s who believe in God tend to believe in God in a relatively abstract/metaphorical way), some I hear are pagan-heavy, others do use Christian language a lot more. In all honesty you don’t have to go to Sunday worship if you don’t want to, and really a lot of UU’s don’t; if you want to be heavily involved in the congregation but don’t want to go to Sunday worship and don’t want to deal with pressure to, one way out is to teach RE (religious education -- basically “Sunday school”) the RE curricula are amazing, just absolutely astounding, and if you’re teaching it you get a ton of leeway with adjusting anything you don’t like. (Which could happen -- a lot of this stuff was developed before the idea that cultural appropriation is a big problem became mainstream in social justice circles.) What adult worship is like has basically zero correlation (perhaps negative correlation) to what RE is like. (Which sucks for young adults coming of age in a UU congregation, like I said don’t get me started on UU’s flaws.) Finally: for people who care about sex positivity and sex ed, Unitarian Universalists (in partnership with UCC) developed Our Whole Lives, a sex ed curriculum that, well, it’s not abstinence based education. You wouldn’t expect sex ed coming from a religious org to be better than the sex ed in schools, would you? And yet. Comprehensive sex ed that acknowledges gay bi and trans people and that disabled people have sex too and teaches about birth control and masturbation and abuse and consent and boundaries and bullying and internet safety and abortion. It’s good stuff. The course aimed at teens is most popular of course, but there’s actually (age-appropriate) OWL curricula for all stages of life: young kids, adults, older adults, everyone. And it’s versatile enough to be taught in secular contexts (after school programs etc). Given the direction that unfortunately a lot of school districts in the US have been going in in terms of sex ed, it’s a really important program.

Punishments and rewards, sticks and carrots: How behaviorism is detrimental to learning and growth.

After posting about the myriad ways that classroom behavior charts are harmful to children, many teachers and therapists DMed us to ask if the use of token charts and reward-based systems is better, or if we approve of those methods.

The answer is that any coercive behavior modification method is detrimental to the learning process. This is true in all circumstances, and for all people: parents, teachers, and therapists.

Yesterday, I discovered a person named Alfie Kohn. He has written many books filled with research on the ways that behaviorism fails children. I ordered one of his books, called “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes.” I’ll update you all when I start reading it.

Anyway, I went to his website, and I started reading an article he published called “The Risks of Rewards.” In this article, he cites dozens of studies that have proven that rewards are just as harmful as punishments. Instead of being opposites, they’re two sides of the same coin.

Instead of trying to paraphrase everything he wrote, I’ll just quote most of it here:

Studies over many years have found that behavior modification programs are rarely successful at producing lasting changes in attitudes or even behavior. When the rewards stop, people usually return to the way they acted before the program began. More disturbingly, researchers have recently discovered that children whose parents make frequent use of rewards tend to be less generous than their peers (Fabes et al., 1989; Grusec, 1991; Kohn 1990).

Indeed, extrinsic motivators do not alter the emotional or cognitive commitments that underlie behavior–at least not in a desirable direction. A child promised a treat for learning or acting responsibly has been given every reason to stop doing so when there is no longer a reward to be gained.

Research and logic suggest that punishment and rewards are not really opposites, but two sides of the same coin. Both strategies amount to ways of trying to manipulate someone’s behavior–in one case, prompting the question, “What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don’t do it?”, and in the other instance, leading a child to ask, “What do they want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?” Neither strategy helps children to grapple with the question, “What kind of person do I want to be?”

To summarize: rewards are not effective in “training” people to behave a certain way, because once the rewards stop, people are no longer motivated to continue acting the way they were before. This creates a chronic lack of self-direction and a sense of purpose. Behaviors are no longer internally motivated, they are externally directed. People then become dependent on prompts and incentives to complete tasks.

Let’s continue with the article:

Rewards are no more helpful at enhancing achievement than they are at fostering good values. At least two dozen studies have shown that people expecting to receive a reward for completing a task (or for doing it successfully) simply do not perform as well as those who expect nothing (Kohn, 1993)... In general, the more cognitive sophistication and open-ended thinking that is required for a task, the worse people tend to do when they have been led to perform that task for a reward.

There are several plausible explanations for this puzzling but remarkably consistent finding. The most compelling of these is that rewards cause people to lose interest in whatever they were rewarded for doing. This phenomenon, which has been demonstrated in scores of studies (Kohn, 1993), makes sense given that “motivation” is not a single characteristic that an individual possesses to a greater or lesser degree. Rather, intrinsic motivation (an interest in the task for its own sake) is qualitatively different from extrinsic motivation (in which completion of the task is seen chiefly as a prerequisite for obtaining something else) (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Therefore, the question educators need to ask is not how motivated their students are, but how their students are motivated.

To summarize: when rewards (external motivators) are provided for the completion of interesting, inherently motivating tasks, the intrinsic motivation and interest people have in the tasks plummets. People perform better on tasks they’re interested in when they’re *not* rewarded, compared to when they are.

Now, let’s read what Kohn wrote about a study demonstrating this concept:

In one representative study, young children were introduced to an unfamiliar beverage called kefir. Some were just asked to drink it; others were praised lavishly for doing so; a third group was promised treats if they drank enough. Those children who received either verbal or tangible rewards consumed more of the beverage than other children, as one might predict. But a week later these children found it significantly less appealing than they did before, whereas children who were offered no rewards liked it just as much as, if not more than, they had earlier (Birch et al., 1984). If we substitute reading or doing math or acting generously for drinking kefir, we begin to glimpse the destructive power of rewards. The data suggest that the more we want children to want to do something, the more counterproductive it will be to reward them for doing it.

To summarize: in this study, the children who were rewarded or praised for drinking an unknown beverage drank more of it, but enjoyed it much less. Whereas, the kids who drank it and weren’t rewarded liked it just as much, if not more, than they did before.

So, what does all of this mean? What is a better way to help children learn and grow? What tools should parents and teachers use when trying to foster a healthy learning environment? Kohn writes:

First, classroom management programs that rely on rewards and consequences ought to be avoided by any educator who wants students to take responsibility for their own (and others’) behavior–and by any educator who places internalization of positive values ahead of mindless obedience. The alternative to bribes and threats is to work toward creating a caring community whose members solve problems collaboratively and decide together how they want their classroom to be (DeVries & Zan, 1994; Solomon et al., 1992).

This concept is familiar to me as a Unitarian Universalist. In our Youth groups, at conventions, and at summer camp, we create group covenants. Covenants are a list of rules/guidelines that everyone agrees on. It’s an open, democratic process. Anyone who wants to add something to the covenant is able to, and the covenant itself is a living document that can be revisited and edited at a later time if need be. Every time the composition of the group changes (for example if a new session of camp starts), a new covenant is created.

Creating a classroom, a group setting, or a therapy room that involves a collaborative relationship between mentors and students, is the best way to foster healthy learning and growth. When students are involved in setting expectations for themselves, they are more engaged and more willing to abide by the agreement. Allowing for flexibility and change in the covenant itself also allows the rules to shift over time to fit the needs of the students.

In UU spaces, the process of accountability is not punishment or rewards based. When someone violates the covenant, trained counselors discuss the situation with them and anyone else who was involved. Then, a restorative justice model of conflict resolution is engaged. Everyone involved works together to find a solution to the problem at hand.

This isn’t some unrealistic, utopian dream. It’s the model of learning and growth that is most suited to the way human brains actually work. And yes, that includes autistic people.

There are many ways to engage with nonspeaking and/or intellectually disabled autistic people to ascertain what their boundaries are, what they’re intrinsically motivated by, and what they care about. Creating a covenant in a classroom for autistic kids might be more challenging from a communication standpoint, but that doesn’t make it impossible. Quite honestly, not enough people are even trying.

But I hope that after reading this, you will.

~Eden🐢

Stress Relief

Alright. This damn band and fandom has got the best of me finally.

Haven't written in over 10 years. Definitely never written smut before.

I've given in! There are pages and pages of smut notes in my journals, phone, and computer so I guess this is my new hobby in quarantine.

Relatively unedited so apologies there. 

Yell at me here, or yell at me on AO3 under the same name. 

Also I have a very limited knowledge of how the hell this cursed site works despite being on it for most of its existence. So if there's shit I didn't tag correct here let me know.

Also Tumblr apparently hates making the italicized bits appear here so I’ll reblog this in a sec with the AO3 link if you, like me, really like seeing the emphasis :)

I am otherwise too lazy currently to figure it out or fix it and I’m already reposting this since Tumblr also apparently hates outside links! Thanks Hell Site. 

STRESS RELIEF

He’s been working on this project for a week straight and as usual it’s cutting into personal hours. Though that doesn’t faze him, scribbling notes in the margin of this current translation and completely forgetting to call for dinner. It’s 10:30 at night and I’ve brought him ever meal today as well as coffee multiple times. At this point it’s half just so I can make sure he’s still awake and breathing.

His dinner looks untouched and he’s got ink on his cheek. I don’t even think he noticed me come in until I was right behind his chair with my hands on his shoulders. He only startles a bit and I lean forward to peek at his progress. “You’ve gotten far today” I note, “Though dinner was over two hours ago you know.”

He sighs sitting back against me. “I know Tesoro, I know. This one is just.....very difficult. And she wants it earlier than the rest.” He drops the pen and stretches his fingers. “If I can get this one to her before Friday I think we can have a few days off finally.”

It would be a relief for us both to have a few days off. He squirms as I press at the knots in his shoulder.

"I will literally stand guard outside this office to fend people off if it will help. I was starting to think I might have to tie you up somewhere to keep you from coming into the office this weekend.” He breathes in sharply once and there's a moment of stillness before he’s laughing quietly. Interesting.

I’m solidly around the front side of his desk before I notice the flush on his face. Double interesting.

The last paper in front of him has been moved aside in favor of the dinner plate. He’s frowning at it. The dish isn’t one that would be particularly appetizing cold. “I think......perhaps a trip to the kitchen might serve us better?” I offer. “You can find something better than that and I can find something for desert. I think Papa mentioned there was pie tonight.”

Pie makes a good dinner.” He says with a quirk of the eyebrow. Problem solved.

———

“Hey!” I gasp as his teeth scrape down my neck. “Hey, I told you, none of that tonight. I have a ton of important meetings tomorrow. You know, the kind with people from Outside This Church whom I need to view me as respectable, buddy.” He isn't looking at me but growls a little against my skin.

I tangle my hands in his hair and tug sharply back to meet his wild eyes with mine. “No biting.” “You’re gonna have to save those hickeys for tomorrow, Cardinal...”

He’s adorably huffy about it but also doesn’t falter as he ruts against me. His hips grind sharply into my thighs, pressing me hard down into the cushions of his couch. His arms have me caged in below him and he rests his forehead against mine with a low moan.

At some point we’ll have to decide if we’re moving to a bed, or at least stopping long enough to take off literally any clothing instead of writhing on the furniture like teenagers. It’s so good this way though.

I came by to drop off the last few papers for him to finish and somehow convinced him they could be done in the morning. I meant to also convince him to come have another late dinner in the kitchens but he's in a mood and I can't complain. Having him over me, desperate and needy is better than any drug. I busy myself with the buttons on his jacket and shirt, impatient to get my hands into his chest hair. He hums as I run my fingers through it, and lower. His mouth is at my ear, his nose in my hair. I tug at his belt as he arches over me.

“We should go go to bed” he whispers “we should go to bed so I can fuck you into the weekend. I want to wrap you around me and make you cum until you can’t remember your name”. The words coming out of his mouth are getting deep and breathy. That voice.

Even his perfectly normal, reasonable Latin lectures make me want to get on my knees for him. I'm pretty certain the whole class feels that way. Technically, I know I’m not the only one he sleeps with either but recently I seem to have lucked out.

“You can’t” I growl back as he presses me down. “As much as I’d love to have you buried in me from now until Sunday, you still have 'homework' for tomorrow and I.... I can’t bag out of my important meetings. Sister will literally have me murdered if I leave her alone with those delegates.”

He moans low and deep grabbing at my thigh to pull me further under him, tighter against him. We press back and forth rocking against each other and making out. He’s driving against me over and over in a way that will have me undone very shortly. I have to bury my face in his shoulder to keep my whimpers quiet. Office hours are over but the door isn’t locked and Ghouls have a way of showing up when shit is about to get good.

I'm starting to lose it. “Please, Copia, please, pleaseplease” I beg. He grinds into me slower and slower pressing closer and longer and I think I could die from needing to cum. His breath is in my ear choppy and hot. Little wines, murmurs spilling from his mouth as he gets closer to the edge.

My body arcs up against him, my hands trapped against his chest as an orgasm washes over me. Head thrown back into the cushion I cry out when he sucks at the skin at my collar. I’m gasping as I come down. And then I realize.

Yanking my hands from between us to grab at his head. “COPIA, Satanus! What the fuck did I just say!” He’s a bit of a mess this close to an orgasm and only whines at me when I scold him. His rhythm is getting lost now and though I'm mildly pissed about the bite, I don’t think there’s a better time to test my new interesting theory than now.

I wind the fingers of my left hand tight into his hair and grab harshly at his hips with my right. “Bite me again and see what happens Cardinal. Don’t make me tie you down next time.”

He comes hard. Face buried in my collarbone despite my hard grip on his hair. He’s arched so hard into me I think I’ll be feeling it well into next week. We collapse slowly into the couch. It’s hot and sweaty not to mention the utter mess he's just made. Whatever. He must own 20 pairs of those black pants anyways.

I stroke his hair and laugh softly into it as he tries to regain some steadiness of breath. “Well then, Cardinal.” I arch my eyebrow at him and he's absolutely blushing. He won't quite make eye contact and I can't keep this crooked smirk off my face. He buries his face back against me and grumbles “Maybe time for a real dinner, Tesoro?” as the office door opens. A silver face peeks through, checking the desk and then turning to see us tangled on the couch. “Oh! Sorry, boss. Just, uh, making sure the, uh, lights were off in here. Yeah.” “But um, never mind if you’re still in here working!” The voice fades as the face retreats quickly.

Copia makes a tired sound. “Ghouls.”

———

The free weekend has been axed.

Delegates from the Unitarian Church apparently liked our pitch enough that they decided to hang around for a few days and view the abbey in it’s working state. On the one hand it’s great. Not completely bonkers church allies would be incredibly helpful to us. But I'm mentally tapped out from the socializing. Copia too, has been dragged into the fray. Unlike our Third Papa he can be counted on to treat our guest well without shamelessly flirting with each and every one of them. Unitarian Universalists might not immediately kick a bunch of Satanists out of church club but they still probably view married couples as a little less fair game than Terzo does.

They leave just in time for us to jump right in on the next round of translations. Some books from our archives can only be opened for a few nights a year or a decade. Some can only be opened for a few hours at a time, or only in the perfect humidity, or only by a woman, or a ghoul, or Papa. It’s a particular kind of puzzle game to schedule the translations of these texts. Plus very few people can translate them at all let alone as quickly as the Cardinal.

Imperator schedules, I ferry book and papers. He translates. I return books and papers and organize translations by type and date so we can digitize them later. It’s part of the push to get this church into a modern century. Making an effort to have other church allies is as well. Nihil is totally against it even though his sons are all for it. Or maybe that’s because his sons are all for it.

Everyone is tired. Everyone is busy. The congregation is much bigger than it used to be but still there isn't a lot of down time. We've got a horde of siblings at our disposal to help with all the cleaning, data entry, filing, etc. but someone still needs to steer the ship.

It turns out that managing people is a pain in the ass and regretfully I'm good at it.

Thankfully I still end up spending most of my day filing and organizing piles. It's boring but methodical and leaves me with enough brain space to let my mind rest or wander as it chooses.

I'm deep into sorting notes from the early 30's so we can see if anything matches up with books from that era but my mind has wandered back to the Cardinal's ass in his red pants.

He stepped away from the monstrous paper pile for coffee this morning but two moments later was back leaning across the front of his desk to scribble a note in the margins of whatever he's trying to decipher. It's a very nice ass.

It's been over a week since we've been able to do anything more than snag a kiss between meals, sleep, and work. It's fine, except that it really, really isn't. Stress relief is important. And doing it myself is currently feeling a little subpar when the alternative is so incredibly attractive.

Also. There's this whole other aspect of him that I really want to get another glimpse of. We have been mostly on equal footing or he's been in charge since we've been seeing each other, but I know that's not all there is. Not just because of the way he blushes when I boss him around but also because of that dinner months ago where a wine drunk Terzo whispered in my ear all sorts of things about how delightful and versatile a bed partner Copia is.

I think I want to know all the ways to make him whimper and beg.

Unbeknownst to him, Thursday night we're going to catch a break. Imperator is headed out of town with a few of the Emeritus family for some swearing in of a little sect or two a few cities over. Copia and I have been excused to finish up one really time sensitive book and they're going to be gone for two whole days.

Of course, I know that the book is finished already. He did the last bit around 2am and I just couldn't bring myself tell her in case she decided to dump another stack on us as she walked out the door. Two days isn't enough for a real vacation but it's definitely enough for a little rest and stress relief.

______

I feel like I'm laying a trap. Getting us out of work, convincing him to come back to his rooms to change for dinner.

There's a tiny unmarked bottle of lube tucked on the hallway table next to the Baphomet statue where he hangs his keys. Normally he never looks at that table, just drops his keys across it, puts his hat on Baphomet's head, and comes to collapse on the couch or bed.

There he is though, looking at the bottle curiously, fingers starting to unbutton the top of his jacket unconsciously as his brow creases. I have to move fast. I walk up and my hands take over for his. Unbuttoning the jacket and pushing it back over his shoulders but not taking it off of him. I push at his chest gently until he steps back all the way against the heavy wood door.

"Tesoro, I... " He looks down at my face as I'm unbuttoning his shirt. My hands work downwards and I see as he completely forgets about the bottle. "Hello there" he says with a smile and slides his hands into my hair to turn my face up towards him. I get an arched eyebrow, a little half smile, and then, a little hitched breath as I tug open his belt.

I lean in to rub my nose under his jaw and breathe him in. His arms come up to pull me close and I can feel the rumble in his chest. We stand for a moment in peace, enjoying the closeness before I tug his hands down to lay flat against the door. "Keep them there, alright?" I whisper in his ear.

He breathes out an unsteady yes while I lay kisses down his neck. His trousers are undone and he hums through his teeth as I take him out and stroke him. Lightly over and over. Teasing gently. His head is back with eyes closed which is perfect.

When I ease my lube slick hand down his dick his whole body jolts and his eyes fly open to stare at me. "Oh! Ohhh...." Hands tight against the door his hips push forward into my hand and he screws his eyes closed again as I stroke him a second time.

"F...uck. Oh. Fuck. Tesoro..." he whimpers and the sound strikes deeply hot at the center of me.

I keep my touch firm but slow. A steady torcherous pace. I wonder how long I can keep him here. Trapped between my body and the door, gasping and moaning as I tease him higher and higher.

I want to talk to him but I'm a little afraid this will end too soon if I do so I settle for brushing my lips across his, across his face, against his sideburns until he's begging. "Tesoro, pleeease. PPlease. Ah. Ah. Oh, lord, Tesoro. I need....ah, please."

His face is plastered to my neck and I dig my free hand into his hair to hold him there. He hasn't moved his hands an inch though I see them tremble and grasp.

"You're doing so well, yeah?" I whisper. "You sounds so good like this. I love it. I love hearing how badly you need this." I can feel his knees knock a little as I speak to him. "I've been thinking about this for weeks. Making you come undone for me like this. Did you think I hadn't noticed how pink you get when I tell you what to do?"

"Ah, Satanus. Por favor...." he wines. "por favor....." His hips are trying to press forward, but I've got him tight against the door. I up the pace of my strokes until he can hardly speak. Low gasps and whimpers escape him as I bring him higher.

"Are you close love? I need you to tell me when you're close. I want you to tell me when you’re going to cum." That pulls a little wail from him and he gasps, crushing his face deeper into my neck. "Oh, Santanus. Oh, Lucifer. "

"You gonna beg me, sweetheart?" I husk in his ear. "Come on. Say please?"

He doesn't manage it, curling tight over my body as he comes. His arms forget the door to crush me against him. Fingers grip my back and shoulder so hard it almost hurts and I can hear his breath stop completely for a moment. I let him hold me, pressing myself tight up against him, toes to head.

It hardly feels like he is going to stand on his own so I just clean him up with a conveniently located cloth and pepper his face with little kisses. I brush the damp hairs back from his brow and when he lifts his eyes to mine he still flushes a even brighter red.

I must look entirely too pleased with myself because he quickly closes them again and lets his head fall back against the door with a solid "thunk."

"Fuck", he breathes, "I...ah, just.....Fuck."

I am pleased with myself. Humming softly I tuck him back into his trousers and pull the edges of his collar down so I can kiss him long and hard before patting his chest and moving away back into his rooms. He doesn't follow me and I look back to see him still leaning against the door staring.

"Dinner?" I ask with a bright innocent smile.

He growls with narrowed eyes and launches himself into the room. Shrieking with laughter I race to the other side of his couch. "Come here..." he murmurs. And when I don't move he crooks a finger at me. "Topolino. Come on. Come. Here. "

It's so goddamn hot. I want to.

But.

"Make me." It's impossible to keep a grin off my face knowing that the whole wing of this abbey is definitely going to hear about when he catches me. I have the advantage of steady feet, but his eyes are dark and his smile dangerous.

I am super, super fucked.

hi !! :) my name's Rachael, but you can just call me Rach, and I guess this is my religion + spirituality sideblog now, welcome :)

here's a fun get to know me:

• these labels describe my current beliefs: non-denominational, spiritual, mystic, universalist, fully lgbt+ affirming, pro choice, sex positive, generally heretical/unorthodox beliefs, religious pluralist (all religions are so awesome, truthful, and welcome here!!)

• I live in the UK and was raised and christened in the church of England (CofE), went to CofE schools until I was 11, then went to a Catholic school for 5 years which has definitely given me a kind of love-hate relationship with Catholicism lmao, then the school I went to from 16-18 was secular and I got to meet more people of different faiths which was very cool

• also raised by a CofE Christian mum (who used to be pretty religious but is now more agnostic) and an atheist dad (who is yet a lover of traditional church architecture and for some reason read Bible stories to my sister and I every night for years as we grew up, so now I just know Jesus' parables and miracles like the back of my hand which is all rather wild really.... I have an interesting family)

• I have on some level really wanted to be a nun from a young age haha (I met some really lovely nuns at the Catholic school I went to bc they lived on site and I miss them very much)

• very queer: nonbinary + maybe lesbian ? maybe bi ? idk I just call myself queer or gay tbh

• mainly metaphorical reading > literal/historical reading of the Bible (metaphor is awesome !!!)

• stopped calling myself a Christian at around 13/14 years old bc I didn't feel welcome in the Church due to my sexuality and unorthodox beliefs, but I essentially have never stopped believing in and praying to God/divinity of some kind,, anyway so then I dabbled in Buddhism for a bit and was then Pagan/witchy from October 2019 to August/September 2020, but have studied different religions in my free time through all those years bc I just find religion and all its history so incredibly interesting and wonderful,, was finally drawn back to the Church during the 2020 quarantine through talking to a now very close queer Christian friend of mine (who is now more of an atheist actually), and through my sister getting back into the faith at the same time, among other things :)

• I've recently started getting involved in more Catholic practices - e.g I've discovered I love praying to Mother Mary and feel incredibly connected to her, and I just bought a rosary and I already know most of the prayers from mass at school so I'm excited to learn it all :)

• i currently go to a modern CofE church near my university (it's not completelyy lgbt+ affirming but it's still nice in general) and my main friend there is also very gay and is very lovely :') (and we just happened to sit down next to each other at the service the first time we met which feels rather miraculous to me I must say haha)

Ok I think that is all for now :) I'll probably pin this post so new people can read it.

I genuinely hope you're having a wonderful day/night, God bless you and peace be with you <3 feel free to message me about anything if you'd like !! :)

🌈🕯️🕊️🕯️🌈

I very much try to live by a 'most generous interpretation' ethos and just try desperately to believe everyone is trying their best to seek and do Good, even though our understanding of it is always necessarily incomplete and limited, I truly do believe most people are fundamentally searching for that, but oh man sometimes y'all make me read theological opinions on this site that's not just 'i severely disagree but see how one could get to that opinion even if I think it an awful conclusion' but more like 'this is the worst thing I've ever seen and I wish I didn't have eyes'

I just realized that it’s entirely plausible someone would tell me to stfu when I say I’m not Christian, since my family celebrates Christmas and Easter, and would tell me that well, you’re culturally Christian, and like, I get what you mean, but I am literally not Christian. I am a Unitarian Universalist. It’s not Christianity. It’s pretty explicitly not Christianity. Half of my religious lineage is explicitly about not believing in the divinity of Christ.

Like! I have definitely been raised in a Christian culture! I have Christian relatives and even though I’m a third-generation UU, my family has passed down some of the more secular trappings of the really LOUD Christian traditions, like Santa at Christmas and the Easter Bunny at Easter. I know at least a few Jesus-related Christmas carols. My congregation hosts a nativity play every year, along with an Easter egg hunt. We also have a Passover seder, solstice celebrations, and bizarre annual flower and water “communion” services.

Unitarianism and Universalism both have a Christian heritage of sorts, that’s true. Unitarians were originally Christians who got kicked out for heresy of like, super high levels, since their heresy was literally not believing in one of the main foundations of Christianity, aka the Holy Trinity thing. Unitarians (then called Arians) got kicked out originally by the Council of Nicea and again every time someone went ‘ok but how the fuck does this trinity thing work anyway that’s just. CONTRADICTORY.’ (Unitarian Heresy: Believing in the Unity of God)

Universalists were also originally Christians and also got kicked out for super heinous heresy, as they disagreed with another main foundation of Christianity, that of the divide between Heaven and Hell, since, as Universalists pointed out, if God truly is the ultimate power of Good then it seems antithetical to its nature to like, actually damn anyone. (Universalist Heresy: Believing in Universal Salvation.)

Unitarian Universalism... is pretty different from its parents. It’s not Christian-Heretics-Assemble. It’s Come-All-Ye-Questioners. It’s not We-The-Chosen-People. It’s We-The-People-Who-Choose.

(look, I could keep going, I for a not insignificant period of my adulthood truly felt called to ministry as a UU, but this seems a little superfluous, so I’m going to tl;dr)

tl;dr: I get why people would call me culturally Christian. I don’t even entirely disagree. I certainly have been raised in a Christian culture. But damn if it doesn’t get my hackles up and make me want to hiss like an angry cat, because I am Unitarian Universalist down to my bones. it’s the faith I was raised in, a faith I believe in, a faith integral to my identity now and my memory of every self I’ve ever been. And I have spent my life having to defend my faith from people who try to tell me I’m Christian, that Unitarians are Christian, that Universalists are Christian, that UUs are basically Christian, just like, super liberal?, that Unitarian Universalism isn’t a religion, that Unitarian Universalism is nothing but an argument, nothing but a joke - and, funnily enough! it turns out that leads to really really really not liking it when someone calls me Christian. Even just a cultural one.

I’m sure there are atheists who would make similar arguments. And I’m sure the reasons people give for why the overwhelming majority of American atheists would count as culturally Christian are the same reasons they’d cite when labeling me. And I’m sure that yes, this is me reflexively responding to something people aren’t even saying, and that in most cases it would be derailing a conversation to object to its application. I’m sure that I’m going to bite my tongue the overwhelming majority of the time and stay in my goddamn lane because I understand the point the other person is making.

I’m just also sure it’s going to sting like hell.

Probably a dumb question, but why do you think people are so focused on "proving" runic divination? From what I know about Norse magic (which is very likely a lot less than you do, so I might be missing something) divination in sagas and poems relied on other methods (like seidr rituals, singing chants, asking the dead directly, etc.) while runes were used to curse, heal, protect, etc. Yet it seems to me many ignore all that and just focus on divination. Does that just... sound cooler, or smth?

Ah fuck, I started answering this and then I forgot about it.

I think this is a great question, to be honest. I think there’s a lot that goes into this, and I don’t think it’s possible to answer it cohesively, but I think it’s important to try. I think that there are a lot of advantages that modern runecasting has over other forms of divination that contribute to its status, and it’s beneficial to us to acknowledge that even though I also think some of these things are problems.

For one thing, its popularity is self-sustaining. In my experience more people know about runecasting than know about heathenry. Before Norse society’s current moment in pop culture, it was very likely to be the very first thing a given person learned about Norse society. If you Google “runes” the first thing that comes up is Wikipedia but the second is a site that advocates it (and even worse, does so while pretending to be an academic site). So most people are probably coming into it already wrong, and then are force-fed a bunch of information that meets their expectations instead of correcting them.

We also have to consider the impact of a person’s past experiences. By the time most people learn that runecasting is not something that Vikings did, they have already done it themselves, and very likely did it with the assumption that they were taking part in a genuinely ancient ritual. That has an impact on someone. I know that I have had emotional experiences during runecasts.

And for full disclosure, a lot of this applies to me. When I make a pissed-off blog post about runes a lot of that frustration comes from memories of my own experiences of learning about how badly I’d been lied to and had my time wasted, and how much misinformation I spread myself. That last part especially can be a hard pill to swallow.

Anyway, to the extent that this describes the problem it does so only from the perspective of individuals. I think there are more systematic/societal reasons for it.

Modern runic mysticism originates in Hermeticism in the 16th century (to be more specific, a self-described Rosicrucian, Johan Bure), and is therefore not part of a Norse/Germanic tradition at all but really a branch of the Western Esoteric Tradition. In particular, runes were used by Bure as a way for non-Jews (in his case specifically Swedes, though this would be adapted to “Aryans” over time) to make the claim that Kabbalah actually belonged to them, and that the Jews had gotten it from them.

A lot of modern people have a certain idea of what “mysticism” or, like, “spirituality” I guess, is supposed to look like, and that expectation is heavily indebted to Hermeticism (and more sinister, to Theosophy). Hermeticism is an extremely broad and diverse phenomenon, and it’s one I’m only surface-level familiar with, and the last thing I want to do is disparage the entire tradition, BUT modern rune magic has in its core a universalist essentialism that goes back to the Neoplatonic roots of the Hermetic ideas that informed it.

In one sense, there seems to have always been a deep sense of inferiority among modern heathens. Modern heathenry has been marked by attempts to prove that we’re a “real” tradition deserving of respect by other modern institutions, by simulating the affectations of “real” religions like codified lists of virtues, insistence on fictive unbroken lineages, etc. This really just says that these heathens have completely internalized the western expectations of legitimacy for a religion that have been used as justification for conquest and conversion, and deny legitimacy to indigenous cultures unless they perform the expectations of their colonizers; as well as fail to actually understand the traditions that they’re trying to copy. I genuinely wonder whether we can trace this sense of inadequacy back to the first heathens to model themselves on the Roman empire such as the Franks, who copied and pasted the Roman mythological origin for themselves in order to claim that they too were the descendants of Trojans (this story spread throughout Europe, and is found in Snorri’s Prologus).

Explanations for modern rune magic oscillate back and forth between the “this is objectively true” of a linear, ordered universal time that bases its truth claim on it being genuinely ancient; and a liberal individualism (”if it works for you then it works”) that is itself encased in the universalism of everyone being a unique bounded cohesive individual rational subject. This is the dominant paradigm of modern western human society, and it should not be surprising that inhabitants of that modern western human society would gravitate toward ideas that are products of it.

But the real bait-and-switch here is that it hasn’t actually changed from being a way to seize the products of thousands of years of Jewish tradition without needing to pay respect to the Jewish people who developed and articulated it. Nowadays most people don’t even know they’re doing it, because they don’t know about the modern development of rune magic, they take statements like “the runes are the elemental energies that make up creation” or whatever the fuck at face-value because we’ve been acculturated to just understand and expect that from like New Age ideas or whatever, completely ignorant of the deep exegesis of the creation story in Genesis that it takes to explain the position of the Hebrew letters in Kabbalah.

So basically the claim of ancientness serves an important function as a narrative device that exempts people from knowing its actual inception in an act of antisemitic cultural theft, and allows them to continue to perpetrate that theft. Further, most modern people who are interested in Norse and Germanic culture actually aren’t. They have an idealized image constructed for consumption by modern Western people (especially influenced by nationalist romanticism of the 17-1800′s) and they are motivated to preserve that construction against threats like historical research.

There is one other, much less important thing I want to mention quickly: the claim of ancientness gets people out of learning any more about runes than the perfect, pristine, fully-formed elder futhark. This is probably related to 19th century Norse scholars who saw all evidence of heathenry as the degraded remnants of a once-cohesive, pure, uncorrupted original that could be pieced back together through philology. But also it’s an excuse to not learn about a tradition that actually is complicated and has depth but takes hard work to grasp.

There is more to talk about on this subject but I think this is the most important stuff.

Collective Responsibility

Unitarian Universalists can learn from the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur and its emphasis on collective responsibility. This sermon was delivered on October 6, 2019. 

We are all Jonah sometimes. (Yes, that Jonah.) There are moments when we make choices that we know are not guided by truth or love or whatever leads us to act as our best selves. The experience of having insight into moral clarity and wandering in the opposite direction anyway is very common. That’s a human thing. Maybe we have a fish-belly experience to help us turn it around, maybe we make a change on our own, maybe a trusted friend tells us the truth. For as long as we live, there are opportunities to notice we’re going in the wrong direction and to turn around. 

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I’m Jonah at the end of the book. Sometimes, in the less compassionate part of my heart, I hope to witness negative consequences for people I disagree with. Sometimes the universe offers more forgiveness than I would offer if it were up to me. I’m not talking about situations where someone in a marginalized group is pressured to show forgiveness to someone in a privileged group, that is a whole other sermon. I’m talking mostly about petty disagreements that could be reconciled if the willingness were there. When I’m not my best self, I am sometimes like Jonah, and I pout when punishment is not forthcoming. This happens fairly regularly when I see people driving on the highway in an inconsiderate manner. Luckily, the eventual reconciliation of all beings with mercy, holiness, and love is not something I am in charge of, even though I have faith that it may be so at the end of time. 

Letting go of grudges is something I struggle with, and I’m still working on it. For some people, letting go is a more complex process, and it’s not healthy or justice-oriented to rush, especially when it involves trauma or repeated and prolonged harm. Within in the realm of everyday forgiveness and reconciliation, I still struggle, I keep returning to the work, and I hope I’m going in the right direction. Meanwhile, the Book of Jonah reminds me that the universe contains more potential for growth, for change, for making amends, and for forgiveness than I am able to contain within myself at any one time. So the High Holidays gives me signs and reminders that every so often I need to turn around, to turn toward life. 

There is a way in which the Book of Jonah is about the redemption of the Ninevites, and there is a way in which it is about the redemption of Jonah, the lesson that sometimes things are not all about him. It’s not about any one of us. The world isn’t about me, even though the ways I am privileged might lead me to think otherwise. Spiritual community is about our shared mission and shared strength, which means people don’t always get what they want. The demonstration about the plant that provided shade over Jonah’s head for one day was to put compassion in a larger context; the earth is so much larger than any one person can experience. There are sources of grace, and reasons for limits, that are beyond our knowing. 

On the other hand, sometimes we are the Ninevites. Sometimes we’ve been participating in a society, going ahead with business as usual, not really conscious that the collective impact of our way of life could lead to disastrous consequences, not just for ourselves, but for our entire sphere of existence. For ancient people, large scale consequences may have been understood as Divine response. I don’t know if the story happened exactly that way, but I believe it’s true that we bear collective responsibility for some of the negative consequences have befallen our communities, our nation, and our world. 

For me, this is a key point of resonance between the High Holidays prayers and Unitarian Universalism: the interdependent web. We know that what happens on any part of the web affects the rest. We know that we are connected to each other in proximity, to neighbors around the world, to the earth we share. We know that we are made of stardust, and that the whole universe of which we are a part moves together in a dance of gravity and matter and energy. Knowing that cause and effect are a complex network of responses, we as Unitarian Universalists have many opportunities to contemplate our call to community, our call to build coalitions, and our call to face the consequences of societal structures as one body. 

This stark understanding that all of us are in this together, that the consequences of our societal choices will affect all of us, is part of the sentiment in the Aveinu Malkeinu, which we’ll hear after the sermon. Aveinu Malkeinu is a prayer of acknowledgement of collective responsibility, and most of all a prayer that disaster will be averted and we will have time to demonstrate a new way of being. It matters that people gather together in community for this prayer. High Holidays services are opportunities to acknowledge widespread harm, to anticipate shared consequences, and to pledge collective action to change. The prayer is addressed to a Higher Power, but all over the liturgy of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, it’s clear that humans have responsibilities for creating and repairing the better world that we pray for. We face consequences together, we commit to change together. Maybe that’s a flavor of what the Ninevites did when presented with Jonah’s prophecy. 

Aveinu Malkeinu isn’t the only prayer of collective responsibility in the Jewish liturgy. There are many. For instance, in the Ashmanu, the community recites a list of different transgressions, one for each letter of the alphabet. If you’re using an interpretive translation, the community might say we have Acted out of malice for the letter A, we have Backbitten for the letter B, on up to Z, we have lacked Zeal to struggle for our convictions. All of the examples are in the plural, things we have done. Even if I personally didn’t commit letter V for violence, I am part of a system that allows violence to occur, and I am here to support my neighbor who wants to turn aside from violence. No single person has committed every sin on the list, but we have all co-created a community structured such that these sins happen. 

There is a quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was a twentieth century theologian and civil rights activist, about this ethic of collective responsibility. He said, “…morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” (End quote)

Heschel had the Holocaust partially in mind when he said this. He was born in Poland in 1907. His mother was murdered by Nazis, and two of his sisters died in concentration camps. In Heschel’s understanding, some were guilty for the atrocities of the Second World War, but all were responsible for allowing the growth of the ideology that led to them, and for letting atrocities go on as far and as long as they did. The bystanders were also responsible. 

Heschel is well known for applying the same ethic of social responsibility to the moral crises in America that he applied to the moral crises of Europe. He marched for African American civil rights, calling it praying with his feet. In a 1963 speech to a conference on Religion and Race, Heschel said:

“Race as a normative legal or political concept is capable of expanding to formidable dimensions. A mere thought, it extends to become a way of thinking, a highway of insolence, as well as a standard of values, overriding truth, justice, beauty. As a standard of values and behavior, race operates as a comprehensive doctrine, as racism. And racism is worse than idolatry. Racism is satanism, unmitigated evil.” (End quote)

Heschel’s point that, while some are guilty, all are responsible, explicitly included collective responsibility of white people for a culture of racism. Today we might frame the discussion in terms of white supremacy culture, of the systems of inequality that are baked into our legal codes, our public policies, our expectations of etiquette, and our economy. Some are guilty of knowingly creating terror and exploitation for people who are marginalized while creating advantages for people with privilege. All of us are responsible for dismantling that system. 

This is just one example of our shared call to repair; the same goes for ecological repair, for justice for Transgender and gender non-conforming folks, for our health care system, for economic justice. Some are guilty, all are responsible. On Yom Kippur, I will be thinking not only of my personal confessions, but also about how we as communities and a society are collectively responsible for creating change, as the people of Nineveh took responsibility to create change together. 

It’s not usually that easy for a truth-teller to come along and energize an entire population toward making amends and changing behavior to bring about justice and wholeness. We change on a smaller scale, convincing one congregation at a time, one legislator at a time, one movement at a time. We are constantly called to the work of repair. We know that the consequences we face are bigger than any one of us can change alone. We know that how we bind ourselves together in ethical, spiritual, and economic ways affects other beings on a larger scale than we can grasp. So repair, reconciliation, making amends, learning from our mistakes … these are ongoing projects. We hope to be guided in that continuous repair by the spirit of love. 

Kindness, compassion, mercy are aspects of strength, and it is an ongoing project of renovation and rebuilding to infuse that strength into all our ways of being together. That’s one of the interpretations of Psalm 89, verse 3: Olam chesed yibaneh. You could translate that as, “the strength of kindness has been and shall be in the continuous process of being rebuilt.” In other words, a world shall be built from love. 

There is a song based on Psalm 89:3, composed by Menachem Creditor. You might have heard it at a Jewish spiritual gathering or at a social justice protest. The “we” is a key word in this song. We build this world from love.

Olam chesed yibaneh, tai dai dai, tai dai dai, tai dai dai (x4)

I will build this world from love, tai dai dai, tai dai dai, tai dai dai

And you must build this world from love, tai dai dai, tai dai dai, tai dai dai

And if we build this world from love, tai dai dai, tai dai dai, tai dai dai

Then God will build this world from love, tai dai dai, tai dai dai, tai dai dai

Maybe there is a Higher Power who suffers with us and strengthens us and urges us toward justice and compassion. Maybe all of the Divinity that is currently in the world comes from human beings being their best selves. In either case, that which is sacred waits for us as humans to collectively take responsibility, to acknowledge our interdependence, to face up to brokenness, and to commit to repairs. May we do so with love, in love, and empowered by the spirit of love. So be it, blessed be, amen. 

Chicago - Part 1 - 11 July

11 July

Before starting my Chicago commentary, I said I would discuss the difficulty of identifying the birds we have seen over here.  Apart from the difficulty in seeing them well enough to use an app to identify them, the apps themselves are pretty poor.  The best one (Merlin) needs to be online to operate – not easy when internet access is as problematical as it is for us.  I downloaded several other apps from home, but they are very poor.  If you know the name of the species you are trying to identify, they will usually present you with a single (sometimes 2 or 3) photo of the bird – usually not the aspect of the bird you saw so they are not very helpful – especially when I almost never know the species name anyway. At best, they might confirm my suspicion of what the bird might be and provide a link to the page in Wikipedia for more information, but they are pretty useless for identifying the species from a description or from photos from a different angle to the one/s displayed. Maybe there are purchasable apps that are more useful, but I have failed to identify quite a few birds, even using Merlin and even when I have photos to assist the ID.  The second best one I have includes many species that are not even found in the US – but excludes some that definitely are!  Frustrating to say the least – but I have managed to identify 27 species so far.  It is difficult though.  As an example, I had quite a good view of an all-white spoonbill flying near us in Chicago – but all the literature indicates that there is only one species of spoonbill in the US and Canada and it is mainly red and only exists in Florida more than 2000 km away.  I reckon I know what I saw, but the experts say I couldn’t have seen it.  And we have seen plenty of Common Starlings – even have good photos of them – but the apps say they don’t exist in the US (although Wikipedia certainly says they do!!!)

Back to our adventures……..

Our first day in Chicago and we ordered brekky from room service – 2 scrambled eggs and toast that we intended to share before we went out, possibly to supplement the hotel fare out on the street.  The eggs must have been laid by an ostrich – and then there were 3 big rashers of bacon, three slices of toast, a mess of roast potatoes and strawberries.  We both ate all we could manage and left the rest for the homeless – an extraordinary breakfast and we are glad we decided to share rather than order one each!!!

We walked the few blocks to the Rookery where we were to join the Frank Lloyd Wright architectural tour.  The Rookery is a wonderful building with a colourful history and we started with a mini-tour of the lower floors before boarding a coach to take us to the Unitarian Universalists Unity Temple.

(One version of the way the Rookery got its name is from the crows that inhabited the area after the great fire that destroyed almost all the city in 1871, but the other version sounds more plausible to me – it was the temporary seat of municipal power right after the fire and everyone got rooked by the Mayor and Councillors of the time.  It seems that Al Capone was one of the minor criminal figures in Chicago’s history and we heard numerous stories of gross political and financial corruption from inception until today!  The only improvement over time seems to have been development of a more sophisticated criminal element today – they hardly ever use machine guns to accumulate their wealth and power today.  A hundred-odd years ago, most powerful people had their own cadre of enforcers and hitmen to keep the citizenry’s collective pocket open.

Our guide, Will, was very knowledgeable and happily answered our questions at length, often in an entertaining way, setting a lot of his commentary in its historic and social setting – making it more understandable in its context.  We went to a restaurant for our pre-ordered lunch and I thought it was delish.  I am not a great beer drinker, but seem to have been perpetually thirsty since leaving home so have tried quite a few different ones over here: nothing that really grabs me, but most are OK - other than the very sweet ones.

We then went on a wonderful ramble through allegedly the only winding street in Chicago to Wright’s studio and home for some years.  The house itself was quite interesting, but I enjoyed the stroll past the shacks of the rich and famous (then and now) en route to the destination.  Despite it being Chicago, I got an impression of the southern states – not quite plantation style, but I saw a lot of very similar homes in the Garden District in New Orleans years ago.

After lunch, we were driven quite a way, including along the foreshore of Lake Michigan (one of the Great Lakes we heard about in school) to a Prairie style house, the epitome of Wright’s design in that style. The scale of these places needs to be seen to be understood, but Will brought them alive for us, if still a little Fairylandish for those of us who will never have the billions to burn on the lifestyle inherent in such outlandish and extravagant designs.  There were many interesting comments about how various features led you into particular feelings or created specific environments but I frequently wondered (not aloud!) whether they were design features or architectural/tour guide wet dreams or perhaps simply recent interpretations of what might have (or might not have) been in the mind of the architect at the time he or she was doodling on the way to a design.  Was the low ceiling designed to create an intimate family dining environment – or did such an environment arise because the mezzanine requirements resulted in a low ceiling.  Not a good example, but quite a few times, I wondered which was cause and which effect, perhaps what was originally intended and what was just interpreted after the event. Was history being created at the time or did events or usage at the time create the history.  OK, OK, maybe I am a cynic, but it is sometimes easier to ascribe significance to a feature or occurrence after the event than to create something consciously to cause the condition or event.

Irrespective of the debate, it was a really interesting and provocative tour and we ended up back at the Rookery for a final, somewhat parsimonious, glass of bubbly before trekking the few blocks home.  On the way, we back-tracked to a pharmacy to buy some pills.  Somehow, I managed to come away without the most important of my meds, despite getting an extra prescription and filling it before leaving home to avoid just this situation.  Fortunately, I was able to buy an acceptable equivalent.  Otherwise, I would have been having a very miserable couple of months feeling sick almost all the time.

We bought a pizza (and a couple of bottles of good Aussie wine) on the way to the hotel so we survived the night without serious hunger and thirst.  It was a good day, if tiring, and we both slept pretty well.

The hermit repeats himself twice today from nightmare before Christmas tarot, and Christmas tarot of Corrine Kenner.

Its a stress to be reclusive in winter months. Store spiritual and emotional stamina even while working. Its ok to think of loved ones during work. Think of how you love them not the commercial worry about what to buy. The hermit is father Christmas here, and he doesn't only bring presents( physical needs) -which are necessary especially in death season. He also is a bringer of glad tidings, hope at heart

Actually wish for something with this winter, Christmas, yule or new year, you might just get an answered prayer. Its time of believing in smallest light. Why do you think we fell trees with tons of lights to remind us of that?

Only one candle, one mustard seed sized optimism makes difference. But as long as you see so.

As much as its a repeated sermon, one we hear every year, but the return of the sun itself is reason for season.

The rabbits beside the hermit indicate recycle of birth.

We all do what we can to find chances and keep them in this life. You're not the only one. But remember to reward yourself.thats really spirit of Christmas. No mind to also share that spirit through charity. Try cheap presents or love / parental gestures with collegues at work, if you even cant afford secret santa.

Try good news.

Go stretch your legs after work but safely. Corona may have killed joy of snow activities last Christmas and caution is cause of that too this year most likely. Listen to nature's silence and yet in that silence there's life.

The priestess, immaculate Mary and her Christ child represent this inner wisdom within you to manifest the hermit power to adapt in seclusion, joblessness, or family plans and worry. Or even in Christmas empathic stress caused in the air.

Even for those who work.

Priestess does not hold a book for she holds the divine word manifested.

The divine word is in fabric of all things even you and me. The trees behind her are universal symbolic of life and light. Odin was hanged on a tree, Jesus on a piece of wood. Hera's immortality apples were on a tree, Buddha found enlightenment under a tree. The kabbalah manifests all forces of god on a tree with ten sephiroths and realms. The Norse cosmology depicts creation as world ash tree.

Your perspective of the universe can take different turn this Christmas. New perspective of the season? Creating your own tradition of what Christmas means? Funny i finally concluded sensible one that does not contradict all other facets in my life any more when December comes from hereon.

Maybe you'll accept things about Christmas yet you will celebrate another occasion? There's light and universalism and also heritage in the others too, Hanukkah, kwanzaa, solstice, yule, new year, saturnalia. December is universalist month.

Accept it. Probably the virgin is indication of returning to a religious long lost schedule or practice. A church party? A feeling during carols lyrics especially the nativity oriented ones?!

But its something good.

Are you just a Scrooge? Whether a vigilante one who's anti season, or politely refusing one but still lets others do it? Anyway its good reading to Scrooges!.

Remember, Scrooge was blind spiritually, its not about the festival, lights, party, turkey. Its not why everyone hated him, not because he renounced all that. Scrooge was right about one thing always still! That everyone gets to "keep Christmas their own way". He said it while he was renouncing. Hard heart. But he was right.

Even you get to keep it in your way. Everyone's Christmas is different. ! Just like every day in every person's life or in every family's life is different. Why should December 25 be the same to all?

But it is a symbol for something supposedly inside us, quickening on that day as memorial once a year.

Happy season.