the spectrum heart cathedral system

Good news! We've FINISHED UPLOADING THE TBHU TABLET so now we can tackle the two folders full of worksheets, haha.
This is a mentally exhausting & very triggering effort, but it's essential because this is the heavy ugly stuff we need to discuss in therapy/ continue to battle in daily life... as well as some very shockingly beautiful and bright moments that we need to remember even moreso.
But that's why we haven't been updating. Everything online has been focused on uploading, and our offline time has been pretty tragically split between grappling with family stress and fighting off the E.D. lapses those stresses inevitably trigger-- such as having to do so much out of the house that we don't get to eat breakfast until almost 8pm. This happens OFTEN. (We cannot eat "on the road" because, for unknown reasons, eating makes us confused/ dizzy/ "high" and slows our reaction/ comprehension time without fail, and this takes >2 HOURS to "wear off" enough to function again. This happened DAILY in TBHU, and if we have to be on the road driving from 6am to 6pm, we are NOT going to put our life in danger by eating on top of all that. It forces a CONTEXT SHIFT as well that is mentally impossible to grapple with when we're in social mode/ business mode; eating is its OWN MODE and you CANNOT "merge" contexts; it's like a law of physics.)

We've been trying to take little notes on our phone but they're admittedly few and far between. Still, at least that's a good habit to keep up-- it helps us refocus on the inside/ the system/ love, when daily life is making us forget who we are.

On that note, actually! Today we FINALLY had both the cash and the time to do laundry, which we haven't done since New Year's. BUT going back and forth to/from the laundry room, we bumped into FOUR different neighbors... and Laurie is the one that noticed, with legit horror, that our conscious awareness LITERALLY BLACKS OUT in social mode. Like we KNEW we were talking to someone, BUT the instant they leave, there is NO MEMORY DATA. AT ALL. That is TERRIFYING and it explains a LOT of our scummy behavior around people, because for some hellish reason WE AREN'T DRIVING WHEN WE'RE AROUND PEOPLE. So this is a HUGE DANGER that we need to be aware of. We don't know how to stop this, or shut it off, or work around it yet. We literally didn't realize it was THAT SEVERE until today, because they were short interactions and we were in environments were we were able to immediately return to quiet, solitary, uninterrupted space, and GO INSIDE. That's the ONLY reason this memory-loss/ awareness-loss phenomenon became suddenly evident-- normally we are forced into extended, inescapable, noisy, crowded social spaces and we lose HOURS of memory and awareness and don't realize this because the OVERWHELM alone will destroy both those things on its own. So for the SAME thing to happen in several successive interactions that lasted under a minute each was STRIKING as well as DISTURBING. But now we know. We just don't know how or what to do about it yet, as we said. The bright side is that we can at least take precautions now, potentially. I immediately think of our old idea of wearing a "headspace bracelet" or carrying some sort of notable, unignorable anchor object. We really should do that, if only to see if it works. I'm just scared that a Social will throw it out or desecrate it somehow.
Oh. Speaking of that. The scrupulous thriskefoni are sneaking their way back in, so we have to be careful. It's very hard for us to increase prayer time/ types currently, because we have religious trauma history as well as religious OCD, and such actions can very easily and strongly trigger negative behavior patterns that are very hard to break. It's a delicate warzone.
We're still doing daily Scripture Study BUT whoever the heck runs our old blog has COME BACK and is, again, ERASING OUR AWARENESS by insisting on posting everything to Tumblr, which is a SOCIAL MODE CONTEXT and so yes, that is ALSO making us "black out" WHILE EATING which triggers the esthiofoni that feel like they've been POISONED if they "don't know what they ate" (can't see it or remember it) and out of sheer survival panic they try to vomit it all up and let someone else "try again the right/ safe way." You see the domino effect here.

On the food topic: we think we've unexpectedly discovered why carrots are our "biggest binge trigger." Apparently, CARROT ADDICTION IS A REAL THING. SO IS VITAMIN A TOXICITY. We match virtually ALL the symptoms listed in both. So we are QUITTING THIS COLD.
Geez. It's shocking how much diet affects the body and mind. Our idiosyncratic but significant issues with texture and trauma and OCD-- and the highly probable touch of autism that our psychologist again brought up in last week's new intake (apparently our "Mewtwo walking" is a symptom?? the more you know)-- make things like this "carrot overdosing" a real risk, so we do need to be careful; notably we've been worried about how much manganese we get from hempseed (we get almost 11mg daily from diet alone, which some sources say is okay, but we want to talk to a legit dietician in person about it). But we'll take it one day at a time at this point. We need to see how our body adjusts to the carrot removal/ detoxing (that was a LOT of oxalates as well) and then we'll see whether or not we want to replace it with anything, especially since right now we're compensating with a lot of broccoli and the fact that it's adding up to a solid 40g of fiber daily isn't helping to reduce nausea, to say the least.

Body care is still an issue too. Lately we've been realizing how Julie keeps getting pushed into bodycare roles, even though she doesn't want to; the System "automation" just keeps looking for someone who can and Julie is, technically, the only "safe person" who CAN front in the body in such contexts. But we need other foni for those jobs, specifically. WE HAVE NO ONE FOR "SELF-CARE." We're postulating lately that Green is supposed to hold that function overtone, not just Aqua; that would also help explain why it's been so upsettingly empty over the years. Nevertheless, Nathaniel and Sergei were definite support for this hypothesis-- they were both very kind and tangentially connected to bodycare in their own ways. I can't think of any other straight-up Greens off the top of my head; Karissa was technically "Lime" (now "Spring"), and so is Celebi... you know what, let me look at the 2022 census for a second. I don't want to abandon this train of thought.
...Oh wow, uh, we had a lot of NEGATIVE, or at least unhealthy, Greens. There's Jasmine (a hacker), Hoban (high school pseudosocial), Toby (very frightened little boy)... but then we have Juniper (binge stopper), and "enya girl" (childhood akoufoni?) at least. The problem is that we have subcolors because hues are so distinct up here-- this list has places for not only Spring, but also Chartreuse and Spruce. And yes, they DO have very different vibes. Still, I don't know how "correct" the assignments were back then because we didn't know the vibes properly, nor were we able to properly feel nousfoni vibes. And thinking about it now isn't going to help; many of these foni have been MIA since CNC because their functions were tied to that environment somehow. So guesswork is a dead-end job. What we need to do is determine WHICH hues are STILL EXTANT IN THE SPECTRUM, and then feel for which nousfoni are still alive/ potentially resurrectable. That's not something I can do at 1am, on a dime.
The point of all of that is this: even just looking at that list, there are no self-care foni. Harmonia tried, but CNC literally killed her function and she could never come back. And Minty also disappeared after CNC; I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm sure I'll find the reason once we read the entries from that time period. She manifested during the "GAPS diet hell" era, post-SLC, tied to both mint tea and bedtime, trying to help us sleep with a childlike innocence. Did her function unravel? Was she blurring too hard with other kids? Wasn't she actually fronting during the day, and collecting abandoned stuffed animals? I don't know what happened to her. Memory is gone. I want to know, though; she was truly sweet. But besides those two Aquas (notably), all of our other foni who were "close to" self-care have been phagofoni, because "eating" was the only thing we could imagine as self-care, I suppose? Tobiko got the poison out, Emmett got the green stuff in, Juniper stopped the poison from going in... but nothing for the actual body. I know gender dysphoria hell is a huge obstacle to that, and it's why Julie keeps getting dragged in. So... maybe that will affect the hues employed as well. We'll see. I have started making a list of "job openings" so we can use that as a starting point, so to speak-- all we can do is say "hey we need help here" and see if the System responds. It cannot be forced.
I'm getting brain burnout from this. I'll put the topic on hold for now, but this at least opened the door.

I want-- no, I can feel that I need-- to explore System colors again in real depth soon. It feels like if I don't I'll starve to death somehow.
Isn't that relevant, haha. No wonder the poor esthiofoni are struggling so badly. The hunger that's driving them isn't even on that level.

How can I close this up... it's 1:20 and we need to start getting to sleep earlier because we have to readjust to an earlier day schedule as the days themselves get brighter sooner. We miss morning mass, too, but like I said-- there's the scrupulosity risk, AND the social blackout risk. We want to at least try watching a daily mass online again, and see how that affects the thriskefoni influence. You know what, we NEED to talk to them, like we used to talk to Christina and Patricia (or at least try to). I mean, we have Felix and Veil and Francesco too, they're all positive. And the REAL ultimate goal is for us ALL to work together on this. We're very spiritual, deeply religious arguably, even in Central-- maybe especially so. We truly love God and want to live the radically loving Christian life we're hearing preached so profoundly every day as we study Saint Paul's letters. The negative thriskefoni don't. They just focus on "religion" as ritual and rule-keeping and pride, in terms of "moral superiority" and condemnation and "filthy sinner" mentalities, etc. It's not true faith at all. It's not even "faith"; there's no trust in God anywhere in that mindset. It's just idolatry wearing a Sunday dress. But even those thriskefoni deserve to be healed. We cannot be a System OF love if we don't love ALL of us, and seek the highest good FOR us all. So don't ignore or avoid or condemn them, either. Have mercy and compassion. Talk to them. Listen to them. Let's heal this religious trauma TOGETHER, so we can ALL worship in Spirit and in Truth, with our ENTIRE collective heart, WITHOUT the terror they're currently injecting into it.
...Infi resurrecting will help more than anything else right now, I think. I hope. Ze loved God with an ardor no one else up here could match. We need that, to heal at the deepest level, I'm sure.
Jay says he "knows" Infi isn't dead (there's that fear that "maybe I imagined it all"); he can still feel that "space" in his heart, but he says sometimes it's just like sending a radio signal out into the dark. He says he "knows it will be received" which is interesting-- like, the metaphor doesn't exactly match; he's saying/ feeling that he couldn't "send out a signal" to a receptor without the receptor being there. Like the giver and receiver are intrinsically bound and necessarily coextant. But... there's a massive distance between them, and there's currently no tangibility, so although the signal being able to be sent at all is proof that there is another heart on the waiting end, Jay doesn't always "know" or "feel" that heart in a direct way. It's hard to put into words. But he says there have been multiple small instances of "brushing against" Infi's existence in unformed space (both real Blackspace and in whatever "liminal" interspace there is between the raw cosmic euchaos of Black and the solid touchable order of White, so to speak) over the past month, so there's still hope. But Infi is still extremely "undefined" and transitional; hir name is probably still going to change, hir form is shifting significantly and in different ways, and hir pronouns are all over the place. So there's still a lot that apparently needs to happen before ze can "resurrect" into a body in headspace. Nevertheless, "a lot" can happen very quickly, as we know. When the time is right, it will.

There's still so much I could type about but it's now 1:35 and I can't possibly write much more on short notice. Plus I need to see what little notes we have on our phone, and on our calendar, so I can put something cohesive together.

January was a battleground of a month. Every other day, like clockwork, we had an eating disorder struggle (due to the nighttime meals, family stress, and trauma flashbacks), but we FOUGHT HARD and we learned a lot. Most significantly, our constant prayers and dedication to PAYING ATTENTION to the esthiofoni and WORKING WITH THEM has resulted in a massive amount of compulsions GOING AWAY. That is AMAZING progress. The vast majority of the esthiofoni DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE, which means they're changing, and that has ONLY happened because we have been listening to them and not running away from the war. So progress IS being made, in a way much more significant than anything in UMPC or TBHU ever could have hoped to accomplish. We're also praying constantly in a SINCERE way-- admitting our struggles, our broken desires, our misrouted hungers, our fears and terrors and regrets, our grief and rage and confusion and pain, to God even in the midst of distorted behaviors. That's changing the whole situation. We're also being open and honest and accountable to our priest and our family about this, which is taking real guts and humility. We're owning up to our bad behavior once we become aware of it (social blackouts make this currently impossible to "prevent" in the moment, but that's why we're doing damage control) and that alone is giving us a boost of motivation and hope to stop; we want to be a person of integrity on the outside, and these little steps make that a bit more tangible, which in turn helps us let go of self-abusive compulsions because "hey, we don't have to be a bad person anymore" basically. Isn't that odd how our brain works? Part(s) of us really did/do feel condemned to bad behavior, because they saw "no other way TO be" and couldn't imagine anything else. They're somafoni; they don't HAVE the capacity of self-aware imagination (yet?). So GIVING them the ability TO envision something different-- even just a little-- by taking those steps on THEIR level, is a gamechanger.

Jay is actually being pushed into fronting a lot more often now. He's still such a healthy fronter, such a loving Core. And yes I say "still" because even if his bloodline did get the vice of Lust (the Jessicas got Gluttony, the Cannons got Wrath, the Jewels got Pride arguably, etc.) they also got the virtue of Charity. No one loves like a Jay, full stop. Those boys have such tender yet strong hearts. And we need his heart to be the driving force in the System right now. Love is what we need to heal, and that bloodline is the only one that CAN. So yeah, I know we were all scared that the thriskefoni female-forcing would end up murdering his bloodline, it has not happened at all.
The other bloodlines do need to be healed, of course. Everyone has wounds. But it starts with love.

That's it for tonight. It's 2am and we just remembered, we may have to meet our case manager around 9am (that depends entirely on what the weather looks like; of course Jay is personally hoping we get significant snow), so we're already losing much needed sleep.

It feels really nice to have legit updated for the first time in a while. I'm sorry I don't have any actual internal event data to give you today, but rest assured it's been happening in small days. We all talk constantly, and people still front during the day as they feel moved to/ as they are called in. We're still very much alive and in love and thank God for that. But getting back into having Xanga sessions and headspace meditations and the like is absolutely still the ideal, and we think about that every day. The biggest obstacle is time, which is currently being funneled into the TBHU uploads. But we're going to work at that until it's done-- no more running away; yes it's exhausting but that just means we need to support each other more in this process. The good news is that the worksheets have some really, really nice stuff in them, moreso than the tablet-- the very top sheet in this manila envelope is all about Anxi. So THAT will wake up the kardifoni love very strongly for sure. (We're still not 100% sure who fell in love with her in TBHU, but this will hopefully reveal that to us, which we need.)
Until then, though, we need to sleep.

Oh-- one of the kardifoni (an older Jewel? a Cannon? from that time period) has been wanting us to get back to the "song of the night" thing, because music is so important to us. So here's a few.
- jewel's fave "stuck in our head on loop" tune
- "instant energy boost" tune
- heartache moralimon relevant tune
- "oh hey FROST* wrote another song about our life" january tune
- genesis's current singing tune
- cathartic sobbing at 3am last night tune
- coolest spin on a hymn we've heard in a while tune
- and our journaling on johnnynighters tune
And that's actually it for January, offhand. But there you go!

I'm laughing though, that took another 20 minutes but now it's 222 which is an extremely blue number synaesthesia-wise, and that's a very nice number to close up on and go let Jay be with the blue guy.

See you all again soon enough, that's a promise.

 
SO EXHAUSTED THIS MORNING.
Could barely stay awake during Adoration. Everything felt like we were still dreaming.

BK egg disaster AGAIN.
Prep took TWO BLOODY HOURS

Lynne & Scalpel performing Beegee Adair together
Scalpel was wearing a suit and playing the baby grand piano, which was endearingly hilarious because the man still has a bright red "sidehawk", rings all over his fingers, and several metal teeth, haha. And there he is playing jazz piano and pouring his heart into it. It was such a perfectly RED thing.
Lynne of course was playing her violin with that effortless flowing joy she always does.


Adelaide talking about her function. Started with "I want a new role." Said she's always frustrated because it's humiliating.
SPICE spoke up, said "that's the POINT," Because Humility is a key BROWN VIRTUE?? They work with the BODY primarily, and all its humiliations, "thankless" and unglorious work, but ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR THE SPECTRUM ITSELF TO SURVIVE. "We ALL live in the body, and it's the Brown's job to take care of it for all of us"
Laurie saying that Adelaide's job was actually "Scripturally credible"; she was doing the MOST humble service, to GIVE DIGNITY to our body in a context where it had been chronically neglected & dehumanized. Laurie emphatically reminded us all that THIS EXACT BODY WILL BE RESURRECTED, and therefore ALL OF IT IS A TEMPLE FOR GOD, and MUST be treated & used as such. Adelaide was perfecting that in a way no one else ever had dared to before. (Honestly I don't think Addie would even EXIST if not for our hospice charity days!)
Lastly remember Julie telling her, with painful sincerity, "if you had been with us in the past, a lot of bad things wouldn't have happened."
Addie saying "most of the behaviors are automated"; Laurie said, essentially, "that's normal, you just need to manage them. The point is so that the mind isn't empty when the body is acting, because THAT'S how hackers get in."
In any case Adelaide NEEDS COWORKERS. Harmonia isn't around anymore? She got hit hard by CNC trauma and it shut her conscious capacity down.
Hey, remember how YEARS ago a therapist GAVE US A WORKSHEET of "what "alters" do what tasks in the body," basically "who handles which aspects of daily life?" And we were SHOCKED & SCARED to realize that MOST OF THEM WERE UNCONSCIOUSLY AUTOMATED. It explained the time loss, but we had NO IDEA that subsystems were a thing at that time, haha. Anyway the point is, FIND THAT LIST. POST THE JOB OPENINGS.
It's a new era for us. Every few years something shifts. It started the year after Jewel was "born" as our first Core in 2001, her and Celebi, and since then we've had legit "eras" of headspace=
2002-2003 (1), 2003-2005 (2), 2005-2008 (4), 2008-2012 (4), 2012-2017 (5), 2017-2023 (6). Every time the gap years increase by one.
This one, if it continues the pattern, is 2023-2030 (7). We FELT the shift begin this year, tangibly so. We have no idea what's ahead; only God does. But look back at the past. He's done good for us so far and He is faithful. Plus, 7 is our lucky number, haha.
Still, the point I was originally trying to make is this= Era 6 was, fittingly, defined by death... right up to Divine Mercy Sunday and Infinitii's death in the final 2 weeks before the arguable "new year" date of Jewel's birthday... after which EVERYTHING CHANGED VERY QUICKLY.
...


ALSO WE REALIZED WHY WE KEEP DOING MORE FAITHPASTING THAN TYPING= OUR BRAIN IS STILL IN "TUMBLR SHARE MODE"!!! It's operating under the false premise that we're going to post these as standalone quotes, and LEAVE IT AT THAT. But that's just an abstracted form of HOARDING, which we learned is ALSO ACTUALLY AN OCD SYMPTOM, go figure.


Evening

GENTE COME NOI & SNOW!!!!!
"THIS IS HOW MUCH GOD LOVES ME"

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VOTD = Deuteronomy 31:6.
"How many times have we not gone for something that we felt called to, because we were scared or discouraged, or we panicked? Or maybe we felt that fear, and MISINTERPRETED it as the HOLY SPIRIT telling us NOT to go for it BECAUSE we felt fear."
KEY WORD IS "MISINTERPRETED" BUDDY!!! THE HOLY SPIRIT DOESN'T CAUSE THAT EMOTION!!!
The Spirit of God is a Spirit of LOVE and POWER and SOUND JUDGMENT, and SPECIFICALLY NOT OF COWARDICE OR FEAR.
...

"During this season of Advent, and time of reflection, think about the seasons of your own life. Every situation you face is an opportunity to grow your faith in God and trust in His promises.
If you're feeling discouraged or fearful of the future, spend some time in prayer, [which allows you to draw near to Him], and ask God for courage and peace.
Remember that you are never alone in life. God is always with you. Trust in that. Even when you experience challenging circumstances, you can find peace in knowing He is close, and with Him, you can be strong and courageous.
Not only will His Presence never leave you, but His Love will never be taken away. He will never forsake you. There is nothing that can separate you from the Love of God (Romans 8:38). Thank God for His Love and Presence during this season of reflection. And confidently cling to the promises that He has given you."
1) Now that we can identify our "seasons," we can APPLY that amazing truth= they were and are all opportunities to draw nearer to God. That's ALWAYS the ultimate point, of EVERYTHING, because GOD is orchestrating it all and He ALWAYS does whatever He does for our salvation. And we cannot receive salvation if we don't have a trusting faith in God. So He gives us circumstances that allow such sparks to catch and seeds to grow.
(LIST PERSONAL EXAMPLES, SPECIFICALLY, OF TIMES OUR FAITH IN HIM & TRUST IN HIS PROMISES DID INDEED GROW OVER THE ERAS.)
...
2) If your prayer isn't drawing you nearer to God, you're not truly praying.
Prayer is supposed to be like this-- a refuge, a time to be with God as a Father, a place to humbly ask & receive both peace & courage. It's not supposed to be something you avoid out of stressful terror.
3)
4)

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EGJ=
"It is ironically all too easy to miss the Christ among us when we are fixated on the heaven above us. As we prepare to welcome Christ into the grit of our world, we are encouraged to look deeper— not just higher— to see His very real Presence among us, around us, and even within us. Blessed indeed are the eyes that see.
Challenge yourself today. Look into the face of someone you’d normally look past or otherwise avoid. Remind yourself that they love someone, that someone loves them, and that their love is very real.
Pray that the Infant Christ, turned away at the inn and born among the shepherds, will open your eyes that you might learn to see Him in the most unexpected places and in the most vulnerable faces."
This meditation moved my heart to say, before anything else, "this is the only God worthy of worship. This is the only God I would ever want to worship. Thank God that HE alone is the One True God-- this God Who identifies Himself with the most rejected & vulnerable among men, the ones most in need of love and most able to move other hearts to give it!"
...

LBB= Actually brought me to tears.
"Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless, which in their culture was a great misfortune, even a disgrace (since there would be no heirs to carry on the memory of the family). One can imagine their feelings of failure and inadequacy.
All of us feel barren in one way or another. I haven’t “produced” in my life what others (or I myself) had hoped I would. My failure to live up to “what might have been” leaves me with a certain empty feeling.
But God does things through me that I myself cannot do, or even measure. And God does them often in ways I don’t understand.
That’s the secret. Let God do what God wants to do through me and trust in His plan. That is the path to greatness — no matter what my age, no matter what my condition.
O Lord, let me let You do what You want to do through me today. "
Every single word of this went straight to my heart.
1) Since I was a child, a literal child, long before puberty, my family made it very clear that as a female and a Christian, they expected me to get married and have children. I never wanted to. I was bitterly opposed to it AS a child.
...but despite all my rebellion, i couldn't erase the social stigma. I cannot avoid the public shame, especially within the faith community.
...
2) I sometimes wonder if God has cursed me in ironic fashion, on purpose, with a barren life.
3) but God knows I WANTED to be creative. I WANTED to be prolific and I TRIED. But... I failed. I always failed. All my hopes are dead. I am completely empty.
4) ...so was Elizabeth, to everyone but God. How ironic.
5) ...maybe God wants the production to be HIS work, not mine. Maybe He's been setting an inexplicable stage for His own masterwork. Is that arrogant to hope for, even if i denounce all personal credit?
6) I cannot do what God can. But I also cannot MEASURE it. I don't often think about that word but it's HUGE when you grasp its meaning.
7) most of all, I don't understand. But I can TRUST.
8) "No matter my age or condition," God doesn't see me as useless.
9) LET God do what HE wants to do.
...

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Lots of Universalis today, from Adoration.
(DON'T QUOTE WHOLE THING, JUST REFER TO KEY POINTS?)

I loved this sermon intro so much I want to just ponder it as such=
"The very Son of God, (Jesus Christ)
older than the ages, (Jesus is eternal, existing before Creation)
the invisible, (Jesus's "true Nature" cannot be seen with the eye)
the incomprehensible, (Jesus is a Mystery we literally cannot grasp)
the incorporeal, (Jesus took on a body, but in Himself He is pure Spirit)
the beginning of beginning, (Jesus both created and recreated all things)
the light of light, (true God from true God; He IS what He "came from")
the fountain of life and immortality, (ALL life, true life, flows from Him as the Source and Origin)
the image of the archetype, (
the immovable seal, (
the perfect likeness, (
the definition and word of the Father: (
HE it is Who comes to His own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature, and unites Himself to an intelligent soul for the good of my soul, to purify like by like. He takes to Himself all that is human, except for sin."
1) Christ is the Image of God, but MAN is the image of CHRIST????
2) In taking our nature "to Himself," it rewrote our nature?? It didn't "restore" it like a computer reboot, to "before the Fall"-- it TRANSCENDED even that. Jesus didn't rewind or restart our nature, He REDEFINED IT, to reflect His Own???
3) Jesus, Who is literally God, "UNITED HIMSELF to an intelligent soul". I can't properly comment on this because i don't know what that means. I don't understand "soul" yet.
...
4) "To PURIFY like by like". There's such depth in that phrase. As a mortal I can't quite understand it. But Christ grasped these things for His Own and His very touch purified them. No, it was far more than touch, it wasn't mere contact-- it is UNITY.
...
5) Sin is "human"? But it's unnatural. And it was INSTIGATED BY SATAN. However, humans cannot sin as angels do. We have a unique free will. So our capacity for sin IS uniquely human, even if it isn't supposed to be part of the human existence.
...

"He was conceived by the Virgin Mary, who had been first prepared in soul and body by the Spirit; His coming to birth had to be treated with honour, virginity had to receive new honour."
1) This is EXACTLY WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN TO US DURING ADVENT!!
2) This simply & clearly supports the Immaculate Conception, too. Mary was prepared before her birth. She was "built for the purpose," consecrated from the first instant.
3) A humble but genuine question: do Protestants think about that aspect of "honor" as it applies here?
4) A "new" honor of virginity? And does it STILL apply, or just to Mary?
...

"He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that I may gain the riches of his divinity. He who is full is made empty; he is emptied for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery that surrounds me? I received the likeness of God, but failed to keep it. He takes on my flesh, to bring salvation to the image, immortality to the flesh. He enters into a second union with us, a union far more wonderful than the first... Holiness had to be brought to man by the humanity assumed by One Who was God, so that God might overcome the tyrant by force and so deliver us and lead us back to Himself through the mediation of His Son."
1) The first union was "man made in God's image & likeness," and living in harmony in the Garden. This second union is the UNITY of God & man brought about in Christ. And it IS wonderful, which is why I included those well-known opening phrases. Don't ever let them become commonplace! Don't ever take them for granted!
Advent is about God "creating man anew" by taking on man's image. It's a paradox-- man IS in the "image of God," but by the Fall he started to mar that likeness, and disfigured himself. But now God Himself takes on that "image of man," and in doing so, not only restores it to what it was meant to be, but PERFECTS it.
Christ became human, became a pure and innocent baby, and suddenly, in seeing that holy child, every man realized what he was created to be all along.
...


"His Word is a rod that strikes the ruthless, His sentences bring death to the wicked."
Laurie was struck by this holy concept: the weapons of the Lord are His WORDS. He needs no violent armaments, because His Power is in Himself, total & irresistible.

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DUDE IT JUST HIT ME
"EMMANUEL" = "IMAN-UEL" = as in "IMMANENT."
Oh of course its not exact etymology but STILL. Immanent means "indwelling, remaining within, inherent." And if you REALLY want to push etymology, you can say it's an "immanent noel", an "indwelling birth."

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From our Advent reading plan, as we forgot the past few days=
"For so many of us, Christmas is the exact opposite of joy [because] we’re busier than ever this time of year. As a result, our lives are lacking the key factors that make this season special: wonder, innocence, and peace. [But in this season,] we’re all confronted with choices in life: the choice to choose others, kindness, and wonder, or the opposite: to choose ourselves, selfishness, and bitterness... Christmas isn’t guaranteed to be joyful. But maybe that’s the point. As we get older, joy becomes less circumstantial and more of a choice we have to make despite the circumstances. [As James 1:2-3 tells us Christians,] we’re called to consider even the most un-ideal events joyful— a chance to develop our character and grow in our faith. What a relief to know that joy can be experienced even when our situation is not ideal!
Maybe there’s someone in your own life who forced [your inner child] to come face-to-face with the "reality of the world" much too soon... maybe it wasn’t a person but a circumstance you had no say over. Whatever happened, or will happen, in your life, [that tempts you to despair, bitterness, or apathy,] we all [still] have that same freedom... we can choose to preserve our wonder, or we can succumb to the disillusionment the world has to offer. Which will it be for you?"
Oh wow, perfect timing as always, God. I've been thinking about this entire concept all week, often with actual weeping.
Let me break it down.
1) Busyness robs you of joy. Being industrious is fine, being productive is fine, being active is fine, don't get me wrong. But being BUSY will drain your soul dry. If your body, your mind, your heart, are all so busy that they don't have a minute to stop and rest, let alone find peace, then joy will also have no room or way to enter in. 
2) We STILL have our sense of wonder, thank God, but it has been bruised. Nevertheless, even on our bleakest days, we can always get Jewel to front for a minute with her eyes full of stars, and that illuminates all of us. Being multiple truly is a gift from God.
3) ...We have lost our innocence, though.
It's surreal. Whenever we tap into archival Christmas memory data, the FIRST and virtually ONLY records we have are of 2005 and 2013... of Jewel and Jay. That's IT. There is NOTHING from Spinny or Cannon's days, and only the dimmest & most terrorstricken shreds from the "Chthonic era," pre-CNC. After that... nothing. There are exactly two flashbulb flashbacks from CNC, before everything goes black: first, going to the Dawn Mass at the local Cathedral on zero hours of sleep and twelve hours of horror, legitimately feeling like we might die from abusive exhaustion, a d not caring. We blearily remember sitting in the pew, and seeing candles.
The second memory is sitting on the floor by their tree, alone, at 3am, sobbing hysterically and wanting to either go home or die.
...
4) THE CHOICE.
5) NO "GUARANTEE"-- Jesus Himself won't force joy on you!
6) There is a blessed freedom in this, actually, that feels like the very first Christmas. When our joy is liberated from circumstance and anchored solely in God-- because HE ALONE IS JOY-- then nothing can ruin our Christmas.
7) James's letter really is timeless wisdom. Faith blossoms under pressure.
This is amazingly empowering-- it means that our troubles are TRANSMUTED, as they become the very fertile soil for us to grow virtue in. That itself is a real reason to rejoice.
...
8) Person & circumstances that "shut up the child," tempt us to despair & bitterness
9) CHOOSE TO PRESERVE YOUR WONDER. First, you ALWAYS have that choice, which is a huge light of hope to realize. Second, "preserve" is an ACTIVE word: it means to "keep safe from harm by acting so as to insure that something [harmful] does not occur." It means you treat your wonder AS a child, and YOU are the parent. When you take that perspective, you will know what to do; it's an instinct of compassion. Third: the possessive pronoun. You're not trying to wistfully preserve some nebulous concept of wonder that fees just out of reach. No. It is YOUR wonder, YOUR precious unique thing, and NO ONE can take it away from you, even if it feels lost right now. Make a choice to preserve it now, to take action to maintain it, to keep that inner child alive and well. Wonder cannot die, but it can be buried, so to speak. 
...
10) The WORLD "offers" disillusionment.
Jesus GIVES the exact opposite.


Now there are questions to conclude=

"Be honest: What circumstances are you facing today that aren’t “ideal?” How can you arrest your cynicism and look instead to how your character, faith, and knowledge of God can "grow you through" this situation? Where might you find joy after all?"
1) The non-ideal circumstances that specifically have to do with Christmas are half silly, half gutting. Grandma and grandpa are dead. We no longer live in the family home. One sibling is across the country, another is lost in a schizophrenic delusion, another is locked in his room and won't leave. We don't have any decorations. We can't eat "normal" food anymore. We don't have any family get-togethers or traditions. We don't have transportation for church activities. We can't burn candles post-COVID. Virtually all of our childhood memory triggers are absent or destroyed. We just feel like... Christmas is this unbelievably gorgeous hallucination, something so heavenly that what little we do remember of it seems so pure and perfect it's hard to believe it literally happened in physical space and time. But our heart aches so hard for it we could weep, and have wept, several times over it in the past month alone-- which is notable as our emotions have been shut down for almost a year.
2) That word, "cynicism," is a dagger of a conviction. I wouldn't have applied it to myself, but looking at it now, I guess it is there-- the word means " to be pessimistic, distrustful, believing that "things won't work out""; and when I list those non-ideals, although I desperately hope and wish things could get better and WANT to MAKE them better with all the power I have... is there cynicism creeping in, and saying, "it'll never happen?" If so, how do I ARREST that, even preemptively?
3) "Grow you through" must be a Protestant term, haha. I've never heard it before. Still, it's a legitimate and edifying concept.
4)


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Catena is HEADSPACE RELEVANT again, AND actually applicable to that reading plan too=
"Temptations come so that hidden passions may be revealed and so that it will be possible to fight them, and so that the soul may be rid of them. [Temptations] are a sign of God's mercy. So give yourself with trust into God's hands and ask His help, so that He will strengthen you in your struggle. God knows how much each one can bear and allows temptations according to the measure of our strength. Remember that after temptation comes spiritual joy, and that the Lord protects them that endure temptations and suffering for the sake of His love." (Saint Nektarius of Aegina)
1) This principle is, admittedly, why we subtly "seek out stressful circumstances." We WANT to trigger out "hidden passions"-- and the foni attached to them-- so we can SEE and FIGHT them, yes, but also so we can understand what their roots & motives are, because if you DON'T have a sense of at least pity towards those foni then no matter how much you fight them, you won't win the war. God's weapons are more subtle than swords, and far more effective-- truthfully, in spiritual warfare, ONLY God's weapons WORK!
2) MERCY
3) ASK FOR HELP. YOU CANNOT WIN ANY BATTLE ALONE.
4) God WILL strengthen you.
5) "May I be equal to Your hope of me." God knows your limits and He WILL push you to them, but He stands with you the whole time.
6) Spiritual Joy
7) PROTECTION
8) ALL FOR HIS LOVE.

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