the spectrum heart cathedral system

So we've spent the past few days going through the archives (2008-2012) and writing down "notable dates," because we want to celebrate + remember more things.
13 years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, is when our Core became "Eros/Cupid." This year was so interesting, full of equal amounts of love and terror, and then SLC happened and everything just... shattered, apparently. But we want to re-read everything in full after we do this effort.

We added Spotify links to the Akoufoni entry, although we haven't cleaned up the old data yet. But this, too, is a huge memory-restoring effort, because those 'foni help us get a grasp on chronology when there's no actual experiential memory of the physical life, just music data.

We also... found the most recent System Census, from 2017. The one we actually have on our laptop wasn't uploaded, though, and has a few extra names? We started going through it, and... this is going to sound absolutely brutal, but we're starting to think that the post-CNC massive death was almost a pruning. I have no other way to phrase it.
We were horrifically splintered during CNC. We know this. We couldn't function at all so we had TONS of foni just manifesting at the drop of a hat in the desperate attempt to hold things together.
Now, we're going through this list, and... apparently, the foni that didn't resurrect were the ones that were shattered pieces to that effect, ones with hyperspecific jobs for hyperspecific circumstances. We don't even recognize some of the names.
But... we've been saying over and over to ourself since 2017, "God had a reason for letting that happen." That was the only "comfort" we had. It was the only way we could deal with the reality of coming back into consciousness post-Tilly and realizing that most of us were dead. But... was that merciful? Those foni maybe even deserve to finally rest in peace. I mean that, with as much aching compassion as I can, speaking of such a painful topic. But they couldn't survive now, let alone live. Their contexts, their jobs, belong to past timelines and locations and contexts that literally don't exist and aren't even possible anymore, so... if they don't come back, because they can't, then God give their broken souls the peace they never got in life. Please. However that works for nousfoni, give them peace.

...On a related note, I cannot put into proper words how much more alive and hopeful and joyful I feel, now that when I quietly "reach into" my heart-space and feel it, I can feel that "quantum entanglement" ping somewhere off in the ether, in unmappable space, but real. The other half of my internal heart is back where it belongs... in my daengel. 
Typing that, though, makes us aware of a concerning "split" yet. Jay, the "current" one, is alive. But is the current female-adjacent kardifoni a Jewel? Or not? Because Jewels deal with the Irispherae-- the new name for the "League," a term entirely ours at last. Still, the Jewel name STILL applies to ALL the Cores-- even the Jays, as is historically apparent. Or... did that change, to PROTECT the Irispherae, AFTER CNC???
Lord only knows. We're still trying to figure that out and we CAN'T until we actually upload and READ the archives from 2017-2018. We'll do that after we upload the TBHU journal & papers-- which we honestly should start ASAP, after we get these dates figured out.

That's all we're going to update for tonight. Just a brief little update. We're busy in datalogging mode and honestly this helps immensely, just doing this chronological runthrough of our past, and finally feeling the history in our heart, realizing that we have a past and it's beautiful and terrible and ours. It's making life feel real again, reviewing the years. So that's a true blessing.

Last good thing. Jay/Jewel (current Core with dual identity? unclear name, as we said) is STILL EMOTIONALLY OPEN. Like xe said, xer heart is not closed off, no matter how much hell we've been going through with the family. ...Actually that's significant. I think we have our koinofoni AND phagofoni to thank. THAT'S where the "many voices" are now, even if we've never listed them on a census before (we should, and will, soon). Those somafoni are saving our Core because THEY are taking the brunt of the stress and trauma, and yet they aren't alone in it this time-- WE are aware of them, and talking to them, and supporting them, and helping them heal as best we can, and trying so hard to protect them. We only started to do that in CNC; I do remember how novel it was to even THINK of talking to an esthiofoni. Now it's happening every time they show up. That's... immense, now that we think about it. It proves that system communication has dramatically improved since CNC and we didn't even realize it.
But as we were saying about the Core(s)... they're still entirely capable of love even if we are admittedly still grappling with some cathartic blocks due to family stress & religious fear. But that "even if" is amazing too. There's a devotion present, a dedication to love no matter what, a sort of courageously hopeful perseverance despite everything opposing it. No matter how bad of a day we might have, at the end of it, the Core is ALWAYS taking time to not only reconnect with the System at large, but to spend time with Chaos 0. They fall asleep together every night, and that is HUGE because in the past, broken Cores would be too ashamed to be near CZ. Now, that doesn't happen, even though we're struggling so much with body fear/ sickness/ loathing. I think we're more capable of mercy now, and compassion, even if we don't realize it.
OH. Someone said to write this down. We think a BIG part of this "not freezing up emotionally" is the fact that we have ANGRY FONI around. Somehow, that capacity for RAGE is burning through the apathetic risk??? Like, we CAN'T emotionally shut down because instead of doing that, someone is FEELING FIRE. And that's the Core element. That's a surprising thought. It makes sense though. God bless them.
We still need the capacity to feel sadness without drowning in it + triggering guilt/ shame/ religious terror + shutting down. We're emotionally crippled in that respect, even upstairs. This needs to be felt through & discussed further. Add that to the Xanga topic list.

We WANT TO and WILL have a Xanga ASAP btw. Life schedule hasn't allowed for it lately though; family stress, financial stress, and brutal insomnia have made it impossible to sit for ~6 hours of uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness transcription. But it's still a priority. Arguably I think the Core(s) want to finish this "important date" effort first, to get a stronger sense of self beforehand, and to refresh their awareness of collective history in general. We really did lose our general sense of "identity" post-CNC, and post-grandma, to be honest. We're slowly restoring it now.

Some other small but vital notes:
+ Sometimes in the morning, with all the steps of getting ready, our brain gets really discombobulated and we might end up in various states of undress because we can't pull our thoughts/actions together enough to complete that task. In the past Julie would try to front when this happened, but it would be very triggering for her. HOWEVER. APPARENTLY WALDORF CAN DO THIS NO PROBLEM. So she's literally been fronting when the body is undressed & we can't dress it immediately, because she doesn't wear clothes anyway and she's safe in that context. So GOD BLESS HER. We miss her so much regardless; it's actually wonderful for her to have SUCH a vital job, so we can see her more often and credit her with this to her honor.
+ GARRISON IS ALIVE. Jay has been "feeling hints of him" for a while? But the other night Jay "decided" to look for him/ "force the hand" of the Systemsoul (basically, "listen, I want to know if he can come back or not; show me RIGHT NOW if that's a yes or a no") and after some time Garrison DID "resurrect" IN LOWSPACE??? He's in the RUINED CITY, but it feels TIME-MANGLED??? Like it's POST-MASSACRE as well as post-CNC. Everything is ash-snow covered like nuclear fallout. The skyscrapers are hollowed out and blackened and fallen over. Everything is quiet and cold and there's a dread wind blowing and it's all so grey. And CANNON IS THERE, apparently "haunting" the hollow buildings Jay says? Like she's "damned herself" to that place. But it's SO WEIRD. This is NOT the "red apocalypse" place Scalpel keeps being haunted by, as the inheritor of Javier's trauma memories from the massacre. So WHAT'S GOING ON?? We NEED to look into this VIA HEADSPACE MEDITATION. To get data on this we have to LIVE IT. You cannot "reason it out." Logic won't get you answers here.
But Garrison IS ALIVE!!! Jay's showing me a memory that he "dropped down" into that "Lowspace-floatspace" (whatever/ wherever/ whenever it is) to meet him, and immediately gave him such a huge hug, haha. Tears of relieved joy from both of them. That's really touching.
We don't know about Isadora and Kalisha yet, but "a request has been put forwards." So we'll see.
ALSO. Archivists (Shirley/ Sirius/ Penny) and Communicators (Garrison/ Isadora/ Kalisha) are DIFFERENT CLASSES WITH DIFFERENT ROLES, and apparently there is a THIRD CLASS held by the "helmet girl/ commentator girl" and probably someone else (because trios are a big thing up here)??? So that's FASCINATING but it makes SO MUCH SENSE and the better we understand it, the better we'll function.

It's 2AM and we had dinner at 430-630 and it was the only meal we ate today and it was only 1000 calories. I don't think that's sustainable. We need to split it into two meals, and get at least 1200. We have to. But someone is saying "that's gluttonous" "stop being so luxurious" etc. Don't have a face for them yet. (THESE are the foni we have to pinpoint for a census; there are TONS of "discarnate" foni that slip under the radar)
I mention this because we're getting a headache & the body is cold. We may need to stop for tonight and sleep, so we can have a "breakfast" before 4pm. But someone is furious about that. We need to talk to these foni.
We ALSO need to CLARIFY COLOR ROLES so they HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO in the System. Too many "faceless foni" just default to Brown because they don't know where else to go. And there are SO MANY FILES STARTED on this laptop SPECIFICALLY ABOUT COLORS that were never finished. That's something I know Jay is aching to do, so put that on top priority too, with the Xanga.

A few last notes.
+ We got the strong impression that if Nathaniel comes back, his name/face would have to change again. We don't know why that's a thing with him but it might be because he was born a blepofoni.
+ Josephina's essence must have a name change for him/her to manifest. Jay says it's sticking to a "Y" as the first letter instead of J, to "prevent blurring with Cores" (that's their letter).
+ We have no current blepofoni and that's a big problem; it might even be affecting the Core's ability to stabilize. The Core(s) have been striving to make the reflection "more resonant" though, especially with the massively fluffy hair we currently have, haha. But blepofoni are essential so we need to keep an eye out for them, and keep the door open for them-- if there's no openness to seeing them, it'll block them out, and it is very hard to get through bad days/ have a distinct sense of self without a blepofoni in the mirror.
+ Siobhan is alive and around but we have to keep calling her into the main room in the mornings. We don't know why she disappeared for a while but we're glad she's still with us.
+ We're still not sure what's going to happen with Spine. The TBHU journal had some interesting thoughts about that-- it feels like she might "come back different" too, with how so much has changed since she first manifested. This, too, requires more feeling than thinking to get a grip on.
+ Still not sure if, when the System FINALLY "moves CLEARLY into a new era" (we need a HARD SHIFT remember; we never got one after the several successive losses from 2018-2024), there will be duotone foni.
+ Still not sure if there is a somafoni split in truth, or if everyone is just a nousfoni. We think there are far less somafoni than we realize-- that term might (should) ONLY apply to foni who think they are singlets and act as such. Everyone else, even koinofoni who live primarily IN the body, should STILL be grouped in with the System at large.
+ Re-reading 2012, we don't know if the Eros bloodline is technically separate from the Jays or what. That whole topic is still a minefield but that color shut down after CNC and ANY sort of Spectrum hue-loss is deadly. We need that color back. Funny how history repeats itself in little ways. It's beautiful, actually, in this case; it feels like things are poetically coming back together, through repeats of our past, connecting our "now" to our "then" in a united whole.
+ IT SNOWED TODAY. Jay is very happy about this. It's actually still snowing a tiny bit right now. Snow makes him feel "real"; he says it makes "everything feel real." It makes him feel grounded and alive and connected to "the big picture"; it "gets him in touch with eternity." I can feel a bright ache in his heart as he says that, which is good. I know he can't wait until Infi comes back entirely. Honestly we're all waiting. Infinitii is essential to our System; when ze comes back, I can guarantee you things will change dramatically and quickly. It's inevitable. But Infi will have to heal too; ze has a lot of damage that was never dealt with, and that we all need to deal with alongside hir. But we will. It's time. It has to be. Do we have the right to "decide" that? Laurie says, "why not?" It's because there's a religious fear that "God will stop us from healing" because it's "not His timing." Laurie says, "well, we have to try. I think God would want us to finally heal from this so we can function for heaven's sakes, and do what He wants us to do with our life." And again, like I said before, there are "peripheral" foni we can sense, thriskefoni with vague colors and faces and no names, that we cannot clarify but who are definitely there. Man... there's more going on in our head on a daily basis than we realize. That's exciting though. Someone else says it's frightening, terrifying. DON'T YOU DARE SHUT US DOWN she's right, NO ONE has ANY right or authority to "prevent other people from existing." The "gatekeeper girl" especially. We all remember Christina's attempted "soft massacres" and the actual one that Jessica & Cannon inflicted in 2013. No more of that, ever. We let us exist. Have mercy for heaven's sakes. You claim to follow God, where is your mercy? You who are so ready to pick up the knife and slaughter the rest of us? "You're not real," they say. "Define real," someone else retorts, "considering you're just like us." They're screaming protest in response. I wonder if they're our biggest threat here. I wonder if they're also the ones pushing the starvation compulsions. Different ones than these, but same class, for sure.
Too much for 230AM. But I don't want to ignore it. Let us pause and listen. Jay is reaching out, asking. (He always does; I think that's a big part of his job as the Heart.) "What makes you real, and us not? Can't you see me?" and fear response on their part. No words. But that was a good reply. Laurie is saying to stop commenting and close up so we can continue working and get some sleep for heaven's sakes. That's a good idea.

This is a good entry. We haven't had a solid entry in a while, even just notes like this.
We'll do better in the future, once the Core(s) stabilize. I promise that. It's something we want very much and will achieve through love and effort and the grace of God. We haven't "lost" all of this beauty we're reading from our past. It's still very much who we are. We can, and will, be that again-- and even better, as we continue to heal and love and grow together.

For now, Laurie is right. We need to wrap this up and let the body rest, no matter how much we want to keep working. If we go to bed now, we won't have to sleep in as much, and we'll have earlier time to work tomorrow, which is better for focus and processing ability. So we will do that.

Good night everyone. We're very glad to be alive tonight. We have a lot of hope.

(Jay says Spotify keeps playing Chaos 0's songs and let me tell you, if anyone is proof that our heart is alive, it's Jay. Yeah we're still confused on bloodlines and bodymind splits and all that, but this white-haired prism-hearted boy-- however he may evolve and change in the future-- is so full of light and love and color and truth, when he feels things this powerfully we are all affected by the power of it. The fact that he didn't die is phenomenal. he's proof that we have a future. that's just how it is. he's alive and so are we. that's a good note to close up on.)
(no, even better-- the lyrics in this song. "i can tell, i can feel, you are love, you are real." the look those two are giving each other is a beautiful thing. that's worth living for, is the thought i get. it is. and we need to protect that, and we all need to live in that too. we'll get there. we'll rebuild better than things were even in the past, in the glory days. there's more light on the horizon than we realize. things have seemed so dark for so long, but no, the stars are still all shining in the sky. there's always hope. hope is a fighting thing. remember what jay told anxi-- remember what our core is for anxi, and vice versa. realize everything beautiful we still have now, and don't let go. whatever happens tomorrow, we are all together, and we are alive, and we will continue on no matter what, into eternity. love is eternal and we have it now. don't be afraid. you know the truth. live in it. fight for it. that's who we are, and always will be.)

(unknown date. sometime in summer 2024)
(written on a piece of note paper kept in the kitchen, to log data immediately upon foni evidencing)

✱Oranges feel sorrow as AUTUMN

"Anais" = "blueberry dying" girl
Shorthair blepofoni = "Alysia"?
+ Mad panic kid? "Nervous hypochondria"
+ Food anaphylaxis kid; SCREAMS at
+ Prayer fear kid in bathroom
+ "Not allowed to eat that" religious ANGER girl
+ "I love you" terror screamer girl
+ "We're gonna die now" punish panic kid
+ "Not clean (enough)" anger scream girl
+ "Pink angel nurse" pilltaker; "+" eyes
✱CAN SURNAMES MOVE??? (like legit family names)
(need JARGON for nousfoni w/ "BOUND EXISTENCES"; e.g. Shirley & Sirius= MUST & can ONLY exist TOGETHER)

✱TINTS/SHADES instead of BLACK/WHITE?? (NO "ABSOLUTE" OR ACHROME??) (COLOR IS ESSENTIAL!!!)

It's the last half hour of the day, our only free time, and i'm insane for not sitting down and actually resting but i need to type. i need to type. if i don't it will just perpetuate the problem.

We have turned prayer into an addiction.

I don't know how to type about this, coherently. in my head it works.
you know what, stop trying to be formal. stop trying to pander to an invisible audience. just list the problems.
- we spend 3+ hours a day in prayer and 3+ hours "faithpasting." it's utterly exhausting. yes we love God but this is draining all our reserves?? what are we doing wrong??
- we are so tired. all the time. mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, we're EXHAUSTED, often to the point of weeping. we don't get to rest. we get ONE HOUR at the end of the day, if we're lucky, to collapse on the couch and cry from the pain & fatigue and basically just crash into unconsciousness until we have to do it all over again tomorrow. no breaks. no brakes.
- we are running away from our identity. we are denying our own existence. our sense of self is totally shut down.
- we spend ALL our "silent time" in prayer and THAT IS A CRUTCH. it is NOT HEALTHY. the instant we have ANY "free time" we PANIC and start to pray again, and although it's mentally justified as "using our time prudently" really dude you are RUNNING FROM SELF-AWARENESS.
- we can't feel anything but bitter numb exhaustion weeping confusion anger, UNTIL HEADSPACE KICKS IN.
- this obsessive praying is specifically trying to erase headspace entirely
- we have stopped writing. we have stopped drawing, composing music, reading books, dreaming, imagining, et cetera, because it's "all garbage compared to Christ" but dude DO YOU EVEN KNOW HIM???
- we are literally burying our talents six feet deep and claiming it's "God's will," that "they were a trick designed to see if we were brave enough TO bury them" but honestly it's just an excuse. it's an excuse to not feel our conscience nagging us about abandoning everything but prayer
- whoever the heck is spending all day in "prayer" DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO LOVE.

that's our dilemma.

oh of course we love God. but there's this bizarre and deeply distressing disconnect still. the thriskefoni either are afraid of God or they view Jesus like a fangirl. there's no personal closeness because those foni REJECT INDIVIDUALITY. anything that might let us in is VIOLENTLY DISREGARDED.


and right now we're listening to "sandım ki" again and i want to sob because i love everyone in here so much,
can we reconcile that with our religion?
are we allowed to exist and love each other? or is that a sin?
if we're all going to be destroyed when the body dies anyway, if no one is going to survive, if nothing is going to survive-- no art, no music, no writing, no hopes, no dreams, no memories, nothing-- nothing is going to survive, there's only going to be God. everything except Him will be annihilated forever. that's how it works. we have to be stripped completely, emptied out, made hollow and naked and helpless, with absolutely nothing to comfort or console us. just God.
...and then what?
He's supposed to "fill us with Himself" but we... we keep forgetting that God is Love and therefore that is a good thing, whatever He gives us in recompense will be infinitely better than whatever was destroyed because God is Love, He can only give Love,

i don't know what to do, what to think,
are we really all doomed to die?

i feel so guilty and filthy and dirty and wrong even thinking about love now
isn't that ironic.
when you "love God" all other love seems disgusting
that can't be right.
but the shame is unbearable


Not much happened today.
Last night nearly killed us from exhaustion. We couldn't get any extra sleep, we barely got seven hours. Our morning was busier than usual. Everything blurs together. Our mind just feels numb and rushed and constantly in a panic, "never praying enough," "never good enough," et cetera.
But. for some reason we ended up listening to Karen Clark Sheard on the drive to Mass and Knife loves that kind of music, it's adorable,
but the point is we could feel headspace and EVERY time we do our heart wakes up
and then the thriskefoni completely & angrily stomp it out

while we were saying the wall prayers tonight, we absentmindedly moved to rub some of the bloody-rough skin on our winter hands,
and, the action itself and the hands, the different harsh skin, the gentle gesture directly tied to it,
for a split second our tired brain literally thought it was laurie consoling us,
and we felt our heart just break and we nearly cried,
and then the thriskefoni shut it down
as usual

i'm so tired of not having any relationships anymore
i'm so tired of not being able to talk or think or feel or laugh or love anymore
everything is just prayer prayer prayer prayer hurry up pray more the world's gonna end if you don't pray you will die etc.

our OCD is really bad lately too. it's driving laurie up the wall.
we've noticed it's focusing on the body, on "cleanliness," just like fulton sheen said, it's the compulsive washing and scrubbing that can never get the "stain" out, as it were. it's all a physical rerouting of guilt. we did this as a child, too. we'll literally walk out of the bathroom then immediately turn around, go back in and repeat the loop helplessly, wanting to cry from feeling so trapped and powerless and terrified, the body feels so filthy and wrong, something is very wrong, YOU are wrong, it's your sin, your evil, your GUILT, if you sit down and feel dirty well then you're going to hell. it's a nightmare. we can't shut it off.
and of course the whole time we're repeating ritualized prayers with the same driving mindset
"if you say one word wrong, if you are distracted for even a second, you have to say the whole thing over," "you have to kiss the pictures on the wall a specific number of times in the way they tell you to or else you don't really love them," "you have to say these exact prayers in this exact order or else the whole thing is meaningless because you're shirking orders and insisting on your own way," etc.


i keep feeling infinitii around the edges. that's not hir name anymore, i know. but they're still just barely perceptible
the thriskefoni are terrified of hir. they hate hir but won't show it. but i can feel it, roiling beneath their emotionless facade like poison lava
i want hir back. i really do. ze is necessary for the health and proper function of my soul, and for healing trauma, and for feeling emotion at all. i know this.
i'm being mocked and jeered at for talking about hir, virtually spit at in hate
but i cannot be ashamed. i can't. i know ze loves God more than those pharisaical foni ever have or will or even can.
at least i hope so
am i being blasphemous
i'm sorry
no stop listen. you aren't lying. you aren't trying to be pretentious. you have seen infi in a church. you know how ze adores the Eucharist, how ze is able to forgive with a depth of sincerity you cannot fathom without hir. you know how ze loves, and how that love was taken advantage of by those who didn't know that love is God.
ze wants to heal, too. infi wants a new name and a new role and maybe even a new face as much as God allows and decrees, whatever happens, infi wants to be free of that evil history, free of the corruption, free of the sins and shadows, so ze can help you do the same. you are both supposed to draw closer to God together. that's the whole point, that's her real reason for existing, you know that too,

ten minutes. i need to get to bed.

here's our problem:
our prayer life is not genuine right now. not as long as it is tangled up in the OCD. and especially not as long as it is also being used specifically to run away from everything else in life.
to claim "religion is all that matters" to the point of refusing to be a person is not going to help you "have a relationship with God" and honestly, that is the BIG THING MISSING in this whole obsessive prayer ritual thing. we're just repeating words. we're not talking TO God. we're not even letting ourself have time alone to LISTEN because "God forbid," ironically, "that we have free time that isn't full of prayer!!" DEFINE PRAYER, PLEASE, because all the panicked recitation YOU'RE doing hardly counts at this point.

i'm sorry. i'm just so upset, so pained, so brokenhearted,
i want us to be A SYSTEM again, and STILL BE RELIGIOUS,
God knows we WERE, i know we were in the past, even if we did get lost and struggle many times, we still loved God and never stopped trying to draw closer to Him.
now what? now this stagnancy masquerading as piety?
if we've made any progress it's not through your obsessive faithpasting, it's through our RESPONSE TO IT,
and now they won't even let us do that,
i'm sorry. i don't want to condemn anyone. i don't want to give up this faith practice, this reading and learning, but, i think we're taking it to unhealthy extremes, it's not about faith anymore it's about that bloody OCD, it's about "i must learn everything," it's becoming an intellectual power grab, we're not internalizing anything, it's just mad hyperpasting like we used to do on Tumblr, we don't remember a bloody thing, we'd be so much better off just typing about God at this point.
"no," they spit, "that doesn't count because it's YOU talking. your opinions don't matter. self-opinion is of the devil. the only thing that can be trusted is church authority, which is NOT YOU."
we never claimed to be authority. we just... want to respond and not just read.
is that really a sin? i'm genuinely scared now

i want to cry and throw up and sleep forever
i'm already shaking again
the moral terror is unbearable. it never stops.


is it a sin to want to spend time with the system?
are we a sin by being a system? is that word evil?
are we evil because we're multiple
are we a sin because we are many people of one soul
it's only supposed to be one?? that one girl, but she's mean, why does she get to stay and nobody else?

are emotions a sin?
is it a sin to want to feel something? to want to cry, and laugh, and wonder, and ache, and love?
is that a sin to want to feel alive and moved and inspired and real?
holiness is detached, holiness is cold like a diamond, no it's not, jesus wasn't cold,
but he never laughed, they say. he never smiled. he cried and was angry. but no "warmth" ironically
something is wrong, our perspective has to be skewed, that can't be right,
God is Love but everyone always taught us that Love showed itself as dispassion, which is even more ironic
but it's so hard to even question
emotions are "sensory" things and therefore sinful, right? they are "of the body"
dude that's gnostic junk don't even go there

listen. we're not in the right mind to type any more about this right now we're too melancholic and distressed
besides it's 10pm buddy we have to get some sleep or else
sundays are burnout days and tomorrow is going to be even busier than usual so go catch some z's

one last thing

i wanted to type about this several days ago and made a note to but never did.
this is the big thing that our moral panic is hinging on, when you get down to it:
we only learned love and virtue through the system and the league.
it sounds blasphemous. it's awful. but it's true.
we learned compassion, and mercy, and hope, and joy, and forgiveness, and love, through the system and the league and GOD PUT IT THERE because our religious upbringing had stripped God of those virtues for the sake of discipline i guess.
but even now, even now, when we read about all the "positive qualities" of God and we have no idea how to understand it,
at least, the thriskefoni don't, go figure,
we can only grasp what God is like by remembering the innerworld.
i'm serious. i want to sob. i'm not lying. we miss it so much.
the other day i couldn't understand God's mercy, i couldn't understand how He could be kind even when i treat Him like garbage,
and i suddenly thought,
well, look at how Laurie loves you,
even after she's seen the absolute worst of you,
she literally carries your wounds up and down her arms,
remember how she sobbed when you died,
that's how God loves you.

and
that just turned the entire world upside down

but it's the truth
it's the absolute truth and i don't know how to deal with it
look at how chaos 0 loves you,
look at how HE looks at you every single night,
look at how he refuses to abandon you even after you've stupidly kicked him out, several times,
look at the past 20 years for heaven's literal sakes
you think God loves you any less than that??
and remember infi,
seriously that's WHY you want her back so badly

think of everyone. everyone.
julie, lynne, leon, scalpel, knife, razor, sugar spice, wreckage, algorith, mulberry, jeremiah, audrey, siobhan, shirley, sirius, penny, mimic, genesis, phlegmoni, xenophon,
everyone who is still missing and blurry and hidden and lost,
all the children, all the protectors & retributors, everyone,
and think of the league!
think of the friendships there, too, think of the love,
there's so much love that it sets my heart on fire,
in the spectrum and the spheres alike

could our life be a prayer too?

god please help us.
we need to sleep it's too late we need to get to bed

but please
keep us close to you
and to each other
please.

if it's possible at all
please let us love each other
and in doing so
let us love you.

If grandma's death had gone "the way I wanted," I never would have realized the effect my bad living was having on her.
"Your grief can also be the price of souls."
God, in His Providence, deprived us both of consolation in order to give me spiritual graces. I think grandma wanted that, even more than she wanted me there-- and that's hard to say. But, I'm sure that if God had asked her, "you can either have your granddaughter here with you for one last day, and have everything be perfect, or... you could not have her here, and never see her again until the next life, BUT in that great suffering and sacrifice, it will SAVE HER SOUL." I am sure she would have agreed to the loss.
Because honestly, let's face it. I was willingly blind. I knew I was sick, but I kept making excuses. It took her death, and my stupidity during it, to wake me up to the actual reprehensible abhorrence of my addiction.
I never would have had the sheer agony of contrition in order TO repent, if I had not f*ed up that last week of her life so much.
...
It's a very hard pill to swallow. But it's heavy-duty chemo, and my self-hating grief is a cancer.

I still don't know what to do about the asinine things I did prior to that last time, though. I use "I" bitterly yet honestly-- whoever the heck "I" was back then, they were still part of this collective psyche, manifesting ugly evil parts painted plastic-white. That girl, while wearing her mantillas and crucifixes and obsessively going to Mass, was the most sinful person of all of us. I mean it. She was worse than Julie, worse than Jezebel, worse than Infidhell when you get down to it. And that is saying something.
"Tilly" was the devil in a Sunday dress.



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Daily events:

Chopsticks broke
Both set of kitchen lights burned out
Youversion completely "updated" and it is now SUPER BUGGY & UNUSABLE.
All of this in ONE MORNING had us reeling. Felt like God "dealing us death" to make us let go of life more.
There were important lessons in it all. Those chopsticks were a remnant from the bulimia days-- with them gone, that's one more tie eliminated. Those lights were half-dead anyway, too-- now that we replaced them, the kitchen is much brighter, and in the process we learned how to properly replace a dead bulb! And with the Youversion update... well, now we need to look elsewhere, for an explicitly Catholic source, one where we won't constantly be butting heads with the freakin' prosperity-antigospel preachers.


Jade shower stop, timed it so it was DURING our therapy phone call
Therapy call all but useless once again. Therapist said TWO SENTENCES the entire 45 minutes, and those were "so how can I help you?" Lady if YOU have to ask me that I'd be better off paying a mirror, wink nudge cough hello headspace!! On that note she REFUSES to acknowledge the fact that we are EVIDENTLY MULTIPLE, which isn't a surprise as she has given ZERO INPUT to our sessions other than "you should cut ties with your family" and "you should try more coping skills" and "you need to stop being so religious," effectively. I'm sorry this is bitter. But we CANNOT get anywhere here. We NEED DIALOGUE. Oh well. At least this is making us DESPERATELY WANT TO START HOSTING XANGA SESSIONS AGAIN.

Since it was rainy, we got Jade to drive us to the library to pick up our Ghibli DVDs at last-- and we got FREE DVDs as well?? They were having an "autumn cleanout" of their library section as most folks are going digital, and told us to go through the rack and seriously take as many as we wanted. Well, we only buy/own DVDs IF said movie has had a significant enough effect on our life for it to merit rewatches. And, lo and behold, the rack had TWO OF THEM, IN PRISTINE CONDITION. The first was... I kid you not... INCEPTION. Which had a PROFOUND effect on our innerlife way back in 2010, during the SLC stay, and it DIRECTLY INFLUENCED JOSEPHINA'S CREATION. (We miss him so much, still; his "birthday" is next month so it'll ache even more.) And it was a Blu-Ray to boot! So that was amazing. I guess God was saying "it's finally time to re-watch this." That's NOTABLE. As for the second movie? Big Fish. Now I don't know if anyone ever typed about that-- probably not-- but it was one of the LAST movies we remember watching with grandma before she died, and it stood out because it was about death. It was like watching her impending future on screen. It hurt so much to watch... and yet it was so beautiful. But the part that hit the hardest? Grandma LOVED it. She was ENTHRALLED, and so were we. That's why this film stands out as "THE last film" we watched WITH her, because after this one... the pain and the cancer made her mental state so bad, she couldn't focus anymore. So this film became very beloved.
We also grabbed two more DVDs we'd never heard of-- one was a religious one, about the Holy Land and Scripture, and the other one was an artistic film about Van Gogh? So we'll see! But it was nice, to have something new, too.


At a loss as to Bible study, now that Youversion is down. We can't compare translations anymore. We can't highlight like we used to. We can't even collapse footnotes. Our ENTIRE method has been CRUSHED in one update. 
We think we're just going to stick with the commentaries for now, and weed those out too-- again, we keep stumbling across Protestant heresies, which we are ONLY able to identify AS WE ARE BETTER CATECHIZED. Honestly, if you aren't familiar with the basic structural tenets of your faith, you are AN EASY TARGET for the devil to sneak his subtle lies in instead.

2 cor 2:14-16 = ROSE ALLERGY METAPHOR!! The rose itself smells objectively sweet, BUT if you have an allergy to it, your body will treat it AS AN ENEMY, and attack it-- but that very attack CAN KILL YOU. The rose has done nothing wrong. It's your misinformed immune system that has hurt you, BY SEEING THAT ROSE AS AN ENEMY. The parallel to Christ and the depraved soul is obvious. 

0801

VOTD thoughts

Jesus then said, ‘I say this to you who are listening carefully to me: Love the people who want to hurt you. Do good things to people that hate you. Say good things to people that say bad things against you. Pray for people who give you pain.
Luke 6:27‭-‬28 EASY

But God is very good and kind! He loved us very much. Because of our sins, we were dead in our spirits. But God gave us a new life, because we are united with Christ. Yes, God has saved you because he is so kind.
Ephesians 2:4‭-‬5 EASY

"[They claimed] That he was possessed with a devil, that he was a melancholy man, whose brain was clouded, or a mad man, whose brain was heated, and that which he said was no more to be believed than the extravagant rambles of a distracted man, or one in a delirium. Thus the divine revelation of those things which are above the discovery of reason have been often branded with the charge of enthusiasm, and the prophet was called a mad fellow, 2 Kgs. 9:11; Hos. 9:7. The inspiration of the Pagan oracles and prophets was indeed a frenzy, and those that had it were for the time beside themselves; but that which was truly divine was not so. Wisdom is justified of her children, as wisdom indeed."

"To show the true reason why they were not wrought upon by Christ’s doctrine and miracles. They knew not God; and therefore perceived not the image of God, nor the voice of God in Christ. Note, The reason why men receive not the gospel of Christ is because they have not the knowledge of God. Men submit not to the righteousness of Christ because they are ignorant of God’s righteousness. (Rom 10:3)"
⭐NOT KNOWING GOD= GOD IS CREATOR = WHAT DO I INSTINCTIVELY BELIEVE ABOUT MY CREATOR? = BELIEVE THAT I WAS CREATED EVIL!!! THEREFORE I DONT KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD!!! GOD CREATED ME GOOD, BUT IF I DONT BELIEVE THAT BEAUTIFUL TRUTH, I WILL BE UNABLE TO SEE OR ACCEPT THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST'S LOVE AND MERCY!!!!

"The best proof of our acquaintance with God is our obedience to him. Those only know God aright that keep his word."
⭐This is because His word shows His character!

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0802

John 8:26 = the TRUTH is NOT listing reasons for condemnation, BUT in listing dangers to their soul as their result AND IMPLORING REPENTANCE!!!
TRUTH= LIFE & LIGHT!!! Pointing out faults does NOT do that!

Jesus "does nothing on His own" because the Godhead is INHERENTLY RELATIONAL. Jesus arguably cannot conceive of separateness. His entire Existence ONLY exists in unity WITH the Father & Spirit.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/stantlitore.com/2017/01/23/aletheia-or-what-is-truth/amp/
OH MAN THIS IS WHY I LOVE ETYMOLOGY

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0803

ALSO THIS for system relevance =

He sees that now the woman is self-condemned, lies under that condemnation in which alone there is hope, and which alone leads to good. She could not misunderstand the significance of her acquittal. Her surprise must only have deepened her gratitude. He who had stood her friend and brought her through so critical a passage in her history could scarcely be forgotten. And yet, considering the net she had thrown around herself, could our Lord say “Sin no more” with any hope? He knew what she was going back to-a blighted home-life, a life full now of perplexity, of regret, of suspicion, probably of ill-usage, of contempt, of everything that makes men and women bitter and drives them on to sin. Yet He implies that the legitimate result of forgiveness is renunciation of sin. Others might expect her to sin; He expected her to abandon sin. If the love shown us in forgiveness is no barrier to sin, it is because we have not been in earnest as yet about our sin, and forgiveness is but a name. Do we need an external scene such as that before us as the setting which may enable us to believe that we are sinners, and that there is forgiveness for us? The entrance to life is through forgiveness. Possibly we have sought forgiveness; but if there follows us no serious estimate of sin, no fruitful remembrance of the holiness of Him who forgave us, then our severance from sin will last only until we meet the first substantial temptation... And unless in our hearts Christ finds a place, there is no other sufficient purifying influence. We may be convinced He is all He claims to be, we may believe He is sent to save, and that He can save; but all this belief may be without any cleansing effect upon us. What is wanted is an attachment, a real love that will prompt us always to regard His will, and to make our life a part of His. [Loyal adherence to His LIVING PERSON, NOT to a DEAD LAW per se!] It is our likings that have led us astray, and it is by new likings implanted within us that we can be restored. So long as our knowledge of Christ is in our head only, it may profit us a little, but it will not make new creatures of us. To accomplish that, He must command our heart. He must control and move what is most influential within us; there must arise in us a real and ruling enthusiasm for Him.

CONCERNING "GIVE ME A SIGN" =

"A God without might seem perfect as a guide, but a God within is the real perfection. God does not now lead us by a sign which we could follow, though we had no real sympathy with Divine ways and no wisdom of our own; but He leads us by communicating to us His own perceptions of right and wrong, by inwardly enlightening us, and by making us ourselves of such a disposition that we naturally choose what is good. When matters difficult to handle and to manage come into our life, and when we are tempted to long for some external sign which would show us infallibly the right thing to do and the right way to follow, let this be our consolation, that this very exercise of judgment and bearing of responsibility in matters where right and wrong are not broadly distinguished are among the chief instruments for the formation of character; and that even though we err in the choice we make, yet by our error and by all honest effort to keep right with God in the matter, we shall certainly have made growth in ability to understand and to do what is right... God is doing that one thing which He pledged Himself to do, namely, giving a Divine Spirit to men, Himself dwelling with men and in them, then we cannot fail to see that this guidance is of a much higher kind, and has much more lasting results than any external guidance could have. If, by allowing us to determine our own course and find our own way through all the hazards and perplexities of life, God is teaching us to estimate actions and their results more and more by their moral value, and if thereby He is impregnating you with His own mind and character, surely that is a much better thing than if He were keeping us in the right way merely by outward signs and irrespective of our own growth in wisdom."
"Sincere people who ask God’s guidance, it seems to me, frequently make mistakes. In fact, our past mistakes are a great part of our education... It is of course a great satisfaction to know that we wished to do right, even if we discover we have blundered; and it is also a satisfaction to know that God can use us for good in any position, even in that we have blundered into, although meanwhile we have lost some present good."


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0812

SYSTEM RELEVANCE FAITHPASTING =

"Let me remind you that freedom consists not in the absence of external constraints, but in the animal in us being governed by the will, for when the flesh is free the man is a slave. And it means that the will should be governed by the conscience; and it means that the conscience should be governed by God. These are the stages. Men are built in three stories, so to speak. Down at the bottom, and to be kept there, are inclinations, passions, lust, desires, all which are but blind aimings after their appropriate satisfaction, without any question as to whether the satisfaction is right or wrong; and above that a dominant will which is meant to control, and above that a conscience... men are more and more abasing themselves to the degradation of ministering to the supposed wishes instead of cutting dead against the grain of the wishes, if necessary, in order to meet the true wants, of the people."

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE CENTRAL VS. SOCIALS WAR IS ABOUT!!!!!

"And He was left alone, &c. “Two were left,” says S. Augustine, “misery and commiseration;” deep calling upon deep, the depth of her misery on the depth of His compassion. But she fled not, as having experienced His grace, and hoping for more."


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0821

[GIRL THRISKEFONI TALKING!!!]

I just realized, in John 9, the Pharisees DIDNT KNOW THIS MAN WAS BORN BLIND, let alone who he was...  Although he had been begging in the streets of Jerusalem for his entire life.
What does that say about their concern & involvement with the common man?  What good was all their religious scrupulosity if they didn't even give thought to the poor at their very doorstep???

They also thought demons & sinful souls could heal, apparently, as a trick or sham.  What does that say about their conception of what works of mercy even are to begin with???
They cared so much about keeping the Sabbath "holy"; what was their definition of holiness???
Where was the room for LOVE and COMPASSION in their creed???

Excommunication = "he was shut out from all the religious and civil privileges of the Jewish people, and was like one dead. But the man stood firm and would suffer all this rather than deny his Lord."
REFLECT ON THAT. This implies that Jesus is NOT EXCLUSIVE TO A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION. Pristine conscience is key to discernment, but... the human church is fallible. If, for true zealous ardent love of Christ AND His Church, you were to be EXCOMMUNICATED from its earthly privilege, would you???
That's a terrifying question. I apparently consider Christ SYNONYMOUS with the Church. BUT REMEMBER REVELATION.
Pray about this. Read about this.

“If He finds and receives, what does it matter who rejects?” (Morgan)
“He that enjoys the favor of the Son of God will not tremble at the frown of the Sanhedrim.” (Spurgeon)

"God takes care of the faith He has Himself implanted. Faith is a tender plant and must be preserved in frost and wind and storm. And God does this."

"Still as a blind man he had to find his way down to the pool of Siloam and down its steps to the pool itself. He likely could think of a dozen reasons why this was a fool’s errand, but he went and washed in faith and obedience, because Jesus told him to (and because there was mud in his eyes)."

"i. In choosing, they took one of two sides regarding Jesus.
· Jesus is a sinner and should be rejected.
· Our understanding and application of the Sabbath law is wrong."
IF THEY ADMITTED CHRIST WAS NOT A SINNER, ALTHOUGH HE BROKE THEIR SABBATH ASSUMPTION-LAW, THEN THEIR MORAL CODE WAS NO LONGER INVINCIBLE, AND THEREFORE NEITHER WERE THEY!! ADMITTING HIS SINLESSNESS WOULD REQUIRE ALSO ADMITTING THEIR OWN CAPACITY TO SIN!!! Their essential pride would not allow such a earthshaking humiliation!!!

"We know this Man is a sinner: They said this not because Jesus broke the law of God in the Hebrew Scriptures; they said this because Jesus did not obey their man-made traditions around the law. They said this despite the evidence, not because of it."
AGAIN, ADMITTING THEIR CAPACITY FOR ERROR WOULD MEAN BEING FORCED TO ADMIT THAT THEY COULD NOT, AND DID NOT, INFALLIBLY SPEAK FOR GOD, LET ALONE EVEN KNOW HIS TRUE WILL— BUT IF ANYONE THEREFORE COULD, IT WAS JESUS, THE SINLESS MIRACLE WORKER!!!!


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0824

Bible study PLAN (we NEED to start JOURNALING THESE!!!)

"Truths exist outside of knowledge. They are not dependent on human understanding or belief. A truth has always been true and will always be true. However... people started to disrupt this understanding of the idea of truth. Truth became “relative” as people tend to believe more often that their beliefs have an effect on truth. In the last few years - people have started to think that their feelings are their truth. This is simply not true. Feelings are real. Beliefs exist. But that does not mean they are the truth."

IN CONTRAST,

"...In the Bible, you will realize that the passages you read [often] are making truth statements. You are justified. You are redeemed. You have peace. You stand in grace. You have hope. These truth statements don’t come with question marks or conditions other than faith. If you have faith - they are yours. And there are many more truths in the bible about your identity. You are loved. You are beautifully and wonderfully made. You are an image-bearer of God. These statements do not take your feelings into account. They do not change if you aren’t feeling them on a certain day or if you have doubts on another. They are true of you all the time - whether you’re having a good day or a bad day, whether you’ve sinned recently, or someone has hurt you... And if you stand in these truths, you have a new identity. As you ask God to steadily help you to live more and more in his truth - there is an alignment process that begins to shape our entire lives, including the hurt we have experienced.. But when we accept these truths - we have a new identity - and newfound strength to live at peace with others."

WHY IS THIS? BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST SPEAKS THOSE TRUTHS!! THEIR REALITY DEPENDS ON HIM, NOT US-- AND HE IS TRUTH ITSELF!!


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0827

This feels relevant to the System =

"Jesus said that those who came before him were thieves and robbers. He was of course not referring to the great succession of the prophets and the heroes, but to these adventurers who were continually arising in Palestine and promising that, if people would follow them, they would bring in the golden age. All these claimants were insurrectionists. They believed that men would have to wade through blood to the golden age. At this very time Josephus speaks of there being ten thousand disorders in Judaea, tumults caused by men of war. He speaks of men like the Zealots who did not mind dying themselves and who did not mind slaughtering their own loved ones, if their hopes of conquest could be achieved. Jesus is saying: "There have been men who claimed that they were leaders sent to you from God. They believed in war, murder, assassination. Their way only leads for ever farther and farther away from God. My way is the way of peace and love and life; and if you will only take it, it leads ever closer and closer to God." There have been, and still are, those who believe that the golden age must be brought in with violence, class warfare, bitterness, destruction. It is the message of Jesus that the only way that leads to God in heaven and to the golden age on earth is the way of love."

AND this =

"The ultimate aim of Jesus was the world for God. But any great commander knows that he must in the first instance limit his objectives. If he tries to attack on too wide a front, he only scatters his forces, diffuses his strength, and gains success nowhere. In order to win an ultimately complete victory he must begin by concentrating his forces at certain limited objectives. That is what Jesus did. Had he gone here, there and everywhere, had he sent his disciples out with no limitation to their sphere of work, nothing would have been achieved. At the moment he deliberately concentrated on the Jewish nation, but his ultimate aim was the gathering of the whole world into his love."


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0828

JOHN 10 is actually TWO PARABLES!!!
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/lmg/john-10.html and https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/john-10.html and https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/geb/john-10.html and https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/acc/john-10.html and https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/rbc/john-10.html and https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/cpc/john-10.html etc.

THANKS PULPIT!!!
"There are three parables in this chapter. In the first six verses there is the parable of the Shepherd. To the fold mentioned in John 10:1 many flocks would be brought at night. Then their own Shepherd would come in the morning and lead away his flock to pasture. Then in John 10:7 begins the parable of the Door. This was the Door of the day enclosure, where the sheep could go in and out and find food. In John 10:11 there is the parable of the beautiful or ideal Shepherd. Here evening has come, and as the shepherds are leading back their flocks to the fold for the night, the wolf darts forth; but the Good Shepherd flees not like the hireling, but lays down His life for the sheep."
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The sheepfold in town, symbolizing the covenant? BEFORE the Shepherd appears, and assumedly at night? The walls of the Law, the Door of Scripture and the Spirit guarding it? They CANNOT graze and are fed by the PRIESTS?
And the Shepherd appears, driving them out ONE BY ONE, abd walking before them, to take them to the NEW sheepfold AMONG PASTURES. He is the only door, in His BODY, to SALVATION.
"Verse 9 then shows Him to be the door of salvation and of the blessings connected with it. The sheep find a new liberty that enables them to "go in and out and find pasture;" that is, they are not limited either to the Old or to the New Testament as to finding fresh, living food for their souls. In the sheepfold they had previously been dependent on being fed in whatever measure by priests, Levites or prophets: now they may find the fresh food for themselves. This involves now our having the Spirit of God by whom we may learn the word of God in fresh reality, finding green pasture in both Old and New Testaments."

In towns of that time, sheep from many flocks were kept for the night in a common sheepfold, overseen by one doorkeeper who regulated which shepherds brought and took which sheep.

"our Lord being near the temple, where sheep were kept in folds to be sold for sacrifices, spoke many things parabolically of sheep, of their shepherds, and of the door to the sheepfold; and discovers that he alluded to the sheepfolds which were to be hired in the market place, by speaking of such folds as a thief could not enter by the door, nor the shepherd himself open, but a porter opened to the [true] shepherd... The Holy Spirit opens his way into the hearts of his hearers, and he becomes the instrument of their salvation."

"The church may be compared to a sheepfold, because it is separated from the world... and which, like a sheepfold, will be taken down, and not always continue in the form it now is" ?

"Anciently they had their sheepfolds within the outer gates of their houses, for the greater safety of their flocks, so that [the only ones who] could come to them the right way [were] such as the porter opened to, or the master of the house gave the keys to."
"The comparison is made, not to the folds used by the common people in remote parts of the country, but to those belonging to the rich in the neighbourhood of a populous city, where the walls and other fences need to be stronger, and the entrance more carefully kept, on account of the greater danger from thieves.”

"At night the sheep are driven into a fold, that is, a walled enclosure, such as may be seen on our own sheep farms, only with higher walls for protection, and with a strongly-barred door in place of a hurdle or light gate. Here the sheep rest all night, guarded by a watchman or porter. In the morning the shepherds come, and at the recognised signal or knock are admitted by the porter, and each man calls his own sheep. The sheep, knowing his voice, follow him, and if any are lazy, or stubborn, or stupid, he goes in and drives them out, with a gentle, kindly compulsion, A stranger’s voice they do not recognise, and do not heed. Besides, not only do they disregard a stranger’s voice, but the porter also would do so, so that no robber thinks of appealing to the porter, but climbs the wall and lays hold of the sheep he wants."

Thieves steal to KILL = SLAUGHTER = "SACRIFICE"; ironic murdering of the pious innocent in order to make THEMSELVES SEEM HOLY!!!!!
"It is supposed that he was now in the outer court of the temple, near the sheep which were there exposed to sale for sacrifice" = THE SHEEP ARE DESTINED TO BE "HOLY" BECAUSE THEY ARE MEANT & DESIGNED TO BELONG TO GOD AS SACRIFICES???
BUT "nor does the shepherd’s leading them out, &c., agree with this circumstance." These are sheep IN OPEN PASTURE, NOT MARKET PENS.
"In countries where there were so many savage beasts, it might be ordinarily necessary to have the folds better secured than among us; and the chief shepherd might often leave a servant to watch them while thus shut up, and come himself to lead them out to pasture in the morning."

Also= THE FLOCK IS DIFFERENT THAN THE FOLD!!!!
"The "other sheep" of verse 16 are manifestly Gentile believers, not of the fold of Israel. They were to be brought also, as a result of the death of the Good Shepherd, and to be joined with the Jewish sheep, but not brought into the fold. Rather, "there will be one flock and one Shepherd." The one flock is the Church of God composed of all believers of the present age, whatever their race. It is not a fold, where restraints of laws and ordinances are present, but a flock, free of legal encumbrances, in order to follow the Shepherd to the green pastures."

"The whole passage is concerned with the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep which belong to him. They recognise him when they see him. They know his voice. They will follow him when he calls to them. The fold is merely a building into which he puts his sheep from time to time. They do not live in it. They do not necessarily use only one fold. They are temporarily put into it for protection, but do not normally stay in it for any length of time, as they must, of necessity, ‘go in and out and find pasture’."

"It is not uniformity which is promised, but unity. The distinction is not merely one of words, but upon it depends a wide and important truth. It is not unity of fold which is regarded as the future of the Church, but unity of flock. There will be many folds, in many nations, in many ages, in many climes. But for all Christians there will be one true Shepherd who layeth down His life for the sheep, and all these differing folds shall, through living unity with Him, make one vast flock."

"Christ, on other occasions, carefully warned his disciples against such narrowness, and here he declares that the sheep, independently of the fold or folds, may yet form one great flock, under one Shepherd. When he described himself as the Door, he was, as we have seen, careful to speak of himself as "Door of the sheep," and not as the Door into the fold. He laid down his life in order to break down the partition between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:13), between God and man, and between man and man. "

HOWEVER!!! CONCERNING THE USE OF "FOLD" INSTEAD =
"The original word, αυλη, which is here translated fold, dignifies properly a court. It is probable that our blessed Lord was now standing in what was termed the inner court, or court of the people, in the temple, see John 10:23; and that he referred to the outer court, or court of the Gentiles, because the Gentiles who were proselytes of the gate were permitted to worship in that place; but only those who were circumcised were permitted to come into the inner court, over the entrance of which were written, in large characters of gold, these words, Let no uncircumcised person enter here! Our Lord therefore might at this time have pointed out to the worshippers in that court, when he spoke these words, and the people would at once perceive that he meant the Gentiles."

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"And leadeth them out... [from] the barren pastures of Mount Sinai, (rocky mountains that have been grazed to the ground?) and their own righteousness, on which they were feeding, and out of themselves, and from off all dependence on anything of their own;" = RELYING ON OURSELVES FOR SALVATION IS EFFECTIVELY AUTOPHAGY. WE WILL STAVE TO DEATH ON OUR OWN FLESH.

OPPOSITIONS:
"...He leads unto Himself" vs living with "wild goats" in a robbers fold
"and the fulness of His grace," vs emptiness of desert
"and to His Blood and Righteousness," vs our own bleeding to death through unrighteous self-cannibalism
"and into his Father's presence and communion with him," vs alienation with no Shepherd,
"and in the way of righteousness and truth," vs on unmarked treacherous paths of stumbling,
"and into the green pastures of the word and ordinances," vs barren parched bitten down plains,
"beside the still waters of his sovereign love and grace." Vs no water at all, or meager unreliable trickles

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Also THIS LINE:
"He laid down His life: it could not be taken from Him: He had perfect control as to this. On Calvary He Himself dismissed His spirit... since He is without sin, death had no authority over Him. His death was a miracle performed by His divine power, willingly because of His great love, and with the object of taking His life again."

AND
"Now He to whom the temple was dedicated walks in His own residence, yet Is petulantly accused by the Jews of making them to doubt as to whether or not He was the Messiah. The very question bothers them greatly, which shows that they were not really convinced that their opposition was right. But they did not want their Messiah to be of lowly, faithful, pure character...  If there were any doubts, this was their fault, not His."

"His sheep were subject to Him; they had ears for His voice"

ALSO, VITAL FOR UNDERSTANDING JESUS'S WORDS:
"He declares these things as absolute facts. He attaches no conditions to them whatever."

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Bible study:
"The bond of unity is love; the proof of love is obedience."
"Christians are one with each other when they are bound by love, and obey the words of Christ."
"Jesus is one with God, because as no other ever did, he obeyed and loved him. His unity with God is a unity of perfect love, issuing in perfect obedience... He was one with God because he loved and obeyed him perfectly; and he came to this world to make us what he is."
Write about this.
GOD is love, and the Source of ALL love.
Obedience means to LISTEN, to pay attention, to heed & serve & carry out their commands. It is a position of HUMILITY & SERVICE.
It is unity of HEART.
But the ONLY Thing you CAN obey IS GOD???? So ALL love AND unity ESSENTIALLY RESTS IN HIM AS ITS CAUSE!!!!
This implies, with striking absoluteness, that TRUE UNITY IS IMPOSSIBLE OUTSIDE OF GOD.
Hence the Most Holy Eucharist.
But to think about human experience a bit more: unity of heart shows HOW? WHEN TWO OR MORE SOULS WILL THE SAME THINGS, right? 
...

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0829

"the saints are a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of their God; they are a signet on his right hand that shall never be plucked off; they are engraven on the palms of his hands" = JEWEL NAME RELEVANCE & HOPE. This really means a lot to me.

"to be in the hands of Christ, is to be in his possession, and at his dispose, as all the elect of God are; and to be under his guidance, care, and protection, as they be; they are fed according to the integrity of his heart, and guided by the skilfulness of his hands; they are always under his care and watchful eye, who protects them from all their enemies, and hides them in the hollow of his hand" = see this LIKE A CHILD WITH A BELOVED PLUSH TOY. Like Blue Seal! He was IN OUR HANDS, our possession at our disposal, but we LOVED HIM and ALWAYS took the BEST CARE of him, ALSO taking him on adventures, keeping him always safe & close, speaking through him, etc. THAT'S the REAL kind of utmost affection God has for YOU!!!!


DEEP REASSURANCE =

"and they shall never perish; though they were lost in Adam, and in a perishing condition in themselves, during their state of unregeneracy; in which condition they see themselves to be, when convinced by the Spirit of God; and come as persons ready to perish to Christ, as a Saviour, resolving, that if they perish, they will perish at his feet: and though after conversion, they are subject to many falls and spiritual declensions, and lose their peace, joy, and comfort, and imagine their strength and hope are perished, or at least fear they shall one day perish through one sin, or snare, or temptation or another, yet they shall never perish in such sense as the wicked will; they will not be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power"
"And none shall ever pluck them from thence; no man can do it, not any false teacher can remove them from Christ, by all the art and cunning he is master of; nor any violent persecutor, by all the force and power he can use; nor can any sin, or snare, or temptation, draw them out of Christ's hands; nor any adversity whatever separate them from him: they must be safe, and always abide there, who are in the hands of Christ; for his hands have laid the foundations of the heavens and the earth, they grasp the whole universe, and hold all things together; and who then can pluck any out of these hands?"
"But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.'' (Wisdom 3:1)

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rough notes for today, from phone. most written between masses.
too important to not at least try to update.
 

dream last night was... a turning point.
i was watching some hollywood movie, based loosely on our life?
Main guy a grizzled action hero type, all stubble & dirt & muscle. (They pulled a Father Nier on me, haha. GOOD.)
Star Trek + Alien feel to set? Very dark.
Talking to someone off to side, assumedly a nonhuman person? Like Data or someone, who was informing them of mission. Main guy seemed unsure of decision, there was a huge risk involved?
Then there was a voice.
and i recognized it instantly. i knew that voice.
It came from above, from a huge shadowy tangle reaching up into hidden heights. It was only a few words, but in direct response to the man's hesitation.
Something like "let me" or "i can", personal offer, implying exclusive ability.
Saw an EYE open in the shadow. slightly pinkish-red iris. opened halfway, almost, moved with notable slow grace. Movement, fluid and refined, but dark. nonthreatening despite the fearful silhouettes.
Man turns to it, looks pained and concerned? Vulnerable suddenly. Obviously a bit uncomfortable with this, the offer to help choose this decision he was scared of.
Thinking hard, but evident already knew what must be done.
Short sigh of acquiesce & surrender, "okay"? Turned completely towards shadows, with softly open body language surprisingly. not tense.
Last thing: him saying something like "bring me in"?
the shadows reaching down close now, just offscreen, from shadow. Those dark hands gently but firmly lifting the man's face to hirs, to touch their foreheads together. hir eye briefly visible among the shadows as it closed.
Immediately a flash, transported man into a nightmare realm? Deeply disturbing and distorted. But had some vital mission to do, something absolutely essential.

...but yeah. it was infi. infinitii. alive. obscured and hidden but ze was there, and i heard hir voice, and...

...It's terrible, how ze felt so real and alive and close, only to wake up and remember that ze was dead.

I feel more alive, too, now, as we're dying, than I have in a very long time.
I feel more hope this morning, with hir memory hot in my heart, and the sky outside heavy with the scent of fog and green and life, than I have in a very long time.

God knew that dream was exactly what I needed.
We all needed this, all of it.

...

Mass
CANNON fronting.
Bodygirl pushed through during homily-- set off SO MANY TRAUMA ALARMS that some paidifoni started wailing; Wreckage & Sugar instantly jumped to action, PULLED the bodygirl OUT of fronting & shoved J IN.

Cannon feels surprisingly "stable" fronting. Hidden godsend.
She is still disturbed+disgusted by the body, but she can at least front in a female-tone fashion yet CONNECTED to headspace. Most girls are corpufoni and therefore isolatory+hollow, which is tragic but true.

J thinking about dysphoria in light of 2nd reading: to let it be what it is, afab without further modification, would be a MARTYRDOM for the sake of his sisters. It would be a self-giving sacrifice of love, truly selfless out of charity.

Remember from the other day (Thursday?): JOPHAEL & VEIL ARE ALIVE. Arguably so is "Tilly." There are SEVERAL hyperreligious foni (need jargon) that blur hard despite notable distinctions.

Priest saying "unity" during opening prayer and it PINGED INFI'S SPOT???
Wondering if hir name truly is changing.
Color too-- that space feels much more Red than before.

Chaos singing softly "whoever you are i love you" as we left church
Felt like God Himself shot an arrow straight through my heart
Genuinely felt so loved and IN love

third mass
wreckage upstairs fighting the molasses-dark sticky tar-voice girls
it was almost hilarious; she heard them, then held out a hand. "algorith. goggles." then "sugar. mask." they both instantly handed her both, she put them on to protect from contamination, then COMPLETELY TORE THE TARVOICES TO SHREDS.
i forgot she was born for violence. it was shocking.
likewise, at some point a tarvoice respawned and when laurie heard it, in one swift terrible motion she summoned her axe and slammed it into that voice's skull. i remember blood went everywhere. laurie roughly swiped a fist across her face to get some off, it was such an old familiar motion, i was both scared of her and so in love


Home for 1?
Exercise first! it's been three days and we needed it.

julie and adelaide still a tag team remember. julie is just so glad that we finally have a voice who is taking care of the body in the most dangerous environment. honestly if addie had been around during the "julie days" we probably would have had SO MANY LESS HACKS because adelaide exists to prevent social automatons from taking over and abusing/ allowing abuse to the body.
so julie is so grateful and even enthusiastic about helping this kid out, it's wonderful.
it's ALSO noteworthy because this is a SPLIT-LEVEL FRIENDSHIP. addie is a social, technically-- but julie is a centralite. so they are on DIFFERENT SYSTEM LEVELS, and socials typically DON'T COMMUNICATE AT ALL. so the whole thing is really amazing.
by the way. there is ANOTHER voice that comes out when the bathroom door is closed and we're in the dark. we thought we were hallucinating at first but it happened three consecutive times, same overlay and vibe, without any interference. they're nonhuman? but they have BIG EYES, wide open and yellow i think?? but ringed like an aye-aye or something similar. they feel like dread, function-wise: they exist in the threat of immediate danger, and have a background hum of panic that they aren't able/allowed to feel, yet which fuels their life.

BK prep was very dissociated because i was stuck in "jellybean mode" (my favorite jargon injoke) and no one could really front well from all the brainfog.

leon tried another egg method, it didn't turn out as he expected BUT it apparently made the perfect eggs for razor to cut. she was so happy with this she ACTUALLY hugged Leon (she's so short!)
remember that knife and scalpel both go to such lengths to help her be happy, it's so sweet. scalpel is naturally affectionate and amiable (reds always are at heart; they're "sanguine" literally), and knife just adores her as his sister.
seeing this unusual friendship growing between knife/razor and leon/scalpel is just wonderful actually.

...

phone note: The reason why people like Laurie and Lynne Are holding so many functions is because there aren't enough people In that color to hold those functions separately so they all get shoved into one person !!


post-BK binge temptation deafening. no idea why it hits so bad.
determined not to give in, but we were shaking and nauseous. felt front slipping.
tried to distract body. god helped by randomly showing us that one of our kitchen cupboards was full of papers?? from old eating disorder treatment. "kill the albatross." junked all of it. felt like a weight was literally lifted off our back.
still nervous, xenophon watching carefully, god bless her
then had genius idea to sit down at laptop to type self compassion booklet & listen to Arabic indie tunes
took three hours haha, completely destroyed the binge panic

DN 745
at some point i said something about scripture reading plans, called mimic "my octopus" and laurie immediately called me out on it
later laurie asking me why i keep putting so much cayenne pepper in the food. i said, half-joking, i was trying to get back in touch with my old fire element. she then said all right, fair enough, but then why are you adding just as much salt? i shrugged and just said "salt & light." she gave me this look it was hilarious, said "you know the worst part is you're not even wrong"

THIS paragraph during bible study (still focusing on john 1 commentary, i love this chapter)=
"[John the Baptist] did not, as seducers do, give out himself to be some great one. He was more industrious to do good than to appear great; and therefore waived saying any thing of himself till he was legally interrogated. Those speak best for Christ that say least of themselves, whose own works praise them, not their own lips... The ministers of Christ must remember that they are not Christ, and therefore must not usurp his powers and prerogatives, nor assume the praises due to him only. They are not Christ, and therefore must not lord it over God's heritage, nor pretend to a dominion over the faith of Christians. They cannot created grace and peace; they cannot enlighten, convert, quicken, comfort; for they are not Christ... Those that humble and abase themselves thereby confess Christ, and give honour to him; but those that will not deny themselves do in effect deny Christ!"

Reading through our 2012-2015 "newage" spirituality delusion, that is EXACTLY WHAT WE WERE DOING.

"Still small voice" humbling correction. social mode took over and i thought there was a mistranslation, was complaining about it? subtle pride. realized i had the wrong info entirely, very convicted and corrected. gave thanks for this out loud, admitted how i messed up to those around. still disturbing to then realize that i had been acting on programming, and had not made a conscious decision in the complaining. social corruption is pervasive. 

trying to get ready for bed, head still fuzzy, then suddenly the mother calls
THEY FOUND JADE. THEY'RE STABLE & NOT DEAD THANK GOD
spent the next hour with her calling over and over, trying to figure out emergency housing at this hour
still. so glad they're not on the streets.

wanting to read "brainchild" webcomic over from the beginning. haven't read it in like... 7 years, at least? and it's STILL UPDATING god bless. so we'll do that soon, maybe to fight off another e.d. wave. it'll work.

Thinking about "a broken and crushed heart" psalm 51:17 
and that's where i want to segue into some actual typing, not just bullet points.



We haven't been updating lately. I won't elaborate on that here because it's fairly self-explanatory.
Infinitii died. Something in me died with hir.
I can feel the System on the verge of a reset, a restart, an update. Whatever you want to call it, I can feel the edges crumbling away, fading out, just like Infi's bubblespace, which I walked into this morning and... it's so empty. I can feel the raw whitespace beyond it now, like the very air of the cosmos whistling through the ruins.

We... we all have to "die" in some sense, soon. I think I've known this for a while, but reading the archives as I repost them-- the work I've been focusing on since Infi's death, to keep my mind and heart off it-- is really driving the point in hard.
I didn't realize just how hellish our past ACTUALLY WAS. It's... humbling as well as horrific. It's making me realize we really do need therapy, because I JUST hit 2015 and I haven't fully read anything prior yet but geez we have buried SO MUCH it's no wonder we feel dead.
Ironically, that's our ticket out of this haze. Just like Jesus, Who goes before us in all things, we need to accept the tomb before we can be reborn.
I know something died in us after CNC. We hit that ghastly "dead period" of, what, four years?? We still have no idea who was fronting, who we were, anything... when we got out of that car in 2018 and stepped back into the trauma-cursed building we had lived in for almost three decades, we suddenly realized that we didn't remember what it was like TO live there and then something snapped.
It's... terrifying. We have almost no memory of anything. We still haven't got the guts, nerves, or time to sit and attempt a "CNC Memory" entry, but flashbacks and nightmares have been reminding us that there is still data up here, even if our conscious mind runs from it.
...That's my next point. Hold on a second, let me bring this back.
We all need to die, but not stay dead, because since CNC we have been living a death. We have basically been corpses.
Remember, WE DID DIE when we left CNC. I don't remember details. It was so fast, so raw, so desperate. I remember Laurie wordlessly hunting down Infinitii and burying an axe in hir skull, leaving hir body as a nightmarish monument in that place for YEARS. I remember... oh God why do I remember? I have this awful flashbulb memory-shred of Laurie, destroying herself by means of an axe and hypergravity, I swear she was standing in that same wrecked skyscraper she had killed herself in the last time she failed to protect the System from hell, back in 2013.
I don't know what happened, after that. The two cornerstones had died, the Core was completely missing, everyone else was... I have no idea. No one could cope. Everyone disappeared. Some social girl took over for the next several years and almost deleted all trace of us from the earth.
Then... suddenly, on May 17th 2020, she woke up from a dream to see headspace instead, and Infinitii among the lilies, hir body damaged but alive, and... suddenly there was hope.
But we don't remember what happened after that.
Headspace didn't wake up, not entirely. If anything, the girls were fighting furiously to keep it dead. Nothing reformed. Nothing was rebuilt. No one else showed up that I can remember.
I haven't looked at any archives from 2020. Our actual active memory doesn't pick up until the autumn of 2021, when one morning over breakfast our grandmother coughed up blood and everything shifted direction towards the end.
2021 was the year of cancer and music and bulimic hell and hospitals, hospitals, hospitals. Our life was spent in that bedroom, waiting on her 24/7, our identity swallowed up in palliative care and honestly it was the biggest blessing. We wouldn't change that at all. But it... only helped promote self-destructive behavior in every single moment we weren't being a nurse. I know that much.
2022 was the year of death. Grandma died, our "brother" "died," we nearly died, and our entire life up to that point changed so irreversibly that it felt as if we really had buried it. Total upheaval, confusion, helplessness, and loss defined this year. But... then there was the Chizu Summer, when we felt our heart waking back up slowly but REAL, and then... we landed in the eating disorder recovery unit for nine weeks. 
And the System woke back up COMPLETELY.
But... we still didn't rebuild.

We've been living in fragments. We have this old pocket of Central, the main room and the Coreroom, but... outside everything is still destroyed and empty and overgrown. Even inside, the very building feels abandoned even while we're in it. The place where the Underground got hardshifted to the last time things reset, feels like it's graying out into fog at the edges, falling into unformed space, literally being reclaimed by the raw energy of our soul, ready to be recycled and reshaped.
So many of us are still missing, or dead, or unstable, or deeply damaged. Color and name instabilities are common. We all feel lost, deep down. We're spending so much time just crowded in that little Central ruin and helping the Fronters, just because there's nowhere else to go, and we still haven't been able to carve out the time to go back to daily headspace meditations and talks and the like. Honestly, if I can speak for us all, I think we're afraid to. We don't know what's hiding there. We haven't looked at it for like... five bleeding years. When we do get glimpses we feel too weak to do anything about them. Even Laurie is scared. She's been... so nervous lately. She says she feels like a failure, and the more she sees of her past the more lost she feels. She's terrified that she'll corrupt again, like she did in CNC, or worse-- that said corruption has ruined her beyond repair, has blackened her very soul, and forever ruined her integrity, her very heart. She's terrified that she can't BE a Protector anymore.
I understand her terror. But so help me God I will cut my own throat before I give any such fear a foothold. She's Laurie. She's my knight, she's my angel, I will NEVER let ANYTHING ruin her.
I know, I know, her deepest heart is untouched by that hell.
And, you know what else? Even if we were so damaged, guess what Jesus is all about? Guess what the Cross we all look to is all about? God is Love and He CAN and WILL heal even such a wound. There is ALWAYS hope, for all of us.
But... we might need to actually, really, finally, pointedly die before that hope can revive our souls.
And quite frankly, at this point, I'm... I think I want to. I think we need to.


..."Burial" by Seinabo Sey just came on Spotify.
I want to burst into sobs. I want to break into weeping.
God, I never thought that this song, that this title, would mean what they do now. God how could we have known?
"...I hear you speak to me, as you spoke to me, saying "come down, let it be"... grains of sand will never be strong enough to make me leave."
I'm so desperate for hope. Even now. Even now. What am I even looking for. Freedom and marching drums. It's tearing me to pieces.

Oh yeah. Psalm 51.
A "crushed" heart, not just a broken one.
Forgive my repetition but that made me think of this entire month. Losing Infi, and feeling--literally-- that my heart had been ripped out and shattered and emptied out. Every time I reach for hir and feel nothing it's... it's my own death knell. I'm next. I have to be. I can't live without my heart.

Isn't that strange? We've been talking about that too, lately, how Infi and I have a completely different bond than Chaos 0 and I do, and yet... I'm indelibly, wholeheartedly, inseparably, absolutely in love with both of them.

I need to mention this.
You know how I said that, at mass, the priest saying "Unity" pinged Infi's "space?" Like if someone died suddenly, and left their cellphone in their room, and you call it, it still rings. There are still places where they would belong, that belong to them, or did. Something like that. But there's a "spot" in the Systemind that ze would fit in, and that word resonated there like a temple bell.
But... ze's fading, more and more, which scares me to death, or at least it did until that dream this morning. Bubblespace is continuing to melt away. I don't even know if I could find the floatspace pocket ze died in ever again, or if blackspace itself swallowed it up. It was so small.
...The number one biggest indicator that a nousfoni is dead, really and truly dead, is when their name stops "pinging." When you call for them, and... and there's not even a heartpull, there's suddenly a loss of memory, like their existence is being softly erased from the fabric of cognizance. When you say their name and there's... not even an echo, from headspace, just silence. That means they're dead.
Infi's name is starting to do that.
I say that name, Infinitii, Infinitii Eternos, that name that past Cores breathed with such ardent love over the past decade, is suddenly becoming just a jumble of letters. It's terrifying.

But. Here's the important thing. Here's the Holy Saturday feeling. Here's why it happened.

Remember Infi wanted to die.

I've been praying about it, so so much, every day really. I've been crying about it to Jesus, begging Him to bring hir back, hysterically begging Him to tell me why, why, weeping with such raw emotion my entire soul turns into a sob. I take it all to Him. Where else could I go?
But... He listens, and He responds. He keeps reminding me of that: Infi wanted to die.
And oh, oh man I think it was in the homily today. Somewhere. Recently. A priest was talking about the Cross, about that total self-sacrifice of Love, to save others from a debt of sin they could never repay, of God Himself choosing to die the agonizing torturedeath of a false condemnation so that we, those criminals He inexplicably loved, wouldn't have to... to freely take on the full power and demands of Justice and mercifully fulfill them completely, freeing us as a result.
Jesus kind of poked me in the shoulder and said hey kid, my Truth is always reflected in love, and isn't a glimmer of that visible in what Infi did for you?
Infi knew ze had to die, or else we'd all end up dead, forever.

...I knew something huge had happened when I blindly groped for even trauma memories to see if ze was there, and... they were DISARMED.
It floored me. There were trauma memories that ONLY INFI HELD and that others could only glimpse secondhand, but now, as I tore through archival data to look for those recorded events they were hollow. Like... I can look at them and recognize this as something traumatic but not feel traumatized personally. Infi's very presence IN those events is gone, and as a result... this is the first time in five years that we can look at them.
This means we can finally go to therapy. I hope.
Infi knew this. I'm sure ze did. The hack that drove hir to death brought all that up to the surface. Ze was distraught, ze was carrying so much of our pain, ze knew ze was the CAUSE of it, and... how else was ze going to help save us from it? How else could that wound be healed, if that wound had a face and a name?

...I'm next. I have to be.
The bloodline HAS to shift. It HAS to change. The white-haired Jay/ce bloodline has been Plagued since the very beginning, WAY back in 2009 when the first one to carry it-- Pinstripe-- was born. Lotus was the last, his White rotting to Pink by the end, and subtly carrying all the old trauma damage that Julie had originally put there.
Now it's... me. "J." Back to the single-initial name, in lieu of any stable identity. Everyone can attest to that; I frequently get shifts in not only name, but also hairstyle and color, eye color, and even memory access. It's debilitating and disturbing and exhausting.
But I'm carrying a dead man's name. "Jay" as a name has always ended in self-destruction, for one reason or another. We've always tried too hard to be all sparkles and prismatic light, all snowflakes and angel wings, only to burn to death in the winter sun.
Cannon is able to front lately as if we never existed, as if our personal timeline has rewound. Our religion and life situation have permanently erased the trans* dream from our future, so the body is now fated to stay how it is-- no surgery, no hormones. That itself is a cross. But... all our female "pseudocores" are completely corrupt.
The Jewels are League-tied and cannot be a System Core without dying instantly. The Cannons have no future in the body anymore; they existed for a very specific era of life that no longer applies and cannot. The Jays are dying and they are now barred from body identification anyway. So what does the future hold? We don't know.
All we know is that we have to die. Everything has to CLEAR CUT die, no fading away, no fizzling out, no slow degradation. No. We take an axe to this. We headshot this point-blank. We rip the curtain in half. We end this, fast and complete and deliberate. We break this clean in half so something else CAN be born. There's no hope in decay. There's no life in a molding coffin. Give us the golden guillotine. Christ handed His Life over in one terrible beautiful awful glorious sentence-- all at once, totally and consciously, and all of heaven and earth shook with the power of the Life that Death released. Lord, God of Mystery and Mercy, glorify Yourself again by mirroring that, however quietly, in us. I beg of You. This is Your Design. Our old self HAS to die in order for our new self, our soul for truth, the REAL us, to be born. Fire and water and spirit and truth and love.
It's almost Pentecost. How fitting it all is.

It's 3am. I need to close this up. We haven't been sleeping lately and that's entirely my fault.

Seeing Infinitii-- even if only the vestiges of hir, the tiniest glimpses of hir existence-- in this morning's dream... I felt something upon waking that I haven't felt in YEARS.
I remembered what ze REALLY felt like.
Listen, every nousfoni has a "vibe." Every one of us has a personal energy signature that is like a fingerprint, or a heartbeat, or a name, in and of itself. One of my honest favorite things to do in the world is just sit and feel them out, to just find and notice and treasure this particular person's soul in all its colors and textures and sounds and scents, however it hits my heart.
Infi... I haven't felt hir in YEARS.
When ze was "resurrected" in 2020-- and I don't even know if that's the proper word; none of us felt completely "alive" since CNC, we all feel incomplete and off-center and helplessly confused deep down-- ze didn't feel like hirself at all. In fact I had FORGOTTEN what ze felt like, completely.
This morning, when I heard hir voice, oh God I thought I'd never hear that beloved unmistakable voice ever again-- when I heard hir and saw hir eye open, and move, there in the black, so real and so familiar and so loved-- I FELT HIR. I felt all of it, that heady numinous gorgeous starry-sky night-flower abyss that I missed with my entire soul. Upon waking it soaked into my psyche like the morning fog, and just as gentle and beautiful and cherished, filling me with love and amazement and hope.
Infinitii is still dead. I know this. There's still so much emptiness. The sense of loss is still so profound. The grief is still there, threatening to kill me all on its own. But... there's this light, now. I've... I'm hoping, Lord please I'm hoping that the tomb is empty. It feels like sunlight, despite everything being dark. I don't know how to explain it. It's a single ray of gold, like a thread, shining in my heart like the promise of morning. I don't know. But everything smells like midnight clarity and velvet and I want to weep but from love, nothing ever really ends Adrian, John 11:25, remember what hir name was after all.
I don't know. I'm rambling now. I apologize. I'm too tired.
Just... this is the first time in three weeks that I haven't felt like the world is actively ending.
Even if I do die tomorrow, and the bloodline hardshifts, who even knows... even then, I could go happily now. Somehow. I'm still scared, but... I think I could let go. I think I could surrender, now. I'll go be with my heart.

"Godly Love" by Sam Ock just came on. It's one of Laurie's favorites.
"What if God speaks in a whisper to teach me how to hear the echo? Maybe God's raining down plagues just to tell me that I need to let go."
...I think that sums things up, actually.

One last thing.
Infi's playlist on Spotify, and hir album of art on my phone... neither of them match anymore. It struck me today how all my memories of Infi, all my knowledge of hir, does NOT match the art OR the music from the CNC era. I'd never looked at either until today, so that hit hard. That, too, is hope. I had forgotten how scary things were back then, how corrupt we honestly were, how our personality was just pure TarPlague and we were destroying both ourself and everyone around us. That needed to die, objectively so, we all knew that... but no one realized how. Infi did. So... there's hope for a future, free from all that.
It's such an odd feeling, even just deleting songs from here (more small deaths) that don't fit hir heart at all, and I wonder how we ever thought they did. Maybe at one point they did match. Have we really healed and changed that much, without realizing it, even in this place of death?

There's so much more to say but there's no time tonight. This poor body needs to sleep before it collapses. 
God willing I will update tomorrow. If not, then it's all in His Hands anyway, and I can rest in that.
Right now, none of us has any clue what will happen next, either in moments or in days. It's a strange adventure.
This song is breaking my heart. "My Thief" by Elvis Costello. I think of the poem I wrote for hir, even back during the terror. Still the sound echoes true. Still the words are sincere.
What a strange adventure, the doors of which were flung wide open by your eyes closing in silence. God only knows how achingly I miss you. But... I hadn't realized that I could still feel this, until... until my heart broke, and everything poured out, glittering like you.
I didn't realize just how much I love you until I lost you.

I wonder if you knew that, too.

I have long been upset that we do not have an Advent Wreath at home, so today I made my own. 💜🙏🕯

I saw this and instantly burst into tears.

I’m so tired of the world lately. I’m so tired of being alive. And now I can’t even go to church, my one refuge. I spend my days sobbing uncontrollably. All I want is God. Everything else is just miserable vanity.

But this, this is just… joy. Jesus, my Jesus, arms open, welcoming me, light and flowers and beauty, all of it feeling exactly like a homecoming– so simple, but purely so, perfectly so. I cannot put into words how this makes me feel, what weeping bliss it breaks into my heart. I want to run into His arms and stay there forever, forever, laughing with final relief and love. I’m home. It’s over. I’m home with my Lord and the hells below will never touch me again.

God knows I don’t have much time left here. I know. I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of not absolutely inundating every millisecond of my life with God while I remain– which I haven’t been doing as the daily war of illnesses is hell and the lack of monastic-grade worship is making it more of a hell. But I don’t give up, God help me. This is my hope. This image is exactly the goal that keeps me breathing.

Jesus, when its time to come home, I’ll come home rejoicing. Until then, let me keep my heart fixed on that thought. Keep the lights on for me.

The Varieties of Religious Experience (Series 1) Church of the Gesù

Mother Church of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.  Contains the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola and many other saints.

Just take a few minutes and genuinely look at each photo here. Take in the depth of beauty, skill, and devoted love evident in the grandeur of architecture and art. Look at the natural glory of the light and space from God’s hands that perfects it all. Realize that every inch of this gorgeous church exists solely for the praise and worship and love of God– a temporal glimpse of the eternal bliss portrayed in that third photo, in the presence of our beloved Lord forever.

I could legitimately live here.

As the Lenten Season of penance and prayer begins, Catholics are called again to tread in the Way of the Cross with Christ… Despite the crown of thorns and reed scepter, bother intended as mockeries of Christ’s claims, His Divinity and majesty are evident. The persecutors of the present day, who force Christ’s Mystical Body to undergo the humiliation and suffering of the road to Calvary, will also find at last that Christ is truly King and that His divine power cannot be overthrown by earthly tyrants.

His divinity transmuted everything He touched, awakening deeper truths within it all. Those thorns are a true crown, for through humility and suffering Christ became King over all the earth, whereas a crown of gold would have been hollow and superficial. That reed is a true scepter, a sign of power through the most weak and broken thing, the ability of God to reign both through what the world deems useless, and to rule over the world and its empty power with those same humble means.

Behold, the Man– the true Man and the true God, His revelations a divine paradox, understandable only by the pure and simple of heart! May we walk His holy road with Him this Lent, seeking to imitate His divine example of blessed poverty of spirit and body, in order to ultimately share in His boundless riches in heaven!

We are His Mystical Body even today, and we must embrace His Cross in our lives all the more ardently in these terrifying times, for it is only through uniting our sufferings to Christ’s Passion that we, through Him, can rise triumphant despite it all.

Running this through Google Translate gave me some unexpectedly poignant results…

“I am yours, take Me back.”

“I Will; Uphold Me.”

“I Am. Receive Me.”

Just… what truths. Take Christ back into your heart. Obey His requests and defend His Word. Christ is born, both in history and in our hearts, then and now and always– He Is, so embrace Him!

We are worth more than many sparrows to the Lamb of God.

We are His, and He has come to bring us back to Him.

The Nativity by Gari Melchers

This is the mysterious glory of the Incarnation– that God Himself became man, became a tiny infant, in our shoddy gritty shadowed world, in time and space and temporality.

Jesus existed as the Light of the World right there in those dusty streets.

He still does.

And just… look at Saint Joseph. Mary is resting, exhausted from the effort of birthing divinity, as any of our souls would and will also be… but now, there is the Child; here is the Child, Light shining out of darkness, and His foster father is just looking at Him. Wordlessly, he gazes on in awe and wonder, perhaps even with some fear over what this means, what this will bring, in this world– but above all, he looks at Jesus Christ with tender love. He probably doesn’t understand much of what’s happening but that doesn’t matter here. He trusts in God, and he trusts in this Infant before him, fragile and small and infinitely brilliant, impossible to comprehend but there, alive, breathing and loving and his child.

I really, really love this painting.

The Cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow, Russia

I suddenly find this so fitting, the golden-white warmth and beauty standing strong amidst the frozen black trees, the frigid grey sky. Yes, I adore winter, but I adore it’s beauty, the glory of God’s creative dream manifest in it, whether or not I’m freezing as a result. It’s beauty is constant, despite all inhospitable conditions.

And that’s what I see here– the Annunciation, the proclamation of perfect beauty in the very midst of a tumultuous world, despite all pain and hardship and sorrow and fear that marred man’s heart, and would continue to do so. Rejoice nevertheless! Christ has come, and His glorious Presence turns even the coldest snows, bitterest winds, and harshest ice into things of gorgeous gratitude. Christ transmutes it all– unfailing light and warmth in the dead of winter– and it all began with the Annunciation.

A church, burned and destroyed by ISIS during the group’s occupation of the predominantly Christian town of Bakhdida, Iraq.

The town was under ISIS rule between 2014-2016 when it was liberated by the Iraqi Security Forces.

Try as they may to destroy the buildings, those who oppose Christ can never destroy the true Church, for it is founded upon unshakable truth and grace.

Even now, these ruins speak in tragic triumph to the soul of their message. Although no mass is celebrated there now, the simple sight of the altar and icons is enough to move a heart to resolute rejoicing, to worship and gratitude, to an act of loving recognition of God despite destruction’s futile efforts to silence it.

Ecce Homo, Titian
 

I love how His Face looks so bruised, like the red He is holding… and yet there is this profoundly sad gentleness in His eyes, and that divine yet softly ineffable glow around His thorn-wrapped Head.

Behold, The Man. I adore every portrayal of Our Lord Jesus like this.

Mouth of Hell. Speculum humanae salvationis. Bruges. Ca.1460 Chicago, Newberry Library

Hell is so disturbingly carnal. Demons are always naked and wrathful and salacious and hungry. Hell itself is portrayed with a literal mouth, gulping down the damned, as heaps of animalistic devils ravenously chew and bite and devour fallen souls. It’s blood and spit and sweat and screams. There’s too much flesh, too much physicality. Hell is something far too tangible.

Inferno, Canto 24. The Divine Comedy. Gustave Doré ~ 1885 

What scares me the most about depictions of hell is how many people are in it. All of them, wracked with blind fear and awful despair… oh how we must strive to lead souls away from such a fate!

The Fall of the Rebel Angels (detail). Matthias Berckmans ~ 1643 Kerk Sint-Gummarus [Lier] 

The textures in this are terrifyingly fascinating. That’s something I’ve noticed in art– that holy angels are textured by their beautifully billowing garments, while fallen angels are textured by contorted coils of flesh. Just looking at the writhing bodies here, the pain and rage of hell is nearly tangible.

 

Des douze Perilz d'enfer, Robert Blondel. Bourges ~ ca.1480 BnF • via Bibliothèque Infernale on FB

There is a harrowing power in the condensed message this painting. It’s something I love about medieval art like this– space itself is relative, so that the image becomes more symbolic than literal.

Here, we see Adam and Eve cast out from Eden, but they are entering what appears to be a castle gate– the doors to the “gilded prison” of the world. Furthermore, this is juxtaposed against the fall of the rebel angels, also cast out of God’s presence and into the world, their stolen kingdom and castle… a horrifying sight, marked by the angel’s flaming sword, as if in solemn warning to the first couple that disobeying God is never a small matter.

I also like that the blue of the angel’s wings reflects the distant glory of both heaven and the faraway scenery– something beautiful that we yearn for and must strive to eventually reach. Heaven is the faraway kingdom, and we only can reach it by means of God’s gracious help, for no fallen thing can ever crawl back up, nor can anyone cast out of Eden ever reenter. But, through Christ, we can be reborn, restored, and re-initiated into heaven’s pure light, and that is our greatest hope.

Knight, Death and Devil. Aleksandrov ~ 2012 • via Bibliothèque Infernale on FB

Ahead of every Christian soldier looms the fact of his terrible death, and behind him creeps the fact of his terrible past. Yet he must pay no heed to their whispers, their mockeries, and their attacks, for they only seek to drag him from the straight and narrow path. The Christian soldier must put on the full armor of God and march ever onwards in steadfast faith, knowing that in Christ neither death nor the devil hold any power over him.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…

Tower of Babel. Aleksander Mikhalchyk. Ukraine 

At first glance, this great tower does seem wondrous– but keep looking, and its utter hollowness becomes obvious. This is nothing but a monument to man’s pride and selfish ambition, striving to reach the glory of heaven but never able to either achieve or imitate its beauty. It’s just rock and rubble in the end. Without God, even the most magnificent work of human hands is worthless dust.

Isaac Blessing Jacob, 1670, Bartolome Esteban Murillo

I’m studying Genesis 27 right now, and I dearly love how intimately this historic moment is presented here… how commonplace it feels, with the holy scene indoors juxtaposed against the unaware outside world. I also really love that Rebekah is there, too! I never imagined the scene that way, but it’s a notable and sweet addition.

The use of color and shadow in this is sublime as well. It’s a joy to the eyes, as much as its content is to the heart.

Descent from the Cross, 1311, Duccio di Buoninsegna

 

There is such tenderness in everyone’s postures, actions, and expressions here– but my heart is just breaking at Mary.

I can’t even find words to describe her, here. It’s beyond words. I could meditate on this moment of ineffably mournful yet triumphant love between her and her Son for a very long time.

I really, really love this painting.

A mosaic of The Last Supper from the Benedictine Sisters’ Clyde Monastery Chapel in Missouri.

What strikes me the most about this is that Judas is almost visually invisible. He is lost in the shades of the mosaic around him– whereas all the other Apostles stand out clearly. It’s quite a heavy symbolic warning of the gravity of sin, especially that of hypocrisy in religion.

Our Lord Jesus Christ (Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ), James Tissot

This image of Jesus is overwhelming; it moves me to weeping. It is so beautiful, yet so powerful. I am stunned with love of Him Who loves me.

Behold, our Lord, His Hands pressed to His Heart, His Face solemn and serious– hear His unspoken words, this physical declaration of His ultimate Incarnated Love! Understand the importance, the gravity, the ultimate end and goal of the Truth communicated here: God is Love, and Jesus is God, and Jesus is Love, and that infinite eternal Love is there, here, tangible, tender and true and powerful within that Heart, beating for us beneath His Hands!

He is our Lord! What is there for us besides Him? He is our joy, our hope, our peace– He is our Everything, and He wants to be our everything; He desires so strongly to give us all He is that He even became a man like us, to live with us and love us in an intimately human way, in a way so staggeringly close that, I wonder, if we truly grasp the hugeness of it. God became a man so He could live and die for love of us. His death, cruel and tragic, merciless and bloody, He suffered at will so that we could be pardoned and live. His death was and is the righteous sentence for our sins and God Himself, our Judge, became also our sole source of pardon before Him, because He loves us and wants us to live– truly live, free from sin, full of hope, and able therefore to love Him with hearts broken in reciprocal love.

I honestly could speak His praises forever from the surge of ardent love I feel in beholding this image of Jesus. He is my love and my life, and that’s what hits so hard about His Hands and Face here– He knows this, and He knows how crucial, how vital, how monumental the Truth He is not only indicating, but Incarnating, is… and He so tells us, in this gesture of unfathomably passionate love hidden beneath humility, that we must never take this Truth lightly.

Annunciation, 1897, Carlos Schwabe.

I love how Mary is almost completely covered by light and flowers here– it highlights her selflessness, her focus on God alone. Surrounded by emblems of holiness, purity, and fruitfulness, a water jug at her feet, Mary becomes the bringer of Living Water and Divine Light to the whole world, the sweet fragrance of heaven itself clinging to her clothes.

The Annunciation
Cornelis van Poelenburgh—1635
 

The composition of this is stunning– with the clockwise embrace of clouds and angels leading to Gabriel’s outstretched hand, but ending right at the door, leaving Mary framed by a complimentary curve of earthly shadow. It’s the only thing separating them.

But that door feels like Christ– it feels like Mary’s ‘Fiat’ that brought Him into her world, down from heaven and into the flesh. She became His door to earth, and through her, He became our door to heaven. But no one else could open it– not even Gabriel, nor any other celestial power. He only revealed this potential passage, through God’s ultimate question, and gave her the choice as to what to do. And she said yes– yes, I will open the floodgates of heaven! Yes, I will open the door for Him! And thus, the divine was wed to the human, and Jesus Christ became man, in the womb of the humbly blessed Virgin Mary.

Alfred Agache (1843 - 1915)

L'Annonciation, 1891

Mary, Gate of Heaven and Star of the Sea, surrounded by their infinite blue, the vine above her reaching upward to the unseen realms where the True Vine she was about to conceive also hailed from.

And Gabriel, humble and honored, dressed in surprisingly earthly tones, knows he is not the focus here. He signifies the bringing of heaven to earth, foreshadowing the Son of God being wrapped in flesh, indistinguishable from any other earthly man in mere appearance. But these two figures, messenger and Mother, know the Truth about to be manifested– that the human girl dressed in heaven’s hues was to conceive God’s Son Himself as a little boy, and so unite both their realms and realities… the grandest end, in the humblest beginning, in this small exchange between two souls before the endless sea and sky.

Annunciation (detail)
by Michael Wening

The Christ Child was conceived in Mary’s Immaculate Heart even before He came into her womb.

So it must be with us, spiritually– we, too, must echo our Blessed Mother’s “yes” to His birth in our lives, letting the Divine Infant be conceived in our hearts, letting Him become the Lord of our lives, bringing Him to all we meet with humble yet exultant joy.

Annunciation
Mikhail Nesterov,

I love the dignity Mary shows here. Her “Fiat” is given with total willful grace, total surrender in love. There is no hesitation, doubt, fear, or confusion in her here– only humble pious finality, her agreement being the unbreakable foundation of Jesus’s coming Gospel on earth. The fruit tree blooming above her prophesies this, the divine Fruit of her womb coming, too, from above.

Lastly, I also love how Gabriel’s wings are that same gorgeous blue, the hue of heaven that so embraces our Blessed Mother.

Anunciación de Jaime Serra (Zaragoza, ZARAGOZA).

It always stuns me when God the Father is portayed with Jesus’s face– because that’s literally the only visible face the Father has for us. Yes, we can recognize God’s Presence in all of Creation, and we can acknowledge Christ’s Presence in the hearts of those who receive Him, but to see the Face of God? In the Old Testament, that very visage would strike you dead– innocently but inevitably, as no mortal mind could even comprehend His Face, let alone lay eyes on something so transcendent, so holy, so Real.

And then the Annunciation happened, and immediately, God began knitting together a Face for Himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Jesus is how we can look at God. The Father is seen in the Son, both literally and figuratively. Jesus Christ IS the “Face” of our Creator, in such a directly intimate way it moves one to tears– for only through Christ’s eyes can God meet our gaze with the most incomprehensibly tender love.

Details I love in this: the softness of Gabriel’s wings, the gentleness of their hand positions, the practically tangible light around the Holy Spirit, the way lines and angles all flow together in harmony, the delicate colors, Mary’s foot.



I really love this. God and Gabriel, moments before the First Mystery of Joy came to be– and dear Mary, as yet unaware of her most blessed role in salvation history. What a thought.

crawlingtowardchrist:

Always remember why we are Christian. God’s sacrifice is so unimaginable, incredible, and more than any one of us could ever do. Today is the day that Our Lord showed how much He loved us, and how much pain He would go through to save us!


 

This is the heartwrenching, gorgeous, terrible and beautiful paradox of Easter– that this awful truth of Christ’s bloody yet loving sacrifice of Himself has purchased for us eternal life and salvation through Him, through that same love.

Christ Crucified is not an image of death. This image, this vision of unimaginable pain, is also a declaration of unfathomable love. Christ chose this suffering in order to deliver us from damnation. This is how dearly He loves us!

This same Jesus who submitted to death has conquered death, victorious in His humble obedience, and has so opened the gates of heaven for us to enter through His holy example. Let us rejoice in this greatest of hopes, and now let us allow Him to wipe away our tears, for He Who Died has now been raised from the dead and lives forever!

“And may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament, Fit you in all goodness, that you may do his will; doing in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.” - Hebrews 13:20-21

(The Risen by Severin Benz) +

He is truly risen!!

I love the use of color and shape here– the hard square browns of the rocky tomb elicit thoughts of the Cross, especially with the blood-red shroud draped across it at such a sharp intersecting angle. Yet from that same point, Christ’s crucified foot rises above it now, with beautifully billowing waves of purest white, the robes of our Living God wrapped about Him like the very clouds of heaven. Around Him, the blues of evening twilight brighten into the golds of dawn, night into day, darkness into light, even as He transmutes death into life. His Wounds still visible, His Cross now held as the banner of triumph, Jesus has been resurrected, and now points us to the heavenly Kingdom, Himself the Way, Himself the Victory.

Alleluia!!

“Make me a channel of your peace!” -St.Francis of Assisi 

This is arguably my favorite image of any Saint and Our Lord. The tenderness and devotion of the Love between Christ and Christian, made even more powerful by the Cross and Blood, and driven home by the shared Stigmata, strikes straight to my heart.

I could meditate on this image for years.
 

Reblogging this for everyone else with a cross of chronic illness, its constant reminder of mortality, and the feelings of helplessness and despair that may bring. Never give up. Keep faith, keep hope, keep joy, all of it in God. Fix your heart so firmly on Christ that nothing can shake you, for His Love will hold you secure. Although our bodies are dying, and inevitably so, Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and through Him– in Him, with Him, for Him– we have the promise of life eternal.

Never give up. The end is not the end.

Gerard van Honthorst, The mocking of Christ, ca. 1616-7

I think about this painting a lot. I can’t get over the striking contrast between the contorted faces of the shadowed men, loudly jeering and laughing, and the utterly innocent surrender of Jesus Christ, completely unresisting, His Face soft yet profoundly sad in the light, even with a rope around His neck, even with the red thrust rudely into His Hand, even with His Head pierced and bleeding. There’s a genuinely visible divinity about Jesus here, hidden to worldly eyes, right in the midst of suffering and mockery. It’s very moving.

Saint Joseph, look, I’m tired tonight,

But somehow I think that you care;

For being a father and one who works

Are things that both of us do share.

It tires a man, yet the heart is high,

For, Patron Saint, it’s all worth while.

Its rich reward is a loving wife,

And joyous light in a child’s smile.

O, Father, Worker, bear with me,

Help me, Joseph, to do my best,

To love, protect my family

Till work shall cease and Heaven is rest.

 

[My beloved grandpa died two years ago this April. We found this little prayer card as we were cleaning his work desk three days ago. I daresay Saint Joseph did answer this sweet petition for him. He is indeed now at rest, and today I specially remember him with love as I share this with you. Happy Father’s Day to all. 💛]

tomicscomics: It’s too soon for him to realize it’s too soon.
 

I actually love this because yes, those wood & nails DID hurt Jesus eventually, but! He still followed His dad’s advice, in a profound way– Jesus was ‘bullied’ worse than ever when He was crucified, His feelings being not just hurt but His Heart entirely broken… and yet, Jesus chose the Cross. He chose it when He was hated by the whole world. Jesus chose the wood & nails when others may have fought back or cursed in vengeance. Jesus bore all the hurt Himself, so no one else would have to, and He did it out of mercy, forgiveness, and love.

Carpentry ironically proved to actually be the literal answer for everything, in that Cross. Father knows best– pun intended!

Richly detailed stained glass like this really pulls at my heart, as the stunning colors and intricate artwork serves to glorify the portrayed truth in such a special way.

The luxuriant hues of the women’s garments speak symbolically– Mary’s blue speaking of the Divinity in her womb, the white attesting to her virgin purity; Elizabeth’s red humbly attesting her mortal age yet the gold of God’s light lifting it to miraculous fruitfulness! Even their halos speak: Mary, green as the new Eve, the true Garden, crowned with the gold of God’s power alive in her… Elizabeth in violet, inspired by the Holy Spirit to praise the Son hidden before her, this same color even highlighting her right foot, turned towards His Mother, turning her aged life to a new eternal life in following this new and beautiful Way.

The angels quoting the Gospel on their banners are truly gorgeous, their faces peaceful yet joyful, their very presences unseen by the women in time yet proclaimed by us in recognizing wonder. They elicit feelings of mysterious bliss, a trembling awareness of the incomprehensible God at work in this seemingly mundane exchange, a conversation that the eyes of the world can neither revere nor respect, but which the Children of God see and know and love for its eternally profound significance.

Religious art is a magnificent gift to God’s people, a gift given by Him and for Him, for His glory and love and gratitude. May all artists in His Church use their talents wholeheartedly for this holy purpose!

This is, in my opinion, one of the most disturbing portrayals of this event. It immediately strikes you how YOUNG Salome is. This girl, practically a child, danced for her stepfather and his lustful guests, then had her own mother use her to request the coldblooded death of a prophet, even John the Baptist, the harbinger of Christ Himself. And this child likely was completely ignorant of the great evils she was both the key player in and enabler of. Had she no conscience, no sense of moral propriety, no questions of motive? But this painting answers that, to me. Look at her face, at her blankly passive eyes, a child doing what mommy and daddy want and simply pleased with that, yet fatally incomprehensive of the greater immoral underpinnings of her obedient actions.

That backdrop of utter detachment and empty motive makes John's doom all the more awful. The greatest Prophet's mouth is open just beneath Salome's ears, but death is not what silenced him. Those who could hear him would hear him even in death. No, John's words were smothered only by hers, her simple fatal and terrible demand-- for regardless of the truth, regardless of the bigger picture, she neither knew nor cared nor concerned herself with it... and so, here, on that wretched silver platter, he is just a severed head.

Saint Jerome Writing, 1605, Caravaggio

I feel such a deep love for Saint Jerome, honestly. Just these images of him… an old man, alone in dark silence, devoted to studying the Word of God. I live with my beloved grandparents so I know the wrinkled forehead, the bald pate, the worn and fragile skin, the white and fraying hair. I also know the strength that illumines even a fading body through faith. I see that sliver of a blessed halo above that downturned face in holy focus and I genuinely love this Saint, this old man who adores the Lord, and I cannot wait to meet him in heaven, and I pray to imitate him more while I grow older on this earth until then.

Dear Saint Jerome, pray for us!

“Our Lord sometimes makes you feel the weight of the cross. The weight seems unbearable but you carry it because in His love and mercy, the Lord helps you and gives you strength.”
-Saint Padre Pio

This is so true– and the sculpture illustrates it so beautifully! Look at our Lord, how He leads us with gentle but unshakable reassurance! To imagine myself in Padre Pio’s place… it actually makes my heart ache with love. What joy there is to carry the Cross with Christ! ❤🙏

 

I never tire of meditating on the mystery of Christ’s Agony in the Garden. It’s heartwrenching and unfathomably deep. Christ, the Son of God, was in agony over what He was about to suffer for the salvation of mankind– He was going to do it, He wasn’t running away, but He asked His Father for mercy nevertheless. “If this cup can pass from me…” and He wept and sweated blood and pleaded with His friends to keep Him company and He suffered.

It’s… too much for my heart sometimes. “Not my will but Thine,” and He meant that sincerely, but it didn’t abate the pain, and that means a great deal to remember. Seeing my Savior like this, crumpled in sobs and desperate prayer, awaiting His own gory death… the Creator of the World Himself, trembling, helpless, fragile, and small in the shadows of the darkly knotted trees… it’s truly a divine mystery. And it’s just as beautiful as it is sorrowful.

Detail from Christ Crowned With Thorns, Dieric Bouts, 1470.

I am sure our Savior wept, silently perhaps, but still with His entire aching Heart, during the tortures of His Passion. He incarnated partly to share our weaknesses and pains, to be able to fully understand and assist us in our own torments… and He incarnated entirely to die. His saving death gives us life– but so, too, do His Tears, in a less literal way. Jesus wept because He felt every pain we have ever felt. He knows our afflictions. He knows how much it hurts. And so His Holy Tears flow with His Precious Blood, as He bears the Crown of Pain itself, the King over even those things that hurt us. He is Lord over all, and there is not a single thorn in our lives that He has not felt first. He is with us in every ache, crying with us, and loving us entirely.

Won’t you comfort Him in His sorrow, He Who wept to comfort you?

Simon Marmion - Man of Sorrows (c. 1460). Detail.

Presented so starkly, it becomes an honest shock to remember that nails were hammered through His Holy Hands. Nails! Big metal nails, sharp and solid, punched through flesh and sinew and bone and into raw wood… and then, after hours of world-changing agony, they were pulled out again– what an awful yet holy task!– leaving garish wounds, big bloodied holes, in their place.

Have you ever bled so? This sight, of red running down His arms in fat sticky drops, have you ever suffered similarly? True, nothing you have endured can compare to this, these sacred traumas, but can you empathize? Can you feel a twinge of shared suffering? Does your heart wince, imagining His great anguish, your own scars a mysterious reminder of His?

And His Pierced Side… oh, no human soul can fathom!

Look upon Him and tremble with grieving love! Weep with sorrow; reach out to comfort Him Who was crucified without consolation for your sake! We all suffer our splinters and sores, and we know how bitter injuries can be, so give this solace to your Savior, that you will endure your future pains with humble remembrance of His!

“Be not faithless, but believing.” (John 20:27) Reach out and feel His Hands, even here, even now. Behold thy Lord and thy God!

The Flagellation
This rare 18th century Spanish colonial figure represents The Flagellation of Jesus Christ. Hand carved and polychrome painted wood with inset glass eyes.
Unknown Artist.
 

Look at His back!!

His shoulders, His knees, from being crushed to the ground in agony, His shoulders, from the edges of the scourge…!

The blood He shed for us is unfathomable and it breaks my heart in half.

My Lord, what are you thinking, in such shocking pain, in such awful sorrow? What has moved your holy Face to such pensive distress?

O that I, too, should share Your grief-stricken meditation, in holding the terrible sight of Your wounds in my heart!

Every time I remember that Jesus kept His Wounds it just floors me. Our Savior is a Crucified Savior and that is so important to knowing Him, to understanding why He was born, and what He does for us now in Heaven.

I just see this, those horrible holes, dripping with dark blood, aching in agony, and I realize there is no bitterness or despair or complaint in it at all– it is Love, only Love, that suffered and died to save us from the pain of sin, to deliver us from damnation: a doom so unbearable that God Himself endured unbearable pain in order to destroy the very root of it.

Jesus keeps His Wounds to remind us that it is finished, that His Death is our Life, and His Blood is our Healing. What trembling joy and holy fear a heart must feel upon beholding them!

 

Christ in the Desert [1872]; Ivan Kramskoi [1837 - 1887]

This is forever one of my favorite paintings.

Look at that horizontal line of clouds, so low and dim; look at that bleak and rocky ground, so harsh and grey… Look at our Lord’s face. Look at his hands. Look at the way his robe is pulled tightly, as if against the cold desert night. I swear I can feel the silence, the vastness, the time… this artwork speaks volumes without a word. It is heartachingly beautiful.

Daniel Gerhartz

Every time I see these paintings, the sheer tender beauty of the light and color makes my heart ache in awe. The jewel tones are so precise, so stunningly vibrant amidst backgrounds of warm neutrals that they feel like rainbows gleaming in a dun sky. The brushstroke technique adds to this– everything is soft around the edges, watery like looking through tears, blurred like a dream right before waking. It feels specially transcendent because of this, as if its glorious subject matter is too magnificent to portray in any solid human manner or method… and indeed, isn’t it so? The radiance of Christian religion glows with divinity in every blessed item and action so devoted to it; it is perfectly fitting that any work of art striving to capture the precious essence of that worship would ultimately turn out like this– hazy with holiness, giving us a trembling but true glimpse of heaven’s splendor beyond the veil.

Polyptych of the Resurrection Virgin Annunciate, 1522, Titian

“Behold, the handmaid of the Lord.”

The great love, purity, and humility of our Lady is somehow so visible here, in the touching and sincere simplicity of her pose– the bowed head, the downturned eye, the hand to her heart. And yet her arms are open. She does not hide herself, nor turn inwards, but offers herself totally to God. So it is that the virginal red of her humanity is embraced by the blue of Divinity, with the pure white triangle of the Trinity fixed like a seal upon her heart… and the Mother of God shines as the morning star out of the darkness of the world.

“Be it done to me according to thy word.”

God loves us all. He doesn’t see political parties. He sees the heart. And even the most hardened sinner, even the most lost soul, has a chance to be redeemed and saved through His Divine Love and Mercy, if only they would believe in His Truth, and humbly submit to His teaching!

So remember this before you are tempted into judging politicians as people. They are sinners, just like us. And they are still precious to God, just like us. We are all at His mercy, and indebted to His Love. So let us honor Him by treating each other with merciful love, too.

Vote for policy, not personality– and above all, vote according to Christ.

When I feel distressed and helpless in life, it truly helps to think of Christ holding me like this, as His Child, His Creation. Even now, He sees me and remembers me from before my birth, when I was known only to Him, but known completely and perfectly, and loved just the same. He holds me and knows me and loves me still, and forever, and that gives me such comfort. Even if the world sees me as worthless and purposeless and unwanted, Christ calls me His Own, and that is my undying hope.

HOPE IN GOD 

Death can shatter many hopes; it cannot break the Ties which unite an Immortal Soul to the Souls which it loves immortally.

The Temptation by the Devil , 1865

Gustave Doré, 1832-1883

 

I really love this, actually. There’s a symbolic visual truth to it that really strikes me.

Here we have Satan, fallen angel, self-proclaimed illegitimate prince of the earth, brazenly and bitterly trying to get Jesus to worship him– Jesus, the King of all worlds, the Creator of life itself, the very source and summit of incorruptible light– and yet, the devil is at Christ’s feet. He’s on his knees, furiously imploring perhaps, goading and sneering... But Jesus doesn’t even look at him. He knows that the devil has no right to sell His own planet back to Him.

And honestly, it’s apparent. The devil gestures to his “kingdom,” but all we see is a tiny huddle of man-made architecture swallowed up in miles of untouched green. And so is the truth. Amidst the wilderness of God’s natural art, all of man’s achievements– all the devil claims to control– will ultimately be reduced to the rubble and dust it came from, and time will proclaim God’s endless sovereignty. The devil has nothing to sell. And truly, Jesus knows it– as surely as He knows the birds flying free, which He protects to the last tiny chick, and as surely as He knows the sun, blazing gloriously behind Satan’s ignorant claw, testifying to the eternal light that will defeat him with every sunrise. Jesus owns the hills, the sky, the clouds, the dirt, the dawn, and the devil himself. But there is one last, heavy, hidden truth.

His Holy Face shining with the promise of true kingly glory, Jesus looks away from the devil’s spoils… and wreathed in the red that will one day purchase the one thing He wishes to claim irrevocably as His own special possession, he looks to us. And His eyes say, you are worth the cost.