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It will be curious to see what happens with this one. On the one hand, the church of the Christians can be very oppressive towards its saints, and especially towards that most reluctantly-acknowledged subset of saints, the female ones. Teresa of Calcutta gives to me the sense of a caged lion: she was such a strong woman, but she felt such a need to (over-)police herself, to domesticate herself for the benefit of the church and the clergy, you know. Such a torment it is to force oneself into the wrong mold—the mold one wasn’t born for! That, and her god seems to be very insecure about powerful mortals, wants the term to be a contradiction, an impossibility. Of course, there are parallels among our own old gods—Apollo and Artemis kinda taught the “loose lips sink ships” saying to the mouthy woman who said that her family was better than the family of Leto, you know. (arrow twanging sound). But in a religion without scripture, that was a long time ago, and I have some hope that some of the ‘baser instincts’, as a snob would put it, like insecurity, of the old gods can be mellowed out a bit, you know. We all change and grow, even the gods; only the One does not change, and he is a strange mixture of Is, Is Not, and Totally Is, and is very far from ordinary reality, you know…. I have less hope for the Christian god(s?) to mellow out; 100% domestication requires some pretty fierce lion-tamers, and the church of the Christians has never really liked change, for the most part. They wrote it down once so they could get it right, they say.

But anyway, with the Little Flower the case would seem to be a little different. I read her book, and although the memory is a little vague—perhaps the book is a little vague too, like a song, although even at the time it was sometimes hard to clap along; along to be fair, being a cute-Christian I guess sometimes I did clap along—but she certainly does not give the sense of being a caged lion. She does seem kinda like the Second Key, the High Priestess: the naturally withdrawn, intuitive, almost natural psychism wouldn’t surprise me, although in her case I suppose it probably wasn’t developed, caring, introverted, quiet girl. She didn’t have to pretend that part. But I wonder whether she lived up to—to use the Bhagavad Gita terms—her ‘sattvic’ reputation (wise, basically; highly-developed); or was she ‘tamasic’? (to simplify a little bit, basically out of tune with nature, reality, real life—very poorly developed, almost suicidal; almost all pain and few good parts)…. The High Priestess can be either one. It is not a matter of simply not being The Devil, The (Lightning-Struck) Tower, or even Strength (The woman and the lion); good and bad is hidden within all the cards, really; there is a wise and a delusional High Priestess within, at least, many of us, you know…. At least in all the cards that can be good there is also bad. Some cards are just mostly scary or whatever—perhaps not as much as in a B horror movie, but I’m sure you’ve had some bad days in your life, and if you were a tarot reader and doing it right, you’d have drawn some ‘scary’ cards beforehand. This review is not a discussion of the uses of tarot, however, so I’ll just add that there is ~some~ good to the bad cards, usually—The Tower comes, in the printed-book or numbered order, after The Devil, and the saying is that it is the materialism or folly of that card that is being destroyed. This is an important sort of thing and can be true, even if the average hairy, masculinist biblical-style prophet draws it again and again and again and again, because he’s discarded the other 77 leaves from the book, you know. But the Christian mother who takes one look at The Devil card or The Tower card and springs into candy-floss crusader mode is wrong too, you know.

Anyway, the end of the words is simply the question of whether the Little Flower let the will to live—to literally fucking ~exist~ and stay alive—flutter out of her hands as she pursued the butterflies of Christian mystic pain, you know…. To the extent that such a question can be answered by a book, that’s what I’m curious to know, basically….

Pisces Moon, well that’s not surprising. She practically screams having some Pisces in her chart, somewhere. I guess I didn’t guess the Capricorn Sun, but it makes sense—there can be a lot of loyalty in a Capricorn….

…. But yeah: it is kinda weird reading Christian history & biography again, you know. I hope it isn’t as painful as reading about Teresa of Calcutta, the caged lion, or that French scientist-priest with the long name: it was…. Yeah, it was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (What a name.) He was I guess the caged bear, you know. Woke up from his winter hibernation to find that the Jesuits had boxed him in…. And he policed himself, too; he was “good”. “Maybe if I’m good, and only pace halfway across the cage that the Jesuits have left me, they’ll be good—they’ll see I’m good: and let me out….” Now, ~that~ is Painful…. Painful even to watch, you know. 🐻 😖 🔇

I don’t know I’ll be able to finish that pope history book, either. “Pope Imperator IV was one of the obscure popes without any friends to tell funny stories at the funeral when he died; however, he was probably a very good, studious pope who delicately balanced the need to be borderline nefarious, with the need to be very, very ~boring~…. 🏹🔕

Hopefully this won’t be as bad as it gets, you know! 🏂😹

…. It’s certainly very nostalgic; I’m not angry or whatever, but I’m not a fan of nostalgic religion, whether Christian or Pagan. And it is very nostalgic, both in subject and treatment. The implicitly & politely anti-red biographer; the Dickens heroine diary, the girl with the Victorian childhood spent in the provinces far from Paris….

(The Child Hermes) One time my mother was sad. Someone should have given her a balloon.
—Who said balloon? Balloons are frivolous. Anyway, we already have grandchildren, so hopefully this little one will become a nun—show those little American hussies what a Real fam—er—religious girl is like!
—Oh mama, I shall be a nun! I shall be good, just as all my ancestors before me were proper and good always!
(The Child Hermes) Uh oh: time to go back, I guess…. 😟
(he evaporates)

Not that you have to have children, of course.

Anyway, I guess it’s just as well, since it seems like the sort of life that wouldn’t “take” a non-nostalgic, non-PR treatment, really, you know, non-Christmas Village stuff…. Not that she would seem evil or anything…. She would just seem kinda…. Childish. Died a twelve-year-old in a twenty-four-year-old’s body. Kinda sad.

But I guess it’s ok as Christian biography, since it’s not the worst of Christian history and doesn’t anger me, you know. It doesn’t seem like this will be painful to read, like that “Mother Teresa: The Suppressed Rage & and Concealed Self-Hatred” book (not its real title), which ironically was very, very pious, you know. Very Kant-like editor’s emotions (or lack thereof.) He seems not to have understood what he was putting before the public; I guess part of being pious is disbelieving that anyone approved by your religion might ever seem unappealing. “On Month Day, Teresa wrote to her confessor, ‘Oh blessed father; life is an endless pain; I am no good. Life is an endless pain.’ Skipping over all the good experiences of her life, using my epic Aquininian thematic skills, [lots of people are named Tom, lol], she again wrote on….” You know: maybe there’s a good book about Teresa of Calcutta, although whatever way you cut the cake, there’s the issue of the caged lion preaching obedience. Still, she was probably happy sometimes, and probably did some good sometimes. Teilhard I’m not interested in reading again—he would be incurably elitist, if it weren’t for the fact that he lived his life in a sort of prison, like some aircraft designer working out of a Stalinist prison cell: nobody really likes Sheldon Cooper; but god, baloney on white, every, ~day?…. You know, socially it was a prison; his books were treated like gangster criminals or something. I’m sure he didn’t eat baloney or whatever. But yeah, screw that story. I would like to eventually read a at least middling moral male Christian story, though, although it might be even scarcer than the girls, really: (male Christian): Love and light and simplicity: always simplicity…. Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc: lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, Loren…. You do not agree with me? Then suffer, pain!!!…. Teach the children love: only love; this is God….” (doctor) How long has he been like this?…..

But yeah, this is a readable book, at least, although I don’t agree with it. I’d like to think that I view Christians with at least better feelings than they view me, you know…. Or even how I viewed, not cute Christians like Therese, but ornery, uncool Christians when I was a cool Christian, you know.

…. Propriety, my dear: always propriety. This is the law of Christ…. It is true that children are only birthed in one way. It is, indeed, most unfortunate. But it is also the way of ~normality~, and for one shunned by monastery or nunnery, well….

A common tale, of course. I mean, it’s Victorian, but not everything changes. People set off to reject the world; can’t get the knack of it; settle down to support custom. And where happiness fits in is neither here nor there; people don’t speak of it….

God, what a snob, though, John is; it IS pretty bad. Propinquity…. propinquity. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, Loren, Propinquity con usted, me gusta mucho! ¿Bailes?

…. Anti-clericalism tends to be immature and violent, lots of mob violence back in those days in France, you know; but the good, pious father literally knocked a hat off a man’s head because some kind of cleric was walking by, and you’re supposed to act slavish around clerics, and if you don’t—shame on you! Shame on you, Mr Françoise! This is a Catholic country! ~And even at the best of times, they lived aloof, really as they always had, that’s the point of church-custom, to live aloof from pleasure and the world; it was just obvious now that some people openly didn’t live that way.

And they wondered why people went batshit and did crazy things. I mean, you shouldn’t do crazy things; but if you treat people like a slave or a dirty animal, then eventually they’ll start acting like rowdy escaped slaves or wild beasts (not ducks, though, lol).

…. But on the other hand, while it’s never too hard to find a mother officious about her role in society, and not least among pious Christian mothers, you know: but it’s also true that sometimes people like that were just living their lives you know. Not everyone who talks about love is just mouthing the words; and although a mother is about all you were allowed to be back then, of course some people did it better than others. There’s always that possibility of finding that you like what the men came together to force you to do, you know.

…. In passing he insults people a little bit like me—not important enough to wheel up the heavy guns, just the odd mortar will do. But I’m sure you can figure out whether that was endearing for me, you know.

…. Christian childhoods can be a little off, you know. ~(clasps hands) Oh, if I only I could know misery—that would be happiness for me! While I know happiness, I am miserable—but to know misery, THAT would be, happiness!…. And therefore, to be avoided. (sits down and eats)

Although the odd person would exclude the ‘and therefore’, you know.

…. “Thérèse never felt at home in this life.”

Objection! Your Honor, my client has been wronged—he’s incompetent! I mean, I mean—
—No greater wrong than that, I’m sure…. Counsel, you may proceed.

…. (Gossip Girl 1875)
—And how does your father treat you; does he treat you well: does he buy you pretty things.
—Thank God, He does not; we must submit to His Will. Jesus is My Father.
—(nods, tries not to betray that she thinks that the girl is psycho)

(church boy) “Such were the savage customs of the age.”

…. I often think that biographies would benefit from some fucking interpretation of the bare, factual facts, which is all you really get from the scientific historians—just fact bones, and no meat of (I’m a vegetarian, but you know what I mean) psychological or spiritual content, made concrete in this specificity. But with John’s statements like~ Reasons often rebels, but faith accepts. Our lives are brief and we are too small, too stupid to know what the pope and his angels know; or— Children are bad and wicked to be angry at God for the death of their parents, though they must try to be a little upset at somebody! If the little fuckers are glad: they’ll have to: pay!! (Though the original text read like this: lorem ipsum, Loren, angelii in Angliae, non Urbis Angelis sunt…. 🎥). It’s like yeah, you’ve muddied the waters for at least a hundred years: we’re probably stuck with fact man, you know…. Because the church custom was followed for a long time, and we are not free of it, and it will continue like this for a long time, I suspect….

…. When am I going to figure out that the Christian man’s message to the world is, ‘It’s my way or the highway’, and the Christian woman’s message to the world is, ‘This is my male protector. Listen to him.’—you know.

I’ve been through it so many times with the Christians, far more than you know; I don’t ever seem to get it. Born with the curse of loyalty—that’s a Six. I guess that if Jesus had been a Six he would have come back to Caiaphas or whatever the fuck his name was and Pontius Pilate, and said: Behold! I am! Let me be in you, and you will be in me, and we will sup together, and all we will be one. (the two of them exchange flanges, then) “Let’s kill him again.” “No, c’mon guys, let’s be friends: let’s sing a song that was a hit, before your mother was born, how does that one go…. Say, do you like the Beatles? They’re the BEST band; my favorite is Paul…. Oh, alright: you can kill me. But don’t ever tell people I wasn’t loyal.” “We’ll tell them you were a rebel blasphemer.” “Aww, shucks, that’s really—ah! Pain!” (Emperor Palpatine does Force Lightning) “Infinite! Powahhh!!!”….

And someone we would have to work in the Lord of the Rings, you know, the Shire. (The Shire music plays) (Jesus) Well, ok! I’ll die a bloody, terrible death, for the sake of (strings swelling) goodness! Goodness! Goodness, and— (The Shire music stops and Emperor Palpatine Force Lightnings him) (Jesus starts screaming)

…. I remember once thinking that if only the Republicans could be a little bit like Saint Therese and be decent, all would be well, but I am starting to think that shamed-decency is a heavy burden to put on anybody—even a Republican. Even the priests and ministers want a little (borrowed) agency, you know—they do not want to be shamed little girls like their flocks. Perhaps that is inconsistency; but there is such a thing as a foolish consistency, as well. Even Therese had to believe, in effect, that twenty seconds’ repentance immediately before the execution could send a triple-murderer to heaven, but that a rather ambitious chemist cannot be forgiven for not being a rather withdrawn, pious chemist, you know. ~They are drawn to extremes, these Christians and students of the One; and we have all been tutored by them at some point, however we remember the lessons. Was it Gogol who had that line at the end of some short story, “Well, it’s a mad world, gentlemen!”—something like that, you know. And pagans and witches can be crazy, you know, and once-born people, the majoritarians, of any description: but you take away everything but the One, and perhaps the Devil, and everything else is bad or it doesn’t exist: you get a very unbalanced world. That’s one way to muck it up, you know.

…. Someone just should have told these people, you know: moderation in moderation, basically.

—(slamming the table, losing his mind) Moderation always 100% every time no exceptions! (makes fists, clenched near chest) Moderation or a slow painful death that never ends—(releases fists, extends hands) Death that never ends! No ~end~ to death!

(the secretary crying in the hallway)
(some woman) It’s ok it’s not if you’re good.

…. I don’t like her attitude towards books. It is of course true, that while scholars must read to be healthy—it is in their bones, white as books’ pages, and whiter than the bones of other men—many people need not read many books, perhaps not any, in perhaps an extreme case. Reasonably intelligent listening to spoken word media, reasonable music listening and movie watching, and things of that nature: above all healthy work and healthy relationships, and of course physical health, are all great anchors to people who are not great book-readers. Actually, most of the above are necessary to all people. Perhaps it would benefit the average person to be able to read the odd book or two in a year, though—just what they like, whatever that is. I suppose a lot of the saints held up as the “unintellectual” saints are of this sort, since the Bible and the odd religious book or two were what they liked. I suppose that still puts them slanted a step or two towards the litsy end of the un-bookish ones, of course: many people couldn’t even finish a Jason Bourne book, or Danielle Steel, probably. That is, of course, not such a bad thing—‘I read the odd religious book and that’s what I like.’ But to have a very suspicious attitude, you know: I don’t know what other word, just deep suspicion, deep contempt: I Refuse to read novels; I Deliberately Exclude them, you know. That’s not healthy. And to positively gloat that you were not reading books because you were busy “loving God” is just in bad taste, you know; it’s unkind, ungentle. There are all sorts of books—some people read about cars or physics, others adventures or love stories; to ~gloat~ that you did not let in those contemptible outsiders and their novels into your suspicious medieval castle…. Is this an accomplishment? I do not play cricket, or know much about it, as is indeed common around here. But to say, “I do not play cricket”, and gloat—what is this?…. Their actual motivations and ideas and ideals are far beyond the insanities even that they’d claim explicitly, you know. They would not say, “Humanity is me, and no other. Beyond this form lies only darkness to be met with suspicion”, you know. But they would say, Novels! Trash! “Mansfield Park? Rubbish! In the bin!” The pious Christian really does have something of the petty tyrant, the medieval princeling, to him/her, you know. Like un-Communist Marxism: restrictions, suspicion, foreigners, decadence, files, punishment.

…. I suppose I’ve always wondered at the whole “I’m a poor thing—just scripture for me” angle. Is the Bible easier to read than “Bible Promises for Moms” or Victorian Devotional #74, or a religious book you pick with your eyes closed in a pharmacy like CVS or whatever? “I don’t like music; it’s too complicated—maybe just opera.” Shouldn’t it be the other end of things? People think religion is loyalty, and they just lose it. They lose the thread.

…. Yeah, they love to say Saint Dumm-Dumm (not knowing the atheists will throw that right back at them), but I think if someone could quote whole chapters of some Lisa Kleypas Regency romance from memory, in dumm-dumm world they would be VERY litsy, you know. By itself, that’s a good thing, although misrepresented. To come near the center is good. But “The Imitation of Christ”, I don’t know…. What better food for 99% of humanity, the commoner, than to say, Sacrifice everything to religion, become all spirit, and hope you are not made a devil (or a corpse), you know. So little of the common prudence people have yet to learn in the Imitation—it is all for advanced souls, or people who think they are advanced, I guess. It’s true it’s not hard to read, litsy-wise. But it’s all, “I cannot believe on planet Earth there are mountains; I cannot believe that on this planet are rivers. In heaven, there is only love. In spirit, there is only holiness….” To pump that into hyper-popularity and make it the commoner’s bedside book shows a real lack of awareness, you know. Sure, people can read it…. But what will they get out of it? It will just make them impatient with their children, (perhaps their parents), their neighbors, the rules of society, everything. Is that a beginner course, to dismiss planet Earth with a flick of your wrist? Is it, indeed!

…. “To trust yourself when all men doubt you: but to make allowance for their doubting too….” ~ Kipling

“I should doubt myself faithfully, should Christ and His Angels approve me; but when men doubt me, it proves that the world has been given over to the devil in order to offend me personally.” ~ Frederick à Kempis

…. The world is full of people, like Thérèse’s family, that had comfort but hated money. This is one of the worst things that it’s easy to do. (It’s not easy to kill people.) To have comfort, while hating it, is common, ignorant, and ungrateful. You ought to choose the one path or the other. Of course, our brave heroine chose her path—~honestly~ hating money, and she was dead at twenty-four. I guess she assumed that that was the safe path, no sin, no temptation, no failure, right!

I wonder if it’s a world of failures we live in!

…. Christian childhood is a lot. It brings out some of the worst in Christianity, as would I guess be more noticeable if the ~very~ worst that Christianity has to offer didn’t involve wholesale slaughter, you know. The Christian childhood is centered around obedience, and its currency is usually some form of deceit, you know. “Getting the little fuckers to obey, in the only way, they will live the right way, those who challenge me will pay.” And then there’s that C.S. Lewis/Narnia stuff, right, about the two races, men and women. It would seem odd (although it is, of course, cliche), that someone so romantic could be so interested in legislating difference and keeping the sexes apart, you know—a romance in which there’s no “romance”~ that one thing that all the people involved are in it together for, just men and women, you know…. There’s that one passage in one of the Narnia books where he has the little girl mock medieval romance to the grown man, and it’s like…. Jack, don’t you ~write~ medieval romance? But that has to be kept a secret from the children, you know: men and women have to be kept apart, men can’t invest in women and compromise their separateness, so…. I mean, WOMEN can do that; that’s a whole other race, you know: different nation, different laws, right….

I’m not as sanguine about kiddie Christianity as I used to be, you know. Like, Therese died so young she was almost still a child, (and a “maiden”, of course, to use the old word—she would have looked it, too, if nuns didn’t intentionally look…. I mean, Franciscans wear brown because Francis thought that brown was ugly, basically: and nuns have to be CAREFUL that way, right), and she never rebelled, you know—and I mean, she’s eight years old, and we’re getting on halfway through the book, you know—and it’s a “nonfiction” book, you know: not kids acting like half-adults or something like in a fairy story, you know….

It’s just hard to avoid the sneaking feeling that Christians like Therese because she never got to live her life—and that that’s what a Christian childhood is “supposed” to be about, you know—not living your life. If you don’t live your life, there’s no sin. No risk. Gosh, imagine if you never rebelled, never got married or had sex—and then died while you were still young!…. Like Peter Pan without piracy, you know. Peter Pan doesn’t die young and become a pirate-ghost; Peter Pan dies young and…. I don’t know, he cultivates pity or something. Like Charles Dickens without money or romance, right. There’s a lot of “without”’s in Christianity, you know. It basically came to Europe as the “without paganism” religion, and continued to define itself as the “without X” through many different phases of its development. C.S. Lewis once said he was suspicious of what he called “Christianity And”—making alliances, basically, making friends. Because you’re supposed to be “The religion without”—definition by opposition, making enemies. Like a guy with oppositional defiant disorder and his very frightened, mousy partner, you know.

It’s no secret Therese was a simple girl; there’s no argument from ‘it’s good Greek, boys: good style’, you know. A lot of girls kept diaries in the 19th century, although many of them didn’t experience much…. Certainly many of them were religious, even pious. I don’t see the reason why they didn’t promote some other Victorian girl’s diary, one who had a fuller life, a more developed sense of self and boundaries, and more independent, more spirit, more happiness, more experiences—except that that’s the point: they wanted a patriarchal girl who did NOT live a full life full of experiences or even good fortune and happiness, oddly enough, you know. It’s like if the poster boy is a man like Aquinas, or in Victorian times, some bishop or minister or philosopher, some man with agency and intellect and some measure of independence and strength, then the poster girl has the be the un-man; like Christianity is the “religion without”, the religion of limitations, women are the gender without, the limited, restricted gender, right. “Because that’s good for…. Society!” Because the guys in charge of society believe that there’s something rotten at the bottom of human agency and independence, and even happiness and choice: but maybe they’d rather not be as hemmed in as a corseted woman or a female Victorian invalid or a nun, THEMSELVES, you know.

And that’s certainly, very, brave, or something, you know. It’s certainly fucking, something or other, right….

It is funny how it is kinda that limited votes-for-women, not 100% less than men feminism is all you need to criticize the sort of cult of Christian gender, you know, but once you reject it…. Does the church have another model for the relations between women and men? Imagine sharing with some good Catholic or even non-Catholic Christian parent that you didn’t want your daughter to be like Saint Therese! “You want her to be a whore! You’re bad!” Treaty talks denied. Surrender immediately and unconditionally, or prepare to be boarded! ~ I mean, people offer the self-denying, patriarchal woman who considers herself less than and give her screen time as the “concession to women”, you know. Usually women simply get zero—end of story. The man is a lion; the woman is a witch. The man is a priest; the woman is a whore. The man is the young sinner who needs forgiveness. The woman is on the church volunteer committee and her contributions to society are to be unpaid and unthanked. You know, like—Zero. Absolutely zero. Heads I win, tails you lose. And the concession is, “let’s talk about the good woman who had trouble taking up space and existing because she was so good—if only girls today could be like her”. It’s like, bro…. Bro! 😐

But what other Christian woman is there? Even votes-for-women radicals aren’t really kosher, you know. “Yes, society was wrong in its views of women; things had to change…. But children, don’t EVER say that society’s views of women are wrong, and that things have to change. It’s not right. Think of society. Think of religion. Think of God. Think of Jesus on the Cross—look at him, children. Hasn’t he been through enough, without liberated women, too?”

…. “Thérèse had often said she wished to be like a toy ball to the Child Jesus, something without any personal will, something he could use exactly as He wished.”

On the one hand, this is very, very over-chaste: no sex, no agency. On the other hand, it is rather a good thing that someone with this complete absence of personal will wasn’t highly sexed, you know….

And yeah: toy balls don’t vote. (They’re objects for use!)
—Yes! If only girls today!—I mean! If only all of us! If only ALL of us!
—If only all of us couldn’t vote. Feudalism.
—YES! At the very least, we could dress up for it, you know: play historical reenactment….

…. (I can’t get over this, lol.) Get married to Jesus!

(Jesus as a British chauv with a blushing bride, right.) Alright, pet: now I expect you, to be like a little toy ball for me, an object for use, without any personal will. Can you do that for me, pet? (She nods.) There’s a good girl. (They kiss.) I love you. And remember: I get home at six: I’m gonna have a pint with my mates after work, but I expect to have dinner waiting for me, at 6 o’clock sharp: I left instructions for what meal I want on the stove. And there it is, love: Bob’s your uncle, as we say in the UK! Goodbye pet, and stay beautiful!

~ Europeans are SO CULTURED, right: it’s why colonialism, really works! 😹

…. Christians are a lot, right. 😮‍💨😸

(Conservative/Reactionary Christian) THE FORCES OF SATAN ARE ON THE MOVE; WE HAVE REALLY GOT TO TEACH OUR GIRLS TO BE LITTLE DOLLS FOR JESUS TO PLAY WITH BEFORE THE MUSLIMS AND THE ANTICHRIST LAUNCH THE NEXT INTIFADA.
(Enlightened/Radical Christian) Christians need to resist the empire. Caesar isn’t king; ~Jesus~ is king. Now, it is of course true that Stu [the British chauv from before 😹] is, certainly, certainly, rather sexist; move on nothing to see here a girl wrote a book about it whatever no big deal right. But Stu has also been wronged—WRONGED—by the empire. We all need to fight the power. Think of what J.S. Bach did with his life, right—he fought the power. We need to do the same. So if you see your friends going on vacation instead of getting a postdoctorate degree in Socratic theology, really fight the power, right: smash a banana crème pie in their face, then make fun of rich people on Threads, while reading some dead authors….
(Conservative/Reactionary Christian) THE FORCES OF SATAN ARE ON THE MOVE GIRLS ARE TURNING INTO SLUTS.
(Enlightened/Radical Christian) (nods) It is true that market forces/individualism/post-medievalism often makes me feel like my time has come and gone. (making fun of the nut in his head but nodding because he’s non-confrontational and doesn’t believe in being impolite especially if the person is crazy) (beat) Do you listen to Bach?
(Conservative/Reactionary Christian) (sighs) I like country. “I said ‘I got a truck’; she said, ‘That’s something!’ I said, ‘Right? It’s better than nothing; slut plant your fine ass in my backseat…. ‘Cause: I got a truck.’”
(Enlightened/Radical Christian) (nods) I prefer the opera where the fairy king rapes the little girls.
(Conservative/Radical Christian) (spits) Ah! Europeans! We need to keep them off our lands!
(Enlightened/Radical Christian) (nods non-committally)

…. Therese vs the other nuns: It is odd, it reminds me of some Randolph Scott movie, some Wild West movie, where the hero the trad man who is good, you know, and he has a bunch of brothers who are weak and vicious, and that proves that everyone was good back when Frank Capra was alive, right. Or in this case, Therese was a good nun and all the other nuns were all but a bunch of webcam flirts, (or at least…. They were unusually considerate of their cats and other pets? They gave them human food?), and that proves that when people rode around in horses, they were riding high, you know. (shrugs) But people in trad society didn’t go around with a glow towards each other when they weren’t fighting together as tribesmen. Usually they were writing letters like, This convent is worth gossiping about! One of the sisters keeps a cat as a pet!!! I’m writing to the Mother Superior to get her canned, and if that doesn’t work, I’m going over her head to the Pope! I won’t eat half my dinner for a week so that my prayer to get Sister Cat Lover left outside in the snow is granted success by Our Blessed Lord, the One True God, etc. etc.

Like “Gossip Girl”, only without the money and sex. “But people watch that show to watch attractive rich people.” Right.

…. They broke her like a horse, you know. They were horse breakers….

“I seek…. to be esteemed as nothing.”

Then I “esteem” you as nothing, my dear; you have your wish….

…. The pagan who falls into torment can hope for better things, imagine a brighter future. The Christian who falls into torment must say, it would seem, that this is “the way things should be”, since Jesus fell into torment, right. The Christian king, resting from his persecution of his enemies, need only read the New Testament to feel that he and his is small and routed; the Christian planning to go on vacation need only take a break and meditate upon the Cross to come to the conclusion that life is always unremitting suffering, you know.

…. So all I have to do to be liked by Consensus Christianity is to consider myself an object for Jesus to use…. And maybe if I consider myself in that way, I can get everyone to like me and consider themselves worse than my own nothing badness, you know. “When everyone considers themselves bad, and yet better than everyone else, except for the one bad person who was good—that’s when things will be ok.”

So noted. 🥸

…. …. I remember when I was a cool Christian, I thought that the normies/punishment conservatives were tripping when they criticized some bishop of some church for visiting a prison and telling the murderers that God loved them—because “there are churches where people have been going faithfully every week for forty years, and that bishop doesn’t show up there and tell them that God loves them.” Now I see that they almost had a point. Telling murderers that God loves them is a good deed, but it’s not much of a good thing if it’s the exception that proves the rules reserved for people who have “ruined their lives”, right. And yet Christians are probably the people getting offended and mocking you for saying that you love your cat, that you love eating ice cream, that you love the cashier in that store. I mean, you can draw yourself up and say to her, “As the personal envoy of the Lord Jesus Christ, master of the heaven and hell, I have been sent to inform you that today, it’s okay to have a blessed day!”—you know. But if you walk away and say, I love that guy, he scoffs, and says, “Save it for the murderers: that guy’s just trying to make money. He’s ordinary!”

Right?
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
goosecap | 1 outra crítica | Jan 29, 2024 |
What factors conspired to shape St. Therese of the Child Jesus? The Story of a Soul, brings to his task an authority on her life unsurpassed perhaps by any writer in English. The story of this life is a marvel-a miracle-of divine grace. For the life of St. Therese is the lesson to all men of spiritual greatness to be achieved by perfect love of God and total consecration of all our actions, even the smallest, to His greater honor and glory.
 
Assinalado
StFrancisofAssisi | 1 outra crítica | Nov 4, 2021 |
1418 St. Teresa of Avila, by John Beevers (read 15 Nov 1976) I found this a non-profound and haphazardly organized biography. It is laudatory but I would think there must be a better way to handle her life. The author was with the BBC.
 
Assinalado
Schmerguls | Feb 4, 2009 |
 
Assinalado
saintmarysaccden | Sep 5, 2013 |

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