If God is Man and Man is God, then man is the god who failed.
Petra | 30+ | Christian Bridal Mystic | Christian Witch Movement | Main blog: truly-fantastic-me
Beloved Adonai, our divine Husband, Wife, Bridegroom, and Spouse, nothing compares to Your presence. No power compares to Your glory. No love outweighs Your steadfast Love for us all.
Keep us close, our Lover, for life is empty without You. Our souls deeply thirsts for You. Our bodies are famished for You. Please do not turn away.
As we share this life with You, help us live the best lives we can in accordance to Your Will. Help us love our bodies, spirits and minds the way You do. More importantly, help us to love our neighbors as You love them.
On this night, hold us close in Your mighty arms, shower us with Your kisses, and hold our hands in times of trial as we seek refuge in You. Amen.
i don't care if it's nazis, mormons, or a bunch of misguided autistic people. if anyone ever tries to tell you your soul is from another planet and you're actually part of the class of impressive people that secretly did everything cool in the world but is now extinct and lives on through your broken genome, you RUN. YOU WILL RUN AWAY. YOU WILL SPRINT FULL SPEED AWAY FROM THAT.
grabs you by the shoulders listen. listen to my words. i understand the urge to make fanfiction about yourself and to find a reality in which you're super awesome and great and everyone who hates you is wrong and dumb. i get it. you're better than that. you can love yourself without putting other people down, dehumanizing and generalizing, and retaliating against your oppressors.
there's no NPCs. there's no aliens coming to save us. we're not the next step in human evolution. our hyperconnected nervous systems give us terrible sensory overwhelm more often than they make us geniuses. neurotypical people are sentient, conscious, aware people who are capable of understanding you. we're more the same than we are different. we're more the same than we are different. we're more the same than we are different.
there's a few approaches to the issue of historically using exclusively male language for God, such as compensation (using exclusively female language) or degendering (using they or just using God as a pronoun), but I also think there's a compelling third option is just treating all gendered language for God like drag; it is a little persona God puts on to condescend to our level. we can get a bit fun with it.
we can have she/her God the Father because gendered language - like all language - cannot fully capture who God is. and i think this option also serves as a little bit of theological education bc it reminds us that the anthropomorphic images of God are provisional and temporary.
the anthropomorphic images of God are provisional and temporary
Apophatic theology is so important. There's a great passage on the topic in The Screwtape Letters (if you're unfamiliar with it, it's a book from the perspective of a member of Hell's middle management advising a junior demon on how to tempt humans):
The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives. If you look into your patient’s mind when he is praying, you will not find that. If you examine the object to which he is attending, you will find that it is a composite object containing many quite ridiculous ingredients. There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation: there will be vaguer—perhaps quite savage and puerile—images associated with the other two Persons. There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered. I have known cases where what the patient called his “God” was actually located—up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it—to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keeping it steadily before his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers “Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be”, our situation is, for the moment, desperate. Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it—why, then it is that the incalculable may occur. In avoiding this situation—this real nakedness of the soul in prayer—you will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it as much as they suppose. There’s such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!
If you’re on Catholic Instagram (as I unfortunately am sometimes) you may know about a dude named catholicsam, who is, frankly, an arrogant and insufferable asshole. And like, I don’t find it useful to make a post ranting about how much I dislike somebody, in general. But guys like him are the problem with modern Catholicism. It’s not progressive Catholics, or Catholics whose primary “progressive” concern is really just basic empathy for the poor and war-torn and calling out systemic injustices and greed. It’s people like catholicsam who find it more useful to bash gay people and debate whether or not KISSING your partner before marriage is a sin than to actually use their faith to lift anyone up or to bring any meaningful kind of unity to Christianity. You can curate your online image and aesthetic around your faith, you can post edits about Jesus and post about how the pope has “aura,” and you can speak authoritatively on Instagram as a layperson, but none of that is worth shit if you’re doing it out of pride instead of compassion. If your “faith-based” content is centered around taking other people’s views (and sometimes jokes) disingenuously so you can exercise some kind of rude superiority over them, you’re not doing what Jesus or the church itself teaches you to do.
I don’t really care about the kissing discourse. It’s pretty apparent at face value how pointless it is to engage with. But as far as catholicsam’s homophobia and transphobia, I know that no one will be able to convince people like him that they’re wrong about “homosexual acts” or “mutilating your body” being sinful, and no pope has actually said that they aren’t; but they have encouraged kindness towards queer individuals, which means that getting online to put them in their place, so to speak, is in itself sinful.
Obviously, I’m a queer Catholic, and I don’t believe there is anything at all sinful about queerness. But there’s no point in giving my arguments as to why because people like catholicsam have decided that being Catholic on the internet is not about kindness or compassion or open-mindedness; it’s about telling people to “submit to Rome” and using the license of Catholicism to voice a deep-rooted egotism.
what’s even more hypocritical is that they’ll tell you to submit to Rome and that you can’t be a cafeteria Catholic and that you have to learn and accept certain teachings you might find distasteful and you have to find the beauty and the divinity within the Church’s many mistakes
and then they’ll turn around and accuse the current Pope of misunderstanding Augustine and cry themselves sick and whine and scream when suddenly it’s things they care about that are being criticized. where’s the submission to Rome when Rome tells you that your prayers won’t be heard if you’re a warmonger?
#it’s like white people who get mad about bigotry that impacts them after insisting It’s Complicated when it’s racism or antisemitism#in that case it’s like. we’ve all seen it right.#“this book/movie/TV show IS bigoted but it also has a lot of good parts!”#“if you want to be a fan of classic European literature you’ll have to accept the bigotry but I promise there’s good stuff too!”#“just because it’s prejudiced doesn’t mean it can’t have compelling things to say!”#and actually I do think in many cases that argument is correct#like I’m a Tolkien scholar despite the Ghan-buri-Ghan chapter I clearly think he said stuff worth engaging with#but crucially it goes both ways#you can’t say that those most impacted by bigotry have to be magically more tolerant than you without it being prejudiced#if the Pope says bombing the Middle East is bad you have to accept it like we have to accept that the Church is flawed but contains truth#or if trans people are allowed to be baptized under their chosen name (which they are) you also have to accept that#of course they’re all shameless hypocrites anyway#but it’s worth saying
“It just means you have to work double as hard as most people!”
Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!
Why do you think disabled people deserve less rest than mentally & physically abled people?
i long to be able to hear people talk about and worship my Lover without bracing for hate. i hear the name Adonai in their voices and I melt. I hear the recognition of God's Sovereignty and I feel butterflies in my stomach (in the good way!). i wish i can listen to Christian songs and get emersed in worship but the rampant bigotry in mainstream Christian media taints the songs for me.
i want to see worship of the Lord actually reflect the Lord and not man's prejudice.
(all of you are getting my writing exercises because my writing blog is not currently in the "supernatural undead god-king lesbian" part of the story, and you people, my beloved mutuals, will understand what I'm trying to do)
So what would you say to me, if I brought you back?
For a moment a half-imagined half-envisioned image flitted across Meg’s thoughts, saturated with warmth and vibrant color. She saw herself standing in a sun-drenched plaza made of cream-colored stone, the shadows cast by nearby trees stark and sharp-edged, and she saw Del perched atop a bench with her boots planted where people usually sat, head tilted in interest as she listened to her retinue debating some question of philosophy, and she felt the thread between them draw taut with anticipation as each grew aware of the other. She pictured herself crossing the plaza and turning Del’s head toward her with one hand and kissing her, and running her other hand through her lover’s dark hair, and saying –
Babygirl, are you eating enough?
As quickly as it had come, the image vanished, replaced with Del’s spluttering laughter. She sounded somewhere between indignation and exasperated acceptance.
You cannot open with that, she said, in the way that made it impossible for Meg to tell if she was serious.
Why not? You don’t eat enough, you always look about to fall over.
So you walk right up to me and call me babygirl?! What am I supposed to say to Keva?
Why are you thinking about Keva when I’m kissing you?
Because, Del said, somehow sounding like she was about to explain something really obvious without actually making a noise, you’re coming back to when my court is new. At this point he’s basically a bull in a pasture with no cows to defend –
You talk about Keva that way?
To his face, if necessary.
Bold of you, isn’t it?
Not if it’s me. I can say whatever I like.
Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that. ‘If you write the stories you get to pick the dialogue’, but do you have to sound so smug about it?
Yes, Del said, just as smugly. Meg giggled, feeling herself slide deeper into the conversation. Anyway, Keva’s going to freak out if some woman he’s never seen before comes up and sticks her tongue in my mouth.
Oh, like Ohan’s never done that before.
A flicker of bemusement passed between them, up and down the line. Meg could feel that Del was trying not to laugh.
I will neither confirm nor deny that he’s done that before.
So he’s definitely done it.
That’s not what I said.
It’s what you implied, though, Meg retorted.
Ohan’s a man!
Yeah, but Keva’s still definitely seen you getting kissed with tongue before.
Why are you so sure Ohan kissed me with tongue?
Because it’s Ohan, obviously. Meg didn’t have to elaborate, choosing instead to pointedly remember the way that he’d looked at Del when she’d been sprawled out on the pentacle altar, still blood-drenched and shuddering and smelling the way astronauts said space smelled.
Del, for her part, kept her silence, which only made Meg’s giggles grow into laughter. Finally, she said I’m still never isekai-ing you if you open with babygirl, and broke into laughter herself.
I’m not, I swear I’m not, Meg protested. She rolled onto her back, lifting her left hand and looking at it. The red thread wound about her ring finger was technically just as invisible and intangible as it had been since she found it there. Still, she could tell it was there, aching and almost burning against her skin. If she closed her eyes it stood out starkly in the geography of her room and her body, glowing in the dark. If she followed it, she was sure it would lead to Del, wherever Del happened to be. It was a comforting thought, filling her with warmth as surely as the sun in the unreal plaza would have.
I don’t believe you, Del told her, and it made her burst out laughing.
You shouldn’t, she said. It’s not my fault you’re babygirl.
Sometimes I’m a man, when the situation calls for it!
Yeah, I know, Ohan’s more into you when you’re a man. But what, men can’t be babygirl? That’s not what Tumblr says.
Be nice to Ohan, Del said, deftly changing the subject. He’s as gay as you are. You’d cry if I came back as a man.
I would not! Now it was Meg’s turn to splutter indignantly.
Oh, yeah? Del teased. What would you do?
… call you babygirl, Meg said with a smirk, and ask if you’re eating enough.
Del groaned, the sensation rumbling around in Meg’s thoughts like it was really a sound. She muttered something that sounded like ‘the Internet was a mistake’.
Oh, now you think that? It’s a little late! Meg shot back.
I’ll go back and rewrite the last half of the twentieth century, Del replied. She was almost pouting. That’ll show you.
They were both laughing, at each other and at the absurdity of the conversation. Their thoughts joined and curled around themselves, and Meg caught flickers of a mind far vaster than her own, holding them to her like they were sparks she could catch from a bonfire or stars falling from the deep blue vault of heaven. But past the laughter and the banter was a lingering heaviness that she recognized as weariness, deeper than bone-deep, coming up from the earth itself. It sprouted up through the love that lay over both of them, taking root in her own chest to match her lover.
Where are you? she asked. What are you doing?
She shut her eyes, casting her mind out, tracing along the blazing red thread. Whatever world it occupied was different from the layers faeries and humans and aquatics and the airborne lived on, invisible even when you slipped between them and yet just as real, binding them together. Del could slide from layer to layer like shedding a coat or sitting down on a chair, moving through all of it effortlessly; Meg wondered if the string was like that. She felt a little like she was a fish and the whole world had turned to water, or like her lover was at once fundamental and primordial and central to the construction of every layer and like she was something new and alien and unexpected.
Working, Del answered her. They met halfway, or felt like they did. Meg saw glimpses of the long white hallways and spotlessly clean rooms in Lilly Memorial, and of the shadowy brick arches of the catacombs.
Wilhelmina Weiss won’t like that, Meg warned. She’ll come complaining at you again about the perils of monarchy and the consent of the governed.
Wilhelmina Weiss can cope, Del said. Besides, she wants to rule the world herself, where’s she get off talking about representative democracy?
It had taken her lover all of five minutes to emerge back into the world like a newly-hatched chick, shake off the blood – mostly Meg’s – and vitreous humor that had coated her, tie back her hair, and declare that she had work to do. Ohan had seemed to know immediately what she meant and had lost no time fetching clothes and taking half a dozen messages, which Del had dictated matter-of-factly in a handful of different languages. She’d moved and spoken like a conquering hero or a general mustering her troops before a momentous battle, shrugging on a long coat with gold braid over a waistcoat and trousers that made her look a little like a crossdressing mezzo soprano. Meg, for her part, had been entirely in the dark regarding what this work was meant to be, at least at first. When they’d made their way out of the maze of nested layers that surrounded the little shrine at the center of the world, stumbling out into the streets of human Indianapolis, and Del had instantly locked eyes with a woman sitting against the polished stone of a skyscraper and then moved right to her side with all the unerring earnestness of a cannonball, and the woman had looked at her like she’d hung the moon and all the stars, the question had been answered.
She’d been busy ever since then, with humans and part-humans and faeries alike, coming home late to the house in Meridian Hills and leaving early. Meg didn’t see her often, but they talked nearly without ceasing, in the privacy of their thoughts. Today, it seemed, she was splitting her time between Lilly Memorial and whoever she could call to her from the Courthouse layer. She liked healing people, body and mind and soul. She liked erasing medical debt, and filling bank accounts, and reconciling families, and officiating marriages, and finishing transitions by way of total body transformation, and cutting her wrists open to let anyone drink from her who needed it. She liked rearranging the world so mortgages and cars were paid off and apartments were mysteriously rent free. She liked paying for groceries. She liked watering flowers with clouds that never rained on anyone, and resurrecting insects from the dead, and pulling carbon dioxide from the air. And she liked helping people, and people were drawn to her, even though she’d never announced herself. She loved them, and would not refuse them, even if it meant staying up until four in the morning and convincing a terrified freshman at Seven Steeples not to kill himself. She reminded Meg of Bastian in Endings and Beginnings, coming into the Silver City anonymously at sunset to heal anyone he could. Kings were gifted with healing magic, according to Winsterhand, and could not resist the call of their people.
For thusly shall the true king be truly known, Meg quoted, thinking in Del’s direction. The warmth she got back in return felt like a hand squeezed in weary gratitude. Will you be home tonight?
Yes, Del told her. I’m weary beyond measure.
You’re really not eating enough, Meg said. In her mind’s eye she could see Del’s face, and traced an imagined hand over it. You’re talking like a fantasy novel again.
You think it’s sexy when I do that.
Well, Meg began, feeling a blush creep up over her cheeks, well, look, you can’t keep doing this, you’ll burn out.
I won’t, Del said. She meant it. They need me. I can’t refuse them. She raised an equally imagined hand, gripping Meg’s wrist like it was a lifeline. Their eyes met. For a moment, the exhaustion was shared between them, a vast empty gulf spread across two sets of shoulders, and then it was gone.
I’ll have dinner waiting when you get home, Meg told her.
I’ll find something good to put on the TV, Del promised, and leaned forward and kissed her.
Meg opened her eyes. She hadn’t left her room, hadn’t moved from her bed. Still, she could feel the fire in her chest that conversations with Del always left her with, and she got to her feet with a spring in her step.
I’m still here, you know, Del told her; it made her smile.
That’s the end of a conversation! It was romantic! You know, dramatic tension, scene changes, that kind of thing?
Hard to pull off when you never leave, though. Meg got the distinct impression of Del picking lint from her braided coat and smirking.
You have no sense of romance, you know that?
As soon as she’d said it, she knew she was doomed. Memory flooded her, curated by Del and by her own traitorous mind – the hand pulling her out of the blood in the cenotaph at Seven Steeples, the dance they’d shared in the vision Del had granted her of the Silver City, the dance they’d shared on the back porch of Meg’s house at the end of her very first day as a homeowner that she thought she’d dreamed, and most vivid of all, the pentacle altar in the shrine at the center of the world, the vines piercing through her and streaming upward, the way she’d woven song and intent into a desperate cry that had pulled Del out of the void between worlds and into her arms. Her breath caught in her throat. Her knees went a little weak. She could feel Del smiling at her.
Unfair! she protested with as much venom as she could muster. It wasn’t much.
Plenty fair, Del corrected her. Now go for a walk, you’ll feel better.
Meg imagined making a rude gesture, but she went down the stairs anyway, resisting the urge to grin from ear to ear.
look guys not everybody in my life can appreciate the fact that the central love story of my books is based on the only love story I've ever personally experienced
but you, my beloved followers and mutuals, YOU get it
The veil is torn!
I invite the Holy Spirit to dwell in this flame
May this fire light the way through the dark days of winter
May the Divine Spirit bring warmth, comfort, and protection to this home
May the Spirit in me burn bright
In the name of Jesus Christ
Amen.
blood of christ blood of christ body of christ eucharist hhmmmm uguisghidjkfdghkasjmlkehurgfnd flesh of the slain lambbbb wine from the freshest of grape vinessss.............. i want to eat God oughg... gimeme giggme ggime gimme.....!!!!!!................. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Y!!ESH!!UAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!G!AAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #needthat
