#lentposting

[mauvaisecervelle]

me all year: oh i am not inherently competitive . . let's create

me during lent: it's me VERSUS Jesus Christ HIMSELF . i will give (1) thing up for FORTY ONE days and BEAt gOD

[tempered-grace]

dining hall has seitan let’s fucking gooooooooooo

[azures-grace]

Hummus sandwich...

[pimenet]

IM NOT MAKING A FANCY INTRO POST. IM PIMENET/MAYBELL I USE HE/THEY BUT TBH DONT REALLY CARE IM A MEMBER OF A SYSTEM AND I WANTED MY OWN BLOG SO PEOPLE WONT BE UP IN MY SHIT. IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME FUCK OFF. IF YOU DONT HIIIIII 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤗🤗🤗🤗🥺🥺🥺🥺💋💋💋❣️❣️❣️❤️❤️😁😁‼️‼️

I USE ALL CAPS FOR FUN. SOMETIMES I DONT WHEN I NEED TO BE #SERIOUSMODE. IF YOU DONT LIKE IT UNFORTUNATE. NOT THE BLOG FOR YOU

[poeticsoup]

that post nut clarity hits and the catholic guilt sets in. u know what i mean

[princebluebell]

rather than boasting about how penitent you are for not drinking coffee or taking cold showers or whatever else that fondles your ego, how about you go donate to a charity or volunteer for your community and pray a daily rosary. wouldn’t it be cool

[maculategiraffe]

“Then what would be the purpose of possession?  What’s the point?”

“Who can know?” answered Merrin.  “Who can really hope to know?  And yet I think the demon’s target is not the possessed; it is us... the observers... every person in this house. And I think—I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile, and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy.  And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness.  For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us.”

-William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist

[maculategiraffe]

I couldn't pull it together to post this on Wednesday itself, but that's in the spirit of the day, so here it is two days late, mea culpa:

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, in the Christian liturgical calendar.  It marks the beginning of Lent, which is the 40-day season of repentance and privation that ends with the celebration of Easter.  It's 40 days long because Jesus is supposed to have fasted in the wilderness and been tempted by the Adversary for 40 days at some point, which in turn is because 40 is numerologically significant in Judaic tradition, but unfortunately we Christians tend to have a weird neurotic cultural phobia of even noticing that our entire religion is an unauthorized sequel to Judaism that caught on like wildfire in a number of cultures for a number of insane historical reasons and there's nothing we can do about it now but continue to try to encounter the divine through whatever means seem meaningful and loving and helpful, while also trying to lovingly and humbly encounter anybody who's trying to encounter the divine in other ways, including but not limited to dismissing the idea of a sentient higher power altogether and focusing on other means of finding meaning and love and help in this shitty wilderness in which we've been wandering for the last numerologically significant period of days.

So anyway there's a church service on that day where you go up front and kneel down like you would for Communion, but instead of feeding you a bit of bread and a sip of wine, one priest takes fine black ash-- soot, kinda, I don't actually know what it's made of-- and marks a cross on your forehead, and then another priest comes and puts their hands on your shoulders and says something you don't really hear because you're sobbing too hard because you are the kind of doofus who always makes a public spectacle of herself in church, and then with the ashes and the tears on your face you go back down to your seat and kneel down and pray and ask for forgiveness in something called "the Litany of Penitence," which is more positive than it sounds really.

It's about being loved and forgiven regardless, see; it's about being worth something, inherently.  There's a line in the collect about how "you [God] hate nothing you have made," which sounds weird and double-negativey but it's basically church-speak for the sentiment I often see Tumblr express as "X people are valid."  "God made you, specifically, and therefore wanted you to exist, and therefore doesn't wish you didn't exist" is... a sentiment some people may need to hear more than others, and more at certain times than others, I think, and I can see how it would come across as either damning-with-faint-love or meaningless depending on where you're at personally vis-a-vis that need, but people who need to hear it... are valid.

Because it doesn't let you turn "I've done a lot of shitty things" into "I'm a piece of shit."  Which it's so easy to do, isn't it?

You get down on your knees, in front of God and everybody, and say, in essence, "I should have done better.  I COULD have done better.  In a second I'm gonna get up and keep trying, and hopefully do better, although I'll still make mistakes and do less well than I think should be done, which is less important than keeping on trying, and learning.  Thank you for loving me, and being glad I exist.  I'm mostly pretty glad I exist too, I think, and I love you too."

And this was one of the readings of the day, from Isaiah 58:

Is not this the fast that I choose:   to loose the bonds of injustice,   to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free,   and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,   and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them,   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,   and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you,   the glory of the LORD shall be your rearguard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;   you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,   the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry   and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness   and your gloom be like the noonday.

The LORD will guide you continually,   and satisfy your needs in parched places,   and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden,   like a spring of water,   whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;   you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach,   the restorer of streets to live in.

I like that.  I hope so.