cheeseanonioncrisps:

Okay, so this fandom gets a lot of mileage out of Crowley getting comendation for things he isn’t even responsible for, and then the resulting angst when he has to go and check out ‘his’ work— but have we considered whether this ever happened to Aziraphale? After all, we see in the show that Heaven isn’t above the morally dubious, and there’s no reason why Aziraphale’s superiors wouldn’t assume he was the same.

Imagine him getting a commendation every time he’s in the wrong right area for a martyrdom, or a holy war, or— hell, why not an inquisition? Who’s to say that Heaven and Hell 100% agree on what counts as good or evil all the time?

Imagine him standing in a burning town, having just recieved a letter from Gabriel about how happy Heaven is to hear that people have been spreading Her religion to the local populace. “Good work, Aziraphale! Glad to see you’re finally acting like a proper angel and giving up all this namby-pamby peace and love nonsense! Keep it up!”

Imagine him having to witness centuries of blood and burning and bodies and not being able to talk about it to anyone— not even Crowley, because when you’re watching an atrocity and trying to persuade yourself that this is not only tolerable but somehow good, somehow right, the last person you need is the Demon of Constant Uncomfortable Questions.

(And anyway, a voice in his head that sounds a lot like Gabriel snidely reminds him, that’s probably the reason he can’t understand it. A Proper Angel™️ who didn’t waste time putting food and drink into his corporation, or playing around with books, or hanging around with demons— an angel like that would be able to make sense of this.)

Imagine later on, when the human perspective on some of these events changes, and Heaven follows suit. Aziraphale making one too many suggestions during a meeting and getting shut down with “well yeah, we would listen to you Aziraphale, but then remember that time you came up with that whole Crusades thing? That didn’t turn out so well, did it?” Imagine him brushing it off and pushing down the feelings of unfair, unfair, unfair, because Good Angels don’t question that sort of thing. Clearly he’s just made a mistake somewhere.

Imagine him post-apocalypse, finally being able to admit out loud to himself that Heaven wasn’t always right. (Imagine him finally having the courage to tell Crowley about it and getting to listen to several centuries worth of ranting about Heaven with a clear conscience— along with a side rant about “why the fuck didn’t you tell me, angel? I told you about the Inquisition!” “Yes, well… that was rather different, my dear.”)

I’m just saying, we’re really missing a trick here and… damn, now I kind of want to write this.

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@liquidlyriumreply: I’ve always seen Aziraphale as being more or less ignored by head office, except when they need to issue a reprimand. (See: The last time Aziraphale looks to the right in Mesopotamia and never after, which others have also pointed out.)

In that deleted scene where he’s getting ready to open the bookshop he’s given a medal for his 'devotion to Earth and duty’ but it sort of feels like an afterthought when Aziraphale expresses that he doesn’t want to go back to Heaven. As if he can be placated after being ignored for millennia with a pat on the head. (And he’s probably so starved for positive attention from Heaven that’s no doubt why we see him wear it on his vest ever after.) I’ll have to re-read though that scene with this in mind bc it is a very valid take.

After all Crowley does say ‘everyone stretches the truth in memos to head office a bit, you know that!’ And Aziraphale, angel of the Eastern Gate, lying liar who lies, mildly agrees with him without directly implicating himself of doing the same. (’Yes, but you told them..’)

P.S. Bonus -replyfrom@big-edies-sun-hat:  I did the thing. I had been wanting to put up a series of ficlets (on no schedule whatsoever) about various awful ideas the two of them had throughout history. Herein, a ficlet in which Aziraphale gets an award for Prohibition.

fuckyeahisawthat:

Let’s talk about God in Good Omens.

“…God does not pay dice with the universe. I play an ineffable game of my own devising. For everyone else, it’s like playing poker in a pitch-dark room, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules and who smiles all the time.“

I feel like we don’t give God enough credit for telling us exactly who she is with this line. Yes, it’s funny and said in a breezy Frances McDormand voice, but it’s also kind of terrifying. That game does not sounds like a fun game for anyone but God, for whom it’s probably hilarious. And I think this really sets the tone for God in Good Omens (the TV series, at least).

Good Omens opens up the possibility that God is cruel. She is, at the very least, indifferent to a lot of human suffering, and is sometimes in the business of causing it. Her punishments are harsh, indiscriminate and irreversible. This is a God who drowns children to make a point. She admits that her creations fear her, and does not seem to have a problem with that. She’s capricious with damnation and forgiveness. (Crowley fell for asking a few questions and hanging out with the wrong crowd; Aziraphale straight up gives his flaming sword away and that’s fine.) She doesn’t seem to mind that her angels behave horrifically, from mundane bullying up to summary execution.

She is not merciful. She provides no answers, not even to the faithful. She does not come to the aid of those who call on her. Crowley tells Aziraphale that he shouldn’t count on God to come and fix things, and he’s right. At times, God seems downright sadistic. (Think about the plant scene as some kind of traumatic reenactment of Crowley being cast out of Heaven. Then think about the fact that God herself is narrating this scene in a tone of detached amusement. That’s fucked up!)

One of the reasons that Crowley is such a sympathetic character is that he asks the same questions that any person who has both faith and compassion would ask. (The idea that a demon is the moral center of the story is a think for another post.) If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why is there so much suffering in the world? Is God actively causing the suffering? Why? Does she just not care? Why doesn’t she make it stop?

Keep reading

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@inthroughthesunfroof reply: You said what I’ve been thinking, just, much more beautifully. I don’t know what Pratchett and Gaiman’s religious beliefs are, beyond both having a strong humanist streak. Good Omens doesn’t read like an athiest work, it reads like someone wrestling with the fundamental question that all Christians run into: Given an all-knowing and all-powerful God whom we are told literally is love, why does suffering exist? Why does this suffering exist? How can our God be so cruel?

It’s a question that has broken many people’s faith, including mine. Good Omens doesn’t pretend to answer why, but it does answer so now what with a resoundingly humanist perspective. Whether or not God loves us, whatever that means, the only reasonable way for us to live is to love each other.

It’s a surprisingly biblical answer. Matthew 22:36-40:

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a]38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

If the God of the Bible is real, I don’t know if They’ll forgive a loss of faith. I hope They won’t be too disappointed if people who fail to follow the first commandment hang onto the second.

@ilarualreply: This is such a good post, and really articulates a lot of the thoughts that serve as the backdrop for basically all my readings of the lead characters of GO (both the immortals and the humans). The point is not: is God there? will God save us? Instead, the point is: it is imperative that we assume that there will be no divine intervention, and that it is up to us to work our own interventions.

It’s interesting to me that the human characters do not seem to give a fuck about God. Adam and the Them care about their world, and they care about protecting it regardless of what anyone, divine or otherwise, has to say about it. Anathema, likewise, isn’t interested in anyone’s guidance but Agnes’s. As for Tracy and Shadwell and Newt… they’re just along for the ride, they’re not worried about big theological questions. They’re just humans, messy, lovely, ridiculous humans who are just Doing Their Best when they find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. And all of them have no truck with any Great Plan, whether it’s God’s or anyone else’s— the human characters just want their planet left in one piece. Humanity’s responsible for wrecking it, and humanity’ll be responsible for fixing it, thank you very much. It’s only Heaven and Hell who have any real investment in what God wants or doesn’t want. Squabbling children who are still, after millennia, vying for Mom’s attention no matter how silent and indifferent She may be.

And as for our show-stealing leads…

Obviously Aziraphale’s entire journey over the course of the story is about finally giving up the ghost and accepting what he’s known to be true, in his heart of hearts, for awhile now: God isn’t coming to help you. God isn’t going to tell you what the right thing to do is. You need to do for yourself, you need to speak for yourself, you need to take action, because if you don’t, then who will? Aziraphale’s story is about recognizing that maybe God really does have a plan for all this, but maybe it’s cruel and unjust. And, not knowing what the plan is, if there is one, it is imperative that we step up and act with radical kindness, because to do otherwise is unthinkable.

Crowley… well… OP said it all. Crowley understands this. He is the only character in the entire series that actually addresses God directly, and we know She hears him. She sees, She hears, and there’s a distinct possibility that Crowley and Aziraphale were Her answer all along, but whether that’s the case or not, She’s not telling. And that indifferent silence? Crowley knows that’s cruelty, and that’s why Crowley so thoroughly rejects the false dichotomy of Heaven and Hell. He knows, has known for millennia, that it’s all bullshit. And he knows Aziraphale knows it too, it’s just a matter of getting to admit it.

In the novel, we’re left with absolute silence from God. Maybe God is there, maybe not, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter because we’ve got to take care of each other regardless. But in the show? God is there, God is watching, and God is a smug asshole.

It would be easy to confuse omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence with perfection. But God, it is said, created humanity in Her own image, and if you look at what humanity is like, capable of both extraordinary good and extraordinary evil… well, I think that says just as much about God as it does about us.

#god is human but on a cosmic scale #is basically my praxis both within the context of GO and within the context of just like… religion in general #either god is imperfect & fallible or god is unceasingly cruel #it’s up to the individual to decide which interpretation they can live with

@pisces-atdcomment: also worth noting the somewhat humorous line in the end of the series, in which gabriel states “god does not play games with the universe” and crowley responds “where have you been?” crowley and aziraphale have been living on earth for so long that they’ve SEEN things. think about it: they were the only ones actually THERE right before God literally drowned everyone except for Noah and his family. they’ve seen the type of things god is responsible for. every time aziraphale says “god’s plans are ineffable”, crowley is right there to jump in and ask “why?” which honestly is probably what got him thrown out of Heaven in the first place. eventually, aziraphale stops saying that. he never truly turns his back on heaven, not until the very end, but that’s not because he LOVES heaven or even god. he keeps his foot in the door out of fear. and crowley never truly aligns with hell, but he’d rather be on his own side with aziraphale than ever go back to heaven and work for god again. being on earth for so long, crowley and aziraphale side with the humans more than anyone else. they question hell and heaven, and more importantly, they question god. there’s literally a scene in crowleys office when he’s talking upwards, toward god, and asking “why? why does it have to be this way?” the angels and demons never ask, because for the most part they don’t CARE. the ineffable/great plan is just about a power struggle to them. also worth mentioning that god, in this situation, is about as chaotic as a 13 year old angsts fanfic writer. loving the beauty of suffering for the sake of the story, loving the heart wrenching plot twists, loving to panic and fear and chaos caused by her “ineffable” plan. fine in writing, evil when playing with the lives of real beings. but god has never seen it that way, in the same way angels and demons don’t value human life. I mean, they don’t really give a shit about killing 7 billion humans (not to mention the plants and animals) and of course, to mirror the scene in crowleys office where he’s speaking towards the ceiling to god, there’s a scene later where aziraphale literally calls god and asks to speak with her directly. both of them asking the same thing: “why? does there really need to be a war? can we stop this?” in conclusion: god is cruel and aziraphale and crowley are the only two on either side who understand this concept.

@no-gentle-stormsreply: Sir Terry in a nutshell. See: Small Gods.

theniceandaccurategoodomensblog:

Soft or BAMF?

Alright here’s my two cents in the is Aziraphale soft or BAMF question: he’s both. He’s fully both and he’s always been both because, in spite of what we get told, there’s a certain kind of BAMFness that comes from softness. They aren’t actually opposites. Softness (compassion, kindness etc) is not weakness. It requires great strength and it generates strength.

There are two kinds of BAMF. There’s the one we usually see: the hot-headed, competitive, let’s take on the world and win, aggressive, ambitious kind of BAMF. That’s all bravado and hot anger. You know, the kind of anger that calls you to destroy, to conquer? And then after you may well regret your actions?

But there’s the other kind too: a protective, ruthlessly determined, aggressive yes, but in a defensive way kind of BAMF. It is a whole different thing. It isn’t a hot anger at all, but a cold one. It never calls you to seek out and destroy but it is the certainty that you must do what you must do to protect what needs protecting. And when it is moved it is absolutely ruthless. Actions taken are not regretted. They are, after all, simply what had to be done. This is the BAMFness that grows out of softness (compassion, kindness) because part of all of that softness is ruthlessly and fiercely protecting what you love, those you are compassionate towards. It is a kind of righteous anger (appropriately enough!) motivated not by ego but by correcting wrongs.

Think of a mama bear. From the cub’s perspective she’s all love and kindness. All softness. If all’s well she’s happy fussing about with her cave, her world, her cubs. She’s not interested in ego-related aggression like expanding her territory. Far better to make peace, to forge the kind of alliances that allow for a peaceful world in which her cubs can grow. But if you step into her cave and threaten her cubs you’ll see a very different side to all of that softness because she will kill you without hesitation. Not because she’s aggressive in a hot-headed way but out of compassion and love for her cubs. You simply must be eliminated and that’s that.

That is the BAMFness of Aziraphale. It isn’t in opposition to his softness. It grows out of it. His is a righteous BAMFness. He will do everything he can to forge the kind of peace his cubs (Crowley, humanity) need. He’s had no ambitions on anyone else’s territory. But if you step into his cave (the world) and threaten his cubs he will do whatever he thinks is needed to eliminate that threat (break his alliance to Heaven, possess a human, kill a child, argue with the highest authority in Heaven).

And that, for me, is a key lesson Aziraphale gives us: softness is not weakness. That is a lie. There is a kind of ruthless and righteous strength that grows out of softest parts of ourselves. Aziraphale is a soft BAMF.

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@aethelflaedladyofmerciareply: I absolutely agree.

I think in the series, we see Aziraphale trying to reject and deny his BAMF side a bit, just really fall into being the soft cuddly sofa person, “the nice one.” I think he loses sight, at times, of the fact that he can be both, that he is both, that denying one side or the other is denying himself.

Somewhere between “I’m not fighting in any war” and taking care of the soldier, he rediscovers his BAMF side. Not all at once, not at one specific moment, but action after action shows he is pushing away from his soft side because the world (and Crowley) needs the BAMF angel.

But then he goes too far. He forgets his soft side, and now he’s all-in on killing a child. The BAMF side is where he keeps his strength, but the soft is where his compassion is. He tried to put that side of himself away, and it was nearly a disaster.

But.

Then he finds the balance point. BAMF enough to debate theology with the Archangel fucking Gabriel, soft enough to comfort a scared 11-year-old and help him find the courage to save them.

And…that’s who Aziraphale really is. In that moment, he’s found his best self - the self that is as strong as those around him need him to be, and soft enough to know how to wield that strength.

It might take him some time to get comfortable with the way the two halves occupy his self, but the hardest bit - accepting they are both him, knowing he needs to lean on both sides, seeing them as his inner yin and yang not some dichotomy he has to choose between - that has come, and he has survived it.

@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: No, no — I disagree with this. My whole point is they are NOT separate sides. His is the kind of BAMFness that grows out of softness. His willingness to kill Adam—in that absolutely extreme situation in which he honestly believes it is the only way to save the world—is an act of compassion—for the world and everyone in it—it is the fierce and protective side of compassion. Think: mama bear killing to protect her cubs. He isn’t balancing two sides. It is all one thing. But it is a kind of BAMFness that is rarely portrayed or talked about and so we find it hard to recognise.

@aethelflaedladyofmerciareply: Hmm, I think I didn’t articulate very well and now we’re talking past each other. Let me try again.

Agree:

• Aziraphale’s strength comes from his protective instincts and compassion
• There is a strength in softness
• Soft doesn’t equal weak
• They aren’t two sides that need to be chosen between

However:

• Heaven’s strength is generally very aggressive, as is Hell’s. This is the lens through which characters see and understand “strength”
• This includes Aziraphale - he doesn’t know his own strength, he thinks he’s weak BECAUSE he doesn’t show that kind of strength (I’m soft!) - he thinks he has to play by Heaven’s rules, be one or the other.
• And as a result, he feels the need to be less compassionate while saving the world - he is still being protective of the world as a whole, but he THINKS his natural compassion and desire to protect those in front of him is a weakness
• This leads to him almost shooting Adam, when a more measured assessment of the situation would have made him realize that he should be trying to help the child.
• Then, while watching the Them beat the Horsepeople, he realizes his mistake. He recognizes their strength, and his own, and is able to embrace the balanced strength that comes natural to him

(What I’m reminded of is how in martial arts, people think of being calm and being active as two separate states - you’re calm/at rest/patient, or you’re active/emotional/strong. However, practitioners know you get the best strength from that calm state - they aren’t opposites, you use calm to fuel activity. Acknowledging this and finding your strength in the calmness is an important early step.

(The kind of strength Heaven shows is an opposite of compassion; Aziraphale’s flows from compassion. When he accepts his own strength, he rejects Heaven’s and becomes the better version of himself. It feels like balancing two sides when you do it, but it’s not - it’s rejecting the part you don’t need and learning to draw your strength from the right source.)

I hope that makes more sense…this is very hard to put into words!

@angel-and-serpentreply: He’s a level-headed BAMF. He believes in sacrificing one for the sake of many, if that’s what it takes. He wishes it wouldn’t come to actual violence, though. Destroying the Antichrist isn’t a nice job, but somebody has to do it and Crowley is too busy crying over his car, really darling I could use some help here!

Once he sees that Adam isn’t the unholy threat that they both imagined, but a child - a human child, no different than the other humans he’s been charged to protect - his priorities change then and there.

@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: Yes. While he honestly believes—a totally reasonable belief at the time too—that the only way to save the world is to kill Adam, it is a morally reasonable step to take. It isn’t a failure of softness, it is motivated by compassion. If, when faced with the same scenario, he refused to kill Adam he would have had to live with the death of literally every other child on the planet.

theniceandaccurategoodomensblog:

Bus bench scene…

There’s something about how Crowley throws out that line: what if the Almighty planned it like this all along? that is just so empathetic and caring and selfless… He knows that Aziraphale has had the ground ripped out from under him, he’s lost all faith in Heaven, he’s literally lost Heaven in fact, he will have to discover what exactly being on his own side with Crowley means (Crowley has been on his own side for a very long time now I think, not so much has changed for him). But Crowley sees there’s something that could make it easier. Aziraphale could retain his faith in God herself choosing to believe that it was all God’s plan, including Aziraphale and Crowley forming their own side. I don’t for a moment believe Crowley actually thinks that’s likely (possible perhaps but not likely) or even particularly cares in a sense (he does what he thinks is right, he follows his own compass and doesn’t need to be told it is in the plan to be alright with that). But he gets where Aziraphale is and he just offers this up as a gift, says it casually like it is no big deal and let’s the seed take root. Like he could have tried to get Aziraphale to see it all as he does but he doesn’t, he helps Aziraphale to make his own peace with it all, to figure it out in his own way. Wow, even here he’s the ultimate defender of free will isn’t he?

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@fuckyeahisawthatreply: Oh interesting! I like this interpretation because this has always seemed like…not a very Crowley line to me. (So much so that I had convinced myself it was Aziraphale’s line until I went back and watched the scene again.) But I really like this take on it!

@amuseoffyrereply: Here’s a thing, though: Crowley does believe in God and he questions Her so many times. This is such a him thing to say because when we saw him yelling at Her in the privacy of his own home, he said “You’re testing them, I know you said you’d be testing them”.

To me, this line reads as him realising that humanity wasn’t the only thing being tested. God was testing her angels and demons and everything else in between. She planned it all like this, knowing Aziraphale and Crowley, the only morally grey, imaginative, enthusiastically loving creatures of Heaven and Hell, would be there. She let them share the gift of free will that humanity had and watched them run with it knew they wouldn’t let her down :)

@theniceandaccurategoodomensblogreply: I definitely think God is testing the angels and the demons too and that Crowley realises that, yes. I personally, don’t have faith that God’s plan is all for the ultimate good, that she ensured it would all specifically end up as it does (rather than just testing and seeing the results which is quite different I think). I don’t think Crowley has that faith either, but he’s ok with Aziraphale having that faith as it helps him. The whole “believes in” thing doesn’t really apply. Crowley knows God exists. He believes in God like we believe in the ground under our feet. He is incapable of being either an atheist or a theist in any human sense. The only faith relevant is faith in the plan, faith that God doesn’t just exist but is to be trusted, is a force for the good, is actually in control. I don’t read Crowley as having that personally. He doubts her the whole damn time.

@here-for-analysis-and-squeereply: It echoes his doubts in the garden “what if we both did the wrong thing”, and questioning the God’s plan back then, all the way back

PSA about honeybees

If you have a honeybee buzzing around you, obviously never swat at them. But there are 3 other things that no one mentions:

• Pitch of buzzing: if it’s a low, calming buzz, the bee is either curious or tired. The colour of your clothes or your scent has gotten her curious. Allow the bee to buzz around you, so she can understand you are not a flower! Also, she may be tired from a long, honey and pollen- laden flight, and just needs to rest. Let her! She’s tired and just needs a minute to recoup. Honeybees are drawn to top-facing surfaces, so shoulders and heads are common places for them to land. You can also carefully, calmly redirect their path from hair and loose clothing, as they will get tangled up in them. If, however, the buzzing is higher pitched (sounds like an RC car), she is irritated. Calmlymove away.
• Speed and pattern of flight: If the honeybee’s flight pattern around you is swift, with plenty of sudden direction changes, she is quitevexed with you. Do not swat, keep your hands by your sides, and move away from the bee. Honeybees that are agitated will follow for about 6 meters (about 20ft) before considering leaving. If the bee gets tangled in loose clothing or long hair, calmly part it, and let the bee free, without touching her. If her flight pattern is long, lazy circles, she is, again, merely curious about your presence. Ignore the bee, as best as you can.
• Vibrations:Honeybees are sensitive to vibrations in the air, which includes your heartbeat and voice. The faster your heart rate or the more you scream/yell, the more agitated the bee will get. The faster the vibrations, the more the bee will attack. They become agitated because, for lack of a better phrase, it throws off their groove. Yes, sometimes it can be scary having a bee buzzing near you, but keeping your heart rate as normal as possible and being as quiet as you can, will have the bee on her way in no time.

TL;DR:Low and slow, the honeybee is curious. High and fast, the honeybee is furious.

Before you recycle, replenish and restore!

idiotdotdotdot:

Christmas can be a hard time for some people.

Don’t judge people or get angry if they won’t come to your function, maybe they’re doing their best just to keep their heart beating today.

Don’t expect people to bring presents, it’s been a hard year, they might be struggling just to put food on the table, keep the lights on or buy their meds.

Don’t force the holiday spirit on people. Some people have suffered severe trauma through the holiday period. You still expect them to be jolly about it just for you?

Christmas is a time to love, to be kind and care for others. Not to force big parties, bankruptcy, meltdowns or flashbacks on others.

Fuck societies expectations. Just spread the love.

Happy Earth Day…

I’m realizing more and more how much my theology was forged in the furnace of dominant westernized thought and how easily the wax scaffolding of that doctrine melts under scrutiny.

If Scripture is from the East, told in eastern oral tradition, and spoke against the western trappings of materialism and expansion: how much of my faith was stripped of its eastern roots and baptized in manifest destiny?

Looking back on the textbooks I read in my SBC seminary, they’re all by one demographic. Yes, we can learn from anyone. But the lack of diverse voices meant my faith was squeezed by a narrow lens. Not timeless at all.

In 1807, British missionaries made a “Slave Bible” that removed chunks of Scripture like the book of Exodus. They were afraid it would incite rebellion among enslaved Africans. Much of our theology is still taught this way: ignoring the parts that would inspire the oppressed and shake those in power.

How much did I miss by being raised in a constricted, breathless, imperialized faith that was the “only way”? How much has the church today limited God’s imagination?

I’ve heard often, “Because the Bible says so.” Okay, but whose interpretation? Yours? Mine? From the era of the Crusades? When they were burning people at the stake? When it was used to support slavery? What if we have different conclusions? What if we’re both wrong?

When someone says, “I disagree with your theology,” they’re saying, “I disagree with your interpretation of theology based on my interpretation of theology.” So where did it come from? Trace it back and it’s always from a person. With a tiny brain like yours and mine.

If my opinion is always matching up with my interpretation, I’m carving God into my own image. Then I am not in dialogue with God, but manipulating a robot-idol to do my bidding and to turn off at my convenience. I’m only colluding with myself as my own accomplice to maintain the power I want to keep.

One thing I know is clear. Jesus said plainly: I must love people. Especially the wounded and oppressed. There’s no equivocation or wavering there. How it looks will differ, but that it must happen cannot. Where Christ is, I want to be too.

— J.S.

I’ve worked in the hospital long enough to find:

Not every storm will pass.

Some oceans do not part.

Some things will never be okay.

Belief is powerful—

but it doesn’t magically make the life you want.

Sometimes the cancer wins. The evil gets away with it. The law and medicine and prayers don’t always work.

Life, as you’ve been told, is remarkably unfair. But it’s even worse than you think. If you knew the cold cases never solved, the surgeries that fail, the hate crimes unrecorded, the abuses unreported, the thousands of gofundmes that get nothing, the patients who die alone—it’s too much to think about. I’ve seen nameless people end up cremated by the county without a trace.

These types of catchphrases—

“Just put your mind to it, you attract what you believe, hustle and grind and get up at 4am like me, you don’t have it because you don’t”—

They only work in a vacuum. It assumes the luxury of a perfectly windless environment with unlimited windfall. It does not account for failed systems which actively hurt people who already live in deficit. It does not account for purely bad luck. To blame is only to place a second burden which pushes further down, never up.

Here’s the other thing. Life is made bearable by those who bear it with you. Who crawl with you to the finish line. Who remind you what happened to you is not your doing.

So often it’s assumed we need correction when really we need connection: to know we are not untouchable simply because life itself withdrew from us. To know that grace is not contingent on how we may have fallen. Grace, in fact, is exactly for when we fall.

I don’t need to know how to succeed in three steps. I need the people who will crawl with me when I can’t take another step. I need the grace which whispers to me through grief, depression, and sorrow, in the hopes that glimpses of bare joy will occasionally peek through the wreckage.

My hope is even when the storm stays, you will too.

Even if for a moment, in the worst of it, in the dirt and hurt of it, I hope you will visit a little while.

That in loss and abandonment, grace remains.

That when every prayer goes unanswered: you are the miracle I have been looking for.

— J.S.