A collection of my favourite Catholic images 🥀🕯

when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c

#idk why i’m so unreasonably angry#maybe cuz it’s my fav line

it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired

THAT IS EXACTLY WHY

I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though It all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

um woah

I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??

In Yiddish

In Hebrew

In Ladino

Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.

You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.

None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace - you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.

Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise - hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.

Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.

(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)

holy shit. woah.

This.

That last bit from @stoneandbloodandwater, that’s a great articulation of the well of feeling, memory, storytelling, and culture packed into one of the most Jewish songs ever to get real famous. The song is both surrender and defiance, and that those are actually a single path together, not two opposite choices.

Being kind to ghosts is a Jewish value

I was just telling my coworkers today about how part of the official Passover cedar is literally summoning an ancient ghost to get drunk with you and I didn’t quite realize how wild Judaism is until I had to explain that

Objection: Elijah never died, so whatever he is, it isn’t a ghost.

look i googled “passover elijah” and this is the first image result

if it looks like a ghost and quacks like a ghost it’s a fuckin g ghost

That’s my grandpa

Elijah Never Died He Tucked His Arms And Legs Into His Belley. Curled Up Into A Ball. And He Just Rolled Away.

We have no conclusive proof that Elijah wasn’t always eight feet tall and translucent. 

The burning question about "homesteading tradwive influencer vs. actual medieval farmwife" wouldn't be about who would win, but what would be the final straw that would make Kathrynn - who got married at 21, doesn't know what a chemical is, and who would have sent her children to school if she had had the chance - finally decide to beat the ever-loving shit out of Kathrynn, who got married at 21, doesn't understand what a chemical is and can't spell for shit, but still thinks she can homeschool her kids.

It wouldn't be over feminist issues. Medieval Kathrynn has no concept of "women's right to vote" - it's not like her husband has the right to vote in government matters either. It would probably be about religion. Medieval Kathrynn has no idea what "catholism" is, but she heard Modern Kathrynn talk shit about the saints and decides to toss aside the goat she was castrating and go "that's it, I'm beating your ass."

I'm pretty sure it would be vaccination, actually. Medieval Kathrynn would find out that there's an easy, safe way to keep the babies from dying of measles/mumps/smallpox and that Modern Kathrynn is CHOOSING TO NOT DO IT and would use the grave marker of her third child who passed from the pox as a bludgeon.

The victim was found strangled to death with a rosary, stabbed through the heart with a crucifix and stuffed full of garlic from several orifices. No reason to suspect the victim was a vampire, so currently we are trying to figure out what the fuck did he do to piss off the italians.

a statue of Our Lady of the Skies, located in her namesake chapel at JFK Airport, New York City.

And yes, I am delighted to say she's standing on top of an old-timey plane propeller.

EMERGENCY EVICTION HELP

Hey, so I could really really use some help this month. My boyfriend just lost his job and I am disabled. We’re not gonna make rent this month without some sort of help. We really really need help. Our court date is the 21st of August. We need help. I don’t want to lose my home. I don’t want to lose my support animal but I’m not gonna make her live out of a truck. Because that’s the only place we have to go. Please help if you can, a few dollars to a share, anything. Please. We’re desperate.

Kofi | Cashapp | Venmo | Amazon | PayPal

$267/$974

Thank yall so much for all the help so far!!!!!!

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!!!

Donations have slowed down and I still have ~$600 to go pls help if you can!!

For anyone who uses the bird app for any reason:

Text from Tweet by '@easybakedoven:

"Twitter just activated a setting by default for everyone that gives them the right to use your data to train grok. They never announced it. You can disable this using the web but it's hidden. You can't disable using the mobile app

Direct link: https://x.com/settings/grok_settings"

Additional screenshot of grok settings option with checkbox from tweet reads:

"Data Sharing

Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning

To continuously improve your experience, we may utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes. This also means that your interactions, inputs, and results may also be shared with our service provider xAI for these purposes. Learn more

Delete conversation history"

If you've still got a Twitter account, make sure to go in and deactivate this.

On the web / a desktop (not from one of the mobile apps—this can't be done from there):

Go to: "Settings and Privacy" > "Privacy and Safety" > "Grok" under the "Data sharing and personalization" section.

Uncheck the little box on the right.

I mean they also said Jesus wasn’t fully man. That was a pretty significant thing that happened. I get where you’re coming from but they very much did say Jesus wasn’t fully a man

Actually, Jesus is, orthodoxically speaking, both fully God and fully man, 100% both. Anything else is considered heretical to Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and most other branches of Christianity. This is why some groups, like LDS, aren't considered Christian by credal Christians (Nicene Creed, Apostles Creed, etc), because by definition not believing what is in those creeds is heresy to those faiths.

So actually this is a really great line for like the vast majority of folks who consider themselves Christian tbh.

when I was a little kid at some point I got upset with my parents because I didn't have a crucifix in my bedroom and they did- I was like why do YOU get to be safe from vampires??? you're okay with me getting my blood sucked???? so we took a little trip to the catholic store but the one closest to us was run by a group of nuns that had been moved here from romania. I got a little baby pink cross and this sweet old nun was like 'aww, is this a baptism gift?' and I was like no. I need to be protected from vampires. and she immediately got SO serious and was like 'this is the best one we've got, you'll definitely be safe' and since she was literally from vampire land I was convinced she was like, van helsing. like the whole time my parents had been laughing about how cute my fear was but she literally Knew dracula and was taking my concerns seriously I held this over my parents for so long lmfao

Transylvania approved defense. I know Dracula was SHAKING in fear when he tried climbing through my window that night.