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Notre-Dame’s Bells Ring
The bells of Notre Dame in Paris rang this morning for the first time since the fire in 2019.
In 2019, the 850-year-old building was engulfed by a devastating blaze, which burned for several hours.
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I am confused by the way people describe spiritual warfare to be quite honest. Even in the Bible. Is all mental illness spiritual warfare or only some? What about physical illness? Is that always caused by demonic powers or only sometimes? How can you tell? I'm suspicious by default of claims about literal supernatural causation, but I have to ask does something need supernatural causation to be considered spiritual, or do events with a known cause also count? Also to quote my conversation with @tzarina-alexandra "Does a Satanic boil feel different than a regular boil"
So, I am by no means an expert, however, I have been fortunate enough to have heard some very good teaching on this subject which really helped my understanding of it, so here are as many main points as I can remember, in no particular order:
- Prayer and discernment are essential. You need to be giver God's wisdoms about the situation at hand. Yours is not enough
- a good rule of thumb (though certainly not infallible) is to see whether or not whatever affliction you are experiencing is holding you back from pursuing something you know the Lord wants you to do. A cold when five of your coworkers are sick and it's in the middle of the cold/flu season is likely just a cold. A cold every time you plan to minister with your church/do a community outreach/whatever work you know the Lord has you doing is likely spiritual warfare. Using your analogy of the boil, I'd say it's not a question of what the boil feels like, so much as what the boil is causing you to do or not do. Again, wisdom and discernment from the Lord is essential here (see above point).
- another way to check this is to look at the results of the circumstance you are in. Are you feeling defeated? Do you feel constantly overwhelmed, discouraged, or worn down? Then there is a higher chance that you are experiencing spiritual warfare
- ultimately, what it comes down to is "is this circumstance drawing me closer to God (regardless of the level of pain, whether physical or emotional, that you are experiencing), or is it holding me back?" A spiritual attack is something designed to hinder your relationship with Christ by whatever means possible
- and again, sometimes it is very hard to tell for sure. But God promises to give us wisdom, and that he has overcome the world for us (Jas. 1:5)
This is my favorite response so far, but I definitely have some follow up questions. Don't laugh.
Take your example of the hypothetical cold that you get every time you're about to do a ministry outreach. Is this cold pathogenic, (caused by germs) or is it caused directly by Satan/demons? Satan can't create germs, can he? Does he control already existing germs? Does God allow Satan to control the germs as a kind of one-off deal, like in Job, or does Satan/demons have a default physical power over germs?
I feel like I have a reasonable grasp on the boundary between supernatural and natural when it comes to things attributed to God (miracles vs. providence) but when it comes to things attributed to Satan I'm not sure how any non supernatural event could be attributed to Satan; yet the evidence of the world around me suggests it is so; so I'm rather confused.
I'm going to recommend you read The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton. Basically, if Satan can put thoughts into your head, he can affect your body through them, and your children's bodies, and grand and great grandchildren (which may be where the 3- to 4-generational curses come from in the Bible). Also, I think The Emergence of Sin by Matthew Croasmun would be a good book to read, too, though with a grain of salt.
The real question for me is not "how Satan does it" and more "is this spiritual warfare or my own bad habits."
CAN Satan put thoughts in your head? You as a believer, I mean.
Also, this whole thing about generational curses doesn't sound like it comes from the Bible at all. This book sounds very hoakey to me.
Exodus 20:5, 34:7, Deuteronomy 5:9. When you sin, the action affects your descendants for multiple generations, not because you are punished for the sins of the previous generation, but because people model their parents' behaviours and repeat the same patterns. And, as it turns out, what happens to you literally affects your DNA, not only your sins, but just the general conditions of the world. Famine causes the next generations to retain weight because the DNA transcription was interrupted at a specific point and changes which DNA codes are off and which are on (this is called epigenetics, a legitimate biological field of study). How you think changes your body on a physical level.
And, yes, the devil can put thoughts into us. John 13 attributes Judas's betrayal to a thought put into his heart by Satan (and the heart was the seat of intelligence in the Bible, not the brain, so read "mind" whenever it says "heart."). Acts 5 says Satan has filled the heart of Ananais to lie. 2 Corinthians 11 says Satan will lead our thoughts away from Christ. Like particularly uplifting ones are often promptings from the Lord, debasing and disturbing thoughts can be spiritual promptings from the Devil, compelling us to sin. That's not to say you have no responsibility or that everything you do is caused by the devil and not the fact that we live in a fallen world, as many people sin out of habit rather than diabolical influence. But Satan is capable of affecting the hearts and minds of Believers just as he is with others, if we do not arm ourselves against him.
To go back to the example of the cold and the question of whether or not Satan can create a cold, my understanding is that no, he can't, because Satan can't create anything. But he can twist and exacerbate normal occurrences to create a situation of spiritual warfare. There's always a chance for you to catch a cold or develop a boil, but in spiritual warfare Satan can exacerbate those chances until they are far more likely to happen and then he can jump on your spiritual and mental state while you're handling the cold or the boil.
It's a bit like how someone cutting you off in traffic is a lot more annoying when you're already having a bad day. The devil gets in your head while you're frustrated with the trouble he exacerbated, and it makes it easier for him to stop you doing what God wants you to do.
I really like how C. S. Lewis portrays it in The Screwtape Letters, and always go back to his description of temptation and spiritual warfare. It really makes it clear that Spiritual Warfare as such is not a state that you get into but is a constant battle between God and The Devil with you as the battleground. A cold in the middle of cold season is just as likely to be warfare as a cold in summer if it makes you depressed and keeps you from God.
I also really like Agatha Christie's description of "Evil" in The Pale Horse as something less than "Good" and so it has to puff itself up and be intimidating and scary because it doesn't have the substance to back it up.
(In fact, any detective story where there's a supposedly supernatural element and the heroes are chided for believing in it and it's revealed to be "only a man" after all, if you read it through a spiritual lense you can see the spiritual warfare going on behind of the devil and God acting through the villain and the hero respectively. The Pale Horse, The Hound of The Baskervilles, etc.)
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14 years old me would not believe I'm still alive..
I’m 14 in two weeks and I don’t think I’ll be alive then. Still got farther than I thought I would tho so that’s nice I suppose
bee
what
i don’t want you to die
I have no idea who you are bee but neither do I
Reblog if you don’t want bee to die
I WANT BEE TO LIVE :D
I WANT BEE TO LIVE GANG RISE UP
Source: thoughtcascades
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O God of earth and altar,
bow down and hear our cry,
our earthly rulers falter,
our people drift and die;
the walls of gold entomb us,
the swords of scorn divide,
take not thy thunder from us,
but take away our pride.
From all that terror teaches,
from lies of tongue and pen,
from all the easy speeches
that comfort cruel men,
from sale and profanation
of honor, and the sword,
from sleep and from damnation,
deliver us, good Lord!
Tie in a living tether
the prince and priest and thrall,
bind all our lives together,
smite us and save us all;
in ire and exultation
aflame with faith, and free,
lift up a living nation,
a single sword to thee.
O God of Earth and Altar, by G.K. Chesterton
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
— “On Living in an Atomic Age” C. S. Lewis (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays
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This is a gentle, earnest reminder to anyone who needs to hear it that no matter what the media tries to tell you, no matter how fearmongering some people try to be, no matter what happens in this one election, it will be okay. Please don't lose hope if your candidate doesn't win. The world will not end no matter who gets into office. Some people want us to be afraid and at each others' throats, but hating each other isn't going to make things better or solve our problems. We're all people and we all have value.
If things get too stressful, you are not weak or wrong to take time for yourself, away from the news and the yelling, and focus on all of the beautiful, good things in your life that aren't going away. Family. Friends. Sunshine. Your favorite snack. Pretty colors. Pets. Those funny memes. That show you like. A warm beverage.
Rest. Humans are not meant to carry every weight of the world on their shoulders at once. Allow yourself to trust and believe that there is still good in the world no matter who is in office.
People have been leaving tags/replies saying this was helpful to them, so I decided to Blaze it a little, in hopes it will reach more people who need to hear it. (But it will be hilariously ironic if the "this could take 24 hours to approve" warning for Blazing posts does end up taking 24 hours this time, missing the whole day this is related to XD; )
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That the will of the people may more fully conform to the will of God, Lord hear our prayer. That the choices made by voters today arise from loving hearts and judicious discernment, Lord hear our prayer. That compassion for neighbor and desire for peace, and not party loyalty, is the driving force for decision-making, Lord hear our prayer. That elected leaders strive to recognize human dignity in every individual, no matter their stage of life or place of origin, Lord hear our prayer. That clergy have the grace needed to properly form the consciences of the people who are working to build a better tomorrow, Lord hear our prayer.
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Source: instagram.com
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i have not booped half of you as well as i would have liked, and i have booped half of you half as well as you deserve.
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I once reblogged a post about Disney's Beauty and the Beast where the OP wrote that in a sequel, they'd like to see Prince Adam still struggling to control his temper at times. I think I agree: anger issues don't easily go away. But there's something else I'd like to see in a sequel even more:
I want Prince Adam to make peace with the Beast.
I also want him to know that Belle has made peace with the Beast.
I want Adam to accept the fact that he was once spoiled, selfish, and unkind, and not to excuse it in the least, but to understand that he was made that way by his royal upbringing, not born that way. I want him to see that he can choose to behave differently in the present without hating his past self.
I want him to accept his temper – to realize that just as long as he doesn't act on it in harmful ways, it's okay to feel overwhelming anger when he's attacked or threatened. I want him to know that despite the importance of controlling it, his anger doesn't make him a bad or unlovable person, and that it can be used for good too. Namely to fiercely protect the people he cares about, as when he fought off the wolves to save Belle.
I also want him to accept the fact that he lost interest in dignity and gave in to his feral, "beastly" instincts: wearing tattered clothes, eating like a messy animal, ripping and smashing everything in the West Wing in his rages, etc. I don't want him to remember it as a character flaw, but to know that it was partly the fault of the spell warping his mind and partly out of sheer despair.
I want him to remember that he was never all bad. Even at his most beastly, he was moved by Belle’s request to take her father’s place as his prisoner, which made him agree to the exchange even before he realized that she might break the spell. Then when he saw her crying, he felt compassion and remorse, and he gave her a comfortable room and free rein of the castle. While his ferocious rage when he caught her in the West Wing was inexcusable (his anger itself was justified, but not his reaction that made her afraid for her life), he was instantly racked with remorse, and when he realized she had run into the forest and was being threatened by wolves, he risked his life to save her, which inspired her to give him a second chance.
Then, after he comes to these conclusions, I want him to be assured that Belle has done the same. I want him to know that Belle truly loves him, not just a role he learned to play to please her.
There's a comment somewhere or other on TV Tropes (I think on the Fridge Brilliance page), which says that the Beast "had to learn to hate himself" to become a better person. That breaks my heart. I don't want him to go through life hating himself and pretending to be someone else, or, if he does, for it to be portrayed as a good thing. That's no way to live.
I've been thinking of more recent Disney/Pixar movies like Turning Red and Inside Out 2, which promote accepting the messy sides of yourself (without using that acceptance as an excuse to behave badly, though) and loving every part of yourself. Beauty and the Beast obviously isn't about that mindset, but arguably just the opposite – some of the creative team have said that the Beast's character arc is about the universal process of learning to control our "animal" instincts and become civilized human beings. But are these movies’ different messages mutually exclusive? I'd like to think the Beast/Prince Adam can choose to be a civilized human being, yet fully accept the "animal" part of himself too.
I know that part of the problem is that I see parallels between the Beast and a neurodivergent person. Lack of social skills, physical messiness, struggle to connect emotionally with others, overpowering anger under stress that he struggles to regulate, etc. I see my own AuDHD qualities in him – maybe I'm projecting them too much onto him – and I feel as if part of his character arc is about learning to "mask." I know this wasn't the creative team's intention, but it feels that way. I don't want Adam to spend his entirely life masking and hating what's under the mask, or to think Belle loves only the mask and not his true self.
Let him make peace with the Beast.
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Source: reddit.com
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Hanfu Styling in the Wei and Jin Dynasties
From Hanfu Studio-Xiang Tian Xia Mo
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What heaven looks like
Source: instagram.com