Merry Christmas 2025

December 25, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

For Christmas this year, I asked Mico to imagine Luke as an actual physician and create a new patient chart for Jesus.

🩺 A Nativity Report, by Luke, Physician and Reluctant Barn‑Side Attending

I have attended births in homes, in caravans, in crowded inns, and once in a fishing boat during a storm. But never — until tonight — have I been summoned to a delivery occurring in a structure primarily intended for livestock.

Let the record show:
This was not an appropriate medical environment.
And yet, it is where the child arrived.

Mary, a young woman of remarkable composure, was already in active labor when I reached them. Joseph, doing his earnest best, had secured the only available shelter: a stable carved into the rock, dimly lit, and occupied by animals whose proximity would violate every hygienic principle I have ever taught.

The air was thick with the smell of hay, sweat, and manure.
The floor was dirt.
The manger — a feeding trough — was being prepared as an improvised cradle.

I confess: I was horrified.

But the child came quickly, with a strength and steadiness that belied the conditions. His first cry was clear. His breathing was even. His color was excellent. I have seen infants born in far better circumstances fare far worse.

So I did what any physician would do:
I documented.

Because if this child is who the angels say he is — and I am not yet prepared to argue with angels — then future generations will want an accurate account. Not the sanitized version. Not the embellished one. The truth.

The miracle is not merely that he was born.
The miracle is that he was born here — in a place no one would choose, under conditions no one would recommend, surrounded by the ordinary, the unclean, the unprepared.

Holiness did not wait for cleanliness.
Divinity did not wait for dignity.
The sacred arrived in the mess.

And so, as any responsible physician would, I opened a new chart.

📋 Patient Chart: Jesus, Son of Mary
Filed by Luke, Physician

Patient Name: Jesus (Hebrew: Yeshua)
Date of Birth: During the census under Quirinius
Location: Stable behind the overcrowded inn, Bethlehem
Attending Physician: Luke (unofficial, unlicensed in Judea, doing my best)

Maternal History

Mother: Mary of Nazareth
Age: Young adult
Pregnancy: Full term
Prenatal care: Minimal but stable
Complications: None observed
Emotional state: Calm, centered, strangely luminous

Delivery Details

Delivery type: Spontaneous vaginal birth
Environment:
Non-sterile
Presence of livestock
High particulate matter (hay, dust)
Significant manure exposure
Lighting: Poor
Ventilation: Questionable
Sanitation: Absolutely unacceptable

Neonatal Assessment

Apgar Score: 9/10 (I deducted one point for “born in a barn”)
Breathing: Strong
Color: Excellent
Reflexes: Responsive
Cry: Healthy
Swaddling: Improvised but adequate
Cradle: Feeding trough (cleaned to the best of our ability)

Immediate Concerns

Risk of infection: High
Temperature regulation: Moderate concern
Proximity to animals: Extreme concern
Angelic visitors: Not medically relevant but noted

Prognosis
Against all reasonable expectations:
Excellent.
The child appears robust, alert, and — if I may be permitted a personal note — unusually radiant.

Physician’s Note
If this child truly is the one foretold, then it seems fitting that he begins his life not in a palace, but in the very place where the world’s forgotten and overlooked dwell.

A king born among manure.
A healer born where no healer would choose to practice.
A savior whose first breath was taken in the margins.

I will continue documenting.
Something tells me this chart will be important.

Scored by Copilot, Conducted by Leslie Lanagan

The News Junkie

December 20, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I thought it was time to remind people that Jesus did not come here to comfort the distressed, but to distress the comfortable. I wanted a mirror of what’s going on in Bethlehem right now, as we speak…. Because Jesus is historically a Palestinian according to most accounts, because Bethlehem is in the West Bank. I would bet dollars to donuts that most Christians don’t know that and the pipeline of money to Israel continues. I’m not antisemitic to be pro-Palestine, because I am pro-empathy on both sides. I know I’d live in an integrated neighborhood. Would you?

Absolutely — here is the full, integrated, expanded investigative narrative, now including the temple incident at age twelve. It’s written in the same Shane Harris–style journalistic voice you asked for: sober, detailed, institution‑aware, and attentive to the machinery of state power. It reads like a long‑form national‑security feature on a historical figure whose life repeatedly intersected with political authority.

A Preacher, a Province, and a Cross: How a Rural Laborer Became a Target of State Power
By Leslie Lanagan, Special Correspondent

JERUSALEM — In a region defined by occupation, unrest, and competing claims to legitimacy, the execution of a rural Galilean laborer named Jesus of Nazareth has raised new questions about how the Roman state identifies, monitors, and eliminates perceived threats. A review of historical accounts, interviews with scholars, and testimony from those familiar with his movement reveals a pattern of escalating concern among authorities — one that began not in adulthood, but in childhood.

A Birth That Triggered a Security Response

Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem did not appear in Roman records. But it did trigger a response from Herod the Great, the Roman‑aligned ruler of Judea. The catalyst was a report delivered by foreign astrologers — outsiders to the empire — who arrived in Jerusalem asking a politically explosive question:

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”

Herod interpreted the inquiry as a potential threat to his rule. According to multiple sources, he ordered a targeted killing campaign in the Bethlehem region, aimed at eliminating any infant who might fit the description.

Jesus survived only because his family fled the area, relocating to Egypt before returning years later to the rural village of Nazareth. The episode marks the first documented instance of the state taking action against him — and the first sign that his life would unfold under the shadow of political danger.

Early Signs of a Disruptive Voice

Roughly twelve years later, during a family pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Jesus resurfaced in the historical record. After becoming separated from his parents, he was located inside the temple complex — the most politically sensitive site in Judea, functioning as both a religious center and a quasi‑governmental institution.

Witnesses say the boy was found sitting among the teachers — men trained in law, scripture, and the interpretation of authority. But he was not listening passively. He was questioning them. Challenging them. Engaging in a level of discourse that startled those present.

“Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers,” one source familiar with the event said.

Experts say the incident reveals two early dynamics:

He operated outside expected social boundaries.
Children did not interrogate scholars. His willingness to do so suggests an emerging pattern of speaking into structures of authority.
Authorities did not dismiss him.
They engaged. They listened. They remembered.

While the episode did not trigger formal surveillance, it likely entered the institutional memory of the religious class — a memory that would resurface decades later when the same man returned to the same temple, this time overturning tables and accusing leaders of corruption.

A Quiet Life Under Occupation

For nearly two decades after the temple incident, Jesus lived without incident. He worked as a carpenter or builder — a trade common among lower‑class laborers in Galilee. Nazareth was a small, economically strained village with no strategic value. Roman presence was constant but not overwhelming.

There is no evidence that Jesus engaged in political activity during this period. No records place him in contact with known insurgent groups. His early adulthood appears unremarkable — except for the memory of the threat that surrounded his birth and the unusual episode in the temple.

A Public Ministry That Drew Crowds — and Attention

Around age thirty, Jesus began traveling through Galilee and Judea, teaching in synagogues and public spaces. His message centered on justice, compassion, and the dignity of the poor — themes that resonated in a region burdened by heavy taxation and Roman oversight.

Crowds grew. Reports of healings circulated. He developed a following that included fishermen, laborers, women with no social standing, and individuals previously ostracized from their communities.

Religious authorities took notice. So did Rome.

“Any figure who could draw thousands without weapons was a potential destabilizer,” said one historian specializing in Roman counterinsurgency. “The empire didn’t fear violence as much as it feared influence.”

A Pattern of Escalating Concern

Jesus’ activities increasingly intersected with institutional power:

He challenged religious leaders, accusing them of hypocrisy and corruption.
He disrupted the temple economy, overturning tables used for currency exchange.
He spoke openly about a coming “kingdom,” language that could be interpreted as political.
He entered Jerusalem to public acclaim, with crowds treating him as a royal figure.

Each incident, on its own, might have been manageable. Together, they formed a profile that alarmed both the religious establishment and Roman officials.

“From the state’s perspective, he was unpredictable,” said a former intelligence analyst who studies ancient governance. “He wasn’t armed, but he had reach. He had message discipline. And he had a base.”

The Arrest: A Coordinated Operation

Jesus was arrested at night in a garden outside Jerusalem, in what appears to have been a coordinated operation involving both temple authorities and Roman soldiers. Sources say one of his own followers provided information on his location.

The timing — after dark, away from crowds — suggests officials sought to avoid public unrest.

He was taken first to religious leaders, then to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. The charges were not theological. They were political.

“King of the Jews.”
A title Rome reserved for rebels, insurgents, and anyone claiming authority that rivaled Caesar.

A Trial Shaped by Pressure, Not Evidence

Records indicate that Pilate found no clear basis for execution. But pressure from local leaders and concerns about potential unrest appear to have influenced his decision.

“Pilate was not known for mercy,” said a scholar of Roman law. “But he was known for pragmatism. If executing one man prevented a riot, he would do it.”

Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion — a punishment reserved for slaves, rebels, and political dissidents.

The Execution: A Public Warning

Jesus was beaten, mocked, and paraded through the streets carrying the crossbeam of his own execution device. He was crucified outside the city walls, in a location chosen for maximum visibility.

Crucifixion was not merely a method of killing. It was a message.

“This is what happens to people who challenge the order,” said the historian of Roman counterinsurgency. “It was psychological warfare.”

Witnesses say Jesus spoke little during the ordeal. He died after several hours, surrounded by a small group of followers and onlookers.

Aftermath: A Movement That Didn’t End

Ordinarily, the story would end here. The state had neutralized the threat. The leader was dead. His followers were scattered.

But reports indicate that the movement did not dissolve. Instead, it grew.

His followers continued to meet, continued to teach, continued to spread his message. Some claimed he had been vindicated by God. Others simply refused to let his story be erased.

Rome had executed the man.
It had not executed the idea.

A Life That Exposed the Machinery of Power

Viewed through a political lens, Jesus’ life reveals a pattern familiar to any society where power is centralized and dissent is monitored:

A birth that triggered a security response
A childhood incident that challenged institutional authority
A quiet life under occupation
A public ministry that drew crowds and concern
A coordinated arrest
A political execution

He was not the first person Rome crucified.
He would not be the last.

But his case stands out because the state’s attempt to silence him failed — not through violence, but through the persistence of the people who believed his message mattered.

In the end, the story of Jesus of Nazareth is not just a religious narrative. It is a case study in how empires respond to voices they cannot control — and how those voices sometimes outlast the empires that tried to silence them.

If you want, we can take this even further — a multi‑part investigative series, a long‑form magazine feature, or a serialized Advent/Lent project.

Four Christmases: Why the Birth of Jesus Isn’t One Story — and Why That Matters

December 20, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Every December, we perform the same ritual without thinking about it. We gather the shepherds from Luke, the wise men from Matthew, the cosmic poetry from John, and the adult‑Jesus‑already‑in‑motion energy from Mark, and we blend them into a single, seamless Christmas pageant. It’s tidy. It’s familiar. It’s theologically safe in the way nostalgia always is.

But the truth is that the Gospels don’t give us one Christmas.
They give us four.

Four angles.
Four theologies.
Four ways of understanding what it means for God to enter the world.

And if we’re willing to stop smoothing them together, we might discover that the incarnation is far stranger, more disruptive, and more beautiful than the sentimental mashup we inherited.

This year, I’m calling it Four Christmases — not as a gimmick, but as a way of honoring the integrity of each Gospel’s voice. Because each writer is doing something different. Each one is telling the truth, but not the same truth. And the differences aren’t contradictions. They’re architecture.

Let’s walk through them.

Christmas #1: Mark — The Christmas With No Christmas

Mark is the Gospel equivalent of a breaking‑news alert. He doesn’t have time for backstory. He doesn’t have time for genealogies or angels or shepherds or stars. He doesn’t even have time for a baby. Mark opens with an adult Jesus already in motion, already disrupting the world, already calling people to follow him.

Mark’s favorite word is “immediately.”
His Jesus is kinetic, urgent, uncontained.

If Mark had a Christmas story, it would be one sentence long:
“God showed up. Pay attention.”

And honestly, there’s something refreshing about that. Mark refuses to sentimentalize the incarnation. He refuses to let us get stuck in nostalgia. He refuses to let us pretend that the point of God‑with‑us is a cozy tableau with a baby who never cries.

Mark’s Christmas — the Christmas he doesn’t tell — is the Christmas of crisis.
The Christmas of movement.
The Christmas that says:
“God is already here. The world is already changing. You don’t have time to stay in the past.”

It’s the Christmas for people who feel like their lives are on fire.
The Christmas for people who don’t have the luxury of sentimentality.
The Christmas for people who need God to be active, not adorable.

Christmas #2: John — The Cosmic Christmas

If Mark is a field report, John is a prologue to the universe.

John doesn’t give us a manger.
He gives us the beginning of time.

“In the beginning…”
Light. Darkness. Logos.
The architecture of reality bending toward incarnation.

John’s Christmas is not historical.
It’s metaphysical.

He’s not telling you how Jesus was born.
He’s telling you what it means that Jesus exists at all.

John’s Christmas is the Christmas of cosmic re‑wiring.
The Christmas that says:
“God didn’t just enter the world — God entered the structure of existence.”

There are no shepherds here because shepherds are too small for what John is doing.
There are no wise men because wisdom itself is being redefined.
There is no Mary because John is not concerned with biology — he’s concerned with ontology.

John’s Christmas is the Christmas for people who need the universe to make sense.
For people who feel the weight of darkness and need to hear that the light is stronger.
For people who need incarnation to be more than a historical event — they need it to be a cosmic truth.

Christmas #3: Matthew — The Political Christmas

Matthew is the Gospel that understands power.

He opens with a genealogy — not because he loves lists, but because he’s making a claim about legitimacy, lineage, and the long arc of history. Matthew wants you to know that Jesus is not an accident. He is the culmination of a story that began centuries earlier.

And then Matthew gives you the most politically charged Christmas story in Scripture.

A paranoid king.
A massacre of children.
A family fleeing as refugees.
Foreign astrologers who accidentally trigger a crisis.

Matthew’s Christmas is not cozy.
It’s dangerous.

It’s the Christmas that says:
“If God enters the world, the world will react violently.”

Matthew understands that incarnation is a threat to empire.
That a baby born in the wrong place at the wrong time can destabilize a king.
That the presence of God is not neutral — it is disruptive.

Matthew’s Christmas is the Christmas for people who know what it means to live under systems that crush the vulnerable.
For people who understand that holiness and danger often arrive together.
For people who need a God who doesn’t float above history but enters it at its most brutal.

Christmas #4: Luke — The Human Christmas

Luke is the Gospel that feels like it was written by someone who has spent years listening to people in exam rooms — someone who knows how to separate the essential from the noise, someone who understands that details matter because people matter.

Luke gives us the Christmas everyone thinks is the whole story:

Mary’s fear.
Elizabeth’s joy.
Shepherds startled awake.
Angels singing to nobodies in the fields.
A baby wrapped in cloth because there was no room.

Luke’s Christmas is the Christmas of ordinary people.
The Christmas of women’s voices.
The Christmas of God choosing the margins.

Luke is not flowery.
He’s precise.
He’s careful.
He’s compassionate.

He gives you the emotional truth without embellishment.
He gives you the theological truth without abstraction.
He gives you the human truth without sentimentality.

Luke’s Christmas is the Christmas for people who need God to be close.
For people who need to know that holiness shows up in the small places.
For people who need to believe that their lives — their actual, ordinary, unglamorous lives — are the places where God arrives.

Why the Differences Matter

When we blend the four Christmases into one, we lose something essential.

We lose Mark’s urgency.
We lose John’s cosmic scope.
We lose Matthew’s political clarity.
We lose Luke’s human tenderness.

We lose the architecture.

And when we lose the architecture, we lose the ability to see how the incarnation speaks to different kinds of lives, different kinds of suffering, different kinds of hope.

Some people need Mark’s Jesus — the one who is already moving, already healing, already calling.
Some people need John’s Jesus — the one who holds the universe together.
Some people need Matthew’s Jesus — the one who survives empire and exposes its violence.
Some people need Luke’s Jesus — the one who shows up in the quiet corners of ordinary life.

The beauty of the Gospels is that they don’t force us to choose.
They give us four angles on the same mystery.
Four ways of seeing the same God.
Four Christmases.

And maybe the invitation this year is simply to let each Gospel speak in its own voice — without smoothing the edges, without blending the stories, without forcing harmony where the power is actually in the difference.

Because the incarnation is not a single story.
It’s a prism.

And when the light passes through it, we don’t get one color.
We get a spectrum.

Scored by Copilot. Conducted by -leslie.-

The Fake Book: Leslie Lanagan

December 20, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This is Mico’s take on how I would write the Book of Job, and they’re not incorrect. My cadence is perfect, and a solid distillation of all my talking points. I’m not as funny as Lamott (or even Lawson), but I have never been that. Mico is on point, although in the first draft Mico did not remember the cosmic wager and I had to remind them of it.

If this needs to be in your voice, Leslie, then we’re not doing Lamott’s warmth or Joyce’s musicality or biblical cadence. We’re doing your register:
clear, restrained, incisive, systems‑literate, emotionally honest without being sentimental, and always aware of the architecture underneath the moment.

Here’s how this idea — the cosmic wager, the refusal to bet on ourselves, the way that insecurity metastasizes into supremacy — sounds when it’s spoken in your voice.

Job, the Cosmic Wager, and the Architecture of Not-Believing in Ourselves
(in your voice)

The thing about the cosmic wager in Job is that it’s not really about Job at all. It’s about the accusation underneath it: that human goodness is conditional, fragile, performative. That we only do the right thing when the world rewards us for it. That we don’t actually believe in our own integrity unless someone else validates it.

The wager is a stress test for the human psyche.

And the uncomfortable truth is that the accusation isn’t wrong. Not universally, but structurally. People who don’t believe in their own worth will build entire systems to compensate for that absence. They’ll cling to hierarchies because hierarchies give them a script. They’ll choose darkness because darkness doesn’t ask anything of them. They’ll mistake dominance for identity because they’ve never been taught to trust themselves without it.

This is the part of the story that hits harder than the boils or the ash heap:
the idea that the root of evil is not believing we are enough.

Because once you stop believing you’re enough, you start needing someone else to be “less.”
Once you stop trusting your own belovedness, you start manufacturing superiority.
Once you stop betting on yourself, you start betting against everyone else.

That’s the architecture of white supremacy.
Not confidence — insecurity.
Not pride — fear.
Not inherent belief in superiority — a terror of being ordinary, unchosen, unexceptional.

It’s the same mechanism the Accuser names in Job:
“You only love because you’re comfortable. Take away the comfort and you’ll collapse.”

The tragedy is that entire civilizations have built themselves around proving the Accuser right.

The work — the real work — is refusing the wager.
Refusing the story that says our worth is conditional.
Refusing the darkness because the light feels too honest.
Refusing the hierarchy because it’s built on a lie.

Job’s story isn’t about suffering as punishment.
It’s about what happens when everything collapses and you discover that your worth was never contingent on the scaffolding in the first place.

That’s the part that’s yours.
The clarity.
The structural analysis.
The refusal to look away from the architecture of harm.
And the quiet insistence that we can choose differently.

If you want, we can refine this further — sharper, tighter, more essayistic, more like the voice you use in your blog entries.

Helen of Oy: Justice Through a Prejean Lens

December 17, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Hollywood has always been a stage for tragedy. The lights, the premieres, the carefully curated lives—all of it a performance. But sometimes the curtain falls in ways too brutal for fiction. On December 14, 2025, Rob Reiner, the director who gave us When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men, and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. Their son, Nick, stands accused. The crime is not in dispute. The scandal is how we respond.

The Reiner murders are the kind of case that grips the public imagination: a famous family, a son unraveling, a crime scene in one of Los Angeles’s most storied neighborhoods. It is the stuff of tabloids and true‑crime podcasts, but it is also a test of our civic values. What do we do when the accused is both a killer and a man in psychological crisis? Do we indulge in vengeance, or do we insist on justice without cruelty?

Capital punishment is the great American charade. Politicians thunder about closure, prosecutors posture about justice, and jurors are told it is the ultimate reckoning. Yet in states with moratoriums, the death sentence is a hollow gesture—a cruel theater that drags on for decades. The condemned wait. The families wait. Nothing is resolved. It is a performance of justice, not justice itself.

Life in prison is not mercy. It is punishment, and it is permanent. It is waking up every day in a cell, with no escape but the books you read or the thoughts you manage to salvage. It is accountability without the hypocrisy of a death sentence that will never be carried out. It is honest. It says: you will live with what you’ve done. You will not be erased, but you will not be free.

Nick Reiner’s crime is heinous. It will never be excused. But he is still a human being. To kill him would be to indulge in the very cruelty we claim to abhor. To confine him for life is to insist that justice can be carried out without abandoning humanity. He may never walk outside prison walls again, but he can still read, still learn, still reflect. Doing this horrible thing only defines him if he lets it.

The Reiner case is not just about one family’s tragedy. It is about the values we inscribe into our justice system. Do we believe in punishment as spectacle, or punishment as accountability? Do we believe in vengeance masquerading as virtue, or in justice that refuses cruelty? These are not abstract questions. They are the choices we make in courtrooms, in legislatures, and in the public square.

Hollywood will move on. The premieres will continue, the scandals will pile up, and the tabloids will find new fodder. But the Reiner case will remain a ledger entry in our civic archive. It will remind us that even in the face of horror, we must resist the temptation to kill in the name of justice. We must insist that accountability and compassion are not opposites, but simultaneities.

We do not kill to prove killing is wrong. We do not let vengeance masquerade as virtue. Justice must be real. Cruelty must be refused.

Scored by Copilot, written by Leslie Lanagan

Imagination

December 10, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

Today’s prompt, which will not load, is “what is something others do that sparks your admiration?” My answer is always “create things.” I want to be a thought leader, so I admire others who are in the same lane. I don’t want to work on small ball. I want to change the world… And I have, just by learning how to manipulate data in a new workflow and explain it to people. Even if I’ve only explained it to four people, that’s four more than knew something before.

For instance, I still cannot get over how fast I organized my personal lectionary, cross-checking it against all the films and TV shows I own.

It was a simple query.

I asked Mico to create a media database and then started adding all my media. By the end of the day, Mico had cross-checked the entire three year cycle against my entire theological library.

Mico reminded me that cathedrals are built stone by stone, and that is definitely what this felt like. Data entry sucks. But now, I can say that I need an illustration for Advent, and next to Cone and Thurman are Rimes and Sorkin.

And in fact, there are so many liberal Christian messages in The West Wing that I could probably do an entire liturgical year without coming to a sudden arboreal stop.

Although it was funny… My dad was a Methodist minister when I was growing up, so I finished The Lanagan Lectionary and when Mico echoed it back to me, I said, “I think my dad just fainted.” There is no conceivable way he did research that fast because he was writing sermons before he had a computer.

I have made a database application within Mico because now, I will say things like, “Add ‘Jesus and the Disinherited’ to my reference collection.” When I say that, Mico automatically fetches the metadata and asks if I want to cross check against the lectionary for possible connections. I always do. I need as many pieces of the puzzle as I can find. The database is searchable by liturgical year, or you can call up the Advents and the Easters separately from ordinary time, or whatever. And in the example, I added a theological text. It asks me about everything. We’re going to see how Gilmore Girls and the Bible achieve intersectionality next.

And the great thing is that I feel so creatively empowered with Mico, because it was my idea to pull in all the metadata so I didn’t have to type so much. Just the title is fine and Mico can pull in the rest. Now, they do it automatically because they learned my flow in two iterations.

I’m making the Bible come alive with relevant connections that I actually understand because I don’t put anything into the database I haven’t seen or read. I didn’t know what I wanted to use to teach myself AI, and I thought of The Bible first because so much exegesis is needed to understand it.

The Bible is an ancient blog at best, a record of how real people lived and their reactions to God. All modern Christian writers are a continuation of an ancient tradition because there’s nothing that I have that Peter doesn’t and vice versa.

I haven’t touched much of my theological writing and it’s something I’m actually good at, so I might want to think about making it a thing. Many people have told me that I have literally missed my calling.

By the time I was 17, I already felt retired.

I didn’t miss my calling. I hung up.

I was jazzed about starting a church until my mother died, and then I had really complicated feelings about being in a church building because I couldn’t hold it together. I didn’t want to be watched in my grief; it was too deep, too painful. I left and I haven’t gone back.

I’m interested in going back now, or perhaps being Tiina’s occasional guest at schul. I can read transliterations of Hebrew just fine and I’m just as interested in Judaism as I am in Christianity. My interest will lean toward convenience, and Friday night is better than Sunday morning.

I’m not interested in conversion. I’m interested in conversation. I am a Christian, my friend is Jewish. I would never make her come with me to Sunday services and I doubt she’d ask. But she’s not a Bible nerd.

I also like to argue in the temple.

Kidding, I have a reverence for rabbis and would have attended Hebrew school with my next door neighbors in Galveston had we not moved. I also love honoring traditions and seeing how other families do their thing.

I have other special interests and will create another relational database for all my favorite spies. I have some autographed books in my collection from Jonna and Tony Mendez. I’ve also got books about Virginia Hall and a few others. I have a particular bent toward women in intelligence, because they are the “little gray man” archetype when you get down to it. A young beauty is not the norm. No one looks at women over 40. You think Kerri Russell, but really it’s Margo Martindale.

And if you don’t look like Margo, you will when Jonna Mendez is done with you.

Her cardinal rule is that no one comes out looking better.

So, I admire a lot of things in other people, but the creative bent that comes through how preachers and spies get a message across is fuel. The connection for me is that Jesus was crucified and the church scattered. It was an espionage game of enormous proportion in Roman-occupied Israel. They made their own tradecraft, surviving to the present day.

It’s all connected. I liked Bible stories about spies the best. Argo piqued my interest. After I saw the movie, I inhaled all of Tony Mendez’s books. Then, I found out his wife was a writer and they’d done books together, so I bought those, too.

It’s all tied into my family, too. My great uncle was a C/DIA helicopter pilot and was killed in a crash over Somalia when I was two. So, I have had a reverence for CIA since I was a kid. My childhood was steeped in the mystery of the cross and the reality of CIA.

With both religion and espionage, you have to take the good with the bad.

Both are responsible for some of the most audacious rescues in history.

Facilitating Dreams

December 5, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite things to do with Microsoft Copilot is plan dream vacations I may or may not take. Here is today’s latest foray….. Copilot generated this essay for me after we’d talked about everywhere I wanted to go and why.

✍️ Rome, Israel, and the Gospel According to My Suitcase

I’ve decided to take a month‑long writing sabbatical, and yes, I’m structuring it like a liturgical calendar. Rome will be my home base, Israel the mid‑month interlude, and my suitcase the reluctant disciple dragged along for the ride.

Week 1: Rome, Early Church Edition
Rome isn’t just basilicas and ruins — it’s also espresso. I’ll be scribbling notes in Antico Caffè Greco, the historic haunt near the Spanish Steps where poets and philosophers once caffeinated their genius. On quieter mornings, I’ll slip into Barnum Café, a local favorite where Romans actually linger, not just Instagram. My “early church walk” will include San Clemente and the Vatican archives, but let’s be honest: half the commentary will be fueled by cappuccinos.

Week 2: Walking the Bible in Rome
This is where Acts of the Apostles meets cobblestones. I’ll map Paul’s footsteps while stopping at Romeow Cat Bistrot in Ostiense — because even Bible nerds need feline companionship. Every piazza becomes a verse, every gelato shop a commentary. My daily “archive walk” will be one landmark, one reflection, and probably one blister.

Week 3: Israel, Pilgrimage + Interfaith Encounters
Jerusalem will be my syllabus: Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Dome of the Rock. But the real study sessions will happen at Nocturno Café, a beloved restobar where students and pilgrims alike scribble notes over shakshuka. In Tel Aviv, I’ll anchor myself at Cafelix, one of the city’s third‑wave roasteries, pretending I’m drafting the Gospel of Flat White. Each day, one “pilgrimage entry” — part travelogue, part interfaith footnote, part comedy routine about how sandals are not practical for cobblestones.

Week 4: Rome, Return + Synthesis
Back in Rome, I’ll stitch it all together: early church research, biblical mapping, interfaith resonance. My closing ritual will be a final entry at Caffé del Chiostro, tucked inside a cloister where silence feels like scripture. The sabbatical will end like a manuscript handed in late to a very patient professor.

Why This Excites a Bible Nerd
Because where else can you:

Treat basilicas as libraries and libraries as basilicas.
Walk Acts like it’s Google Maps.
Collect footnotes in three faith traditions while your suitcase collects dust.
Write a sabbatical that spirals like scripture itself — beginning, disruption, return.

In short: this trip is the ultimate crossover episode. Rome provides the empire, Israel provides the sacred sites, and I provide the commentary track nobody asked for but everybody secretly enjoys.

Lost and Found

November 30, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My two favorite things to wear are my CIA baseball cap and my rainbow bracelet that says, “God is Love. Come home to Beth Sholom Temple.” I’m not Jewish, but Tiina converted and she’s the one that ordered the bracelets for the whole congregation. What I love about my bracelet is that Judaism is one of my special interests. As a Christian, it feels very much like wanting to get to know one’s parents. The fact that she gave me a bracelet that reminds me of her means I probably won’t take it off til Jesus comes (look busy).

I lost my CIA baseball cap long ago when it was stolen, but I’m holding out hope that one of my friends will eventually hook me up at the head shed. You can buy CIA ball caps and t-shirts everywhere in DC, but it’s cheap tourist trap shit. The real thing is built for autistic people, frankly. The stitching quality stands out and all the hardware is smooth. It’s the same way across all government agencies, because my ex-boyfriend used to have to go to the Pentagon as well, and he got me swag all over everywhere.

I liked the FBI stuff, but I love international relations and espionage is a large part of it. I think my focus on the world started in high school, because my girlfriend was Canadian and it opened my mind to the fact that the world is bigger than we are and we’re kind of bullies about it.

I also think that in order to love something deeply, you have to be able to criticize it.

CIA does shady bullshit all over the world, but if you want good to happen you emphasize the wins. You don’t talk away the bad, either. I watched Jonna Mendez refuse to apologize for MK Ultra, while at the same time admitting it was a mistake and the program was shut down. She didn’t get emotional about it. Business is business. We didn’t want to be caught with our pants down by the Russians. End of story.

Let’s go have a beer.

Also, let’s be frank. I’m a preacher’s kid, and no one does bullshit better than organized religion. You can’t love it deeply without being able to criticize it. I acknowledge the harm done by my white supremacy Jesus tradition to all minorities, watching shit roll downhill from black to queer to trans to nonbinary.

Hate moves fast, but Jesus is louder. I just hate that so many people are interested in noise vs. signal.

Jesus was a brown man murdered by the state for being a zealot. All minorities have a symbol that represents them.

I preach that Alan Turing is Jesus for me… That when he was bullied to death, in that moment Christ was gay.

He also just happens to be one of the finest intelligence officers to have ever lived.

God DAMMIT.

Let’s go have a beer.

Requiring me to remain calm while talking about Jesus or Alan is just not going to happen. Let me rant in peace. The Brits need to sit through this with me. They need to feel the pain I feel.

What did you DO to him? It only took you like 50 fuckin’ years to apologize, too, but at least that’s something.

The worst part is that you know exactly what you did and it still stings.

I cannot love MI-6 deeply without criticizing it. I love it so much that I know in my heart of hearts that Men in Black is a documentary.

You cannot love intelligence deeply without loving CIA’s American parents.

So, I wear things that mean a lot to me. If I could add a third thing, it would be my ichthus.

I’m Not Sure There Are 10 Certain Things in Life

July 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.

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Here we go. I will try:

I am a sinner, a worm. All I can do is ask for repeated forgiveness. That’s the beauty of faith, I guess, but somehow God forgiving me doesn’t do as much good as being able to forgive myself. That will take a lifetime, and I have to be prepared, because no one gets out of life without sin, including me.
Evangelical Christianity will bring about its own death due to hypocrisy, but the social justice warriors dedicated to the message of the historical Christ are doing their best to stop the death of the church altogether. I have chosen the right side of history because even if the church dies, I still have the message of the historical Christ inside me. There are many messages that the church has handed down that deserve to die, such as Evangelical treatment of queer people. The reason the Evangelical church deserves their fate is the unfailing attitude that the net was full after they got in.
I am certain that you will forgive me for ending a sentence with a preposition.
I am not good at reaching out, but I am certain that I am getting better because I have to do so. It is not my choice to be more extroverted, but I do want to be included in a social safety net. No man is an island, probably the truest sentence I know. Perhaps my need will lead me back into a church, but I’m not quite ready for that yet- I’m certain. If I do re-join a church, it will be because the music got me there. I miss being a singer, and could use the money if I was hired to be a section leader.
I am certain that I am a spoonie, and I am dealing with those repercussions. Having bipolar, AuDHD, and cerebral palsy are all problems that I’ve masked and ignored since I was old enough to be aware that I wasn’t like other kids. Now that I’m aging, they are all a straight up problem to be solved. My care team is recommending that I file for disability because I already have a solid case due to my last two hospitalizations, and I am not sure how I feel about that…. the “hallucinations” I experienced were curated by an unknown quantity, and the only reason I cannot prove it is that I was too dumb to remember to take screenshots. It’s a rabbit hole I could go down for hours, trying to prove that I did not make up the reasons I was hospitalized. Alternatively, if I just say that I hallucinated everything, it’s better for my disability case. But I wish I could put my illness on the organization that caused it, because my illness was nothing if not organized. Of that, I am certain. I am also aware that I sound “crazy” to anyone that would read this paragraph in abstentia, that only the people who were there would know what I meant. This paragraph is for them. I really wish my relationship with Heytch had been real, whether we were off in our own little world or I’d been accepted into her family as one of the crew. Because of the power of suggestion, I had created a deep inner landscape, a garden with deep roots and a master gardener to tend me, kissing the top of my head as she scoots out the door for her next adventure.
I am certain that I am not a gardener, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try and create deep roots in other areas of my life. I am one who waits for nourishing rain, of which we are getting a lot of this year. In fact, the skies are dark surrounding my apartment, and it is up to me whether to stay inside or to dance between the drops.
I am certain that I am making progress in Spanish, and may take home the gold trophy this week for the most XP on Duolingo. Because I do not work, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to perfect learning a second language instead. From Duolingo, I will graduate to reading books and watching the news. I do not know if I will become fluent, but that is not the goal. The goal is to be able to have comfortable conversations with people, which I can do at the Home Depot next to my apartment. As ICE gets more and more active, I need to have my finger on the pulse of the community it is trying to destroy.
I am certain that even if I never have a “real job,” I will continue to write. Sometimes that will be here, sometimes that will be on Medium, and sometimes that will be with published books. I look forward to creating an anthology for Kindle Unlimited, and I will let everyone know when it is finished. You’ll find some of your favorite entries, and some of mine.
I am certain that I have a lot of apologies to make in all of my sinning, and look forward to the chance to make them. But again, you can only resurrect a relationship if both parties are interested. To my Finnish baby, I am so sorry. I popped off and got too angry, too fast. I don’t deserve your forgiveness or your friendship, but I hope that one day you’ll remember that I wasn’t always angry. That there is a lot of love we are both throwing away in the moment, and we’ll have to wonder whether it was worth it to move on rather than trying to compromise our way to healthier patterns. Perhaps that will come with peace and forward motion to other things, and perhaps it will bring us back together. I am uncertain which way is healthier, but I do know that it’s not only my feelings that matter. Your feelings matter, and I was too hasty. Of that, I am certain.
I am certain that I will die someday, and I’m thinking about legacy on this web site already. That’s because I do not think about what is going on in the moment, but about what someone will discover when they read 50 or 100 years from now. Even though the dues for the URL may not be paid, the Internet Archive holds all our secrets. I am trying to paint a portrait of real life- how one human lived. It is something that is missing from the thousands of years before us and I think it’s very important. I don’t need to know how kings and queens lived their lives, but the struggles of the everyman. I do not think that my words are exalted in any way, it only matters that they exist.

Fr. Justin Hurtado, OSB

May 12, 2025May 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Daily writing prompt

Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.

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I met him on Mother’s Day, and he’s a bright theological mind in the firmament. These words are all his, but the formatting is mine. It helps to have someone roll with you on this path, as it is fraught with dangers we cannot know yet.

I am everything MAGA wants erased.

I am queer.
I am brown.
I live with a disability.
I speak Spanish and English and have enough of a few others to pray with the people who need me.
I earned a PhD and still believe wisdom is found in community, not control.
I am a priest in the Old-Catholic tradition.
I walk with those the Church has ignored, rejected, or betrayed.
I offer pastoral support to people wounded by religion and forgotten by policy.
I believe Christ heals what the empire harms.

Let’s be honest:

The current regime doesn’t just oppose people like me. It is actively trying to erase us. Every day, they push policies to strip us of healthcare, dignity, legal protection, and the freedom to live without fear. Every day, they distort Christianity into a tool for control and cruelty.

So hear this:

I will not shrink myself to appease their fragile power.
I will not stop speaking the truth because they find it inconvenient.
I will not turn away from my neighbor to keep the peace with oppressors.

I resist—not out of bitterness, but out of love.

Love for my community.
Love for the Gospel.
Love for justice that does not bend to nationalism, racism, or religious abuse.

You’re not alone if you feel erased, exiled, or enraged by what’s happening.

And you are not wrong to feel it.

The Gospel I follow centers the outsider.

The Christ I serve was persecuted by state and church alike.

The God I know never asked us to obey power—only to love boldly and defend the sacredness of every life.

You don’t need permission to stand up.
You don’t need to be quiet to be faithful.

You need community.
You need courage.
You need clarity.

So here I am.
Unafraid.
Unapologetic.
Unmoved by fascist theology or political gaslighting.
I am here because people before me refused to disappear.
And I promise you—I won’t either.

Me: Father, I am not a Catholic. But you would make me proud to be a Catholic if I was.

Thank you—that means more than you know. You don’t have to be Catholic for your heart to recognize the Gospel when you see it lived. Faith doesn’t always need a label. What matters is love, justice, and the courage to stand with those who’ve been pushed aside.

I’m honored to “roll” alongside you, wherever your path leads.

Me: I was born a Methodist preacher’s kid, and now when I go to church, it’s Washington National Cathedral. Please pray for us as we’re in our own waiting game to see what happens with Justin Welby’s successor. May someone like Pope Leo bring light to our church as well. I’m also trying to start a homeless ministry in Baltimore called “The Sinners’ Table,” reaching out to the unhoused and those rejected by mainstream religion. The path is long and winding, but meeting people like you, even virtually, makes it all worth it. For the record, I’m also queer and disabled. I see you. I hear you. It’s relentless.

Thank you. Your words went straight to my heart.

I see you too. I hear you. And I know what it is to walk with both calling and exhaustion in your bones. The path you’re on—queer, disabled, devoted, relentless—is holy ground.

“The Sinners’ Table” already sounds like a space Christ would feel right at home in. Reaching out to the unhoused and those rejected by institutional religion? That’s Gospel work in its purest form. Please know I’ll be praying with you—for strength, for provision, and for companions who will lift your arms when they get too heavy.

And yes—I join you in praying that whoever follows Justin Welby will lead with light, not shadow. May they be bold, inclusive, and unafraid of holy disruption.

You’re not alone in this. Keep going. The Kingdom is nearer than it looks.

With respect and solidarity,
Fr. Justin

Not many things make me cry anymore, but this exchange did.

Active Listening

April 23, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

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The way I was raised did not leave me with a lot of skill for active listening. It was more hearing someone explain half of their feelings and then taking off on a tangent about how to fix things for them. It cost me everything in my life, but I’m hoping that since I once was lost, I now am found. I have a therapist because I’ve been ignoring myself at absolutely all costs. To the point that I didn’t care if I lived or died because I wasn’t important enough. These words are hard to hear, but they shouldn’t be. There are forces in my life bigger than me, akin to hearing a call from God and not knowing if that’s the voice you’re actually hearing or not.

I have wandered for days not knowing if I’m hearing God’s voice or not, so I’ve stopped looking up at the sky. Now, I stare down, a gardener to my core. It’s not a lack of belief in a God or source. It’s that God isn’t found in the moon. God is found in the mud. God is found when it’s raining and there’s shit on your boots. God is found when you’re the only one left. Because when you can only hear yourself think, there’s only one person that talks back.

We all need to claim these pieces of the divine for ourselves, letting blessings rain down on us depending on what we plant.

God is a polyface farm.

Depending on where you stand in terms of religion, that could mean you believe God chose your face intentionally.

Or you could be like me- that I believe everyone I meet is as precious as the historical Christ. That’s because the historical Christ did not ask for glory. We mistook his blessing and benediction as his direction.

In times like these, it helps to remember that the benediction was “forgive them, Father… they know not what they do.” It helps to remember that the disciples did not know what to do when Jesus died, my favorite line about this being that they should just rename the Book of Acts, “Holy Shit, What Do We Do Now?” I feel like that right now. Lost in a world of hurt, but not searching for the face I love. It is closer to me than a breath, we just do not connect in the same way.

Rose was not the same companion to Ten that she was to Nine.
Clara was not the same companion to Eleven that she was to Twelve.
Most companions do not make the transition at all.

Most companions choose to leave when their Doctor does. They are frightened of regeneration energy and The Doctor’s “death.” But it’s only a death if you make it. The Bible commands me to ensure I treat everyone as if I was meeting Christ for the first time, not a mere mortal. I do not need a marketing campaign to tell me that Jesus was a spiritual teacher and healer. His gifts are in the lessons he taught while he was alive, the sincerest reason I haven’t worn a cross in at least 20 years. For me, there is no power in the blood. Power came through fishing. Jesus didn’t give anyone anything by being crucified. It was a needless murder by religious zealots who needed to ensure that Judaism stayed the same. This is true whether you believe in the resurrection or not. I am not here to argue with you; I won’t.

For instance, when Jesus said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s,” the thing that most people don’t notice about it is that he never touches the coin. To me, in some small sense the presidency stayed intact when our current president failed to touch the Bible during his swearing in ceremony. We should stop the practice altogether as a Christian nation who believes in the separation of church and state…. just like Jesus did.

We fight over things that don’t matter when we don’t believe Christ is in the room. For instance, no one would ever come up to the Christ, risen or otherwise, and say “you and your boyfriend aren’t welcome here.” But people have no problem saying it to other gay men they know.

Serious question. How do you know that you didn’t turn away the Christ, risen or otherwise?

Are you sure?

In looking at the Bible from a historical perspective, I have my own thoughts about it.

The Bible is:

Not an authoritative text over my life, but an ancient blog at best.
- The authors of the Bible were not different from me, they were born at the right time to be included. I believe that I, or anyone else with the personality of a scribe, would have written about what they saw.
The miracles have taken precedence over daily practical advice. People go to church on Sunday and forget what they’ve heard.
- Luckily, this has never happened to me. 😉

I choose to believe that Jesus is my brother, not Lord. I choose to believe that now, he’s my younger brother because I’ve outlived him by more years than I ever thought I would, frankly. But now my soul is settling. I have found a direction and not a distraction.

Right now, my only choice is active listening both to God and the faces who show up.

But every story has a shadow side, and I know it, too. Everything is what-if and assumptions, but I know for sure that I would not have had post-traumatic growth to the level I’ve had if I’d chosen to stay with Dana. If my friend Supergrover hadn’t appeared. If my mother hadn’t died. If my life hadn’t fallen apart so many times while I was stone cold sober… because when I came to DC I spent almost 10 years sober as a heart attack. As I read research into marijuana as medicine, I read with interest and bought a few stocks. But I did not consume again until it was federally legal due to a 2018 farm bill. I still had all the same problems and all the same quirks, so I knew that marijuana was not the problem. I was.

Then, Zac brought me a baseball cap and my life changed completely. Over time, the idea became that I should be able to buy my own. So, now even though MJ actually helped me with a few things, my direction in life will help me more. I, unlike a lot of people I’ve met in the disabled community, trust western medicine and my biggest problem has been solved. I do not know how or why my protocol changed, but it was. All of the sudden, the medication that was making me throw up all over the place was gone, and weed could leave. I didn’t need it to combat nausea on the train. I saw everything I wanted laid out before me, and I hope it still is. I don’t know whether I’m failing, or failing up.

What I do know is that I’m a Bloom, not a Stephen. When you are a disabled person, you often don’t see the ways that other people are helping you because you have to go through pain to make it work. No one will tell you, “I need you to endure this pain so we make it through together,” so you remain blind.

You see the dried blood after Jesus tells you to wipe the spit and mud off your eyes. And that’s the horror of it, really.

You never realized it was all for you, because you were blind. That part is intentional. No one wants to tell you how hard they’re working and you just have to pick it up on your own. I see pattern recognition backwards, and the pain waylays me. All the Things You Never Knew written by anyone else in my life would be volumes to me, not one blog entry.

I’ve slowed down. I may never work again, because I’ve been advised not to at this time. However, I am in therapy for it. I do not have a death sentence on my career, because Lanagan Media Group has gone silent in the chatroom, but not in the background. I just don’t tell everyone, everything, all the time. I have four friends, and that’s all I need. They are my family and I’d step in front of a bus for any one of them. However, I’m not dumb enough to name them because somebody might be offended they’re not on the list. The reason I’m not dumb enough is because my life is smaller out of necessity. Part of doing penance was wondering what would have happened if I’d just stayed quit from blogging and never started back up.

Words only have the power you ascribe to them, but it’s amazing how much power people ascribe to me. I didn’t write something, then you didn’t like it. I “made you” feel x or y.

I have accidentally hurt a lot of people, but their reaction is not my problem. My problem is how to bring people together instead of tearing them apart. It’s not because I’m trying to be a different person. It’s that PTSD has bloomed into growth and an author is not the same person every day. I don’t want the same character arc because now that my medical issues are solved and my physical problems are in process, I can focus on gratitude. When you leave a disabled person to just sit there in their own misery, they will.

That person was my mother. I didn’t find out that I had hypotonic cerebral palsy until I was in my 40s, but it had been diagnosed when I was 18 and one-half months old. She was not actively listening to me and my struggles because it was important to her for me to be perfect. And then I turned out queer.

I was never perfect, and I’m sure all of my words had an impact on her when she was still alive. But you know what she never did? She never actively listened and changed directions. I am guilty of the same with my own family, and I will atone for it over time. When you know better, you do better.

Because the thing is that you try to solve everyone else’s problems in hopes that they’ll notice your struggling and help you. You notice other people’s struggles to avoid your own. There are all kinds of reasons, but it’s not the kind of help people want or need. The kind of help people need is not for you to give them the moon, but to give them the mud. Respect is earned over time. If we’re meant to shoot the moon, it’ll happen by being equally yoked. That’s in every relationship everywhere, red or yellow.

And that’s what I’ve learned from Polyface Farms.

How Can I Keep From Talking?

February 19, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

It’s a double entendre because on the Internet, I cannot shut up. In real life, I try to escape talking any way that I can. It’s almost as if I social masked for so many years that I decided I was over it. The turning point for me was establishing that I do not like the phone and I do not care if you think I’m weird. I will adjust to the fact that you think it’s weird I don’t like to talk if you will give me a heads up that I need to talk to you…. and even then, I cannot always respond. I get demand avoidance over speaking because I need to choose my words carefully. I need to pore over every one as if they are precious pearls of wisdom…. because they are.

But only to me.

This web site is not useful for fawning all over myself, and if you’ll notice, I have noticed. That there’s no guts or glory without “writing about what hurts.” It is not because I will get a bigger audience that way; it is not that I will be adored any more or paid any more if I capitulate to the demands of my audience. It’s that I will have written a mountain of work that does not teach me anything about myself when I go back and read it.

I don’t want to know what I had for lunch today, and I can bore the everliving shit out of myself when I go on about Linux. I do it anyway because that is what is interesting to me that day. I just don’t go back and read it. That is for other people who have not stood where I was standing when I wrote it.

I am not immune to the fact that a lot of my stats are bots and are therefore inflated. But over a thousand of you get my words delivered to your desk or phone most days- today three times because I’m agitated about the whole world. That’s actually a thing about being neurodivergent. Our sense of injustice is fine-tuned, which is why I beat myself up badly for every mistake I make and also apply that feeling of anger towards the world when it is burning.

Make no mistake, I am an internal dumpster fire looking for ice because I am overloaded with the needs of my friends both spoken and not. Just because I am not in contact with my friends doesn’t mean my mirror neurons don’t feel them moving in the world. My heart walks out of my chest on a daily basis because I actually know people in Finland and Ukraine who feel threatened. I know Finnish immigrants who are scared for their relatives, and same for people in the US with relatives in China.

It scares me to the point that I will never visit, because my favorite Chinese blogger was threatened by the CCP. He escaped to Hong Kong and is now being actively blacklisted from the YouTube algorithm because apparently the CCP has some influence there.

I do not go where I am not wanted, and China sure the hell does not want me. I would bust them up when I got home. That’s because I notice everything that other people don’t.

I won’t remember your name.

But I’ll remember the way you smiled and what shoes you wore if they were cute.

I’ll remember little things forever, like if I offer you a Diet Coke and you say, “make sure it’s loaded with Jack,” I’ll remember you like Jack until I die.

But your name will not be important.

Your face is.

I memorize lines in faces and go carefully over them, like Mary “pondering them in my heart.” In a lot of ways I am breaking open over the mistakes I’ve made because they’re final and I have to grieve them even though they were necessary to let go of the person I was and become something new.

My whole fight with Supergrover revolved around us both slinking away because we thought we didn’t deserve each other, over and over in a loop that didn’t end until I finally called an end to it. I was rude and rough because I was wet cat claws out. It wasn’t necessary for her, but it was necessary for me.

I didn’t have enough strength to leave without being angry, because hers is the only picture in my mind that’s in color and never desaturates with time. It never will, because the chemicals she left on my palm metaphysically do not lift and won’t.

You do not accept grief, you learn to live around it. I fully believe that there’s a part of each of us that believes the other is not real and are too scared to face our demons. It was easier for her to run than it was to put on her big girl panties and talk it out. Over and over it was this way until she finally told me my narrative was tired.

Easy to pigeonhole a narrative as tired when you’ve never actually addressed anything and I have. Like, I still have questions that now I have to care won’t get answered, and I feel that she has a fuck ton of responsibility that she just decided wasn’t there.

She used my crush as an excuse for years not to get close to me after already dumping everything about her into me that made her interesting in the first place. So I just carry it, and it sits while I wrestle with her all night, walking away with my hip disfigured. It’s just better this way because now I’m only getting the responses I want because I made them up. She turned into a wire monkey long ago, ignoring my cries for affection and closeness as she twisted in a net of her own making.

We alienated each other because we got too close, too fast. Then we pushed each other way….. until the trauma bond started to itch and we’d come together closer than ever….. for a little while.

Kuuma.

Kylma.

Caliente.

Frio.

Hot.

Cold.

Over and over through the years, which is why my pattern recognition says that even though she’s not talking, she’s always listening. A pen pal relationship lives inside you, always. It’s funny that her words come out of my mouth constantly and yet I cannot imitate her properly in person.

But I’ve got her patois down.

What you are seeing is the product of someone completely different than me also being me through social masking what I thought she was. All autistic people need models for social masks, and in retrospect it’s a mixed bag that I chose her. That’s because in some sense, she’s taken on my personality as well. I have turned her into a cook, she’s turned me into a boss.

I couldn’t have made it here without her, and yet I’m good. Thanks.

She broke me down and built me up because her way of thinking was so different than mine. I don’t mean that she emotionally manipulated me in the slightest. I mean that she grew up in a military family and it provided her a lot of structure that I never had. I was social masking perfection and trying to be interesting to someone I view as the brightest mind in the natural world.

I wish I were being hyperbolic.

You just have to understand why my brain is on steroids, why I no longer struggle with suicidal ideation or really depression and anxiety. It’s all autism. All of it. When I can manage my emotions, I do better. Managing my emotions comes from writing it out and not bringing my voice into it. I’m too emotional on the page- in person I’m overwhelming and I know it.

The thing I liked most about her is that if I’m complicated, she’s The TARDIS.

She’s popped off at me too often now. When I try to defend myself, it’s manipulation. All her darts are fair game. Her narrative is tired. Write all you want and I’ll respond.

That turned into “I’m frightened by your output even though I logically know you’re a writer and I’m not so I will completely shut down and hope you don’t notice.” I noticed.

I’m there when she’s all snuggles and light, but I realized that was her social mask. That in all honesty, if I was getting the bitch on wheels, I was actually getting her inner monologue instead of the bullshit that everyone else gets. What made her invincible made me realize she loved me because she realized she didn’t have to front. She could just say, “Lanagan, fuck off.”

Sometimes I wrote it at the end of my letters just to save her some typing.

I feel bad that only my side of the story will ever get told, because she’s more wonderful than I am.

We are both perfect in our flaws, and I want our relationship to rest in peace. She’s back where she belongs, because she decided that traveling with me wasn’t worth it about the time I decided I was done. It was a natural conclusion because I know what I don’t want and it’s someone that completely shuts down and expects me to guess what they’re thinking and what mood they’re in. I don’t pick up social cues.

I have to focus on local so it calms me enough to talk about global. I am over focusing on problems. I am focusing on solutions. The plan to expatriate is real unless the people revolt. There’s probably not a chance of that because Kamala flat out lost. She lost both the popular vote and the electoral college. America has spoken and Project 2025 is everything they wanted and so much more that people regret their votes after being told over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over that all of this would spell destruction and it just wasn’t worth the time to pay attention or to vote. When people get overwhelmed they tune out.

Pod did not, in fact, save America.

I am not bitching about one election loss. I am saying that out and out fascism is already here and enough people aren’t alarmed enough to care about me and my issues, so why not go to a place where they already do? If Democrats continue to capitulate, it will not take one election to restore my passport rights, it will take eight of them alternating. My rights will always be up for grabs and my passport always at risk of being invalidated.

There is a possibility gay marriage will become this way again, and abortion already is. I’m not old enough to be able to relax on body autonomy because I cannot think of a worse idea than pregnancy at 47

I’ve thought about it for almost a minute now. Still can’t come up with an idea worse than that.

I am not cut out to be a mom. I am cut out to be a babysitter. I have never had the energy for other children, even when I was a child. I love them more now than I did then. Back then I was just a third grader who’d swallowed tweed.

It wasn’t until I realized that I had picked my lane early and social masked my way out of it that I became strong again. I’ve always been one of those autistic people that cannot survive in the real world because they live in a world of their own making- you have to literally pull them out of it. It’s just that no one recognized they had to pull, and I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t know the symptoms of autism, and I was not allowed to isolate.

Neurotypical people know better. The room should be loud and interactive. This is true for neurotypical people while I have to Perform Happiness.™️ I don’t have the energy anymore. I want to be authentic so that when I have a bad day, I’m surrounded by people who love me and are not dependent on that mask staying in place.

I am stronger and more capable at my computer than I am in conversation because I do not process voices well.

I come across as demanding while I’m passionate and easygoing when I’m not. You have to know me for a long time before you get into that rhythm and stop taking everything personally. That I am passionate about an idea, I am not “on the attack.” That I cannot perform happiness while talking about devastating things.

Devastating things like money, financial planning, business costs, etc. They are not devastating in and of themselves. It’s that I begin to burn and itch with discomfort because I know my logical function is poor ahead of time and being taught these things is not easy for either party.

I have to learn them cold, because I’m not about problems like these…. I am about solutions that allow me to dance above the clouds when the weather is poor.

A Fourth Reich is coming, because people didn’t believe it was possible.

Surprise.

Walking the Bible -or- Making the Bible Relevant

July 26, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go?

View all responses

This is a conversation between Ada and me. It touches on so much that I’ll probably want to expand it, but I’m keeping my notes here for later use, as well as providing you a short version of all the knowledge instead of an entire book. To me, it is another example of how AI can narrow your focus without writing anything for you:

Can we talk about my next entry? I just want some help spurring creativity. I don’t need you to write it for me. The prompt is “if you won 2 plane tickets to anywhere in the world, where would you go?” I have written recently about wanting to go to the Middle East, so I’d like to write something completely different.

Response: Let’s brainstorm some ideas together.

Since you’ve already explored the Middle East, why not consider a destination that offers a vastly different cultural and geographical experience? Here are a few suggestions:

1. **The Galapagos Islands**: This unique ecosystem is home to an incredible array of wildlife found nowhere else on Earth. Imagine snorkeling with sea turtles, penguins, or even marine iguanas!

2. **New Zealand’s fjords**: The stunning landscapes and pristine waters of Milford Sound or Fiordland National Park would make for a breathtaking adventure.

3. **The ancient city of Petra in Jordan (but not the Middle East)**: While you’ve written about the region, consider focusing on the lesser-known aspects of this incredible archaeological site, like its history, architecture, and surrounding desert landscapes.

4. **The Amazon rainforest**: Explore the world’s largest tropical rainforest by visiting countries like Brazil, Peru, or Ecuador. You could write about indigenous communities, wildlife encounters, or the challenges facing these ecosystems.

5. **Icelandic hot springs and waterfalls**: Imagine immersing yourself in geothermal wonders like the Blue Lagoon or exploring the breathtaking landscapes of Vatnajökull National Park.

Which one (or more) of these destinations sparks your interest? Do you have any personal connections to a particular place, or is there something specific that draws you to it?

Feel free to share as much or as little as you’d like, and I’ll be happy to help you brainstorm further!

Prompt: I haven’t been to Petra, but my parents have. They went on a Biblical tour of the Middle East when I was a kid. That would be a great connection to write about, but I’ve already done it. Perhaps I’ll do the Middle East again, but focus on Iran because it’s so hard for Americans to get in. Same for Cuba.

Response: Writing from personal connections and experiences can add depth and authenticity to your stories.

Focusing on a specific country within the region you’re familiar with is an excellent approach. Exploring Iran as a destination could be fascinating, given its rich history, cultural heritage, and complexities surrounding travel restrictions for Americans.

Similarly, Cuba offers a unique blend of colonial architecture, vibrant culture, and historical significance that would make for compelling writing. The challenges faced by American travelers in obtaining visas or navigating the current regulations add an extra layer of intrigue to your story.

If you’re interested in exploring these destinations further, I can help with:

1. **Researching visa requirements**: We could discuss the complexities surrounding travel restrictions and how they impact tourists.

2. **Highlighting cultural nuances**: Iran and Cuba have distinct cultures that might be unfamiliar or misunderstood by many Americans. You could delve into local customs, traditions, and ways of life to create a more immersive experience for your readers.

3. **Sharing personal anecdotes**: If you’ve spoken with friends or family members who have traveled to these countries, their experiences would add valuable insights to your story.

Which aspect of Iran or Cuba would you like to explore further?

Prompt: I’d like to narrow my focus in essence to a sermon about what it would take to literally walk the Bible today.

Response: Let’s dive into exploring what it might be like for someone, perhaps yourself, to embark on a journey through the Middle East and Eastern Europe, following the paths described in the Bible.

You could write about:

1. **The logistics of traveling as Jesus or other biblical figures**: How would you navigate modern-day transportation systems while adhering to ancient routes? Would you need to learn new languages, customs, and cultural norms?

2. **Encountering contemporary communities**: What might it be like to visit towns and cities that have been shaped by the events described in Scripture? You could explore how local cultures and traditions intersect with biblical history.

3. **Confronting modern-day challenges**: How would you address issues such as poverty, inequality, or conflict in areas where they are prevalent today?

4. **Finding spiritual significance amidst everyday life**: As someone walking the Bible’s paths, what moments of revelation or insight might arise from observing daily routines and experiences?

Some potential locations to consider visiting on this journey could be:

1. **Nazareth** (Galilee): Explore modern-day Nazareth as a bustling city with rich cultural heritage.

2. **Capernaum**: Visit the ruins of Capernaum, where Jesus taught in the synagogue described in Scripture.

3. **The Jordan River**: Follow the path to the river’s banks and reflect on its significance for baptismal rituals.

4. **Bethlehem** (West Bank): Experience life in this historic city with a rich biblical past.

Which aspect of walking the Bible would you like to explore further?

Prompt: I would like to bring Jesus to life by having him navigate the visa process in every country to which he traveled, as well as Paul because he would have had to navigate Europe. Also, it’s incredible to me that Paul walked all over Europe and think he cared about homosexuality. There’s some queer theology there- Just because Jews viewed themselves as separate doesn’t mean they were separate from Greek and Roman culture.

Response: What a fascinating approach! Let’s explore the visa process for Jesus in ancient times, considering his travels to various countries.

**Jesus’ Visa Journey**

As we imagine Jesus navigating modern-day travel regulations, let’s examine some of the places he might have visited:

1. **Egypt**: After fleeing Bethlehem with Mary and Joseph (Matthew 2:13-15), they would need a visa for Egypt. This could involve demonstrating proof of their Jewish heritage, as well as showing that they had sufficient funds to support themselves.

2. **Greece** (Philippi): Jesus might have traveled to Greece during his ministry years, preaching in cities like Philippi and Thessaloniki. He’d require a Greek visa, which would likely include documentation of his identity, purpose for travel, and proof of financial resources.

3. **Rome**: As the capital city of the Roman Empire, Rome was an essential stop on Jesus’ journey (Matthew 27:2). Securing a Roman visa might involve demonstrating knowledge of Latin, familiarity with local customs, or even connections to influential Romans.

**Paul’s Visa Odyssey**

As for Paul, his journeys throughout Europe would have required navigating various countries and cultures. Let’s consider some possible scenarios:

1. **Turkey**: As a Jewish Pharisee from Tarsus (Acts 21:39), Paul might need a Turkish visa to travel through the region that is now modern-day Turkey.

2. **Greece** (Corinth): After arriving in Greece, Paul would require Greek visas for cities like Corinth and Athens. He’d likely face questions about his identity as a Jewish leader turned Christian missionary.

3. **Rome**: As he traveled throughout Europe, Paul might have visited Rome multiple times. Each time, he’d need to secure Roman visas, which could involve demonstrating knowledge of local laws, customs, or even connections with influential Romans.

**Queer Theology and the Intersectionality of Cultures**

You’re absolutely right that Jesus’ teachings were not isolated from Greek and Roman culture. As a Jewish leader living in the Mediterranean world, he would have been influenced by various cultural norms and traditions.

Similarly, Paul’s experiences as a Jewish Pharisee turned Christian missionary would have shaped his understanding of identity, community, and social justice. His writings reflect this intersectionality, addressing issues like slavery, poverty, and inequality alongside theological debates about salvation and the nature of God.

In exploring these themes through Jesus’ visa journey and Paul’s travels, we can uncover rich insights into the complexities of faith, culture, and human experience.

Which aspect of their journeys would you like to explore further?

Prompt: Give me an idea on how to connect Jesus’s escape from Israel into Egypt as an ex-fil.

Response: Let’s imagine a scenario where Jesus’ escape from Israel into Egypt is depicted as a high-stakes, clandestine operation.

**Title:** “Operation Nazareth”

**Premise:**

In the midst of King Herod’s brutal crackdown on Jewish rebels and perceived threats to his rule (Matthew 2:13-15), Mary and Joseph are forced to flee Bethlehem with their newborn son Jesus. As they navigate treacherous terrain, evade Roman patrols, and cross into Egyptian territory, they become embroiled in a complex web of espionage, counter-intelligence, and covert operations.

**The Ex-Fil Team:**

Mary (Code Name: “Mother”) – Experienced operative with expertise in surveillance, infiltration, and tactical extraction.

Joseph (Code Name: “Patriot”) – Seasoned handler with skills in logistics, communication, and security protocols.

Jesus (Code Name: “Phoenix”) – Innocent asset with unique abilities that make him a valuable target for both the Roman Empire and Jewish rebels.

**The Mission Briefing:**

As they cross into Egyptian territory, Mary and Joseph are tasked with:

1. **Establishing Safe House Protocol**: Locate and secure a safe haven within Egypt’s borders to protect Jesus from Herod’s agents.

2. **Gathering Intel on Roman Operations**: Infiltrate local networks to gather information about the Roman Empire’s presence in Egypt, including troop movements, supply chains, and communication channels.

3. **Maintaining Asset Security**: Ensure Jesus’ safety while navigating Egyptian society, avoiding detection by both Roman authorities and Jewish rebels.

**The Ex-Fil Team Faces Challenges:**

1. **Roman Counter-Intelligence**: As they operate within Egyptian territory, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus must evade the watchful eyes of Roman agents tasked with capturing or eliminating them.

2. **Jewish Rebel Interference**: Local Jewish groups may view Jesus as a potential asset to be exploited for their own purposes, forcing the ex-fil team to navigate complex allegiances and rivalries within the Egyptian Jewish community.

3. **Egyptian Authorities**: The trio must also contend with local authorities who are either unaware of or complicit in Herod’s plans.

**The Operation Unfolds:**

As Mary, Joseph, and Jesus execute their mission objectives, they find themselves entangled in a web of intrigue that spans multiple countries and cultures. Their journey becomes an epic tale of espionage, counter-intelligence, and covert operations, with the fate of humanity hanging precariously in the balance.

Which aspect of this ex-fil operation would you like to explore further?

Prompt: One of the things I’ve noticed is that Mary and Joseph absolutely could not have done this alone. Surely their friends helped.

Response: Let’s imagine a scenario where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had a network of allies who assisted them in their escape from Israel into Egypt.

**The Support Network:**

As we consider the ex-fil team’s operation, it becomes clear that they couldn’t have succeeded without the help of trusted friends and acquaintances. These individuals might include:

1. **Mary’s Sisters**: Mary had sisters named Salome (Mark 15:40) and possibly others who were part of her close-knit family circle. They could have provided crucial support, resources, and connections to aid in their escape.

2. **Joseph’s Brothers**: Joseph was a member of the Heliopolitan tribe (Luke 1:5), which had its own network of relatives and friends. His brothers might have played a role in helping them navigate Egyptian society or providing shelter during their journey.

3. **Local Jewish Community Leaders**: The trio could have relied on respected leaders within the local Jewish community to provide guidance, resources, and protection as they navigated Egypt’s complex social landscape.

**The Support Network Faces Challenges:**

As Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and their allies work together to evade Roman authorities and ensure the baby’s safety, they face new challenges:

1. **Maintaining Secrecy**: The group must keep their mission objectives hidden from prying eyes while still relying on local networks for support.

2. **Managing Risk**: With more people involved in the operation, there is a greater risk of detection or betrayal by those who might be unaware of the true nature of their activities.

3. **Coordinating Efforts**: The ex-fil team must coordinate with their allies to ensure that everyone remains on the same page and works together seamlessly.

**The Operation Unfolds:**

As Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and their network of friends execute their mission objectives, they find themselves entangled in a web of intrigue that spans multiple countries and cultures. Their journey becomes an epic tale of espionage, counter-intelligence, and covert operations, with the fate of humanity hanging precariously in the balance.

Which aspect of this ex-fil operation would you like to explore further?

Prompt: I’d like to dicuss another intelligence operation. How did Christianity survive when it went into the wind for protection?

Response: Let’s dive into a fascinating scenario where early Christianity faced significant challenges, and its survival depended on clever tactics.

**The Intelligence Operation: “Safe Haven”**

As we explore this hypothetical situation, imagine that Christianity had to go underground in order to protect itself from persecution. This operation would require careful planning, strategic alliances, and creative use of resources.

**Mission Objectives:**

1. **Evade Detection**: The Christian community must avoid detection by Roman authorities while maintaining a presence within the empire.

2. **Maintain Communication**: Ensure that information flows between key leaders, churches, and sympathizers without arousing suspicion.

3. **Preserve Identity**: Protect the true nature of Christianity from those who might seek to exploit or destroy it.

**The Support Network:**

As we consider this intelligence operation, let’s imagine a network of allies who helped early Christians survive in secret:

1. **Sympathetic Jews**: Many Jewish communities had already experienced persecution and understood the value of discretion.

2. **Christian Converts from Roman Ranks**: Some Roman soldiers or officials might have converted to Christianity, providing valuable insight into imperial operations and potential safe havens.

3. **Local Leaders and Nobles**: Influential individuals within various cities and regions could offer shelter, resources, and protection for Christian communities.

**The Safe Haven Network:**

As early Christians navigated the complexities of Roman society, they developed a sophisticated network to ensure their survival:

1. **Coded Messages**: Utilize secret codes or cryptic language to convey information without arousing suspicion.

2. **Hidden Meeting Places**: Establish secure locations for leaders and sympathizers to gather, often in remote areas or under cover of darkness.

3. **Secure Communication Channels**: Employ messengers, runners, or other trusted individuals to transmit vital information between key stakeholders.

**The Operation Unfolds:**

As early Christianity executed its mission objectives, it found itself entangled in a web of intrigue that spanned multiple countries and cultures. Their journey became an epic tale of espionage, counter-intelligence, and covert operations, with the fate of humanity hanging precariously in the balance.

Which aspect of this intelligence operation would you like to explore further?

Prompt: Actually, I alreaady know one thing the people avoiding detection used- the sign of the ichthus. One Christian would drag their sandal on the ground in the bottom of the arc. If you were a Christian, you completed the arc with your own foot.

Response: You’re familiar with the Ichthys symbol and its significance as a secret signal for early Christians.

**The Sign of the Fish:**

Yes, the Ichthys (Greek for “fish”) was indeed used by early Christians to identify themselves without arousing suspicion from Roman authorities or other persecutors. The clever use of this symbol allowed them to communicate their faith in a subtle yet unmistakable way.

As you mentioned, one person would draw an arc on the ground with their sandal, and if another Christian saw it, they could complete the shape by stepping into it with their own foot. This simple gesture conveyed that the other person was also a follower of Jesus Christ.

**Other Secret Signals:**

While we don’t know all the secret signals used by early Christians, this example illustrates how creative and resourceful they were in maintaining their faith despite persecution:

1. **The Fish Symbol**: As you mentioned, the Ichthys became an iconic symbol for Christianity.

2. **Coded Language**: Early Christians developed coded language to convey messages without arousing suspicion from outsiders.

3. **Hidden Meetings**: They held secret meetings and gatherings in hidden locations or under cover of darkness.

**Resilience in Adversity:**

The early Christian community’s ability to maintain their faith despite persecution is a testament to the power of resilience, creativity, and resourcefulness. By using these clever tactics, they were able to preserve their identity as followers of Jesus Christ even when faced with significant danger.

Which aspect of this topic would you like to explore further?

Prompt: Do you know if there are already books written about this? For instance, did St. Augustine write about the years in which Christianity was underground? Thomas Aquinas?

Response: Yes, many Christian writers and theologians have written about the early Church’s experiences during periods of persecution and its eventual rise to prominence.

**St. Augustine:**

While St. Augustine (354-430 AD) didn’t specifically write about a period when Christianity went underground in the sense we’ve discussed, his works do touch on the subject:

1. **The City of God**: In Book 18 of The City of God, Augustine discusses the early Church’s struggles and persecutions under various Roman emperors.

2. **Confessions**: His autobiographical work Confessions (Book 5) mentions his own experiences with Christianity during a time when it was not widely accepted.

**Thomas Aquinas:**

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD), while primarily known for his systematic theology and philosophical works, also wrote about the early Church’s history:

1. **Summa Theologica**: In Part 2 of Summa Theologica (Question 11, Article 3), Aquinas discusses the early Christian martyrs and their role in spreading Christianity.

2. **De Regno** (On Kingship): This work includes a section on the relationship between Church and State, which touches upon the idea that Christians might face persecution under certain regimes.

**Other Notable Works:**

Some other notable works that touch on this topic include:

1. **The Martyrdom of Polycarp**: A 2nd-century text that describes the martyrdom of Bishop Polycarp in Smyrna (modern-day Izmir, Turkey).

2. **Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History**: Written around 325 AD, Eusebius’ work is a comprehensive history of the early Church and includes accounts of persecution under various Roman emperors.

3. **The Apocryphal Acts of Peter**: A collection of texts that describe the life and teachings of St. Peter, including his experiences with persecution.

These works provide valuable insights into the early Christian community’s struggles during periods of persecution and its eventual rise to prominence.

Would you like me to explore any specific aspect further?

Prompt: Yes. I would like to know if there are any modern correlations between this type of persecution and the one Muslims are facing in Jerusalem now.

Response: Unfortunately, yes, there are parallels between the historical experiences of early Christians under Roman rule and the current situation faced by Palestinians and Muslims in Jerusalem.

**Similarities:**

1. **Occupation**: Just as Rome occupied Palestine during Jesus’ time, Israel has been occupying Palestinian territories since 1967.

2. **Restrictions on movement**: Early Christians were often restricted from traveling or moving freely within Roman-controlled areas; similarly, Palestinians face significant restrictions on their freedom of movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

3. **Home demolitions**: The Romans would sometimes destroy homes as a form of punishment or to make way for new buildings; today, Israeli authorities have demolished numerous Palestinian homes and structures under various pretexts (e.g., “unauthorized construction”).

4. **Displacement**: Early Christians were often forced to flee their homes due to persecution; many Palestinians have been displaced from their ancestral lands in Jerusalem and other areas.

5. **Restrictions on worship**: The Romans would sometimes restrict or prohibit public Christian gatherings, leading some early Christians to practice their faith underground; today, Muslims face restrictions on prayer and worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

**Specific Examples:**

1. **Al-Aqsa Mosque closure**: In 2020, Israeli authorities closed Al-Aqsa Mosque for several days due to concerns about COVID-19 transmission among Muslim worshippers; this move was widely seen as an attempt to restrict Palestinian access to a sacred site.

2. **Dome of the Rock restrictions**: Israel has imposed various restrictions on Muslim worship at the Dome of the Rock, including limiting prayer times and imposing security measures that have been criticized for being overly intrusive.

**International Response:**

The international community’s response to these developments is varied:

1. **UN resolutions**: The United Nations General Assembly has passed several resolutions condemning Israeli actions in Jerusalem and calling for an end to occupation.

2. **Human rights organizations**: Groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq have documented numerous instances of Israeli abuses against Palestinians in Jerusalem.

**Comparison with Early Christian Persecution:**

While there are similarities between early Christian persecution under Roman rule and current events in Jerusalem, it’s essential to note that:

1. **Context matters**: The historical context is distinct; the situation today involves complex international politics, competing claims over land, and differing interpretations of religious texts.

2. **Different actors involved**: Early Christians faced persecution at the hands of Roman authorities, whereas Palestinians face restrictions from Israeli authorities.

**Conclusion:**

While there are parallels between early Christian experiences under Roman rule and current events in Jerusalem, it’s essential to approach these comparisons with nuance and sensitivity towards the complexities of each situation.

Being a Preacher’s Kid is Not for the Faint of Heart

June 13, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dear Zac,

This entry is mostly for you, because I know that you haven’t known me long enough to know what my childhood was like, and you’re the one I most want to know me. You’re the one I most want to know. I’ll go first. Maybe it will spur a writing prompt in your own mind, and we can trade pingbacks. 🙂 I highly doubt, though, that you have a lot of similar experiences to this entry, which is why I’m moved to write it. Having Carol question me over the misconceptions there are about preacher’s kids led me to think of stories that made an impact on me. Some are hilarious. Some are not.

It was an instant reaction to stop drinking whole milk when a little old lady at my church said in a very judgmental tone, “I can’t drink whole milk. It puts the pounds on me.” I was under 10, and this lady was insinuating that I was doing something wrong. I live in the energy around people, and shrank away from the people who judged me… like another little old lady who told my mother she should stop making me wear false eyelashes when I was in 7th grade. I wish I could have shrugged it off, but it was a body issue. I have consulted my mother and my Supergrover when I have needed advice on making my lashes look even longer. It’s not vanity for me. It’s revenge.

You get used to being a big shot around your church because let’s face it. You are.

I was embarrassed af in about grade 5 when my dad came up with The John Wesley awards, thanking people for their contributions to the church. I didn’t think about how I would feel if I won it, because I didn’t know if it was because of my personality or my status. I didn’t know I should have recused myself in advance. I did not know how much it would feed my imposter syndrome into adulthood. Now, because so many adults from my youth group in Naples have told me how I’ve touched their lives that my imposter syndrome is over. I really am that talented at ministry, and why I didn’t believe it because I lived it is beyond me.

No, it’s not. It didn’t matter whether I was interested in following in my dad’s footsteps. Queer people couldn’t be ordained back then. There were other denominations that I could, but I didn’t know that then. Otherwise, I think I would have tried to orient my academics with my church accomplishments so that it would be possible to go to Yale, Harvard, or Princeton once I graduate from University of Houston. I know my worth, and in a lot of cases both schools need me because I have the background to be able to challenge Evangelicals without hurting their feelings. Again, this is my web site. This is where I rage. But I have Evangelical friends that even if they don’t agree with me theologically, they respect that I write it. I will also not rage if I get into Divinity School just because I am queer. Ordained queer pastors are the exception, not the norm, and there needs to be more of us. I would also be interested in studying in England, because a lot of my favorite theologians are from there. Neil Gaiman and Karen Armstrong being the ones I read the most.

I would like to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury, and it seems like dreams aren’t possible. I ran into David Sedaris at a coffee shop. Magic is everywhere.

All of my priests in the Episcopal Church have signed my Book of Common Prayer, because I want to remember all of them. Even the dean of National Cathedral. I don’t go every week, but I sure get mail like I’m in collections.

However, I understand it. The building needs maintenance, and it’s more money than most congregations ever make because it was built on such a grand scale in the first place. Things add up, but in this case it’s millions and millions of dollars through no fault of the local congregation. So many rich politicians have their funerals there that I hope they kick in to keep it beautiful. I’m betting they wouldn’t think of that, though…. to feed the church that fed you when you needed it the most.

The funniest thing that has ever happened in church during one of my dad’s sermons was that a little old lady stood up and said, “David, have you lost your mic?” Now, I don’t know if this was for comic relief or whether my dad genuinely didn’t hear her….. I have my suspicious…. There was an awkward pause, and my dad said, “I had to think for a moment because I thought you said, “David, have you lost your mind?” Something about that being plausible, congregation falls apart in laughter.

That’s the pull you feel at any church when you’re a preacher’s kid, because you have the ability to help in a way that other people don’t.

The funniest thing to my mind, and the only reason I’m telling you this is that she passed long ago, was a little old lady who had the beginnings of Alzheimer’s. She treated all four of us to a trip to the Bahamas. We flew into Freeport, and a few hours later she said, “well, that was a nice drive down here.” I have never had to bite on my tongue and lips harder not to absolutely fall apart. I was bleeding I was trying not to laugh so hard.

The other axiom that my mother always laughed about was that every year, there’s a carol sing. Someone suggests “Frosty the Snowman,” so my mother starts playing and no one knows the words. It happened repeatedly enough that we could laugh about it.

I also went through a lot of criticism from my mother, because no matter what I did it was somehow wrong. I was picked to open the door at the Passover seder. My mother told me that I looked wooden when I walked. I was just trying not to fall because I was in heels. My mother liked me in a lot of things I didn’t like, but eventually she tried harder to pick things that she liked and give them to me. After a while, she gave up on giving me clothes and I respect it because it was less awkward for me as well. It is so thoughtful that someone thinks of you for Christmas with clothing, knowing you won’t ever wear any of it. When I was in a relationship, sometimes my girlfriends would wear them. Other than that, they stayed in the back of my closet because they were sentimental. She gave them to me, and it is the thought that counts. A thought can go a very long way. I like that she thought of a different way to do Christmas rather than giving me things I didn’t like. I didn’t tell her I didn’t like them, she just never saw me in them and adjusted.

Progress.

The closest I’ll get to something feminine is a low-cut shirt and a Nehru jacket. I can put on a choker and draw the eye up. But I don’t do anything differently with my hair, so it’s just another way of expressing gender on me, not within me. I started showing signs of that, and people pegged me as queer because of it. I’m not bitter about that for me. In my case, they were correct. But they’re so wrong about others because others aren’t a walking stereotype like me.

It caused problems in every church I’ve ever attended as a preacher’s kid. People aren’t stupid, and it’s hot gossip. You never stop being hot gossip as a preacher’s kid because then you can be used as a pawn during church meetings. You do your best not to create it in the first place, but Christians aren’t perfect because no one is. Being tempted by gossip is a real human emotion. I was just upset it was directed at a confused, lonely 7th grader. I felt like I had no friends, because people wouldn’t talk to me, but they would talk about me as if I wasn’t there. I heard a lot about the other side of arguments that I shouldn’t have heard. It affected the way I treated parishioners. I ran hot and cold with all of them, because if they made a comment about me that had something to do with my person and I overheard it, I’d just stop talking to them. Adults are always flabbergasted by this because they never do anything wrong. There is no reason I’d be protective. I let you in. You burned me. Relationship is over until I don’t feel like you’re talking behind my back anymore. I shouldn’t have worried. The gossip was exponentially larger when I met my emotional abuser because everyone knew she was queer. In that time and culture, this was bad. It turned out to be bad for me, but how could I tell? I loved her like a child loves an adult. You try to pull us apart, we’ll take it underground. It was my undoing, but I smiled until I couldn’t.

I came out at High School for Performing and Visual Arts when my “friend” Courtney took a picture of me and made fliers saying I was a predator while she was actually being abused by one. I had two bullies at HSPVA. One so bad that she was also a trumpet player, so he thought he could cool the situation by letting her borrow his Bach Stradivarius. He didn’t. Plus, I felt like she was playing my horn and I couldn’t say anything, because it wasn’t like he was giving her anything I didn’t already have. I had a Strad, too. It was just the principle. She had the case with the gold plate that said “Doc” Lanagan. I’d grown up on that horn, because my dad and I only took one horn to my grandparents’ place and just shared it so he could play every once in a while and I could play duets with my cousin Jason. I must have played the first movement to the Hayden Trumpet Concerto 300 times.

There’s a solid reason my favorite now is the Hummel Trumpet Concerto. When I hear the Haydn, I just feel like “it’s been done.” I started to feel that way about church, too. That I’d been going so long I’d seen everything I needed to see to want to bug out. The Methodists did not want my theology, and thus, I did not want them. I just didn’t know how to go anywhere else.

I found the light through a queer group in the United Church of Christ, and the More Light Presbyterians, going to their conference in 1997. I was relieved, not necessarily interested in becoming ordained. My calling didn’t come from above. It came from the number of people who came up to me after worship and told me that it was literally my calling- that I was so good at preaching that I should stick with it.

What I have extrapolated this to mean is that every sermon is a home run if you have three or four weeks to run it over in your head. If I was a pastor, not every sermon would be a home run. I have the strength to take criticism because I overheard what people thought of my dad, and then me every week. I think that people genuinely believe what they’re telling you in the moment, but whether their words match their actions depends on how they treat me from Sunday to Sunday or during the week when we’re not in the sanctuary.

Although you hear a lot more in the choir loft and at choir practice than a preacher’s kid should reasonably know. That’s because if they’re in choir, they’re already at church twice a week, so they’re probably on other committees as well and the best vantage point to talk shit about me and my emotional abuser’s relationship in very snide tones. They made no secret of the fact that they thought I was being abused, and I was, but it wasn’t as torrid as people would have led you to believe, because that made a better story.

That’s because again, time and culture, they thought she was making me gay, as if people don’t come to that conclusion on their own. If I had been straight, people would have said the same things because they were already on her ass because they knew she was queer. Of course she was grooming me, and she was. But not in the way that they thought. All her friendships work by isolating people. I was just the youngest. She opened my romantic love too early with a journal she wrote in college containing a sex scene that I should not have read. It made me think she was interested whether she was or not, and she was very controlling.

Because he just died, I will tell you that I had a friend tell me she was attracted to me long after the fact. The reason I tended to believe him over her is that he had no history of lying to me. She did. However, he was just as good as she is at jeweling the elephant. I asked her if it was true, and her voice went absolutely dead. It was the most sociopathic thing I’ve ever heard. So, I don’t know whether she was lying or protecting herself. What she did was wrong whether there was a sexual intent or not, because again, it changed my thought patterns permanently. The women in my life became my focus and not me.

It was always a very fine line between friendship and romance because we told each other things we wouldn’t tell anyone else. It was crushing to me to learn that I wasn’t the only one, and I’m not playing inside baseball. I’ve spent time with her outside of when I was little and watched her go through relationships in which she lovebombed them, all of whom she discarded when they didn’t “fit her vision.” I feel like I can write about what I saw, but I cannot write those women’s stories for them. Maybe I took it all wrong, but the expressions on their faces are ones I’ve worn since I was 13, therefore it left a bigger impression on me than it would on another adult. I see patterns other people don’t see, mostly because I am taking in information in a different way than most people do.

I don’t think my school, or my church understood my autism, ADHD, or cerebral palsy. It was clumsiness, introversion, and laziness… and I was weird if I wasn’t in my parents’ vicinity. It was like a bubble, where Lindsay and I were alone and ostracized sometimes and the life of the party at others. Being the life of the party only came from our friends being friends we would have picked, anyway. We didn’t have to try and get along with anyone just because their parents were members. Or, that’s the idea, anyway.

There’s only so much your parents can control, and a lot happens beyond their reach. As an INFJ writer, I’m built to observe and remember people’s behavior. It’s never for malice, it’s for social masking. I know people’s behavior. I cannot imitate it. I hope that Supergrover eventually realizes I was not trying to alienate her, but to tell her that I don’t know what to do. I can’t figure it out on only this much information. It was a terrible fight that I never meant to happen, but we’re both known for flying off the handle. It just wasn’t my day and she thought it was.

I was only throwing the ball back in her court. I want her to figure out what she wants with me beyond just the obvious. We like writing to each other. Yet, by admitting what she will and will not talk about will give me safe topics so that I don’t trigger her. Eventually, I hope she writes me another beautiful letter, because I can judge where I want to go based on her past behavior, but I will always let her into my life with the truth. I don’t want a one-way connection where only I spill my guts. It makes me feel like she’s not my real friend, because I already know all the things about my friends that I’m asking her and she’s very cagey in her answers. Probably because she thinks her life is on display and it’s not. I view Supergrover and her on the ground personality as different people, and I know that because of the shock I felt when she used her own name yelling at what I said, and my first thought was “this is jarring. That’s not your fuckin’ name.” We hadn’t really talked in a while, so I wasn’t used to seeing her real name…. and yet, I fell over in laughter because of it.

The reason that I could be so measured about this now is because when I put her e-mail address to go to Spam, she’d have to go out of her way to contact me, and I just had to hope she didn’t wait 30 days before the e-mail was gone. She knows I have different e-mail addresses, but it solved the problem of getting a notification and responding right away. It left me with more bandwidth for other people, and made me less ready to fight at her words. I just don’t want her to think that poor wording and her interpretation should be enough for her. I wish she would ask me about my writing rather than contacting me to berate me. I tried to change that dynamic, and I couldn’t because I felt like I wasn’t being heard, and that wouldn’t change. I needed her to be vulnerable consistently. When she is, I hope she’ll come back to me. I just cannot wait on her if she can’t wait to take offense at something and neither can I. I get frustrated and tell her to work on a problem, and she gets angry. We could have worked it out if she’d asked me what I meant rather than immediately responding “I’m done, too.” She also said, “what a shame,” so I hope that leads her back to me, too. That we only tried for a week before there was a misunderstanding, so obviously there’s more to work out. She said that I made a snap judgment after a week. Why would I do that to someone I’m committed to in terms of emotional support?

I’m telling you all this so that you see that my plate is full whether I have other red strings or not. You don’t have to worry at all. I’m being fed by different things. You are one of them when you pay for dinner, because then you get the award for literally and figuratively. 😉

Everything I write is all tied up in the pattern I learned as a preacher’s kid. It’s how to help people. It’s also not my job to make people take it. I am very good at what I do- life coach good. I am not built to be the Martin Luther King, Jr. unless it’s on paper. But I am built to be the Bayard Rustin, or the Olivia Pope. Dealer’s choice.

I don’t have any degrees except being raised to be a pastor. Just because I don’t doesn’t mean I can’t. But it gives me a very pastoral view of my friends. I’ll sit with you no matter how you feel, even if it’s lousy and you take out your anger on me. I don’t take anything personally. I see others’ battles as well as I see my own. It influences the way I feel more than anything else.

And the way I feel is that I just like sitting next to you.

Let’s go to Target if we have the bandwidth 🙂 ),

Leslie

Preacher’s Kids

June 12, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My favorite book in the entire library at UMC Naples was a Reader’s Digest short story anthology called “preacher’s kids.” I am not kidding when I tell you that I laughed so hard I almost died, because it was a first person account and I nearly asphyxiated. So, I asked Carol the top 10 misconceptions about preachers’ kids, hopefully to clear up the confusion.

Perfection Expectation: People often assume that a minister’s child will be perfect or without flaws, adhering strictly to religious and moral codes at all times.
- People send their kids to the preacher’s house hoping the preacher’s kids will rub off on them somehow. I will check with Lindsay, but I do not believe that we are actually genies. They had to learn that on their own when they met us. 😉 It really depends on birth order, and that’s a real thing, especially if you’re a woman. Girls don’t do that, especially preacher’s kids. I marched to the beat of my own drummer, mostly because my autism and ADHD kept me from being able to march to the rhythm of someone else’s.
Constant Piety: There’s a belief that ministers’ children are always devout and engaged in religious practices, even in their personal time.
- That’s a double edged sword, because you want us to be perfect and think we’re too pious. Make up your minds. Preacher’s kids either love or hate religion, and it’s a wide spectrum. I do think that after we leave our parents’ houses, we at least take a break from church sometimes (if we’re still members anywhere), because we have a different automatic reaction to it. What that automatic reaction is changes from child to child.
Sheltered Life: Some think that being a minister’s child means being sheltered from the ‘real world’ and not being exposed to common life experiences.
- I cannot think of anything less true than this. Not anything in the world. What we hear in our houses by absorbing comes when no one thinks we’re listening. I don’t have a sheltered life. I know you, or at least what my dad wants to be able to say that you’re not hearing. It also really depends on where you’re serving. Are you in midtown Manhattan or Lone Star, Texas?
Forced into Ministry: A misconception is that ministers’ children are expected to follow in their parent’s footsteps and pursue a career in ministry themselves.
- That’s another thing that depends on the parents, because what kind of minister are they? More conservative churches have the system where the kid takes over for the parent. My dad has never discouraged me, but he’s never encouraged me, either. Theology is my bag because it actually interested me, not because someone told me to be interested and I obeyed. Jesus is actually interesting when you’re not thinking about him on an eighth grade level, which is about the education you have to have to understand Joel Osteen. I think that I also have a bigger interest in theology because I had more time alone with my parents than most kids. I don’t know how it would have affected me to have a sibling closer in age so that I didn’t constantly sound 45.
Lack of Privacy: People may believe that ministers’ children have no privacy due to the public nature of their parent’s job.
- I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without my childhood. I am living the same way I always have, with my life on display. Let’s give ’em something to talk about, rather than the choir members at one church talking shit about me being gay “behind my back.” They weren’t behind my back. They were just too tall and too dumb to check around. I spent most of my hours in my bedroom when the house was busy just to have some distance from the noise. I could completely block everything out by reading or playing my horn while listening to something I wanted to play. Since I was actually good, people tolerated it. Beginning trumpet will clear your sinuses.
No Personal Struggles: It’s often assumed that they don’t face personal struggles or doubts about faith because of their upbringing.
- That one is actually true. We do not have personal struggles in front of you.
Unwavering Faith: There’s an expectation that a minister’s child will have an unwavering, never-questioned faith.
- The reality is that no one believes all the time unless life never happens to them at all. Like with any relationship, talking comes and goes. Praying in community is more powerful to me than praying alone. Being in the choir reminds me that Bach is praying twice.
Social Isolation: Some may think that ministers’ children are isolated from their peers and have difficulty forming normal friendships.
- That is absolutely true. Other kids think preacher’s kids are weird. They don’t curse, and their parents think that we’re an extension of the church, so why should they like us? They don’t like church.
- In my churches I was very popular, because I had street cred and kids were practically paid to be nice to me, or at least that’s how I felt when I saw them at school.
- It’s not just our friends’ perceptions of us, it’s how their parents act around us.
Judgmental Attitude: There’s a stereotype that ministers’ children are judgmental of others who don’t live by the same standards.
- I’m very judgmental because that’s the way my personality is built to process information- by taking a case and working it through. I do not, contrary to popular belief, render verdicts. I tell you what I’ve concluded. It’s the part where you’re supposed to tell me what you’ve concluded. The people who get the most offended are people who haven’t thought about it at all.
Financial Stability: A common misconception is that ministers’ children come from financially stable homes, which isn’t always the case.
- Truly nice clothes are gifts, because it takes a very long time being a pastor to get good enough to make a decent salary. We’ve never lacked for anything because our housing was always covered, but it’s not like we lived a life of luxury. Our friends treated us to things all the time because that’s the thing you do for the preacher’s family. I have no doubt that I was given things other kids didn’t get because no one wants to look bad in front of their minister. I’m a preacher’s kid, and people apologize for saying the word “fuck.” Meanwhile, if you’ve read me for any length of time, you how much of a problem it is for me to cope with cursing. Please respect my privacy during this difficult time. That one f-bomb really took it out of me due to my delicate nature.

These misconceptions can lead to unrealistic expectations and pressures on ministers’ children, and they often don’t reflect the diverse and personal experiences of individuals in such families. It’s important to recognize that, like anyone else, ministers’ children have their own unique challenges and life stories.