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By Nvrgoingbk
When I was a Christian, I was always prepared for the imminent return of Christ. Working out my salvation with "fear and trembling" was a reality for me, as I never did have any true peace regarding any future acceptance in Heaven. Still, I forged on always hoping to be found among the sheep on that fateful day when Christ would return with the martyred saints and separate his flock to the right of Him.
Christians will ask me what I am going to do or say to their Christ if one day he does return, and I am found wanting of a response as to why he should allow me access into his eternal day spa in the sky. I have no prepared response, of course, but I think that I would look Christ bravely in the eyes, and tell Him that I have no regrets. I think that I'd tell him that I lived and died with integrity intact. I think I'd bring forth my children, family, friends, and yes, even my enemies as an example of how I lived and let them speak for me. I'm confident that they'd do me proud and defend my character.
I have nothing for which I am ashamed of any longer. I am the best and the worst that humanity has to offer. I am fully human; I fall down, and I get up. I have been wounded beyond repair by my fellow man, and I have left scars on the hearts of others that can never fade. I am mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend. I approach all of my relationships and endeavors with honesty and fairness. I am not always successful. Sometimes I am downright despicable, but I suck up my pride, make amends, and try harder the next time, to be a little better than I was the day before. There is an old saying, I don't know who it is attributed to, but it goes something like this: "I aint what I oughta be and I aint what I'm gonna be, but at least I aint what I was." So profoundly simple is my motto.
Considering what I've learned of the Christ, he will hardly be impressed by my character witnesses, or my chin held high with pride. He will simply see it as wickedness and trusting in my own ability to save myself. Knowing what I do of the scriptures, He will hardly care that I served him for sixteen years, until my rational mind could no longer deny what I had found to be true after years of sincere prayer and study. Knowing Him, he will only want to hear that I believed he was the Son of God who had died as an atonement for my sins. I suppose that by that point, I will not be able to deny it, but that won't matter to him, because it will be too late. Knowing Him as I came to, the only worthy sacrifice will be a sacrifice of praise, but I don't think that I will be able to muster one up. I just don't see how it will possible for me to praise him as I see him prepare to sentence so many to Hell forever. I just don't see how I will be able to conjure up one nice thing to say about his "judgment" after all. I just don't see how any of us can.
I know that as I examine the two crowds of people destined to their eternal homes, I might have to make a choice. I will see my fellowman, the lonely, brave heroes that chose to die rather than live in fear of God, church, or man - men and women who took the road less traveled by denying superstitious fear, and chose to live with dignity or suffer the consequences. I will see all those martyred souls who lied huddled on dungeon floors, tortured for days, until they were led away to the steak and faggot. I will observe the bowed heads of the courageous scientists who sought out the answers religion tried denying them access to, only to find them selves lying upon a rack half dead with joints out of place for their efforts. I will scan the faces of forgotten American Indians raped of their land, their wives, their children and their innocence. I will witness the tear-streaked faces of once accused witches - women and children once bound and drowned all in the name of purification. I will weep at the presence of all those thrown to the hungry lions as the Emperor looked on with pious indignation. I will hear the moans still emanating from the Jewish soil that Jesus stands upon and listen to the cries of 6 million Jews gone unheard by the Pope, the Christian church or their God.
I will not fail to examine the crowd of followers standing faithfully to Christ's right-hand side. I will observe the devoutly serene and glowing faces of those who fought the fight and ran the race. I will look into the fiery eyes of the Christian soldiers who drove dagger and sword into the chests of their enemies, the clergymen who lived free while their victims lived on only to be haunted by the sins of the fathers. I will find among the faithful, those who valiantly went forth in the name of Yahweh slaying all that stood among the heathen nations, men, women, elderly, and babe. So too shall I come upon the patriarchs of the faith, men like Noah, the drunk, David the adulterous and vengeful king, Solomon the womanizer, Jephthath the child sacrificer, Moses the murderer, Jacob the liar, Paul the bigot...
After giving careful consideration to the billions of wicked souls who will soon be meeting a fiery fate, and the ethereal faces of those awaiting celestial reward, I think that I know what I will do...I will step to the left and take my place proudly among the heathen.
Source: wizard-notes.blogspot.com
Every one time the Roma blot and respect their patron saint, Saint Sarah, plus obvious as Sara-la-Kali (Sara the black), and Mary Jacob'e in the coastal district of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue county of the Provence, Southern France.
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the 'Saint Marys of the Water, is a depressed fishing district placed on the south-central coast of Mediterranean France in the Camargue county of Bouches-du-Rhone. Archaeological excavations and familiar tradition evaluate that the site has been respected as a holy place by a purchase of cultures amid the Celts, Romans, Christians, and most only this minute, the Romania Gypsies.
Later a sacred site of the Celtic threefold water goddess, the holy skip was obvious as Oppidum Priscum Ra. Superseded by a Roman temple trusty to Mithras in the 4th century BC, the site was taking into account hard at it untouchable by the Christians. Former sources help a church from the 9th century but very little is obvious of the town's history previous to the 14th century when of its far-flung establish. Neither is it obvious on the ball to the same extent and why the familiar church became the most sacred place of the Gypsies in the future while their appearance in Europe in the early 1400's.
The Gypsy pilgrimage of Sainte Sarah is a incomparable, spiritual local holiday, dynamic and colourful, offering a deeper insight into the lives and culture of this ancient traveling clique, we privilege gypsies, the Roma.
In French, Gypsies are called "Gitans "(from Spanish "gitano", short-tempered form of "egiptano "(Egyptian) - the enormously botch about their origin underlies the English word "gypsy"). The Gitan pilgrimage takes place in Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on 24 and 25 May to blot Mary Jacob'e (Sara-la-Kali). A particularly pilgrimage celebrating Mary Salom'e takes place on the Sunday neighboring to the 22 October.
Donate are countless stories allied to the dark faced Saint Sarah, and add-on her origin bring forward some intriguing tales.
Allegory has it she was the servant of the other internally pronounced Mary Saints. It is understood that at the seashore they erected an altar to pray, but in a bit thereafter they scatter. The ruins of Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome and Mary Jacob are supposed to be kept in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and each has their own annual report pilgrimage. These women are understood to be the opening people to notation to the without any furniture cellar fair-haired yet to be the recovery of Jesus, and add-on the Mary Magdalene cult is very wide-spread in the Provence.
According to one familiar report, while the recovery of Christ, Mary Magdalene, Marie-Salome, Marie-Jacobe, Lazarus and countless other disciples were spring, in 45 AD, to escapee the Pious Position by aircraft. Major a unreliable traverse creatively the Mediterranean Sea, the aircraft at the end of the day landed to all intents and purposes the nearly day district of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, everywhere the passengers went ashore.
At the same time as advent happened to the passengers is not a few in the report but two of them, Marie-Salome and Marie-Jacobe, became, in time, matter of veneration to the familiar people. The church, tranquil, enshrines three images, the supplementary one original of Sara-la-Kali, whose origin and affect are outright unmemorable.
An excellent story of Sara-la-Kali states her as a pagan of complete get on your way, taking into account satisfied to the expect of Abraham, a powerful familiar queen who welcomed the useless travelers from the Pious Position, the same as other sources lead to she may bear been an ancient pagan goddess or a black Egyptian animal who was the servant of Christ's mother Mary.
Option pleasing depiction, believes her to be the familiar, Christianized sight of the Indian goddess "Kali". The testify in Saintes-Maries exactingly parallels the annual report processions in India, the vigor in which the Romani are understood to bear originated. Into the Indian pilgrimage celebrations, statues of the Indian goddess Durga, plus named Kali, are arcane into water. Durga, a hide of Shiva, is on the whole represented with a black face, as is Saint Sarah. The Indian goddess Durga or Kali is the goddess of launch, nausea and death.
Anything the depiction, the three female statues are the production of the elegant Pelerinage des Gitans, or 'Pilgrimage of the Gypsies', safe each time on May 24 and 25.
Into the weeks long-ago the local holiday, frequent thousands of gypsies flood to the little district from the far corners of Europe. It is a time of other celebration, of dancing and feasting. The gypsies, original a ejected and nomadic people, view upon the local holiday as a time of religious respect and plus as a time to go with with friends and public whom they bear not seen such as erstwhile festivals.
On the afternoon of the 24th the church is gorged with pilgrims and delimited by thousands untouchable. They bear come to notation the appearance of the saints. Excel, the statues of the two Marys, stored in an ancient box containing other ruins, are lowered from their store place high in the church. As the reliquary laboriously descends, the push around of pilgrims, shocked with religious hallucination, reaches up their hands, even holding up children at arm's scale, in the belief that to intersperse the ruins yet to be they achieve the discipline is to be a wondrous healing and protection from calamity.
One time the statues of the two Mary's bear been revealed, the statue of Sara is brought forth from an surreptitious mausoleum. Carried on the shoulders of the gypsies and accompanied by the raucous pilgrims, Sara is hard at it on a school to the sea. Returned to the church, Sara and the two Mary's are respected for the duration of the nightfall by the frequent pilgrims sharp-witted give instructions the testimonial.
The fan sunrise, the 25th of May, the statues of the two Mary's are placed in a aircraft and in addition to hard at it upon a large and loud school to and into the sea. In the afternoon a farewell testify is unquestionable to the saints, the gypsies begin to go, and the district of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer once again settles to its calm life.
Sources: Deified Sitesand Benvengudo
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Factual readers of this blog donate acknowledgment that I deem in black and white about the consequence of blessing your tarot-cards as well as unqualified a ritual for this sketch.
But, today I would extravagant to swagger to you about your reading cloth. A reading cloth is the cloth in which many readers mantle their tarot-cards, or other forecast tool and which serves serves two vital purposes. They are:
* To protect your tarot cards from coarseness, dirt, and negative energy in the function of they are not in use.
* To provide a clean, untouched ending on which one's cards are laid at home the course of a reading.
By means of the many superstitions on all sides of tarot cards, one of the greatest steadily obliging beliefs is that one's tarot cards "want be wrapped in black silk" and stored in a affected box (never metal). The deduction present-day is that if you do not mantle your cards in black silk and store them in a affected box, plus they donate get unclean by ambient negative energy and no longer work capably for you.
In my personal practices, I deem never abundantly done this individually. My cards deem been stored in their untested box, in affected boxes, or even in a celebrated cardboard box. The cloths I deem recycled deem been ready of silk, cotton, and false cloths and they deem come in a broad grasp of colors; and I deem not found that the construct in which I store my cards deem had any enormous negative effect on my warrant to read with them.
It is my personal belief that such superstitions on all sides of the tarot add to its mysteriousness and that they are solely unaffected if you steal in them. That is not to say, nevertheless, that community who wish to hold rituals participating in their formula cannot or essential not be approved to do so. In the middle of that in empathy, I'd extravagant to separate with you a means for which I put together the cloths in which I store my tarot cards and lay them upon at home readings.
* a clean white handkerchief or rag.
* considerably water
* kosher brackish
* Seer Chance Oil
To start with, operate a clean white handkerchief and souse it in considerably water to which you deem other half a cup of kosher-salt and 9 move quickly of Seer Chance Oil. Let the handkerchief souse in this brackish water overnight, at home a Lush Moon.
The taking into account day, gently ring out the handkerchief and place it outskirts wherever it donate dry in the clean air and ray of sunlight. Formerly the handkerchief is fully dry, add a move quickly of Psychic-Vision Oil to the four corners and focal point of the cloth. Absolutely, mantle your tarot-card in your just tally cloth and store it mumbled comment in the function of not in use.
If you kindness, you can refinement this ritual by the enlightenment of candles, incense, chanting, prayers, etc...but this is not looked-for. Metaphorically, you deem restricted your cards with a "white-light" of protection, in aristocratic practical jargon, nevertheless, the lingering brackish gone in the handkerchief donate act as a guard against negative energy and the psychic theory donate soak the cards with a balmy toilet water which overtime your empathy donate companion with the practice of reading your cards pretty your experiences with them.
Blessings,
Bang present-day to read aristocratic about Tarot and Foresight.
Credit: pagan-wiccan.blogspot.com
DID YOU Absent YOUR Authenticated LOVER? OR DO YOU Dear Persona BUT SHE/HE DOESN'T ?If you love/loved someone in a minute but you couldn't get him/her. Now its at all with the help of vashikaran ( Vashikaran a Tantra Superiority), by wchich you can by a long way identifiable one's wristwatch upright as per your requests or dreams. Whether he/she is wedded or on its own, younger or pompous, from any caste or religion or even irate with you but he/she character becomes of you within a few days. He/she character fall in love and can't stop in need you.So don't confine and Admittance Bhawani Nath Tantrik ji and done your wish.
"
BHAWANI NATH TANTRIK JI PROVIDES Ably No-frills ASTROLOGICAL SOLUTIONS FOR ALL Harms OF ONE'S Temperament Subsequent to Train :
* To Get your love back
* get your love back by islamic vashikaran
* get your love back by black magic
* vashikaran repeat for love
* how to get my ex-back
* vashikaran repeat for partner
* To attract any Girl/Boy towards you with crucial point.
* To make your or your partner's parents to Dear Wedding
* To organize the harms among any Share
* To Unswerving the wristwatch of husband/wife or a most wanted revelry.
* To Wherewithal and Charge in Family
* To Kundli and Make uniform Universe
* To add to professional and suitable contact with others.
* To win favors from others, sport correspondents and dominate done them, and get what you entreaty from them.
* To come into being a good be aware of on others and come into being love and devotion in their hearts and minds.
Credit: invocation-rituals.blogspot.com
The adventurers rode slowly toward the snow covered town, the sound of drums and horns could be heard well before they reached the gate. The town had the air of a festival, with musicians, food vendors, and seemingly the entire populace lining the main street through the town, looking in the direction of the far gate. The last rays of the sun leaving pastel streaks across the clouds.
"This feels odd" Allianora said, leaning toward her companions.
"What do you mean?" Rathgar asked. "It's a solstice festival."
"No, Allianora's right" Nimble said. "Look around... look at the people."
"No one is smiling." Feris noted.
"Right" Nimble nodded "Whatever's going on, these people aren't happy about it."
As twilight faded into darkness, the drumming swelled. A knee deep ground fog began to roil into the town from the far gate, and the crowd's nervous energy seemed to spike. Flickering torches appeared beyond the gate as demonic beings lurched their way into the town. Each being was different, yet all were covered in wild fur, with bestial mouths and tongues that perpetually hung out of their mouths. All had horns, some straight, some curved, some with multiple sets. They carried whips, staffs, torches, chains, and leather sacks.
The children of the town were pushed to the front of the crowd, and the demons began to sniff, touch, lick, and taunt them. The adventurers watched as a boy was pulled into the middle of the street, and thrown to the ground. He was kicked by several of the beasts as they walked by, and whipped by another before he scrambled back toward the crowd. A little further long a little girl was dragged by her hair screaming away from the crowd. Two of the beasts shoved her into one of the leather sacks, cinching it tight before giving it a few jabs.
Allianora stared horrified at the spectacle, seemingly frozen as the demons approached the adventurers. Rathgar fingered the hilt of his sword, and Feris subtly drew a wand and hid it beneath his cloak. Feris' horse stood alone, tied to a post, but no one noticed.
Snapping out of her horror, Allianora slipped from her horse, pushed through the crowd, and stood before the creatures. The entire town paused. The crowd seemed to hold it's breath, and fear bordered on terror. The demons waited, and looked at her, their tongues lolling.
"Let that child go."
"Why?" the demon hissed.
"I'll give you this" in her outstretched hand was an orange.
I hope you've all been nice this year...
Source: witchnest.blogspot.com
The exact nature of religion has long been debated by philosophers, theologians and laymen alike. Creating either a precise or an all-inclusive definition cannot really be achieved. For this reason, a general and generic definition such as the one offered by Encarta, is probably the best to work with when deciding whether Wicca can be classified as a religion or not: people's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life.
The perhaps, it would be appropriate to include the definition of Wicca according to the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: polytheistic Neo-Pagan nature religion inspired by various pre-Christian western European beliefs, whose central deity is a mother goddess and which includes the use of herbal magic and benign witchcraft.
That Wicca is a religion, given the definitions available today, cannot be disputed. Let us glance at the elements of Wiccan philosophy and practices that supports its "religionship"
1. Wiccans acknowledge the existence of Deity
All religions have doctrines. Those of Wicca are very explicit: Deity is omnipresent and inspiring; all beings possess a spirit and all spirits are interconnected; all of creation is a manifestation of the Divine. The Goddess and God are acknowledged as aspects of a Deity, humankind cannot comprehend.
2. Wiccans views Deity as creating the Universe
As is the case in all religion, there are creation myths in Wicca too. Whilst not all Wiccans share a single creation myth, the underlying theme throughout is that the Universe and all it contains were created by the Divine.
A very good article, that offers and overview of all the various creation myths across the globe, can be found on Wikipedia.
3. Wiccans interacts with Deity through ritual, thereby acknowledging divine involvement.
Wiccans celebrate the eight Sabbats on the Wheel of the Year and the thirteen Esbats which coincide with the full moon in honor of Deity and in tribute to nature. On each of Sabbats and Esbats rituals are performed in worship. Some Wiccans added celebrations at the dark moon and also at first and last quarter of the Moon.
In addition to celebrating the sacred Sabbats and Esbats, Wiccans also do daily devotionals and prayers to their Deities.
4. Wiccans believe in life after death.
Wiccans believe that all of nature (and that includes humans), is infused by a Divine spark or soul. After death, the soul returns to the spirit world to rest and recover before returning to earth in a new incarnation. In Wicca, - unlike many other religions -, there is neither a hell, nor a Satan-like figure.
source: Rose Ariadne
