Once a queen of Narnia, always a queen of Narnia

This demand is valuable in various ways. In the first place it diminishes pleasure while increasing desire. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns. And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both. And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids. Thus by inflaming the horror of the Same Old Thing we have recently made the Arts, for example, less dangerous to us than perhaps, they have ever been, “low-brow” and “high-brow” artists alike being now daily drawn into fresh, and still fresh, excesses of lasciviousness, unreason, cruelty, and pride. Finally, the desire for novelty is indispensable if we are to produce Fashions or Vogues. The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere “understanding”. Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey. But the greatest triumph of all is to elevate this horror of the Same Old Thing into a philosophy so that nonsense in the intellect may reinforce corruption in the will. It is here that the general Evolutionary or Historical character of modern European thought (partly our work) comes in so useful. The Enemy loves platitudes. Of a proposed course of action He wants men, so far as I can see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible? Now if we can keep men asking “Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or reactionary? Is this the way that History is going?” they will neglect the relevant questions. And the questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable; for they do not know the future, and what the future will be depends very largely on just those choices which they now invoke the future to help them to make. As a result, while their minds are buzzing in this vacuum, we have the better chance to slip in and bend them to the action we have decided on. And great work has already been done. Once they knew that some changes were for the better, and others for the worse, and others again indifferent. We have largely removed this knowledge. For the descriptive adjective “unchanged” we have substituted the emotional adjective “stagnant”. We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain—not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape

Since I know @arcenciel-par-une-larme does bell-ringing and we both like British folklore, here's a post on church bell folklore.

Church bells are an apotropaic against faeries [1], storms and evil spirits [2], especially those trying to seize the souls of the dead [3], hence the custom of ringing bells on All Hallows' Eve to aid souls in Purgatory. In the town of Hickling in Nottinghamshire, the locals were so attached to this practice that in 1587 they assaulted a Reformation-minded parson who refused to do so [4]. In the Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, a church bell called Black Tom is rung on Christmas Eve specifically to ward off the Devil [5].

Due to the above, the Devil frequently attacked or attempted to steal church bells, with varying degrees of success, as he did at Egloshayle in Cornwall, Cranborne Chase in Dorset, Danbury in Essex, Newington in Kent, Halvergate in Norfolk [6], Shrewsbury in Gloucestershire [7] in England and Llanarth in Cardiganshire in Wales [8].

Faeries, however, were not so lucky, being expelled by church bells from South Cadbury [9] and Exmoor in Somerset [10] and Inkberrow in Worcestershire [11].

The other common folklore motif is lost church bells ringing from beneath the water. There are examples of this in Forrabury [12], Land's End [13], Penhale Sands [14] and Perranporth in Cornwall [15], Wimborne Minster in Dorset [16], the ruined town of Lepe in Hampshire [17], Kentchurch [18] and Marden in Herefordshire [19], Preston in Lancashire [20], Tunstall in Norfolk [21], Dunwich in Suffolk [22], Bosham in Sussex [23], Llangorse Lake in Breconshire [24], Llangadog in Carmarthenshire [25], Aberdovey in Monmouthshire [26] and St. David's in Pembrokeshire [27]. Interestingly, while (as you can see) there are lots of spirit-repellent church bells and ghostly church bells in southern England and south Wales, they have almost no presence in the Midlands or the North in England and don't appear at all in Scotland. Any ideas why?

According to the superstitions of nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire, if the tolling of a funeral bell coincides with a clock striking the hour, there'll be another death within the week [28].

At St. Ives in Cornwall, a man called Richard was returning home late with a load of fish when he heard the bell of Lelant Church toll and saw a light in the window. He looked inside, and saw it brightly lit with a crowd of little people carrying myrtle and rose wreaths, six of them carrying a bier containing a waxenly beautiful tiny body. They dug a grave for her next to the altar, and cried out “our queen is dead!” while throwing flowers in. When they began filling in the grave, a cry arose that Richard echoed. The lights went out, and they rushed past and stung him like bees [29].

According to Cornish superstition, if church bells chime sadly, someone is dying [30], and likewise in Sussex a heavy tone from a church bell is a death omen [31].

In the Devon village of Shebbear, a stone brought to act as the church’s foundation stone kept rolling away and appearing on the village green overnight. Eventually, they gave up and got a new stone. Since 1937, each year on the 5th November, bell-ringers ring an intentionally discordant sound while villagers flip the stone over with crowbars – if this did not happen, death and poverty will be released on the village [32].

At Langenhoe Church in Essex, a haunting involved, among other things, the church bell ringing by itself [33].

At Leamington in Oxfordshire, a bell at the bottom of a pool of water was used for divination by people dropping stones on it at night; one ring at dawn the next day was a yes, and two rings a no [34]. The same custom was the case for a church bell between Witnash and Radford in Warwickshire [35].

The Romani of the Cotswolds in the nineteenth century blamed winter storms on spirits called Snow Foresters, and said the Snow Foresters could be warded off with birdsong and church bells [36].

On the 1st July each year as the climax to the celebrations of their parishes being founded, the Somerset parishes of Landford Budville and Thorne St. Margaret both rang church bells to drive the Devil (in the form of a brown dog) back and forth between their respective parishes [37].

There are at church bells in the parish of Calne in Wiltshire, and when only seven ringers are available, a ghost appears to complete the set [38].

In Wiltshire, the verdigris of church bells was said to cure shingles if rubbed onto them [39].

In Yorkshire, Church Grims are spirits in the form of black dogs who guard churchyards from the Devil, materialise in storms and toll church bells at midnight before someone in the parish dies – during the funeral, the vicar sees the Grim climbing down, and its countenance provides evidence for the salvation or damnation of the soul [40]. They are death omens that appear in Sweden in the form of lambs and Denmark in the form of pigs, all derived from the custom of making a sacrifice at the foundation of a church to prevent a human soul having to ward off the Devil [41].

Bibliography

Janet Bord, 1997, Fairies: Real Encounters with the Little People, Michael O'Mara Books Ltd., p.12

Jeremy Harte, 2022, Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape, Reaktion Books, pp.80-81

William Henderson, 1879, Notes on the folklore of the northern counties of England and the borders, Nichols and Sons, p.63

Ronald Hutton, 2002, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford University Press, pp.371-372

Marc Alexander, 2002, A Companion to the Folklore, Myths and Customs of Britain, Sutton Publishing Ltd, p.341

Harte 2022 p.81-86

Harte 2022 p.199

Alexander 2002 p.69

Bord 1997 p.153

Katharine Briggs, 1976, A Dictionary of Fairies, Penguin Books Ltd., p.95

Briggs 1976 p.20

Leo Ruickbie, 2013, A Brief Guide to Ghost Hunting, Robinson, p.135

Tony Deane and Tony Shaw, 1975, The Folklore of Cornwall, Batsford, p.83

Alexander 2002 p.162

Deane and Shaw 1975 pp.28-29

David Castleton, 2021, Church Curiosities: Strange Objects and Bizarre Legends, Shire Publications, p.13

Brice Stratford, New Forest Folklore, The History Press, p.145

Neil Philip, The Watkins Book of English Folktales, Watkins Media Ltd., pp.348-349

Colin Bord and Janet Bord, 1985, Sacred Waters: Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland, Granada Publishing Ltd., p.116

Henderson 1879 p.122

Alexander 2002 pp.296-297

Jo Bourne, et al. 2009, The Most Amazing Haunted & Mysterious Places in Britain, Reader’s Digest Association Ltd, p.126

Bourne et al. 2009 p.80

Ruickbie 2013 p.135

Bord and Bord 1985 p.109

Ruickbie 2013 p.156

Ruickbie 2013 p.136

Henderson 1879 p.62

Briggs 1976 pp.146-147

Deane and Shaw 1975 p.59

Dee Dee Chainey, A Treasury of British Folklore: Maypoles, Mandrakes and Mistletoe, National Trust Books, p.145

Harte 2022 pp.109-110

Ruickbie 2013 p.136

Bord and Bord 1985 p.68

Roy Palmer, 1976, The Folklore of Warwickshire, Batsford, p.39

Katharine Briggs, 1974, The Folklore of the Cotswolds, Batsford, p.83

Theo Brown, 1958, "The Black Dog”, Folklore, volume 69, number 3, pp.175-192

Ralph Whitlock, 1976, The Folklore of Wiltshire, Batsford, p.122

Whitlock 1976 p.167

Alexander 2002 p.50

everything can be sorted on a sliding scale of "punk" (good) to "fascist" (bad). these are the only two ends of the scale it's possible to have. if something is "good" (for example, public libraries,) it cannot merely be Good, it is only possible that it be punk and THEN be good as a symptom of punk. but if you can't swing it to convincingly argue that public libraries are punk, then, well, I'm sorry, but the only option left is that libraries are in fact fascist.

In early December we found out that our son is suffering from Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH), where his diaphragm didn't full close. He is left with a hole in his diaphragm, allowing the organs in his abdomenal cavity to move into his chest cavity, restricting the growth of his lungs and affecting the positioning of his heart.

So far a portion of his intestines, most of his stomach, and now a portion of his liver is sitting in his chest cavity.

He'll need surgery with in days of birth to move the organs back into his abdomen and repair the diaphragm. He is expected to stay in the nicu a minimum of five weeks but could be up to 3 months or more, depending on his progress during pregnancy and how he responds and heals post surgery.

We hope to stay as much time as possible in the NICU with him during his time their.

And thats why I am posting this link today. Its hard for me to ask others for help, especially financial. It would mean the world to us if you could donate money so we can be there for our son.

Donations would go toward loss salary while staying with our son in the NICU, transportation to and from the hospital, food while staying there. Also the money would go toward things needed when we bring him home from the hospital, like the possibility for oxygen needs, feeding tubes and formula, medication, and other monitoring equipment he may need. Additionally, depending on how his hernia progresses before birth, we may need to relocate out of state and we want to be able to have that option to give him the best care.

@robert-the-foul @r0bilargreenleaf

If you can not donate, please share. I’ve provided two different fundraising sites:

They repaired the hernia again , luckily it was small but they added a biological dissolvable mesh to help cover the area. They had to get rid of part of his intestines from the issue that they saw. His blood pressure has been too low, so they don’t think his intestines would properly heal if they attached the pieces of intestines together just yet, so now they are being held outside the body in the meantime.

They told us 6-8 weeks for healing possible then they’ll attached the intestines together.

It’s a set back for sure.

They had mentioned that before they caught this they were considering starting feedings soon and weaning off more things .

New mothers should receive at least 18-24 months of maternity leave during which they should be paid in full. If they want to become stay-at-home mothers, they should receive at least minimum wage, if not more.

I do believe that among all systems, capitalism is the only one that respects freedom. However, we have to admit that it is mostly used in immoral ways nowadays. It reminds me of communism (i.e. people are treated as machines, the notion that everyone is replaceable is everywhere etc).

I agree that one income should be enough to support a whole family but at the same time I also support women being financially independent. Also, if one income is enough then what will happen to the family if that income is gone e.g. cause of the father's unemployment, inability to work due to accident or illness, or death?

Unfortunately, many men today do view women as their property. What will happen to those women?

Regarding who is gonna pay the women, I don't see why it's wrong if the government does so. I mean, there are jobs out there paid by the government. If a right wing government truly supports and promotes traditional families in theory, they should do so in action too. If a left wing government truly supports women's rights in theory, they should show that support in action too.

The issue is that while raising children is work, it shouldn't be treated as employment. We should not be paying people a government salary to raise their own children. It is not the government's responsibility (which would really be the taxypayer's burden) to compensate parents for parenting. Parents are supposed to take care of their children, and that relationship should not be viewed through the lens of employer and employee.

In a capitalist society, employment is the result of a voluntary agreement. Someone needs a job done, and another person agrees to do that job in exchange for compensation. Most people are not paid by the government, and I see no reason why we should start lobbying for the government to pay stay at home parents a salary. That would be an enormous expansion of government involvement in people's personal lives.

People make their own choices about whether to have children, whether to work outside the home, and whether one parent will stay home. Taxpayers should not be expected to subsidize those personal decisions. Everyone is responsible for supporting the life choices they make. I think the best way to support stay at home moms is by supporting the nuclear family structure, not by putting them on a government payroll.

And just imagine the incentives that would create. If the government started paying a salary to women who chose to stay home with their children, it would fundamentally alter the labor market. Many people would choose not to work if they could receive a government salary for staying home instead. Some would inevitably have children primarily for the financial benefit. It would create a massive additional burden on taxpayers and introduce all kinds of unintended consequences.

Small additions:

Capitalism is not "mostly used in immoral ways". What you're referring to when you say "It reminds me of communism (i.e. people are treated as machines, the notion that everyone is replaceable is everywhere etc" what you're mostly talking about is corporatism, which is more like communism than capitalism because it involves the government interfering in the free market for the benefit of a few massive corporations. The "too big to fail" phenomenon is one part of this, where the government bails out failing corporations that should naturally go out of business. Capitalism itself is morally neutral.

As for the rest, the people I had in mind was those who are genuine and not those who exploit the system. I should have clarified this in my post so, again, my bad. I still wonder though what could be done for those who don't intend to exploit the system? as I said to anamericangirl, I don't like the government interfering into our personal lives either, so I thought about my solutions as the necessary evil. But how can families who struggle to survive with one salary and don't intend to exploit the system be supported? I'm thinking of myself for example, I would love to take the tradwife route but the lack of support is one of the reasons I hesitate.

@m00nxtal I liked what you suggested. Far better than government interfering to our lives.

A family with only one breadwinner can more easily relocate, and thus can look for new job opportunities much far away. A family where one person is holding a job and one person needs to find a new job has to limit the search to places close to the workplace of the other partner.

A family where the lone breadwinner loses his/her job can, in many cases, have both adults start looking for jobs. It's more likely that one out of two finds a job than that one given person finds a job.

Sure, a two-income family who could theoretically live on only one income is much better off. But how many such families do you know? The few couples I know in that situation are empty nesters who are approaching retirement. Young families with children usually live in such a way that most of their income is accounted for, with a mortgage, car loans, student loans, subscription services, sports clubs etc. If they lose one income, even if the other partner is still working, they tend to be in the red from month one.

Unemployment support and social support tends to work the same, regardless of whether the family needs support because they lost their only income, or because they lost one out of two.

I also experienced what you say regarding how young couples who both work end up in situations where they can only afford renting and they barely have enough money for themselves as they spent most money in bills. And financial struggles is among the reasons why we are childless (and sadly I don't see this changing any time soon...and the clock is ticking for me as a woman. You know what I mean).

Actually preaches from the Bible

Sin is called what it is

Members love and serve one another

And things get worse when hostility towards me is ongoing and nobody tells me what I did that was so outrageous that justifies such hostility.

Right now I'm in a bubble. I'm talking only to people I trust (and it took me months in order to trust those people). Even there I overanalyse though because past betrayals from "loved ones" have been a rule so who knows when the next betrayal will happen and by whom. Regarding the rest of the world, I'm totally withdrawing and talk to others only if any other means of communication isn't possible. When I'm with my husband and he talks to others I panic and can't wait for the conversation to end and for us to leave.

The fact that most modern (mainstream) CCM feels like it was made by AI, on the other hand, is definitely an indictment of the same.