Sweet Fears and Bitter Courage

But my parents were birders, so hiking we did go.

And about a mile up the trail, a woman came rushing up to us, clutching her binoculars to her chest. "Come quickly," she said, with a British accent. "You have to see this!"

This is what birders are like. They are as excited about a life bird as any fan would be spotting their favorite celebrity. You have to see, you have to.

So my parents rushed off with her, and I plodded along behind them.

To find a cluster of Brits huddled in a bird blind, staring at..

A blue jay.

A goddamn blue jay.

And I was a teenager, but I knew better then to mouth off in front of my mom. So I nodded, and smiled, and bit my tongue, until an elderly man looked at me with tears in his eyes, and said, "Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?"

And I stopped. And looked at it. The way they were. As if it were new. And damned if they weren't right.

Not to get on my soap box but I have a lot more in common with a Christian of my own values than a fellow atheist without. And a good-faith Christian has a lot more in common with a good-faith person of any other religion or lack-there-of than they ever could a manipulative, power-hungry, fear-mongering Christian.

And I don't mean it's not like the Evangelical church, I mean he's not interested in convincing anyone to be a believer or a church goer. When the woman at the construction company starts talking to him about her mother, he doesn't tell her that God is there for her. He tells her that he's there's for. She already knows she can go to church, maybe she is even a Christian and feels like she has her God's love. But Jud knows that what she needs is another human being, because she's talking to him.

And that's such a better way to welcome people to your church than telling them to go. He's letting her know that there's fulfillment and safety and love there beyond just the religious side, because he's there.

Abled people really don't understand how big that is. Like just having an ambulatory wheelchair user is big!!! (I cackled at the scene where she gets out of her chair and someone says it's a miracle and she just goes "I can walk, it just hurts.") But also having her angry that she's in constant pain and trying anything to feel better is so realistic. A lot of disabled people, especially newly disabled people, fall into the idea that they need to be "cured" and that they need to get back to "normal".

"The hearts of men are easily corrupted." Wake Up Dead Man (2025) & Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Bonus for @mykingdomforasong: